Page 26 of Never Your Valentine

My colleagues are too Midwestern nice to take him on, so it’s up to me. I lock eyes with him. “Why are you here, Ender?”

He blows on his coffee. “I thought I’d offer an outsider’s opinion on the future of your town. You’re too close to it, so you don’t see it.”

“You mean the future where you bulldoze Cedar Street for a Taco Bell?”

“Nobody’s suggesting bulldozing. Where do you get these ideas?”

Where, indeed? Maybe from his own mouth, as he toadies up to Mayor Stenhower and tries to do an end-run around the city council.

Ender pitches his voice like he’s talking to children. “Small businesses can’t carry a town forever. Not when people are leaving, and when your tourist numbers are down by⁠—”

“That’s temporary,” Oscar bites out. “Seasonal fluctuations. Everyone up here deals with it.”

“I’m dealing with it too,” Ender complains. “Your stubbornness hurts all of us. Income from my Airbnb listings isn’t where it should be, and at this rate⁠—”

“That’s not our concern,” Hugo cuts in.

I set my coffee down, working very hard not to slam it on the table. “We’re not against growth. We just don’t want to sell out to get there.”

“I understand. I really do.” Ender almost sounds sincere. “Keeping the big players out makes you feel so moral. So righteous. It’ll work in the short term. But in the long term, allowing growth of new businesses might keep your kids from moving away.”

The table goes quiet. Even the heater seems to stop humming.

Lia grips her pen like she wants to stab him with it. “Mr. Ender, the⁠—”

“Ted, please.”

“Mr. Ender,” Lia says again. “The chamber has discussed your proposals before. We’re not interested.”

“If you want travelers to stop instead of just pass through, you need to give them all the comforts of home. You need Starbucks in the morning and pizza late at night.”

“People don’t come here to drink Starbucks,” I say. “They come here because we don’t have one.”

Oscar chuckles under his breath. “There’s your town motto.”

Ender aims a sharp gaze at me. “That kind of thinking keeps places like this small.”

“Small’s the point,” Hugo says, his voice a low rumble. “We like knowing who we’re doing business with.”

“Tourists like that too,” Michelle adds quickly. “They like the charm. We’re a hidden gem.”

“Charm doesn’t keep the lights on.” Ender smirks, but there’s an undertone of annoyance with it. He’s clearly used to winning rooms like this with ease. Not here. He gives me a condescending little nod. “I hear your brothers are trying to turn that played-out iron mine into a park.”

The air tightens as everyone turns to me. Dylan, my brother-in-law, is handling the surveyors and contractors, ready to clear out the old mining access roads once the snow melts. Meanwhile, Felix will talk about bike trails and hiking loops to anyone who will listen, constantly comparing our plans to the Redhead Mountain Bike Park in Minnesota.

The problem is Cole. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s funding most of it. My youngest brother has a weird mix of civic pride and hatred of the spotlight. So we all pretend this project belongs to Echo Creek, even though there’s no way a town our size could do this with our own tax base.

“It’s a nice idea,” Ender says. “But parks don’t build an economy.”

“They build a community,” I tell him with barely controlled fury. “Big difference.”

Ender scoffs. “Do you seriously think a few bicycles will tip the economic scales in your favor?”

“You might be surprised.”

Ender and I stare at each other across the table. He blinks first. He stands and buttons his coat. “I’m never surprised,” he says. “Frequently disappointed, but never surprised.”

His leather shoes squeak across the floor as he walks out. His absence is louder than his presence as his argument lingers in the air. Stability. Long-term solutions. But at what cost?