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We’d made a full circle in our sequence of steps and I was facing his back again. Through his silence, I tried to control my outrage.
It didn’t work.
He hadn’t cheated on me? That was both a relief and a deep cut. That meant I was wrong, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to accept that. And then he apologized, which I’d been waiting for a long, long time. But I didn’t feel better. Nothing about this felt good or right or like he’d made anything better. In fact, it felt like he was doing this more for himself than for me, which pissed me off even more.
When we were shoulder to shoulder again, he was still waiting on a response.
“Okay,” was all he got from me.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
A pause. “That’s it?”
“What do you want from me? To forgive you? And why? To make you feel better? I don’t owe you that. You aren’t entitled to know what I think or how I feel. So, okay. And good luck.”
The song wasn’t quite over, but I put on a smile and raised a hand to the crowd, who looked confused as to why they just watched two mayoral candidates line dance alone to a Billy Ray Cyrus song.
And I walked away from him, praying he didn’t follow.
I headed straight for Wyatt to ensure it.
“You all right?” he asked with a grim look on his face.
“Fine,” I answered with a bullshit smile. “Where’s Mama and Allen?”
He turned me around by the shoulders and pointed. The music had started again, and there Mama was, her dark hair loose and shot gray at the temples, smiling up at Allen Schumaker like he’d hung the moon. They two-stepped around the dance floor in each other’s arms, bodies flush and cheeks high from smiling.
“Wyatt!” I slapped him on the arm.
“I know,” he said on a laugh. “Took him an hour to get ready tonight. He tried on three vests and six pairs of boots. Six.”
“So it’s serious, then?”
“As a heart attack. And looks like your mama is right there with him.”
I beamed, Duke all but forgotten, so intent on Mama that I forgot my sisters were on the dance floor too until they passed each other in pairs, laughing and talking as they went. Jo and Grant. Keaton and Daisy. Mama and Allen.
And then there was me.
My heart sank, making it hard to keep my smile up. But I did, grabbing Wyatt by the arm and pulling him toward the dance floor.
“Come on, Wyatt. Take me for a turn.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered and did just that.
And I almost forgot to dwell on the consequences of Mama falling in love, leaving me well and truly alone.
9
CALLED OUT
DUKE
So far, every plan I’d enacted had a fifty-fifty success rate, and Poppy was at the helm of every failure.
By the looks of it, she was enjoying it just as much as it left her furious.
After my botched attempt at an apology and a stiff drink, Poppy and her family took the stage. I kept to the fringes of the crowd, chatting and laughing and making light, careful not to spare Poppy a glance. She couldn’t get away from me, which benefited me. But if I did more than irritate her, we’d end up in a fight. Likely a nasty, loud, and very public fight that wouldn’t help either of us.
I danced with Evangeline so we could discuss our plans. I hadn’t intended any of that to go down the way it had. My primary goal was to apologize, and I had, but I felt worse than I had before. Worse than I had since she was hurt. Worse than I had since I left this place. But she was right—she didn’t owe me anything. And I especially didn’t deserve a pat on the back for manipulating her publicly just so I could force her to listen to me.
Putting her on the spot had the unintended effect of shaking her up, and the consensus from townsfolk was that I’d come away looking like a hero and holder of olive branches.
I was neither. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
Poppy, on the other hand, looked petulant and broody, which she was. She wore her feelings like a sandwich board, always had. As such, she was terrible at poker, but being too competitive for her own good, she always kept on playing, even if she kept on losing.
The impression she’d left on people after the dance was unflattering. Personally, I’d failed. Politically, she’d bombed herself by showing her feelings.
It’d been a few days and I’d heard enough about it. This afternoon, I’d left Evangeline at the campaign space we’d rented on Main Street mobilizing the interns and volunteers the party supplied. I had business at my parents’ house—a couch I’d bought them was being delivered, and I didn’t want to ruin the surprise by not being there to explain.
