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“Makes plenty of sense, since he’s the only man you’ve ever loved. Hard to let that go.” She was quiet for a moment. “Your daddy was the only man I ever loved, and it’s taken me seventeen years to even consider the possibility of finding a love like that again. But here we are.”
I turned to meet her eyes. “Mama, are you falling in love with Allen?”
She laughed, the color in her cheeks rising. “I think I might be. We’ve known each other our whole lives, though I had no idea he’d had a crush on me all this time.”
“I knew it,” I said on a laugh of my own. “Told Wyatt as much.”
“Well, you were right. But what I was getting at is that kind of love doesn’t come around too many times in life. I hate that he did this. I hate that he lived up to our worst expectations. But lemme ask you—do you think he intended to hurt you?”
“Never.”
She nodded. “Duke’s always chased down anything he wanted and wouldn’t stop until he got it. That, and once he made a goal, there was almost no circumstance in which he’d stop. Sound like anyone you know?”
When she bumped my arm with hers, I leaned into her. “Are you saying I shouldn’t be mad at him?”
“Oh, heck no. I might even let Jo loose to set fires like she wants to. But I don’t doubt he loves you and wants to save you from this.”
My gaze was on my hands again as I punched tiny rips in the tissue with my fingernail. “He does. He’s been trying to get me out of the way since the beginning, but not because he wants to win. Because he doesn’t want to hurt me again. But I knew the second we kissed that I was going to get hurt. Not him. Me. I’m the collateral damage.”
She sighed and wrapped her arm around me. “I’m sorry, Poppy.”
“Me too.”
“It’s almost over, one way or another.” With a final squeeze, she stood and extended her hand. “You ready to vote?”
I rose and clasped her hand. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
DUKE
I’d had a monumentally shitty day, and it was only ten in the morning.
Evangeline had been up all night writing a speech and mapping out a plan for the least destructive way to blow my life to bits. Controlled destruction was the best I could do at this point. I was already making plans to move back to Lindenbach, maybe stay with my parents for a while. And if Poppy wouldn’t give me a third chance, I’d work my ass off in the hopes I could prove to her that I was worthy.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep that caused the coffee spill down my shirt and into my lap. Maybe it was just bad luck that the sole of my shoe came unbound. Maybe it was a solar flare, or the penis was in the Venus or whatever astrological event was going on. But when the new pro-Poppy sheriff had the Escalade towed for having a sliver of the bumper in a no-parking zone, I wondered if I wasn’t cursed. Some voodoo magic on me to warn me off the election.
Guess the universe hadn’t gotten word that I’d decided to drop out.
Evangeline was already down at the high school getting ready for my speech. All I needed was a ride.
I expected to see my parents' car ambling up Main Street, not my brother’s junkass truck.
My face flattened as they pulled up.
“Hey,” Nash shouted across Megan’s lap to the open window.
“Where’s Mama and Dad?”
“They’ll meet us there. I was nearby, so they asked me to come get you. That okay?”
I took a controlled breath and opened the squeaky door, my suit coat slung on my arm. Once in, he pulled away from the curb.
“What were you doing out?”
“We were hangin’ out with Jared and all them down by the river,” Megan said, smiling. Nash’s gaze shifted to me—he looked nervous.
Which left me suspicious. “What were y’all doing out there this early?”
“Me and a couple girls were in tubes and the guys hung out on the shore in the back of the truck.”
“Water was too cold,” Nash noted.
“Jared, huh?” My heart thudded. “Who else?”
“Oh, the rest of the boys. I was surprised we weren’t there longer though,” Megan said. “We’d barely gotten in the water before Nash pulled us out.”
“Did you know Jared used to sell Nash drugs back when?”
Her brows clicked together. “No, he didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, yeah. The boys never got clean, though. Were they high?”
“I… I don’t know. They could have been. Nash? You haven’t—”
“I don’t know what y’all are talking about,” he said, a little too cagey. “We were just catchin’ up, is all.”
I inspected him—sweat beaded across his forehead, but maybe that meant nothing as it was a thousand degrees out. His hands gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled, his lips flat and pale. But it was his eyes that gave him away, glassy and slow.
