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It’s been less than twenty-four hours, and I can’t get Rosemary out of my mind—especially this morning in the shower. I find myself looking for her whenever I see a flash of auburn hair, but to my disappointment it’s never her.
“Alex!” Barry, Scott’s campaign manager, bellows out the open door of his office.
I sigh and take a calming breath before pushing away from my desk and walking into his office. The guy may be a brilliant political strategist and the best person to get Scott elected, but he can be a real jackass.
“You hollered?” I ask in the doorway.
Barry waves his chubby hand for me to come in. “Close the door and take a seat.”
I do as he says and sit down in the chair across his desk that isn’t piled high with paperwork. Barry looks up at me and studies me for a moment.
“So, I heard you know.”
“Know about what?” I ask, genuinely unsure of what he’s talking about.
“This,” Barry says as he tosses a thick folder onto the desk in front of me. There is a picture of Rosemary paperclipped to the front. It looks like the photo was taken from a distance as she walks down the street. I feel a pang of jealousy in my chest when I see that she isn’t alone. She’s with some cowboy and laughing at something he’s saying to her.
“What is this?” I ask, not bothering to pick it up.
“I heard that you know and met Scott’s daughter. I mean, his real daughter.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me when he found out. If I’m going to run a successful campaign and send him to the governor’s mansion, I need to know everything about my candidate.”
“Davenport hired someone to spy on her?” I ask in surprise.
Barry shakes his head. “He doesn’t know about the private investigator I sent to check her out. I needed to know if she could be an asset or a liability.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are the only person besides me in this office that knows anything about her.” He points at the picture. “We got all we could about her life on paper, but I need to hear from the horse’s mouth that she isn’t going to sell this switched-at-birth story to a paper in Seattle. Hell, she’s a reporter herself. She could write her own story and print it in her paper.”
“I doubt the people of Fatesville, Idaho care about a gubernatorial race in Washington.”
“They won’t, but all it takes is someone to pick up the story and then we are off to the races. I want to get ahead of this right away.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“You already know her. I want you to get close to her and find out.”
I lean back in my seat and shake my head. “No way.”
“I’m not asking you, Alex,” Barry says, his eyes narrowing on me. “You will talk with her tonight at the fundraiser and make sure that she isn’t going to be a problem.”
“Does Davenport know you are having me do this?”
“He has enough to focus on tonight. Get this done and I can help set you on the path to help with a national campaign.”
I run the risk of losing my job if I refuse Barry. But if I agree, I can protect Rosemary from someone else that Barry would find to get this information from her.
I take the folder off his desk and pull the picture from the paperclip, folding it so that I don’t have to see the handsome cowboy.
“Smart move.” Barry smiles smugly at me.
Fuck off, Barry.
Curiosity gets the better of me, sitting on the front patio of the Twisted Spoon over lunch. Rosemary’s file is sitting in front of me. The devil on my shoulder is yelling for me to open it and find out everything about the girl who has consumed nearly every constant thought in my mind since I met her. On the other hand, the angel on my other shoulder is telling me that if I actually follow through with Barry’s plan, I could kiss any chance with her if she ever found out.
