THE PARK OF SUNSET DREAMS

by Ava Miles

  His solar plexus tightened with fear of what was to come. What in the world could she have been doing?

  “They…well, he’s been thinking about it. I didn’t have an answer when we…ah…made love tonight, but afterward, I felt the need to press for an answer.” She looked down at their joined hands and then raised her wary gaze to him. “I don’t want to lose you. And I don’t want to keep things from you anymore either.”

  Since he could tell how tortured this whole thing was for her, he cupped her cheek. “Baby, I’m right here.”

  Her exhale was like a gust of wind. “Okay, so here goes. I’m Rhett’s poker scout. I have been since graduating from Harvard.”

  He was sure his lawyer face had been blown to smithereens. His mouth parted. “His poker scout?” Of all the things he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this. He’d imagined she might have discovered something disturbing about her father’s political dealings or her family’s corporate interests. Maybe even lost a dear friend in a tragedy.

  But this…well, he didn’t know what to think of it.

  She tried to force a smile. “I told you how difficult my life with my parents was. When it came time for me to graduate, all they wanted was for me to join my father’s political team. He was running for another term, you see, and it was expected. They wouldn’t listen to me, and it was all so…damned hard. So I did the one thing I knew they could never accept. I went to work for…well…a pretty flamboyant poker player in a capacity…well beneath what they thought was appropriate.”

  He blinked a few times, trying to take the information in. “Okay.” God, he just didn’t know what to say. She was a poker scout? This soft, warm-hearted dog lover?

  “It’s not exactly…illegal. And it’s certainly much more common and accepted now than it was seven years ago, but I signed a confidentiality agreement with Rhett long ago, and I didn’t want to jeopardize his reputation or his status in the poker community or his newfound home here in Dare with Abbie and Dustin—”

  “By sharing the information with someone you’d just met,” he finished, starting to see her conundrum.

  She eagerly nodded her head, as though she was delighted he understood. “Yes, and there was the whole matter of what you might do if things…well, didn’t work out between us.”

  What kind of bastards must she have known in the past for her to think him capable of that? And yet as a lawyer, he’d seen that kind of betrayal over and over again. He ran his gaze over her face now, seeing the tense muscles there. “I swear to you, Jane, that I will never use this to hurt you. Never share it with anyone unless we talk about it first.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she asked, the pulse in her neck beating fast and strong now. “Who else?”

  He pulled her closer, their thighs brushing each other. “I love you, Jane, but I come with a family. I want you to get to know them, and I want them to get to know you. When and if the time is right, we should tell them the truth. We don’t keep secrets in my family.”

  “Wait,” she said, shaking her head. “You really love me?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t too convincing earlier when I said I think I do. I was…not quite myself.” He closed the distance between them, needing to touch her, and pulled her onto his lap. “Yes, I love you. All the way.”

  She traced his face, a slow smile spreading. “I love you too. All the way even though I know we haven’t known each other long. That’s why I had to tell you as much as I could. I don’t want secrets either. I want us to have a chance, but I’m scared of telling other people, Matt. Even your family. I’d have to talk to Rhett and…”

  Her brow knitted, and he ran his finger along the line. “I’m not talking about right now, but I want to be as honest with you as you’ve been with me. Family means everything to me, Jane, and if things work out, I’d like for you to be a part of that.”

  “There are still some things I can’t tell you yet,” she whispered, clutching his shoulders, “but I’m hoping you’ll be patient until I can. I didn’t get…clearance to tell you…something else.”

  Well, he didn’t like hearing there were more secrets.

  “No top secret security clearance for me, huh?” he tried to joke.

  She blew out a long breath. “I’m afraid not. This has happened awfully fast, and they don’t know you yet.”

  Her use of “they” intrigued him.

  “Don’t you mean, Rhett?” he asked and watched as her eyes flashed to his.

  “Elizabeth too.”

  Right, her friend from Harvard, who was now Rhett’s publicist. She would be concerned with his image. And he suspected it was no accident that she and Jane worked together now. There was more to it, and perhaps it had to do with the secrets Jane was still hiding.

  “I have to ask just this once. These other things you can’t tell me yet…” Damn it, he didn’t want to ask, but he had to be sure. “None of it was or is illegal, right?”

  “Oh, God, no!” she said so forcibly that his muscles immediately relaxed.

  “Good,” he said. “Then we’ll take our time, build our trust in each other and in the people in our lives who matter.”

  “Rhett and Elizabeth are my family,” she told him.

  “Well, that explains him pulling the big brother act on me at the gym over you.”

  “Yeah, that’s Rhett. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t met him. He changed my life.”

  No one could mistake the love and joy in her voice. “I’m glad. So, the whole story about you working for Mac is…”

  She scrunched up her face. “Contrived. We didn’t want people to know about our work for Rhett. In Vegas, we…ah…mixed it up, playing at different hotels, but The Grand Mountain Hotel is the only game in town…”

  “It’s harder to blend in,” he added.

  “Ah, yes, so we had to come up with a compelling reason for me to go to the hotel without being…ah, discovered.”

  “Are you going to tell me about how you scout?” he asked, not having a clear picture yet.

  “Not really,” she said. “Trade secrets. But beyond watching the real action, I can tell you that I watch a lot of tape and keep files on all the players. We never know how the cards will fall, but poker is as much mental preparation as anything else. Then you have to see how Lady Luck treats you and play your opponent.”

  My God, she shone like a star while talking about her work. “So you must be pretty good at it then. Poker.”

  “I don’t play in public or anything, but Rhett and I play a lot of online poker, and I usually beat his butt.”

  Goodness, she was such a complex woman. Dog lover, wine connoisseur, stock market junkie, and now poker-playing fiend. “There’s a lot more to you than I ever imagined when I first met you.”

  A shadow crossed her brow. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  He could hear the fear in her voice, so he leaned in and gently kissed her on the mouth. She immediately twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back, falling into the embrace so sweetly that he felt his heart turn over in his chest.

  “It’s a good thing,” he finally murmured against her mouth. “You can ask my mom. I get bored very easily.”

  Stroking his face, she smiled. “I’m glad.” Then the happiness dimmed. “But Matt, I have to tell you up front how…scared I am about us being together while you run for mayor. I know how important this is to you, and I don’t want to hurt your candidacy. If you feel we need to—”

  He pressed his lips to hers, silencing her fears, and slid his hands down her back, caressing the skin at her waist as he raised her shirt.

  She pushed back. “I’m serious.”

  And because he knew she was, he didn’t reach for her. “I’m listening.”

  “This is a small town, and I’m from one of those. I’m also intimately familiar with the fact that something like my…profession…could sink your candidacy. We might not be…well, married…but people will still care who
you’re dating.”

  She sounded so much like Rob that he had to bite back a smile. “And?” he encouraged even though he knew where she was going.

  “I could never forgive myself if the truth came out and hurt you. And I’ve told you that there’s more…”

  Yeah, that whole “more” thing did worry him. But she’d sworn it wasn’t illegal…

  “I don’t want you to worry about it. I’m not.”

  “But maybe we should stop seeing each other until the election is over,” she said, biting her lip.

  Her willingness to sacrifice for him would have brought him to his knees if he hadn’t already been sitting. No one outside his family had ever done anything like that for him.

  “God, I love you.” He kissed her hard on the mouth. “Jane, it’s February. The primary isn’t until May. That’s three months away. I am not going to stop seeing you for three months or, if I win the primary, until freaking November. That’s insane.”

  “But Matt—”

  “No buts,” he said, his voice sounding as sure as he did. “If something comes out, we’ll deal with it. Together.”

  She grabbed his face and looked straight into his eyes. “You were right earlier. You’re nothing like my father, and because of that, you will be a great politician.”

  They’d come so far in one night, rather like the distance spanned in an instant by one of the bottle rockets he and his siblings used to set off. “Do you know how I felt when I woke up and realized you were gone, Jane?”

  Her eyes widened. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Hush,” he said, kissing her again. “I didn’t say it to make you feel bad. I only told you because I want you to understand the way I feel. Jane, this might be new to me too, but I can recognize something valuable when I come across it. I’m not letting you go.”

  This time she didn’t pull back to argue when their mouths met. Instead, she surrendered to him in the sweetest, most trusting kiss he’d ever experienced. And as he lowered her to the couch to make love to her again, the fire between them—as fierce yet comforting as the one in the hearth—burned away the last scraps of doubt and fear between them.

  Chapter 20

  Bingo night had to be one of the craziest functions Matt had ever attended. Uncle Arthur led him through the large room at the old American Legion building, introducing him to The Old Guard of Dare Valley. According to his uncle, who’d winked at him as he said it, he had a good chance of becoming mayor if they approved of him.

  The room had old wood paneling for walls, cracks in the plaster ceiling, and he could see dusty cobwebs on the ancient brass chandelier that swayed ominously overhead when the ancient heating system kicked on. The whole place reeked of an unfinished basement, the mustiness making him rub his nose, and liniment, the kind he used when his muscles burned after a game of basketball. There was another odor, but he wasn’t even going to analyze that.

  This was where his uncle swore he received all the important local gossip?

  They’d come forty-five minutes early to get in what his uncle called “social time.” Dozens of eyes set in wrinkled faces watched his every move. He was the youngest in the room by at least forty years, but he was okay with that. He respected his elders. And he trusted Uncle Arthur. Though it might not seem like it, this was an important first step in his campaign.

  Matt followed Uncle Arthur, smiling and nodding to men and women as he walked past what he called The Trail of Metal—walkers, canes, and wheel chairs. His uncle stopped at every chipped Formica table and made a particular point of introducing him to the group sitting in the metal chairs marked with AL on the back for American Legion. Almost everyone was retired, but they all volunteered in the community: the church, the Chamber of Commerce, the Dare Community Center, and a bunch of other places that boggled Matt’s mind. These people were serious about Dare. They’d never left, and they loved this town. Supported it with their time and effort.

  There was no mention of him running for mayor. That would be “just crass” according to his uncle. Matt had filed the paperwork on the day of the deadline, Friday, and now it was official. Letters had gone out to every business listed through the Chamber of Commerce, announcing his desire to meet with them. His calendar had blown up in the scope of two days, and he had thirty meetings to attend in the next month.

  Besides, everyone knew his plans anyway, his uncle had told him. Sure enough, Betsy Davis, the former librarian of the Dare Valley library, dropped a hint when they shook hands by telling him she served as a poll worker at election time.

  “Not the stripper kind,” she said. “P-O-L-E,” she spelled, which made everyone guffaw. Matt’s brain practically imploded from the image of this sweet elderly lady using her cane for something other than walking. When the group’s hilarity died down, everyone at the table nodded their heads and told him they were also poll workers, which resulted in Morie Leonard asking Patty Drivers to give him a lap dance.

  Dear God, these people were crazy.

  But fun. And he found himself lightening up.

  Then Horace Smithens asked him how he felt about Dare’s school system, and he saw a few people turning up their hearing aids to tune in to his answer. A few nodded as he explained how the system was doing its part, but he’d heard around town that there were some improvements that could be made. Then he asked what they thought.

  And they told him, each person at the table outlining their points like a seasoned lawyer at a trial. His uncle nudged him in the ribs, as if to say, and you thought we were just a bunch of old fuddy-duddies?

  Yeah, smart as a whip, this crowd. He’d have to stay on his toes tonight.

  After moving on, he shook hands with some veterans at another table and thanked them for their service. A few of them pulled up their sleeves to show him sagging, faded tattoos, telling him tattoos were a terrible idea. Then Lanone Jenkins batted her faded blue eyes at him through coke-bottle glasses and boldly asked him if he had a tattoo anywhere. Even though most of them had bursitis and bad backs, he could have sworn all the old ladies at the table leaned forward, waiting for his answer. Dear God!

  “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

  Then his uncle slapped him on the back—a pretty good slap for a man in his late seventies—and laughed. “Does he look like an idiot? We don’t have any of those in the Hale family.”

  Matt decided not to point out that Natalie had gotten a Celtic knot on the inside of her ankle on a sisters’ night out after her divorce. The rest of his sisters had chickened out. So technically, Natalie was the only Hale with ink.

  His mind swung suddenly to Jane, as it so often did these days. He knew she didn’t have a tattoo because he now had kissed pretty much every inch of her body. Being with her over the last two weeks had only reinforced his love for her. He couldn’t wait to drop by her house tonight to tell her about his wild time with the old folks at Bingo. But he needed to focus. He was here to press the flesh like a politician, and at that thought, he almost laughed out loud.

  His uncle was rubbing his hip by the time they found his usual table, and sure enough, there were two empty chairs waiting for them.

  “I’ve been sitting at the same table with these miscreants for probably forty years,” his uncle informed him.

  “Forty-three,” an old lady with curly snow-white hair and a yellow sweater said. “I still remember Harriet dragging you here one night to get you away from the office.”

  His uncle rubbed his chin. “You’re right. That woman. She told me that since I surrounded myself with words all day at the newspaper, we might as well make a game out of it. One I could win some money at.”

  Even Matt could hear the gruffness in Uncle Arthur’s voice. What would it be like to be married for nearly fifty years? And how hard would it be to lose your partner? He decided then and there to have his uncle over for dinner more.

  “She was a good one,” the lady in the yellow sweater said. “God needed her in heaven. Matt, I’m Joanie. Harri
et and I were best friends, and Arthur and my husband, God rest him, were friends too. Oh, what fun we used to have.”

  His uncle patted her hand. “The dancing. The card games. The potlucks. Those were the days. Now, enough of that old talk. Let me introduce young Matthew here to everyone.”

  Matt’s mind was already spinning with names, but he used the word association technique he’d learned in law school. Luckily, remembering names was one of his strengths.

  Uncle Arthur managed to complete the introductions before a grizzled old man stepped onto the podium holding an ancient spinner filled with balls. “We’re going to start,” he shouted, “so make sure you turn up your hearing aids. I’m only going to yell the combination on the ball twice.”

  There were a few grumbles at that, and his uncle leaned in to whisper, “That’s a new rule. Last time Pat Lentley shouted for Old Man Jenkins to repeat the combination at least five times. Made the rest of us batshit crazy. The game was going on for so long a few of the really old people fell asleep and started drooling and snoring, which made it hard as hell to hear.”

  “That Donald Sharton sure can snore,” Joanie of the yellow sweater said. “My God, an explosion at the sewage plant couldn’t wake that man up when he gets to sawing logs.”

  Matt had to bite his lip to prevent himself from laughing out loud.

  Then his uncle ran him through the game, something he’d already looked up online. Until tonight, he’d never played Bingo in his life.

  As the combinations were called out—B15, D28, C4, and on it went—the people at Matt’s table ran the gamut of local gossip, from a single schoolteacher entertaining a male guest to Brasserie Dare becoming a more popular hangout than the formerly preeminent Chop House. Uncle Arthur puffed out his chest at that, saying Brian had a good head for business just like his granddaughter, which is why he’d invested in his grandson-in-law’s business.

  Matt sat back and took it all in. He had two chips on two squares, but he needed five across to win, and when he looked around the table, he noticed a few people already had four in a row.