One Hot Second

by Stacy Gail

  The first thing on that list was relearning how to breathe.

  Long minutes dragged by as if on broken legs as she fought to silence the howling inside. She could handle this. Sorrowful separations from people she’d crossed paths with as she hopped from one place to the next was something she should be used to. Over time she’d even come to believe that fate, for whatever reason, had brought them into and out of her life for a reason, and she should be grateful for the learning experience. But damn, it was hard to feel grateful when her chest was turning itself inside out. And the only thing she’d learned from this was that separating from Chandler and moving on with her life wasn’t going to be easy.

  Easy? Just getting up off the floor was all but impossible.

  Separating from Chandler would surely kill her.

  The sun blazed a brilliant orange in the west by the time Parker finally got everything together and waiting by the door. The pain hadn’t lessened as she made her way to the front office; all she could do was force herself to get through it. If she could do that, it was possible to believe she wouldn’t be swallowed by it. If she could just keep moving, she’d be able to survive. She could survive leaving Chandler behind.

  Oh God, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts...

  “Parker.” Behind the counter, Earl glanced up from the magazine he was perusing, only to frown at her in his thunderous way. “What’s the matter? You not feeling right? Do you need me to call Doc Pruitt?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks.” For a moment she wondered what exactly she looked like for him to make such a statement. Maybe she really did appear poisoned. “I need to check out, Earl. What’s the damage?”

  “What do you mean, check out?” He stared at her as though she’d claimed she was an alien. “I thought you were staying for another couple of weeks.”

  “I’m not needed anymore.”

  “Says who?” He seemed to swell with a sharply indrawn breath. “Did that little bastard Chandler Thorne fire you? This brouhaha over Old West shenanigans is hardly your fault. He’s the one in charge of the damn paper.”

  “No, it has nothing to do with that.” Though in a sense her leaving had everything to do with it, but she was too tired to explain. “Once the blueprints of the original architect are discovered, the project is pretty much a done deal.” Done. Everything was done. “My blueprint for the new Thorne Mansion adheres to current building code, so all that I need to do is integrate the old footprint of the original structure with the updated version I created. That’s something I can do while in transit to my next project.”

  “So, that’s it? Just like that, you’re out of here?”

  “Just like that.” No sense in telling him it came as a surprise to her, too.

  He shook his snow-white head as he turned to hunt-and-peck at the old desktop’s keyboard. “And here I thought all the time you and Chandler were spending together would have you seeing things through to the end. Or longer. I must be turning into a romantic old fool.”

  That was so absurd she almost cracked a smile. “Never happen.”

  “I sure as hell hope not. Does he know you’re leaving?”

  She didn’t have to ask who he meant. “I doubt he’d care.”

  “Huh.” Earl continued his painfully slow hunt-and-peck typing. “I don’t think you could sound more pathetic if you tried.”

  Her misery was so deep it actually took a couple of seconds for that to penetrate. “What’s that?”

  “You’re feeling all sorry for yourself for whatever reason, so your solution is to run off with your tail between your legs. I thought you were more of a fighter than that. But I guess you’re one of those annoying people who’s all bark and no bite.”

  “Look, we had a huge argument, all right? Lots of yelling and stupidity. The yelling was from me, and the stupidity was from him.”

  “So?”

  She glared at him. “What do you mean, so? Isn’t that enough?”

  His sigh was long-suffering. “Parker, don’t be an idiot. People like us yell at stupidity every damn day of our lives. It doesn’t mean we cut and run. It’s your nature to yell, especially when you’re confronted with a world full of stupid people. Unless he’s not worth sticking around for. Then I understand why you’re ready to vamoose rather than dig your heels in and smack the stupid out of him.”

  That stopped her dead. Worth sticking around for. Chandler made her feel more alive than she’d ever been, so much so she was half-convinced she’d been sleepwalking through life. He’d been right about one thing; until she’d met him, she really had cared more about buildings than people. Considering her nomadic lifestyle, it had always been less painful to focus on the stability of her surroundings rather than get caught up in the emotional tangle of befriending people and letting them close to her heart, only to leave them behind when she pulled up stakes.

  But her time in Bitterthorn had been different. From the first moment, something in her had crumbled and let Chandler close. Close enough, anyway, to hurt her all the way to her soul now that she had to leave.

  Only...she didn’t have to leave.

  Stillness settled over the chaos roaring inside her as that realization hit. She didn’t have to leave. Of course, moving on was how it had always been in the past, but it wasn’t a mandatory reaction. She had a choice. And the choice was simple. Move on with this awful, ragged hole cut in the center of her chest, or stay. If she stayed, there was no guarantee the hole inside her would get better. Nor was it certain that she and Chandler could stumble around until they found a way to make it better. But if she left, it was a dead certainty that it would forever be an open wound.

  Decisions, decisions.

  “I don’t suppose you happen to know where the mayor is making her resignation speech tonight?”

  “Resignation? Feels more like a circus to me.” Earl snorted and turned the old monitor off with a flourish. “Try the old library. Town council took the place over for big meetings ever since it closed down. And with Patricia Weems making noises about leaving her throne after all these years, you can bet the whole town will be there to watch.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Parker had to give Earl credit. The man knew the people of Bitterthorn. It seemed like every person over the age of five had come running to watch the spectacle of one woman dramatically throwing away her political life. Squeezing through a heavy oak door, she glanced around at what had once been a lovely cathedral-ceilinged Gothic library, but was now an all-purpose meeting room filled with metal fold-up chairs and a rickety banquet table up at the front, kitted out with a microphone. Normally she would have admired the exposed woodwork overhead and mullioned windows throughout. But for once, the architectural flare didn’t even register. Instead her interest caught on the two rows that had been cut through the folding chairs. At the end of the rows waited identical podiums also adorned with mics. She only hoped the PA system was up and running, because it was standing-room only, with all eyes focused on two people who seemed to be locked in verbal combat.

  Mayor Weems, helmet hair in place and humorless mouth an almost perfect upside-down U, sat at the table behind the mic, glaring at the man off to her left positioned behind one of the podiums. Even with his back to her, Parker would have recognized the elegant width of shoulders and tapered torso anywhere.

  Chandler.

  “What is most important to me is the reputation of this town,” Mayor Weems was saying in her most disapproving tone, making Parker wonder if she’d just missed Chandler dropping an F-bomb. “To ensure its continued sterling reputation, the leader of this community should be above reproach. Thanks to the unsavory stories that have been coming from the reconstruction of Thorne Mansion, and relentlessly underscored by your paper, it is my feeling that this can no longer be the case.”

  Chandler’s voice c
ame through the PA system loud and clear. “If that isn’t the most ridiculous, self-pitying piece of crap I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.”

  Parker almost cheered.

  “No one cares about what happened a century and a half ago,” he went on. From her vantage point she could just see the irritated flick of his hand, as if he wanted to bat the whole affair away. “The only person keeping score of whose ancestor did what to whom, is you. As the editor of the Bitterthorn Herald, I was more concerned about covering whether or not we’re going to be forced to move our water restriction level up to Stage III during this heat wave.”

  Her narrow face pinched, seemingly torn between giving an ominous glower and drooping piteously. “I’d be more than happy to take you at your word, being the...professional...that you are.”

  Parker’s eyes narrowed as the odd inflection, unsure what the mayor was implying. But the snide tone had her hackles standing at attention.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t,” the mayor continued, her shoulders sagging until she looked the picture of a beaten martyr. “After all, your paper has been continually cranking out so-called special editions to put a spotlight on the past, rather than the very important issue of water restrictions. I’ve noticed what you’ve been targeting as editor-in-chief of the Herald, even if the rest of the community has not.”

  “It was breaking news, for heaven’s sake.” Doris suddenly hopped up from her seat behind Chandler, while beside her Oliver fiddled with a camera. “The artifacts that came out of the Thorne Mansion ruins were big enough to warrant special editions. They dealt with this town’s history, a history that was lost to us all.”

  “So clearly, even the Herald’s staff believes that the past is as important to everyone as the present is. And that’s my point. This whole sordid affair is such a distraction from what really matters in our lovely town, I don’t see how government business can move forward with the Herald continuously avoiding important issues while hounding—”

  “Look, your family tree isn’t perfect.” Chandler spoke over her until she stopped in an appalled huff. Apparently being interrupted while making grandiose sacrifices was almost too much for her to bear. “Neither is mine. No one’s is. All we can do is move on from here and work on making the future better.”

  Mayor Weems bestowed upon him a first-class stink-eye, the martyred pose vanishing as if it had never been. “Tell me, how can I as a mayor—and therefore this town—move on when you’ve been so bent on wielding your newspaper against me like a weapon?”

  A murmur rippled through the crowd. It sounded like...agreement.

  Oh no, she didn’t just go there, did she?

  Outrage on Chandler’s behalf snapped Parker’s spine stiff. So the mayor wanted to play the victim right here in front of the entire town, did she? She glared at the woman from across the room and wished it was hot enough to melt the mayor’s plastic-looking hair right off her head. Without hesitation Chandler had revealed his own family’s unsavory history because it was the right thing to do, when lesser men might have preferred to hide it under the whitewashed legends his ancestors had created. That in itself was worthy of applause, but then he chose not to hold the mayor’s feet to the same fire. Instead, he took pity on her and bent over backward to accommodate her wish to keep her family’s skeletons in the closet.

  And how was Patricia Weems repaying this kindness? She was turning it around and kicking him in the teeth for it, proving that no good deed went unpunished.

  The woman really was the consummate politician.

  Without any real idea of what good it would do, Parker began to weave her way through the crowd toward the other podium.

  “Mayor.” Chandler’s warning tone was so dangerously sharp it could have sliced through steel. “I did my best to keep your family’s name out of it—I’m on record for making you the same offer that everyone else received. The Herald has a reputation that’s above reproach, so I can assure you that it was not responsible for the leak.”

  “As it’s quite clear no one else knew about it, with the exception of your...architect, if that’s what women like her are called these days—” Mayor Weems leered so suggestively over the word she looked comical, “—it seems apparent to me who the source of the leak is.”

  “My architect, as you put it, is an amazing woman who’s shown that she values the history of this town far more than you ever have.”

  Parker almost stumbled, right along with her pulse. The last thing she’d expected was a vote of confidence from the guy who’d accused her of being vindictive. Maybe her hearing was on the fritz.

  “She appreciates that Bitterthorn is what it is today, thanks to those who’ve gone before us. If you had even a fraction of Parker’s respect for the past, you would have been happy to come forward like everyone else did when this first came up.”

  “Oh, so this is my fault, is it?”

  “I know it’s not mine, and I know it’s not Parker’s, I’ll vouch for her personally. I just wish you had a modicum of her reverence for this town’s history. Good or bad, right or wrong, it’s where we come from. Thanks to Parker, I now know the voices from the past have a lot to teach us in the here and now. The one thing we shouldn’t do is bury them like they’re deep, dark secrets.”

  “Nor should they be wielded like a bludgeon against Bitterthorn’s unsuspecting residents, which is what you did in your position of power at the Herald,” came the fiery reply. “How can anyone trust the Bitterthorn Herald when its own editor-in-chief goes back on his word of protecting the privacy of its citizens? I wonder, who’s next on your hit list? That’s the thrust of this gathering.”

  “No, the thrust of this gathering was for you to resign. But oddly enough you haven’t done that yet, Mayor Weems.” At last Parker made it to the open podium, and all eyes turned to her. But the only gaze she could feel belonged to Chandler. The urge to glance his way was almost irresistible, but she kept her attention locked on the mayor. His public support for her went to war with the accusations he’d leveled against her, and it was enough to make her feel like a volcano about to blow. Tussling with Weems was child’s play compared to dealing with the emotions Chandler kicked up.

  For her part, Mayor Weems turned an unpleasant shade of puce. “This is a town meeting, Ms. Radclyffe. As you are not a member of this town, I suggest you sit down.”

  “Actually, it’s not a town meeting, it’s a press conference. And I’ll sit down when you stop using this forum to try to give the Thorne name, and by association me, a black eye.”

  This bounced off the mayor without leaving a mark. “Ms. Radclyffe, if you do not sit down, I will have security remove you.”

  Not exactly a threat, when the only security Parker could see was a massively round sheriff who appeared like he might collapse under his own weight. “You’ve brought everyone to a standstill over something that happened so long ago no one alive can even remember it. Worse, you’re going for the pity card by making yourself out to be some helpless victim of the press, which means you’re playing everyone in this town for suckers. The truth is, Chandler refused to budge on revealing the historically accurate account of Louisa Weems. I know this, because I tried to talk him into allowing history to speak for itself. Instead, for the good of this community, he chose to protect the leader of this town at her request. Unlike you, he didn’t want to cause any upset. Therefore, I’m left to conclude only one thing—Chandler Thorne is far more thoughtful and generous when it comes to the welfare of this town than you’ve ever dreamed of being.”

  “How dare you?” Wildly Mayor Weems looked to the sheriff behind her. “Sheriff Berry, remove this...this intruder at once. She has no place here.”

  “Legally you have no authority to lay a hand on Parker Radclyffe, Mayor Weems, so I suggest you rescind that order double-quick.” The menace in Chandler’s tone resonated t
hrough the PA system to flood into every corner of the room. Sheriff Berry, for his part, wore the expression of a man whose shoes had become spontaneously sealed to the floor. “She’s not endangering anyone. The disturbance of peace rules governing town council meetings don’t apply, since this is a press conference. And unless the laws of our country have suddenly changed, she has the right to free speech.”

  “I probably would have stayed silent if you hadn’t tried to drag Chandler and me through the mud, so you really have no one to blame but yourself,” Parker offered, ever helpful. When in doubt, pouring more fuel on the fire seemed the most prudent thing to do. “Which leads me to a point of interest that we seem to be overlooking. Yes, I knew Louisa Weems was your ancestor, but I was too busy dealing with, y’know, real problems today. I didn’t have time to give you a thought, so I know I didn’t spill the beans. I also know Chandler was determined to keep his word, because the Herald’s word is only as good as the editor-in-chief’s word, and that’s something he would never jeopardize. He didn’t talk, and I know I didn’t. No one else knew about it, Mayor. Except you.”

  There was a suffocating beat of silence before the mayor shuffled some papers in front of her. “I see. Now we’ve gone into the realm of blaming the victim. Why am I not surprised? Never mind that I would be the last person who would want any of this aired.”

  “Actually,” came a familiar voice, “that’s not entirely true.”

  Parker turned to see Oliver and Doris standing once more behind Chandler. Doris’s face was pale with stress, while Oliver seemed a breath away from crawling under the nearest chair. Gripping Oliver’s toothpick-sized arm, Doris joined their boss at the podium. “During the search for Thorne Mansion’s original architect, Parker Radclyffe came across several newspapers from that time period. They were falling apart—literally flaking away into nothing. Chandler gave them to Oliver and me to put together as best we could, since these newspapers are a part of the Bitterthorn Herald’s history. As we did, we came across the name Louisa Weems and her son, Buford, several times. We even found her name captioned under a rendering of that very same tintype picture of a woman that had been left in the time capsule.”