More Than Rivals

by Whitney, Mary

  He studied Lily, trying to sort out his feelings. Why did he want to defend her so much? The immediate answer that came to mind was objective—something anyone who’d spent time with her would feel. She simply didn’t deserve Herb’s negative comments. She was a good person who worked hard for everything she’d gotten in life. No one in her situation deserved Herb’s insults.

  But there was something else though that moved Jack. It was a strong desire to protect Lily. The feeling was overwhelming, and he nervously tapped his fingers on the table, anxious she was under his skin.

  Over the course of the next hour, Jack was able to forget Herb and focus on the speakers. Yet when a question was lobbed at Lily, he always paid special attention to her answer. He also noticed her profile was quite pretty, and though she spoke about serious matters, her smile could be very sexy.

  As the panel wound down, Jack’s mind drifted off as the audience began asking the pat questions for the county. His ears perked up when he heard an older woman say, “This question is for Supervisor Robles.”

  Jack recognized the elderly woman standing at the microphone, Ethel Nathan. She was a well known anti-growth gadfly in the county. She called herself an environmentalist, but Jack knew it wasn’t a deeply held conviction to protect the land. Her environmentalism was based on her wealth and desire to keep Marin her own private countryside. Jack’s staff liked to call her Ethel NIMBY because her reaction to any development in the county amounted to “Not in my backyard.”

  She stared Lily down. “Supervisor Robles, what is your position on George Jones?”

  Lily was silent for a moment, her face placid. Leaning into the microphone, she asked, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you mean?”

  Jack wanted to close his eyes to avoid watching the train wreck that was about to happen. Ethel had brought up a sleeper issue that only people steeped in Marin politics followed, though those that did, were passionate about it. The average person might think Ethel was asking Lily about a country music singer.

  Ethel clenched the paper she held as her voice wavered with distain. “George Jones is holding the people of Marin hostage, and you don’t know about it?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t say that I do, but if—”

  “How can you want to represent the people of Marin in Congress if you don’t know anything about one of the most pressing issues facing the citizens of Marin County?”

  As Lily valiantly tried to take charge by offering to speak with Ethel after the panel, Jack looked down the table at the other candidates. Each one sat motionless as he witnessed an opponent take a beating. Some of them knew what Ethel was talking about, and a few were as lost as Lily. He glanced at Herb who wore a smug smile which Jack wanted to punch. Herb was friends with Ethel.

  If any of his opposition were hanging in the wind like Lily was at that moment, Jack would’ve thrown them a lifeline. Ethel was raising a stupid issue that only a bunch of very wealthy people cared about—not to mention Ethel was a pain in the ass. At that moment, Jack wanted to crack a joke to diffuse the tension, move the conversation forward, and above all, shut up Ethel.

  But Jack thought better of it. Lily probably wouldn’t want his help, and knowing her, she’d probably take it the wrong way. So rather than lending a hand to a friendly rival, Jack watched as Ethel took one last shot at her.

  Leaning close to the microphone so her voice boomed throughout the auditorium, Ethel said, “I’d be happy to educate you on these issues, Supervisor Robles. You clearly aren’t prepared.”

  “Thank you,” said Lily with a frozen smile.

  After the event was over, the usual mingling occurred, but Lily didn’t mingle. Instead, she stood off to the side, looking earnest and nodding as Ethel lectured her. Ethel’s finger wagged, her arms waved, and occasionally she overstepped the boundary of Lily’s personal space. When that happened, Lily would give a tense smile and take a step backward.

  Jack kept an eye on their conversation while he worked the room. When he looked up as he spoke to the owner of a local car dealership, he expected to see Ethel and Lily still speaking. Instead he saw Ethel talking to Herb, but no Lily. He surveyed the auditorium and found her happily shaking hands, but with her bag on her shoulder as she headed toward the door.

  Spying the clock above the stage, he saw it was still early—too early for a candidate to leave such a large gathering. Jack understood why she was leaving though. If he’d endured a round with Ethel Nathan, he’d want to skulk away too. As he watched Lily push through the auditorium’s double doors, he again felt badly for her.

  An impulse struck him, but this time, he didn’t question himself before he acted. After a quick excuse, he spotted an exit sign pointing to a side door, which he hoped led straight outside. He slid out and closed the door behind him, as his eyes adjusted to the bright sun. He was happy to be right about the exit and even more pleased to see Lily talking on her phone and heading toward the parking lot.

  Jack walked toward her, but he stayed back a bit until she ended the call. When she tucked the phone in her bag and quickened her step, he jogged to catch up with her. “Hey!” he said in a teasing voice. “You’re not going to leave me alone to deal with Ethel Nathan.”

  Lily spun around, and her expression went from surprised to sour. She muttered, “You can have her. She’s your constituent.”

  “Do you know how many times she’s done that to me?” he asked with a smile, trying to cajole her out of her pissy mood.

  “She’s a piece of work.” Lily closed her mouth as if that would be her final word. She stared at Jack for a moment, and he noticed her dark eyes softening. She sighed with an air of defeat. “To be honest, I still don’t get what she was talking about. Something about the military industrial complex invading Marin, but how that relates to a guy named George Jones, I don’t understand.”

  Jack laughed and scratched his head. “Did she really call it the military industrial complex?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack almost snorted at the thought, but he composed himself. “Do you know George Jones?”

  “Oh, now you’re sounding just like her,” she said with a scowl.

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Her annoyed expression told him he better apologize or the conversation would end. “I’m sorry. I meant to say do you know which George Jones she’s referring to. That will explain a lot.”

  “No. There have to be ten of them in Marin alone.” Her mood didn’t seem to improve. “Or is he not from here? Is it the country music singer?”

  “Not him. George Jones, the movie director.”

  “The Sci Fi guy?”

  “Yup. He wants to build a giant studio complex on his property up here. He’s got a thousand acres, but Ethel and her crowd don’t want any of it developed.”

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice changed to a policy-setting tone. “Is it zoned for development?”

  “Of course, but Ethel doesn’t care. She claims it’s too fragile of a landscape to have such an industrial use.”

  “I heard that. I don’t believe conservation is her motive. She just doesn’t want to see any change.” Lily crossed her arms in thought. “What was she saying about being held hostage? She kept talking about riff-raff.”

  “Ah!’ He chuckled. “Well, George has out maneuvered her. He’s now saying if the county doesn’t let him build his studio, he’s going to scale down the project to just a couple of acres and instead use the land to build fifty low-income housing units.”

  Lily snorted, and Jack enjoyed seeing what appeared to be a genuine grin cross her face. She tilted her head. “Really? That’s hilarious. So now she’s against poor people? George Jones is brilliant.”

  “Isn’t he though? And Ethel deserves it.”

  “She really does. So is she going to be at every meeting?”

  “Not every meeting, but most of them.”

  “Just my luck.” She giggled.

  With her pretty smile and the connection building
between them, Jack had no desire to return to the auditorium. All he could think of was how he could maintain this feeling with her. A smooth line would only backfire, but if he said a friendly goodbye and walked away, he didn’t know if he’d ever catch her in a similar moment. He opted for honesty.

  “Listen, Lily. If you and I hadn’t had that blow-up where you chewed me out, I would’ve helped you in there. I can’t stand Ethel.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Her smile faded. “What would you have done?”

  “Cracked a joke or something.”

  “That would just make you look good.”

  “Maybe.” He lifted up his hands as if he was helpless. “But it would also get you out of a hole and move things along. I’d have done it for anyone, but you told me to treat you differently so I did.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is this is stupid. We should be friends.”

  “Friends?” she said, arching a brow.

  He didn’t know if the remark was based on their initial encounter when he’d told her how much he liked her or if it was because they were now rivals. Regardless, his answer was the same. “Come on.” He shook his head with a defeated smile. “Let’s be real. What are the odds of Charles Kingsley winning this race and us keeping our current jobs?”

  She twitched her nose as if he’d said something she didn’t like. After a few seconds, she said reluctantly, “High.”

  “See. There you go. We should be friends.”

  When she held his gaze, Jack felt he was getting somewhere. Her lips curled into a small smile, and she extended her hand. “Friends.”

  Shaking her hand, he nodded. “Friends.” He took his hand away and placed it in his pocket, not sure what to do next. With any other woman, if he had the same feelings, he’d ask her out immediately, but he couldn’t do that. Yet he also didn’t want to simply let her leave. He softly kicked the ground for a moment and then was inspired. “We should go for a run some time.”

  She laughed and looked at the sky. “You’re crazy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” she said sarcastically.

  “You know, I play tennis with Charles all the time. We go way back.”

  “Charles plays tennis?” Her brow furrowed. She appeared to be trying to imagine chubby Charles on the tennis court.

  “Yeah. He’s not bad. A little slow.”

  Lily’s eyes darted to his legs, and she shrugged. “Well, I’m sure you’d think I was slow if we ran together.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “You have a longer stride than I do.”

  “I’ll find the right pace. We can talk.”

  “I don’t like to talk when I run,” she said with a chuckle like she knew she was playing him.

  “Good. I don’t actually like to either.”

  “Okay then…” she said with a shy grin. “When are you next up in Sonoma?”

  “I’m in Santa Rosa all day on Wednesday. I was planning on going up the night before.”

  “Then let’s go for a run Tuesday night.”

  “Sounds great. We can figure out the details later.” He smirked as he asked a necessary, but loaded question. “Can I have your number?”

  Her mouth dropped open, but her eyes were knowing. She smiled mischievously, turned around, and headed toward a row of cars. With some sass in her walk, she called over her shoulder, “You can get it from your staff.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  On Tuesday, the October night air was brisk as Lily tightened the laces on her running shoes. She glanced at the wrought iron leg of the bench and remembered the last time she sat on that seat—it had been the first time she met Jack. For a moment, she regretted suggesting they meet in front of the coffee shop. When she got his text message asking for a meeting place, it had seemed like a smart suggestion. It was a place he knew, so it required no explanation.

  But as she sat on the wooden bench, she remembered how she felt flirting with him that night in August. She hoped he didn’t read anything into her offering that same location. Dwelling on the matter, she chided herself. You are thinking about this too much. This is just a friendly run. She redid her ponytail and patted down her stray hair. When she realized what she was doing, she had to question herself. Then why does it feel like a date?

  As she watched Jack walk toward her wearing running shorts and a t-shirt, she took a deep breath. He may have been wearing the appropriate attire for a run with a colleague, but for Lily it felt provocative. Jack was a politician. He was supposed to be permanently clad in a suit and tie, or at a minimum, a button-down and khakis. In shorts and a t-shirt, he showed off the lean, sculpted body of a soccer player—the kind of body she and Jordan would ogle. She decided it was best to avoid looking too far below his neck, or she might be caught checking him out. She told herself one more time. This is not a date.

  “Hey,” he said with a smile. He nodded to the door of the coffee shop. “We’re back at the scene of the crime.”

  “What crime?” she asked, kicking herself again for her choice of locations.

  “I suppose I should say crimes, since we both told some white lies that night.”

  “Haven’t we both reformed our ways?” She smiled.

  “We have.” He chuckled and looked around the empty street. “So where are you taking me?”

  “How far do you want to run?”

  “How about five miles? Any more and I’ll be embarrassed when you leave me in the dust.”

  “Ha! I sincerely doubt that.”

  “That I’ll be embarrassed or that you’ll leave me in the dust?”

  “Both.” She smiled and stood up. “Let’s get going then. We’ll run along the river and then head out down the railroad tracks.”

  “Cool. You lead the way.”

  As the two jogged along, the silence began to bother Lily. She didn’t like talking when she ran, but she felt like they needed to have some conversation. Otherwise, it could turn into an awkward night. She hopped over a stray branch and said, “So where do you run in San Francisco?”

  “I thought you didn’t like to talk when you ran.”

  “I normally don’t, but I was curious.”

  “I live in the Marina, so if I’m just going for a regular jog I run along the water and into the Presidio. If I’m at my parents, I run in Golden Gate Park.”

  “Those are some great runs. You’re really lucky. Where do your parents live?”

  “Sea Cliff.”

  “Nice.” She wondered if there was anything else to say when someone declared they were from the ritziest zip code in San Francisco.

  “Where did you grow up?” he asked.

  “San Diego.”

  “And you came up here for school and never left?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Lily waited for the next logical question, the question everyone always asked. Why did she move to Petaluma? Normally she didn’t mind answering it at all, but that night she felt awkward about it. She was happy when he was said, “Okay. You don’t have to talk to me anymore if you don’t want.”

  “This conversation isn’t bad.” She smiled. “It’s not like we’re debating policy. The talking could get difficult then. Too detailed of a conversation.”

  “Why would we debate policy? I bet we agree on most things.”

  “Oh yeah? Let’s talk about bringing more mass transit to Marin.”

  “Well, that’s something that needs to be studied.” He twitched his mouth after he said it and smiled as if he knew he was skirting an issue.

  “Studied? It’s been studied to death. There needs to be a train of some kind.” She laughed and shook her head. “You are totally doing Ethel Nathan’s bidding on this one. I bet she’s against allowing all that ‘riff-raff’ who take trains riding into her county.”

  “She is,” he said with a grin.

  “You grew up in San Francisco. How can you be against mass transit?”

  “Can we go bac
k to not talking now?”

  “No problem.”

  “We can talk again after I figure out an issue I can nail you on.”

  “Yeah, right.” She said with a playful huff. “You think about that.”

  As they went along the well-worn path alongside the railroad tracks, they continued to have short bursts of conversation and then silence. Midway through the run, she stole a look at his legs and confirmed a suspicion. He was taking shorter steps so she could keep up with him.

  She turned to him and said, “Your legs are almost twice as long as mine. It’s okay if you want to run ahead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can tell you’re shortening your stride for my sake. Go on ahead.”

  “But even if I go ahead, you’ll still catch-up and outpace me.”

  “Why?”

  “Women have more endurance.”

  “Really?”

  “They can go longer. That’s been my experience.”

  “In your experience women have more stamina?” she said with a wry look.

  “Yeah.”

  She couldn’t resist the innuendo, and the words flew out of her mouth before she considered them. “So this happens often? You have to work to hold yourself back because women outlast you?”

  Jack looked at her. “Outlast me?” His eyes widened, and a charming smile appeared. “Are we talking about running?”

  “I am.” She soon succumbed to his sexy grin and returned the smile. “Why? Are you talking about something else?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Of course not…” She laughed.

  “I’m glad we got that straight.”

  She was so tempted to flirt more. It was fun talking to him, and Lord knows the attention is nice. Remembering her place, she simply smiled and said, “Keep your eyes on the road.”