Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 97836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Even when he wasn’t physically around, Silas somehow still made his presence known. His work stuff was scattered on the love seat in my house, and his clothes were stacked in a corner of the bathroom. His laughter rang out from the bench by the river when he was talking to his friends on the phone, and his scent permeated everything I owned. My whole place smelled like his cologne and bodywash, and I’d even caught myself sniffing my own clothes at work to catch a whiff of him.
Plus, everywhere I went, it seemed a Majestican was eager to tell me about my kind and generous husband who’d invariably assisted them in some minor way. He’d helped JoJo Reynolds corral a runaway toddler outside of the Feed and Seed and had helped Dot Cobler reach a can of hair spray from a high shelf at the grocery store. Even Lake McNair had mentioned Silas’s suggestion of approaching Patagonia about co-branding some merch for the upcoming adventure season. According to Lake, Silas had “killer contacts” at the company.
None of that was bad. Of course not.
Silas was helpful. And good-smelling. And irresistibly sexy.
But it was… different.
Distracting.
And it set me on edge for reasons I couldn’t explain.
Bernice’s face softened further after I took the papers from her. She extended her other hand, which held a small brown bag I recognized from the Love Muffin. “Also, he brought you a sandwich again. Scrambled eggs on toast.” She bit her lip and sighed happily. “He said you didn’t eat breakfast before you left the house. Isn’t he the sweetest?”
I glanced back toward the office, torn between wanting to see if Silas was still hanging around City Hall and needing to meet with Foster at the sheriff’s office about the traffic diversion needs during the AdventureSmash exhibition.
“Sure.” I handed her back the signed documents and took the bag. “Did he, ah… say what he was up to today?”
“Uh-huh. He said he was going to the sheriff’s office to talk to him about the traffic thing.” She said this with a huge smile like she expected me to smile, too.
Instead, I stared at her. “He what?”
“Well, when he stopped by with your sandwich, we got to chatting, and I mentioned how stressed you were about the situation, what with the budgeting concerns and the personnel issues, and he said he had some ideas. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Amazing,” I repeated. As in, I was amazed Silas had even known about the traffic thing and further amazed that he’d decided to interfere in my work without even asking.
Did the man not have enough to do with his corporate strategy shit? Did he not know how to stick to his own business?
“I told him you were headed to talk to Foster after your meeting with Jackson and Lake,” she continued. “He said he’d just head on over and told me to tell you he’d meet you there. But then you lit out of the conference room so fast after your meeting, I didn’t have a chance.” Bernice shrugged.
“Right. Okay.” I lifted my hat to run my fingers through my hair. I reminded myself Silas meant well. That the only reason he’d stayed in Majestic at all was because I’d asked him to. That he and I were happy husbands. “I’ll talk to him. Please just… instead of talking to him about my work from now on, tell him to ask me directly, okay?”
Her lips tightened. “He offered to help. Would it kill you to let him? He cares about you very much, Mayor.”
Bernice Milsom had known me since I was six years old, and she was a part-time school bus driver on my route. When the previous mayor had turned out to be a cheat and a thief, she’d felt an overwhelming guilt—even though none of it had been her fault—that had caused her to become overly formal in everything she did in her role. Regardless of how many times I’d asked her to call me Way, she’d refused.
At least she was still able to mother me, even if she wouldn’t call me by my first name. I didn’t dare correct her and let her know Silas cared more about solving the town’s problems than caring about me specifically.
If there was one thing I’d learned about Silas in the past week, in addition to just how talented his oral skills were in the bedroom, it was that he had a driving need to fix things… and it was going to drive me right off the deep end.
After thanking Bernice, I contemplated jumping in my truck and driving to the sheriff’s office since it would get me there quicker, but I opted to walk. The Dodge had started slipping gears the past couple days, and I’d been meaning to find someone to take a look at the transmission. Yet another thing I hadn’t handled this week because I was too distracted by my husband.