Page 64 of Christmas Cove

A security guard yelled at him to move, but Leo ignored his protests when he got out, slammed the door, and ran inside the stately building.

“I need to see him,” Leo said to the receptionist. The young woman’s doe eyes and blank expression of shock softened him a bit, and he tried again with a smile. “Is the mayor in?”

“He’s in a meeting, sir,” she said and picked up the telephone receiver. She banged out a number, presumably the police, and shifted her eyes around the lobby to anywhere but Leo’s face.

“Never mind,” Leo said and turned as though he was going to leave, but then bolted down the hallway instead.

Although he hadn’t been there in years, he still knew right where to go. This building was all polished marble and carved woodworking and moldings. The mayor’s office had two wide French doors that spilled into its own vestibule where a fireplace once roared and served as the building’s primary heat source.

Eyeing the doors, Leo let himself in and prepared to give the man a piece of his mind.

The mayor, startled by the sudden intrusion, dropped the call he had been on and stood back. Fear crossed the man’s face with a combination of pinched brows and wide eyes. Leo recognized the expression and put his hands up in a non-threatening way.

“What are you doing here?” Mayor Thorpe demanded. “You can’t just let yourself into my office.”

“Nice to see you too, brother,” Leo said and approached the man.

“Seriously, Leo, why are you here?”

“No ‘how are you, I’ve missed you, good to see you’?” Leo said and put his arms out. “Come on, John.”

John came around from the relative safety of the desk and met Leo with outstretched arms. They hugged, as brothers do, with three quick pats on the back and a slap up the back of John’s head.

“I suppose I deserve that,” John said. “Is this about the incorporation?”

“Yes, of course it is.” Leo’s temper reemerged at the smug way his brother said the words.

“Listen, the law is clear. There’s nothing I can do about it. Your town is simply too small to take care of itself, and I have an obligation to help the citizens there. Just as you would have done for me, if the tables were turned. We didn’t write the town’s agreement, and we can’t be mad at the fact that it’s triggered now,” John said and sat back at his desk chair.

The door opened and two police officers came in. “You want this man removed?”

Leo’s heart thumped in his neck, and he tightened his hands around the wood arms of the chair. He searched his brother’s expression for any indication of his fate.

John stood and smiled. “It’s all right, boys. This is my brother. He won’t hurt me, and he was just about to leave. Give us a couple minutes, will ya?”

The officers hesitated before they walked out and shut the door.

Out of immediate danger, Leo released his grip. “I understand it’s not your fault, but I’ve filed an appeal with the county for a head count on Christmas Eve anyway. We’re close, you see.”

“How close?”

“A couple people. Maybe two or three.”

“Is this even what you want?” John asked. “I mean, you can barely support yourselves over there as it is. You’re only limping along and avoiding the inevitable here. Your town will eventually dry up, just like the lake. The cove is gone, and it’s not coming back.”

The thought of the town being gone forever felt like another death to him. He moved there and became mayor to keep that connection alive between him and his parents. If the town went away, he feared that the memory of his parents would be gone forever, too. Leo didn’t want that to happen. He wanted his town to thrive.Hewanted to thrive there, with a family of his own. With America.

It was her information about the mayor of Elizabethtown that clued him into his brother’s scheming and was the sole reason he had dragged himself to John’s doorstep now. “Did you request that magazine to do a feature about the Cove?”

“I did,” John said plainly.

“Why would you do that? To embarrass me?”

“I knew the town was done for, and I figured some P.R. about the place would drive tourism to the area.” A humorless smile broadened across John’s face, and Leo had a mind to slap it off.

Whatever had amused John, Leo suspected he wouldn’t like it much. “What’s your angle? You always have an angle.”

“I suppose you’ll find out soon enough,” John admitted. “There’s a resort that wants to move into the area that borders our two towns. The owner will never get the permits from both of us, so the project is on hold for the time being.”

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