The Single Mom's Second Chance

“Wait!” Claire’s voice stopped him.

Evan swung around. Sure enough, Claire was stepping toward him at a fast clip, Alex jogging behind her. Her heels hit a slick spot on the narrow path to the town hall and she started to tip backward.

“Whoa.” Evan dived forward, quickly slipping his arms around her waist and preventing her from tumbling to the hard ground. His hands came flush against her back, cradling her toward him. Why had he put his gloves on? He would have enjoyed the feel of her hair draped over the back of his hands one more time...

Alex whooped. “Good catch!” Then he bent down, scrambling to collect all Claire’s scattered paperwork.

During the process of almost falling, she’d dropped the thick folder-type thing she’d been clutching, and had grabbed on to the lapels of his coat for dear life. Inches from him—close enough to count the freckles she tried to hide—Claire’s soft blue eyes frantically moved over his face until their gazes finally met. She sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t shove away. His heart pounded like a Sawzall, and just like that he was eighteen again with the woman he had loved in his arms. The woman he had wanted to spend every day of the rest of his life with.

You’ll hold her back, son. You’ll be a weight around her neck. She’ll grow to hate you. Is that what you want? If you love her like you say you do, then let go. It was the first—and more than likely, the only—time he and Sesser Atwood would ever agree so wholeheartedly.

Evan shook that thought away and focused. “I got you.”

Smooth, Evan. State the obvious. Women adore that.

“I don’t want you to,” she whispered. Then her eyes snapped to life and she pushed against his chest.

Ah, right, there it was. The resentment he usually saw setting her features.

Evan let his arms fall away. He swallowed the last of his cough drop, savoring the burning feeling of it going down his throat, grounding him. With her standing nearby, having called to him, he finally summoned the courage to start the conversation he wished he’d had back before she ran to New York City. Might as well get the awkwardness over with. “Claire, this is long overdue, but I need to—”

“Why are you running for mayor?” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped out a Morse code message detailing her annoyance with the toe of her pointed glossy boot.

Not what he’d expected. Then again, Mrs. Clarkson was known for spreading everyone’s business around, in a kindly, grandmotherly way, of course. Claire probably went in to hand over a payment for her family’s water or refuse bill, and Mrs. Clarkson couldn’t help but tell her all about Evan submitting his application to get on the ballot and run at the final hour.

He scratched the spot where his neck met his jaw. “Oh, that. I guess, why not? The position’s open.”

And because he and his brother Brice planned to use his clout as mayor to help get a new boatyard and dock built. One that would give Sesser Atwood a run for his money and loosen the chokehold monopoly he had on the shipping business in Goose Harbor. On all businesses in town.

A political tidbit Evan hardly needed to share with the tycoon’s daughter.

“That’s it?” More toe tapping. A nervous habit he recognized from the old days. Back when he’d known what every single movement she made meant. Known that if her shoulders slumped a certain way she’d had a bad weekend with her parents or an argument with her father. Before she gave a presentation or speech in class, she used to tap her foot faster than his 18-volt jigsaw running on the highest setting.

Evan pointed down and didn’t even fight the smirk he felt tugging at his lips. “You’re going to wear out your shoe doing that, you know. Not much is different, huh?”

She stopped and shifted her weight. Narrowed her eyes, and her stare went hard. “Everything is different. And don’t change the subject.”

If looks could kill... The set of her shoulders and jaw told him she was ready for battle. With her expression of fury and her red hair fanned over her shoulders while fat snowflakes fell between them, she looked like a snow queen ready to save her kingdom from an invading army. Sparks and quips made up her favorite line of defense, but he wasn’t intimidated. Claire survived by keeping people at a distance, by making them believe she was all burrs and thorns.

Too bad he knew better.

Break through her barriers and she became the sweetest, most sincere person he’d ever met. Her rigid exterior was nothing more than a wall for a terrified girl to hide her heart behind. She only needed someone to cheer her on and infuse some courage into her, something neither of her parents had ever done. At least...that’s how she’d been twelve years ago.

In the past, the best way to reach over her wall was to act like her glares had no effect on him.

“So what if I’m running?” Evan slipped his hands into his pockets and gave an exaggerated shrug. “Why do you care?”

Alex handed Claire the padded folder, which he’d jammed all her papers into, so they stuck out at odd angles. “She wants to know because she’s running, too.”

“You’re running?” Evan rocked forward. “But you don’t even like this place.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s so not true.” She jabbed her pointer finger in his direction. “And don’t you dare say that on the campaign trail. You have no proof to back up your claim.”

“Campaign trail? Tell me you’re not serious.” She was joking...wasn’t she? Evan hadn’t planned to do much besides getting on the ballot. Everyone in town already knew him.

Alex chuckled. “She is always serious. I know this is a fact.”

Evan winked at Alex. He enjoyed how the kid phrased things.

Claire pressed a hand to Alex’s chest, as if Evan’s very presence might tarnish the boy. She must not be aware that Evan hung out with her son every Sunday. Maybe he should tell her the reason he’d been asked to help out in the seven-and eight-year-old class was because Toby and Jenna Holcomb didn’t know how to reach her often angry son. So far, he and Alex had come to a tentative friendship, but her mama-arm protective grab on Alex didn’t bode well for Evan’s continued involvement.

“See? You have nothing to say,” Claire said. “No proof that I don’t like this place and no reason why you should continue your run for office.”

“No proof? Now let’s see... How about you left our humble harbor without so much as looking back, and were gone for more than eleven years? You can’t like Goose Harbor all that much—not enough to want to be the mayor—if you didn’t even want to be here.”

She leaned closer, her voice low, rumbling. “I like Goose Harbor fine.”

Evan leaned in, too. “Not as much as you seemed to like New York.”

Her eyes flashed. “The reason I left wasn’t because I didn’t like it here.”

“Yeah?” He cocked his head, challenging her. They’d always known how to press each other’s buttons. Evidently that much hadn’t changed, either. “Then why’d you leave?”

Claire’s lips pulled a little. “I left because I didn’t like you.”

Alex’s mouth dropped open. “My friend Kasey would call that a burn.”

And she’d be right.

Evan filled his chest with a lungful of air and then another. Growing up with an abusive father had taught him to rein in his anger and his reactions, not to speak when he felt wounded, because usually what he had to say only worsened the situation. And to process through the reasons someone would behave a certain way before letting words rule his emotions.

With Claire, it wasn’t as if it was a mystery. From her perspective he’d entirely misused her. For all intents and purposes, he’d abandoned her. And she was right, even if it stung. She’d left because of him.

I saved you from a life of regret. You wouldn’t have a relationship with your parents if we’d married. You’d probably hate me by now for getting in the way of your dreams.

Why couldn’t she understand?

He worked his jaw back and forth.

Someone flung the town hall’s doors open. Alex, Evan and Claire all pivoted.

Mr. Banks—also known as the local curmudgeon—bustled toward them. He wore his dress pants up past his belly button and had the bottom of his tie tucked in. No coat, so he must have been in a hurry. Wisps from his comb-over rose to stand on end in the winter wind. The man currently served—begrudgingly—as the stand-in mayor, and grumbled about it to anyone who would listen.

Mr. Banks puffed when he reached them. “You’re both still here. Good.”

Evan relaxed his shoulders and forced himself to put mental space between the conversation with Mr. Banks and the confrontation with Claire. “Is there a problem with our applications?”

“No. They’ll do. I’d like you both to attend the board meeting on Tuesday so I can introduce each of you to the public.”