More Than Rivals by Mary Whitney Read Free Book Online

Lily popped in his mind, and he’d feel a little zap of excitement.  
    “Well, don’t you think, so?” asked Beverly impatiently. “It’s changed everything, right?”
    “Yes, it has.” His answer was monotone because it was all he could muster. Somehow Beverly talking about Lily made him uncomfortable.  
    “What’s she like? I only met her that one time. She seemed nice enough, but kind of … I don’t know … plain, boring.” Her voice was adamant, but she questioned him. “Am I right?”
    “Uh, no.” Jack pressed his hand hard against the steering wheel. While he wasn’t sure why he felt so strange, he knew talking with Beverly about another woman was always a bad idea. If anything was there, Beverly could sniff it out. He straightened in his seat, and he kept his response short. “Ursula Robles is a great candidate. Listen I—”
    “Do you think she’s pretty?”
    He grabbed the steering wheel as he felt the conversation careen out of control. “Bev, I need to go. I’m due in Santa Rosa in less than an hour. I’m sitting in my car right now because you called just as I was about to start driving.”
    “Oh, okay.” She groaned. “Will you check your calendar to see if we can get together soon?”
    Grimacing, he shook his head at his dilemma. He didn’t want to see her, but if he said “no,” the conversation wouldn’t end. He was short. “Sure. I’ll try.”

CHAPTER FOUR

    Later that morning, Lily slipped through the heavy double doors of the Unitarian church’s sanctuary, which held a crowd of candidates and constituents. She’d already made one lap around the room, glad-handing as many people as she could. At that moment, she needed to return to being a mom. She had to remind her father to drop-off Luke so she could take him to his soccer game.
    After she finished her phone call, she scanned her emails to see if anything had come up on an otherwise quiet Saturday. Just as she was about to turn off the phone, she heard a male voice say, “They say we’re going to start in fifteen minutes. They’re having problems with the sound.”
    She looked up to see Jack walking toward her, most likely returning from the restroom. “Thanks,” she said and returned her attention to her phone. So far that day she’d avoided him, only giving him a smile and nod when he entered the room. Since her conversation with Jordan, she decided less communication with the handsome candidate was better.  
    As she studied an email she’d already read once, she waited for the sound of the sanctuary door to open and close, signaling his departure. No sound occurred, and instead she sensed movement to her right before seeing a pair of men’s black oxfords under dark suit pants. She raised her head again and gave him an uneasy smile. “Hi. What’s going on?”
    “Nothing.” He returned the smile and gestured toward the sanctuary. “Well, actually that’s not true. Something is going on.”
    “Yeah.”   She nodded. “There’s a reason why we’re here.”
    “I just came over to say ‘hi.’ How have you been?” he asked, crossing his arms as if he was settling into a conversation.
    “Good. Busy. And you?”
    “Really busy. You know this yourself. Holding down one elected office while running for another is crazy. I have no time to myself.”
    “It is crazy.” Just as she always did, she held back her next thought when a single person without kids complained about having no time:   Now imagine also being a parent. It was self-serving and petty comment, and she knew it was ultimately rooted in pure jealousy of someone else’s freer schedule.
    “And this district…” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just a lot of area to cover. I’m not I’m going to be able to visit every part of it.”
    As he spoke, her eyes searched the hallway, looking for a way out of the conversation. Distracted, she spoke aloud a private thought. “But that’s never bothered you before.”  
    He laughed