Roman nodded, accepting the advice for what it was. One man’s experience. Now wasn’t the time or place—or the person—to admit Butterfly Harbor was only a stop along the road and that by this time next year, all of this, all of them, would only be a memory.
* * *
“HIT ME AGAIN.” Frankie motioned to the empty milkshake glass before slouching on the Formica countertop at the Butterfly Diner.
“Must be pretty bad if you’re going for number three.” Holly Saxon, diner owner, pie goddess and town confidante, glanced over at the corner table where her recently turned ten-year-old son Simon was busy rocking his new brother and sister gently in their carriers.
The sound of baby giggles and goofball antics managed to lift Frankie’s spirits. A bit.
“You want to shake things up this time?” Holly offered. “Cookies and cream, maybe?”
“Nope. Keep the chocolate coming. Extra syrup. Extra—”
“Whipped cream. Not my first wallowing. What’s going on?”
Frankie glanced around the diner, or gossip central, as it had long been called. Well, this and the hardware store. Funny how women unloaded information over sugar and carbs while men tended to opt for power tools and epoxy guns. Personally she would prefer the tools, but today she needed the cheerfulness of the orange-and-black color scheme dedicated to the town’s namesake monarch butterfly.
“No one here to hear you. Other than Ursula.” Holly leaned over and dug deep into the double chocolate chip fudge ice cream. “More?” she asked, holding the syrup container over the chrome blender cup.
Frankie waved her hand in a circle.
“You’re going to need an insulin chaser after this.” Holly shook her head and set the concoction to blend. She did a quick pass through the diner, topping off coffee for the three stragglers from the late lunch crowd. “So.” She retrieved Frankie’s glass, refilled it and joined her. “What’s going on?”
“I didn’t get the job.” Frankie sucked hard on the straw, welcoming the piercing pain of an ice cream headache.
“The chief position?” Holly looked as shocked as Frankie had felt upon hearing the news. “No, that’s not possible. At the last town meeting—”
“We thought it was a done deal? Yep.” Frankie drank more. And then more. Her teeth began to freeze. “Me, too.” She winced, pressed a hand against her belly. “Ugh.” Maybe the third shake had been a mistake.
“You need something to eat.” Holly ducked into the kitchen for a moment. “Give it a few minutes.” She pulled the milkshake away. “Gil stood up there and said they’d make the official announcement at the tree-lighting ceremony. What happened?”
“Roman Salazar happened,” Frankie grumbled.
“What’s a Roman Salazar?”
A godlike six-foot-plus Spanish-Italian firefighter with biceps large enough to shelter a small family from a storm. With eyes as dark as... Frankie’s cheeks went hot. “My new boss. He arrived today about five minutes after Bud gave me the bad news.”
“Oh, Frankie.” Holly dropped a comforting hand on Frankie’s arm. “I’m so sorry. You deserve that job. No one is more qualified than you to be chief.”
“Thanks.” She thought so, of course, but it was nice to hear from someone else.
“You’re going to fight this, aren’t you?” Holly tossed an irritated look over her shoulder when Ursula, her longtime cook and full-time protector, banged on the bell. “Hey, Ursula. I’m right here.”
“Just keeping you on your toes. And speak up,” Ursula demanded. “I can’t hear nothing the two of you are saying.”
“Frankie didn’t get the job.” Holly pulled a plate of steaming, chili-topped French fries loaded with melted cheese off the sill and set it in front of Frankie. Despite Frankie’s milkshake overdose, her stomach growled. She leaned over and inhaled slowly, swooning at the aroma of tomatoes, garlic and spice. Maybe she wasn’t quite full yet.
“Frankie’s not the new chief? What nonsense is this?” Ursula, all five-foot nothing of her, shot out of the kitchen to join them, metal spatula wielded as if she was about to go into battle. “The board voted, didn’t they? You were the only name in contention, weren’t you?”
“Seems the mayor had other ideas. He wanted someone with a...” She glanced over and noticed Holly’s son Simon trying to listen in, eyes wide behind his thick bottle glasses. “Pedigree.” She couldn’t believe she was using Bud’s word.
“Gil does it again.” Holly clamped her arms across her chest, anger sparking in her brown eyes. “Why is it for every good thing he does, he screws three other people over? Something should be done about him.” The second the words were out of her mouth, she cast a quick glance at her son. “Simon, are you done with your homework?”