7

      THERE WERE TIMES, miserable times, that a girl needed work. When it was good to have a job to focus on, to serve as a distraction from heartbreak.

      This was not one of those times.

      Real life sucked when she didn’t have her secret fantasy to fall back on. After her mind-blowing climax, a nasty descent into reality and the proceeding all-night crying binge, Genna had tasked herself with getting over Brody. It shouldn’t be that hard to get over a hero who had never existed, should it?

      Three days later and she still hadn’t figured out how. But hey, she had the rest of her long, lonely, dull life to work on it. She’d get there eventually.

      She arranged coffee cups on a tray, making sure to add sugar in the form of cubes, granulated and raw. Yet another pathetic example of how sad her life was when the highlight of her day was getting the exact same amount of sugar in each bowl. It was enough to make her scream. Or maybe that was because her boss was still talking about his new favorite subject. Hometown Hero, Brody Lane.

      “This event will be fabulous. We need to be sure enough press is invited. Not just lifestyle. I want current events, politics. War Hero Welcomed Home by Loving Town With Parade. That’ll make a great headline.”

      “It needs work,” Marcus Reilly said from his spot at the opposite end of the table from the mayor. “You’re putting up a lot of fuss over a guy who, what? Did his job?”

      Glad her back was to them, Genna freely rolled her eyes. Did his job? Leave it to her father to be a little black rain cloud. The sheriff had never been what anyone could call effusive. But over the last few years, the worse Joe’s behavior was, the more withdrawn their father became. Almost as if he’d been expecting Joe’s death and had figured on getting in some mourning ahead of time.

      “Fine. We’ll let the papers come up with the headline. Either way, hometown hero appreciation is good PR. A parade is good commerce and after all, it is election season,” Tucker pointed out, those words saying it all.

      The cookies arranged just so and coffee balanced on the tray, Genna turned toward the men gathered around the long teak table. An informal monthly meeting among Bedford’s movers and shakers included the mayor and sheriff, of course. A couple of high-profile businesspeople, the bank owner and, she sighed, one perfect lawyer rounded up this month’s powwow.

      Avoiding the lawyer, Perfect Stewart who was still angling for a second date, she moved to the other side of the room with her tray. She wasn’t sure how her job as community liaison had come to include playing hostess. But given that her job was more a backroom agreement between her boss and her father, she figured the mayor was looking for whatever he could to justify her paycheck. She’d protested the job once, wanting to quit and find something that she’d love. But that night Joe had been hauled in by Highway Patrol on drug charges. Her father had left midprotest to deal with the fallout. By the time he’d bailed out her brother, smoothed over the furor and glossed away the damage to his sheriff’s reputation, Genna had given up arguing.

      “Coffee?” she asked the room at large as she set the tray in the center of the table. Then she stepped back, returning to the counter to prepare the backup plate of cookies she knew they’d want soon.

      It was bad enough she had to hostess these things. She drew the line at being waitress. As appreciative sounds and compliments on the cookies started flowing around the table, she admitted she didn’t mind playing caterer, though.

      Besides, she’d been on a baking binge for the last four days, ever since her encounter with Brody. Every counter in her kitchen was covered in some treat or another. And that was after sharing with all of her neighbors, her friends and the senior center.

      “Genna?” Mayor Tucker called around a mouthful of cookie. “Have you spoken to Lane again? Has he agreed to meet with me?”

      Go back and see Brody? The man who made her insides melt, turned her body into a panting puddle of passion and then summarily rejected her?

      No, no and hell, no. Genna tried to think of a polite way to reword that. Before she could, her father gave a garbled protest.

      “What? You sent Genna to talk to him?” The sheriff straightened, his cookie crumbs blasting across the table. His face turned a worrying shade of red and his mouth worked as if he was chewing up words to keep from spitting them out.

      Looks of shock and worry flew around the room.

      “Of course,” the mayor said slowly. “That’s her job.”

      Genna’s face heated. Unspoken, but heard loud and clear by everyone in the room, was that it was a job her father had actively solicited, then called on all his parental guilt pressure to get her to take.

      “I don’t want her near Lane. The guy is a loser.”

      It was too much. He decided her job. He tried to control her dating. And now he was railroading her boss as to what her duties were? Anger bubbled up, slow at first but rapidly heating.

      Forgetting her desire to stay as far away from Brody as possible, Genna stepped forward to argue. Both against her father’s high-handed mandate as he continued to try to run her life, and at the idea that Brody was a loser.

      Thankfully before she got a word out, and caused a scene that would send her father into yet another meltdown and her mother to the hospital to have her heart checked, someone cleared their throat.

      “Brody Lane?” Stewart asked, confusion clear on his face. “The guy we’re planning a parade for? The navy SEAL recently recommended for a Silver Star?” He let the words hang in the room for a few seconds, then gave a baffled shake of his head. “That guy is a loser?”

      “No, no,” Tucker broke in, giving the sheriff a quick glare before plastering over it with a cheesy smile. “That’s old