Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
W yatt tried not to let his nerves show as he circulated at the big bash Kent McAllister hosted to watch the crucial basketball game between the University of Florida and Florida State.
It was a coincidence that the party happened on the day of the primary election. Most of the people at the party probably had no idea the primary had been held today. Who voted in special election primaries? There had been only two farmers and a guy from the OJ plant lined up to cast a ballot at the elementary school when Wyatt voted this morning. The election results were due within the hour, then the leading candidates from each party would proceed to a one-on-one special election in June to become Florida’s next Commissioner of Agriculture.
The evening was warm enough for the party to spill out onto the flagstone patio overlooking a sprawling pastureland, but Wyatt stuck close to the butler’s pantry, where he stashed his laptop to periodically check election results as they trickled in. So far, he was making a respectable showing. Eleven other candidates had thrown their hat in the ring, although most of the votes were split between Wyatt and the three professional politicians. The professionals had around fifteen percent each, while Wyatt hovered around twenty percent.
His heart started pounding faster. It was hard to believe, but the wind was now at his back. He might actually win this thing.
He closed the laptop, planning on joining the crowd watching the basketball game when a snazzy woman intercepted him in the hallway. It took a moment to place her as Dr. Lowenstein, the county medical examiner. He’d only ever seen her in a white lab coat; now she wore a red patent leather blazer with matching heels and shiny red lip gloss. She looked spectacular, if a little imposing.
“Hello, Wyatt,” she said, greeting him with a kiss on his cheek.
He fought the temptation to wipe his cheek. He’d never been a huggy-kissy kind of guy, but he could pretend to be okay with it. Dr. Lowenstein looped her arm through his as they drifted into the main room where half the crowd watched the basketball game and the others held drinks and talked too loudly.
“Where have you been all this time?” she asked as she snagged a glass of wine from a circulating waiter. “I never see you around town anymore.”
Was she making a pass at him? It felt like it because she hadn’t let go of his arm and kept her gaze fastened on him as she sipped her wine. He glanced around for a way to extricate himself when Penny Danvers swooped down upon them.
“Dr. Lowenstein, have you seen the sketch of the skeleton found out at the Summerlin place?”
Even the name Summerlin caused a twinge deep inside. He wished he could block his ears from hearing the discussion, but others gathered around, eager to hear the medical examiner’s assessment of the sketch.
“I saw it,” Dr. Lowenstein said.
“Will it help you identify who she is?” Penny wasn’t on the clock, but a good journalist never turned off the instinct to drill for dirt.
“That’s not my job,” Dr. Lowenstein said. “I submitted the results of my medical examination to the sheriff’s department, and the ball is with them now.”
“But are they any closer to figuring out who she is?” someone else asked. “It seems strange that more people haven’t come forward, especially with that Fabergé egg getting so much attention.”
Speculation abounded as people started tossing out unfounded theories. “Jeb Bickner swears she’s the spitting image of his mother,” a bleached-blond woman announced. “He always said she ran off with a long-haul trucker when he was a kid, but now he thinks that’s probably her in the tree.”
Penny scoffed. “Jeb Bickner just wants to claim the Fabergé egg.”
“I don’t care who gets the egg, I just hope the Summerlins don’t get to keep it,” someone else said. “Jack was a scoundrel, and if Jenny gets a dime, it ought to go straight back to the McAllisters. After all, they’re the ones raising that poor orphaned child.”
“The McAllisters don’t need the money,” the bleached-blond woman said. “I’m sure they’re praying the crazy gene didn’t get passed down to the boy. Jack was crazy. So was his dad, and so was his granddad.”
The conversation turned to a long-ago baseball game when Jack Summerlin got in a fistfight with the umpire, and Jenny bailed him out of jail.
The bleached-blond had plenty to say about that. “Maybe if she hadn’t bailed him out, Jack would have learned how to control his temper.”
Wyatt lowered his head. Jenny implied that the town’s resentment toward the Summerlins ran pretty deep, but people rarely aired it in front of him. Could he blame them for dredging up old gossip? There’d been a time not so long ago when he savaged Jack Summerlin with just as much gusto, and never stopped to consider how it might have hurt Jenny.
He extricated his arm from Dr. Lowenstein and headed toward the butler’s pantry to see if another batch of election results had come in. Anything was better than listening to gossip about the Summerlins.
A couple of caterers were inside the butler’s pantry, filling trays with steak sliders and dipping sauce. Wyatt stepped inside the moment they left.
He hit the refresh key and watched the screen, holding his breath as new data populated the fields.
It was unbelievable. His lead had grown. He now had twenty-two percent of the vote and his nearest competitor was at sixteen percent. Could this really be happening?
“Wyatt, can I speak with you for a minute?” It was Dr. Lowenstein, standing in the open doorway. He closed the laptop so she couldn’t see the screen and managed a polite smile.
“Yes, Dr. Lowenstein, what can I do for you?”
“Call me Rebecca,” she prompted, smiling up at him, and now there could be no doubt that she was making a pass at him. She stepped farther into the pantry, blocking his escape. He cleared his throat and looked away.
“Rebecca,” he said, scrambling for an excuse to escape. “I really need to get back to the front room. I haven’t had the chance to thank Mrs. McAllister for inviting me.”
She laughed a little, causing squeaks from her patent leather jacket as she drew closer. “Relax. You don’t have to be such an Eagle Scout all the time.”
Jenny used to tease him about that. He never had a problem relaxing with Jenny, and this woman with the squeaky jacket held no appeal. Dr. Lowenstein was smart and attractive and successful, but she wasn’t Jenny.
He scrambled for a graceful way to escape this awkward encounter. “I’ve got an early morning at the office tomorrow,” he said. “I should probably head home—” He bumped into the laptop, tipping it off the shelf. He lunged for it, catching it just in time.
“What have you been looking at?” Dr. Lowenstein asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve been watching a competing basketball game.”
He had to tell her something, and the truth was always a good place to start. “There was an election today. I’ve been watching the results.”
“Oh yes!” she said brightly. “ Pastures, not parking lots . I love that slogan. Are the results in?”
“Not yet.”
She brushed him aside and lifted the laptop screen. It wouldn’t be gentlemanly to slam it down and tell her to mind her own business. The computer woke up and automatically reloaded.
“Hey, look,” she said. “You won.”
He gaped at the screen. His name had a checkmark beside it. Dr. Lowenstein gave a loud whoop and kissed him flat on the mouth. He pulled back, but she raced into the family room.
“Hey, everybody,” she shouted. “Wyatt won the election! He’s going to be our next Commissioner of Agriculture!”
He hurried after her. “No, not true,” he hastened to add. “I’ve only won the primary. The big race is in June, and it will be a lot harder to win.”
His words made no difference. Any excuse for a party, right? Cheers broke out and people lined up to shake his hand. Kent McAllister boomed his hearty congratulations and promised a hefty campaign contribution.
Wyatt couldn’t stop smiling because winning the primary was huge. Huge! His mother was going to be over the moon and the next three months were going to be a whirlwind of activity.
Twenty minutes later he learned who his competitor would be, a state representative from Cape Canaveral named Mindy Bannerman. She was a career politician with over a million dollars in her chest, a background in aerospace law, and fifteen years advocating for the space industry. The Commissioner of Ag job was clearly a stepping-stone to higher office for her.
Mindy Bannerman would be tough to beat because in a statewide election, everyone could vote . . . including the city folks more interested in aerospace, tourism, and cheap land. She was favored to win the election, but if Wyatt could force her to start paying lip service to issues of agriculture, he’d consider it a win. He relaxed on the patio with Kent McAllister and some others from the ranching community to talk politics and savor his victory.
But just inside the open French doors, Penny Danvers gossiped about the forensic sketch and her visit to Summerlin Groves. It was distracting. Snippets of conversation kept floating his way and none of it was good.
Penny said something about Jenny wearing ugly rubber overalls that came up to her armpits, looking like a yokel. Someone else mentioned white trash and trailer parks.
Wyatt’s jaw clenched as anger simmered. Jenny Summerlin worked hard seven days a week. She labored with her hands, her back, and her brain while these women with professional manicures looked down their noses at her. How often did Jenny run into this sort of thing?
If his mother had been here, Donna would be joining in the small-minded evisceration of Jenny, and was he any better? The last time he’d seen Jenny they’d been yelling at each other and he hadn’t believed her when she claimed people in town treated her like a pariah.
He needed to apologize. Their romance ended badly and they had no possibility of a future, but he didn’t want her believing he stood with the small-minded people who didn’t see her worth. Although their romance would never be more than a four-month idyl that briefly blazed during a glorious spring, it had been pure and wonderful; something he would forever cherish. He was a better man for having known Jenny, and she had left an imprint on his soul that would never fade.
Tomorrow he would head out to her grove and apologize for the things he’d said. When they were both old and gray, he wanted Jenny to know that she had once been adored.