Chapter 12
12
Omar
I stared at my screen and watched Natalie tear the reporter to shreds. I still couldn’t believe she did that. But there it was, in a shaky video posted to social media and shared hundreds of times.
When I first saw it late yesterday afternoon, I was sure she was going to agree with the reporter and talk about how bad I was for MacKellar Cove. She obviously thought I was bad for her. I wasn’t surprised when Amelia defended me, but Natalie?
I had to have watched it a hundred times. There were four versions, all of them showing the same conversation from different angles. All of them telling me the same thing.
I needed to thank her for defending me.
It felt like groveling after the way things went the last time we spoke. And after the dozen unanswered messages I sent her. I said goodbye, and I meant it. If she didn’t want me, I wouldn’t push.
But we had to work together. We had a meeting in a week, and MacKellar Cove was too small for us to avoid each other forever.
I owed her my gratitude. I would keep it professional and not think about how much I wanted her.
My morning was productive, and I didn’t have any afternoon meetings, so I left the office for lunch. Early January was cold and snowy, but the sun was out and the snow had melted. I needed the fresh air and a chance to clear my head.
I stopped for a sandwich and took it to my SUV so I could drive around a little. I rolled down the window and let my mind wander while I made turns at random and tried to get lost. Not that it was possible in a town as small as MacKellar Cove, but I tried.
After a few minutes, I realized I was getting close to the campground. Amelia wanted to show me the property, but I hadn’t made it out there yet. With my job and support of the camp in question, I decided to check the place out and see what it looked like and how much work was really needed to make it functional.
The branches on the overgrown bushes next to the driveway scraped the sides of my vehicle when I pulled in, making me cringe. Those definitely needed to be cleaned up or removed altogether. For a campground, it was nice to have the driveway a little secluded and feel like you were going to a new place. For a summer camp, that was not a great thing.
Once I made it through the brush, the space opened up in front of me.
“Wow,” I breathed, surprised at how stunning it was. No wonder Amelia wanted to do so much there. It was perfect for events, and it was going to be great for the kids lucky enough to go there for summer camp.
I continued up what was left of the driveway toward the camper parked next to what used to be the parking lot. A blue SUV was just on the other side of the camper, out of sight until I got closer.
Who was there?
I got out of my SUV and looked around, trying to find someone.
The space was fairly flat, but I still didn’t see anyone. I decided to explore, hoping being out there alone wasn’t as bad of an idea as I thought it was.
I went to the pool first, standing next to the tarp covered hole in the ground. Water pooled on top of the old cover, doing nothing to actually keep people safe near the pool. Just like Natalie said.
There was a small building next to the pool, but the walls had more holes than solid boards and it was easy to see it was empty.
I continued on, looking at the horizon for signs of movement. Electrical boxes stuck up from the ground at even spaces around the property, leftover from the old camper hookups. Some had been removed and pulled close to the camper at the front. Natalie’s work that left her with the injury.
Was she the one out there alone? Again?
With the thought in my mind, I quickened my pace and searched for her. I counted six camper hookups, but I thought Amelia said there were thirty. That meant there were a lot I couldn’t see from where I stood, even though the property was relatively flat.
I followed what appeared to be an old road and made my way past the first grouping of campsites. More of the old wiring had been dug up. A second grouping came into view. These were farther from the pool but had a better view of the mountain.
Damn. No wonder it was called Mountain View Campground. It was stunning.
But that wasn’t why I was there.
I kept going, finally spotting someone on the far side of the site. Five acres was a huge space, and Natalie had to be close to the edge of it.
“What are you doing?” I called out, catching her attention.
She screamed, then turned to me. “I’m working. Why are you here?”
I waited until I got closer to answer her. Dirt streaked across her forehead. Her boots were brown, but it was definitely not their original color. She was dressed in a flannel shirt that was open and revealed a blue tank underneath. Her jeans were tucked into her boots, hugging her curvy legs the entire way down.
Need slammed into me hard. The need to take care of her, to be there for her. But also need for her. She was stunning.
“Why are you here, Mr. Mayor?”
“I thought we established you should call me Omar.”
She didn’t reply, just pursed her lips and raised her dark eyebrows, waiting for me to answer.
“I needed to clear my head. I was close and decided to check the place out.”
She nodded, then went back to digging the trench she was standing over.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving the town money,” she said without looking up. Her shovel dug into the mud, then she pushed it down to lift the mud from its resting place. When she cleared enough away to move the cables forward, she put the mud back into the hole she’d just dug.
“You’re doing all this work by yourself? I thought that was how you got hurt.”
“I’m fine. Amelia knows where I am, and so does Daisy. If I don’t check in with them in an hour, they’re going to send someone to find me.”
“How long have you been out here?”
She took a breath and stabbed her shovel into the ground. She looked up at me and brushed the hair out of her face with the back of her hand, leaving another streak of mud. “I’m trying to get as much work done as I can by myself. Getting this place up and running is important to me. If I don’t do this when the weather cooperates, there’s no way it’ll be done on time.”
“I thought you were going to hire people for this.”
She shook her head. “It’s not in the budget, Mr. Mayor. We need to save the money the town gave us for bringing in professionals to do things we can’t do ourselves.”
“How do you know you’re doing this safely?”
“There’s no power to the property. The utility company came out and told us what needs to be done before they can run new lines and make it safe for the campers. Step one is digging up all of this, but it has to be done by hand so we don’t tear more stuff up. That’s expensive. But I’m cheap.”
“It’s not safe for you to be out here alone. You didn’t know I was here. Anyone could show up and hurt you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, ignoring me and going back to her work.
“Natalie, please.”
She spun on me. “What do you want me to do? I can’t afford to hire someone. If I only work within the budget you gave me, we’ll never have this place open. And Amelia wants to do all these other things, and it’s getting bigger and bigger, and if I don’t do it, no one will. So I have to, Mr. Mayor. I have to do this.”
Her words were punctuated by a rumble of thunder that was so close I felt the ground tremble. “Is it supposed to rain today?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea.”
As she said that, the first drops hit the muddy ground hard.
“I guess it is. It’ll make the ground softer.”
“It’s not safe to be out here in a storm.”
“It’ll be fine,” she argued. Another clap of thunder echoed with her words, with a bolt of lightning immediately after and the thunder continuing to roll, alternating with lightning.
“We need to get out of here. We can’t be out in the open.”
“Shit,” she breathed, looking at the sky and closing her eyes to the rain coming down harder by the second. “There’s no shelter out here.”
“What about the camper?”
She shook her head. “It hasn’t been cleaned. It might kill us faster than this storm.”
“Come on,” I said, reaching for her hand. I was not going to leave her behind.
She slid her hand into mine, and we started to run.
We slipped almost every step, forcing us to go slow. She grabbed onto my shoulder when she almost hit the ground. The camper and our vehicles seemed like they were miles away.
“We can get in my car,” she shouted above the roar of the storm.
“Mine’s bigger. I already started it up, too. It’ll be warm. Get in.”
I kept a hold of her hand and opened the passenger door for her, waiting until she jumped in before I slammed the door and rushed to the other side. I slipped going around the SUV and nearly fell, catching myself on the hood. She pushed my door open from the inside, letting me into the warm vehicle before I slammed my door closed, the sound echoing the thunder that chased us the entire way.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
The look in her eyes answered before she spoke. “No. I’m not okay. How can I be okay? I’m about to die.”
I pointed the vents her way, hoping it would help warm her up. “You’re not going to die.”
“Yeah, I am. Because I made a bad decision. I’m not surprised. Last time I didn’t have my phone or my coat with me, and I didn’t have an emergency kit. I thought I was so damn smart. My phone is in my pocket. I had my jacket out there near me. But it doesn’t do me any damn good when I’m trapped out here and freezing to death.”
“You’re not freezing to death. We’re not far from town. We can get home.”
“We can’t drive in that!” she screeched.
“No, we can’t. We shouldn’t. It’s raining too hard to be able to see the road, and we probably won’t make it out of the driveway. But you said people know where you are. We can call for help.”
Thunder boomed outside, making her jump.
“Natalie, it’s going to be okay. “
“No, it won’t. I don’t know why I thought I could do this. I didn’t check the weather, and I would have been stuck out there if you hadn’t come and found me. Again. What is wrong with me? No one is going to trust me with their kids. This place is a failure before it even gets started.”
She leaned forward and put her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook. She looked so defeated that it gutted me.
I’d seen her unsure, pissed off, and doubting herself, but never completely lost. I wanted to pull her into my arms, but I had gotten that message already. “Parents trust you with their kids because you’re amazing with them. You connect with kids and you adore them, and parents see that.”
“It doesn’t matter because we’re going to die out here. They’re going to find my dead body in your SUV. With the mayor. There’s the scandal they’re all looking for. Hopefully, they’ll paint you as the hero you are.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“You’re out here saving me. I’m about five seconds away from pulling my hair out and screaming until I can’t breathe, and you’re just all calm here.”
“I’m not all calm, but I know panicking is not going to change anything.”
“You sound like my therapist.”
“Maybe your therapist is right.”
She shook her head. “No, she’s not. And it’s not like I can help it. I’m scared. And I’m here with a man who doesn’t want to be around me. And I’m never going to make this camp happen. And I’m going to die without falling in love and having a family and telling my parents I love them and Daisy will be all alone and?—”
It was a bad idea, but the only thing I could think of to stop her panic was to kiss her.
A surprised squeak snuck out, then a low growl. Her arms wrapped around my neck and pulled me closer. Her tongue pushed against my lips.
I opened them for her and slid my hands to her neck. I pulled her closer, wanting to feel more of her.
She grabbed my shirt like last time I kissed her and held on.
I groaned and tightened my grip on her. She inched closer, the center console a frustrating barrier between us.
“Omar,” she breathed.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you come out here today?”
I pulled back to look at her. Her face was flushed, her hair tangled from the rain. Her chest heaved with every breath. Her skin was cold to the touch, a reminder that we’d been caught in the freezing rain, even though my body was hot at the moment.
“I didn’t plan it. I went for a drive and ended up nearby. I wanted to see the place.”
“I am sorry about the picture. The article.” She ducked her head, biting her lip and hiding herself from me.
I cupped her chin and turned her face back to mine.
She met my gaze reluctantly.
“That picture was not your fault.”
“I’m the one who tripped and assaulted you. I know I need to come forward and explain?—”
“No.”
She drew back. “Excuse me?”
I shook my head. “That picture was taken out of context, and dragging you into the middle of that will not help anything. It could end up with your reputation damaged and this place not the success I know it will be.”
“I can’t let you go down for it when it was my fault.”
“No, Natalie. It was the man who took the picture’s fault. And if someone is coming for me, they’ll come for you and anyone else who tries to get in their way.”
She shivered at my words. “Do you think so?”
“I wish I knew. I have no idea what’s going on. All I do know is I don’t want you to end up in the middle of anything. You are going to do amazing things here. And you need to tell Amelia to roll back her big ideas if it’s not what you want.”
Natalie shook her head, her brown hair tumbling around her shoulders. “I can’t. She’s been so good to me. I’m horrible with people, but Amelia never makes me feel like I’m a liability. She is amazing, and if she has ideas to improve on this place, I’m going to listen to her.”
“If it means you’re overwhelmed and can’t function, she needs to know.”
Natalie swallowed roughly. She turned her head away, tears in her eyes before she hid them from me. “I’m handling it.”
“Hey, I’m not trying to say you can’t. I want to see you succeed. And not because I’m the mayor. I want to see Natalie Edwards succeed. Even if you don’t want me to share in it.”
“If I succeed, it’s good for the whole town.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about, Natalie. I’m talking about you. I’m talking about this. I’m talking about you not wanting me. I apologize for kissing you again. I have an emergency kit in the back. I’ll get it, give you some space.”
I twisted in my seat and shoved my body through the too small gap between the seats. I hit the horn with my hip and grabbed the back of the seat, not at all gracefully falling onto the backseat.
What was one more embarrassing moment in front of Natalie Edwards? She couldn’t possibly think less of me, so why did I care?