His Curvy Happiness (Book Boyfriends Wanted #20)

Chapter 1

Casey

I slammed my car into park and yanked the handle. I tumbled out, nearly dropping my phone on the asphalt. Being late was a sin in the newspaper industry, and I was a perpetual sinner.

I grabbed the latest edition of the MacKellar Cove Gazette on my way into the building, wanting to know what my coworkers were writing and wanting to see my name in print.

I was still getting used to it. Since my divorce, I’d gotten a few good assignments, but not enough for me to quit my two other jobs and work full time as a reporter.

Newspapers were quickly dying out everywhere, but our small-town paper was solid. I had no doubt that was thanks to the influx of money from the locals over the last few years, not to mention the low-key notoriety of some of those locals.

As I raced into the office, I realized I had a stain on my light pink blouse. Crap. I held the paper in front of it, but it was only a matter of time before someone noticed it.

“Thanks for joining us, Casey,” my editor, Gretchen, said with a sneer.

I nodded, choosing not to speak and cause even more of a disruption.

Gretchen continued, giving me a chance to set my oversized handbag on the floor next to my chair and grab my notepad out of it. She was old-school and refused to allow anyone to take notes on their phones. It was paper or nothing.

Gretchen assigned stories to the full-time reporters and opened the floor for other ideas. A few were rattled off, and approval was given for them to be chased. When the conversation slowed, I cleared my throat, anxious to pitch my story.

“Mayor Knight is getting married next month,” I said.

Gretchen stared at me. “We are all aware of this. Why are you mentioning it?”

“I was thinking I could do a series about the wedding. A behind-the-scenes thing. Talk about the local vendors they’re using, how he’s handling the wedding with running the town. Stuff like that.”

Gretchen held my gaze for a long moment, her eyes narrowing as she considered my proposal. “What’s your angle?”

“Angle?”

Gretchen sighed as if I were the world’s biggest moron.

Maybe I was because I was fairly sure I’d just told her what my angle was. Highlighting the town. The mayor. Making MacKellar Cove more appealing to visitors as a destination for major events.

“Yes, angle. Why does anyone care?” Gretchen was new to MacKellar Cove, but not new to the newspaper industry. She came to MacKellar Cove when the previous editor, Erik, resigned.

Erik ran articles about Mayor Omar Knight that were both misleading and damaging to him.

He allowed me to publish stories that showed Omar positively, but Erik was a fan of the mayor Omar replaced.

When I came forward with an article outlining all the things that happened before Omar stepped into the position, Erik resigned.

He was willing to publish articles intending to get Omar removed from office, but when he saw all the evidence against his buddy, he walked away.

Gretchen was brought in afterward, with no loyalty to either side.

I looked around the room at the others. MacKellar Cove was a small town.

Life in a small town differed from that in a city.

It was all about the community, the town being a place where everyone was respected and worked together.

Omar had been a champion of that since he’d taken over as mayor, and his getting married was big news.

“I’ve read your other articles about him.

It’s obvious you have a personal attachment to him.

Maybe a crush? I will not approve anything that’s more of the same.

More about how great the man is. You need to give me something new.

Something different. Unless you just want to write about the mayor.

We don’t really need someone who only covers one thing.

” Gretchen’s gaze slid around the room, waiting for anyone to argue or agree.

Unfortunately for me, there were more nods than anything else. “I’m not… That’s… I thought it would be a good personal interest story. We always talk about work-life balance and how to handle family and having jobs, and I thought it could be a good take on it.”

“That’s been done. A million times. What else do you have?” Gretchen asked, sounding bored.

“Um, I mean, they’re using a lot of local vendors. It could be a highlight of what MacKellar Cove has to offer couples looking for a small-town destination wedding.”

“No one is looking for that.”

“Oh, okay. I… I don’t know.”

“We need excitement. We need scandal.” Gretchen looked around and again got heads to nod with her. “Is he secretly sleeping with his secretary? Is he still not over his ex-wife? Can we call her? Maybe have her show up? Does the bride have secrets? Who is she? What can we find out about them?”

“Um, I don’t think either of them has any secrets like that.”

“Then your story is a boring fluff piece. Do we really need more of those?”

“It wouldn’t be boring,” I mumbled.

“Then give me an angle that would make it interesting. We don’t need more sunshine and rainbows about the mayor.

We need something to get people to buy the newspaper.

You might think this job is easy, but every day more newspapers are closing.

If we’re going to stay open, we need more than the small-town mayor is getting married. We need something to grab attention.”

I nodded and chewed the inside of my lip. Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I thought it was a good idea. Something that would be an easy series. But Gretchen had no interest in it.

The meeting wrapped up a minute later, and again, I had no assignments. I shoved my notepad into my bag and slung it over my shoulder as Gretchen stopped in front of me.

“Come see me,” she said, walking out before I could reply.

Shit.

A few snickers followed me out of the room, but I ignored them.

What choice did I have? Most of them were regular columnists.

I was still a freelance reporter. The other freelancers worked throughout the Thousand Islands region, writing stories and publishing in a bunch of local papers.

With a sixth grader at home and an ex-husband who wasn’t reliable when we lived under the same roof, I couldn’t travel to chase a story.

I knocked on Gretchen’s door, even though she’d just left the conference room and told me to follow her.

She looked up, surprised that I was there, then waved me in. “Close the door.”

I gulped and squeezed my eyes shut to stop the tears. I already worked three jobs to afford my apartment and keep Mikayla in the activities she enjoyed. Losing this one would mean saying no to something.

“Have a seat, Casey,” Gretchen said, gesturing to the chairs on the opposite side of her desk.

I sat, letting my bag slide to the floor. I folded my hands in my lap, belatedly remembering the stain on my shirt.

Gretchen didn’t miss it. Her lips pursed, but she didn’t comment. “Your article about back-to-school was good.”

Not what I expected her to say. “Thank you.” When Gretchen assigned the article to me, I was flattered.

With a sixth grader, I was well versed in the intricacies of back to school.

Gretchen’s words, though not untrue. She was a single woman with no kids, happily so, and shuddered at the idea of having to ever go back to middle school.

I’d worked my ass off to write a good article.

One that covered the expense of school supplies, the added load on parents to handle all the things expected of students, and the lack of time for working and single parents, and that exposed the pressure on the teachers who didn’t receive enough funding to provide for their classrooms and were frequently using personal funds to create spaces that were comfortable for the students.

I was proud of the article. I interviewed teachers and parents, getting both sides of the story and presenting a position I felt was fair.

My own daughter struggled the first few weeks in middle school with the increased responsibility.

My opinion, and that of the parents I spoke to, was that the elementary school teachers hadn’t prepared the kids for the change, and I suggested changes to help students succeed at all levels of education.

“That’s what I want to see,” Gretchen said, again surprising me. “You have to have a perspective. You can’t just write articles that do nothing. There has to be a reason for the article.”

“I understand.”

Gretchen was quiet for a minute, her hands steepled in front of her, elbows on her oversized glass desk.

Her desk was the neatest I’d ever seen in a newsroom.

A single box sat in one corner, empty. A laptop was closed in front of her, no cords visible.

A single pen rested next to the laptop, lined up perfectly with the edge.

Gretchen leaned back, crossing her ankles and her arms.

“What do you know about the mayor’s first marriage?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really know anything about it. I’m not obsessed with him like you said. I don’t have a crush.”

She shrugged, uninterested. “You know what divorce is like. You’ve been through it, recently from what I hear.”

I wasn’t sure if she expected me to respond until she met my gaze and her brows went up. “Yes. Last year.”

“The mayor is boring. Writing another article about how great he is isn’t going to get people to pick up the paper.

You know what life is like after a divorce.

I’ve never bothered with the confines of something like marriage, but I’ve read enough about the damage a divorce can do to a person. What can we find out about the mayor?”

“His divorce was a long time ago from what I know.”