16. Ethan
ETHAN
Iwas halfway through replacing the carburetor on the Henderson kid’s dirt bike when the shop door swung open.
The familiar squeak of the hinges was enough to tell me it was Mark before I even looked up.
I’d been meaning to oil those hinges for weeks, but somehow it kept slipping my mind. Like a lot of things had lately.
I wiped my hands on a shop rag and straightened up, feeling the protest in my lower back.
Mark was wearing that look he got when he was carrying news, his eyebrows slightly raised and his mouth set in a line that wasn’t quite serious enough to be bad news, but not relaxed enough to be nothing.
“You hear yet?” he asked, letting the door swing shut behind him.
I shook my head. “Been here since six.”
He moved toward the workbench, picking up a socket wrench and turning it over in his hands like he needed something to occupy them.
That was when I knew it was about Lena.
“Town council meeting ran long this morning,” he said, setting the wrench down. “Your consultant submitted her final recommendation.”
The way he said “your consultant” made something twist in my chest. I hadn’t seen Lena in two days. I hadn’t heard her moving around upstairs except late at night when the floorboards creaked under her pacing.
She hadn’t tried to approach me since I’d let her know that I knew about the development clause.
It was a good thing too. There wasn’t a single thing she could say that would make what she did, what she hid from me, okay.
“And?” I kept my voice steady, reaching for a bolt I didn’t really need.
“And she went with heavy caps on development, environmental impact requirements, local oversight provisions. Whole nine yards.” He watched my face carefully.
“The safety improvements will still go through, wider shoulders on the curve, better guardrails. But the rest...” He let out a low whistle.
“Let’s just say her bosses aren’t going to be throwing her a party. ”
Relief washed through me, unexpected in its intensity. “Good,” I said. “That’s... good.”
Mark nodded slowly. “It is. For the town.” He paused, leaning against the workbench.
“Interesting though, the way she laid it all out. Called out that hidden agenda right in her opening statement. ‘Access improvements for future corridor expansion’, that’s what was buried in the original scope.
Would’ve turned Cedar Hills into a throughway for developers within five years. ”
My hands went still over the bike engine. “That fast?”
“Yeah, that was everyone’s reaction too,” Mark said, missing the shift in my voice.
“Carol says it was buried in paragraph seven of the original proposal. Pretty slick way to sneak it in. Your girl found it, though. Made it crystal clear what she was protecting the town from. Seems like we might have misread her.”
Everything in me went still. The phrase echoed in my head: “Access improvements for future corridor expansion.” Simple words that would have changed everything about Cedar Hills. About my home.
“How long?” My voice came out rougher than I’d intended.
“How long what?” he asked.
“How long do you think she’s known about this... hidden agenda?”
Mark shrugged. “Didn’t say specifically. But Carol mentioned she’d been asking pointed questions about zoning regulations and future growth projections for weeks. So a while, I’d guess.” He gave me a curious look. “You don’t seem happy about this.”
I shook my head once, short and sharp.
My mind raced backward through every conversation, every moment when Lena had seemed distant, distracted. The night she’d pulled away during dinner. The long hours she’d spent alone at her table. The way she couldn’t quite meet my eyes after we’d slept together.
She had known. She had known and said nothing.
There was a part of me that knew that I should be thankful that she pushed back against the development. That maybe I shouldn’t still be so angry with her. It would be rational to be happy, relieved.
It was hard to be rational though.
I didn’t take intimacy lightly, never really had.
Knowing that she kept this from me broke a sense of trust that I wasn’t sure would ever be able to be rebuilt.
Not that she wanted that anyway.
She had made it crystal clear how she felt about me… about us.
“Well,” Mark said into my silence, “Seems like she did right by Cedar Hills in the end. That’s what matters, isn’t it?”
I nodded automatically, but something cold settled in my gut. Yes, she protected the town. But she kept me in the dark. Let me believe this was just about road safety when it was about the future of my home.
Mark left after extracting a promise that I’d join him for a beer later. I turned back to the bike, trying to focus on the mechanical simplicity of metal and tools and problems that could be solved by hand. But my mind kept circling back to the same question.
Why didn’t she tell me?
The door squeaked again an hour later. Mrs. Kline stepped inside, bringing with her the scent of bread and a determined expression.
“Ethan Talbot,” she said, setting a small package on the counter. “Your lunch, since I doubt you’ve bothered to eat.”
I tried to smile. “Thanks, Mrs. Kline.”
She waved away my gratitude. “Least I could do after that consultant of yours saved our town.”
My stomach tightened. “My consultant?”
“Well, whatever she is to you,” Mrs. Kline said with the straightforwardness of someone who’d earned the right to speak plainly. “That girl stood up to a lot of pressure from her fancy firm to do right by us. Might have cost her job from the sounds of it.”
I unwrapped the sandwich slowly, not trusting myself to speak.
“Had to know what she was risking,” Mrs. Kline continued. “Those corporate types don’t take kindly to people choosing small towns over profit margins.” She adjusted her glasses, studying me. “You should be proud of her, even if she’s not sticking around.”
The sandwich sat untouched on the counter. “I am proud,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. Not quite, at least.
Just not the whole truth. Like everything seemed to be lately.
After Mrs. Kline left, I tried to lose myself in work again.
But the interruptions continued throughout the afternoon.
The postmaster stopped by to ask if I’d heard about “that development scheme” Lena had uncovered.
A couple of regulars from Marianne’s café dropped off a part with commentary about how “that consultant really showed her true colors” by protecting the town.
Each conversation was like a stone added to a growing pile. By mid-afternoon, I felt buried under the weight of what Lena knew and chose not to share.
When Carol appeared in my doorway around four, I wasn’t surprised. She was carrying a folder and wearing the expression she got when she was bridging her personal and professional roles.
“Thought you might want to see this,” she said, handing me the folder. “Public record now that it’s been filed. The recommendation summary.”
I took it but didn’t open it. “Thanks.”
Carol watched me for a moment. “She did good work, Ethan. Thorough. Professional.” She paused. “I was nervous there for a bit honestly, especially seeing her with that clause. Her boss was already calling her as I was headed out. I’ve got a feeling it wasn’t to pat her on the back.”
One more confirmation that Lena had known for some time.
“You know,” Carol continued, her voice careful. “People stuck between a rock and a hard place? Sometimes they struggle to find the best way to do the right thing. Make mistakes along the way, cause a little chaos.”
“And?” I said, setting the folder down.
“And I can’t imagine that it was easy for her to navigate her way through all of this. Can’t imagine that caring about Cedar Hills, caring about you, was in her plans. Can’t blame her for not being able to handle it perfectly. Wouldn’t be right.”
My eyes shifted over to Carol. “I don’t blame her for struggling with the decision. But I won’t look past the fact that she kept it hidden from us.” From me.
After she left, I sat at my workbench surrounded by the tools and parts that made sense to me.
Things I could fix, adjust, improve. The clarity of mechanical problems had always been my refuge.
But this, this tangle of professional and personal, of secrets kept that still felt like betrayal, there was no wrench or screwdriver that could tighten what had come loose between us.
The shop felt suddenly too small, too confined. I stood and grabbed my keys, needing air that didn’t carry the lingering scent of Lena’s perfume or the weight of conversations we never had.
I locked up, but my feet didn’t carry me upstairs. It only took me a few moments to realize that confined or not, I couldn’t rest.
Not yet. Not until I figured out why protecting the town I loved felt hollow at the heels of Lena’s betrayal.
So I did the only thing I knew how to do when the world fell into turmoil, I went back in, put my head down, and I worked.
The light outside my shop windows had gone soft and golden by the time I heard her car pull into the alley.
I recognized the engine’s particular rhythm, the way it idled for exactly three seconds before she cut it off.
The sound of her car door closing echoed between the buildings. One door, not two. She was alone.
I set down the wrench I’d been holding for the past twenty minutes without actually using it and waited. My hands were steady but my chest felt tight, like something was pressing against my ribs from the inside.
Her footsteps paused outside the door. Perhaps she was deciding whether to come in or head straight upstairs. The hinges squeaked as she pushed the door open. Decision made.
She stepped inside, silhouetted against the evening light. Her hair was pulled back, her professional clothes still perfect after what must have been an exhausting day. She was carrying a thin leather portfolio, the kind she brought to official meetings.
“Hi,” she said, voice careful like she was testing ice.