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She shook her head. “It must be really hard being you.”
He set his cup down. “Sometimes, yes. But it seems it’s harder on the people around me than it is on me. To me, it’s normal.”
“I suppose it is. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
“It was a fair question.” He leaned forward, set his mug down, and picked up the photographs. “I developed a couple more of your rolls of film.” He looked at her. “Not bad.”
“Thank you.”
He flipped through the photos and handed some to her. “These are all quite good.”
She looked at them. “Good enough to use in the paper?”
He smiled. “I don’t know yet. I won’t know until we get them all done. We still have two more days of photos to take. But I’d say there’s a pretty good chance you might get at least one of those published.”
“That’s exciting.”
“Just keep up the good work. I want you to cover the Farmer’s Market this morning. I need to meet Duncan for breakfast.”
“Okay.”
“I can go to the horse auction. You can skip that if you want. The ice cream social usually starts before the auction is over. So, if you can go to that, we can meet at the battle of the bands tonight.”
“Sounds great. Thank you. I know it’s not easy for you to give up control.”
“You’ve earned my trust, Sydney. God knows you’ve put up with me long enough.”
She tried not to show how surprised she was by his words. “That means a lot to me. I hope I don’t let you down.”
He straightened the stack of pictures. “If I thought you’d let me down, I wouldn’t give you the responsibility.” He got to his feet. “I’ll be at the tavern if you need me.”
Duncan leaned across the table and spoke in a hushed tone. “I have some information that needs to stay between me and you for the time being.” They had just given their orders to Becca.
“Okay.” He took a sip from his second cup of coffee that morning. He was feeling the effects of very little sleep. His couch was comfortable enough, but he hadn’t gone to bed until almost two.
“Mayor Bessler is going to be leaving office.”
“At the end of his term?”
“No. In a few months.”
Gage raised his eyebrows and set down his cup. “Why?”
“He has a family issue. Something with his daughter in Portland.”
“He’s leaving town?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” That was surprising news. Even more surprising that no one else knew. “How do you know this?”
“He called me and one other city council member into his office yesterday morning. He wants one of the two of us to run in the special election.”
“You were planning on running in November, right? The special election should be an easy win.”
“Things have changed. I can’t take that on.”
Gage leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Why not? What’s going on?”
