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“But we don’t want those things to come here. We like our boring little town the way it is.”
Resistant to change, he realized. She probably wasn’t the only one. His heart sank. Kendra would be up against some powerful forces, and those wouldn’t go away even if she got the job. Did she know what she was taking on?
“If Kendra commits to a contract, she’d never walk away.”
“You sound very confident in her.”
“I am. I’ve known her a long time.”
“Well, I’ll take that under advisement. Now why don’t you show me what your girl can do.”
“She’s not my girl. Kendra is her own woman.”
“Everyone’s so independent these days,” Betty grumbled. Jason wondered if he should have fed her some cotton candy to get her blood sugar up before dragging her to the pier.
He led Betty to a spot on the terrace with a view of the pier and the white canopy tent adorned with fairy lights. “Notice the tent? Kendra thinks ahead and plans for all possible problems. She knows there’s always a chance of rain around here.”
“My goodness, you really are a fan, aren’t you?”
A swing band was playing a fast-paced song, and a few couples were dancing along the length of the pier. Others milled around on the terrace and the back lawn; there were even a few people listening from their boats. The strings of fairy lights scattered sparkles across the surface of the lake. The atmosphere was pure magic.
He felt his feet move automatically to the music. That was what happened when you grew up in a dance studio. When he noticed that Betty was tapping one ballet-slippered foot, he offered her his hand. Just like the old days in his parents’ studio, he swung her in a gentle two step.
As they danced, he scanned the crowd for Kendra, but didn’t see her. Maybe she was inside somewhere, getting the next band ready for their slot.
Nope—there she was. He finally spotted her close to the stage, in the company of a tall blond stranger in a business suit, of all things. The guy looked absolutely wasted. He was swaying to the music, completely missing the beats. He kept sipping from a large clear plastic cup.
And Kendra….well, she kept filling it up from a flask stashed in her back pocket.
He squinted at them in confusion. Since when did Kendra push alcohol on people? That wasn’t her way. She was usually the one cutting customers off as soon as they showed any hint of being impaired.
Was she deliberately trying to get this guy drunk? It seemed so, but he couldn’t imagine why.
Sure enough, as he watched, Kendra added another splash of liquor to the stranger’s cup. Was it someone she was dating? Hadn’t she told him that things had ended with her ex, and that she was still recovering?
The stranger was getting sloppier. The way he danced looks more like a full-body spasm. Every step he took brought him closer to the edge of the pier. Even though it had a railing, people had been known to go over the edge and end up in the lake.
“What are you looking at?” Betty asked. He realized he’d come to a standstill. “Oh my, is that Kendra?” She dug in her quilted cross-body bag for her glasses, and peered through them at Kendra and the stranger. “What are they doing?”
The stranger’s foot hit the edge of the pier. He windmilled his arms to catch his balance, but he was too drunk to manage it. His hip hit the railing. Good, at least he wasn’t going overboard.
“Look at that, Kendra’s got it under control,” he said. “Of course she does. That’s Kendra for you.”
“Noooo…” said Betty, squinting to see better. “She’s…oh dear, I don’t think she’s helping.”
Jason saw it too. As she pretended to applaud the band, she took a step backwards, then deliberately jammed an elbow into the stranger’s ribs and boom, his butt hit the railing and he toppled over it, plunging head over heels into the cold lake water.
He surfaced right away, coughing and shouting. Swearing, mostly. Dammit, Jason knew he should go help him. He was on shift and it was his job. But that lake water still hadn’t heated up to its peak-of-summer temperature.
Nothing to it but to do it. He heaved a sigh. “I’ll be right back,” he told Betty.
“Did you see that?” As he moved to go, Betty grabbed at his arm. “Kendra pushed him off the pier! That doesn’t seem very professional to me.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way…”
“I know what I saw. She shoved him off with her elbow. It was a hit job.”
“A hit job? Shit, I gotta go.”
