Barbecue and Bad News (23 page)

Why had he said that last night? He had tried to be funny, since she was dodging his every move. Now it just sounded silly. “Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Was she going to say no? “You already said yes to coming.”

“So I did. You fixing me dinner before?”

“How about we cook together?”

She peeled a small piece of the cinnamon roll back and popped it into her mouth. “You remembered.”

“It was just last night.” He picked up the other fork, stabbed the cinnamon roll right in the middle, and dug out the softest, gooiest part.

“True.” She watched him put that big hunk of soft pastry in his mouth. “And no fair. You just took the best part.”

“You ain’t seen the best part yet, Savannah Dey.”

“Don’t go around bragging unless you can deliver, mister.”

Oh, I can deliver.
He wasn’t sure they were still talking about dinner, and he kind of liked that.

She continued, “You grill those world-famous steaks you keep talking about. I’ll get the rest of the stuff together to bring tomorrow.”

“Yours will be well done—hot all the way through. Promise.” He leaned in closer, rather enjoying the flirting.

The bells on the door sounded and Connor walked into the bakery. “Hey, Scott. Deputy Taylor said you were down here. Hey, Savannah.”

“Good morning,” she said, straightening back, having not even realized just how physically close to Scott she’d gotten during that flirty war. Things were moving too fast. She had a job to do, and she was getting way too close to Scott. She’d never be able to write those stories Evelyn wanted about the Goto Hell murders and Scott from an unbiased position, but that was her ticket off the Advice from Van column. But she hadn’t felt like this . . . Well, she’d never felt like this.

“Everything going okay in the apartment?”

“Fine. Yep. Perfect.”

“Good.” Connor cuffed Scott on the shoulder. “That strictly enforced speed limit of yours is stirring up trouble for us again.”

Scott leaned back in his chair. “It keeps people safe. Fatalities on this stretch of road have been reduced by thirty-two percent since I put that policy in place. It’s a good thing.”

Savannah piped up. “Do you really know that, or are you just making that number up?”

Connor laughed. “Oh, he knows. He has a freaking chart with the data. He hasn’t showed you his chart? He’s a little nerdy like that.”

Savannah made a mental note of the statistic. She could probably use that in one of the articles. “Nerdy. Well, there’s just a whole lot more to you every time I turn around.”

Connor nudged her arm. “Stick around. I’ve got stories that I know he doesn’t want you to hear.”

“All right, you two. That’s enough ganging up on me today. What’s going on, Connor?”

“You and I know and appreciate that your stance on speeding has been a good thing, but Adams Grove hit some online paper this morning. Heck, people are even joking about it on Twitter. You’re trending.”

“I don’t think that’s a good thing, is it?”

Connor shook his head. “Not in this case. The story has taken on a life of its own.”

“It’ll pass. That online stuff is fleeting. People will forget about it as soon as someone posts a video about a surfing goat or something.”

“It wasn’t just a post, Scott. It was on
GetItNowNews.com
. And they even threw a few darts directly at you, the sheriff of Adams Grove.”

Savannah choked.

“You okay?” Scott turned to her in concern.

She raised a hand and nodded.

Scott patted her on the back. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Sure,” she eked out.

Connor slid a chair from the next table over. “Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Scott answered.

“Reynolds called me about it this morning wanting to know if there was anything the town could do legally to make them retract it.”

“Reynolds? Why’s he even worried about it?” Scott put his fork down and leaned back in the chair with his arms folded across his chest.

“Who’s Reynolds?” Savannah asked.

“The guy running against me for sheriff this fall,” Scott said. “He’s probably the reason everyone around here is spun up. He’s the one fanning the fire. He probably wrote the damn thing. Have you read the article, Connor?”

“I read it.”

“And?”

“It was less than glowing, but there wasn’t anything slanderous in it. Mostly generalizations. Definitely not flattering, but . . .”

“Let it go. I don’t care about that stuff.” Scott’s phone rang. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to take this.”

Savannah said, “No problem. I really have to run. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Savannah couldn’t get out of Mac’s quick enough. She raced back to the apartment and slammed the door behind her. Not because of the frustration she felt, but because she couldn’t get inside quick enough. She hadn’t even heard half of what Scott and Connor had said once Connor had mentioned GINN. Her whole mind had just shut down.

Man, if that article had caused this much of a wake in Adams Grove, the one she’d originally written would have rocked them right out of the boat.

She clenched her teeth. Why hadn’t she owned up to it as soon as Connor mentioned the story on GetItNowNews.com? It was only a matter of time before someone connected the dots. It wasn’t like Savannah Dey was that common a name. Even though she’d only met a small number of the folks in town, there was no way she’d escape this without someone finding out.

Connor probably already knew. He’d said he’d read the article, but she’d been too afraid to make eye contact with him to see if there was any indication that he’d made the connection between her and the byline. She’d just needed to bolt.

Now it was going to be really awkward.

They’d think she was hiding something.
Well, yeah! Because I am.
The room seemed to spin a little to the left. She sat down and took a deep breath.

Guilt weighed on her.

She hated that she was causing such a stir, although that was quite honestly what Evelyn was paying her to do. It had always seemed like so much fun in the past, but this time was different. This time she had gotten to know the people of the town. Now it seemed wrong. Hurtful. Maybe that’s why Evelyn had always preached about not getting to know the subjects of your article personally.

Savannah’s moral compass was spinning, and suddenly there were a lot of things that didn’t seem quite right. Her mood dipped. When she’d run into Scott this morning, she had been on top of the world; now she wished she could hide under it. She went into the bedroom and crawled underneath the covers.

Only she couldn’t sleep this problem away. She pulled the pillow over her head and squeezed her eyes tight, rereading the article in her head.

They were totally overreacting. Maybe this was just that Reynolds guy’s way of getting his foot in the door to steal some votes from Scott. He’d look like a hero, if he could get the rumors quieted. Lucky for him, he wasn’t the one who started them in the first place.

She climbed back out of bed and turned on her computer.

She went to the online GINN portal. With the tools they had for the staff, she could check the hits on any of her work the paper had published. Statistics showed the website hits by article, ISP, region, right down to the city in some cases. She’d be able to quickly tell just how many people around here had read that article, aside from the Northerner who was determined to take over as sheriff in this town.

Savannah’s mood lightened as she pictured some Jersey type and Scott Calvin counting off steps with jingling spurs for a gunfight. “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

Her money would be on Scott.

She entered her log-in information and mentally prepared herself for much lower numbers than she got on the Advice from Van column. After all, she’d built that following from the ground up and fostered it for two years. This wouldn’t have the oomph of the syndication numbers either. Savannah Dey was a brand-new platform. She’d be starting to pay dues all over again, but she could do that. If nothing else, that advice column had given her confidence and experience that could have taken years to get.

The current online issue stats populated on the screen. Out of habit, she drilled down to take a look at the Advice from Van
numbers first. They remained steady. That was good. She printed out the page so she could take a closer look later. The printer Connor had on the desk wasn’t fast, but it chugged the page slowly out.

It would be interesting to watch the stats as Andrew took over her column. Not that she wished him anything but success, but less success than she’d had would be okay. Once he started picking out the letters himself, there’d probably be a dip.

She took the printout from the paper tray and placed it on the corner of the desk. Then she typed her name in the search bar, but nothing popped up.

“Don’t tell me they misspelled my name on my first article.” She dropped the
h
from Savannah and tried again. Then spelled
Dey
with an
a
instead of an
e
. Still nothing.

She pulled up the list of all the articles that ran in the day’s paper. As she scrolled down through the titles, hers finally caught her eye.

She clicked on the hyperlink, but her article, “Nothing Speedy in a Small Town,” was in the Penny for Your Thoughts column.

“What the heck?”

The Penny for Your Thoughts column had been a staple of the paper for years, even before it went digital. No one got a byline for his work there. It was just kind of a hodgepodge of freelance stock articles from the staff reporters. She’d always considered it filler. Someone must have missed a deadline, or late-breaking news had bumped her, for Evelyn to have posted her story there.

She clicked on the stats and was delighted by the numbers. Not only had people clicked on it to read, but it was being shared all over the place on every social media outlet. Connor was right. This sucker was going viral, and there were a lot of hits from this region of Virginia. They must have posted a good stock photo with the story for it to take off like that. There were lots of shares of the image link too.

The image wasn’t a stock photo. Instead it was cartoon of a redneck-looking deputy hanging out the window of his cruiser, pointing a blow-dryer toward the oncoming traffic, with the caption “Unable to afford radar, the county keeps drivers in line with a blow-dryer.” She laughed out loud. That pretty well summed up how she felt about being stopped that day. No wonder the story was going viral.

She opened the link to the article, and that cinnamon roll from this morning nearly rolled right up her throat.

It wasn’t the rewritten story at all.

“Evelyn? How could you . . . ?” She read through it. Start to finish. Word for word. The article in today’s paper was the one she’d originally submitted. “Holy shit.” She looked to heaven. “Sorry, Momma.” Her momma never was one to hear a lady cuss, and it was one rule she’d always remembered—except at moments like this.

Oh yeah, she’d just given Reynolds something better than a hefty campaign donation. She’d given him ammo. She pulled her fist to her mouth. How could she have been so careless? Scott would never forgive her.

She clicked the print icon and watched every ugly word chug out on that little printer.

She dialed Evelyn, but her phone went straight to voicemail. Rather than leave a message, she texted her, while still holding the copy of the article in her shaking hand.

Savannah:
Why are you avoiding me? I told you not to run that story.

Nothing.

Savannah:
The replacement story was in on time. You said you got it. Was this a mistake?

Nothing.

It was no mistake. Evelyn never missed a step. She poured through every detail of every single thing that went on with GINN, and if there had been a mistake, she’d have been on the phone immediately to explain.

Well, the only saving grace was that she didn’t get the byline. At least no one could tie the story to her.

Her gut didn’t feel any better knowing that, though. It churned and gurgled. She felt like she’d contracted the flu, but she knew it was what she deserved for that snarky, self-serving story. She’d been mad and she’d taken out her anger in public without giving Scott a chance to tell his side of the story. Not a fair fight.