Worth the Risk(4)

“I was too young to stomp on these grounds. It’s more like sleepy suburbia where teenagers go crazy and can’t wait to leave.”

She grunts. Her displeasure for anything that isn’t the hustle and bustle of the city mimics mine. And, yet, the town’s different from what I remember while still somehow the exact same. Hot air balloons float high in the sky, the view from their baskets affording the influx of tourists here for the harvest a visual of the mesmerizing rows of grapevines that pattern the hills around us. They look majestic but, years ago I thought they were annoying. Main Street is longer now, with boutique upon boutique of kitschy items ripe to attract tourists’ wallets. I used to look at the street and see prison walls confining me, but this time around there is a quaintness to it all. An attractiveness that pulls out-of-towners here for weekend getaways or for wine tasting tours.

“Yeah, well, you left and now you’re back.”

“Not by choice . . . but what my dad wants, my dad gets.”

“And what he wants is for you to prove you can save this magazine.”

“Exactly,” I say because she makes it seem as if that’s an easy feat when I know it’s far from it.

“Well, I think you’re onto something with this contest idea.”

“Who knew dads were such a hot topic?”

“If a man is hot, he’s hot. And sometimes being a dad makes him even sexier.”

“Uh—yeah, right.” I roll my eyes. “It was your comment about how hot you think a bare-chested man holding a newborn baby looks that gave me the idea.”

“Mm-mmm. Muscles and sweetness. You can’t beat that.”

“You need help.” I laugh.

“Maybe I do, but you have to admit that there’s definitely something sexy about a man who knows how to take care of a child.”

“Whatever you say.” Not on my radar. Too much baggage. Too much foreign territory.

“I swear to God there’s something wrong with you. Either that or you haven’t found a dad hot enough to make you see the error of your ways.”

“I’ll own that there’s something wrong with me,” I murmur as I approach an intersection and follow instructions as my GPS tells me to take a right, “so long as this contest is a success.”

“From what you said, so far it is. Question is whether your editor is still being a hard-ass or not?”

Rissa Patel. I shake my head at the very thought of her. “She’s a tough one to figure out.”

“Just charm her like you do everyone else.”

“She has a serious bullshit meter. Charm isn’t something I can use to slide by her.”

“Well, your dad did say they thought you were there to spy on them and report back about how everything is running there.”

“The funny thing is I feel like it’s the opposite. That Rissa is the one doing the reporting to my father.”

“I doubt it.”

“With my father? You do know who we are talking about, don’t you? The control freak.”

“Then put your foot down and assert that you’re a Thorton. That you run the place.” Her laugh is laden with sarcasm. “That’ll get everyone gunning for you.”

“Ha. Funny. That’s exactly the problem. They all think I don’t know a thing and am there to shut them down.”

“That sucks.” And there’s something about the way she says it that eats at me. The privileged air of not having to care about where your next paycheck comes from, perhaps. But I fit in the same category, so I push the thought away just like I have tried to with the sneaking looks of annoyance the employees at Modern Family give me when they think I’m not paying attention.

“Tell me about it.” I know the turns of this town by heart, but I listen to the GPS anyway, noticing new buildings here and there. The elementary school I went to has a fresh coat of paint and new playground equipment. Daisy’s flower stand has expanded to take up the whole corner. Little bits of my past viewed through the eyes of someone who couldn’t wait to escape and has now come back.

“So, the best way to show them you know your shit is to make this contest successful. And by the looks of what you’ve pulled together in two months’ time, it seems that you do.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“So, what’s next with it? You just finished your second round of voting?”

“Yep.” A right at Lulu’s Diner. A left at the cinema that only has one screen. “We started with five hundred applicants, and I had interns narrow down that field to one hundred. With the second round of voting just ending, we have now narrowed the contestant field down to the top twenty.” And lucky for me, calling in a few favors allowed me to get the word out about the contest and the ball rolling faster than I expected.

Nothing is more motivating than getting to return to the city, my life, and the carrot my father dangled in front of my face.

“Oh, twenty delectable daddies to swoon over.”

“Let’s just hope everyone feels that way, because those hot dads just might be my saving grace.”

“More like your Haute ticket.”

“Very clever.”

She makes a noncommittal sound, which is punctuated by the clicking of keys on her keyboard in the background. “Who is it you’re headed to see right now?”