THE CONSTRUCTION SITE was bustling when I arrived. A couple weeks ago, the crews had been pouring the concrete foundation, but now the structure was up, and men and women in hardhats and steel-toed boots moved through the doorways with tools and drawings in hand. In three months, this site would open as the new Queen’s Cove community center.
“Hey, Emmett,” Sandra, one of our civil engineers, said as she passed. “Holden’s in the atrium.”
“Thanks, Sandra. How about that game last night?” I grinned at her. Her beloved hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, had lost to the Vancouver Canucks in overtime the night before.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied, making a mock sad face.
I laughed and waved goodbye before heading inside. As I passed through the site, I made note of the job progress. I spotted Holden and waved to get his attention before gesturing for him to follow me outside where it was quieter.
My brother Holden ran the construction side, and I was the business guy. Whereas he was on construction sites, managing the crews and working with contractors, I was in the office, taking care of the financials. Occasionally, our tasks would overlap, like when we needed to quote a big job, or when we met with potential clients. Holden wasn’t a personable guy. Out of the four Rhodes boys, he was the grouchiest. Wyatt and Finn were almost as personable at me. Almost. I was the charming one. I always had been. I liked people, liked talking to them and fixing problems and making people happy. Wyatt owned a surf shop and was training to go pro as a surfer and Finn was a firefighter, often spending summers around the province fighting wildfires.
Holden and I had made a name for ourselves in this town with Rhodes Construction. People were skeptical when I returned from university with an MBA and a degree in environmental science and convinced Holden to start a company with me. Two brothers, twenty-three and twenty-two, start a construction company with no clients? Good luck. But Holden had worked in construction for four years and saw how disorganized and low-quality our competitors were. I saw how climate change was affecting our planet and knew we had an opportunity to offer customers solutions that would save them energy and money. Rhodes Construction was born, and we haven’t looked back since. The first years weren’t easy, but we turned those skeptics around.
He had sent me a text this morning with two words: Call me. My brother was a man of few words, so I wasn’t concerned, and the job site was on my way to our office so stopping by was convenient. Also, I liked to walk our job sites, say hello to the crews, and show my face. Our business had grown from the two of us, but I didn’t want to be one of those guys who hid in the office while everyone did the work for them. That wasn’t leadership. Leadership was showing your face, knowing your employees, and knowing the ins and outs of your business.
“Everything okay?” I asked as we pulled the earplugs out of our ears.
He shrugged. “SparkPro didn’t show up this morning, and they aren’t answering calls.” SparkPro was an electrical contractor we used when our electricians were tied up with other projects.
I frowned. “Cal confirmed the crew would be here today.” I slipped my phone out of my pocket and scanned through emails until I found the one I was searching for. “Tuesday morning, seven on the dot. Six electricians.”
Holden put his hands up and shrugged, as if to say I don’t know what to tell you. “I need to start wiring today or the crew will need to work overtime to stay on schedule.”
“I’ll call them.” This had happened before. I had an idea of what was going on but didn’t want to say anything until I called Cal.
“If they don’t show up, I need to call someone else.”
“Don’t call someone else. I’ll call them right now and fix it.”
I scrolled through my contacts until I found Cal.
“SparkPro,” the older guy rasped. He had been a long-time smoker, and his voice was like phlegmy gravel.
“Cal, it’s Emmett.”
He grunted his hello. Cal wasn’t a small talk guy, so I cut straight to it.
“We expected your electricians this morning at seven,” I said in a concerned tone. “Did something happen? Or maybe I missed an email from you.”
In my years of working with hundreds of clients, crews, and personalities, I had learned one thing: assume innocence. I had a sneaking suspicion another client had thrown money at Cal to get the electricians to their site, and Cal had conveniently forgotten to tell me. But electricians were scarce in our small town, and we needed Cal’s people to help keep our job on track.
“They got held up.”
“Hmm.” I moved out of the way as some of our crew moved beams into the community center. “Well, the thing is, Cal, we need to start wiring today or we’ll have to delay everything else. We gave you our word we’d use you as our electrical contractor, and I want to stick to that. Your people do quality work. I don’t know the other contractors, and I don’t like to use people I don’t know.”
I let that sit for a moment. I was about to ask Cal what I could do to make this work, but he grunted another acknowledgment.
“They’ll be there within an hour,” he promised.
“You’re a good guy, Cal.” We said our goodbyes before hanging up.
I found Holden reviewing drawings with the architects. “SparkPro will be here in an hour. Call me if they aren’t here by noon.”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” I clapped him on the shoulder, pride pinging in my chest. I loved fixing problems like that. I loved it when I could smooth something over and make everyone happy.
Holden turned to me. “I forgot to ask, everything go okay with Will this morning?”
My good mood popped like a balloon, and my mouth pressed into a firm line as I nodded. “Yep.”
Will was my best friend. We had grown up next door to each other here in Queen’s Cove. This morning, Will, his wife, and their four-year-old daughter, Kara, moved to Victoria, a city three hours away. My chest wrenched every time I thought about it. It wasn’t right.
“Do he and Nat need any help with their place?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got it covered. Renters are moving in tomorrow.”
He nodded, thinking. “Sucks.”
“Yep. See you later.”
I made my way back to the office, walking instead of driving since it was only a few blocks and I enjoyed seeing the town this way. I pushed thoughts about Will and his family out of my head as I neared the main street and ran into several people I knew. I said hello to the bookstore owner, chatted with a teacher from the high school, and stopped to say hi to Keiko, the owner of a local restaurant.
“Everything okay with the power outage last night?” I asked her. “I always worry when the power comes back on the surge will damage something in the kitchen. You should let my crew take a look in there to make sure everything’s okay.”
Way back in the sixties, Queen’s Cove housed a population of about five thousand people. With the extra load on our electrical grid from the tourists in the summer, and the tall trees falling onto power lines during big winter storms, the town seemed to be enduring more power outages, more often. And sometimes, for a day at a time.
Keiko waved a hand. “Oh, yes. Avery always has it handled.”
Right. Avery Adams. The corner of my mouth tugged up when I thought about how irritated she was when I asked if she needed help.
Avery Adams was a curious one. Early thirties, shoulder-length auburn hair in a cute, choppy cut, and bright blue eyes the color of the pen I wrote with. Great body. Gorgeous smile, although she never shined it at me, only other customers and staff. She was cute—super cute—and she couldn’t stand me, which only made me want to talk to her more.
I think it was that women didn’t usually find me irritating. They found me funny, charming, helpful, interesting, handsome…
But never irritating.
I wasn’t sure what my end game was, annoying her like I did. It wasn’t like I wanted a relationship. I wasn’t like Will. Will had always been that family kind of guy, even when we were kids. Me? Not so much. I had my business, I had my friends, and I had my brothers and parents. Relationships got complicated.
Now, if Avery could do a casual kind of thing, then we’d be in business.
“Emmett?” Keiko asked, and I got the impression I had spaced out while she was talking. “How is Kara doing?”
“Who?”
“Kara. How is she doing with the move?”
My heart sunk again, and I thought about Kara growing up in Victoria, away from her grandparents and all the people who helped Will and Nat with raising her. Queen’s Cove was the village committed to raising Kara, just as it was for everyone who had grown up here.
“She seemed okay,” I told Keiko, thinking about Will driving away this morning with Nat in the passenger seat and Kara waving at me from the backseat. “The power outage last night just reinforced their decision to go.”
I remembered the day Will told me Kara was sick. It was renal failure, and the doctors were putting her on dialysis until they could find a donor. That was a bad night. I sat with Will at his kitchen table while he found solace in the bottom of the bottle, a rare indulgence for him. It wasn’t fair, but there wasn’t a single thing we could do.
I thought they were managing okay with dialysis. It wasn’t ideal, but they were managing. Then Nat let it slip that the power outages added another layer of stress to their already upside-down life. Will had bought his parents’ house and the wiring was old. They’d installed a generator, but a surge damaged it. They couldn’t win, and finally, they gave in.
My chest wrenched with frustration. I hated that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about this.
I had spent years building a successful construction company with my brother. We had started with nothing. I’d done well for myself. I was in my mid-thirties, I had a nice car and a beautiful, custom-built home. I had more money than I needed, but I was powerless against this, and I couldn’t do a thing to help them.
Keiko sensed my mood and patted my arm. “It’s going to be okay.”
I nodded at her, but I wasn’t sure about that. “Thanks. I’ve got to run. See you later, Keiko.”
I made my way to the office down the street, thinking about the power outages the whole time. They affected the entire town, not just Will and Kara. Every business had to either close or come up with a solution. Every resident had to have their flashlights ready every time a tree swayed. It had been like this for as long as I could remember.
I approached town hall and frowned to myself. The power outages never came up in town hall meetings. No one seemed as frustrated with the outages as I was. Everyone just accepted that this was part of living in Queen’s Cove and we couldn’t change it.
One person could change it, though.
“Is Isaac available?” I asked the receptionist inside town hall, a young woman smacking her gum and staring at her phone.
She shrugged. “Probably. Go on in.”
“Thanks.” I flashed her a grateful smile before heading into the office behind her.
Isaac Anderson, mayor of Queen’s Cove for a decade, sat at his desk, reading the local paper. He glanced up with surprise when I entered.
He was in his early forties, always pleasant to everyone, but something about him irked me. His wife never spoke, she just smiled at his side. He was always too perfectly groomed—not a single hair out of place. His kids were so well behaved that they seemed like robots. And for the last decade, nothing in our town seemed to change.
“Emmett.” He blinked. “Did we have a meeting?”
I shook my head. “Nope, just thought I’d stop by to chat.”
Isaac blinked again and put the paper down, leaning over to read his calendar. “Sure, but I think I have a meeting soon—”
“This won’t take long.” I took a seat across from him. “Let’s talk about the power outages.”
His eyebrows went up. “Okay. What about them?”
“What is the city doing to fix them?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Emmett, as you know, our grid is from the sixties. It just isn’t designed for how many people live here.”
I gestured at him to go on. “And?”
“And that means we’re out of luck.” He shrugged. “What can we do?”
I frowned. “Cities expand all the time. I’m not an electrical engineer, but can’t we upgrade the power grid?”
He gave me a sympathetic look. “That would be costly. There’s just nothing we can do.”
I frowned deeper. His first sentence proved his second sentence wrong. I watched as he sat back in his chair, his expression resolved.
“People are moving away from town,” I told him. “The town spent money on a new tourist center two years ago, but we can’t spend money on the residents themselves?”
Isaac shrugged again and shook his head. “What can I say, Emmett? My hands are tied. Just consider it part of our small-town charm.”
It was like he didn’t want to fix it. My chest was tight with irritation. The role of the mayor was to take care of the town and work hard for the people who lived here. Isaac didn’t seem like he cared about the town or the people. I swallowed and stood.
“Thanks for your time.” My voice sounded curt.
I spent the rest of the morning in my office with the door closed, catching up on paperwork, emails, and client calls. I kept my head down and worked to keep my mind off Will and Isaac and the power outages.
“HEY, DIV,” I called out my open office door later that afternoon.
He appeared at my office door, phone poised and ready to go. “Yes?”
Div, short for Divyanshu, was in his mid-twenties and wore a full suit every day. I’d made it clear he didn’t have to dress up for work, but the guy insisted. Div was a good assistant—punctual, memory like a steel trap, tech-savvy, and often knew my schedule without consulting my calendar. He could wear whatever he wanted, as far as I was concerned.
“Did Holden submit his invoices yet?” I asked him.
Div pointed to a corner of my tidy desk. “Right there.”
“Ah. Thanks.” I scooped up the papers and shuffled through them until I found the one I was searching for.
“I’m ordering lunch.”
“Nothing for me, thanks. Hey, can you send Cal at SparkPro a bottle of the whiskey he likes?” We still had six months left on the community center project. Staying on Cal’s good side would prevent misunderstandings like this morning.
On the bottom of the pile of Holden’s invoices sat a business magazine I had done an interview with a couple months ago. I cringed at my image on the cover, leaning against the railing of one of our custom-built homes. Holden never wanted to be involved with this kind of thing, so I took care of it. I didn’t want to be involved either, but it helped our reputation and our business. We had employees to keep busy and mouths to feed.
“Your mom wanted ten copies,” Div told me. He didn’t dare laugh but his eyes gleamed.
I rolled my eyes with a snort and tossed the magazine in the recycling as Div left to answer the phone.
My email pinged with a newsletter from the town journalist. He retired a few years ago but ran a blog with town events.
One of the articles mentioned Will and his family. My gaze snagged on a picture of Kara, holding a stuffed toy I had bought her. A panda. I grinned. She looked so damn cute, missing that front tooth. My chest tightened as I realized this was my relationship with Will and his family for the foreseeable future—photos, texts, emails, and FaceTime.
It wasn’t right, Kara growing up in the city three hours away. Both Will and Nat’s parents lived here, all her friends at school were here, and my heart broke every time I thought about her not having the carefree, small-town childhood Will and I had.
I thought about Nat and my chest panged for her. Kara was her world, and she was trying so hard to create a great life for her. Although she hadn’t spoken to me about this, I knew moving was hard on her. She didn’t want to leave either, but it was the right choice for their family.
I had to fix this.
I kept skimming the newsletter, and something caught my eye.
Mayoral election scheduled for July 2.
I frowned, trying to remember the last election we had, but came up with nothing.
“Hey, Div,” I shouted out the door.
“What?” he called back, appearing at the door moments later.
“When was the last mayoral election?”
“About four years ago.” He shrugged. “This town has a low voter turnout.”
“Why?”
“Isaac doesn’t campaign because no one ever runs against him.”
An idea struck me. Money poured into the town in the summers—it was a hot tourist destination with world-class accommodations, dining, and the most beautiful, scenic nature in the world. Businesses couldn’t keep up with the crowds in the summer. Residents and businesses alike paid millions in taxes to the city every year and yet the town hadn’t done anything about the power outages.
If Isaac Anderson continued on as mayor, nothing would ever change. The old, outdated electrical grid would continue to endure power outages and Will and his family would never return to town.
I was on to something. I grinned at Div.
He frowned with concern. “What? What is it now?”
“I have a great idea.”
His nostrils flared. “Emmett, whatever it is, I’m going to caution you to think about it for a moment. You can sometimes be a little impulsive—”
“I’m going to run for mayor.”
His head fell to his chest. “There it is.”
I nodded, mind racing with ideas. “Yep. This feels right. I’m going to run for mayor. Call the printers, call the graphic designer, and let’s get some campaign swag going. Oh, and I guess we should tell town hall.”
Div gave me a long look before he sighed. “I’m on it.”
“Thanks, Div,” I called after him as he returned to his desk.
Suddenly, this day didn’t feel so awful. So Will left town, sure, that was a bad start, but I had a plan. I was going to fix this.
