Free Aftershocks by Nancy Warren

emergency council meeting for tonight?”
    “Tonight?” she asked. After stonewalling Patrick’s efforts to increase the emergency team’s budget, council might be more receptive after this latest disaster. But calling a meeting the day after was almost unheard of.
    “It’s important.”
    “Yes. Of course,” she said. “Seven o’clock?”
    He rubbed his jaw. “Make it eight. I’ve barely seen my kids in the last week.”
    She nodded, hearing the bleakness in his voice and doing her best to offer comfort. “At least you let them call you at work when they need you. A lot of fathers wouldn’t do that.”
    He made a sound of irritation in his throat. “A lot of fathers would see their kids more than an hour a day, too. If it weren’t for our housekeeper, I don’t know what I’d do.”
    “Isn’t there anyone else who could help out? Family?”
    “My family do their best, but they’re all busy, too. My wife’s parents retired to Florida. We see them a couple of times a year, but they’re not close enough to be much help.” He forced a smile. “We do okay. Once things settle down around Courage Bay, my job will be a lot easier.”
    With a soundless sigh, she went back to her own desk, picked up her phone and started calling the councilors. Because he was on her mind, she called her uncle, Cecil Thomson, first.
    When his secretary at the bank answered, she was put right through. “Yes, Briana,” her uncle replied. “What can I do for you?”
    “The mayor has called an emergency council meeting tonight at 8:00 p.m.”
    “I see. What’s this all about?”
    Briana knew her uncle’s secretary must be in the room, or he would have grilled her further. “I’ll be faxing out an agenda later this afternoon.”
    “Well…” She knew her uncle wanted to refuse, notonly because he hated the mayor but because he’d have phoned Aunt Irene immediately to let her know Briana was coming for dinner.
    “I’m sorry to hear that. I had dinner plans, but I guess I’ll have to cancel them…?”
    “I think that would be best,” she agreed, knowing she’d be busy putting together info packets and preparing for the council meeting. She’d be lucky to get dinner at all.
    Briana was on the phone with Councilor Gwendolyn Clark a short time later, when Patrick strode out of the office, pulling on his jacket as he went. He waved goodbye, and she raised her hand back at him, then watched hungrily as he left, trying not to remember what that tall, athletic body had felt like last night.
    Please, let him be innocent so I can love him. The direction of her thoughts almost caused her to fall out of her office chair. Love? What was wrong with her? Patrick was a nice man and a wonderful lover. But who said anything about love?
     
    P ATRICK WALKED down the main stairs at city hall deep in thought. He’d gone over the city budget again this morning. He bet he knew that complex document as well as the city treasurer did. There was money available. Courage Bay wasn’t bankrupt. They had a couple of million in secured savings. There was no specific purpose for the money; it existed so that Courage Bay would never go bankrupt, and to cover any extraordinary expenses.
    Well, if bumping up the emergency forces after theyear they’d had wasn’t an extraordinary need, Patrick didn’t know what was. The money was set up as a trust, designed to be pilfer-proof and wisely spent. A one hundred percent yes vote by council was required before any expenditure could be approved. In order to draw more than half a million dollars from the fund in any one year, a city plebiscite was required, a referendum whereby the citizens of Courage Bay could decide how they wanted their money spent.
    He intended to try one more time at tonight’s meeting to get the full vote of council to free up some of those funds for the emergency teams.
    The noise of a power drill reminded him that the elevator repairs were under way. He headed over for a second