Page 79 of Summer on Lilac Island

“You’re the perfect mascot for Mackinac,” Gigi gushed to Noelle later that week.

She was brushing her out in the stables before a campaign rally later that afternoon. Willow was snacking on hay in the stall

next door. They liked grazing in the grassy pasture together, munching on dandelions, sneezing out the seeds.

Through bonding with her horse, Gigi also felt like she was bonding with her dad. She hadn’t fully psychoanalyzed that yet,

but she texted her dad a selfie of her and Noelle now.

Gus was three in a row for the newly instated Sunday calls with Gigi and Rebecca. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing. Taking

it week by week seemed to be working.

Gigi dropped kisses on the white star between Noelle’s eyes. “We’re going to be a power couple, you and me.”

Noelle nuzzled close, her huge, tickly tongue slobbering over Gigi’s face. We already are , Gigi felt Noelle saying. We already are.

“Should I be worried?” a voice asked. James was standing in the doorway, grinning with his hands stashed in his white doctor’s

coat. It was his lunch break. “I was under the impression that I was the other half to your power couple.”

“It’s stiff competition,” Gigi said. “Get in line.”

“I can fight,” James joked.

Gigi greeted him with a kiss. It was long and slow, the kind of thing that made her feel like she was floating on a raft on a hot sunny day.

During their initial kiss in this barn three weeks ago and again today, Gigi was aware not only of what she was thinking about

(taking that doctor’s coat off him, having privacy at his place) but also what she wasn’t.

She wasn’t thinking about any of the people she’d kissed before, except in a vague sense of wanting to thank all thirty-four

exes (Ronny had not been important enough to earn a spot on the list). They might not have been spectacular (and she could

admit she wasn’t perfect herself), but they had led her here, to this. Her thirty-fifth. And yet somehow, her first.

“I know you have a campaign rally to prep for,” James said, reluctantly breaking apart. “I don’t want to be a distraction.”

“Relationships aren’t distractions. They’re propellants.”

Gigi was reminded of playing dolls with Rebecca when they were younger. Her lively little sister used to invent happy endings

for their dolls, back before Gus’s absence sucked the optimism from her imagination.

This summer felt like getting that type of optimism back. For Gigi, for Rebecca, for Eloise. And maybe Alice too, who had

certainly seemed to enjoy her campaign stop at Liam Townsend’s house.

“Careful there,” James said, wearing an amused smile. “You sound dangerously close to a character in one of those corny rom-coms

you love to hate.”

“Kissing my family-approved boyfriend in a horse barn in my tiny Midwest hometown definitely fits the trope,” Gigi said. “But

the heroines in those movies don’t run for political office. They work at bakeries or Christmas tree farms.”

“And they fall for lame guys who make them give up their big dreams to raise six kids on said farm,” James said. “You, on

the other hand, chose a guy who finds your ambition and unpredictability sexy as hell.”

“Is that so?” Gigi said, feeling triumphant.

She’d never been called ambitious before, though she’d always felt it, in an unconventional sort of way.

She had never before had a guy embrace all of her, though that could have been because she had never before shown all of herself, or even known all of herself.

“It’s a good thing I’m a skilled multitasker.

I can govern an island of five hundred residents while also having time for my boyfriend-slash-doctor. ”

“And if you’re overexerting yourself, I’ll be happy to give you a complimentary checkup,” James offered. “A full-body exam,

just to make sure you’re adequately coping with the stress.”

The temperature in the barn seemed to rise twenty degrees. “I need to go shower before my rally,” Gigi said. “Just because

I have to change outfits, not because I’m hot and sweaty picturing that.”

“You’re not wearing this?” he said, giving Gigi an appreciative once-over, from boots to breeches to ranch jacket. “It would

show you’re in touch with Mackinac’s equestrian charm.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Gigi said. “Noelle is more popular than me. Her videos get more views.”

“You’d better watch out. She might be the dark horse in the election.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Never underestimate the power of a poorly executed dad joke to defuse the tension in a doctor’s office,” James said. “But

in all seriousness, there was a dog elected mayor of a town in California.”

“That’s California for you,” Gigi said, then gargled a laugh as she realized how much like her mom she sounded. “If Noelle

or Willow edges me out, I’ll take it gracefully. But no human is beating me, you can bet on that.”

“I’m betting on you every time, Georgiana,” James said.

“Good.” Gigi loved how supportive he was. “Because I’m betting on you too. To be voted Michigan’s Most Fragrant Doctor.” Gigi

pointed down at James’s black oxfords, smeared with manure.

James swore under his breath. “You’re trying not to laugh, aren’t you?”

“Very hard.” The corners of her mouth rippled.

“Your self-restraint is admirable. And if I’m already going to have to change my clothes...” James took another step toward

her, a roguish glint in his eyes.

Gigi pinned him playfully against the barn’s solid cedar wall and kissed him. Her body curled into him, wanting more.

“Don’t tell on us,” Gigi said to the horses. “We don’t want the media catching hold of this one.”

“Let them talk.” James’s hands were in her hair, a tangling and an unknotting all at once. “We’ve been through worse.”

It was true. James had endured losing his mom and working himself half to death in the aftermath. He’d clawed out from grief

through his own willpower, and when that wasn’t enough, he’d quit the city grind and moved to Mackinac for the summer, and

now longer. He’d dared to start over in a little island town, choosing peace over prestige and healing over hustling.

And Gigi, she’d been through her fair share too. So hell-bent on freeing herself from childhood traumas that she’d shut out

the only people who’d ever really cared about her, stringing together deliberately shallow relationships with friends and

lovers, cities and jobs. Villainizing everyone because at least playing victim was something consistent, something she excelled

at.

Gigi and James were at the age where old people called them young and really young people called them old. They hadn’t figured

out life, but they’d figured out that they wanted to figure it out together. Their shoes and boots might be covered in muck

and straw and sand, but here they were, still standing.

“All press is good press, right?” Gigi said, and instead of pulling James’s mouth into hers again, she rested her cheek against

his, feeling the rise and fall of their breath. She envisioned it moving through a water wheel, generating energy, like her

mom used to tell her to do when she had a hard time sleeping after Gus first left all those years ago.

“Everything will be okay,” her mom had said. It had taken Gigi twenty years to believe it, but she was starting to now.

She thanked the God who probably didn’t exist—but might—that despite her best efforts to mess things up, she’d accidentally

ended up exactly where she was supposed to be. In this single moment, at least.

As for tomorrow, or anything beyond Election Day... well, that was still up in the island air.