A Man of Influence (3 page)

Save it? Who was she kidding? The only people the older town residents listened to were their doctors, and that was only half the time.

To her credit, Agnes' smile never wavered as she answered Chad. “At the moment, the Lambridge B&B is our only offering.”

Rose was doing a slow grapevine in front of the pastry case, eyeing the scones that she'd passed on earlier. “You'll find a great many painted ladies in town, not just the Lambridge place.”

Phil made a hacking noise, as if he was coughing up a hairball.

Mildred had planted her walker seat by Phil's table and seemed lost in thought as she stared at the back of Phil's head, perhaps pondering the need for a slap to dislodge that hairball of Phil's.

Rose held a pose at the end of the bakery case, an aging ballerina poised to leap in cargo pants and hiking boots. “You'll be here ten days, correct?”

Ten days?
They were doomed.

The mayor jumped back in the fray. “Plenty of time to experience everything that makes Harmony Valley special.”

True that. Special and weird and wonderful.

However, chances were slim the villainous Chad would recognize wonderful if it sashayed up to him and kissed his cheek.

The reputation-ruiner cast a glance Tracy's way. Could Chad tell Tracy knew who he was?

Would it matter if he did?

CHAPTER THREE

S
OMETHING
DIDN
'
T
SMELL
RIGHT
.

And it wasn't the Poop Monster.

Everyone was suddenly too nice. Too kind. Too helpful.

Had someone researched who he was? The only one he'd seen using a cell phone was Tracy, and no one was paying attention to her. She had a tendency to talk slowly and hesitate over her words. Was that why the mayor had snubbed her? Was that why she lived in such a far-flung location?

The need to defend Tracy rose like smoke from a struggling flame. With a puff of exhaled air, he ignored it.

“Mayor Larry will drive with you to the B&B,” the short, spritely old woman was saying. Her name was Aggie or Agnes or something.

“No need to trouble the mayor. Tracy can show me.” Had Chad just said that? He glanced at the coffee barista. He had indeed.

Tracy sported a horrified look. She skimmed her hand over a bakery case. “I'm working.”

“I'll cover for you.” Eunice leapt to her feet without so much as a quiver of her purplish-gray curls.

“But...” Tracy glanced at each resident in turn.

“You forgot my lumbago, Agnes.” Larry reached for his back. “It's why I walk nearly everywhere.”

“Sorry, Tracy. We've got a game going on.” Felix jumped a checker. “King me.”

“No license,” Phil grumbled. “No car. No ride for the playboy.”

A chorus of
“Phils”
echoed through Martin's Bakery.

“Doctor's appointment.” Mildred sighed, although how she could see the road through those thick glasses was beyond Chad.

“Driving her,” Agnes/Aggie said, explaining everything.

“Riding shotgun.” At least Rose had the courtesy to look apologetic as she twirled slowly in the corner.

Everyone else looked as if they were happy to shirk tour guide duty.

And inexplicably, Chad was okay with that. He smiled at Tracy. “I did shower today
and
use deodorant. Scout's honor.”

Tracy studied him as if he was an overpriced used car, one with high mileage and no warranty.

He studied her in return. That tousled hair. That determined jut of her chin. It was weird. Just looking at her made him want to smile. That was the point of his new life, wasn't it? He smiled.

“Fine,” Tracy grumbled. “But I'm driving.”

“What?”
Chad's gaze bee-lined to his beloved sports car.

“It's settled.” Agnes/Aggie clapped her hands.

A few minutes later, he and Tracy stepped out on the brick sidewalk. Harmony Valley could have served as a backdrop for a Norman Rockwell painting. Old fashioned lamps lined Main Street. The buildings had brick fronts and canvas awnings. The wind blew brown and orange leaves down the road listlessly, as if even the elements knew the pace here was slow. Tracy zipped up her tan jacket against the autumn chill, and then extended her palm. “The keys.”

“To my car?” He glanced at his cherry red convertible and gripped the key in his hand. He'd ordered it custom from the factory. No one had driven it but him since he'd bought it. It required nimbleness to get in and out of. Neither a walker nor a wheelchair could fit in its trunk. “How about you sit in the passenger seat and I drive?”

“Nope.” She made the gimme motion with her hand and spoke slowly. “I had an accident...” Each word she spoke was labored. “I was in the...
side
seat.” She scowled, clearly not pleased with her word choice. “I don't know you. Or how you drive. Or if I can—”

“You can trust me.” He gave her the grin he'd used to charm his mother's friends when they'd come over to play Bunko. “I'm a good driver.”

“Don't. Finish. My sentences.” She glowered at him. As glowers went, it was cute.

Chad's father had been the King of Glowers. Until the last six months of his life when he hadn't glowered at anyone. Dad's soul, his personality, his very being had slipped away, leaving Chad to wait until his body gave up, as well.

“Give me the keys.” There was a pleading note hidden between the demanding words and the glower.

Chad stared at her, then at the gray-haired audience inside, and finally at his car. “It's a stick shift.” A lost art form.

“Perfect.” She breezed past him and slid into the tan leather driver's seat, leaving Chad no choice but to ride shotgun. She held out her hand for the key fob as soon as his butt hit the stiff leather.

He inserted the key in the ignition. “On cold mornings, she's a bit touchy going into third gear.” He hoped Tracy wouldn't grind the clutch. He hoped the B&B wasn't far away. He hoped he wouldn't regret coming to Harmony Valley.

“I knew it.” She patted the dashboard and grinned. “Midlife crisis.”

“I'm thirty-five. Too young for a midlife crisis,” Chad grumbled.

“Huh. Makes me wonder...” Tracy swallowed, her grin fading as she forced out the words. “What you'll drive...when the real crisis hits.” She shoved in the clutch and started the engine with a roar. The grin came back. She backed out competently and sent the car forward without so much as a neck jerk or a grinding gear.

Chad's apprehension eased. “Why do I get the feeling no one wanted to come with me?”

“Leona is... She's... You'll see.” Tracy forced the words out like stale dough through a noodle press.

“Are there a lot of young singles in town?” The place didn't look like it had much nightlife.

She laughed and came to a stop at the intersection of the large, deserted town square. It had a broad expanse of grass and a huge oak tree with a single, wrought-iron bench beneath it. Tracy glanced at him with those clear blue eyes that seemed to see so much. “Agnes is single. Rose is single. Mildred is single. Eunice, too.” She smiled at her listing of old ladies. “Need I go on?”

“Please don't.” He fought off the thought that he'd slipped back into his parents' world. No nightlife. No metropolitan eclectic energy. A pace slower than frozen molasses. All these old people. They'd get sick. They'd drift mentally. They'd die. They'd leave behind friends and family with holes in their chests that nothing seemed to fill.

Suddenly, Chad didn't want to be here. He gripped the seatbelt strap across his chest.

Oblivious to his need to flee, Tracy turned right and continued to drive his car as if it was her own—a bit fast, banking into the turns. It was oddly relaxing—the ride, her youth, the way her hair dipped and tumbled in the breeze. His grip on the strap eased.

“Where'd you learn to drive a stick?” Few people had the skill anymore. His dad had taught him to drive a manual transmission on his 1967 Ford Mustang.

“First, a farm tractor. Then Mildred's Volkswagen Beetle.” Tracy made another right and slowed down through a residential district.

Single-story ranches and Craftsman-style homes. Dirty windows and peeling paint. Empty driveways and neglected yards. Many seemed abandoned.

The neighborhood was an afterthought relative to the puzzling woman next to him. “Have you always struggled to get the words out?”

Tracy slammed on the brakes, sending the tires squealing, even though they hadn't been going faster than twenty miles an hour. She gripped the steering wheel and turned to glare at him. “I had an accident.” And then she lifted her gossamer blond hair, revealing a ropey scar on her skull. “I have...expressive aphasia. I'm trying to be normal.”

Chad was beginning to think Tracy wasn't normal. She was extraordinary.

An aluminum screen door screeched on protesting hinges. An elderly woman stepped out on her front porch in a pink chenille bathrobe and white tennis shoes. Her short gray hair stuck into the air as if she'd rubbed her head against a balloon. “Everything okay, Tracy?”

“Yes, Mrs. Beam.” Tracy glared at Chad, but her voice was sweet as sugar, and didn't sound forced.

“I could call the sheriff for you,” the old woman said.

“We're fine, Mrs. Beam.”

“Okay, dearie.” Mrs. Beam went back inside. Her screen door groaned as if it belonged in a haunted house, and then banged shut.

Tracy put Chad's car in gear and continued slowly down the street.

It was time for a change of subject. “So your brother owns the winery. Do they make good wine?”

“Is your car fast?”

That was a good sign. “Do wine lovers come from miles around to taste their wine?”

“No. They only...soft launched.” She turned to the left and parked in front of a forest green Victorian with white trim and an expansive lawn.

Chad was used to seeing narrow painted ladies in San Francisco's Cow Hollow district, but this house was easily three times the width of one of those classics. “Impressive.” Why hadn't the Lambridge Bed & Breakfast turned up on his internet search? It had a great location. It couldn't have been more than a ten minute walk from downtown. He hoped it was as nice inside as it was out.

Chad made to open his door.

Tracy put her hand on his arm, stopping him. Her touch was soft, personal when Chad had lived an impersonal life for years. “Don't hurt them.”

“Who?”

“The people here.” She gestured back the way they'd come and then she fixed him with a warning stare. “You're the Happy Bachelor. Well... Your columns aren't happy. They're...they're...
mean.
” She made a frustrated noise, slapped her palms against the steering wheel as if unhappy with her words, and then added, “Malicious.”

Chad fell back against the seat. The September sunlight fought its way through the brown and curling elm leaves, but didn't warm him.

She'd seen his columns. People usually responded in one of two ways to his travel reviews in the
Lampoon
—love 'em or hate 'em. Put Tracy in the hate column.

Chad's instinct was to laugh Tracy off, or to tell her to mind her own business, but something about her scar, the way she spoke and perhaps even the way she defended the elderly made him take a different approach. “I don't attack anyone personally. I write things the way I see them using the irony of truth.”

“They won't understand.” There was an entreaty in her voice, if not in her eyes, which still promised retribution if he hurt the people in town.

Chad didn't care if the locals understood or not. Having been raised by parents the age of his peers' grandparents, he was tired of making concessions for the elderly. This was his time. He'd live life and write columns his way and enjoy doing it. And yet, he didn't snap at Tracy. “You don't sugarcoat anything, do you?”

“I can't.” She opened her door with jerky movements. “Not anymore.” She popped the trunk for him, peering inside at his laptop bag, his travel bag and the box from the office, flaps folded and sealed.

Taking his suitcase and his laptop bag, Chad followed Tracy up the grand walk. Huge trees, lush shrubbery and not a weed in sight. The windows gleamed and reflected the late morning sun.

The front door was open, but the proprietor seemed as closed off as the pilot's lounge at an airport. Salt and pepper beehive hair. A blue dress that hung awkwardly off her bony frame. And an air about her that said,
“Thou shalt not hug. Ever.”

Chad couldn't blame the others at the bakery for not wanting to come here. The place and the proprietor were intimidating. Why on earth was this woman running a bed & breakfast?

The proprietress opened the door wider to let him in. The hinges didn't creak, didn't groan, didn't even whisper. It just seemed as if they should have. “Welcome to Harmony Valley. I'm Leona Lambridge.”

Queen of all she surveyed.

She surveyed Chad and, with a turn of her nose, found him wanting. “And welcome to the Lambridge Bed & Breakfast. I'll show you to your room.” She held a stop-sign hand toward Tracy. “You may wait outside.”

Chad wondered if Tracy's request to go easy on folks in town extended to Queen Leona.

He doubted it.

“I'll walk back.” Tracy handed Chad his car keys and then shoved her hands in her tan jacket pockets and headed to the street. The town's young protector may look waifish on the outside, but Chad suspected she had a core of steel. That scar...

“Mr. Healy.” A royal summons.

Chad turned, and crossed the threshold. The bed & breakfast had been decorated in period style. Antiques. Gilded mirrors. Ceiling medallions. It was spectacular. It smelled cleaner than a hospital room.

“I'm trying a new check-in procedure.” For a moment, the ice queen's demeanor cracked. “I must find you tolerable and you must agree to pay me with cash or check at the end of your stay.” She gave him a nightly rate he deemed acceptable.

“I've got cash.”

“You'll do.” Her expression turned icily regal once more. She led him to the grand staircase, her back as rigid as a British royal guard.

The floors creaked, but everything was clean. The stairs groaned, but the wood was so shiny Chad could almost see himself in the reflection. When they reached the second-floor landing, the house rattled as softly as a whisper and settled with a sigh, as if it'd been empty too long. It was the most welcome Chad had felt since arriving.

Leona made a noise that seemed disapproving and opened the first door. “This is your bathroom.”

The horror. Chad had to share a bathroom with other guests. The normal traveler would view this as a mark against the place. Chad looked forward to the stories sharing a bathroom with fellow guests would bring. Of course, the stories would have been better if the bathroom wasn't first-rate. White on white, from the claw-foot tub to the pedestal sink to the penny floor tile and grout. Not a crack or a chip or a stain anywhere.

Leona walked farther down the hall, opening the second door. “And this is your room.”