A Man of Influence (7 page)

Tracy did as instructed, completing the task with a minimum of globs. “I can make the deliveries.” The Bundt cakes and rolls.

“Okay.” Jess gave Tracy a stare she probably thought was stern, but Jess wasn't the stern stare sort. “But then you work on your video. No excuses.”

“No excuses,” Tracy agreed, trying not to think about all the ways she could humiliate herself during this interview process, on screen and off.

* * *

“W
HAT
DO
YOU
think of Chad?” Agnes asked during their car ride back from Mildred's doctor appointment and a pleasant lunch in Cloverdale. “I'm impressed that he took Roxie to the hospital.”

“Me, too.” Mildred turned her face to catch the dappled sunlight through the passenger window. It was a little thing, but it made her feel alive to have the sun on her skin.

“Most men wouldn't have noticed Roxie was ill,” Rose said from the back seat. Her hiking boots scuffed against the plastic floor mats, as if she was tap dancing while sitting, which she probably was.

“We didn't notice she was ill,” Mildred pointed out, still smarting over the doctor telling her she needed to get out and walk more.
Walk more?
She was nearly blind and in a walker. For her, exercise was an accident in the making.

“We haven't seen Roxie in a week or two,” Agnes allowed. “It makes me wonder who else we haven't seen recently.”

Such were the concerns in a town with so many old people. But if they, the town council, didn't worry, who would?

“Frankly, I wouldn't have noticed anything.” Much as it pained Mildred to admit. “I'm no good at spotting physical deterioration.” Or sidewalk hazards. Darn doctor.

“I think Chad should stay.” Rose's feet kicked the back of Mildred's seat. “Maybe he and Tracy will hit it off.”

“She doesn't seem to like him much.” Agnes sounded distracted.

Mildred was distracted, too. By thoughts of romance and Phil. If only he wouldn't waste his time on Leona. If only she was brave enough to do something about her attraction. “What do you think of Phil?”

“I don't think of Phil at all.” Rose was painfully honest, even when her friends didn't want her to be.

“In what context have you been thinking about Phil?” Agnes should have been a private investigator. She always knew just what thread to unravel.

“It was a general question.” Mildred's cheeks felt hot. She shouldn't have said anything. She lifted the binoculars she kept in Agnes' car and looked at the road ahead. Mildred was so sight-challenged, she couldn't tell how far they were from home. This stretch of road looked the same for miles. Eucalyptus trees lined the two-lane highway flanked by vineyards. The asphalt hummed steadily beneath the tires. She put the binoculars down. “Where are we?”

“A mile from the turn-off into town.” Rose tapped the back of Mildred's seat. “I'm with Agnes. Why are you thinking about Phil?”

“He's a very nice man,” Agnes said kindly. Agnes was no dummy. She probably knew now that Mildred had feelings for Phil.

“He's not always nice.” Mildred wrapped the binocular strap around her hand. “But I think that might be because he's still brokenhearted over Leona.” Which made Mildred as brokenhearted as a school girl over her first unrequited crush. What was wrong with her?

“Regardless.” Rose sniffed dramatically, because she did so love to over-dramatize. “Men don't know how to meddle properly. Phil certainly doesn't.”

“Are you sure you should be thinking about Phil?” Agnes asked, slowing to make the turn. “You just admitted he's still in love with Leona.”

“There is that.” Mildred sighed. “I probably need a change.”

“I thought you already went through the change.” Rose might remember every verse from
West Side Story
, but sometimes she was slow on the uptake.

“I'm done with menopause, Rose. I'm talking about being in a rut. I'm... I don't know. Bored?”

“Well, you've got no husband and you can't read a book or watch television.” Rose called it like she saw it—with that painful clarity. “But you do have us.”

Mildred was glad she was in the front seat and could hide her pain at being alone by looking out the window. Not that she could see much of anything.

“I can't remember the last time your daughter came to visit. And you don't even have a dog.” Rose was on a roll, flattening Mildred further in her rut.

“I am forsaken,” Mildred murmured. Her daughter was too busy living a full life and who was Mildred to complain about that? She'd left home at eighteen and hadn't looked back. Ever.

Agnes turned left toward Harmony Valley. As usual, she hit the pothole with the edge of her right front tire. “Let's not get maudlin.”

At their ages, no one wanted to be maudlin. But at their ages, sometimes you couldn't help it.

“I was thinking I'd like to start dating.” Mildred might just as well admit it.

“Don't tell me you want to date Phil?” Rose sounded horrified.

“He's a good-looking man,” Mildred said stubbornly. Or at least he had been twenty years ago when she could see him.

Agnes patted Mildred's shoulder. “But Phil's emotionally unavailable.”

“Leona has the house. He has no one.” Mildred squared her shoulders. These were her friends. They were supposed to accept her fragile feelings and insecurities, not bash them. “Maybe if he had someone, he'd get over Leona once and for all.”

“You're breaking up the band.” Rose sighed heavily. “We're a threesome.”

“I just want to feel alive again.” Before she fell while following the doctor's orders, broke a hip, and died. That was how Kiley Anderson kicked the bucket. Six months from fall to death. “Is that so bad?”

“No,” Agnes said, slowing some more as they passed the stark white building that was Snarky Sam's.

“Well, if we're being honest here...” There was a breathy quality to Rose's voice, as if the forthcoming admission was as much a cherished secret as Mildred's fascination with Phil. “I've often wondered what it would be like to kiss Rutgar.” The blond, bearded, large-as-a-mountain mountain man who lived atop Parish Hill.

“You probably couldn't find his lips beneath all that beard,” Agnes pointed out.

They all laughed like the band of silly schoolgirls they'd once been.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“M
R
. H
EALY
,
YOU
cannot bring that chicken into my house.” Queen Leona sure knew how to put on a hero's welcome.

“Leona, it's been a long day.” Chad set Henrietta's cage on the porch in the fading afternoon sunlight. “Roxie gave me this hen as a thank you gift.” And then he raised his voice, when he hadn't done so all day.
“For saving her life!”

It scared him that he'd been right. Roxie needed three stents for three blocked arteries. She'd cried. Her daughter had cried. Chad had left them at the hospital to drop off her chickens. Before he'd left, Roxie had insisted he take Henrietta as a thank-you gift. And yes, her daughter had looked at him sympathetically, shaking her head as if giving him permission to refuse. But what could he do? It might be Roxie's last wish.

Leona opened her mouth to say more, but Chad cut her off.

“What I need is a warm, safe place to keep Henrietta.” At least until he could figure out who to give her to or how to convince Roxie to take her back. “Maybe that shed of yours in back has room.”

The bed & breakfast owner shook her head from side to side as if the swivel point was the pearl choker about her neck. “Unless you want chicken for breakfast, you'll store that thing at Roxie's.”

He was tired, emotionally wrung out, and the drive-thru burger he'd eaten on the way back wasn't sitting well. It wasn't worth arguing with Leona. “Where does Roxie live?”

“Three blocks up Madison. You can't miss the house. She hung fishnets on the fence.” Leona shut the door.

The wind rustled through the trees, sending leaves fluttering like golden snowflakes to the ground.

Grumbling about queens and their royal subjects, Chad picked up Henrietta's cage and returned to Roxie's truck. When he turned the key, the truck shuddered, coughed and died as surely as he'd expected Roxie to earlier. Several unproductive key turns later and Chad stood next to his little red sports car. The one with narrow front seats and no room for a walker, a wheelchair or a chicken cage.

Henrietta strutted back and forth in her metal crate, making worried noises.

“I guess we're walking, Henrietta.” Thankfully, his readers couldn't see him now.

He picked up the three by two cage and started walking. The hen nestled into the corner near his hand. Her blue-gray feathers were soft against his fingers. Henrietta had the personality of a hesitant kitten. She deserved a nice home. Chad envisioned her living in a coop on his penthouse's back patio.

What is wrong with me?

He was thinking about adopting a chicken. Where was his big city indifference? The Happy Bachelor didn't do pets. He didn't drive old ladies to the hospital. And he certainly didn't let a hotel proprietor get the best of him.

A block later, he spotted Tracy sitting on a curb, scribbling in a notebook. He didn't like to acknowledge how relieved the sight of her made him feel.

“If you're counting cars driving by,” he said. “I'm betting you haven't counted one.” There was no traffic in Harmony Valley.

Loyal bird that she was, Henrietta clucked as if laughing at his bad joke.

Tracy didn't chuckle. She barely looked up, perhaps hoping he'd walk on by. She wasn't getting that lucky.

“Hey, I recognize that expression of yours.” He set the cage on the sidewalk and sat next to Tracy. The cement was cold, but not as cold as a hospital chair. “That's your over-thinking face.” He'd never run into anyone who was as set on defeating herself before the game ever started. “What are you doing?”

“I'm scripting my video.” Her chin jutted out and her eyes burned hot blue. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

He hadn't really wanted anything. She was a stranger, same as Roxie. And as soon as he left town, she'd be a memory, same as Henrietta. That didn't stop him from glancing across the street, curious as to why Tracy would choose to sit here.

And then it was his turn to chuckle. They sat across from an elementary school. “Don't tell me you're starting at the beginning of what made you who you are today? First grade teacher, perhaps?”

From the wash of color on her face, he must have been close.

“Don't be a cliché,” he said. That was a fate worse than death for a writer. Most likely for videographers, too. He held out a hand for her notebook. “Let me see your other ideas.” If she was like other writers he knew, she'd have a list somewhere on those pages.

She clutched the book to her chest and glowered at him.

He worked hard to keep from smiling. She'd never be good at glowering, not with those petite features and big blue eyes. “If you won't show me, cough up the next idea on your list.”

“No.”

Henrietta settled deeper into her corner and made soft noises like a toy train on a circular track. He hoped she was hunkering down from the increasing intensity of the wind and not laying an egg, which would only fall to the pavement.

“If I had to guess,” Chad said, returning his attention to Tracy. “It'd be something by the river.” There weren't many things around town that might have shaped who Tracy was.

The glower disappeared. Tracy's shoulders drooped around the notebook.

Chad sighed. “I can only hope you'll work through the predictable dreck before you film.”

“Sometimes...
often
...it takes writing dreck to be inspired.” The droop undercut the confidence in her words. She wasn't convincing anyone, least of all, herself. “I'm not worried about what my topic will be...so much as how I'll deliver it.”

There it was. A long sentence. And if her droop was any indication, she didn't recognize it.

Tracy laid her temple on her knee, facing away from him. “I was going to do a test drive tomorrow morning at the park by the river. I'll take a break from the bakery at eight and the light will be fabulous coming off the water.”

Henrietta made a derisive noise before Chad could. Tracy had no inspiration, no plan and at this rate, no chance at grabbing that brass ring.

Like me.

The burger flipped in his stomach and he shook his head, trying to shake off the doubt.

Not like me.

Chad had inspiration—Harmony Valley. A plan—a website and advertisers. And a very good chance at grabbing that brass ring.

Tracy turned back to him and said begrudgingly, “What you did for Roxie was nice.”

He smiled. “I bet you hate to admit that.”

That won a grin out of her. “Harmony Valley brings out the best in even the worst of people. And now you've found your story.”

She didn't understand him or the Happy Bachelor at all.

Chad stood and collected Henrietta. “I haven't found my story. There's no reason why people should visit this town. In Napa, the accommodations are more luxurious, the winery choices more numerous, and the nightlife...well, it exists.”

* * *

“Y
OU
'
RE
A
HYPOCRITE
.” Tracy got to her feet, stiff from having sat so long on the cold curb. “You want everyone to think you're this insensitive. Witty. Self-centered bachelor. And yet...you took an old woman—
a stranger—
to the ER.” And he'd encouraged a coffee barista—in a haughty, superior way—to reach for the stars with more than a clichéd, halfhearted effort. “And then there's this chicken...” Tracy faltered. One, because she didn't know why he had a chicken. And two, because she'd spit out a really long speech, without stumbling too much over her words.

Not that Chad seemed to notice. He was walking away from her, broad shoulders tall beneath that black leather jacket. “Henrietta is a thank-you gift from Roxie. It would break my code to trash a gift.” His back was rigid. His tone was frosty. But the indignation in his next words were fluid and hot. “And Leona refused to allow Henrietta on her property. What harm could a small chicken in a cage do to the B&B?”

“They can dig up a yard worse than a dog after a gopher,” Tracy said, marveling at his big-city ignorance. But it was the indignation over the chicken that got to her. She wouldn't have expected the Happy Bachelor to care what happened to a stranger, much less a hen. It made her trail after him as if she was one of his flock. Besides, he was from the city and there was livestock at stake. “You don't know anything about chickens, do you?”

“They get up early and they lay eggs.”

The farm girl in her rolled her eyes. “And the care and feeding...?”

Chad's steps slowed to a stop. He turned to look at her, a complete contradiction—a stylish city slicker carrying a chicken. “Roxie isn't coming home for at least two weeks. What will I...” He glanced down at the small bird, concern etching faint lines from the corners of his eyes. “I can't even keep a houseplant alive.”

“I can help you get her settled. About her long-term future? Lots of people have chickens,” Tracy said reassuringly, stopping a few feet from him. Her father had gotten rid of his hens when Tracy went off to college, claiming there'd been too many eggs for one man to eat. But there were others in town with coops. She'd even heard the winery had gotten some recently. “For now, she's safest at Roxie's.” The sun was setting. For certain, there was still a chicken coop and some grain at Roxie's.

“Thank you,” Humble Chad said.

Humble Chad. His eyes didn't twinkle and his cocky boardroom demeanor was conspicuously absent, but Tracy found this side of him just as appealing. If only he wasn't the Happy Bachelor.

An orange tabby ran across the street, darting beneath the bushes bordering an abandoned house. There were more empty houses and empty lots about than elsewhere in Harmony Valley.

Tracy glanced around. She seldom came to this part of town. And now, with grief thickening in her lungs, she remembered why. A road to the right led to what was left of the grain mill. The silo's skeleton rose like an empty castle turret above the swaying trees. A romantic image for such a horrible end.

Chad followed the direction of her gaze.

“That's where my mom was killed.” A chill reached deeper into her bones than the brisk autumn wind. “They say the explosion happened so fast...” As fast as Tracy's car accident. “They couldn't have done anything.” So many dead.

Chad nodded as if he understood. And then he said the nicest thing. “She'd be proud of you.”

The cold, thick feeling in her lungs spread into her throat. “For some things,” she choked out. Her academic achievements. Her rise in the advertising world. Perhaps not the temptation to settle nowadays. “She'd have liked you prodding me...to do my best. But not—”

“Let's just leave it at that, shall we?” He started walking.

Tracy didn't look at the mill again, but she felt her mother's presence—or rather the lack of it.

They walked in silence to Roxie's house. Henrietta was happy to be in her large coop. Tracy showed Chad where the grain bin was and told him how much food to give the hen. They latched the gate and went their separate ways. The Happy Bachelor walked off, shoulders hunched in his jacket.

Only then did Tracy remember she'd told him she was filming in the morning and begin to feel guilty.

Because she'd lied.

* * *

C
HAD
WAS
DOWNSTAIRS
in the Lambridge B&B's dining room at 8:01 on Saturday morning, feeling like a bear awakened too early from hibernation.

The formal dining room was as stuffy and stately as the rest of the house—a cherry dining set that could seat twelve, dark wainscoting, forest green striped wallpaper and a large brass chandelier. How different it might feel with other guests at the table.

He'd slept restlessly on the lumpy, squeaky mattress that probably hadn't been replaced since the last presidential candidate had come to town fifty years ago. Yeah, he'd looked it up.

And during his sleepless night, he'd read about the care and feeding of chickens, had a circular debate with Tracy—in his head—about the Happy Bachelor's code of ethics in columns, and researched ways to conquer expressive aphasia.

He'd also sat at the keyboard for hours trying to start a column on Harmony Valley. His attempts had failed. He might even say they'd failed miserably. Every time he felt he was on to something, Tracy's disapproving glower popped into his head. Not that he was panicking. It was a week until the Harvest Festival and eight days until his web page went live. But he was beginning to feel stressed.

“I like a man who's prompt.” Leona wore a brown sheath dress and low black heels. Her hair was pulled back so tightly from her face, it seemed to lift the wrinkles above her brows. She retreated through a swinging door, returning almost immediately with a small white plate—almost a teacup saucer—and a mug of black coffee.

Chad stared at the one mini quiche, the one mini bran muffin and the cluster of five green grapes. “This is it?”

Leona had turned to leave him. She spun back, resting a hand on one hip. “This is a bed & breakfast, Mr. Healy, not a Las Vegas buffet.”

“This won't hold me.” He'd gotten up early and went for a jog. He'd fed Henrietta. He was ready for eggs and sausage, biscuits and gravy, coffee and creamer.

“I never said I'd hold you.” Leona left him, unaware of the double entendre of her words.

The quiche was gone in one bite. The muffin in two. The coffee smelled bitter and the grapes were sour. This would've been a sorry state of affairs if Martin's Bakery wasn't within walking distance. Besides, he needed to find a repair shop for Roxie's truck.

But first—since he was out—he might just as well go by the park next to the river and see what Tracy was up to. He was learning his way around town. He took the alley behind Main Street to reach the park. It was empty, but Tracy had mentioned the light on the water.