Читать книгу A Small-Town Temptation - Terry Mclaughlin - Страница 11

JACK SKIPPED THE postbreakfast coffee at Agatha’s early Friday morning, likely adding another black mark to his ledger sheet. His hostess had figured out—at some point between her warm-from-the-oven cookie party in the kitchen and her considerably cooler good-night greeting on the stairway—the reason for his visit, and it was obvious her sympathies lay with the home team.

Besides, he was eager to check out the Carnelian Cove market for himself. Figures on spreadsheets were never as revealing as the businesses and consumers and connections they represented. And getting out of the office and meeting folks had always been the best part of his job.

He’d sipped an excellent espresso in a café near the marina, and then he’d shared a scone and an interesting conversation with a scruffy fellow fishing from one of the docks. He’d watched a blacksmith on Main Street shaping an iron scroll for a garden gate, and he’d discussed the difficulties of pigeon population control with a woman scrubbing the walk in front of her knitting supply shop.

He’d needed this break in the corporate routine, he realized as he hiked south of the marina, circling toward Oyster Lane. Needed to clear his mind and reorganize his priorities. Needed to concentrate on one of the most important reasons for this trip: gathering more ammunition for the skirmishes brewing in the San Francisco office.

Bill, his boss, hadn’t yet answered his morning call—most likely preoccupied with pinning down the source of the latest corporate rumors and more cautious than usual about the dicey projects Jack had made his specialty. Projects like this foray north to Carnelian Cove. Noah Fuller, Jack’s perennial rival and general pain in the butt, was eager to take advantage of the situation, looking to sink this deal—and Jack with it. And Jack’s assistant was pressuring him to cut his trip short and fly back south to defend his office turf from another of Noah’s coup attempts.

Calls, coups, pressure. Jack kicked at a pebble wedged in a sidewalk crack, wishing he could get rid of his problems as easily. He liked his job, and he enjoyed living in San Francisco. But there were parts of any job he’d ever had, and aspects of any location he’d ever lived in, that had shredded his patience and dampened his spirit and made him consider moving on.

He’d been on the move for over a dozen of his thirty-two years, heading west until he’d reached the ocean at the other side of the continent. And no matter where he headed now, he’d run up against the same types of shifting, fluid obstacles, the same office politics and the same corporate insecurities. Best to hunker down and pull off a coup of his own here in Carnelian Cove, to blast Noah out of his path and earn another recommendation for a promotion from his grateful boss. He was too young to feel so tired and worn, particularly on such a promising day in a town full of possibilities.

He rounded a corner and discovered the source of the construction-related clatter he’d heard across the water. Up ahead, a concrete pump operator wound thick black hoses over his screen trailer, and another driver washed out a Keene mixer angled near the muddy gash of a job site. Curious about the project, Jack ambled toward the crew laboring over a freshly poured slab.

One of the finishers stretched his float in practiced swoops across the glossy, wet surface of a new drive, while another knelt to scrape deep joints in the mix with a trowel. Though finishing concrete had never been one of his favorite chores, Jack itched to pick up one of the tools and get his hands dirty. Moments like this made him miss the hands-on satisfaction of the construction business and yearn for more opportunities to get out of the office.

Behind the crew, a taller-than-average man with wavy black hair pitched a cell phone into the cab of a black pickup truck. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Just watching, if that’s okay.” Jack extended his hand. “Jack Maguire.”

The dark-haired man wiped his hand on his jeans before shaking Jack’s. “Quinn. You the man from Continental?”

“Word gets around,” said Jack with a grin.

Quinn’s mouth tightened in a thin line that might have passed for a smile if his level stare had warmed a degree or two. But it didn’t. “Is Continental putting in a bid on Sawyer’s outfit?” he asked.

“Not sure.” Jack studied the finishing work. “Depends on the market around here. The supply.”

“The customers.”

“That, too.”

Jack already knew Quinn was considered one of the best contractors in the area. He had a steady crew, did the job well and on time and paid his bills promptly. Agatha had offered a few more details with her macaroons: in spite of his professional reputation for quality work, Quinn’s personal reputation—as a recovering alcoholic with a troublesome past—kept him scrambling more than most for opportunities to keep his crew employed and his redemption on track.

“In my experience,” said Jack with a glance at the Keene mixer, “customers tend to be loyal to one supplier.”

“Unless there’s enough incentive to switch.” Quinn raised one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Might be a one-time deal, though. Loyalty and all.”

Jack matched Quinn’s shrug with one of his own. “You get what you pay for.”

Quinn gave him another long, level stare and then nodded and moved off to check on his crew. Loyalty was an admirable virtue, and Jack understood better than most how it greased the gears of small-town economics, but the home-team advantage wouldn’t last long if it came at a premium price.

He glanced up to watch gulls swoop overhead, searching for scraps. Scavengers had a purpose and a place in life, too. But all in all, he mused as he shoved his hands back into his pockets and started the trek toward the Villa Veneto, he’d rather be a hawk than a gull.

CHARLIE COASTED TO THE curb in front of her mother’s house an hour after dark on Friday night. She pulled the key from the ignition and slumped in her seat, waiting for hunger to override the temptation to skip another rerun of her real-life family feud.

Dad had been fond of saying the reason his daughter and his wife couldn’t understand each other better was because they were two peas in a pod. When she was young, Charlie had spent a lot of time wondering what alien legume life form Dad had had in mind when he’d made that crack.

She was in no mood to face the coming scene with her mother. The day had been a trial, starting before dawn with a couple of big pours and continuing with David’s stubborn resistance to engage in a meaningful discussion about BayRock. She’d spent a tense lunch hour reminding Earl about all the reasons he’d agreed to sell BayRock to the Keenes—and reassuring him he’d have a business left to sell once she’d sent the visitor from Continental packing.

Now all she had to do was figure out a way to do it. She’d imagined every worst-case scenario and best-case possibility, plotted her way through every twist and turn, and all she had to show for the long day of physical labor and mental efforts were a headache and a queasy stomach.

She was still sitting there a quarter of an hour later, staring at the mellow light glowing through her mother’s ruffly gingham curtains hanging from slightly sagging café rods. Charlie had banned ruffles and gingham from her house on the other side of town, along with Jell-O, doilies, Barry Manilow or anything pink. She was also opposed, on nearly religious principles, to anything that could be done to a woman in a beauty parlor.

It wasn’t just a matter of style; her differences with her mother went deeper than that. While Charlie had always struggled for independence, Maudie Keene had cultivated clinging as a survival tactic. She’d had more than thirty years to practice the technique on her husband.

And now, Charlie thought as she watched her brother’s overdeveloped, overpriced truck muscle its way into their mother’s driveway, Maudie was directing the full force of her neediness at her son. In spite of Charlie’s frustrations with her brother, she didn’t envy him the burden of their mother’s insecurities.

She climbed out of her truck. “David. Wait up.”

He turned at the sound of her voice and shifted a paper bag to one hip. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you. Getting a free meal.”

“Nothing’s free in this house,” said David.

She bit back her reply. No point in starting an argument before they sat down together at the table. He had his own reasons for his resentment. “Well,” she said, “tonight we’re getting dinner in trade. What’s in the bag?”

“Beer. She never has any in the house since Dad died. And ice cream. She asked me to pick some up, ’cause she made apple cobbler.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They stood for a moment, awkward with sharing an appreciation for their mother’s cobbler in the midst of everything dividing them. “Go ahead and knock,” he said. “My hands are full.”

Maudie opened the door, her large brown eyes shadowed with a habitual anxious expression. The silver threads winding through her hair—a faded version of David’s rich, dark red—glinted in the porch light. “Come in, come in. Is that the ice cream? Better get it in the freezer.”

David brushed past them both, heading for the back of the house. Maudie rubbed her hands on her apron and stared after him. “I made cobbler.”

“So I heard.” Charlie shrugged out of her coat and tossed it over one of the hooks on the coat rack. “Sounds great, Mom.”

“Pot roast, too. With extra gravy. Just the way you like it.”

“And potato chunks? The crispy ones?”

“Of course.”

“Mmm.” Charlie took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh, trying to ease away some of the tension with it. “Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.”

Maudie beamed at the compliment and toyed with the edge of her apron. “I don’t mind the extra trouble. It’s nice to have some company at a meal for a change.”

An appetizer of guilt served before the first course. It was going to be a long evening.

“Mom,” David called from the kitchen. “How come the table’s set for four?”

“I forgot to mention.” Maudie blushed and lifted a fluttering hand to smooth her hair. “Ben’s joining us.”

Ben Chandler. It was difficult to imagine her mother having romantic feelings for someone else. Charlie pasted on a smile. “It’ll be good to see him again.”

Maudie smiled. “I’d better see to the gravy.” She turned and walked down the hall, her stylish pumps clicking over the wood floor. She was a trim woman who looked younger than her age, an energetic woman who filled her mornings with volunteer activities and lunched with friends in the afternoon. Which left the evenings…

Her mother. And Ben Chandler.

Charlie took a deep breath and stepped into the front room. She wasn’t sure she approved of her mother’s flushed cheeks or the reason for the pearl earrings and the dressy green sweater beneath the apron, but she approved of Ben. He’d maintained his dignity and reputation while so many members of the wealthy and influential Chandler clan had ruined their lives with drink and disastrous choices.

And he’d helped keep David in check. As Maudie’s financial adviser, Ben had cautioned against making any decisions about selling Keene Concrete until all the ramifications could be considered. And it hadn’t been difficult for Charlie to provide enough complications to keep things tied up for months.

But Ben hadn’t yet been able to reassure Maudie that her investments of the insurance funds or her bonuses from the family company would keep pace with her expenses. Maudie seemed obsessed with running her own figures and making her own calculations and projections, so much so that Charlie had wondered if Ben would quit in frustration. Instead, he’d listen quietly, nodding and smiling, and then he’d go over the figures with her one more time. He seemed to have an endless supply of patience where her mother was concerned.

Charlie wandered into the front room to stare at the family photos lined up like soldiers on the brick mantel. There was Dad, standing on the riverbank with a long fish dangling from the line and a wide grin on his face. There he was again, with another smile for the six-year-old daughter on his lap as he guided her hand toward the controls of an old loader. And there was her favorite, the shot of her parents at a holiday costume party, dressed as pirates.

David stepped behind her. “They always looked so happy.”

“Don’t you think they were?”

“No couple is happy all the time.”

She turned to face him. “Maybe not, but at least they did their best to hide most of the bad times from us.”

“Sheltered us, you mean.”

“What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with that kind of security?”

“Security.” David shook his head. “Is that why you’re trying so hard to hold everything in place?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” She took a deep breath and tried, for the hundredth time, to get through to him. “Dad handed us something lots of people never have in their lifetime. The opportunity to work for ourselves. The chance to build something that belongs to us.”

“We don’t have that chance, Charlie. It’s already built. He did it.” David glanced behind her to the row of photos. “And as long as we keep Keene Concrete, we’ll keep working for him.”

A knock on the door summoned their mother from the kitchen. “That must be Ben,” she said as she passed through the front room. “Charlie, would you mind getting the rolls from the oven to the table? There’s a basket for them near the sink.”

David followed Charlie into the kitchen. “What’s up with Mom and Ben?”

“I think they’re seeing each other.”

“Isn’t that unethical?” David scowled. “He shouldn’t be discussing money matters with her if he’s trying to get her into bed.”

“Please.” Charlie squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Face it, Charlie. She’s going to hook up with someone as fast as she can. Mom can’t handle being alone.”

“She’s been doing okay so far.” Charlie dumped the rolls into the basket. Her mother probably would have arranged them in some more attractive fashion, but Charlie figured they’d get eaten no matter how they looked. “I just hope she doesn’t rush into something she’ll regret.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Who, Ben?”

David’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust him.”

“I do.”

“That’s because he always takes your side.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m always right.”

She caught him by the arm before he could turn and stalk from the room. “We need to talk—all of us. About the timing of the visit from the Continental rep. About what might happen if Earl sells to someone other than Keene, and how we’re going to handle it.”

“What’s the point of talking? Your mind’s already made up, just like always.”

“And you’re not thinking things through.” She closed her eyes and scrambled for patience. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. I need your help with this, David.”

“You don’t need anyone. That’s the problem.”

Their mother walked into the kitchen with a clutch of daffodils. “Aren’t these pretty? Ben brought them for the table.”

“I’m glad he’s here,” said Charlie. “We need to talk.”

“Not business,” said Maudie with a sigh. “Not tonight.”

“Maybe it’s for the best, Maudie.” Ben stood in the doorway, steady and solemn, tall and broad shouldered. His silver-gray suit seemed to match his silver hair, and he looked every inch the successful owner of a respected accounting firm. “I understand there’s something we all need to discuss. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

She nodded slowly, dreading the dinner conversation to come. “Yes,” she said. “I think a discussion would be good.” She glanced at David. “Arriving at an agreement would be even better.”