by Jess Vonn
Cal sighed.
“Ma, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” she asked innocently. She wasn’t fooling anyone.
“You know exactly what. Don’t let your imagination run wild. Don’t forget who you’re dealing with.”
“Who I’m dealing with? You mean my young, professionally accomplished son who’s so handsome that he causes fender benders?”
“That happened once, Mom,” Cal groaned, annoyed at the memory of the mortifying incident. Getting catcalled in the middle of a busy intersection in the center of town a few years back, and then having that cat caller crash her car into the truck in front of her at a stop sign was not his proudest moment.
Naturally it was one of his mother’s favorite stories to bring up.
“Or maybe I’m dealing with the son who is so popular that every unattached woman in town has tried to get a date with him, yet he has politely refused every one of them?”
Oh, how tired he was of going down this road. Why did all of his sisters have to partner up so young? Why did he have to be the only one of the four siblings left to receive the full force of his mother’s meddling?
He was barely thirty for Pete’s sake. He was hardly an old…well, whatever the male version of an old maid was. He dated a little bit in high school, and a bit more in college. But never women from Bloomsburo. His Friday nights were far more likely to be spent playing pool with Carter and some of the guys at the bar downtown than wining and dining a woman.
“I do go on dates, Ma, just not with people from around here,” he said, stretching the truth. Sure he’d done some online dating over the years, hooking up with the occasional woman when the right chemistry presented itself. He was a healthy man after all, amply supplied with physical needs. But none of it had ever grown into anything serious. He never brought anyone home to meet the family.
And he definitely never let these dates or one-night stands happen within the borders of Bloomsburo, because everyone knew everyone in the tightknit town where gossip spread faster than the flu in February.
For as much as he loved the place, the familiarity of his hometown could be suffocating at times.
“Well, you’re in luck. Winnie’s not from around here.”
It wasn’t home.
He suddenly remembered Winnie’s description of Chicago, the city she’d just left. Just why had she shown up at his mother’s doorstep?
And why the hell was he so curious about her story?
“Don’t meddle,” he warned his mother, finally getting to the true purpose of the conversation. “If you care about her, steer her away from me. You of all women should know that Spencer men are best to be avoided.”
His mother sighed. Her late husband, Cal’s father, was never a topic she enjoyed talking about with the son who despised him.
“I can’t do this Cal. Not today.”
“Please respect my boundaries, Mom.”
“I hope you respect the irony in that statement, given the fact that you called me at seven o’clock in the morning to tell me you didn’t approve of a decision that I made for myself as a fifty-five-year-old woman. You’re not exactly the king of respecting boundaries yourself.”
He couldn’t come up with an argument against that one.
“I’ve got to get to work, Ma. We’ll talk soon.”
“I love you, Cal. I do appreciate you watching out for me.”
And despite the occasional frustration she caused in his life, he couldn’t help but return the sentiment.
But the whole conversation had started his day on a sour note. When his phone rang a short time later, at 7:45 on the nose, he knew it could only be Betty Jean Finnegan. The two had negotiated that time as the earliest possible time she could contact him on a weekday for community-related business. Today’s call was to inform him of the ‘emergency’ meeting she was organizing later that morning, which brought him back to his current situation, following Winnie Briggs down the narrow hallway of the newspaper office and trying – and failing – not to notice just how the sway of her curvy hips caused the pleats of her skirt to dance around temptingly. It brought to mind many things, none of which should be spoken in a professional context. Her sheer proximity made him feel like a green boy back in the middle school hallways, lusting after a pretty girl walking by. And this realization also reminded him that it had been unnaturally long since he took comfort with a woman. He suddenly felt like a thirsty man in a desert, and Winnie looked a lot like an oasis.
But, oasis or not, she was a professional associate now, so it was time to convince himself that her temptation was just a mirage. As they rounded the corner into the back office, Betty Jean pulled a seat right next to Winnie’s workspace, but he maintained his distance in a chair on the other side of the small room.
“Now, what’s going on here? Are you both here for the same reason?” Winnie asked, pulling out a notebook and clearly trying to gather her bearings, all the while avoiding eye contact with him. He took some comfort in the fact that she seemed rattled, too, though it probably had more to do with Betty Jean than him.
“I called everyone here,” Betty Jean explained, before her tone frosted over. “Well, everyone who bothered to show up.”
Defensiveness rose in Cal’s chest, a common reaction when your best friend was the police chief in a small town where petty critiques were common place.
“Chief Conrad has a lot on his plate. I told him I’d inform him if there was anything pressing he needed to know,” he offered, trying to keep his tone neutral.
“Well it is pressing, and I’ll expect you to tell him so,” Betty Jean said, desperation cracking her typically polished veneer.
He caught a flicker of a smile on Winnie’s face as she observed their exchange. Her gaze met his quickly, sending a spark across the room that seemed to strike him directly in his underutilized parts, but her attention flickered back to Betty Jean just as quickly.
“So, what exactly is pressing, Betty Jean? You’ll have to forgive me. It’s my first morning on the job and I’m far from up to speed.”
Betty Jean cleared her throat, a sound Cal had long ago translated to mean that the woman was attempting to swallow back a sharp comment. He gave her credit for at least attempting civility with a newcomer.
“Well, plain and simple, there’s been a pancake dinner sabotage,” Betty Jean pronounced.
He hadn’t known Winnie long, but he would guess that she was biting her inner cheek in an attempt not to snicker at Betty Jean’s silly declaration. Surely this was just the kind of exciting story she had left Chicago to pursue.
Which brought back the question that had been circling in his mind for the last 18 hours: Just why had the woman left such a fantastic city? When he was younger, Cal himself had often dreamed of bolting Bloomsburo, and Chicago was one of his all-time favorite places to visit. Heading to the state university a few hours away for four years had been as close to an escape as he’d managed, though. His deep sense of responsibility toward his mother and sisters and nieces rendered any more ambitious adventures purely imaginary.
“Do you think you could elaborate a bit?” Winnie asked politely, interrupting his rumination.
“Yes, a flapjack fiasco deserves our utmost attention,” Cal offered, unable to help himself.
“This is no laughing matter, Cal Spencer,” Betty Jean huffed, even as Winnie finally relented the full wattage of her pretty smile, rewarding his orneriness. Such rewards could be addictive.
“Someone altered the sign at Hudson Dentistry,” Betty Jean elaborated.
Winnie looked to Cal for clarification.
“Dr. Hudson offers up the big sign outside of his office to community groups for advertising their upcoming events,” he elaborated. She nodded and took a few more notes.
“I personally oversaw the creation of the lettering for the pancake dinner sign, after numerous calls to Dr. Hudson’s office to discuss the precise wording,” Betty Jean continued. Cal coul
d imagine her oversight perfectly, given how often she offered it to him at the Chamber. “It clearly stated that the start time was tonight at 4 p.m. But when I drove by the sign last night, I saw that the start time was listed at 7 p.m.”
“It was probably an honest mistake,” Cal offered.
“I might be willing to overlook it, too,” Betty Jean said, pulling a notebook out of her designer shoulder bag and opening it to a page of scrawled notes, “had it been an isolated incident. But it wasn’t.”
Cal’s eyebrow quirked. “Okay, let’s hear your other evidence.”
“The ‘for sale’ sign in Doris Duvall’s yard was moved to Hattie Henson’s yard. I saw it with my own two eyes on my morning walk.”
“What time do you wake up?” he asked, truly astonished. The woman seemed to get more done before breakfast than most people did in a full work day. She didn’t dignify the question with a response.
“Was there more?” Winnie asked.
“Yes. The chalkboard sidewalk sign over at Happy Grounds was completely erased.”
Cal looked over to Winnie, and whispered “downtown coffee shop.”
“And the bulletin board at the senior center has been completely cleared of all of the posters and flyers,” Betty Jean continued, “even the Bloomsburo Day signs.”
Okay, Cal had to admit that this last part caught his attention, as he’d posted those flyers there himself last week. But still, as far as crime and vandalism went, this seemed far from serious.
“Betty Jean, I’m sure it’s just a few kids trying to pull off some harmless prank,” he offered.
“Well, you’d know about that, now wouldn’t you?”
Lord, the memory of people in this town. You toilet paper a few local businesses during homecoming one time in high school, and it hangs around your neck for the rest of your life.
“So you believe that these incidents are connected?” Winnie asked, maintaining more professionalism than the other two of them combined.
“Yes,” Betty Jean replied.
“There’s nothing Carter can do about any of this,” Cal explained. No laws were broken. He doubted that any of the incidents even merited a formal police report.
“Well, what am I supposed to do in the mean time?” Betty Jean asked desperately. “Our pancake dinner fundraiser is tonight, and now the entire town is being told that the event doesn’t even begin until after it’s supposed to end! Who knows how many people saw that misinformation.”
He sighed. Betty Jean could be a royal pain, but she was deeply devoted to this town and raised a hell of a lot of money for it. He didn’t like to think about her event getting ruined due to a petty prank.
“Has the paper been advertising the event?” Winnie asked, and Cal inwardly winced, predicting the reaction that the question would induce from Betty Jean.
“No, the paper has not been advertising the event,” Betty Jean cried, anger coloring her cheeks even beyond her heavily applied blush. Well, so much for her forced civility, though it was nice for the three full minutes it lasted. “The Bloom hasn’t been doing anything worth mentioning for more than a month, thanks to that useless former editor and the good-for-nothing, out-of-town publisher who can’t even bother to return a phone call.”
He watched Winnie’s jaw literally drop.
“You make calls to my out-of-state publisher?” Winnie asked in disbelief.
“Only when necessary,” Betty Jean said smugly. “Someone has to stop this ship from sinking.”
Defensiveness flared in Cal’s heart once more, as natural as thirst or hunger.
“Take your claws out, Betty Jean,” he said, his cool voice hiding the annoyance simmering beneath his skin. “Winnie isn’t to blame for the newspaper’s past problems. She’s the solution to them.”
His eyes made the mistake of meeting Winnie’s across the room and the gratitude he saw there simultaneously tied his stomach in a knot and spurred him on.
“It’s her first morning on the job. Give her some time to prove herself. She has stronger credentials than any editor that’s worked here in my lifetime. She needs our support, not our scorn.”
Betty Jean sighed dramatically, but didn’t argue back. He took that as a win.
“Now, about the pancake dinner. The fastest way to fix the issue is going to be online,” said Cal. “I’ll put up a correction on the Chamber homepage this morning, and we can both link to it on our respective e-mail groups.”
“I could post a correction on the newspaper’s social media feeds,” Winnie offered before adding with a laugh, “that is, as soon as I figure out what the passwords are.”
He smiled her way, impressed with her calm in the face of Betty Jean’s intensity. The woman really was going to be an asset to the newspaper and the community.
“And I guess I could activate the Blooming Lady phone tree,” Betty Jean added. “Not everyone in this town uses computers and smart phones the way you kids do.”
He and Winnie shared an amused glance.
“So I’ll talk to some of the affected establishments and see if there’s any larger story here,” Winnie offered, before turning to Cal. “Will you have Chief Conrad contact me if anything else comes up on his end?”
Cal nodded, though the thought of his childhood friend calling Winnie shot a strange sensation through his veins, something closer to jealousy than he cared to admit. Not because Carter and Winnie were two single, attractive adults. No, it was just because he hadn’t yet fully come to terms with the fact that this woman was now a part of his professional circle.
Right.
“So are we square, Betty Jean?” Cal asked, standing in an attempt to force the meeting to an end. He glanced at his phone and saw that it was already after nine. The pile of work on his desk at the Chamber could only be growing at this point, and he needed some space from the weird things Winnie did to his brain and body.
“I suppose,” Betty Jean said. “Winnie, can I get your cell phone number, just in case something comes up?”
Winnie shot Cal an uncertain look. Clearly this was not a line she was accustomed to crossing.
“I’ve found that resistance is futile,” he admitted. “If she doesn’t have your phone number, she’s more likely to come knocking on your door.”
Her brow raised.
“The door of your home, not your office,” he clarified. Winnie reluctantly jotted down a number on a Post-it note and passed it to Betty Jean.
“Well, I’ve got my work cut out for me today, as do both of you,” Betty Jean said as she marched out of the office like a velour whirlwind. This left the two of them suddenly alone and facing each other once more. He watched Winnie nervously twist a finger around a curl at her collar bone.
“So, the woman breaking and entering on my mom’s property turns out to be the new editor of the newspaper, huh?” he asked.
“Guilty.”
“That seals our fate then.”
Her eyes widened with concern. “Does it?”
“Oh, yes. There’ll be no staying invisible now, Briggs. You’ve moved into a little fishbowl of a town, one that doesn’t get restocked often. As the newest, most sparkly fish, everyone’s going to be watching you closely.”
He watched her take a deep breath and straighten her shoulders a bit.
“I’m a journalist, which for better or for worse makes me pretty used to being in the public eye.”
“Well, good.”
Her eyes softened just a bit.
“Are you concerned about any of this?” she asked, glimpsing briefly down at her notes from the ‘emergency’ meeting.
“No,” he answered, and it was mostly true. “It’s worth looking into. Even if it’s just a few teen pranks, it’d be best to put an end to it. I’ll give Carter a heads up, you’ll talk to some of the business owners, and Betty Jean will do what she does best.”
“Which is…”
“Put the fear of God in people, especially those who try to come between h
er and her pancake dinners.”
Winnie snorted. For the second time in as many days he wondered how the sound managed to be adorable.
“Okay then, I guess that’s that,” she said. “Now it’s time for me to figure out where everything is in my office, who’s who in town, and what exactly I’m supposed to be doing as the editor of this paper.”
“Should make for a nice, light work day, then.”
She laughed again, and damn if he didn’t love the sound. His feet suddenly felt rooted to the ground and he fought the urge to continue their banter, just as an excuse to stay in her presence for a few more minutes.
That very awareness proved to be the wake-up call he needed. He had to shake this woman from his system, fast.
“Until next time, then,” he said with a smile and made his way to the hallway. And even if he chose to ignore it, the notion that there would be a next time with Winnie Briggs was enough to put a spring in his step as he made his way out the front door.
Chapter 5
By late morning, Winnie’s brain had turned to mush. Between the lack of sleep, the bizarre introduction to the town’s most relentless busy body, the kick in the gut she felt after learning about the inevitable professional connection she and Cal would share, and the intensity of all the processes, passwords and people she was learning about on her first morning on the job, Winnie didn’t know up from down.
Slowly, slowly, the curl of anxiety began to creep its way through her core, and her internal pendulum started to shift toward panic. What was she doing here in Bloomsburo? Had she really picked up her life and stepped into the middle of a community where she didn’t know a soul? Who could she vent to? Who could help her process the dozens of conflicting emotions coursing through her veins right now?
And why on earth had she agreed to not contact her best friend Bree for an entire month?
Luckily one familiar sound stopped her from her catastrophizing: her stomach grumbling. She suddenly struggled to remember if she’d actually managed to eat even so much as a granola bar this morning in the all the hubbub. If there was one thing Winnie knew about herself, though, it was that an empty stomach increased her odds of overreacting.