A Man of Influence

by Melinda Curtis

  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.

  Chad veered onto the path across the sparse grass, drawn to the birds singing by the river. He passed a rusty swingset, an equally rusty pushable merry-go-round, a couple wooden picnic tables carved with initials, and lots of trees—poplar, oak, eucalyptus. Finally, he reached the bluff overlooking the water and nearly fell over the edge.

  Tracy wasn’t there, but immediately below him, on a narrow strip of dirt beach, a naked man was doing yoga. He was old, fit and had a long gray ponytail.

  “Good morning, Chad,” the mayor said, as if he did naked yoga with an audience every day.

  “Good morning,” Chad blurted, backing away from the view. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  “Want to join me?” Larry called after him.

  Naked yoga with another dude? “Nope.” That was a definite man-code breaker. Chad’s pace picked up, not because he was embarrassed—although there was that—but because he’d been set up.

  By Tracy.

  * * *

  CHAD ENTERED MARTIN’S and drew a deep breath. Ah, coffee. The morning’s lifeblood. A glance around the bakery revealed many of the patrons from the day before. The checkers match was on between Felix and Phil. Eunice sat in the window seat wearing Easter Egg colors that complimented her purple hair. Two men stood drinking coffee and talking near Eunice. The taller, more solid-looking of the pair held Gregory with the ease of parenthood.

  There was a line to place an order, and Chad got in it, smiling. He’d left the Lampoon offices wanting to smile and laugh and joke more. With the exception of Roxie, Harmony Valley was giving him that. And now, he had to decide what kind of payback to give Tracy, the prankster.

  He moved forward and the first pastry case came into unobstructed view. Forget another breakfast quiche. The pastries in the case looked decadently large. They’d hold him. He gauged the distance between he and Tracy. Her arms were slender, but they could hold him, as well.

  Whoa. Where had that thought come from?

  Granted, Tracy was attractive and engaging, with a good sense of humor. And granted, he enjoyed her company when they weren’t arguing about him being an evil overlord. But she wasn’t his type. She wasn’t a polished, driven go-getter. And yet, in that instant, Chad’s perspective changed. She was...datable.

  When it was finally Chad’s turn, guilt was written all over Tracy’s face as she stared at his shoulder. “The usual? Latte and pumpkin spice scone?”

  “Latte and a cinnamon roll, please.” The cinnamon roll was the largest item in the bakery case and smelled heavenly when compared to the mini bran muffin. “So... I didn’t see you filming yoga down by the river this morning.”

  She had her back to him while she steamed his milk. She spared him a glance, biting her lip. And then she smiled, not in the least apologetically. “I’m sorry?”

  Chad felt that smile deep in his chest. “You’re not.”

  Her smile widened. “I’m not.” She returned her attention to his latte. “I read more of your columns.” If that was her opening salvo of the day, she’d have to add context and criticism.

  “My readership might be interested in a place where they can do naked yoga.”

  “You wouldn’t.” She turned. Her eyes were wider than those in the smiley face she’d made with milk on top of his wide-mug latte.

  A fully dressed mayor appeared next to Chad. “I was serious about my earlier offer. Yoga is invigorating down by the river. I’d wear clothes for you, Chad.”

  “He doesn’t make that offer...to just anyone,” Tracy ribbed, not that the mayor paid her any notice.

  But Chad did. Her banter, her ability to pull a prank. They combined to fill his chest with warmth.

  “Let me know if you change your mind.” Larry set two dollars on the counter. “Do you think your article on us will be picked up by any of those national papers?”

  Stress pinched more than his shoulder blades. It wrapped around Chad and squeezed.

  “I couldn’t say,” he wheezed, worse than Roxie had yesterday. Chad swallowed and tried again. “I need to learn about the town’s character, the festival, the winery—”

  “Flynn.” The mayor waved over one of the men standing near Eunice, the one with reddish-brown hair and no baby in his arms. He introduced him as one of the winery owners. “He’d like a tour of the winery, Flynn. He’s comfortable with Tracy if you can’t spare the time.”

  “I’ll ask Christine when he and Tracy can taste.” Flynn didn’t question Tracy’s inclusion, despite her propping her fists on her hips and huffing at the mayor after she’d given him his coffee and sugar packets.

  “Excellent.” Larry pumped Flynn’s hand. “Text Tracy a time to take him over.”

  “Before we roll out the red carpet...” Tracy held up several sheets of paper. “I printed some of Chad’s columns.” She offered them to the mayor and Flynn.

  Chad leaned forward to murmur, “I hope you picked some that make me look good.”

  “You wish,” she murmured back.

  Whatever columns she’d chosen, whatever the mayor’s reaction, it wouldn’t change what Chad wrote.

  “I don’t need to read those, Tracy.” The mayor was in pompous mode and discounted Tracy too easily. “And neither does Flynn. Chad’s written for important newspapers.” The mayor drew Flynn away to talk with the man holding the Poop Monster.

  Tracy dropped the papers into the trash with a defeated sigh.

  Chad’s cell phone rang. It was one of his sponsors. A sponsor call on a weekend wasn’t a good thing. “Marty, what’s up?”

  Marty McPhearson was the media buyer for an online travel clothing company—No Wrinkles. He’d once been a drill sergeant and his voice rasped with rough peaks and deep valleys. “My boss is giving me grief about our spend with you.”

  Chad gripped the counter and looked up. His gaze met that of a man in a sepia-tinted
photo with his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and the heels of his hands deep in dough.

  Chad hadn’t expected the Lampoon to lose an advertiser without a fight. The advertising business was a personal one. Chad had a friendly business relationship with Marty. Another editor at the Lampoon had a friendly business relationship with Marty’s boss. But he’d thought the window to backing out had closed.

  “I defended my spend with you, Chad. But without subscription and readership numbers, I’m not in a good position.” Marty cleared his throat, but it didn’t seem to make any difference in his gruff voice. “You know I hate to ask this, but I could do with some stellar advance content to prove I’m spending the company’s money wisely.”

  Chad opened his mouth to say no, but Marty beat him to the punch.

  “Without it, I may have to back out.”

  Chad’s grip on the counter tightened. If No Wrinkles backed out, others might, as well.

  “I need your best stuff, Chad. And I need it yesterday.”

  Nothing he’d written in the past month was good enough. Chad had a sinking feeling his best stuff had yet to be written and it’d be written about Harmony Valley. “Tuesday,” he choked out. “I can get you something by Tuesday.” He disconnected and scowled at the phone.

  “Tuesday deadline?” Tracy placed an oatmeal raisin cookie on the plate next to his cinnamon roll. “I thought you worked for yourself.”

  “Advertising supports blogs. One of my sponsors wants a taste of my magazine before I go live.”

  “Did you find your story?” There was too much superiority in those blue eyes.

  “Did you find what makes you...you?” he countered.

  “You found your story yesterday. With Henrietta.” That superiority spread to her smile. “You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”

  “That strong backbone of yours has been strengthened by accidents. First your mother’s. Then yours.” It was a guess, but the words felt right. A woman as soft-looking as Tracy didn’t develop a foundation of steel by facing sunshine and rainbows every day.

  “You need help.” Her smile hardened. “I could help you write your column.”

  “And I could help you write your video script.”

  The mayor clapped a hand on Chad’s shoulder. “I’m glad you two are offering to help each other.” His smile was oil-spill slick. “Tracy can show you around town, tell you about the festival and take you wine tasting. And you can help her with that interview video she’s stressing about.”

  “How did you...” Tracy’s gaze cut to the window seat. “Eunice.”

  “You may be talented,” Eunice said sweetly. “But Chad’s been in the paper. Popular ones.”

  The room erupted with agreement that boxed up his and Tracy’s objections before they’d ever been spoken.

  “You can start now. I’ll man the counter.” Eunice scurried over, immediately brightening the space with all her spring color.

  Not two minutes later, Chad and Tracy stood outside the bakery zipping up their coats.

  Tracy glowered at Chad. Her expression wasn’t so cute anymore. Not when his breakfast and latte weren’t outside with them.

  She took one look at his face and rolled her eyes. “Like this was my fault, Mr. Hotshot Newspaperman.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I DON’T NEED your help.” Tracy wanted to make that perfectly clear to Chad, because annoyance was wreaking havoc with the caffeine coating her stomach.

  “Likewise,” he said. “It was easier not to argue.”

  “Agreed.” Not that they were out of the meddlesome woods. Harmony Valley residents loved to butt in. But his comments inside the bakery still rankled. “I am not shaped. By accidents.”

  Chad didn’t miss a beat. “And I am not writing about a chicken.”

  While leaves danced gracefully down the street, Jessica came out with a tray she’d loaded with Chad’s order, plus an espresso and two oatmeal raisin cookies for Tracy. “I’m surprised you let them bully you into a partnership.”

  “I prefer to think of it as a strategic escape.” Chad claimed a wrought-iron chair at one of the small sidewalk tables. “There is no partnership.”

  Tracy dropped into a chair across from him. The nip in the air was already creeping around her toes. “You don’t understand...how things work here. These people. Can be stubborn.”

  “What’s there to be stubborn about?” Chad asked. “It’s none of their business.”

  “They’re talking about screening Tracy’s interview video for editorial purposes.” Jess set their drinks in front of them. The smiley face on Chad’s latte had morphed into a wobbly frown. “Saturday night after the Harvest Festival dance.”

  Annoyance doubled down in Tracy’s stomach. Chad smirked.

  Their plates came next, delivered with Jessica’s remorseful smile. “And they want a reading of the article Chad writes before it’s released. Eunice offered to read for you at the dance, Chad, but I bet as soon as Rose hears about it, there’ll be a fight.”

  Chad stopped smirking. “I’m not giving them anything to read.”

  “They’ll ask for it. Every morning.” Tracy broke a cookie in half. “Plus I think...Mayor Larry heard you say...Tuesday.”

  “I can attest to the fact that residents are a little overzealous.” Jess tucked the empty tray beneath her arm. “When I first moved here, it was as if the entire town adopted me. If you think about how their kids and grandkids have moved away, it makes sense. They’re retired and need more to do every day than play checkers.”

  Mayor Larry opened the door. “Tracy, take him by Snarky Sam’s. And the wine tasting will be tomorrow at eleven.” He held the door for Jessica and then returned inside.

  There was nothing carefree about Chad’s expression. He didn’t smile or give one of his self-deprecating laughs. His eyes were nearly as black as dark roast coffee beans. “We need a pact.”

  “You’re. Not.” She tapped a finger on the tabletop to emphasize each word. “Writing. My. Video.”

  “Not that kind of pact.” He pulled his cinnamon roll in two. “Not a creative pact. A defensive pact. We tell them no one sees the finished product but us.”

  “Really?” Maybe Tracy could work this to the town’s advantage. “You’d let me read—”

  “No. That’s just what we say.”

  “You’d lie?” Why was Tracy not surprised? “I won’t. Besides, they’ll still expect me to be your tour guide.”

  “And me your video consultant.”

  The last thing Tracy wanted was for him to witness her talking about personal things and stumbling over words.

  “We could make this work,” Chad said, shredding his roll again. “If we set boundaries.”

  He may have said boundaries, but Tracy saw walls. “No.”

  “Hear me out.” He leaned closer, as if worried the hearing aid crowd within the bakery might be eavesdropping.

  Which Eunice was. She sat in the window seat staring at them with those unblinking purple eyes of hers.

  “I could use a tour guide,” Chad said in a low voice that might just as easily have said, “You look lovely tonight.”

  Shocked at her overactive imagination, Tracy popped a piece of cookie in her mouth.

  “And I could help you with your delivery.”

  Delivery? The word brought her to pizza. Tracy glanced across the street to Giordanos Café, which used to be the town pizzeria. “I’m not...following.”

  “I know a little about speaking in front of an audience.”

  She bet it was very little. “Don’t tell me. To imagine people naked.” Her traitorous gaze slid to his broad shoulders beneath that black leather jacket before she sought refuge in the depths of her espresso cup.

  “That naked
thing never works.” Chad wiped icing from his fingers with a napkin, seemingly unaware of the direction her mind had wandered. “I notice you pause midsentence. You should always pause after the first word in a sentence. Don’t barrel forward and then lose momentum. You’ll only feel self-conscious and look as if you’ve lost your train of thought.”

  “That’s for stutterers.” Tracy tried to hide her disappointment. She’d read as much as she could about speech impediments and treatments. “That won’t. Help me.” Not that she’d tried it. But why try something that was for those with a different challenge than she had?

  He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Look across the street at that shop—Mae’s Pretty Things.”

  In the shop window, one of Eunice’s blue baby quilts was draped over a child’s rocking chair. Knit scarves and crocheted lace hung from a dried tree branch. Those things were delicate, frivolous. His hand was heavy. His fingers had a purposeful, proprietary hold on her shoulder.

  This pact is a bad idea. He was the suave, sophisticated, sinister Happy Bachelor. She was just plain Tracy.

  She didn’t dare look at him. She swallowed and stared hard at Eunice’s baby quilt.

  “Take a deep breath, relax and say something,” he commanded softly, using that intimate voice that created intimate images in her head. “Pause after the first word.”

  “I can’t.” How she hated to admit she had a weakness. It made her body draw in on itself, like a hermit crab retreating in its shell.

  He massaged her shoulder, fingers delving deep in her tense muscles. “Think Olympic athlete. Nothing comes easy to them. And yet they triumph. Take a—”

  “Will...you stop with the coaching already?”

  “That was awesome.” Chad draped his arm over her shoulder and gave her an air-stealing squeeze.

  No pact. No way.

  Tracy shoved his arm off. “Seriously? You’re making a move on me?”

  “Nope.” Chad grinned. Grinned! “I was happy for you and I got carried away.”

  She wanted to slug him. She wanted to shout at him. She wanted to kiss him.

  Ouch. That last thought made her want to sink into a hole in the ground, but at the same time she was filled with the unexpected realization that she’d delivered some quick rejoinders. It made her speechless.