LOVE in a Small Town

by Janet Eaves

  “People would be that disappointed. One thing you need to remember about Legend—we pull together. If you’re not gonna pull with us, you’d just as well pull out.” Mike left, closing the door a little louder than necessary.

  Chapter Two

  Greg knocked on the door of the cabin, then looked around. You could tell a woman lived here. The cabin itself was kit-built, and well done at that, but flowerbeds were everywhere in the small yard and up against the house. Pots of flowers sat on the porch with some comfortable rocking chairs and a primitive-looking table. She hadn’t just planted one or two colors either. Every color of the rainbow was represented and all different shapes and sizes. So it was obvious not only a woman, but an artistic woman, was responsible. Kinda sickening really. Greg didn’t do flowers. Besides the fact that they were feminine, they were way too much work. He lived in one side of a thirty-year-old duplex, and the only thing he had stuck in dirt was a cherry tomato plant. And that was in an old wooden half-barrel he’d cleaned off a job site. The barrel sat on the tiny concrete pad of a patio outside his kitchen, so he didn’t even have to mow around it. He liked things simple. Clean was optional. Neat was often more of an effort than he wanted to make. He worked hard with his business and couldn’t see the point of working on his free time.

  Women seemed to like knocking themselves out decorating stuff. He shrugged and knocked again.

  The door was jerked open, and Chloe McClain scowled at him. “What do you want?” She had white stuff smudged across her face in a couple of places, and her long dark shirt was a mess with dusty white splotches all over it. Her hands, too. Maybe, besides being crazy and some kind of artist, Chloe was a baker. That could be flour smeared on her face. Baker would be a nice combination with sexy, which she definitely had going on. He might reconsider a relationship with her if she was into baking homemade bread. Nothing would taste better right now… He glanced at Chloe’s mouth. Even though she was frowning, her mouth begged to be kissed. She had those great pouty lips…

  “I said, ‘What do you want?’ I’m busy!”

  “Uh… Just came to talk about the building.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you’d finished talking about the building. ‘No’ pretty much covered your part of that discussion.”

  Greg stood straighter and stared into those big chocolate-brown eyes. “I’ve reconsidered.” God, he hated eating crow—even just a little bit of crow.

  Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, wiping even more white stuff onto the long, dark shirt. “Who put you up to this? Martin?”

  “No.” He crossed his arms, too. Might as well do the body language thing right back at her.

  “Mike then. Or Betsy.”

  Greg laughed. No way would he listen to something Betsy McClain—or any woman—told him to do. Outside of a bedroom, that is.

  Her eyes widened a little then. “So why are you here?”

  “Thought about it some more. We didn’t really finish the conversation yesterday—”

  “You said I should try to find someone else. That you couldn’t do the job in thirty days.”

  “Yeah, well… Not for my usual rate. I’d have to charge extra for expediting the job. I didn’t get to that part.”

  Greg had thought of this clever ploy after replaying their conversation in his mind way too many times last night instead of sleeping. He couldn’t afford to alienate the entire town by turning down this job, but who could blame him if Chloe was the one who made the decision? He’d neatly written his proposal and added a fee for expediting. It was just good business all around.

  Chloe’s delicate brows drew together. “Hm. Well then, come in for a minute.” She turned on her heel, something he’d seen her do yesterday, but this time she led him through a brightly decorated little entry with some delicate flowers from her yard stuck in a bunch of tiny dark-blue vases on a little low table. He followed her down a polished oak hallway to the kitchen.

  The room was small but efficiently laid out, and in the center was a round oak table with four chairs. She tossed a dishtowel over something on the counter—maybe bread dough rising?—waved him into a chair, and sat opposite.

  He handed her the estimate. She unfolded it, hesitating as she did and glancing back up at him. He thought she might ask about the brown blotches on the paper, but it was probably obvious those were coffee. If the estimate had been more important to him, he would have recopied it onto a clean form. This one was a throw away anyhow, so why waste an extra set of the carbon forms? They weren’t cheap.

  He thought he heard her take a quick breath, but her expression didn’t change. He’d expected to see shock or disbelief, not bland perusal. She paged through the estimate carefully.

  “I understand most of what you’ve set out here.” She glanced up finally. “Everything I told you I want—everything in my drawings—all of that is covered?”

  “Yeah.” And a big extra at the end. Notice that.

  “The figure here by ‘expedite’—that’s an additional fee because of the short time frame?”

  “Right. It’s standard in this kind of situation. I’d have to get all my guys on this job, so I could lose some potential business while we’re tied up with your project…”

  “Any contractor would do the same. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Uh. Yeah.” Why wasn’t she freaked out? Maybe she was. Maybe she’d blow up in a minute. He looked around her to see what she might throw at him if she was that type. In the last few years, women had thrown all kinds of things at him.

  Chloe shrugged. At the motion, a little bit of white dust filtered off her shirt and drifted toward the floor. “And you guarantee the space will be ready August thirty-first to my specifications. Per the drawings I gave you. Right?”

  Hm. This didn’t sound like she was cutting him loose. He never thought she would agree to the exorbitant price. She wasn’t supposed to agree. She was supposed to roll her eyes, wad up the paperwork, and order him out of her house.

  “Mr. Andrews? Did you hear me?”

  Greg cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  “Do you guarantee the space will be ready on August thirty-first?”

  “Well…yeah.” His throat was really closing up. Maybe he was allergic to that white dust, or to Chloe McClain. Or to the thirty day time frame.

  Twisting in her chair, she reached behind her and slid a drawer open. Oh, man. A gun? No—it’s a kitchen. Maybe a knife…

  She turned around with a long green pen in her hand. Something bobbed off the end of it…a big yellow fake daisy head. Holding the pen and paperwork out to him, she said, “Write in the completion date. Then we’ll sign. I guess we have a deal.”

  Ten minutes later Greg was slowly driving to the office. They had a deal, he and Chloe McClain. Crazy as it was, he had just signed an agreement that would keep him and his guys busy for a solid month. If he was lucky they’d finish on time, and nobody would quit because of the hours he was going to make them work. Even with the overtime pay, he knew most of them would grouse. That’s what it would take to gut the century-old brick building and turn it into the spare but upscale art gallery Chloe had sketched. How had his plan gone so wrong? How did she have so much money? Evidently, painting pictures paid a lot better than painting walls. Greg let himself into the office and tossed his copy of the paperwork onto his desk, where it slid into a puddle of leftover coffee. Great. He stalked to the coffee pot and dumped the old grounds, getting ready to make his second pot of the day. He needed to be alert. After all, he had building materials to order.

  ****

  Chloe stood on her front porch watching the Deluxe Home Improvements truck drive away. Her hands began to shake a little, and her knees were wobbly, so she went to a rocker and dropped into it. She had just signed away more money than she had or had access to. The sale of the cabin and small acreage was supposed to pay for the building and renovations. That plan had just gone out one of the energy-efficient replacement wi
ndows she’d specified for the gallery and living space above. She was going to have to take out a hefty mortgage on her new building. She’d had unrealistic ideas about the price of the renovation. Even without the additional fee Andrews added, the cost was more than she’d expected. Chloe leaned her head back and looked out at her cheerful little yard. All this would soon belong to a young couple who seemed to love it as much as she did. They had called it their dream home when Chloe and her brother Martin sat across the table from them at the bank during the sale closing. In thirty days, they would be living here, and Chloe would be in an apartment in town over a gallery that might or might not succeed. Everything hinged on what happened during those thirty days. Thirty very expensive days. She didn’t have time to go looking for a contractor, or for this guy Greg Andrews to act like a prima donna.

  She worked hard at her art. Numbers, however, were clearly not her thing. Starting immediately, she didn’t have money for any personal niceties. Health insurance for instance—she hadn’t had any for years. It was an expense she’d not been able to fit into a budget, if she’d had one. She had spent a lot on her little cabin, and now even more on the new place. As of this moment, extras like food and clothing were iffy. Well, she had clothes. Most of the time she wore cruddy stuff anyway because everything ended up with paint on it. And she had food, or at least some food. Probably some cereal and some cans of soup and beans. Part of a half-gallon of milk…

  It would all work out somehow, though—it had to. This was her big chance, and nothing was going to get in the way. She’d do everything she possibly could to make this a success. She wanted to do a couple more paintings for the opening. She’d saved some huge canvases for a special project, and this was definitely it. She also needed to spend a lot of time on her new art, because although the main attraction would be on her paintings of the mountains, she wanted people to see her little towns—both of them. Not only did she want the art community and their money to visit the beautiful little town of Legend, surrounded by the mountains’ natural beauty, but she wanted them to fall in love with her other little town. Walking to the kitchen counter, Chloe removed the dishtowel she’d thrown there a few minutes ago and picked up a two-inch representation of her cousin Mike McClain. She hadn’t painted his face yet, but had captured his longish brown hair, strong build, his ever-present pocket t-shirt and jeans with a carpenter’s square sticking out of a pocket in the leg. Yes, it would look just like him when it was finished. She set the tiny figure down next to another, a bit shorter. Betsy. Chloe leaned over and looked into its diminutive face. Just right. And the cloud of golden-blonde hair had come out perfectly. Her eyes shifted slightly right, and she narrowed them at an even smaller figure—Mike and Betsy’s daughter, LizBeth Ann. Now she had been a challenge. Less than an inch tall. It was a good thing Chloe had started this project while she was still relatively young, and had strong eyes. In a few days, she’d have the whole McClain clan finished, and could move on to other Legendarians.

  Chloe thought back to the morning a couple of months ago when Betsy had arrived early to pick up LizBeth Ann after a “sleep-over.” The preschooler had still been slumbering, Betsy had some extra time, and Chloe was about to burst with excitement. She led Betsy into the kitchen.

  “I want you to look at this and tell me what you think. Be completely honest with me. Seriously. I don’t want you to be kind—”

  “Oh my gosh! Midnight!” Betsy gingerly picked up the tiny figure of Midnight Shelby McClain and examined it. “Chloe, this is amazing! When did you start doing this kind of work?”

  Chloe felt her face grow warm. That wasn’t fake encouragement. Yes!

  “Actually, last night. After LizBeth Ann collapsed around eight o’clock.” She watched as Betsy carefully set the tiny Midnight back onto the kitchen counter. “We spent most of the evening playing with dolls. Hers that she brought, of course, and then—I want you to know I watched her really carefully so she wouldn’t swallow anything—um… I brought out a box of my old dolls. Little ones that I’d always loved as a child because I could drop one in each pocket and take them with me. Something about little bitty dolls always intrigued me. Like they could come to life and be my tiny friends.” She pulled a pained face. “I know. Strange. I started young on my weirdness, I guess.”

  Betsy laughed and shook her head, setting her long blonde curls into motion. “Yeah. I worry so much about how weird you are, Chloe. That’s why I trust you with my daughter.” Betsy helped herself to a mug from the cupboard and filled it at the coffee pot, generously dosing it with sugar. “So the little dolls were a hit with LizBeth Ann.”

  “She was entranced! She immediately named them all and started dividing them into families. One family lived on a couch cushion, one on the fireplace hearth, one under the rocking chair… It’s like she was finding dangerous homes for them.” Chloe laughed, remembering her fear that LizBeth Ann would somehow rock the chair onto her little arm. Chloe had been glued to the child all evening. “And as I watched her, I got the idea to make little families and houses, kind of like a fairy tale village. Then I realized—hey—I’ve got better than that. I’ve got Legend! I don’t even have to make it up. The models already exist.”

  By the time the gallery opened, she planned to have all the shopkeepers and the main buildings of town completed. She’d had success with the rendition of her little cabin—a very sentimental enterprise—but for some reason the old town hall wanted to cave in. She needed to conquer that and finish the buildings facing the east side of Main Street, beginning at Midnight Shelby McClain’s shop, The Emporium, another large edifice. Chloe grinned. Midnight, with her long, impossibly black hair, black eyes, and porcelain skin, was an artist’s dream. Midnight’s reaction when she saw the little figure had been priceless! So far, Chloe had told very few people of her new project, still unsure of her ability to succeed in the new medium. She’d never wanted to try to paint people, just stick with landscapes. But once she had started creating the tiny figures, she’d become constantly more excited about the new project. Which was one reason her show had to take place in Legend and nowhere else. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have the impact it needed to make.

  Except for college, Chloe had always lived in Legend and loved it dearly. It was the center of her life, and she wanted everyone to see how special it was.

  Then she would take orders and start building other people’s families, from photographs, and she’d have a lucrative business. Without a doubt, rich people would pay good money to have themselves and their homes memorialized in polyresin. Then there would be no more financial problems for Chloe. She could start putting money away for her old age.

  Not retirement—never that. Chloe had no intention of ever not making art. If she had to stop that, she’d just as soon stop breathing.

  Yes, she had a lot of work to do for all of this to happen when she opened the gallery September first. She didn’t mind working hard. She just hoped Greg Andrews felt the same way.

  Chapter Three

  Chloe was jarred from a deep, sound sleep by the sound of her cell phone. Groping to drag herself into consciousness, she pulled an arm out of the tangle of blankets and started to feel around on the side table for the stupid phone. Had she accidentally set the alarm to go off in the middle of the night? There was no light coming through the muslin bedroom curtains to indicate it was actually morning. She put her hand around the phone and struggled to focus on the screen. Not the alarm. She was getting a call and didn’t recognize the number. A prank call on her cell in the middle of the night? What next?

  “Um. Hello?”

  “This is Greg. You need to get down here, or I’ll break into this damned building. How do you expect me to do the job with no damned key to get in?” Click.

  Chloe stared at the phone. Greg? Building? Then her mind kicked into high gear and she jumped out of bed, threw on clothes, and ran out of the house. A few minutes later, her Jeep screeched to a stop near her building. She couldn’
t park in front of it, because all manner of pickup trucks were parked along the front and in front of the two adjacent buildings. Several hunky construction workers were standing by the front door, drinking coffee from thermoses and looking restless as they muttered to each other.

  Chloe slid down from the seat of her Jeep Liberty, slammed the door, and stalked over to the group of men. Greg Andrews was in the center, and when she met his eyes, he stopped talking whatever trash he’d been saying. A couple of the guys stepped back, allowing Chloe access to their fearless leader.

  In spite of herself, her hand and voice shook a bit with the effort of controlling the anger that had begun as soon as he’d hung up on her. “Here’s the damned key to the damned building. Next time you take on a job, you might request a key prior to arriving at the front door to begin work. And Mike?” She turned and caught her cousin’s stare. “Thanks for giving him my cell number.”

  His face reddened. “Sorry, Chloe. We needed into the building.”

  “I’m not kidding, Mike. Thanks. If you hadn’t done that, I imagine Mr. Macho Carpenter here would have come beating on my front door, and I might have accidentally shot him with that rifle Dad gave me for Christmas a couple years back. You may have saved a life today.”

  She turned on her heel and walked a few steps before facing the group again. “Guys, I really appreciate you—” she flicked a glance at Andrews “at least, most of you—doing this job. It’s a huge deal for the town, and me, but I know it’s a lot of work. I hope afterward you’ll feel like it’s been worthwhile.”

  The guys looked embarrassed and muttered encouraging things about being glad for the work and happy to help Chloe when she was in a bind. Only Greg Andrews remained silent, staring a hole through her forehead. Too bad Martin had said he was the only contractor in town who could do this job. She already hated the man.

  Driving away a couple of minutes later, she smiled, remembering her threat about the rifle. Wouldn’t be a bad thing for Mr. Andrews to reflect on that possibility from time to time. She wasn’t at all sure of him. Except for one thing—he started his day early. The clock on her radio told her it was now twenty minutes after five.