“Bridal shops require a pool of local brides, Mae,” Sam pointed out.
“Well, then, someone should open a beauty shop. We haven’t had one since Nadine died,” Mae said, looking inconvenienced.
“Ladies come to my barbershop for haircuts.” Phil Lambridge turned in his chair to look at Mae.
“Not this lady,” Mae huffed.
And who could blame her? Phil’s hands shook as they rested on the pew railing. It was a wonder anyone trusted him with sharp scissors near their ears.
Bald Mario Rodriguez piped up from the second row. “I’d like to see a coffee shop. It would be great to have a cup of coffee away from the missus.”
Laughter sprinkled through the room like a light and welcome rain shower. This was the Harmony Valley Emma loved, full of character and spunk.
Will ignored the outbursts and aimed his control fob at the screen.
Her grandmother angled forward.
Emma held her breath. Waiting to see what Granny Rose did next was like sitting in the front car of a roller coaster at the top of the first big hill, anticipating a stomach-dropping ride.
“All good suggestions.” Will pressed a button. “In closing, we’d like to thank our supporters, including Agnes Villanova, Mildred Parsons and Edwin Blonkowski.”
Granny Rose stood. “What assurance do we have that you won’t sell us downriver? How do we know you aren’t going to take our approvals and government bottling permits and sell for a profit to some big corporation?” Her grandmother spoke in a businesslike voice, the one that had won her the town’s respect and a seat on the town council. She directed her words to the crowd. “If a corporation buys them out, they’ll bulldoze our houses, our histories, our memories, precisely as they did in Napa and Healdsburg and a dozen other small towns. Do you remember how they bulldozed a hillside in Healdsburg, changing the entire landscape? Have you driven by the cavernous warehouses?” Granny Rose pointed at the twelve Lions in the audience. “That big corporation they sell to will knock on your door and buy you out. They’ll buy out everyone until there’s nothing left of Harmony Valley. Nothing.”
Her proverbial roller coaster had dropped over the edge and everyone in the church seemed to be recovering from the ride. Emma hoped it was over.
Will exchanged a quick, frustrated glance with Emma. “That’s not our plan.”
“How about a contract?” Sam asked, a snarky challenge in his tone.
Slade shook his head ever so slightly at Will.
“That’s what I thought.” Granny Rose turned to Emma, as calm as if they’d finished watching an enjoyable musical. “Now I’m ready to go.”
Emma was happy to oblige.
“We’re committed to Harmony Valley,” Will called after them.
Her grandmother ignored him.
Out on the sidewalk, Emma was beside herself. “Can they really do that?” Was this why Will had looked at her funny last night at bingo when she’d offered a truce?
“Yes. I called a friend of mine that used to live in Napa. She told me exactly what happened. Oh, she told me, all right.” Granny pounded one delicate fist into her palm. “Some global winery will swoop down on us like Sherman did with Atlanta. Do you know how valuable Sonoma County wines have become? We may be in the middle of nowhere, but half our acreage is vineyards. And another big chunk is idle, ripe for the planting.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right. I can’t stand by and watch this happen, Emma. You know that, don’t you?” Granny Rose stopped to look at the town square and the oak tree where her husband had proposed. “Hot spot, my fanny. The oak tree stays.”
“We need to calm down and think about this rationally.” The last thing Emma wanted was Granny stressed out and sinking into an episode like she’d experienced at the council meeting Monday night. Her grandmother was already half wound up.
“Rose!” Will’s long strides ate up the distance between them.
“Here comes Beelzebub,” said Granny Rose, a tempestuous set to her features.
“Calm down,” Emma whispered as she caught Will’s eye. “And listen to what he has to say.”
Her grandmother harrumphed.
“Rose, why do you think we’d go to all the trouble, not to mention the expense, of seeking winery approvals only to sell them off?”
“It would be different if you were going to settle here, young man, but your heart lies out there.” Granny Rose gestured to the one road out of town. “A business here could only be a burden to you. And your partner with the tie looks like he’d jump at the chance for a deal.”
“We plan to leave a representative here,” Will said. “Someone who’ll watch out for our interests, as well as the town’s.”
“An employee is not a guarantee that you’re setting down roots.” Granny put one hand on her slim hip.
“We’re also taking your suggestions into account—reducing the size of our facility, preserving the oak tree. We’re exploring the possibility of using the existing farm buildings.”
“Words. I don’t trust words.” Granny Rose slid a glance toward the oak tree. “I’m going to make everyone see the danger of putting our future in your hands.”
Will gave Emma a look that said “help me out here.”
“I’m sure Will can come up with some kind of guarantee.” Like the fact that he wanted his sister to run the place. She gave him a look that said “come clean.”
Will remained suspiciously mute.
Her grandmother fairly vibrated with unexploded tension. It was time to get her home.
“When you figure it out, Will, you can let us know.” Emma took her grandmother firmly by the arm and headed for home. “After dinner, I’m dropping you off with Agnes to watch baseball. Mayor Larry invited me to bowl. I want you to promise you won’t make trouble while I’m gone.”
“Emma—”
“Promise me. No trouble while I’m gone.”
“I promise.” Granny Rose’s angelic expression was almost too good to be believed.
* * *
“I KNOW WE challenged you to a game during league.” Mayor Larry parked his bag on the floor, dug inside and tried to shake the wrinkles out of his purple-and-green tie-dyed bowling shirt. “But Takata had a colonoscopy this morning and couldn’t drag his butt out of bed. We had to scramble for a replacement player this morning.” Larry buttoned his bowling shirt over a black Grateful Dead T-shirt.
“Some people need to seriously examine their priorities.” Sam collapsed in the scorer’s chair, winded after his walk from the parking lot.
“We welcome the challenge.” Will deposited Sam’s bowling bag at his feet. After this afternoon’s blowup with Rose, he was nostalgic for their cramped apartment and near-empty bank account. At least then he’d been the master of his own destiny. Maybe if he had an idea for an app, he’d be more resilient to these winery setbacks.
Felix was changing his shoes in a lane seat next to Larry. The big man’s bowling shirt was sprinkled with cat hair. “I won’t be needing to see your architectural plans, Will, since I’m not going to support any sellout.”
Will was still reeling from Rose’s accusation that they were only applying for permits to sell out the entire town. More unsettling was Slade’s claim that he’d support a lucrative offer. He couldn’t reassure people they wouldn’t sell if both his partners didn’t agree.
Flynn claimed a chair on the opposite side of the double bowling lane, raising his voice to be heard over balls crashing into pins. “We aren’t going to all this trouble just to sell out.”
Felix grumbled something Will couldn’t hear. How were they supposed to save Harmony Valley when no one trusted them?
Tracy’s carefree laughter carried from the shoe counter. She and Slade were paying for four pairs of shoes. Mira
culously, Tracy had been in a good mood for days. Granted, she locked herself in her room most of the time, but when she came out, she was smiling. Her happiness was the only thing keeping Will from giving up on the winery.
“Hey, guys.”
The sound of Emma’s voice was like a hard reboot to Will’s heart—a quick, unexpected stop, followed by a not-so-gentle go.
Emma blessed Will with that challenging grin. The one that said “make me stop smiling.” “I’m here to bowl.”
“With whom?” Will asked, at the same moment Larry said, “Right on time, teammate.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Will said to Emma, gesturing toward Tracy, who was shopping the ball aisle.
“It doesn’t bother me.” Emma waved at Tracy, who quickly looked away. Emma’s smile wavered. “It doesn’t bother me,” she repeated, but softly and almost to herself. “Would you rather I ask her to go shopping?”
“No.”
“We start in five minutes and Emma still doesn’t have shoes,” Sam pointed out, pausing after having entered E on the fourth line of the electronic scoreboard posted above them.
“I’m on it.” Emma picked up her purse and left.
Slade took a practice ball. Although he’d rolled up his sleeves, his gray shirt looked freshly pressed, even though it was the end of the day.
From the row of seats on the other side of the score table, Flynn checked something on his cell phone. They were all phone addicts any time they reentered civilization.
“What’s. She doing. Here?” Tracy held a green ball against her stomach.
Will’s gaze strayed to Emma at the shoe counter. “Larry invited her to bowl.”
“No one. Told me,” Tracy said petulantly, depositing her ball in the ball rack.
“Likewise.” Will shrugged. “You’ve been friends a long time. You should talk to her.”
At his words, Flynn’s head came up from his phone. He scrutinized Will, who shrugged again. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, Tracy and Emma missed each other.
“I will. Soon.” Tracy glanced toward the shoe counter.
Emma returned before he could question Tracy further. His sister claimed a seat on the other side of the lane from both Will and Emma.
While he put on his bowling shoes, Emma multitasked, slipping off her sandals as she held up her end of the bargain they’d made at bingo. “Larry, are you going to vote for Will’s winery next Monday, because I’ve been thinking—”
“This is league, Emma.” Larry waggled his finger at her. “We don’t talk shop here. Bowling is existential.”
“If I’d known you were coming, I would have warned you about Larry’s rules.” Will tried not to stare at Emma’s orange toenails, the graceful arch of her foot. “But thanks for trying. At least no one can say you’re a quitter.”
“Not about that, at least,” Emma said cryptically, producing a pair of black socks from her purse. “I’m operating on faith. I need more than your word that you won’t sell the town out.”
Felix stared at Will, waiting for reassurance he couldn’t give until Slade backed off from the dollar signs.
“I told you I don’t want to sell.” Will rubbed his palms on his thighs and changed the subject. “A bit of advice. Don’t suck. Larry likes to win.”
Emma slid her feet into the faded red-and-white leather shoes. “Regardless of which team wins, I bet I bowl better than you tonight.”
He’d forgotten how competitive Emma was. “Bring it. Loser pays for lunch at El Rosal.” It was a friendly bet, something that might shake her composure and make her lose that grin. His own composure was rock solid. His heart wasn’t thudding in his chest because of her. That was just precompetition adrenaline.
She double knotted her laces.
Will rubbed his forehead. There was no way Emma’s feet could look good in scuffed bowling shoes.
Emma watched a bowler in the next lane. She rolled her shoulders back and forth. Pinwheeled her arms in big circles. Stretched them behind her back.
Doubt tweaked the edge of Will’s confidence, as if he’d accepted a golf game with a big money bet and discovered he was playing against Tiger Woods.
Emma turned to the mayor. “Hey, Larry, can I take a practice ball?”
“No time for that.” The mayor stepped up to the ball rack.
“Give me a minute.” Moving past him, Emma tested the approach to the line, walking through her motion and follow-through. She grabbed the brush hanging from the scoring table and sat next to Will, brushing the bottoms of her shoes.
“Were you, perhaps, a bowling pro at some point and no one told me?” Will fought the unlikely suspicion that someone had painted a big S on his chest. S standing for Sucker, not Superman.
“Emma had. Bowling. For P.E. In school.” Tracy’s death-ray vision was trained on Will. It was the you’re-making-a-fool-of-yourself-stop-it younger-sister stare that was the bane of older brothers everywhere. He’d have thought he’d be used to it by now, especially since she’d used it more these past few months than the past few years combined.
“What happened to basketball and soccer?” Slade was frowning at his orange-and-black bowling shoes, as if an investor might suddenly walk into the bowling alley to meet him, take one look at his tacky footwear and walk out.
“Budget cuts. Our P.E. teacher lost his job, so the school improvised.” Flynn wiped his bowling ball. “Larry volunteered to teach bowling and yoga. Felix volunteered to teach golf. Volunteers kept Harmony Valley schools open for years.”
“I took. Yoga,” Tracy said.
“And I took golf,” Flynn said. “How about we golf tomorrow?”
“Can’t. Got a pacemaker check in the morning.” Mayor Larry led off for his team. He bowled like Fred Flintstone, too high on his toes. Two swings of the ball and he had a spare.
Slade led off for Will’s team and got a spare.
Sam bowled next. The spritely old man staggered through his approach as if his chartreuse ball was too heavy for him. But he picked up a spare, as did Flynn and Felix. Tracy knocked down six pins. Her arms were so weak that her ball lacked momentum.
Then it was Will’s turn. He just missed picking up a spare. He might have been a tad distracted by a woman with dark hair and delectable toes.
Will returned to the seat next to Emma. Might as well get into her head. “Pretty tough going last, isn’t it?”
“Spoken like the person who just went last for his team.” Emma stepped confidently to the ball rack, her left hand hovering briefly over the fan.
“Gutter ball,” Will murmured, for luck.
“We’re all good sports here.” Felix frowned at him.
Will shrugged. What could he say? His competitive side was yin to his control freak’s yang.
Emma stood at the ready, head bowed over the ball as if she was gazing into it to see her fortune. She lined herself up, swung the ball back and let it fly with the fine-tuned precision of a professional athlete. Strike.
Mayor Larry hooted and high-fived Felix.
Emma could barely keep a bike upright and she bowled like that? Will was in trouble.
“I’m going for a water.” Emma breezed by him. “Does anyone want anything?”
After she’d taken orders and left, Tracy came over to sit next to Will. “Quit. Flirting. With Emma.”
Mayor Larry stepped up to bowl.
“I’m not flirting,” Will protested. “She annoys me. Always has.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “You suck. At dating.”
Flynn and Slade tried to camouflage their chuckles.
“What are you talking about? I have no trouble getting dates.” Or at least he hadn’t until they’d come to Harmony Valley. Not that there was a dating pool in the small town.
“You’re worried about me breaking Emma’s heart?” Will would never understand his sister. “You won’t talk to her and yet you’re trying to protect her?”
She nodded. “Have you. Forgiven her?”
“No.”
“Then. She’s. Off-limits.”
She had a point. Will held up his hands in surrender. Tracy returned to her seat. Flynn said something that made her laugh.
On her next turn, Emma bowled another strike. She plopped into the seat next to him, dropping a challenge. “You better bowl the game of your life, because I’m going to wipe the floor with you.”
Without thinking, Will countered with a challenge of his own. “Easier here than on Parish Hill.”
“Really?” Emma raised an eyebrow. “You want to go there? Your running shoes against my bike?”
“I’ll make it easy on you. It’s not a race to the top, just to see who can go the farthest before quitting.”
Tracy’s scowl promised Will the kind of retribution only a sister could deliver, making him hesitate only a moment before specifying a time for their race.
After all, competition wasn’t dating.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“GRANNY ROSE, I’M home.” Emma came through the back door into the mudroom.
Although Mayor Larry refused to discuss the winery project with her, he’d told her several times she was welcome to bowl on his team anytime. That was what came of beating Will two out of three times. She’d have to think about how to use that to her advantage in turning Larry into a supporter of change. One who’d lock out any corporate deal Will might make behind the town’s back.
“I’m in here, reading,” Granny Rose called from her bedroom.
Emma poked her head in the door, relieved that Granny Rose was sitting in a chair next to the bed, looking sweet and grandmotherly.
She bid Granny good-night and went upstairs, thinking about Will and his challenge. She’d been foolish to accept a race up Parish Hill, even if he did make her feel alive again. For half a year she’d felt guilty for living.
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