Warm Front

by Patricia McLinn

  Still, it was none of her business. Just as she was none of his business.

  Until she died.

  Of what?

  When?

  Who was she?

  Who was she to him…?

  None of her business.

  Especially that last question.

  *

  Quince walked in to Zeke-Tech’s temporary offices two doors down from the computer lab Wednesday morning and experienced a dim appreciation that every person between him and the conference room where he was to meet with Zeke and Vanessa was occupied. That meant nods and waves were plenty. He didn’t have to talk or be pleasant.

  Zeke was already in the conference room, tapping and typing, typing and tapping.

  “Got an idea,” he said without looking up.

  “Great.”

  Zeke wrung the sarcasm out of that and responded literally. “It will be great. After I work out some kinks.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Zeke grunted in apparent acknowledgment that Quince had answered, though with no indication that he’d taken in the import of the answer. But then he added cheerfully, “Guess you’re in a rotten mood because that farm tourism stuff was a disaster.”

  Quince had to give Zeke credit for recognizing his mood, if not for tact.

  “Yeah.”

  After a few more moments of typing and tapping, Zeke frowned. “But the farm tourism experiment was over the weekend and you were normal Monday. What happened in between?”

  “Nothing.”

  Zeke ignored that. His eyes narrowed. “It’s Anne Hooper, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you say that?” Quince asked listlessly. Zeke would get bored with this fast.

  “If it were something with the company, I’d know about it already. If it were your family — well, you don’t have much to do with them, so I don’t know why they’d make you this way. You were kind of this way when you had that really bad assistant for a while, but you fixed that and I thought the one you have now is good.”

  “She is.”

  “Ah-hah. So that leaves Anne, especially since Darcie said … uh, never mind.”

  “You’re a tech marvel, Zeekowsky, but has anyone ever told you your people skills are lousy?”

  “You. All the time. Does that mean you don’t want to talk about it?”

  “That’s what it means.”

  Zeke continued looking at him for two, three, five breaths, then he slowly shook his head and said simply, “Not this time.”

  This wasn’t the way things worked between them.

  Quince didn’t usually have moods, Zeke rarely noticed when he did, and if he did notice, Quince easily waved him off.

  There had been only two other times in their friendship when Zeke hadn’t complied when Quince indicated he didn’t want to talk.

  The day after Fiona told Quince about her terminal illness. And four months after her death.

  “Tell me what’s going on?”

  Quince stared at nothing.

  After a long moment, Zeke repeated, “What’s going on, Quince?”

  “I think Hooper Farm is going under.”

  Zeke closed his device and asked probing questions that pulled out what had made Quince suspect the farm was in financial trouble, his research, his unsuccessful attempts to improve the bottom line.

  “You can’t say Anne doesn’t recognize the problem,” Zeke said at the end.

  “No, she sees it and her solution is to work herself into the ground.”

  That was dismissed with a hitch of one shoulder by the man who’d been doing the same to himself and those around him until Darcie came back in his life. “She let you try that farm tourism thing, so she’s not closed to all ideas. But now you feel you can’t offer any more ideas. Why?”

  Figured Zeke would break it down that way. It wasn’t nearly that simple. “Anne says I treat her like a rescue project. She seems to think I’m trying to fix the farm so I’d have something to pat myself on the back for.”

  “Are you treating her like a rescue project?”

  “How the hell would I know,” he snapped.

  Zeke pulled in a breath, but the door opened at that moment and Vanessa walked in.

  “Sorry for the delay. I have the top three options for local financial institutions. We must decide which to approach first. But we can’t run over because the kids and I are making brownies for tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Zeke repeated.

  “The Valentine’s Day party at the computer lab. And don’t forget you promised to give Warren a ride, since he’s bringing the frame for the world map we’re putting up.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  She shook her head, but once on the other side of the table, she stopped — walking and shaking her head. She looked from Quince to Zeke and back. “What?”

  Before he could respond, Zeke said, “Anne says Quince likes her just because—”

  “That is not what I said—”

  “—he needs another rescue project — like Zeke-Tech or um…”

  “Fiona?” Vanessa said.

  “I, uh… You could—”

  Quince covered Zeke’s fumbling. “She doesn’t know that Fiona was no rescue project. No lost cause.”

  “Huh.” Vanessa came the rest of the way into the room, putting her briefcase on the table and starting to unload it.

  “Huh what?” he demanded of her.

  She didn’t reply immediately. She finished straightening the files, folded her hands on the tabletop, and only then looked at him.

  “You’ve met other women who needed rescuing since Fiona.”

  He side-stepped that. “I respect Anne — how hard she’s working, how hard she’s fighting.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said this time. Zeke had the gall to nod in agreement.

  “Uh-huh what?” He could have throttled both of them.

  “In all these years there hasn’t been another woman who could use your help — who needed rescuing to use your phrase—”

  “Not mine — Anne’s.”

  “—and who you respected because they were working hard and fighting hard?”

  He twisted away tapping a pen against the table. “I’m sure I’ve met women like that.”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw her small smile, as if he’d just successfully learned to add two plus two. “But you haven’t become involved — emotionally involved. Not with any of them. Not with any other woman at all. Not until Anne Hooper.”

  He stopped tapping.

  “Good point, Vanessa.” Zeke nodded sagaciously.

  “Thank you, Zeke,” she said, but she was looking across the table at him, her face and posture calm, her eyes warm. “The question you need to answer, Quince, is why Anne Hooper. That’s what Anne really wants to know, too, even if she’s not saying that. Why her?”

  *

  If Monday night bingo was the big reveal for Everett and Peggy Richards being an item, then Wednesday night’s party at the computer lab was their first official outing as a couple.

  The place was packed, and the opportunity to witness the latest Drago news flash in person certainly contributed to it.

  With wry appreciation for a job well-done, Quince had watched Anne skillfully weaving through the attendees while completely avoiding his vicinity.

  What ease and comfort they’d built up in the weeks he’d lived at the farm were gone.

  Lost in kisses and a dispute.

  He was honest enough to realize that dispute had not been one-sided. Neither had the kisses.

  The crowd was starting to thin out.

  Anne was in a group with Everett, Mrs. R, Josh, Vanessa, Jorge O’Fallon from Stenner Autos, and Darcie.

  As Quince prepared to skirt the group, Darcie reached across the flow of people, snagged his arm before he realized what she was up to, and said, “Come join us, Quince.”

  O’Fallon was saying something to Anne, but she flicked a look toward him that wasn’t happy.<
br />
  Wasn’t my idea to join this group. Take it up with Darcie.

  “…really keep the cost down. I could give you a list of what you need and possible sites to check.”

  “I don’t know when I could get to it, Jorge. With needing to work off the car repairs, taxes, and all the regular work I need to pack into a short winter—”

  “I’ll do it,” Quince said. He almost looked around to see if somebody behind him had blurted out that offer. Nope. It was him.

  “Thanks, but with your job and everything else I couldn’t impose on you that way. Not to mention you wouldn’t know what to look for.”

  “I know enough about car parts.”

  “Oh, this is for the combine,” O’Fallon said.

  For half a breath, Quince saw O’Fallon as an opportunistic, predatory player trying to take advantage of Anne’s mechanical needs to put the moves on her. Sure, he’d suggested the deal for the car, but that didn’t mean the guy had to glom onto her, dragging out the contact by now fixing the combine.

  The combine.

  The piece of equipment that brought a worried frown to her eyes with every mention.

  In Quince’s next half a breath, O’Fallon regained his usual nice-guy status.

  Everett said, “Quince doesn’t know what to look for, but I sure do. Been running that machinery for longer than some of you’ve been alive.”

  “That’s the problem,” O’Fallon said with a grin.

  “All the parts lists are computerized now, Everett,” Anne objected. “The searching and ordering and—”

  “Yeah, I know. Said I’d do it and I will.”

  “But—”

  “I know how to do computer searches and find things. Can write emails and do more on there, too. Peggy has been teaching me. Private lessons.”

  They grinned at each other.

  Anne gawked at them.

  Filling the surprised silence, Quince asked, “You’ve been coming here for lessons and I somehow missed hearing about it?”

  “The computer lab? Nah. Told you. Private lessons.”

  “How’d that come about?”

  “Ask this forward woman,” Everett said.

  Mrs. R appeared to take that as a compliment. “I heard him telling his friends at the café how Anne was working all day on the farm and all night on the computer—”

  Anne’s gawk widened. Not quite a full jaw-dropped, eyes-bugged expression, but for her a definite gawk.

  It was kind of cute.

  And it twisted his heart that Everett’s concern came as a surprise to her.

  He’s worried about you.

  She’d recognized her great uncle-in-law’s curmudgeonly ways as they applied to him, but not to herself.

  “—and complaining that he was useless. So I marched up to him and said there was no reason he had to be useless. That he could help Anne with the computer work. He said he couldn’t. I said I could teach him. He said no. So I just kept saying he could and he should. He said no, no, no, no. Until he said yes.”

  “But…” That was all Anne got out for a moment. They all waited to see if she’d gather more. “But you’d never learn, never even try…”

  “Well, sorry to say this to you, Anne, but you’re not the best teacher. You get all bossy and you don’t explain it the way it’ll get into my head and then you get all impatient with me.”

  Quince had a fair idea of who got impatient. But no sense bringing that up, not while Everett was on a roll.

  “Come to think of it,” he added, “Mrs. R gets bossy now and then, too, but I like it.”

  Another pair of grins.

  Anne looked like she might fall over.

  Everett turned more serious. “I’m not much in the fields, but I can do this for the farm — Hooper Farm.” Clearly a thought hit him then — not a pleasant one. He held his hands up, as if in defense from an attack. “Not that I’ll be doing bookkeeping or any of that, mind you. Hated it when I was running the place and not going to do it now. So don’t be thinking it. None of that accounting stuff or what do they call them? Spreadsheets. None of that.”

  “That’s okay, Everett.” Anne swallowed. “I’ll keep doing the books. Having you track down parts would be a tremendous help.”

  Everett Hooper’s face contorted, and Quince guessed he was doing his best to prevent a beaming smile from erupting.

  Mrs. R patted her beau’s arm, then leaned close to Anne and said, “Don’t worry, dear, we’ll start working on the spreadsheets. He’ll catch on to that, too. He’s really very good with computers, no matter how much he grumbles.”

  Mrs. Mudge came up with her husband then and the two well-aged couples moved off.

  Anne looked in the opposite direction from Quince and mumbled something about needing to get going.

  “Was just about to say the same thing,” he said easily. “Need to get with one of our Zeke-Tech people.”

  “Who?” Vanessa asked.

  Quince fixed her with a look and said, “John.”

  “There are lots of Johns.”

  “I know. See you all later.”

  As he moved away, Quince heard Darcie ask, “What’s up with Quince?”

  But Josh spoke over her. “Mrs. R barely lets me cross the threshold, but she’s carrying on with Everett Hooper? I’d never have believed it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  At the last four-way-stop sign before town, Quince was brought to a stop Friday morning by a Drago police car in the intersection and a stream of traffic coming the other way and turning in front of his lane.

  A young man he didn’t recognize but wearing the Drago Police Department uniform was directing the oncoming traffic to make that turn with a wide, sweeping motion of his arm, interrupted only by occasional waves in response to greetings from drivers.

  He never even glanced toward Quince.

  After a couple minutes, another officer got out of the police car and strolled toward Quince.

  He lowered the window, letting in a gush of stinging cold.

  “Hey, Quince,” Darcie said.

  “Hi, Darcie. What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on? That’s my question for you. Oh,” she continued, as if she’d just made a discovery. “You mean here? Trainee directing traffic under my expert supervision. For the auction, of course.”

  Ignoring all subtext, he asked, “What auction?”

  “You’re as bad as Zeke, with your heads buried all the time. Sometimes in tech, sometimes just not seeing what’s in front of you. I expect it of him. Not of you. Especially not when you’re living at Hooper Farm.”

  He grinned at her. A better grin than he was really in the mood for. So that was a kind of triumph. “Mea culpa. Now, tell me what auction.”

  “It’s the annual farm equipment consignment auction at the county fairgrounds. Today’s the preview for county residents. Tomorrow’s the auction. And you’ll have a hard time getting between the interstate and the fairgrounds for all the traffic from all over the state.”

  “I’ll remember that. How about today? When can you let me across the intersection so I can get in to town? Zeke said he has an idea he wants to talk to me about.”

  A craftiness came across her eyes. “Don’t know that I can let you across. Stopping folks intent on getting their preview could be worth life or limb. You’d be better off just swimming with the current and going to the fairgrounds—”

  “Why would I want to—?”

  “—like Anne and Everett did a while ago.

  Was her goal to deprive Zeke of an audience for his latest idea in hopes that would slow him down? Or to send Quince after Anne? Both? Impossible to tell.

  Also impossible to tell if he wanted to go after Anne or not, especially not after the coolness these past days.

  “Next to weekly bingo,” Darcie continued, “this gathering is one of the best ways to get your fingers on the pulse of Drago. Heck, for the farming community it might be even better, especially if y
ou’re interested in the broader picture. Like you have a responsibility to be for Zeke-Tech.”

  “Are you saying it’s my duty to go to this consignment sale preview?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly. “Also for the sake of traffic flow and safety. As a sworn officer of the law—”

  “Fine.” He didn’t want to listen to Zeke’s latest brainstorm right now anyway. “Think you can open a gap for me to slide in to that stream?”

  “Now, that I can do.”

  *

  He spotted Everett first. He was in deep discussion with Ned Benzil, one of the other poker regulars, and three more men of the same vintage.

  Quince didn’t approach him, instead continuing along the main aisle of a huge tent. Heaters blowing into the center didn’t dent the chill.

  On either side of the main aisle, huge machinery lined up like a beauty show for behemoths. Attachments gathered around like attendants at their skirts. Each grouping had a cadre of courtiers, almost exclusively men.

  He received greetings from Drago residents. He also got a few puzzled looks from strangers, mostly focused on his coat.

  And then there was Anne.

  Standing out like a sunflower in a field of weeds.

  The men here were mostly grizzled. They wore layers of shirts, hoodies, jackets, and pants that would never be new again. The theme of their attire was sturdy and warm.

  So was hers, but it looked totally different on her. Maybe he’d gotten used to seeing her in those shapeless coveralls. So, just a few layers — and these actually meant for women — allowing even hints at her figure, seemed particularly appealing.

  Her jacket stopped not long after her waist, allowing a view of her derriere and the long line of her legs.

  Knowing he’d lose that view if he went up to her wasn’t the only reason he stayed back.

  There also was that coolness between them.

  But right now the biggest factor was her expression.

  She examined each of the behemoths with absorption, with acumen, with naked longing.

  If he went up to her she’d put a guard on her reactions. He didn’t like that she did that, but facts were facts.