Town Square, The

by Miles, Ava

  Emmits was traveling with his wife, visiting his various companies across the United States. They didn’t like the cold much, so they stayed away for a few of the brittle winter months, visiting their grandkids in California. When Emmits returned in March after being a snowbird, there would be a lot to show him.

  Arthur had just picked up The New York Times when a woman’s voice called out over the pounding of the hammer. “Excuse me,” she said. “I understand you’re looking for a secretary.”

  He looked up, the newspaper slipping through his fingers onto his desk. The woman’s red hair was carefully coiled into that bun–thing women wore, and somehow it made her seem more elegant, like Rita Hayworth. Her green eyes were brighter and more alive than the trees in Sardine Canyon. And her skin? Well, he wouldn’t compare it to the heaps of snow covering the ground outside, but there was a coolness to her that told him she liked to keep her distance from people.

  “Yes, I am,” he said finally, pushing the papers out of the way. Standing, he walked around his desk to her. “I’m Arthur Hale. And you are?”

  “Harriet. Harriet Jenkins.”

  When she shook his hand, he wished she weren’t wearing those darn navy gloves that matched her wool coat and pillbox hat. He would have liked to feel her skin against his.

  “You’re not from around here,” he said, and gestured for her to sit while he rested his backside on his desk. She was too coiffed and finished to be a local; plus, he knew everyone here.

  There was only one chair in his office besides his own, and it was rickety. She carefully slid into it. “No, I’m not from Dare. I heard around town that you’ve been pretty particular about typing skills, which is why you haven’t found anyone yet. I can type one hundred words per minute and take shorthand at ninety per minute.”

  “That’s pretty impressive,” he said. It was true—he’d interviewed a few women around town without success. At best, he’d found a few who could maintain sixty words a minute. “Tell me a little more about yourself. Where you’re from and where you went to school. Do you have a resume?”

  “No, I don’t.” Folding her hands in her lap, she regarded him cooly. “I came from Denver, and there’s not much more to tell. I’m happy to demonstrate my skills if you’d like.”

  Her accent suggested back East, but it was the finishing school kind of voice that was impossible to pin down. He stroked his chin. “You know you’re talking to a journalist, right? I can’t help but ask questions.”

  Her red–painted mouth tipped up. “What’s more important to you? Someone who can type fast or someone who answers questions?”

  The hands clenching her clutch purse like it was a life preserver made him wonder if she weren’t quite as cool as her expression. He’d bet she was a city girl who was in some sort of trouble. No other reason for her to show up in Dare Valley, population five thousand and a few, and apply for this job.

  “How did you hear about the position?” he asked.

  “You ran it in several newspapers,” she replied vaguely.

  He had, but no woman from outside of Dare had applied. It didn’t pay well enough for a woman to relocate, and if she were married, her husband would need to find a job here, which complicated the situation.

  She scanned his space, and with all the boxes and the mess, who knew what she was thinking? The walls were still blank, but at least they were freshly painted white.

  “Can I ask why your office is in the middle of the floor and not in the corner where there are windows?”

  “I like to be in the middle of things,” he replied.

  “I see. So do you want to see if I’m telling the truth about my typing skills and shorthand?” she asked. “Otherwise, I will bid you good day.”

  Yeah, she was trying to act as cool as a cucumber—and beautiful to boot. He wondered about her marital status, but he wasn’t about to ask, and the gloves concealed the answer.

  “Fine,” he said, gesturing toward the IBM Electromatic typewriter on his back desk. He grabbed an article he’d scratched onto a legal pad this morning. “Let’s try this.”

  She dusted off his chair before sitting down and swiveling around even though he couldn’t see a speck of dirt. Off came her gloves, revealing her perfectly manicured nails, which she so wouldn’t have gotten in the basement beauty parlors around town.

  And no, she wasn’t married. Or at least she wasn’t wearing a rock.

  Sliding the paper he gave her into the typewriter, she propped his legal pad up and took a deep breath. Then her fingers started an intricate dance across the keys. He took a look at his watch as the chik–chik–cha–chik–chik–chika–chik–cha–chik–Ding–ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip of the typewriter filled the office. Her fingers flew over the letters and before he knew it, she was handing him the paper. He eyed the watch again, then the article.

  Okay, she hadn’t been bragging, and darn if there weren’t a single error. Even with his own typing, there always seemed to be at least one mistake he’d have to blot out.

  “I’m impressed,” he mused, setting the paper aside.

  She wiped her fingers on a linen handkerchief she pulled from her purse. It was embroidered with a single red rose. “So, did I pass the test?”

  “Let’s try your shorthand. Just for the heck of it.” There was no way he wasn’t spending as much time with this beautiful woman as he could. He’d been working like a dog, and he hadn’t been out much since moving home to Dare.

  Dare wasn’t New York City. He missed the parties. The gallery openings. Having a drink at Sardi’s or going to El Morocco, even though that place wasn’t like it used to be.

  And he was man enough to admit that he missed women. Not the local Dare variety.

  Funny how she rather reminded him of the polished women he was used to meeting in the city. He hadn’t been sophisticated, but his charm had allowed him to quickly blend in with those who were.

  Harriet looked around for a Steno pad and, not seeing one, said “Your legal pad,” holding out her hand. He gave it to her, and she drew a line down the center of the page to cut it in half. She did that on the next few pages also. She poised with one hand holding a pen and the other holding the bottom of the page, ready to flip it when it was filled.

  Arthur paced beside his new Panasonic K21–10 color television. The article he dictated was one he’d been playing with for a while. He wanted to dive into what he thought President Kennedy’s New Frontier could mean for the nation and how the young leader would face off against the Soviets, something everyone with or without a fallout shelter was wondering. When he finished dictating, he held out his hand for the legal pad. She looked up at him, startled. “Don’t you want me to type it up?” He shook his head, no. He could read and write shorthand, and still wrote his interview notes in it. First, because the person he interviewed usually couldn’t read it, and second, because he liked the idea of writing in a code. Made him feel like a secret spy.

  “Impressive,” he said again, wondering if she could have relocated from back East to Denver, which was only two hours away.

  No one else around town could offer her skills, and even without a resume or any background information, she was his best candidate. He couldn’t stand to do administrative work, and if she insisted she wouldn’t answer any questions about herself, he could suck it up. Plus, there were piles of boxes someone had to file, and that someone wasn’t going to be him.

  “Okay, you’re hired.”

  A secret smile appeared on her lips, and then she stood, pulling her gloves on once again, slowly and deliberately. God, how did women stand the bother of all that fuss about fashion?

  “Wonderful,” she murmured. “I only have one other request.”

  He took a step closer, studying her amused face. “Name it.”

  “I’ve heard some bosses like to call their secretaries ‘sweetheart.’ Don’t.”

  Well, she’d just let something slip about her background. She’d never been a secretary, or
she would have used the word “seen,” not “heard.”

  “Oh, and I don’t make coffee.”

  That was interesting. Didn’t most secretaries do that? To get her goat, he simply said, “So what should I call you?”

  “Harriet,” she informed him, turning toward the door and walking out. “Or Harry, if it makes it easier to remember not to call me ‘sweetheart.’”

  As he watched her gorgeous body stroll out of his office, one thought crossed his mind.

  There was no way this woman could be mistaken for a Harry.

  Chapter 2

  Harriet walked down the freshly painted hall of The Western Independent and had to wonder again at her success.

  She’d done it. She’d given him the fake last name she was using in town, so there was no turning back now.

  Jenkins was a name she’d spotted on a mailbox as she and her sister were driving into town. It wasn’t like she could use her own. He would have recognized Evangelina Wentworth immediately, and the whole reason she had for being here would have been rendered moot. Evangelina, while a family name, was a mouthful, so she’d gone by her middle name for most of her life anyway.

  The sun was stark against the snow when she emerged from the old brick building. Dare Valley was charming with its Christmas decorations of angels and white lights dotting Main Street. Even though the sidewalks had been shoveled, she took care with a few icy patches as she made her way to her blue Buick sedan, mindful of the townspeople’s inquisitive stares as she passed, feeling like an outsider. It was not a new feeling, or a pleasant one.

  Arthur Hale wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Part of her wished he hadn’t been so attractive. His thick dark brown hair framed an arresting face punctuated with the keenest blue eyes she’d ever seen. He was tall and lanky, and he seemed to possess plenty of boy–next–door charm.

  People said Arthur must have been born under a lucky star given the way he’d landed so many big stories in New York. Granted, he’d had the help of the oil tycoon, Emmits Merriam. People speculated Arthur had left a star–studded career in New York because of some arrangement with the man. Frankly, she could care less.

  She eased the car onto the street, trying not to regret being here instead of in New York for the premiere of “Camelot”—where she should have been on this third day in December with her sister, Maybelline, who had some old school chums in the production. Harriet drove to the house she and her sister, Maybelline, were renting as the radio played “Georgia on My Mind” by Ray Charles. She sighed, letting its smooth, slow sound wash over her. It hadn’t been easy to convince Burt Kennion to rent his recently deceased mother’s house to them without a man’s signature on the lease, but the man had finally agreed when she told him their father was dead and they were both unmarried.

  Their father wasn’t dead, but he might as well be. And Arthur Hale had caused it all.

  He’d shot up the journalism ranks with a series of stories about a scientist who hadn’t performed adequate testing on a new baby formula, which had resulted in the deaths of seven infants in three different states, the hospitalization of hundreds, and a total recall of the product.

  That scientist had been her father. Dr. Ashley Wentworth had rallied against the bad press, saying he and the company had adhered to the Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines. But his protestations hadn’t been sufficient in the face of such a disaster. Hale had been tenacious, and the first–person accounts from women who’d lost their children had turned the tide against her father.

  He had lost his reputation as a scientist and gone progressively insane in the ensuing months. Since their mother was dead and Harriet was the older sister, the responsibility to commit him had fallen to her. Doing it had broken her heart.

  She was here because she wanted to restore her father’s reputation.

  And to make Arthur Hale pay for his character assassination.

  Once she found proof that he’d exaggerated the evidence he had on her father, she was going to discredit him. Her father had to be covering for someone else in the lab. He couldn’t have done such a thing. She knew it wouldn’t make up for the babies who had died, but at least it would clear her family’s name and give them back their old life.

  Under the media scrutiny, they’d been shunned by their friends and family in Boston. Wellesley—where Harriet had just matriculated from in May—had recommended that Maybelline take a leave of absence and not return for her sophomore year.

  Since June they had been in limbo, barely leaving the house, unsure of what to do. Harriet couldn’t find a job. Maybelline hadn’t been able to get into another school. Her admissions applications were all politely declined despite her excellent academic record.

  They were exiles in their brick townhouse in Beacon Hill.

  Until one night three weeks ago, when her inner rage at the injustice of it all had finally compelled her to find a way to change their circumstances. After staring out at the full moon for two hours that night, she decided it was time to take action. She called The Times to ask after Arthur, but he had already left New York. The chatty secretary told her of his plans, which most of the people at The Times figured would flop. When she hung up, she realized he would need to hire staff, so for the next few days, she kept her eyes peeled on the employment section in The Denver Post. One morning she spotted his advertisement for a secretary, and that had set everything into motion.

  So here she was, in the smallest place in the world. Amidst all these mountains, she felt even more powerless than she had in Beacon Hill. And even more afraid of doing what she’d vowed to accomplish.

  She turned onto quiet Raven Street, where she and Maybelline now lived, pulling up to the simple baby blue A–frame house with its open porch. Some of the paint was peeling, the porch leaned like an old woman resting on a cane, and a few of the screens were missing, but it was home. With the new university being established, housing was scarce in Dare Valley. They’d been fortunate to find this place, furnished with dusty relics of a dead woman’s past.

  She parked the car in the driveway—one they’d borrowed from Warren Perkins, a cousin of Maybelline’s former boyfriend, Eddie, who had promised to set them up with “some wheels” when they made it to Denver because he felt guilty for dumping her. They’d swapped their own car, which was registered under their real name, with Warren’s before making their way to Dare.

  The sidewalk was freshly salted to melt the ice—Maybelline’s doing—and Harriet headed into the house, the small rocks crunching under her feet with every step.

  “Maybelline,” she called out as she pulled off her coat and gloves and deposited them in the front closet. Her hat followed them.

  Her younger sister didn’t approve of Harriet’s mission, but she’d opted to come with her rather than stay home alone in their old house.

  “How did it go?” Maybelline asked, coming out of the kitchen with a cup of tea.

  “I got the job,” she said and smoothed a hand over her knotted stomach. “It’s a good thing dad had me learn shorthand to help him with his notes.”

  Her sister’s strawberry hair curled at her shoulders, less severe than Harriet’s style today. She’d wanted to exude professionalism and cool detachment. Men found her attractive, and the last thing she wanted was for Hale to be interested in her. But despite her best efforts, she knew that he was.

  “So, what’s he like?” she asked, resting her tea cup against her pink cashmere sweater.

  “We should turn up the heat,” Harriet said, rubbing her hands together. “It’s cold in here.”

  “You do that then while I make you a cup of tea. Then you can tell me about him.”

  Minutes later, they sat down with their Lipton tea at the small white laminate table in the kitchen, and Harriet ran her sister through the meeting, leaving out her impression of Hale’s looks.

  “I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Maybelline said. “Trying to prove he didn’t properly investigate t
he story about father is risky. Everyone says Hale is smart as a tack. What happens if he catches you?”

  Rubbing off the red lipstick stain she’d left on her tea cup, she said, “As his secretary, it will make sense for me to look at his files. Plus, from what I could see, there are boxes everywhere. One of the things his advertisement said was that he needed a filing system created for the office. If he has any questions about why I’m not just filing, but reading, I can play dumb. We both know how well that works with men.”

  Sadly, it had even worked on their father, who had never imagined his girls could be as smart as he was. Scientists had their egos, too.

  “What do you want me to do? Other than be here for moral support.”

  “Just make the rounds. Keep your ear to the ground. Do the shopping—”

  “And the cooking,” her sister added. “I know the drill. I get to be the wife while you’re off playing breadwinner. I should be able to pull that off, since we won’t be here too long.”

  Harriet’s mouth quirked up. They’d both lost boyfriends over their family’s disgrace. Granted, neither had been serious, but it had wounded their pride. Being the daughters of a man people called The Baby Killer didn’t exactly attract men like honey.

  Suddenly Harriet wondered if they would need to permanently change their last name to Jenkins to have a normal life and do things like dating again.

  “How’s the TV reception?” she asked to change the subject.

  “Abominable. I’m going to be unhappy if I can’t watch Rawhide.”

  Harriet laughed. “Well, maybe you’ll find your own cowboy around here. Hale is from a ranching family, after all.”

  “I’m not looking for a man right now. I just want you to finish this so we can leave. This town is way too small. I’ve decided to read all my favorite Christmas books while we’re here. At least I can have a good holiday season through literature, since we won’t be having one in this town.”