by Kait Nolan
The scents of spicy tomatoes, pepperoni, and yeasty crust set Cam’s stomach to rumbling, reminding him he hadn’t actually gotten around to lunch today, while he was pushing through those year-end reports at the nursery. But social duties had to be satisfied before his appetite. He cornered Liam as the other man lifted a beer from a passing tray.
“Welcome home, Sergeant.” Cam offered a hand.
“Good to be back.” Liam shot a glance back at his mother. “I think.”
“You had to know settling back here was gonna open you wide up for that. You’re the oldest.”
“Jesus. Is your Mama giving you grief about settling down?”
His family went well out of their way to avoid the topic of him and marriage, a state of affairs Cam was generally completely okay with. “Nope. That honor goes to Mitch.”
“Then I expect he’ll be happy to commiserate, now that I’m back.”
“Gotta admit, I’m surprised. I always figured you for a lifer.”
Liam’s expression darkened for a fleeting instant and was gone. “Well, I did too, but things change.”
“I was really sorry about your dad.” A little over a year before, Liam’s father, John, had dropped dead of an aneurysm while under the hood of his beloved 1969 Mustang.
“With Wynne off to New Orleans and both Jack and Cruz still in for a while, when this contract was up it just made the most sense to step off the train. Somebody needs to be home to look after Mom.”
Cam smiled into his beer. “Don’t let her hear you say that.” The pint-sized Molly Montgomery had kept three sons, a daughter, and a husband in line, all while working a full-time job and regularly volunteering on various committees around town. She was a force to be reckoned with. But Cam understood the sentiment. After his mother’s cancer diagnosis, he’d dropped out of grad school and come home to take care of her.
When Liam didn’t respond, Cam followed his gaze across the room to a buxom brunette currently embracing Liam’s sister, Wynne.
“Who is that?”
“Who? Riley?”
“That’s Riley Gower?” Liam’s eyes all but bugged out of his skull as she turned where he could see her face.
Cam elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “Pick your jaw up off the floor, man, before your mama sees you. Yeah, that’s Riley Gower. I don’t guess you’ve had occasion to see her since she grew up.”
“She’s my baby sister’s best friend. I haven’t seen her since I enlisted. She was a freshman in high school, I guess.”
Which explained the shock. Since then, Riley had gone from awkward and a little bit heavy to 1940s bombshell.
“She bought out the pharmacy when your mom decided to semi-retire earlier this year,” said Cam, though he was pretty sure, given the look on the other man’s face, that wasn’t the information he was looking for. “She’s single.”
Liam shook himself and turned his focus back to Cam. “What?”
“Riley. She’s not seeing anybody.”
“Wouldn’t matter if she was. I was just…surprised, is all.”
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, buddy. But Cam gave the man a break and changed the subject. “So, what’s the plan now that you’re back?”
“I’m not sure what to do with myself just yet. It’ll take time to get used to being without my unit, without orders, but, I have to say, I’m looking forward to being my own man.”
“I’ll certainly keep my ears open. If I hear of anybody looking to hire, I’ll let you know.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Oh, you helping anybody find a job. That’s rich, Crawford.”
Cam turned toward the voice dripping with sarcasm and barely repressed venom.
Roy McKennon stepped up, a long-neck bottle hanging loose between two fingers. “The Councilman here has made it a priority to block any and all incoming industry to town. So don’t be thinkin’ he’s got your best interests at heart.”
Sometimes Cam really hated civil service. “Now Roy, that’s not entirely accurate. There were reasons for—”
“Reasons?” Roy pivoted to face him. The slur in his voice made it evident he’d had more than a couple of beers. “What reasons do you have for stopping Ford from building that manufacturing plant here? What reasons do you have for denying hard-working people the possibility of a job?” Roy’s voice was rising, and Cam was aware of others starting to look their way.
Cam knew he needed to diffuse the situation. “That’s not what I was doing.”
“I got three kids and a wife to support, boy. Since the plant closed, we’ve got no insurance. Had to go on goddamned assistance like a bunch of reprobates. April made me let her sign up for WIC and Medicaid just so the kids are covered. My youngest has chronic asthma.” Roy punctuated each point with a jab to Cam’s sternum.
Though his own temper stirred, Cam kept his voice level. “It’s a tough place to be in, but there’s no shame in asking for help when you need it.”
That was absolutely the wrong thing to say. Roy’s face reddened. “You’ve got no right! No goddamned right to do anything to stop job opportunities from coming to this town.” He lunged for Cam, the bottle crashing to the floor as he swung one meaty fist.
Liam snagged Roy’s arm, twisting it behind his back until the other man howled. “You need to settle on down now, Mr. McKennon. This isn’t the place.”
Speakeasy fell silent, all eyes turned on them.
Roy subsided in Liam’s grip, his burst of liquid courage evidently spent. April McKennon, a worn-looking woman in her early forties, crossed the room, her face set in lines of abject mortification.
“We’re going home.” Her tone brooked no argument. “I’m very sorry for this. Liam, we welcome you back to Wishful and thank you for your service to our country.”
“Yes ma’am.” He released her husband. “Thank you.”
“Get to the car, Roy.”
Roy looked as if he might argue, but his wife just pointed with the well-honed authority of a mother of three, and he headed for the door.
April turned back toward Cam. “I’m sorry. Roy’s a proud man, and this…financial downturn has been really hard on him. He needs somebody to blame, and he’s settled on you.”
“I understand.” Cam thought of the conversation with his mother about how they might have to do things they didn’t necessarily like in order to save Wishful. “I swear to you, Mrs. McKennon, I’m trying my hardest to do what’s best for this town.”
“I’m sure you think you are.” Without another word, she turned and followed her husband to the door, her head held high, her shoulders stiff.
Cam ached for her, knowing that the embarrassment over the scene her husband caused upset her as much as his unemployment.
Conversation gradually rose again in the wake of their departure. Cam rubbed a hand on the back of his neck as he turned back to Liam. “Well. Sorry ’bout that. I’m not exactly the most popular around here these days.”
“Did you really block a Ford plant?”
Tucker McGee stepped up and handed Cam a beer. “Reckon you could use this. Cam was not, in fact, a one man army against Ford. He simply brought up all the relevant environmental impacts such a plant would have on the area, and the bulk of the City Council backed him up and decided it wasn’t the right answer. Plus, I heard they got more favorable terms from some other state offering tax incentives and such that we couldn’t.”
“Not that the general public seems to be aware of that. I was the most vocal opponent, so I’m the scapegoat for why we didn’t get it. Times are really tough for a lot of folks.” Aware that more people had queued up to talk to Liam, Cam gave in to his own keen desire to escape. “Anyway, I meant what I said. If I can do anything to help you find something, I will.”
“Thanks again.”
Tucker followed Cam over to the buffet. “It’s not your fault, you know.”
“I know that.” But it was hard not to feel some responsibility as April’s pa
rting words echoed through his head. I’m sure you think you are. Was he wrong? His duty was to the townspeople, to his constituents, not just to further his own agenda of preserving the town exactly as he wanted it. He was starting to lose hope that there was any way to satisfy them and assuage his conscience.
~*~
Clad in yoga pants and an ancient Ole Miss sweatshirt that was a dozen washings away from losing its collar, Norah sat curled on one end of Miranda’s sofa, a pint of General Tso’s chicken in her hands as the credits began to roll on Serendipity. They’d talked most of the way through the movie, catching up on things that hadn’t come up in their twice weekly phone conversations. More relaxed than she’d been in ages, Norah let her head fall back to the cushions. “Chinese food and chick flicks. You do know how to take care of me.”
“I am a medical professional.” Miranda polished off the last of her sweet and sour chicken.
“I miss this. I miss you. Chicago hasn’t been the same since you moved home.”
“Feeling a bit like the last southerner standing?”
“Like a zoo exhibit at times.” Norah grimaced.
“I know you love your job, and you’ve invested a lot in Helios, but there’s nothing that says you can’t move back below the Mason Dixon line, you know. Especially since you’re not tied to Pierce anymore.”
Even less reason than you know. Now was the time to tell her the full truth, come clean about being fired. But she just…couldn’t. Not yet. Because Miranda, God love her, was a steamroller, and she’d push as much as Norah’s parents, albeit out of love rather than her own agenda. Norah just couldn’t deal with that yet. Not until she’d reconciled it in her own mind, figured out what she was going to do next. The admission of failure would be easier to face with a plan. Right?
Not that she had any prior experience with failure. Burkes didn’t fail. Period.
“Did that asshat break your heart, honey?”
Norah considered the question rather than offering the flip response that sprang to her lips. Had Pierce broken her heart? In the few days since she’d confronted him, she’d felt no grief over the loss of their relationship, only for the damage to her career.
“Less my heart and more my pride.”
“Sometimes that hurts worse. And I’m going to make a confession here. I’m glad y’all broke up. He always felt like a very pretty accessory to that whole high-powered lifestyle rather real relationship material.”
Norah’s mouth dropped open.
“I’m sorry, I know you must’ve seen something in him or you wouldn’t have dated him in the first place but…you’re worth so much more than that.”
The laugh bubbled up, expanding in her chest until it burst out in a hoot. “Oh my God, Pierce would just die. A pretty accessory.” Norah bent over in helpless giggles. “God, he really was.” He was, she was shamed to realize, merely an extension of her career. And wasn’t that a sad testament to the state of her life? The thought sobered her up. “But seriously, I’ll take this as the sign it is.”
“Of what?”
“That I’m not made for the kind of deep, long-term relationships that lead to marriage and family.”
“That’s horse shit.”
The invective made Norah want to hug her all over again. God it was good to be back in the South.
“Is it? I’m ambitious and talented. The child of two equally ambitious, talented people who tried to make it work and failed spectacularly. Burkes excel professionally and absolutely tank in relationships.”
“That doesn’t mean you’ll fail. Just means you haven’t found the right guy.”
“I can’t imagine the right guy. The guy who can deal with my ambition and not expect me to put it away to do the whole wife and baby thing. I’d go crazy inside a year.”
“I’m sorry, did it turn back to 1954 and I missed it? Live in the now, girl. Anyway, I think you’re selling yourself short.”
Norah jerked a shoulder. “And what about you? You’ve been doing the perpetually single dance since med school. If you made it past the third date, that was a long-term relationship.”
“I’m careful,” Miranda corrected. “Especially since I came home. Wishful is a pretty damned tiny dating pool, and it’s not getting any bigger. Not usually anyway. I fully expect Liam to have half a dozen proposals before summer.”
There was something in her friend’s too off-hand manner. “That annoys you.”
“What?”
“That all these women are going to be interested in this Liam guy. Who is he?”
Miranda waved a dismissive hand. “The Campbells and the Montgomerys have always been kind of intertwined. There are four of them and five of us in similar age ranges. Liam’s the oldest. A good friend of Mitch’s. He went straight into the Marines from high school. He just finished his third term and decided to move home to be closer to his mom. She’s widowed.”
“You like the hot ex-soldier,” Norah proclaimed, happy to shift the conversation away from the dismal state of her love life.
“How do you know he’s hot?”
“Goes without saying. He risked his life for our country.”
“He was hot before that.”
“I knew it! You like him!”
“I did like him. I had a ludicrous crush on him in high school, of the variety you can only have for your older brother’s best friend. Of course, he never actually saw me as anything other than Randa Panda because my rat bastard of a brother told him I still had the bear I carried around as a toddler.”
Norah winced in sympathy. “Have you seen him since high school?”
“Once at a Christmas party a few years back, when he was home on furlough. Where I was still Randa Panda. I freaking hate that nickname.”
“So I gather you didn’t have plans to show up at his welcome home party tonight in some knockout dress to make him realize you grew up?”
“Of course not.” Miranda dimpled. “I invited him to my party tomorrow night, where I’ll be wearing some knockout dress to make him realize I grew up. Not that I expect it to work, but it seems worth the effort to set the record straight.”
“Even though you totally still have Pammy the Panda?”
“In the name of our decade of friendship, you will take that to your grave.”
Norah nodded soberly. “Naturally.”
“On that note, I have something for you.” Miranda unfolded her long legs from the sofa and wandered into the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later with two slices of pie and a tiara.
“You got me a breakup pie?”
“Of course I did. You know the rule. ‘When they don’t stay, it’s queen for a day.’ So technically your queenship lasts through the party tomorrow.” Miranda set the pie down and tucked the tiara in Norah’s hair.
“Don’t need to be queen. Just need my best gal pal.”
“I’m always here. How long can you stay?”
There it was. Another opportunity to spill her guts. Norah tried to gather her courage as she dug into the French silk pie, but when she opened her mouth, a lie slipped out. “It’s up in the air. I took a leave of absence. I need some time to figure things out.” The last part, at least, was true.
You are an unmitigated coward.
“Good. You work too hard. Stay as long as you like. You know you’ve always got a place with me.”
And that was why she’d come. Because wherever life took her, Miranda was always home.
Norah worked up a smile. “It’s good to be back.”
Chapter 4
Cam was late to the party and well aware he was gonna hear about it. He’d considered not coming at all, but he wouldn’t put it past his cousins to come haul him bodily out of his house, and he preferred to show up under his own steam. Hush leapt down from the truck and Cam shut the door, trudging up the car-lined street toward Miranda’s place. His dog ran ahead, darting from bush to tree to car tire to sniff. He was probably gonna hear about having brought her, too, but s
he’d been stuck in the house all day while he helped his mom prepare for her party, and Cam figured it was a good escape mechanism. Win-win.
He didn’t bother knocking, just opened the front door and stepped inside. Music pumped through the lower floor, underscored by the din of conversation. People spilled into the rooms on either side of the entryway, surrounding the buffet in the dining room, trailing into the kitchen. Libation. That’s what he needed before facing the firing squad.
“This is taking fashionably late to a new extreme, don’t you think?” Tyler Edison looked amused from her post just inside the dining room.
“Yeah, well, my date took forever to get ready. All that primping.”
“If I’d known fur was an option, I’d have brought her a playmate. Speaking of, you might want to nab her before she bowls over the impromptu guest of honor.”
Cam spun just as Hush bolted into the den, making a beeline for a brunette in a little black dress. He leapt forward, but before he could get out a command, the woman was turning and crouching in her high, high heels, arms open to receive a hundred pounds of enthusiastic canine. They collided with joyful sounds on both sides. Hush trembled with excitement, tail wagging ninety to nothing, imperiling the knees of everyone around them as the woman rubbed her down. “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing? Who’s a good girl? Who’s a cute puppy?” She threw back her head in a laugh as his dog began bathing her face in kisses, her dark hair cascading in waves down her shoulders, her mouth curved in a smile that sucker punched Cam straight in the gut. His brain stuttered to a halt.
Wow.
“I don’t think anybody would call her a puppy.” Miranda turned a disapproving glare in his direction. “Cam, why in God’s name did you bring your dog?”
“She’s not two yet. Still a puppy.” He crossed to them and grabbed Hush by the collar. “And still learning her manners, I’m afraid. Sit, Hush.”
After a moment of indecision, Hush plopped her butt to the floor, tail still thumping a steady tattoo.
The woman looked up at him, peat-dark eyes ripe with amusement. “Aren’t you confusing her with multiple commands?”