What he really felt was an irrational irritation that no one barged through his door every hour to throw in a batch of muffins or poke at a cake pan. It had driven him bonkers while she’d done it, but now he missed the interruptions. As annoying as Dinah Hopkins was, she was the only Middleburg resident he knew other than Aunt Sandy and Uncle George—and he was in no hurry to talk to them at the moment.
It all begged the overwhelming question: What am I doing here?
Cameron almost breathed a sigh of relief when insistent knocking came at his door. He jumped up eagerly to answer it, but his face fell almost immediately.
“Wipe that scowl off your face, son, and go shave.” His aunt Sandy’s tone registered annoyance. Evidently he hadn’t hid his disappointment very well. He’d never admit to anyone that he was hoping Dinah Hopkins was on the other side of that door, especially not to his big-haired blond relative.
Registering what she’d said, Cameron’s hand flew to his chin—he’d forgotten to shave? That would have never happened in New York, even on his worst of days. “Um…why?”
“Because I’m not that bad a choice of company, and you’re coming out to lunch. I’m introducing you around.”
Starved as he was for human contact, that did not sound good. “‘Around’?”
“You’re goin’ to Deacon’s Grill for lunch.” Aunt Sandy pushed past him to drape her leather coat across the back of his couch. “That’s as good as meetin’ everybody in Middleburg. Especially today, when the pies are all fresh. You’ll have a dozen new friends by sundown.”
“Won’t that be swell?” he snapped sarcastically as he headed to the bathroom to find his cordless razor. There was no reason to be as irritated as he was, but he just couldn’t seem to stop it.
Sandy followed him, pushing the bathroom door back open when he tried to shut it. She reached out and grabbed him by the ear like a schoolboy, having to stretch up to cover the foot between them even in her ridiculously high heels. For an absurd second he actually thought she was going to cuff him—and he probably deserved it. Instead, she pulled his forehead down to her height and kissed it. “I know you’re hurtin’, sugar. So I’ll let that slide.” She tugged his head a little, like a mama dog with a puppy by the scruff. It was a weird but completely disarming gesture. “I’m so proud of you for what you’ve done and all you’ve had to put up with. Y’all stood up for what was right just like your mama taught you. Don’t think God wasn’t watching every second.”
How could the woman do that? Make you love her and hate her at the same time? Aunt Sandy was probably right—he needed to get out. He’d come here to launch his own business, to be the kind of resident broker Dinah had mentioned. The happy, straight-dealing kind. The sooner he re-planted himself in this strange little town, the better off he’d be. Find some new friends who didn’t make his brain hurt. At least get a decent meal—the forty-eight-hour onslaught of baking smells gave him a nonstop appetite. If nothing else, this town seemed to have a full supply of great cooking—even if you couldn’t get a single thing delivered.
By the time he finished shaving and changed into a nicer shirt, Aunt Sandy had sorted through the papers on his desk and rearranged the chairs around his dining room table. “There now, that’s my handsome Cam. Put on your charm, hon, we’re going to start the campaign today.”
Cameron gulped. “What campaign?”
Sandy started fishing in her enormous handbag for something. “Why, to build your new business as a broker.” She stopped and looked at him. “That’s the idea here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but…”
She resumed her search, half her forearm hidden in the voluminous silver leather bag. “Well, sugar, nothin’ in this town gets done quick or easy without Howard Epson on board. So today, we’re puttin’ a bug in Howard’s ear about how wonderful you are and how he can help you. Ain’t they ever taught you how to charm people back there in New York? What do they call it—‘people skills’?”
It’s a whole new brand of power lunch, Cameron thought to himself. “We do it just a bit differently. It’s more predatory than charming.”
Finally Aunt Sandy found whatever was eluding her at the bottom of her handbag. “Got it.” She pulled out what looked like a crystal from a chandelier hanging on a little gold chain. She smiled and spun it in front of him. “Your housewarming present.”
He raised an eyebrow. “A giant earring?”
She made a sound that could probably be described as a “Pshaw!” and headed toward his kitchen. “No, silly, it’s a prism. You hang it in your window and it makes rainbows in the sunshine.”
Cameron went to shoot her a disparaging look, but she was long gone. “Not exactly my decorating style,” he called after her, but she was already sticking a pushpin into the window frame to hang the atrocity.
“Nonsense. Rainbows come after the rain. They’re a symbol of God’s promise. It’s just what you need.”
I’m going to die. The world’s first overdose of charming. Cameron sighed. “You shouldn’t have.” He imbued the words with all the sarcasm he could manage.
“Don’t say that. You’re family.” He ducked just in time to avoid the impending tweak she was about to give his cheek. “And I don’t know what they’re feeding you back in New York, but you could use some meat on those bones. C’mon, Cam, honey, we want to hit the lunch rush.”
Lunch rush?
Lunch rush. The place was jam-packed. Cameron guessed this was the closest thing Middleburg saw to a crowd—which was only pleasantly bustling by Manhattan standards, to be sure. Aunt Sandy seemed to know everyone in the room and went from table to table introducing Cameron until he had so many names in his head that he wished he’d brought a pen and paper. Still, he recognized Howard holding court at the end of the counter and took the initiative to go say hello himself.
“Cameron, m’boy, good to see you again. I’m delighted Middleburg’s caught the attention of a fine young entrepreneur such as yourself.” Howard said it loudly and over his shoulder, so that the remark was addressed more to the room than to Cameron. Everything Aunt Sandy had said was starting to make sense.
“It’s exciting to be in a town with so much potential,” Cameron said, shaking Howard’s hand. “Good character, good government,” he leaned in and grinned, “good food, too.”
“Sharp as a tack, Sandy,” Howard called to Cameron’s aunt as she came up behind him. “He’ll go far.”
Cameron slipped into a booth just to the left of Howard’s crowd and eyed the menu. He must be as hungry as Sandy said; everything looked good. He ordered and tried to take mental notes as his aunt ticked down through the people in the room and how they’d eventually be connected to him through church, banking, real estate, even the library board, which she suggested Cameron get himself appointed to at the first opportunity.
“The library board?” Cameron balked, thinking it sounded unexciting. “You know, I’m not really the PTA type, Aunt Sandy.”
“Well, I doubt you’d care for the Ladies’ Mission Auxiliary. Library board’s the best place to start. And Howard’s chairman of the library board.” She leaned in and lowered her voice, “Actually, Howard’s chairman of everything. Just some of the other chairmen haven’t figured it out yet.” She emphasized her point by waving a breadstick, then caught sight of someone over Cameron’s shoulder. “Here’s another member of our library board now.”
Cameron turned, expecting to find an unexciting librarian.
Instead, he found a certain intriguing baker. “Explaining town politics to our new citizen, Sandy?”
A shorter woman with honey-colored hair asked, “Is this your nephew?”
“It most certainly is. Emily Montague, meet Cameron Rollings.”
Emily extended a hand. “Rumor has it you negotiate a mean oven deal.”
He smirked. “My reputation precedes me.”
“Nope,” she replied, “Dinah just loves a good story. And she’s probably just really gla
d to have a working oven again.”
“I am,” Dinah said. “Much as Old Ironsides lived a long and useful life, I’m glad to have an oven with a better sense of accuracy. There’ll be no stopping me now.”
“There’d better be no stopping you, Dinah,” Howard cut in. “You’re making all those cookies for the fund-raiser. We don’t want to run out of Cookiegrams in our first year.”
“Cookiegrams?” Cameron asked. It sounded too cute to be true.
“Cookie telegrams,” Dinah explained. “To raise money for the Community Fund. It was Howard’s idea.”
Howard nodded.
“And you know, we need a few more bodies on the committee,” Aunt Sandy said. Dinah, do you think we could find a job for Cameron?”
“We still need someone to get all the supplies donated,” offered Emily. “That sounds like a negotiation to me.”
Negotiating cookie supplies? Hardly the social introduction Cameron had in mind. “I don’t know anyone in town yet.”
“Nonsense,” Howard called out. “You know me. And Emily, and Dinah and Sandy. That’s all the start anyone needs.”
Emily raised an eyebrow as she took a bite of her sandwich. “You didn’t mention how handsome your new landlord was.”
“Granted, he’s cute in a suity, urban sort of way, but you know I’m not a fan of the suity urban type. If I’d have wanted to surround myself with upwardly mobile hunks, I’d have stayed back in Jersey.”
“But the hunk’s come to you. Divine intervention?”
Dinah put down her iced tea. “Let’s list the reasons why that would be a bad idea, shall we?” She held up one finger. “He’s my landlord now. I don’t plan to change my ‘never mix business with pleasure’ mentality. Two,” she held up a second finger, “you can take the man out of the suit, but you definitely can’t take the suit out of that man. Look at him.” She nodded in Cameron’s direction, grabbing Emily’s arm when she actually started looking over her shoulder. “No, I don’t mean really look at him. Figure of speech here?” She blew a curl out of her eye in exasperation—she didn’t want to be having this conversation at all, much less with Emily’s current love-struck outlook on life. “He’s gonna last one year in this place, tops. The guy practically considers himself in exile out here.”
Emily popped a potato chip into her mouth. “He goes to church, Dinah. And he negotiates a mean oven. And he loaned you the money to get it—you can’t say that wasn’t a nice thing to do.”
“Again, mixing business with pleasure. Which brings me to reason number three: The guy’s a tycoon in training. A predator in a three-piece suit. You should have seen him trying to get the last fifty dollars knocked off the purchase price. You’d have thought lives were at stake. No, I think I’ve seen enough to know he’s not my kind of guy. The last thing I’m looking for is a guy who’s got to go through life with the upper hand.”
Emily smiled and selected another potato chip. “A girl could do worse.”
Dinah mentally calculated the two months left until Emily was married off and her romantic energies could be trained elsewhere. Then again, it might get even worse once she was knee-deep in marital bliss.
Hadn’t she fled New Jersey to get away from just this kind of thing?
Chapter Five
Cameron had never seen anything like this.
Well, actually he had, just under far more believable circumstances. He’d almost had to pinch himself to remind him that he was at the Middleburg town council meeting.
It wasn’t the concept of a town council Cameron found strange. It was how seriously these people took their jobs. He’d seen less attention paid to civic ordinances in the city council chambers of New York. It was the oddest thing—no suits, no ties, no reporters and Emily Montague actually walked in carrying her papers in a basket (which nearly made Aunt Sandy’s lime green iridescent tote look normal)—but deeply serious. Everyone had read all the materials sent to them in advance of the meeting—such conscientiousness might have made a few of his New York colleagues faint from surprise. No staffers spoon-feeding facts in this Town Hall.
They were talking about, of all things, the widening of a local road from one lane to two. A route that ran within a few blocks of “Cameronville” as he now called it in his head. Even though it sounded a bit too much like the infamous Pottersville from It’s a Wonderful Life, it still was easier to swallow than Lullaby Lane.
Sure, the name change seemed a minor detail, but it set the tone for any future projects he’d have in this town. In this region. One day he’d need zoning variances, or streets widened, or sewers expanded, or permission for unattached three-car garages. Change. This name thing would set the pace for all his future expansions, lay a precedent for all the future changes he’d bring. It was vital. He had to win.
That meant stacking the deck in his favor. Last night, he’d conducted an Internet search of half a dozen Web sites and produced a long list of musical terms. No sense making this first change harder by bucking Middleburg’s truly odd fascination with musical street names. But as one could expect from a town nearing the age of Middleburg, most of the good ones were taken.
So far, he’d come up with Fox Trot Lane, Tango Court, Cadenza Place, Prelude Circle and Sonata Avenue. Sure, most of them sounded more like they belonged on the billboards advertising ritzy suburban subdivisions he’d seen on tri-state turnpikes, but Cameron was too close to begging to be choosy. At this rate, anything that wasn’t gooey-sweet and wasn’t Lullaby Lane was on the table.
“Sidewalks?” Aunt Sandy asked peering above her sparkly reading glasses. “It costs that much to put in sidewalks? Aren’t we spending enough puttin’ in that second lane that we have to spring for sidewalks now?”
“Well,” said “Mac” MacCarthy, “it’s safer with the additional traffic. Kids walk to school along this route.” He had his office in the space below Cameron’s apartment and they’d had an intriguing conversation the other day about how Middleburg could be appropriately developed.
“All the more reason not to widen the road,” said a rather crusty old man peering so closely at his papers that his nose practically touched the table. “Who needs more cars?”
“People drive cars,” Gil Sorrent said wearily. Emily had introduced Cameron to Gil earlier this week, and Cameron had liked him instantly. “People who buy things and pay taxes and want to send their kids to good schools with adequate resources.”
People who’ll buy houses in Cameronville someday, Cameron rooted silently for Gil and Mac to succeed. They were trying—very hard—but from the looks of things, this road expansion plan had been on the table for months.
Great, Cameron thought to himself. I could be staring at Lullaby Lane until Labor Day. He was beginning to think his goal of locking in the name change by St. Patrick’s Day was a bit optimistic. It was, after all, the first week of January. Give me a break. I wanted a faster start than this.
“Lots of our streets already have sidewalks, Monty,” Emily addressed the crusty old man in a persuasive tone. “This isn’t anything new.”
“Well, it is expensive,” the man said. “Expensive-er with those sidewalks. Seems to me, we wouldn’t have to be putting in sidewalks if we wasn’t putting in those lanes.”
Cameron decided Cameronville would come with free sidewalks. And giant but tasteful signs that proclaimed “This isn’t anything new.” Well, except for the name. And the new houses. When did this get so complicated?
“Progress does cost money,” Gil said tensely.
“May I remind you, Gil and Emily,” Howard stated, “that one of you will have to step down off the council once you’ve married.”
A woman Cameron recognized from the town library immediately flipped open a massive notebook and began thumbing through pages. “Spouses may not both serve on the council simultaneously,” she read. “But we’ve never had council members marry while in office before.” She looked up warmly at Emily. “It’s rather sweet, if you ask me
.”
“You’re all invited,” Emily said with that dreamy tone of voice Cameron’s cousin had used when discussing her impending wedding.
“You should come for the cake if nothing else,” Dinah whispered over Cameron’s shoulder. He’d been so intent on scouting out the town council that he hadn’t even noticed her slip into the seat behind him. “It’ll knock your socks off.”
Cameron grinned and shook his head. He hadn’t heard someone use that phrase since he was six.
Dinah leaned both elbows over the seat back beside him. “Hadn’t even thought about the town council seat thing,” she said quietly. “Man, that’ll be a fight. Hope they don’t ask my opinion. I like ’em both, but Emily’s my pal. She’s all about keeping things the way they are and Gil’s all about progress. But really, they’re Middleburg’s biggest dilemma wrapped up in one adorable romance. Preservation versus progress. Look out, mister, you might have to choose sides.”
“So, instead of asking ‘Are you with the bride or the groom?’ the ushers will ask ‘Are you on the side of progress or preservation?’”
Dinah grinned. She had a wide, infectious smile to match those big brown eyes. “You’re funny. But if I were you, I wouldn’t mention that polling method to Mayor Epson.”
I might as well be developing real estate on Mars, Cameron thought to himself. This place is a whole other planet from New York.
“Newcomer’s curiosity for town politics?” Dinah asked him as they filed out of the town hall after the meeting.
Cameron stared at her. It was a look she was coming to recognize—a searching, analytical sort of stare that told her Middleburg and its citizens baffled him. The kind of look she’d give dough that wouldn’t rise despite a perfect adherence to the recipe and ideal conditions. It was a full ten seconds before she realized he wasn’t really staring at her; he was staring at her feet.
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