Sweet Talkin' Lover EPB

by Tracey Livesay

  Hey now.

  He leaned a hip against the back of his chair and crossed his arms. “You settling in okay?”

  Her blue eyes followed his movements and she bit her bottom lip. “It’s a great little town. Way . . . different from where I come from.”

  “Pretty soon, it’ll feel like home,” he said, giving her his standard tourist bureau line. “You’re already attending council meetings. Are you interested in getting involved?”

  “With local government? No.” She tilted her head and tugged on one of her blond curls. “Do you remember when I was here visiting my aunt back in July? You promised to show me around.”

  “Of course.”

  He didn’t, but she wouldn’t care for that admission. If he had mentioned showing her around, he’d meant it casually. The town was nine and a half square miles; he was pretty sure Holly had already seen everything Bradleton had to offer.

  Still, she was cute and he wasn’t busy, so . . .

  “How’s your Saturday afternoon?”

  “I’d prefer Saturday evening,” she countered.

  Wyatt raised his brows. Kinda hard to see the town at night. “How’s seven?”

  Holly reached out and squeezed his biceps. “It’s a date.” She gave him one last slow smile and sauntered away.

  He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the sway of her denim-clad hips before his gaze hurried back to the clock. Shit! It’d be impossible for him to make it to the store in time. The shipment would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Dan sidled up next to him. “You live a charmed life, my friend.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You think everyone is a young, handsome, rich man who gets approached by beautiful women during boring council meetings?” Dan sighed dramatically. “Everything always seems to go your way. I know a hundred men who would trade places with you in a heartbeat.”

  Wyatt knew it was what everyone thought of him. Because he didn’t allow them to see anything else.

  “Are you one of them?” Wyatt teased. “You’re a good-looking guy. Women would ask you out, too. First, you’d have to take off your wedding ring and stop parading around town with Laura, holding hands, kissing, and looking blissfully happy . . .”

  “Oh! So you got jokes?”

  “I’ve got more than that according to—what the—”

  Vince bumped into Wyatt, his backward capped, blond head turned at an awkward angle. “It must be jelly cuz jam don’t shake like that!”

  Dan shook his head. “It usually helps when you watch where you’re walking.”

  “Dude,” Vince said, ignoring Dan and zeroing in on Wyatt, “you were talking to the new dental hygienist from Dr. Saunders’s office.”

  “Very observant.”

  “Well?” Vince asked. “What did she want? She was asking about me, right?”

  Vince was such a douchebag. If Wyatt had met the other man today, he could guarantee they wouldn’t be friends, but they’d grown up together, both scions of prominent Bradleton families. It was a relationship cemented by proximity and familiarity, not by affection.

  “You’re right,” Wyatt said, clapping Vince on the shoulder. “She did ask about you. She wanted to know about the prick who voted to fund the road extension.”

  Vince’s arrogant expression soured and he shrugged off Wyatt’s hand. “You’re an asshole.”

  “What are you doing?” Wyatt asked. “That extension would destroy a good chunk of Happy Creek Plaza. I thought the park was important to your family? They owned the land before selling it to the town for that specific purpose. They even donated the picnic shelters and the children’s play area.”

  Vince snorted. “Why should I care what my family did almost forty years ago? Things have changed. Expanding the road will make it easier to get from one side of town to the other. It’s good for my constituents.”

  “And it has nothing to do with the fact that the new road would run past your car dealership?” Wyatt asked.

  “I mean, if that’s true, that’s a definite bonus, but my concern is strictly for the people of Bradleton.” Vince’s innocent tone didn’t pass the smell test, but it didn’t matter.

  The motion hadn’t passed.

  This time.

  “Speaking of new things.” Vince pressed his hands against his middle. “If I told Holly Martin she had a beautiful body, do you think she’d hold it against me?”

  “Is that my phone ringing?” Dan pulled out his cell. “Hello.”

  Vince looked around. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Dan held out the phone. “The seventies called. They want their pickup lines back.”

  “Screw you, Dan.” Vince looked at Wyatt. “We done here? Let’s head across the street to Turk’s.”

  Since the opportunity to pick up his lumber order had slipped away and he still needed to eat, Wyatt said, “Sure.”

  They said good-bye to the other council members and the few people who still remained and headed out of the municipal building, starting the block-long trek to their favorite local diner.

  Vince shoved his fists into the pockets of his pleated khakis. “You know she moved here from New Jersey last month and is staying in her aunt’s house on the outskirts of town.”

  “Who?” Dan asked, his head swiveling as they walked.

  Not that Bradleton was the crime capital of the commonwealth. But Dan was never off duty. Being a cop was embedded in his DNA. He’d often said he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

  Wyatt envied his freedom to choose the life and career he wanted.

  “Holly Martin, the dental hygienist!” Vince said, his voice threaded with exasperation. “I heard she lost her job. Or was it that she caught her fiancé in bed with her cousin? No, I think she wanted to leave the city for the charm and slow pace of a small town.”

  Dan frowned. “Do you hear yourself? You sound like a stalker.”

  “I wasn’t stalking her. My mom stopped by the car dealership to bring me lunch. She told me.”

  Wyatt smirked at Dan. “Likely story.”

  Once inside the diner, they called a greeting to Shirley and headed to the booths in the back, passing Earl and Clyde hunched over mugs of draft beer at the bar.

  Wyatt removed his phone from the back pocket of his jeans, then slid into the red upholstered booth, smiling and nodding to the customers seated nearby.

  Vince flicked the laminated menus with a finger. “I don’t know why they keep these on the table. The last time Turk’s offered anything new was the Swedish meatballs in 2012.”

  “When he was part of the Recipes from Around the World Club.” Wyatt exhaled. “Those meatballs made me sick.”

  “You and half the town,” Dan said.

  “So long, recipe club!” Vince sang, waving.

  “Thank God,” came a voice from the table behind them.

  “I’m going to ask Holly Martin out,” Vince said. “Early bird gets the worm and all that.”

  Dan smirked. “Save your energy. And your dignity.”

  “Why?” Vince asked. “Is she a lesbian?”

  “Really?” Wyatt’s tone was scornful. “That’s what you’re going with? If she’s not interested, she must be into women?”

  Vince jutted his chin. “I’m good-looking, I own my house, and I run a successful business. I’m a catch. The women in this town know it—”

  “—and don’t care—” Dan interrupted.

  “—Holly Martin will, too,” Vince concluded.

  “Evening, Mayor. Chief.” Shirley placed three fresh bottles of beer and a basket of pretzels on the table. “Give it up, Vincent. She was in here at lunch talking ’bout Wyatt. Y’all want the usual?”

  Dan’s eyes widened and he lifted his beer, a wide smile splitting his face.

  “Unbelievable!” Vince threw his hands up in the air.

  “The usual it is,” Shirley said, walking away.

  Wyatt’s skin prickled from the interested stares of the
other customers, and he knew this situation had the potential to add to the imagined lore of “Mayor McHottie.” He hated that nickname, but it was beyond his control to suppress it. The town sopped up his supposed escapades faster than Turk’s legendary biscuits and sausage gravy.

  Vince curled his lip. “When I think about it, it’s truly amazing you haven’t run through the entire female under-thirty population.”

  “That’s an ageist thing to say,” Dan said. “I know for a fact that Wyatt has dated older women.”

  Ha-ha.

  “You’re a dick,” he told Dan, launching a pretzel across the table. Dan caught it, his grin spreading.

  “You don’t even try,” Vince grumbled. “You just stand there and they come to you. Like metal shavings to a magnet.”

  Wyatt shrugged, not willing to be swept along on Vince’s emotional tide. “I like to have fun. I show women a good time. I’m honest about my intentions from the beginning, and they appreciate that.”

  “Until they want to get serious and you don’t,” Dan pointed out.

  Wyatt’s phone buzzed and he checked the screen. A text from the owner of the hardware store. Since Wyatt hadn’t made it in before they’d closed, he’d dropped the shipment off on Wyatt’s porch.

  Perfect!

  “Let me guess, another woman asking you out on a date?” Vince accused.

  “Bitter much?” Wyatt asked, before tilting his bottle of beer and taking a lengthy swig.

  Maybe he seemed different because everyone else in Bradleton started coupling from young ages. It wasn’t uncommon for people to marry their high school sweethearts. What was wrong with having a good time? Keeping things light and easy?

  Besides, marrying into his family carried a lot of . . . baggage. If his mother and grandfather ever got a hint that he was serious about someone, they’d book the reception venue and begin planning the rest of his life before he’d even popped the question. With practice, he’d mastered the delicate balance of doing what he wanted and still managing to satisfy his family and fulfill his duties. His life was great exactly the way it was.

  And he’d keep it that way for as long as possible.

  “Look, my feelings about commitment are not a secret.”

  The gossip mill in Bradleton made sure of that.

  Vince shook his head. “Of course they aren’t. It’s part of your allure.”

  Wyatt choked on his beer. “Allure? You think I have allure, Vince?”

  “Not my word. They see you as a challenge. They all believe they’ll be the one to get you to settle down even though you treat them the same. First date, is always dinner—”

  “At the fanciest place in town, La Petite Maison,” Amos Jackson, seated in the booth in front of them, pointed out.

  “Is everyone keeping track of my schedule?” Wyatt asked, grabbing a napkin from the silver dispenser and wiping up the hoppy spray he’d caused.

  “Don’t forget dancing at the Watering Hole,” Eunice Hollis called from her table, where she sat with the other members of the senior center’s bridge club.

  “Not you too, Miss Eunice!” Wyatt said.

  A smile broke across her brown, lined face. She wiggled her fingers and blew him a kiss.

  Vince rapped his knuckles against the table. “And you’ll end the night back at her place.”

  “Because the world would have to end before he lets a date darken the doorstep of his house,” Dan said, popping a pretzel into his mouth.

  “Are you having fun?” Wyatt asked through gritted teeth.

  “Absolutely,” Dan said.

  The bell over the front door jingled and an older woman hurried in wearing Chro-Make’s unofficial uniform of jeans, a flannel shirt, and boots, her thin, graying hair pulled up into a ponytail.

  “Hey, Fran!” Shirley called out. “You want a beer?”

  Fran braced an arm against the bar and inhaled gulps of air. “They’re closing it down!”

  “You’re damn right,” Vince said grumpily. “I’m gonna need several drinks tonight!”

  “Not here. The plant!” Fran’s words pierced the crowd’s laughter. “They’re closing it down.”

  Wyatt frowned. “Hold up, guys! Fran, what’s going on?”

  “Chro-Make. I just heard from someone who heard from Nate that Flair was bought by another company and that the new company wants to pull their contract!”

  Unease coiled low in Wyatt’s belly, ready to slither up to his chest. He wasn’t the only one who recognized the import of Fran’s news. The restaurant’s previous mirth had been vacuum-sucked from the air, leaving everyone crumpled and deflated.

  Clyde straightened from the bar. “They can’t do that!”

  Eunice shook her head. “I worked at that plant. My husband worked there. My daughter works there now.”

  Dan nodded. “That’s true for a lot of families around here.”

  “That plant employs half the town!” Vince exclaimed, glancing around.

  “A third,” Wyatt corrected absently, his mind racing.

  Losing the cosmetics contract would essentially close the plant and devastate their local economy. Hundreds of families depended on the income provided by those jobs. He’d seen the devastating effect that losing a manufacturer can have on a small town. Five years ago, the nearby town of Grange imploded when a major shoe company moved its factory overseas to take advantage of lower production costs. The loss decimated their downtown area, with several banks, two supermarkets, and a shopping center closing down.

  They never recovered. It was like a modern-day ghost town.

  Earl exploded. “We can’t stand by and let this happen! What are you going to do about it, Mayor?”

  Every head in Turk’s swung in his direction, their expressions of panic, fear, and anxiety a palpable, suffocating wave.

  Sometimes the burden of being Wyatt Asher Bradley IV weighed on him like a thousand-pound bag of shifting sand.

  What would he do? The only thing he could.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

  And he would.

  It’s what the town expected its mayor to do.

  It’s what his family expected him to do.

  It’s what his father, Wyatt Asher Bradley III, failed to do.

  Chapter Four

  Three hours from the nearest commercial service airport. Ninety minutes since she’d seen a Starbucks. Every third automobile was a pickup truck.

  Welcome to Small Town, USA.

  When she’d begun her journey—after picking up her rental car in D.C.—her view had consisted of concrete and steel, loads of people and traffic congestion. But when she’d left the major southbound interstate for state roads, the tableau blossomed into a beautiful bounty of nature, with colorful foliage and charming roadside businesses.

  Even though she’d attended college in Virginia, she hadn’t had the opportunity to explore the commonwealth beyond the university’s borders. Which was a shame. There was an appeal to the area, one she couldn’t deny. As she’d driven past the town limits and onto the tree-lined streets of the historic downtown, with their fall-decorated vintage light posts and people strolling along with baby carriages or friends, she couldn’t repress the upward tilt of her lips.

  I’ve cruised onto the set of a cable channel movie or sitcom.

  Flexing her fingers, she gripped the steering wheel tightly and followed the automated voice of her GPS, past signs that touted stores selling authentic Amish quilts and Confederate battlefield tours only twenty miles away. Making the final turn, she pulled into the gravel parking lot of a gray brick building on the edge of town. The drab green awning read “Chro-Make Manufacturing.” A few cars were parked haphazardly in the lot.

  What the hell?

  Caila checked her watch. It was five-thirty in the afternoon. She’d purposely timed her arrival to coincide with the shift change. People were usually very talkative at the end of their shifts, milling around, catching up with coworkers and recounting t
heir days. She could learn a lot just by listening to what they said. She’d also thought to maybe peek inside the plant and see what she was dealing with before her meeting with the plant manager the following day. It was the reason she’d decided to arrive a day earlier than she’d originally anticipated. There was no such thing as too much information in these situations.

  But instead of hordes of people entering and exiting the plant, the parking lot was almost bare. She grabbed her tote bag and headed toward the building.

  She pulled on the glass door, surprised when the handle slid from her grasp and she almost chipped a nail. The door didn’t open. She tried again. It didn’t budge. What was going on? She cupped hands on either side of her face and peered in. No one was seated in the vestibule, and instead of the usual hum of a working factory, the place was eerily silent.

  This is what happens when you veer off your initial plan.

  She stepped back from the building—cursing as she stumbled when her high heel caught in the gravel—and surveyed the large warehouse. A closed factory? She’d never known a manufacturing plant to keep nine-to-five hours. Didn’t they run in shifts?

  She twisted her lips. No wonder this place was having problems. They ran on limited hours and they had no security. How did they expect to produce the amount of inventory necessary and to safeguard it once it was created?

  Frustration constricted her chest and she glanced up at a sky gone violet with the setting sun. She’d endured a two-hour layover in Boston, a middle seat in coach on both flights, and long hours on the road with no bathroom break, all so she could get here a day early . . . and stand outside a closed chemical plant.

  On cue, her stomach grumbled, a salty reminder that in her urgency, she’d consumed only a cup of coffee all day. She remembered passing a restaurant on Main Street that looked well populated. If the locals ate there, the food must be good. She’d grab a quick dinner before getting settled for the night. She’d come back in the morning.

  Fifteen minutes later Caila raised a perfectly sculpted brow at the scene before her inside Turk’s Good Times & Good Eats. A large U-shaped counter with red leather stools was the main focal point of the restaurant. Upholstered booths and single tables filled the left side of the space, while several old-school video arcade games and a pinball machine inhabited a small alcove off to the right. Even though it was early in the evening, the entire place seemed filled to capacity. She stood at the hostess station and stared at the occupied booths and counter, wondering if she’d be able to get a table.