A Man Of Influence. Melinda Curtis
and practically the only town citizen not to run at the sight of him.
Gregory kicked his feet and made a sound like a small motorboat.
“He likes you.” Eunice’s gaze turned to Chad and speculation. “Do you like babies? Are you married?”
“Eunice!” Tracy froze mid-turn. She had tentative curves, as if she’d recently gained or lost weight and couldn’t decide if she was going to gain or lose more.
“I don’t mind questions.” Questions led to conversation. Chad liked to get the measure of a town. But he couldn’t seem to get a bead on Harmony Valley. Or Tracy.
“Good.” Eunice removed her glasses and deposited them on her head, fluffing her purplish curls into place around them. “Men always ask about jobs. We women need more important information. Where are you from?”
“San Francisco.” Who knew for how long. The penthouse he’d shared with his dad, once filled with hospital equipment and round-the-clock nurses, seemed more like a mausoleum than a home.
“Welcome to Harmony Valley.” Eunice leaned forward, opening her eyes wide and blinking slowly in a way that was oddly hypnotic. “Are you or have you ever been married?”
“No.” Wait a minute. Chad sat back in his chair. He was always looking for an angle on a story, asking personal questions in a way that didn’t intimidate, not the other way around. “How’d you do that?”
“It’s my eyes.” Eunice blinked them in rapid succession. “They’re violet, just like Elizabeth Taylor’s. I’ve been told they have special powers.”
Shades of retired superheroes. Chad almost laughed. Almost, because her stare had worked on him.
“It’s the shock.” Tracy picked up a rag and spray cleaner, along with a gray tub for dirty dishes. “Of all that purple.”
Eunice harrumphed, as if used to Tracy’s teasing, and then fluffed her hair again. “Where is Jessica? She promised to try one of my mother’s recipes. I don’t see Horseradish-Doodles in the case.” She stood, smoothing her pink polyester pants and setting the orange and navy quilt pieces aside, and then she marched toward the kitchen with a sly half glance at Chad. “Watch Gregory for me, will you?”
“Let’s pray...” Tracy’s back was to Chad as she cleared a table in the corner. “That we never sell Horseradish-Doodles.”
“Horseradish-Doodles.” Chad had traveled all over the world. To the dirtiest dives and the most luxurious five-star establishments. He’d never heard of Horseradish-Doodles. “Is that a salty snack or a cookie?”
“Who knows?” Tracy shuddered.
Chad made a mental note to include Eunice and her Horseradish-Doodles in his piece.
In the playpen, the baby’s kicks became more violent. He gave a little shout.
“Gregory wants you to pick him up.” Tracy didn’t turn around.
“I’m not sure that’s wise.” Chad didn’t do babies. He’d heard there was a trick to it—picking them up, holding them, changing their diapers.
The old men playing checkers chuckled.
“Ah.” Tracy turned and stared at Chad’s shoulder once more. “You’re one of those bachelors.”
Intrigued as to how she’d lump him, Chad pretended ignorance by taking a sip of his latte.
“You’re afraid babies are contagious.” Tracy’s smile. It was honest and mischievous. It hit Chad in the gut, warming him quicker than his latte.
Gregory shouted louder. Chad ignored him, trying to dissect the appeal of Tracy’s smile. He liked women with sophistication and polish. Tracy didn’t wear any makeup. Her black A-line apron wasn’t sophisticated. She was as simple and homey as the town seemed to be.
Seemed? Nothing was as it seemed in Harmony Valley.
Someone called for Tracy in the kitchen.
“Go on. Pick him up.” Tracy carried her loaded tray toward the swinging kitchen door. “He won’t break.”
“You’re leaving him with me?” Chad could be a kidnapper or a child molester. He could grab the kid and be out the door before the checkers champs could say, “King me.”
“Thirty seconds.” Tracy disappeared through the swinging kitchen door. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought she’d been grinning.
Gregory shrieked, a test run to a full-blown tantrum, for sure.
The old men chuckled some more. Feminine laughter cascaded from the kitchen. These people didn’t think he could do this.
Chad could pick up the kid. He could change a diaper. He’d changed them for his father. He’d changed so many he’d vowed never to change a diaper again.
He bent over the edge of the crib, getting a more pungent whiff of the Poop Monster. “You don’t want me, kid.”
Gregory grinned and drooled. But when Chad didn’t pick him up, he kicked out again, blinked like Eunice and then shrieked.
Chad felt as if he was being studied, tested and stalked. By a baby. Not to mention the women in the kitchen.
Gregory gave another shriek, and then his lower lip began to tremble and his eyes to water.
“Don’t do that.” Chad reached for the kid. “They’ll think I’m torturing you.”
Before his hands reached Gregory, the kitchen door swung open. A woman with an olive complexion and a thick, dark ponytail hurried toward the crib. “Eunice, Gregory isn’t a meter you use to measure a man. I’m so sorry.” She swept Gregory into her arms and spun him around. “Hello, baby mine.”
Gregory rewarded his mother with a round of giggles that eased the tension in Chad despite the awful smell coming from the kid’s pants.
Eunice returned to the window seat and tsked. “I had such high hopes for you, Chad.”
“YOU WANT ME to ask Leona if that travel writer can spend the night with her?” In the barber shop, Phil Lambridge was beside himself with jealousy. He paced. He paused. He sounded as if he might cry. “Alone? Unchaperoned?”
Mildred clenched her remaining molars together so she wouldn’t shout. Phil was a traditional man. He was still in love with his ex-wife twenty years after she’d divorced him. Mildred wanted to tell Phil to get over it and take one for the Harmony Valley team, to man up and do the right thing. But what good would it do? Phil would still be jealous and still walk on egg shells around Leona.
Rose flitted about the narrow shop. “We need a hotel room for that travel writer. Your granddaughters are going to open a bed & breakfast in Leona’s house anyway come spring.”
Agnes sat in one red barbershop chair, nodding in agreement. Larry sat in the other red chair, nodding in agreement. Mildred sat on her walker just inside the front window watching Phil angst and pace. Phil was a tall, gangly man with limbs that moved with marionette uncertainty. He was just so...so...ridiculously endearing.
“You know how Leona is,” Phil said. Given her vision challenges, Mildred could only see his sharp nose and chin. Both stuck out stubbornly. “Until those girls sign on the dotted line, that home is Leona’s castle.”
Everyone knew how Leona was. Bitter. Caustic. Penny-pinching. She gave no charity and expected none in return. But she lived in what had once been a mansion in Harmony Valley. She kept up the hundred-year-old Victorian like a showplace. It was their only chance to impress upon the travel writer that Harmony Valley was a good tourist destination.
“You ask her, Agnes.” Phil was a cream puff. It was why