His Hometown Girl

Despite Mrs. Garcia’s warm tone, Jodi shivered. September. Only three months to raise twice her current savings balance.

* * *

AFTER DROPPING OFF Tyler at her neighbor’s apartment and returning to work, she sat at her desk, numb. Her ex-husband, Peter, hadn’t returned her voice mails and her eyes lingered on her bare left hand, her mind inventorying her belongings. She shouldn’t have flushed away her wedding rings—even though she’d been pushed to her limit by Tyler’s wails for his vanished father. They would have helped to pay for the tuition to Wonders Primary.

Impulsive, her mother used to call her, just like her father. And look where that’d gotten him. How it had affected their family. She shrank from the memory but it found her anyway. If she hadn’t accepted a friend’s last-minute invitation rather than going home for chores, she would have been there when a borrowed skid loader dislodged and the auger her father had been lifting crashed down. Because of her absence, he’d been pinned for two hours before her mother returned from work and discovered him, the delay costing him his arm and their family their livelihood.

She buried her head in her hands. Her parents hadn’t blamed her, but she’d never forgiven herself. Never again would she put what she wanted ahead of duty. Yet when she’d tried keeping her failing marriage going for Tyler’s sake, that had backfired, too.

Her phone buzzed and she snatched it off her desk when she recognized the number.

“Peter?” It was a rare day when he returned her calls. Thank goodness today was one of them.

“We need to talk.” His distracted, impatient voice sounded as distant as ever.

“Yes. About Wonders Primary—” she began, knowing it was a long shot to ask, but for Tyler, anything.

“What? No,” he barked, and she flinched, recalling previous times he’d used that tone with her. And Tyler. “I’m getting remarried.”

Her mind skittered over that thought like a tongue probing for a cavity. After a moment, she relaxed. No pain. Tyler was her only priority, and the reason, according to her ex, that they’d split. For the hundredth time, she regretted her impulsive decision to marry Peter. On the other hand, that rash decision had brought her the greatest joy in her life: her beautiful boy.

“Congratulations,” she said, hoping he’d found a partner who would give him a “perfect” child. He’d resented having a son who couldn’t keep up with the other kids, who brought stares and snide comments from strangers. Her nightly research for autism treatments and insistence that Tyler’s condition was beyond her or their son’s control had only angered him further.

“I’m suing to lower my child support.”

Her office seemed to tilt and spin. He might as well have reached into her chest and seized her heart.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Tyler needs more money to go to a school for autistic children.”

“That was your label,” Peter blustered. “Not mine. You spoiled him. All that coddling. That’s why the kid wouldn’t walk until he was two.”

Jodi squeezed her eyes shut and counted backward from ten. “It’s a medical diagnosis, Peter. It’s not my fault.”

“Look. I don’t have time for this. My lawyers are sending papers over this week.”

She heard a beep, then silence, yet she kept the phone pressed to her ear for a moment, willing him to come back on, to say that he’d help.

Hands shaking, she dropped her phone in her purse and opened a file. Anything to steady her. At first she saw only a blur of numbers until her whirling mind settled enough to make out a purchase agreement. The Idaho farmers had agreed to sell their land to her employer, Midland Corp. Several families had even accepted her company’s offer to let them stay in their homes, rent-free, as contracted workers. They’d farm their old land for a paycheck instead of profits.

Despite her day, she felt some satisfaction in this hard-won deal. It was one of several she’d made that had helped Midland become the world’s largest food producer and owner of agricultural land.

“Ms. Chapman?” Her secretary’s voice came through the intercom.

“Yes, Linda.”

“Mr. Williams would like to see you in his office immediately.”

Jodi rubbed her throbbing temples. Of all the times to get a summons from her boss. “Please tell him I’ll be right there.”

The familiar sound of fingers tapping on keyboards, phones ringing and fax machines spitting out paper filled the corridor as she strode toward Mr. Williams’s office.

“Hi, Gail.” Jodi placed her hands on the granite counter before her boss’s door, noticed her chipped nail polish and yanked them down to her sides. “Mr. Williams wants to see me?”

Gail slid a candy bowl her way and lowered her voice. “You might want reinforcements.” She glanced at the door behind her. “He’s in a tear.”

Jodi’s stomach twisted and she ignored the treats. Focusing on work instead of her crisis felt impossible. Facing an irritated boss on top of that might be more than she could handle.

Well. There was nothing for it.

She took a deep breath, put on her business face, knocked and then strode inside. Her boss half rose from his seat and waved her to a chair. He was an imposing, florid man whose white comb-over contrasted with his helter-skelter black eyebrows. His thick glasses made his eyes seem to look everywhere and nowhere at once. When she perched on the edge of her seat, he shoved a folder across his desk.

“Got another acquisitions deal for you, Jodi.” He tugged at the striped tie that half disappeared into his neck roll. “Espresso?”

Knowing better than to argue, she accepted the minimug and sipped, careful not to make a face. It sure wasn’t chamomile, and she could have used the soothing blend to settle her jangling nerves.

“Good, eh?” Mr. Williams beamed and Jodi nodded, bolting back the rest of the foul brew.

“Did you mention something about a new deal?” It took every ounce of her dwindling energy to keep her voice steady.

Her boss held out the folder. “I believe you’re familiar with this area.”

Jodi grabbed the file while her mind replayed her conversations with the Wonders Primary director and her ex. How would she find a way to pay for Tyler’s care if her husband wanted to contribute less?

She started when Mr. Williams cleared his throat, and then she flipped the file open and froze at the location typed on the cover sheet.

Cedar Bay, Vermont. She dropped it back on his desk, blinking rapidly.

“This looks like a large deal. Surely Jake or Micah—” She sought to rein in her rising voice. “Brady—” Logic, not emotion, she reminded herself. She’d made too many mistakes in life by ignoring that rule.

“Don’t have the connections there that you do, and we need this land to stay ahead of the competition.” Her boss twisted the end of a gold-plated pen, the point appearing and disappearing. “Besides, they already tried, with the exception of Brady, who’s still tied up in Mexico. Look, Jodi, it’s your hometown.”

“I haven’t been there since I left for college.”

“You still have family there.” Her supervisor pointed his pen at a nearby picture. In it, the executives mugged in red Santa hats or antler headbands. “I met your aunt at last year’s holiday party. Grace, I believe?”

Of course Mr. Williams would remember that detail, just as he stored every tidbit, small or large. Her mind worked frantically. How could she get out of this? She needed to stay in town and sort things out for Tyler.

She rose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Williams. But Cedar Bay will be a conflict of interest.”

“A conflict for whom, I wonder?” Her supervisor waved her to take her seat again. After a tense moment, he opened the file and read from it.

“Layhee, Trudeau, Drollette...” His voice droned on through the long list, each familiar last name making her pulse pound harder than the last. “...and Remillard,” he finished.

His sharp gaze met hers. “Recognize any of those?”

All of them, Jodi thought. “A few,” she said.

“Then that’s the in we need. We’ve been trying to take over this prime dairy land for years. Put all of our best men on it.” He pulled out his pocket-handkerchief and dabbed at his glistening forehead. “I mean, we put our best senior executives on it, but we haven’t made any headway as a result of some fellow by the name of—” he glanced down at the chart “—Daniel Gleason.”