Baby, Don't Go

“Not yet,” Kendall admitted. “But she knows how I feel.”

Marcus grunted. “The whole damn town knows how you two fools feel—you spray-painted it all over our water tower!”

Kendall shrugged. “I couldn’t let Porter show me up. But at least I’ve already asked and gotten my answer.”

“I’m not worried about Nikki saying yes,” Porter said with a nervous little laugh.

“Then why haven’t you broken ground on your house?” Kendall asked.

“Why haven’t you broken ground on your house?” Porter retorted.

“Girls,” Marcus snapped, “can you save the chitchat for later?”

Porter straightened in his chair. “There are plenty of other couples waiting for the church to be built. The place will be stampeded.”

“Then I guess you’d better be finding us a minister, too,” Marcus said to Porter.

Porter sighed. “Okay.”

Kendall smiled into his hand. “Before the marriages get underway, we’re going to have to turn one wing of the boardinghouse into a family wing. And we need someone dedicated to managing the house. It’s getting too much for the volunteers to keep up with.”

Marcus nodded and made a note of it on his list. “What else?”

“The tourist traffic to see the covered bridge has ballooned,” Kendall added. “I see more strangers in town every day.”

“Which brings us to our most pressing problem,” Porter piped up. “The diner. We aren’t prepared to feed tourists. Or the crowd we’re expecting for Homecoming weekend.”

“Right,” Kendall said. “Plus the Department of Energy representative will be back any day for another inspection, and we need to pass with flying colors. If we could make sure there’s no food fight in the diner this time, that would be a plus.”

Porter laughed. “We’ll have to keep Colonel Molly and Rachel Hutchins at opposite ends of town.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Kendall said. “I noticed Rachel’s been hanging around Devine’s laboratory quite a bit since he moved in.”

“Much to Dr. Cross’s consternation,” Porter added.

Marcus frowned. “What does one thing have to do with the other?”

“Didn’t you know?” Porter said. “Dr. Cross has a huge crush on Rachel.”

“But he’s got to be a foot shorter than her,” Marcus said.

Kendall splayed his hands. “The man is ambitious.”

Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose. Now even he was being pulled into the soap opera the town had become. “Can we get back to the D.O.E. report? All our recycling initiatives passed on the last inspection except for the dining hall. But since then, we converted it into a bona fide restaurant, and we’re recycling ninety-five percent of the restaurant waste.”

“But the food is still terrible,” Kendall said, “and the service is lousy. They can’t handle a big crowd. Colonel Molly is impossible to work with—the waitresses don’t last long.”

Marcus frowned. “I’ll talk to her.”

“The diner stands to make or lose a lot of money as the town grows,” Porter pressed. “It needs your business know-how behind it.”

Marcus bit down on his cheek. “Let’s keep our eye on the goals for the federal deadline. In addition to a Justice of the Peace, we need to show we have adequate emergency response systems in place—fire and rescue. We have to break ground on a housing development, a jail, a library and city hall before cold weather sets in. Then we have to prepare for elections and buy polling machines.”

“We’re on track for all of those things to happen,” Kendall said calmly, making a steeple of his hands.

“But we can’t afford for anything to go wrong at this point,” Marcus said. “An explosion at the laboratory, or the discovery of something toxic where we want to put the housing development, would sink us.”

“We know, Marcus,” Kendall said. “But our first priority is still the diner. It’s the key to making everything else we have planned go smoothly.”

“So I hope you’re ready to do battle with Molly,” Porter said.

Marcus frowned. “I can handle her.” But he’d have to tread carefully—they were indebted to the retired U.S. Army colonel. She’d fed their original crew of two hundred and fifty men three meals a day for the first several months single-handedly.

Those were the days, Marcus thought. Before the women from Broadway, Michigan, had arrived, bringing with them their Northern attitudes and their endless high-maintenance demands—not the least of which was insisting the town charter include provisions that key positions be held by females, including the manager of the diner. The next thing he knew, they’d be unionized.

“Speaking of the diner,” Kendall said, “don’t forget we have a meeting this afternoon with Rachel for an update on plans for Homecoming weekend.” He arched an eyebrow at Marcus. “I understand she has lots of parties planned, so you’d better line up a date.”

“I already have a date,” Marcus said.

“Who?” they demanded.

“Mother,” he said. “Remember, she’s moving back Homecoming weekend.”

“How could we forget?” Porter asked. “She only reminds us every time she calls.”

“Amy is taking Tony down to help Mom pack a few of the heavier things,” Kendall said.

Marcus nodded. Kendall’s son was an Armstrong, through and through. Marcus loved the boy like he was his own. The thought of having a son sent a shot of longing through his loins…until he thought about having to deal with the child’s mother. Women were just too much trouble.

To confirm his point, Porter’s and Kendall’s phones started singing with their telltale “baby” ringtones.

“Are we finished?” Porter asked.

“Oh, yeah, you’re both finished, all right,” Marcus muttered as he headed toward the door. He planned to spend the morning at the recycling plant, then fish over his lunch hour…and count his lucky stars he wasn’t tied to a pesky, demanding woman.

3

“Thank you for the clothes, Mother,” Alicia said as she exited Candace’s house wearing and carrying a suitcase full of blue jeans, T-shirts and other clothes that were, in her opinion, too flashy for her mother to be wearing. Since leaving New York, her mother’s style had changed dramatically…presumably to appeal to her much-younger boyfriend, Bo.

What her mother saw in the bonehead of a redneck, Alicia couldn’t fathom. She supposed it had something to do with his sexual prowess, but she didn’t want to go there in her mind.

“And for the car,” Alicia added, then came up short in the driveway at the sight of an old blue pickup truck sitting next to the rental car she’d offered to trade for her mother’s sedan so she wouldn’t roll into Sweetness looking like a temporary visitor.

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Candace said, her voice animated. “While you were packing, Bo said it would be better if he took my car to work and you took his truck to the mountains. It has four-wheel drive.”

Alicia tucked her tongue into her cheek—she supposed he’d meant it as a generous gesture.

She glanced up at her mother and felt a pang of sympathy. Candace Randall had met her idiot boyfriend in Atlantic City. Still slim and beautiful with creamy skin and dark hair, Candace was hanging on to her youth with both hands. She was obsessed with her exercise and beauty routine, constantly fussed with her hair and makeup. What little time Alicia had spent with her mother and Bo, she was glad she’d opted to stay at a hotel because the man—and she used that term loosely—fed Candace’s insecurities with sly, denigrating remarks.