Bluegrass Blessings

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 glad 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.