Her Perfect Proposal

The city council had assured Mayor Rask she’d just be a figurehead. Poor thing hadn’t known what she was stepping into until after she’d agreed. And for that, Mayor Rask had Gunnar’s deepest sympathy, support and respect. When he became mayor, he’d take over the helm and transform the current weak-mayor concept, where the city council really ran things, to a strong-mayor practice where he’d have total administrative authority. At least that’s how he imagined it. Any man worth his salt needed a dream, and that was his.

The older woman nodded her appreciation, then took her seat at the head of the long dark wooden boardroom table. Next to her was Jarl Madsen, the proprietor at the Maritime Museum. Next to him sat Adamine Olsen, a local businesswoman and president of the Heartlandia Small Business Association, and next to her Leif Andersen, the contractor who’d first discovered the trunk that could change the town’s reputation from ideal to tawdry.

Leif had found the ancient chest while his company was building the city college. Though he was the richest man in town, he chose to be a hands-on guy when it came to construction, continuing to run his company rather than rest on his laurels as the best builder in this part of the state of Oregon. He hadn’t turned in the chest right away—instead he’d sat on the discovery for months. Once curiosity had gotten the best of him and he’d opened it, saw the contents, he knew he had to bring it to the mayor’s attention. After that, Mayor Larsson had his heart attack, Gerda stepped up and this handpicked committee was formed.

Gunnar nodded to his sister, who’d beat him to the meeting. She smiled. “Gun,” she said.

“Elke, what’s shakin’?”

She lifted her brows and sighed, cluing him that what was shaking wasn’t all good. He’d signed on to this panel, like he had to his job, to protect and serve his community. Since his family tree extended back to the very beginning of Heartlandia, and his father had slandered the Norling name, doing his part to preserve the city as it should be was Gunnar’s duty.

So far the buried-chest findings had rocked the committee’s sleepy little world. He’d heard how some places rewrote history, but never expected to participate in the process. He lifted his brows and gazed back at his kid sister.

As the resident historical maven and respected professor at the new city college, Elke’s services had been requested. Her job was to help them decipher the journal notations from the ones dug up in the trunk during construction. Apparently, the journals belonged to a captain, a certain Nathaniel Prince, who was also known as The Prince of Doom and who might have been a pirate. Well, probably was a pirate. The notations in the ship captain’s journal held hints at Heartlandia’s real history, but they looked like cat scratches as far as Gunnar was concerned. Good thing Elke knew her stuff when it came to restoring historical documents and deciphering Old English.

Across from Elke sat the quiet Ben Cobawa, respected for his level head and logical thinking, not to mention for being a damn great fireman. The native-born Chinook descendent balanced out the committee which otherwise consisted entirely of Scandinavians. But what could you expect from a town originally settled by Scandinavian fishermen and their families? Or so he’d always been led to believe.

Cobowa’s Native American perspective would be greatly needed on the committee. They’d be dealing with potential changes to town history, and since his people had played such an important role in the creation of this little piece of heaven originally called Hartalanda back in the early 1700s, they wanted his input.

“Shall we call this meeting to order?” Mayor Rask said.

Gunnar took a slow draw on the provided water. Judging by the concerned expression on his younger sister’s face he knew he should be prepared for a long night.

* * *

Lilly sidled up to the bar at Lincoln’s Place. A strapping young towhead bartender took her order. But weren’t most of the men in Heartlandia strapping and fair?

“I’ll have an appletini.” She almost jokingly added “Sven” but worried she might be right.

The pale-eyed, square-jawed man smiled and nodded. “Coming right up.”

She wasn’t above snooping to get her stories, and she wanted to start off with a bang when she handed in her debut news story, like her father would expect. She’d been casing city hall earlier, had hidden behind the nearby bushes, and lo and behold, there was Sergeant Gunnar Norling slipping out the back door. She’d watched him exit the building along with half a dozen other people including this new Mayor Rask.

She’d combed through old council reports on the town website and noticed a tasty morsel—“A new committee has been formed to study recently discovered historical data.” What was that data, and where had it been found?

The website report went on to mention the list of names. The one thing they all had in common with the exception of one Native American, if her research had served her well, were Scandinavian names that went back all the way to the beginning of Heartlandia, back when it was founded and called Hartalanda. Of course, the Native Americans had been there long before them. Yup, her type A reporter persona had even dug into genealogy archive links proudly posted at the same website.

These people weren’t the city council, but they had been handpicked, each person representing a specific slice of Heartlandia life.

She’d met the handsome and dashing Gunnar Norling today, and the idea of “getting to the bottom” of her story through him had definite appeal. Her parents had trained her well: set a goal and go after it. Don’t let anything come between you and success. Growing up an only child in their multimillion-dollar Victorian home in Pacific Heights, Lilly’s parents had proved through hard work and good luck in business their technique worked. As far as her father was concerned, it was bad enough she’d been born a girl, but for the past five years, since she’d left graduate journalism school, they’d looked to her to stake her claim to fame. So far she hadn’t come close to making them proud, but this new venture might just be the ticket to their respect.

A half hour later, nursing her one and only cocktail, she was deep into conversation with the owner of Lincoln’s Place, a middle-aged African-American man named Cliff. It seemed there was more to Heartlandia than met the eye once you scratched the Scandinavian surface.

“Looks like you get a lot of tourist trade around here,” she said, having studied the bar crowd.

“Thank heaven for the cruise ship business,” Cliff said, with a wide and charming smile. “If it wasn’t for them, I’d never have discovered Heartlandia.”

“Are you saying you cruised here or worked on a cruise ship?”

“Worked on one. Thirteen years.”

“Interesting.” Normally, she’d ask more about that assuming there might be a story buried in the statement, but today she had one goal in mind. She took a sip of her drink to wait the right amount of time before changing the topic. “So where do the locals go? You know, say, like the regular guys, firemen and police officers, for example.” She went for coy, yeah, coy like a snake eyeing a mouse, looking straight forward, glancing to the side. “Where do they hang out after hours?”

He lifted a long, dark brow, rather than answering.

“I’ll level with you, Cliff, I’m the new reporter for the Heartlandia Herald. I’d like to bring the focus of the newspaper back to the people. I’ve got a few different angles I’d like to flesh out, and I thought I’d start with talking to the local working Joes.” Funny how she’d chosen “flesh out,” a phrase that had certain appeal where that Gunnar guy was concerned.

He nodded, obviously still considering her story. And it was a tall tale...mostly. She did have big plans to bring the human interest side back to the paper, but first off, she wanted a knock-your-socks-off debut. Introducing big-city journalist Lilly Matsuda, ta-da!

“There’s a microbrewery down by the river and the railroad tracks. To the best of my knowledge, that’s where the manly types go when they want to let off steam.” He tapped a finger on the bar, smiled. “Here’s a tidbit for you. Rumor has it that in the old days, down by the docks in the seedy side of town, right where that bar is today, an occasional sailor got shanghaied.”

“Really.” The tasty morsel sent a chill up her spine. She had a nose for news, and that bit about shanghaied sailors had definitely grabbed her interest. Though it was an underhanded and vile business, many captains had employed the nasty trick. The practice had been an old technique by nefarious sea captains. First they’d get a man sloppy drunk. Then, once he’d passed out, his men would kidnap the sailor onto the ship and the unsuspecting drunk would be far out at sea when he came to and sobered up. Voilá! They had an extra pair of hands on deck with no ticket home, and they didn’t even have to pay him. With Heartlandia being on the banks of the gorgeous Columbia River, a major water route to the Pacific Ocean, the story could definitely be true.

Wait a second, old Cliffy here was probably just playing her, telling her one of the yarns they told tourists to give them some stories to swap when they got back on ship.

“Yes indeed,” Cliff said, touching the tips of his fingers together and tapping. “Of course, a lot of the stories we share with our tourists have—” he pressed his lips together “—for lack of a better word, let’s say been embellished a bit. No city wants to come off as boring when you’re courting the tourist trade, right? So we throw in those old sailor stories to spice things up.”

She appreciated his coming clean about pirates shanghaiing locals. “I hear you. So you’re saying the shanghaied stuff may or may not be true?”

He tilted his head to the side, not a yes or no. She’d let it lie, take that as a yes and try a different angle.

“Hey, have you noticed any after-hour meetings going on at city hall? Or am I imagining things?”

He cast a you-sure-are-a-nosey-one glance. “Could be. Maybe they’re planning some big tercentennial event. I think the town was established around 1715.”

“Tercentennial?”

“Three hundredth birthday.”

“Ah, makes sense. But why would they keep something like that a big secret?”

“Don’t have a clue, Ms....” He had the look of a man who’d had enough of her nonstop questions—a look she’d often seen on her father’s face when she was a child. Cliff suddenly had other patrons to tend to. Yeah, she knew she occasionally pushed too far. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

“Matsuda. I’m Lilly Matsuda.”

He shook her hand. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope to see you around my establishment often, and I think you’ve got what it takes to make a good reporter. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Nice to meet you, too.”

After Cliff moseyed off, attending to a large table obviously filled with cruise-ship guests on the prowl, she scribbled down: “Microbrewery down by the river near railroad.” She’d look it up later.

She’d been a reporter for eight years, since she was twenty-two and fresh out of college, and had continued part-time while attending grad school. Had worked her way up to her own weekly local scene column in the San Francisco Gazette, but could never make it past the velvet ceiling. She wanted to be the old-school-style reporter following leads, fingers on the pulse of the city, always seeking the unusual stories, and realized she’d never achieve her goal back home, much to her parents’ chagrin.

When the chance to work in Oregon came up, after doing her research and seeing a potential buyout opportunity, she’d grabbed it. Statistics showed that something happened to women around the ages of twenty-eight to thirty. They often reevaluated their lives and made major changes. Some decided to get married, others to have a baby, neither of which appealed to her, and right now, since she was all about change, moving to a small town and buying her own paper had definite appeal.

Lilly finished her drink and prepared for the short walk—no jaywalking, thank you very much, Sergeant Norling—back to her hotel.

Once she bought out Bjork, she could finally develop a reputation as the kind of reporter she’d always dreamed of becoming—the kind that sniffed out stories and made breaking headlines. If all went the way she planned, maybe her dad would smile for once when he told people she was a journalist and not a famous thoracic surgeon like he’d always wanted her to become.