A Man Of Influence

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#ulink_54c41b03-34bf-51e4-ba25-9c8e6b260668)

“YOUR SERVICES ARE no longer required.” The chairman of the board for Bostwick Lampoon magazine fixed Chad Healy Bostwick with the kind of stare one gives to spoiled, stinky sushi.

“You’re firing me?” A week after his father died, Chad hadn’t thought he could feel any emptier. He was wrong. His insides felt as hollow as a jack-o’-lantern on Halloween. He rubbed a hand over his designer tie, just to make sure no one had carved triangular features in his chest.

“We’re taking the Bostwick Lampoon in a different direction,” the chairman said, in a voice gruff with age and years of cigarette smoke and maybe—just maybe—regret over what he was doing. Barney had been a friend of Chad’s father during their student days at Stanford. He’d known Chad since the day he was born. He had to realize what he was doing was wrong.

But there was the spoiled and stinky sushi stare. And him giving Chad the ax.

A quick glance around the boardroom—at dour and pitiless faces—and Chad realized how few friends he had left at the magazine. He reached for his coffee, misjudged the movement and grappled the cardboard cup with both hands to save it from spilling.

Silence filled the room, but it couldn’t fill the empty spaces inside Chad.

“This is my company.” His voice felt as weak as a fighter’s jab in the last few seconds of the fifteenth round. Never mind that Chad was editor-in-chief and managed the other writers. Never mind that he wrote The Happy Bachelor On the Road—a popular travel column for the magazine. He owned 49 percent of the publication his father had started over fifty years ago. “You can’t take it away from me.”

But since stockholders controlled 51 percent of the shares, they could fire him.

“We’re honoring your father’s last wishes.” Barney handed Chad a sheet of paper.

“Postmortem manifesto?” Chad perused the document on Bostwick Lampoon letterhead, his gaze catching on a paragraph in the middle.

My son, Chad Healy Bostwick, has done a brilliant job leading the magazine. But every so often a periodical has to reinvent itself to stay relevant. Chad is not my choice for the job.

Unable to read any more, Chad crumpled the paper in his fist.

This was the thanks he got for taking care of his father during his three-year battle with cancer? This was the thanks he got for thirteen years of service? The Bostwick Lampoon was a send-up of the news of the day. It was supposed to be a clever vehicle to make people laugh. Chad couldn’t work up so much as a chuckle.

He used to laugh. Back before he’d had to run the company. He used to smile. Back before he’d had to fire people with kids and mortgages. He used to joke. Back before his father was struck by the Big C. The Bostwick Lampoon didn’t like what he’d become? They’d made him this way!

Doreen, his father’s assistant, led Chad out. She and a security guard stood in Chad’s office as he packed his personal belongings in a single box and thought about the man he used to be. They didn’t care that he took the lead sheet from his team’s last story meeting. They didn’t seem concerned that he might try to beat them at their own game.

At the top of the list was a small town called Harmony Valley.

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_c33fc783-3a80-5d1c-b8ad-3ddd495d5f4e)

IT WAS THE “what ifs” that drove Tracy Jackson crazy.

What if she could eat as many oatmeal raisin cookies as she liked and still fit in her skinny jeans? What if she didn’t have to get up every morning at 4 a.m.? What if she’d participated in that brain shock therapy after her car accident?

Yeah, no way was Tracy going to let anyone attach an electrode to her head and send a jolt of electricity through it.

Since cracking her skull against a semitruck, she’d gone from being a motormouth to being idle in a conversation. She talked in short sentences, especially when she got flustered. She had the occasional brain fart when she couldn’t remember a word. Doctors said her progress toward beating expressive aphasia was hindered by the stress Tracy put on herself.

Stress? How about high self-standards?

Before the accident, Tracy had been among the top of her class at Harmony Valley High School. She’d been a double major in college. She’d thrived on the fast-paced, competitive jungle of a large advertising agency. After the accident, she’d used her advertising connections to land a television news production job.

Okay, so maybe television wasn’t the best fit for her current verbal skill set. She’d had a meltdown live when the reporter she was working with had vomited at a crime scene. Tracy’d had to take over the microphone and she’d gone as mute as a deer in the headlights. Maybe that’s why her news station job had been phased out—their way of firing her without actually firing her. And maybe being canned had forced her to sit down and think about listening to what the doctors ordered so that her life wouldn’t seem like a dead end at age twenty-six, so that she could take another fork in the road and work on overcoming aphasia.

Mildred Parsons rammed her walker into the counter of Martin’s Bakery in Harmony Valley, bringing Tracy back to the fork she sat at in the road. “Two pumpkin spice scones and a latte.” With her poofy white curls and poofy pink cheeks, Mildred looked like Mrs. Claus. The lenses of her glasses were as thick as ice cubes, and were apparently just as hard to see through. She squinted at Tracy and handed over her wallet. “I should have a five in there. Keep the change, dear.”

“Thanks.” That quarter tip would really help build Tracy’s retirement fund. She took the five and handed the wallet back.

Mildred bumped against the counter again as she turned. Bang-turn. Bang-turn. Bang-turn. A perfect 180—not—that got her out of the way of the next elderly resident.

The morning rush was in full swing.

While Tracy made Mildred’s latte, she took Agnes Villanova’s order—hot green tea and a vanilla scone. Accepted Agnes’ exact payment. Plated the scones. Served them. Took Rose Cascia’s order—chai latte with soy milk, no scone. Admired the former ballerina and Broadway chorus girl’s kick-ball change. Made change. Wondered what was keeping bakery owner Jessica in the kitchen—she could use her help.

Greeted Mayor Larry in his neon green and yellow tie-dyed T-shirt—coffee, two packets of sweetener, no cream. Smiled patiently while Old Man Takata debated whether to order the bran muffin or the chocolate croissant. There was no debate. He always went with the croissant. But his indecision gave Tracy time to make another pot of coffee.

Tracy didn’t need to say much as a baker’s assistant. She just had to move quickly. She was the only thing moving fast in this remote corner of Sonoma County. In a town where the average age of the one-hundred-plus residents was in the seventies, most things went at walker speed. Case in point: the game of checkers being played in the corner between Felix, the retired fire chief, and Phil, the should-be-retired barber.

The town council sat at a table in the middle of the bakery. Mayor Larry espoused the merits of controlled growth, while Rose, the no-growth advocate, tried to talk over him with her high-pitched outside voice. Eunice Fletcher sat quilting in the window seat, occasionally glancing down at Jessica’s baby in a small playpen. She was about due for a coffee refill.

It was just another Friday morning in Harmony Valley. Tracy felt no stress at all.

And then he walked in.

Morning sunlight glinted off the blond highlights in his brown hair and outlined his broad shoulders. His eyes were the dark brown of coffee, no cream. Those eyes catalogued everything in the bakery, as if he thought there’d be a test later.

The conversation in the room dwindled and died. Chairs scraped. All eyes turned toward the newcomer, because Harmony Valley wasn’t a pass-through town. It was practically the end of the road.

“Don’t. Scare. Him.” Dang it. Stress jabbed repeatedly at her stilted speech button like a child playing ding-dong ditch. Tracy swallowed her sudden discomfort and waved the man to the counter.