The Single Dad Finds a Wife (10 page)

He poured vinaigrette on his salad, then put the cruet on the table with a weariness that was bone deep.

“I don't have to like the people I work with or for.”

“It helps,” Charlotte said. “The police chief really threatened to arrest them all?”

“For all intents and purposes. Of course we've encountered opposition before. This just...” He shook his head.

“I know you care for her.”

“Who?”

“David,” Charlotte said with the tone he'd learned from her and sometimes used with Jeremy. “Do not insult my intelligence.”

He sighed. “Nothing about this trip has been what I anticipated,” he said. “I'm questioning if this was the right move for the company.”

Charlotte reached across the table for his hand. “What's already in motion is in motion, dear. If this isn't where the Lord wants you, He'll direct you to some other place. Trust in Him, David.”

He stabbed a piece of lettuce with his fork. Instead of eating it, he poked around on the plate as if digging for a rare vegetable.

“I'm trying to, Mom. I'm trying.”

“Daddy.”

David and Charlotte looked toward the open door of the adjoining room. Jeremy stood there in the new pair of Winnie the Pooh pajamas that David had picked up for him the day after the appendectomy. Jeremy had the teddy bear Beau with him. The two had been pretty much inseparable from the moment Jeremy claimed him from his “most favorite doctor in the whole wide world.” When he went to the bathroom, so did Beau. And when he got tucked into bed, so did the bear.

David went to his son and scooped him up in his arms. “Hey, buddy. What are you doing up?” In answer, Jeremy leaned his head on his father's shoulder, but held on to the teddy bear by its ear. “How's that tummy feeling? Okay?”

The boy nodded.

“Would you like something to eat, darling?” Charlotte asked.

Jeremy shook his head and burrowed even closer to David.

“Beau wants some banana.”

David glanced at his mother. “Does he now? Well, let's see about getting him some. Okay?”

Jeremy nodded.

David settled them on the sofa while Charlotte got and peeled half of one of the bananas on the desk. He placed his palm on his son's forehead, feeling for a temperature. Jeremy seemed a little groggy and unusually clingy, but that was pretty much to be expected after his surgery.

Charlotte came and sat on the edge of the sofa with a few slices of banana on a small plate. “Here you go, sweetness,” she said, handing Jeremy a piece of the fruit.

He nibbled on it without much enthusiasm.

“You should finish your dinner, Mom.”

She returned to the table while Jeremy offered some of his banana to his teddy bear.

“Why don't you eat that?” David said. He patted Beau's stomach. “He looks pretty full to me, but this little tummy has a ways to go,” he said, patting Jeremy's.

That earned him a tiny smile.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I want Dr. Spring.”

David wanted to say,
So do I, buddy. So do I. But we can't always get what we want.

Instead, he glanced up at his mother, who raised an eyebrow in anticipation of his response.

David didn't have one that would satisfy either of them.

Chapter Eight

T
he next day Spring and her best friend Cecelia Jeffries met up with the other historical society members at the Corner Café downtown. The blowup during the meeting the previous day had been a setback but by no means the end of the issue. Nothing would be built overnight, and, unless the city council called a special meeting, its next one wasn't scheduled for a couple of weeks. So they had a little bit of time before things got truly critical. Their mission now was to determine a strategy to get Mayor Howell to be reasonable in the plans for the new mixed-use development.

“I'm not sure that the words
reasonable
and
Bernadette Howell
belong in the same sentence,” Cecelia said as she perused the day's specials on the big chalkboard.

“She keeps saying that this land use firm is only doing preliminary work in order to make recommendations for development sites,” Spring said. “But I don't buy it.”

“Well,” Gerald intoned, “there's ample reason to suspect what she says because it rarely matches what she does. You all do remember what happened the last time she said something was in the quote-unquote
preliminary
stage.”

“The Junction at Commerce Plaza,” several in the small group said with a unified groan. A moment of silence ensued as if each person needed to mourn for a moment the fiasco of that development project.

The Junction was a twenty-four-hour multibay gas and service station, convenience store and car wash that put an incredible strain on what had been a green out parcel of Commerce Plaza. The city had to, at considerable unbudgeted taxpayer expense, add two north–south turn lanes, a traffic light system and curb and gutter just to deal with the increased vehicular traffic. The site had been cleared and paved with foundation before the historical review committee could get an injunction on any of the work for, among other things, an archaeological dig of the area. A judge ultimately ruled that it would have been more detrimental to the city to undo the work or to cancel the contracts that had already been approved.

The group wanted to ensure that the mayor's latest pet project didn't turn into the Junction 2.0.

“What do you think of as gourmet food when you think of Poland?” Georgina Lundsford asked, apparently talking to no one in particular as she waited in line.

“What?” Cecelia asked.

“Just like the mayor and being reasonable don't go together, neither does Poland and gourmet food.” Gerald turned to face Georgina from his position in line to order lunch. “Don't get me wrong,” he said, taking her odd comment at face value. “There is a wonderful cuisine out of the country, but the label ‘gourmet'?” He shrugged. “I don't think so. There are a lot of comfort foods in Polish cuisine. Lots of sausage and sauerkraut and several types of breads.”

“Looks like someone didn't take her medication again this morning,” Cecelia whispered to Spring.

The two exchanged an amused glance. Get this group started on the topic of food, and they might never get around to the real business at hand.

“And pierogis,” Georgina said, linking her arm with Gerald's. “Those are yummy. I wish they had some here. Maybe I'll make some for dinner next week. What did you decide, Gerald, dear? Do you want one of these soups?”

“I'm all for comfort food,” he said. “Since the burglary at the shop, that's all I can seem to manage.”

Georgina patted his arm. “It was such a sad day,” she said. “But the good thing is that although you and Richard had things stolen from Step Back in Time Antiques, neither of you was physically harmed. Insurance will take care of the rest.”

“Have the police arrested anyone yet?” Spring asked Gerald.

“No, but they assure us that they're following several leads.” With another look at the menu boards, he said, “C.J. makes a pretty mean baked macaroni and cheese. I think that's what I'll have.”

“Really?” Georgina asked, sounding equally mystified and horrified. “Didn't you say that's what you had for dinner last night?”

Gerald winked at her. “That's right. I did. You ladies drown yourselves in Häagen-Dazs when you're upset. For me, it's mac and cheese.”

That earned him a laugh from the group. After placing their assorted orders for sandwiches, soups and other lunch items, the Cedar Springs Historical Society members claimed several tables near the back of the dining room. Pushing them together, they made one communal table for the entire bunch. After everyone got settled with sweet tea, coffee or sparkling water, Spring got down to business.

“We have to do something,” she said, reaching back to dig into the tote bag she'd put over the back of her chair. She pulled out a small leather portfolio and plucked several pages from it. “This is the only one they had at the library. I took the liberty of making several copies.”

She handed them around to her friends.

Georgina squinted at the small writing, which was a photocopy of a photocopy. “I have trouble if there are too many things to follow,” she said. “Where are my glasses?” Gerald lifted them from her head and handed them to her. She offered him a smile in thanks. “This is from a database, right, Spring?”

“Yes,” she said. “I'll read it back to you.”

She then provided the highlights of all the information she'd gleaned. When she finished, the entire group looked glum. The old property records just muddied the waters. While the Darling land ownership wasn't in question and never had been, some other parcels had dubious title due to several “gentlemen's agreements” made in the 1930s and 1940s regarding property lines.

“You know,” Georgina said. “Maybe instead of trying this tactic, we should do something else.”

“Like what?” Cecelia asked. “The only other thing I can think of is an outright intervention.”

Spring looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “Hmm.”

“No, Spring,” Cecelia intoned.

“It could work,” Spring said. “An intervention might not be such a bad idea.”

“I was joking,” Cecelia said, casting a worried glance around the table. “It was a joke, Spring.”

The historical society's president nodded. “But it doesn't have to be.”

The more Spring thought about it, the more the idea appealed to her. But what she had in mind wasn't an intervention for the mayor. Bernadette Howell's mind would not be swayed no matter how convincing the arguments or how rational the case the Cedar Springs Historical Society made.

No, what Spring realized is that David Camden needed to see firsthand what was at stake. He needed to know and understand that it was more than her family's desire to make things difficult, a perspective the mayor held. He needed to see that the society's opposition was not because her family wanted to lord their wealth over everyone else, a supposition put forth by at least one pro-development resident in a letter to the editor of the
Cedar Springs Gazette
.

The Darlings were not opposed to progress. The family's lasting legacy to the city of Cedar Springs was that it had the resources it needed to thrive...and it had, growing from an enclave of farming families into a bustling village and from there a thriving city that was a suburban hideaway for those who liked the proximity and amenities associated with an urban area without all the attendant crime, blight and malaise.

Spring wasn't naive. Cedar Springs had its share of problems, the creep of crime from Raleigh and Durham to the north and up from Fayetteville to the south seemed to be growing rather than decreasing. And homelessness was an ongoing problem. But that didn't mean that she or the historical society had to abandon hope or succumb to pressure to make Cedar Springs a cookie-cutter facsimile of every other municipality in North Carolina.

She didn't want to drag all the historical society members into the mix. The idea she had for David needed to be confined to an intimate group. And Spring knew just which group could and would want to be a part of her little intervention. This was a plan that could be carried out by the Magnolia Supper Club. So Spring let the rest of the meeting at the Corner Café swirl on around her.

Georgina Lundsford proposed a rally in the town square outside city hall and the public administration building. Gerald suggested posters, à la “Save Cedar Springs,” that could be printed up and placed in front of store windows or on bulletin boards and staked in front yards of like-minded residents. And Millicent Graves, bless her heart, who still wore her hair long and plaited like she had during the 1960s protest movements, offered as a plan a sit-in and march to make the city's elected officials see reason.

Spring's phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out, expecting to see a message from the hospital or the clinic. It was instead a text message from Cecelia, who was sitting directly across from her at the table.

Does she know that it's not 1968?

Spring bit back a smile and tapped a quick reply.

Don't worry. I have another idea.

Cecelia lifted her brows in silent query to Spring, who shook her head ever so slightly. “Later,” she mouthed.

With a nod, Cecilia reached for a pita chip from the large bowl of complimentary snacks being shared by the table.

A little more than an hour after the group dispersed, with marching orders to bring viable action ideas to the next meeting, Spring outlined her idea to Cecelia.

“Spring, I'm not sure this is such a good idea,” Cecelia said.

Spring was behind the wheel of her Volvo car with Cecelia riding shotgun as they made their way to the Darling farmhouse. On the southern outskirts of town, the property known by locals as the Darling Homestead was now a mere fraction of the more than ten thousand acres it had been when the first Darling settled the property. Much of the city of Cedar Springs had originally been Darling land. What remained today was mostly undeveloped former farmland. The property included a rambling farmhouse that generations of Darlings had grown up in, a barn and silo, former stables and several unused outbuildings that had once been storage facilities or way-station cabins for farmhands to shelter in during storms.

Spring wanted to take a quick inventory and see what, if anything, would need to be done for the house to be in shape for a dinner party. Her mother had a service out every couple of weeks to dust and tend to the grass. Since she'd returned home to Cedar Springs from Georgia, Spring's younger sister Summer went to the farm frequently to garden and to enjoy the quiet. Summer had restored the extensive gardens that once were carefully tended by their grandmothers. For all four Darling sisters, Spring, Summer, Winter and Autumn, the house in the country was a refuge, but for Summer it seemed to be even more than that. She'd come out, worked the garden and its flowers and sat on the front porch swing sipping lemonade as she'd worked through her relationship with Cameron Jackson.

For Spring, the history of the property and her family's legacy and contribution to that history mattered even more.

“It's so peaceful out here,” Cecelia said. “I always feel the stress just seeping away whenever I visit.”

“That's why we love it,” Spring said. “You know you're welcome to use the house whenever you want to get away.”

“Your mother has been trying to give me a key for years now.”

“You should take her up on it,” Spring said. She added a beat later, “Before it's too late. As a matter of fact, there's an extra in the kitchen at the house. I'll give it to you today.”

As they drove, the terrain drifted almost imperceptibly from business to residential and then to tree-lined two-lane road. The trees gave way to open fields strewn with wild flowers on one side and an apple orchard on the other.

“Take it all in,” Spring said. “The orchard owner sold his parcels to the city six months ago. I made a counteroffer, a generous one, too.”

“You're kidding,” Cecelia said. “You never said anything.”

Spring shook her head and swerved around a strip of tire rubber on the roadway.

“It all happened so fast,” she said. “You know how things work here. The girls even offered me their own money to increase the bid. But the city, via the economic development office, made him an offer he said he couldn't refuse.”

“That's just wrong.”

“But it's how the game is played,” Spring said, “And from what I discovered in my research, I think he knew some of his land probably fell under one of those not quite clear titles. If the city was willing to pay him and sort out the titles, he was willing to take the cash and run.”

She pointed out the front windshield, adding, “This land abuts ours, so that's how and when I knew the mayor or someone at city hall had a hand in the play that was in motion. Ross Parsons's property abuts another small, now city-owned, property. Mayor Howell says the land-use consultant is surveying several sites, but mark my words, if David's plans go forward, everything you're seeing right now will be paved over. That will be asphalt instead of apple trees, and that barn over there,” she said, indicating a picturesque red barn with horses grazing nearby, “will be a big-box retailer open twenty-four hours a day and offering every imaginable convenience known and unneeded by man.”

Cecelia chuckled, a deep, throaty sound of amusement. “Your pioneer roots are showing.”

Spring glanced over at her and grinned. “They can't be,” she said. “I just had a touch-up.”

“Ha! I knew those blond—”

“CeCe, look,” Spring interrupted and pointed out the front window.

Cecelia's gaze followed the direction of Spring's hand.

In the middle of the road, a good fifty yards in front of them, was a man. Although the day was fairly warm, he had on a long duster jacket reminiscent of something from the Old West.

“I think that's Sweet Willie up there,” Cecelia said.