The Passions of Chelsea Kane Read online

  “Fancy gal,” Emery Farr said now. He was the white-haired one. He was also bespectacled and rosy-cheeked and should have been gentle in a Santa type of way. But he was tough.

  George Jamieson, whose gray hair rose in short, stiff spikes from the top of his head, was even tougher. “Got city written all over her.”

  “She shoulda stayed there.”

  “But it wouldn’ta been any fun gloating there. She had to come here to do it. Look at that car. She must feel high and mighty driving a car like that.”

  Judd was wondering what kind of car it was when Emery said, “Don’t know what she’s gonna do with it if she’s here come winter. ‘T’ll slide all over.”

  “Good,” remarked George.

  “Won’t be good if she starts yelling for more sand barrels.”

  “She can yell all she wants. Doesn’t mean we have to listen.”

  “Lord sakes, George, we can’t turn a deaf ear. She owns half the company.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  Both men leveled looks back toward the barber’s chair in which Oliver Plum lay with lather on the lower half of his face. Daily shaves at Zee’s were a ritual for the triumvirate. Every morning at nine they met to read the newspaper, have coffee, discuss town comings and goings, and alternately sit on that cracked leather chair. Though an OPEN sign sat in the window, the rest of the town steered clear of Zee’s until eleven.

  Judd, who was there at Oliver’s request, knew to be unobtrusive. Not that he minded. The threesome amused him with their bickering. Besides, there were many less pleasant places he could be waiting for his boss. Zee’s smelled of summer sun stirred by the small window fan, shave cream, and coffee and brought back memories of being a child, holding his father’s strong hand, climbing the long flight of stairs, and being hoisted onto that big chair to have his hair cut. Through his adult eyes, the chair was nowhere near as big nor the stairs as long, and his father’s hand had shrunk from disuse; still, the memories warmed him.

  Zee was Antonio Pozzi. Oliver’s father, whose experience with Italians was limited, had started using the nickname as a way of anglicizing the barber, and if longevity of service meant anything, the tactic was successful. Zee had been cutting hair in the Notch for forty-five years. The fact that he still spoke broken English didn’t seem to bother Oliver, George, or Emery any. They didn’t want him to speak. He was little more than an accessory to their meetings, not much different from the clock on the wall with its cymbalists clapping out the time every half hour.

  “Economy stinks,” was Oliver’s reply now, spoken with a minimum of mouth movement so as not to disturb Zee’s blade.

  “Economy stinks,” George mocked under his breath. In a fuller voice he said, “Th’economy doesn’t affect us. Norwich Notch is solid as a rock, always has been, always will be. You shoulda waited, Ollie. You shoulda checked with us b’fore you did something so crazy.” His eyes narrowed on the green. “But you rushed out and grabbed the first dollar you could find, and now we got a damn woman to deal with. Chances are we’ll have an uprising at the quarry. That right, Judd?”

  Judd shifted against the wall. “The men listen to me. I can keep them calm.”

  “Better get a look at ‘er before you say that,” Emery advised.

  But Judd had already gotten a look. The very first day she had come to the Notch he had seen her close up. She’d been fixed in his mind ever since.

  “That’s some dress,” George said. “No one around here wears dresses like that. What’s she thinking, doing that?”

  Emery snorted. “Doesn’t know right from wrong is the trouble. What’s right for the city is all wrong here. You’ve been to the city, Judd. You got to teach her the difference. Better still, Ollie’ll teach her. He’s the one brought her here.”

  “I’m not teaching her a damn thing,” came a grumbling from the chair. “I’m just using her money to get my business moving.”

  George stuffed his hands under his suspenders and rested them on the ledge of his belly. “She keeps walking around like that and she’ll get more than your business moving.”

  “Can say that again,” Emery put in. “I thought you said she could do her part of the job out of Baltimore, Ollie. So what’s she doin’ up here?”

  Oliver grunted. “How should I know?”

  “You’re the one’s dealing with her,” Emery said.

  “My lawyer’s the one’s dealing with her.”

  Emery was unimpressed. “So how long’s she stayin’?”

  “Go ask her.”

  “I’m not askin’ her. She’s your partner.”

  “That doesn’t make me her keeper.”

  “It sure does,” George declared. “She’s your partner. You’re responsible for her. You have to tell her to leave.”

  “You tell her to leave,” came the directive from the chair.

  “Judd’ll tell her,” Emery said, shooting a look Judd’s way.

  Judd didn’t say a word. He had been Oliver’s foreman for nine years. Increasingly, but for the iron hand Oliver kept on the purse strings, he had run the company. He hired and fired, doled out praise and punishment, made assignments, taught technique, repaired equipment, squired buyers, and kept a close eye on Hunter.

  He’d had to do many unpleasant things. Telling Chelsea Kane to leave town wouldn’t be unpleasant, since he had little use for slick city women, but it would be stupid. Plum Granite needed her money. It needed her connections. Much as it galled him to admit it, she had what the company lacked.

  He had to hand it to Oliver. Signing her on had been a shrewd move. All Judd had to do was keep the men ahead of the work she brought in, and she’d be gone in a year.

  “You gonna tell her, Judd?” George asked.

  “Not yet,” Judd said. He wasn’t intimidated by George, or Emery, or even Oliver. When it came to Plum Granite, he was indispensable, and they knew it. “Not until we’ve taken advantage of what she’s offering.”

  Emery, who had shaken out a large handkerchief, took off his glasses and began to polish the lenses. “She’s trouble. I can feel it in my bones. You really done it this time, Ollie.”

  “I ain’t done a thing.”

  “You sold half the company to her,” George whined.

  “I didn’t sell,” Oliver snapped. “She invested. Because you wouldn’t give me any more money.”

  “Is it my fault the FDIC is keepin’ a hawk’s eye on the banks?”

  “Is it my fault you gave out a bunch a bad loans?”

  “Is it my fault you can’t keep business coming? Is it my fault you’re already borrowed to the limit?”

  “Limit’s too low.”

  “So who’s talkin’ of bad loans?”

  “Hold on just a minute. I make my payments.”

  “What I want to know,” Emery said, stuffing his handkerchief back in his pocket, “is what’s in it for her? Why would a fancy city girl want to diddle with us?”

  “She’s rich and bored,” Oliver growled. “Got nothing better to do with her time.”

  “So what are we goin’ to do with her?”

  George pursed his lips, his eyes on the green. “I’m thinking of one thing. So’ll every man in this town who gets a look at her unless she starts wearing a proper skirt.”

  Piqued by the power of suggestion, Judd’s imagination started to roam. It had been doing that a lot, mostly in the dark of night when his body was hot and restless. At those times he imagined Chelsea Kane without clothes. Using greater self-discipline now, he imagined her dressed.

  “Have her to dinner,” Oliver mumbled from the chair.

  “You have her to dinner,” George shot back. “The way I see it, I didn’t invite her here, I don’t need to be accommodating.” To Emery he said out of the corner of his mouth, “Wait’ll Margaret gets a look at her.”

  Oliver’s voice rose. “You leave Margaret out of this.”

  “Does she know about your deal?” Emery asked.


  “Of course she knows. She’s my wife. How would I go about making a deal like this without telling her?”

  Very easily, Judd thought. Oliver Plum had three soft spots in an otherwise hard heart. The first and most obvious was for the business. The second was for Margaret. After nearly fifty years of marriage, he treated her like fine crystal that might shatter at a hint of shrillness. If he decided that Chelsea Kane’s investment in the business would upset her, he might well try to hide it.

  The third soft spot in Oliver Plum’s hard heart was for Hunter Love. Rumor had it Hunter was Oliver’s son, born of an affair Oliver had with a quarryman’s wife, but no one had ever confirmed it or likely ever would. The boy had been found wandering alone in the woods when he’d been five and had been raised by a family in Cutters Corner. Officially Oliver helped Hunter out of a sense of duty to the child of one of his former workers, but given Hunter’s nature, that sense of duty should have long since expired. Hunter Love had a streak of the rebel in him. He tried a man’s soul.

  “So what did Margaret say?” Emery asked.

  “She said it’s fine,” Oliver barked, “just fine.”

  “That’s b’cause she hasn’t seen Chelsea Kane,” George put in, then snarled, “Ought to shoot that damn dog.”

  Emery hiked his spectacles with the twitch of his nose. “He’s gone right up to her, Judd. A royal welcome committee. Must sniff the city. You got Buck in the city, didn’t you?”

  “Sure did,” Judd said. But that had been when Buck was a pup. He doubted the dog remembered much of city women. He sure as hell hoped not.

  “Fool thing’s being real nice,” George said, grunting. “Old coot of a dog.” He paused and added on an appreciative note, “He’s got a good eye, though. She’s sure a looker.”

  “Lord sakes, George,” Emery scolded, “you’re too old for that.”

  “A man’s never too old for that,” George argued.

  “Judd’s not too old,” Emery said, shooting another, more speculative look his way. “You gonna keep an eye on her for us, Judd?”

  Judd didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t deem Emery’s suggestion worth the effort.

  But George picked up on it. “There’s an idea. You’re the right age. You could get to know her better’n we could. Find out what she’s thinking. Make sure she don’t get in the way.”

  “Judd’s sworn off women,” Oliver called from under the towel that Zee was using to wipe his face.

  “Shows how much you know,” Emery called back. “He’s got sweet Sara over in Adams Falls to scratch his itch. That right, Judd?”

  “City women,” Oliver specified, sitting up on the chair, snatching the towel from Zee, and wiping his neck himself. “City women. He’s sworn off city women.”

  “Well,” said George, “he can swear right back on for the sake of the company, can’t you, Judd?”

  There were many things Judd would do for the sake of the company, not so much out of loyalty to Oliver as out of loyalty to the men and the town, but cozying up to Chelsea Kane wasn’t one. He had long since learned that certain women were sirens, luring men to destruction with their songs. Chelsea Kane had a song. It had been singing in his blood since he’d first seen her, but he’d be damned if he would heed its call. He preferred his women simple and soft, and if that meant sacrificing an element of excitement, so be it. He didn’t care what erotic fantasies Chelsea inspired; he wasn’t playing with fire.

  “Can’t you, Judd,” George repeated, not so much questioning this time as commanding.

  “Not me,” Judd informed him. “I don’t want any part of her.”

  George looked back out the window. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  Judd knew exactly what he was missing. During his years in the city, he had known plenty of Chelsea Kanes. Hell, he’d been married to one. That had taught him good.

  George rocked back on his heels. “Walker Chaney’ll like her. He’s from New York.”

  Emery disagreed. “Walker can’t talk to women. He only talks to his computers.”

  “Doc Summers, then. He did his training in a hospital in Washington.”

  “She’s too tall for the doc.”

  “Then Stokey French. He’s got the balls for it.”

  Emery considered that, finally conceding, “Maybe Stokey French.”

  Judd could have laughed, the suggestion was so absurd. Stokey French lived over the bridge, past the hospital, in Cutters Corner. Like most others in the Corner, he was a quarryman, and though he had crossed eyes, pockmarked skin, and a perpetual wad of tobacco in his cheek, he thought himself God’s gift to women. He might go after Chelsea Kane all right, but if she was the kind of woman Judd suspected she was, he wouldn’t get far. She’d mow him down with a look.

  Laughable indeed. But Judd remained silent. It had been a long time since he had laughed. He wasn’t sure he remembered how.

  CHELSEA STOOD ON THE EDGE OF THE GREEN WITH HER FACE to the sun. Its warmth felt good against the chill that enveloped her each time she thought of Baltimore. All her life she had wanted ties, needed ties, and she’d had them with Abby and Kevin, with Carl, with Harper, Kane, Koo and her work, with an army of friends. Now Abby was dead, Kevin was off traveling, and Carl was marrying Hailey. As for the army of friends, it had dispersed without her quite realizing how or when. She was still in touch with most of them, some more closely than others, but even the closest had branched off into their own lives. Only now, standing still for the very first time in months, did that hit her.

  She took a deep breath in an attempt to settle herself, and it helped. The air was fresh, rich with the scent of good things green and growing. The grass on the common was lush, the white blossoms of the mountain laurel fragrant. Lining the street were gnarled maples and oaks that rose into lavish canopies of leaves, giving the town a fertile feel. Front lawns hosted lilac bouquets yet to be picked. Flowers spilled in bright profusion from every porch in sight.

  Summer was imminent. Its harbinger, spring’s ripe scent, filled her senses and was heightened by the sleepiness of the town. Nothing stirred. Contentment seemed to hang in the air along with the humidity, slowing life to a crawl. Bird sounds mingled with bee sounds, which mingled with the trickle of water from one tier of the birdbath on the green to another. There were happy child sounds, gentle sounds coming from a place she couldn’t see, but beyond that there was only the silence of the sun warming the air. Nowhere was there anything mechanical—no air conditioner hum, no lawn mower buzz, no pickup growl—and although she knew that all those things would start up in time, for now she basked in rural purity. All was quiet and calm, simple and serene.

  She needed that. Deep inside she must have known it, when she had packed and left Baltimore so precipitously the day before. The past year had brought one upheaval after another. She needed a port in the storm. Fate had brought her here.

  She drew in another deep breath, released it slowly, then, slowly too, turned to take full stock of the town center. Behind her, at the base of the green, three large Federal-style houses, corded by neat picket fences, looked to be still used as homes. Left and right, rising toward the triangle’s apex, were the buildings she had seen before. Viewed at leisure, in the glow of the sun, they had the appeal she had only been able to imagine in March. The library, housed in a small yellow Victorian, had charm. The bakery, its windows filled with fresh breads, cakes, and cookies, had spice. The post office had dignity, the general store quaintness, the bank gentility. And then there was the church, the focal point of the town, to which her eye climbed time and again. Though its wood siding was painted white, the shade of the pines cast it a pale blue. Spilling onto the hill at its side and above, past a small white fence, were the tall, thin slabs that anchored the dead to the town.

  She wondered who of her flesh and blood was buried there.

  She wondered who of her flesh and blood wasn’t buried there but was alive and well and living in town.

  She w
ondered if any of them knew who she was.

  A dog appeared from behind the law office, caught sight of her, and broke into an easy lope. It was a golden retriever, looking as well kept as the town. Long tail wagging, it nuzzled her waiting hand.

  “You’re a handsome one,” she cooed, stroking the dog’s head, then its throat when it smiled up at her. It was a friendly animal. Cydra would call that a sign. Though making friends hadn’t been one of her motives for coming to Norwich Notch, with everything that had happened in Baltimore, she was feeling detached. She could use a friend.

  With that thought in mind, she headed for Farr’s.

  Eight

  The bell above the door tinkled when Chelsea entered the store. It was a screen door this time, gently slapping closed behind her. Glancing around, she saw that summer was here, too. Displays promoted picnic hampers rather than maple syrup, colors were brighter, scents lighter. Above the newsstand, posters touted an upcoming covered dish supper, a junior-senior softball game to benefit the Norwich Notch Historical Society, and the Fourth of July Fest.

  The store looked empty, as Chelsea had hoped it would be. Indeed, she had seen Matthew Farr leave in a van when she’d first pulled up to the green. She could do without Matthew. Donna was the one she wanted to see.

  A small movement behind the cash register caught her eye. With a smile, she crossed to the counter. Donna looked exactly the same as she had in March, except that the blouse that was tucked into her skirt had short sleeves and the wisps of hair escaping her topknot were curlier. She was frowning at a computer screen, totally engrossed in her work.