Baby, Don't Go (4 page)

6

A
licia stepped to the side to dodge the bulldog of a woman who charged her way, gave her a smirk, then marched out the door. Alicia glanced around the nearly empty diner and was drawn to a tall, broad-shouldered man standing behind the counter looking in her direction.

That blue-eyed gaze was unmistakable. It was Marcus Armstrong, in the flesh.

As she walked forward, her mind scrolled through the information from the background report she’d ordered.

Marcus Alton Armstrong, thirty-eight, joined the U.S. Marine Corps while still attending high school, had made the military a career, served in Bosnia and Iraq with distinction. In between stints overseas, he’d earned an International Business degree and an MBA. A hero, a scholar, and a straight arrow. Never married, no children.

And insanely handsome in person. Everything about him reflected this rugged setting. His hair was sun-streaked, his skin deeply bronzed. His dramatic eyes were set in a rocky face, with a jutting nose and a square jaw. He was as tall as an evergreen with biceps like boulders. His drab-colored pants and cargo shirt said he was happy to blend into the background, but his sheer physical presence made that impossible. He looked formidable…the kind of man who was always in control.

From the way he was staring at her, Alicia was sure she must look a fright—her hair was still damp around her face where she’d splashed herself in the creek, her makeup was long gone, and she was seriously regretting pulling her hair into pigtails.

Why had she come to this town? Oh, right…

To expose this man for the extreme chauvinist he was.

“Hi,” she said, offering a smile and holding up the help-wanted sign. “Who can I talk to about a job?” When she’d seen the sign in the window, it had seemed like a natural fit—she’d worked dozens of restaurant jobs while going to school.

Although admittedly, she’d been fired from every one of them. Firing in her case had been literal—she’d been a decent cook and a popular waitress, but she’d shown an unfortunate propensity for
setting
fires. That part she would keep to herself, Alicia decided.

Instead of answering, he glanced around the diner as if he were looking to palm her off onto someone else. Two men at a nearby table she recognized from the website photo as his brothers looked at him with raised eyebrows, but made no move to relieve him. Finally, he turned back to her.

“I guess that would be me. I’m Marcus Armstrong.”

He had an amazing voice, as deep as a bottle of scotch, with a nice husky finish. But his backbone was rigid, and his mouth was unsmiling.

“Are you the owner?” she asked.

“Closest thing to it,” he bit out.

“What’s the job?”

He took his time answering, scowling at her T-shirt—Candace’s T-shirt, actually. A hot flush climbed Alicia’s neck at the “I’m a peach” slogan that implied she was a juicy mouthful.

“A little of everything,” he hedged, as if he were doubtful she could fill the bill.

“Hey,” a man seated at the counter called, “can I get some service?”

Alicia made a split-second decision and sprang into action. She walked over to the guy, pulling a notebook from her bag along the way. “Yes, sir, what can I get for you?”

She wrote down the man’s order as he read it from the menu—T-bone steak, medium-well, fries and a fountain drink—then assured him she’d get right on it.

She turned back to Marcus and smiled. “I’ve got this.”

He was still scowling—the man must be having a bad day. Instead of waiting for him to respond, she fished a drinking glass from under the counter, scooped in ice from the adjacent ice maker, and filled it from a fountain drink hose. She plopped in a straw, then set it in front of the man, who smiled in appreciation. She turned on the stainless steel grill, then retreated to the kitchen, stepped around a mound of broken dishes in the floor and stowed her purse on a counter. After washing her hands in one of the deep sinks, she draped a white hand towel over her shoulder. Because the contents of the commercial refrigerator and freezer were labeled with compulsive precision, she had no trouble finding a bag of French fries, a T-bone steak and garnishes.

Juggling the food, she made her way back to the grill and placed the steak on the clean, hot surface, then emptied the fries into a wire basket and lowered it into a vat of hot grease. Throughout, she was conscious of Marcus Armstrong’s gaze upon her. When everything was happily sizzling, she seasoned the steak with salt and pepper and retrieved a plate from the clean stack sitting outside the enormous conveyor dishwasher. She removed a pair of tongs from a hanging rack and flipped the steak. When the fries turned a nice golden color, she used a mitt to carefully lift the basket to a hook for it to drain.

When the steak was done, she plated it and the steaming fries, added garnishes, then set it down in front of the customer. “How’s that?”

He cut off a piece of the steak and put it in his mouth, then nodded. “It’s perfect.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m good for now,” the man assured her.

She backed up to lean on the counter next to the grill, crossed her arms, then turned a triumphant smile toward Marcus Armstrong. “You were telling me about the job?”

He worked his mouth from side to side. “I need a manager…and someone to help cook until I can fill that position, as well.”

“Then I’m your woman.”

His jaw hardened—he obviously didn’t appreciate her attempt at humor. “I take it you have restaurant experience?”

“That’s right—cooking, waitressing, hostessing, managing.”

He didn’t seem particularly happy to hear she was qualified. “It’s going to be a lot of work to get this place up to speed. I have to warn you, I’m not the easiest person to work for.”

Alicia’s pulse jumped. When she’d seen the help-wanted sign, she’d thought working at the diner would be a great way to meet and establish a rapport with some of the women who’d answered the ad. Spending time with the man himself would be a bonus for the blog.

“I can take whatever you dish out,” she said, lifting her chin.

He narrowed his eyes. “Aren’t you interested in how much the job pays?”

She caught herself—she had to act authentically. “Of course. How much?”

“Minimum wage and a room in our boardinghouse.”

She couldn’t care less about the money, but it was nice to know she wouldn’t have to arrange for a place to stay while she was here. “That sounds fair.”

“What’s your name?”

His suspicious look unnerved her, but she offered the alias she’d previously given in the hair salon. “Alicia Waters.”

“Waters?” he repeated, as if he knew she was lying.

She nodded and maintained eye contact, although it was difficult because his gaze was so intense.

“Where are you from?” he asked. She had the feeling he wasn’t just making conversation, but rather, wanted to know everything about people who intended to live or work in the town…
his
town.

She shrugged. “All around, but mostly the Northeast.”

“What brings you to Sweetness?”

She would have to be careful around this one. “I came to Atlanta for the weather, then I read about your covered bridge in the newspaper and thought Sweetness sounded like a pretty place to live.” She gave him what she hoped was a flirtatious smile. “And I understand there are lots of single men here?”

He stopped just short of an eye-roll. “That’s right.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said cheerfully. “Is there anything else I should know about this town?”

He considered her for a few seconds. “Because we’re new, we have more rules than most places.”

She made a face, but said, “I guess I can abide by a few rules.”

He hesitated, then with an expression akin to pain, he stepped forward to extend his large hand. “Okay…you’re hired.”

She placed her hand in his, and it was instantly swallowed. The contact was electric, conducting pulses up her arm.

“You won’t be sorry,” Alicia murmured.

He kept her hand and stared into her eyes until she started to feel warm. He was so big and sexy, she felt the urge to do ridiculous, girly things, like twirl her hair and preen. No man had ever made her sweat before.

Suddenly his eyes widened and he flung his arms around her. Alicia was stunned at the sudden contact and her body reacted instantly.

Until she realized he was reaching
around
her.

“You’re on fire!”

He yanked the towel off her shoulder and flung it to the floor. It was engulfed in flames. He stomped out the fire, then spun her around and swatted her back, shoulders and backside. Which didn’t feel terrible, but still…

“Hey, hey, hey!” she yelled, slapping at his hands.

He stepped back, then jammed his hands on his hips. “Are you okay?”

She twisted to look at her clothes. They were singed and smoking, but intact. “I think so. The towel must’ve touched the grill.”

He grunted. She could tell he was already sorry he’d hired her.

Oh, well, she’d just have to change his mind. She smiled prettily and batted her eyelashes. “Should I take some more orders?”

“No,” he said with a frown. “We’re going to close for the rest of the day so I can try to hire back some former employees.” His frown deepened. “And so I can get an extra fire extinguisher.”

She swallowed a sheepish smile. “What do you want me to do?”

The words left her mouth innocently enough, but once they reached the space between them that was charged with tension, they took on a weighted meaning. Images of the possibilities of what he
might
want her to do darted through her mind, sending her temperature higher than the fire she’d started. For a split second, she thought she saw desire flash in his eyes, too. But if so, it was gone just as quickly.

She thought about the comment the woman in the hair salon had made about Marcus Armstrong not liking women. Alicia definitely felt his animosity, and wondered if he sensed hers, though she was doing her best to keep it hidden.

“You can get settled into the boardinghouse,” he said, his voice gruff. “Ask for Regina, she’ll find you a room. Be back here in two hours, ready to work.”

Oh, she would be ready to work, Alicia thought. Ready to work on him. Because if Marcus Armstrong was one of those old-fashioned men who thought women were frivolous, silly and subordinate, she’d happily be the female to bring him to his knees.

7

A
licia stood at the window of the plain but comfortable room she’d been assigned in the enormous and bustling boardinghouse. To her right, an orange sun melted into a pink-and-red sunset bleeding over a black mountain range. It was the stuff of Hollywood movie backgrounds—a surreal backdrop for a surreal little town.

The movie
The Stepford Wives
came to mind.

She held her cell phone to her ear and listened as it rang on the other end. She expected to leave a voice message for her mother, but Candace answered.

“Hello? Alicia?”

“Yeah, Mom, it’s me. I’m just checking in. Looks like I’ll be staying here for a while.”

“Oh? I’m disappointed you won’t be coming back right away. Is Sweetness as pretty as it sounds?”

Alicia absorbed the calming view and exhaled. “Yes,” she admitted. “Very pretty. But it’s also very humid, and there are lots of bugs.”

Candace laughed. “You always hated insects of any kind. Bo asked me to ask if his truck is okay.”

Alicia thought of the monogrammed panties that had rolled out from under the front seat. “The truck is fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “Is everything okay there?”

“Sure,” her mother said cheerfully.

Too
cheerfully.

“So, have you met any mountain men?” Candace asked, her voice breezy.

“My boss,” Alicia said idly. “I took a job in a diner to pass the time.”

“A diner? Are they aware of your little problem with pyromania?”

Alicia frowned. “I don’t set fires…not on purpose, anyway.”

“Is he cute, your boss?”

Alicia shifted her gaze to the diner across the street just as Marcus Armstrong himself emerged to lock the door behind him. Unbidden, her vital signs increased.

“No.” No one could accuse the man of being cute. After spending a couple of hours with him and the handful of waitresses he’d hired back, listening to his expectations for the eatery, she’d developed a list of adjectives for him—tough, opinionated and unyielding. But not cute.

“Oh, well,” Candace said, “there are other more important qualities in a partner.”

She turned her back to the window. “Mom, I’m not looking for a partner.”

“I know.”

Candace sighed and Alicia realized her mother was talking to herself as much as to her daughter, perhaps coming around to the belief that her “cute” boyfriend wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.

“How do you like your bracelet?” her mother asked.

Guilt seized Alicia. She touched her bare wrist where her mother had fastened the bracelet that morning. Sometime during the day she’d lost it, but hadn’t noticed until she’d undressed to take a shower.

“I love it,” she said, which was the truth. She only hoped it was in the pickup truck somewhere.

“Good,” Candace said, her voice infused with pleasure. “I’m asking because I’m thinking about starting my own jewelry business.”

“That’s terrific, Mom. You’d be good at it, and you have great contacts in retail.” She wet her lips. “What does Bo think about the idea?”

“I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.”

“Maybe it’s something you should keep to yourself for now,” Alicia suggested. “Until you work out all the details.” Or else Bo would probably plant doubts in her mother’s head. She hated that Candace was so easily influenced by men who didn’t have her best interests in mind.

“Maybe you’re right,” Candace agreed, her voice distant.

Alicia’s phone beeped. She glanced at the screen to see her boss, Nina, was calling. “Mom, I need to take another call. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Of course, dear. Good luck with your story.”

“Thanks, Mom. Goodbye.” Alicia disconnected the call. Worry over her mother niggled her stomach, but she’d learned long ago not to get involved in her parents’ relationships. Eventually, the players would change anyway.

She connected the second call. “Hi, Nina.”

“Just checking in to make sure you weren’t kidnapped…or worse.”

“No,” Alicia said with a laugh. “I got a job working in the town diner. I figure I can talk to a lot of people that way.”

“You’re a waitress?”

“I’m the manager and, for now, the cook.”

“You? The woman who set the microwave on fire in the break room?”

Alicia frowned. “That was a faulty bag of popcorn.”

“Right. Did you give your real name?”

“Of course not.”

“Won’t that be a problem when you provide your social security number?”

“I’ll figure out something to stall the paperwork.”

“No doubt. Have you met any of the Neanderthals?”

“I’m working for the head Neanderthal, Marcus Armstrong.”

“You’re kidding.”

“He’s overhauling the diner for an inspection from the Department of Energy. It has something to do with recycling and keeping their federal grant.”

“And is he horrid?”

Alicia turned back to the window and glanced down into the street. Marcus Armstrong was still there, talking to a young boy in a soccer uniform, and the man was…smiling? “He’s…hard to read,” she murmured.

“What’s your general feel of the place?”

She looked back to horizon. “I know I could never live here.”

“Are the conditions primitive?”

“There aren’t many luxuries for sure. But it’s just so isolated. The town is surrounded by mountains. It feels like civilization is far, far away.”

“So do you think something interesting is going on there?”

Alicia turned and picked up a sheet of paper that listed the resident rules, chief of which was no overnight male guests. Protective…or controlling? “Yes, I’m just not sure what to make of it all yet.”

“Okay, keep me posted.”

Alicia disconnected the call and looked back to the street. Marcus Armstrong was alone again, hands jammed on his hips, that perennial frown back on his face. He glanced up and down the sidewalks, as if to assess the town and its people. Tall and authoritative, he looked every inch the head of the community…a throwback to an earlier time, when a whole town could be held in one person’s hands.

But what exactly did he have in mind for this one?

He looked up in the direction of her window and Alicia shrank back, her heart pounding. Even at this distance, he had the ability to make her feel as if he could see through her, as if he knew she was here under false pretenses. She blamed it on his mesmerizing blue eyes.

When she chanced another glance, he was walking away, his head and shoulders back. She watched his big body until he was out of sight.

Alicia bit into her lip. Marcus Armstrong seemed like an intelligent man. She was going to be disappointed if she discovered he was unstable, or some kind of religious zealot. The town didn’t have a church, but she’d noticed postings downstairs about “services” on Sunday in the great room. While she wasn’t a particularly religious person, she planned to attend to make sure nothing kinky was going on.

Because something strange
had
to be going on. A town where the women and children lived in a boardinghouse and the men lived in barracks and a water tower supplied hot showers and the General Store sold live bait and haircuts were five dollars and everyone honked and waved…well, that was just…
crazy
.

Wasn’t it?

Alicia sat down and booted up her notebook computer, then opened a new file and began to type.

Undercover Feminist by Alicia Randall

A little more than a year ago, the Armstrong brothers, ex-military men, banded together to rebuild their hometown in the North Georgia mountains. Sweetness, Georgia was a tiny map dot decimated by an F-5 tornado just over ten years ago. The Armstrongs secured a federal grant to rebuild the town on the platform of recycling and alternative energy and set about reconstructing Sweetness. But to attract women to their fledgling remote town, they took the novel approach of placing an ad in a newspaper in economically depressed Broadway, Michigan, for women with a “pioneering spirit” looking for a fresh start. The ad promised lots of single, Southern men, although it wasn’t clear what was expected of the women in return. I decided to go undercover in Sweetness to see how the matchmaking and town-building experiment is working.

When I drove into town in a borrowed pickup truck, I felt as if I’d gone back in time fifty years. A covered bridge over a picturesque stream welcomed me to the outskirts of town. A water tower straight out of the movies stands watch over visitors driving in. The drivers of cars I passed honked and waved, as if we were old friends. In my mind I could see someone phoning someone else that they’d just spotted a stranger driving into town and to pass the word.

At first glance, the town looks like a movie set. The hair salon, for example, is named simply Hair Salon. But at second glance…well, the town
still
seems to be out of some zombie movie plot because I soon learned that the men and women
don’t live together
. The women and children live in a boardinghouse, and the men live in a barracks reminiscent of a military facility. And strangely, no one seems to think the living arrangements are odd. Methinks I will stay awhile and investigate further.

I walked into the town diner carrying a help-wanted sign and walked out with a job as manager. I figure it will give me the opportunity to meet some of the women who came to Sweetness in search of a new life, and find out if the experience has been all they expected it to be. The bonus? My boss is one of the Armstrong brothers—the eldest, in fact, and he appears to be the de facto leader of the community. He’s an imposing figure, single and about as approachable as a grizzly bear. I’ve been told that “he doesn’t like women.” (Although he’s infinitely straight.) In between slinging hash and dishing up apple pie, I hope to gain some insight into what he has in mind for the town, and what part he sees women playing in the future of Sweetness. Stay tuned…