Luring Levi (Tarnished Saints Series Book 2) (9 page)

“What do you want Gus?” Levi opened the door, but instead of Gus standing there, he saw his nephew, Daniel.

“Hi
, Uncle Levi. I’m done with work for the day and I wanted to know if you wanted help cleaning out this room?”

Levi rubbed a hand over his face and let out a sigh.
“Gus sent you up here to ask me that, didn’t he?”

T
he boy looked over his shoulder and then back at Levi and nodded. “Yeah,” he admitted. “He told me if you didn’t have this cleaned out by the end of the week as well as start the painting, he was going to kick you out of here on your ass.”

“That sounds like Gus,” he said, yawning and stretching. “You don’t happen to know what time it is, do you?”

“Well, I work from eight til noon every day, and I just finished, so it’s right around noon.”

“What?” he asked,
his eyes opening wide. “Oh great! I was supposed to meet with the town council for lunch and a meeting at the diner at noon. I was supposed to pick up Candy on the way. I’m late again.”

“If you mean Candace,” said Dan, “she left early this morning
and said she wasn’t going to be back for a while. She’s got Angel watching her kids.”

“Left? What do you mean left? How could she go anywhere? She doesn’t have a car – I’m her wheels.”

“I don’t know, but she was getting in the truck with Pa. She told me to tell you not to bother coming by today.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Not sure,” said Dan. “So did you want me to help you clean or what?”

“I don’t know,” he grumbled. “I’ll tell
you what. Do you have a few strong friends that I could coerce into moving all this crap out to the dumpster out back?”

“Sure, I know a couple of guys that might be willing to help, but you’re going to have to pay them.”

“I don’t have any money. I’ve got a better idea. You get two friends to help you and get your brothers as well. If you guys clean the room and paint the building, I’ll make sure you all get unlimited free rides at the fair as well as all you can eat.”

“They should go for that. But you know Zeke is lazy, he won’t help.”

“Tell him there’s a pet rabbit in it for him if he does. I know how he loves animals, so that should work.”

“Ok, will do.”

“Just make sure to leave me the mattress and my bag of clothes,” he said, closing the door. He dug through the bag of clothes Angel gave him and pulled out an old shirt of Thomas’s that didn’t look too wrinkled. He donned it as well as a different pair of jeans that weren’t as faded. Angel had given him a pair of dress pants that he knew Thomas hadn’t worn since his first wife was alive and they’d attended church every Sunday with the kids.

He couldn’t bring himself to wear them, as it just
wasn’t him. Sweet Water was going to have to get used to a mayor who liked to dress in a casual manner. He left the room and headed toward the car, wondering what time it was and also when the hell he had started to actually care.

* * *

Levi pulled up to Margery’s Diner, really the only restaurant in town besides the pizza place and the shop that sold sub sandwiches, but those places weren’t even considered edible food in his book. This had been his favorite place to come as a child, as his father would bring the whole family here after church every Sunday.

This wa
s where he’d had his first taste of good down-home cooking that made him realize some day he wanted to have his own restaurant. And
The Big Apple
had been his dream restaurant for five years until the awful day he lost it.

Levi pulled open the door to the diner and stopped in shock when he saw the inside. He hadn’t been here in years and was surprised that he hadn’t heard that there was anything amiss since he’d come back
to town. But the place was void of customers and it looked so run down that he couldn’t believe this was the same heart-warming, bustling place he’d looked forward to visiting every Sunday as a kid.

“Margery, what’s going on in
here?” He flagged down the Margery Sacks behind the counter who owned the place. She was in her sixties, and he heard she had taken over the place when her husband died about five years ago.

“Hi
, Levi,” she said with a wave of her hand. “The council is waiting for you down at the last table. You won’t miss them, as they’re the only ones in here.”

“So I noticed.” He looked around. “Where is everybody?”

“It’s been a ghost town ever since I lost my head cook Carlos last summer. He was the only one who knew how to make a decent meal. People came in from three towns over to eat here.”

“Why’d he leave?” asked Levi.

“I couldn’t pay him what he wanted so he just up and left one day. It looks like I’m going to lose the entire business in another month. Oh well, I’m getting too old to keep doing this forever anyway.”

“Don’t say that Margery. Something will work out.”

“No, it won’t. Not unless you have some sort of magic power that will not only land me a decent chef but bring in some new customers as well.”

“Well, now that I’m mayor, maybe I can figure something out.”

“If you want to figure something out, then start thinking of a way to make the town council happy. They haven’t stopped complaining about you since they walked in.” She looked at her watch. “Yep, they said you’d be at least an hour late and they’re just about right.”

“Damn.” H
e ran a hand over the front of his shirt trying to look more presentable, and wondered what the hell he was going to tell them. He couldn’t very well tell them that he’d been having hot and wild sex last night with a vixen and that’s why he overslept. No, that would never do at all. “Ok, thanks Margery,” he said and headed for the lion’s den.

“There he is,” said one of the council members as he walked up to the table.

“Good morning everyone,” he said, then cringed, remembering it was already after noon.

“Mr. Mayor, you missed the meeting as well as lunch,” said the Widow Durnsby
who now acted as president of the town council since giving up her position of mayor.

“Yes, I’m sorry about that,” he said, taking a seat next to her. “But I’m here now, so maybe we can review what I missed.”

“Here,” she said, pushing a clipboard into his hands. “This is everything we’ve discussed, now go for it.”

“Go for it?” he wasn’t sure what that meant, nor what he was expected to do.

“Run the town,” she said. “You were the one to make all those promises, so now see what other things we had on the agenda that you never even considered.”

“All right, I will,” he said, looking down the list. Margery walked up and placed a plate of food in front of him.

“Here you go Mr. Mayor. Eat it in good health.”

He looked down to the plate
, seeing an orange and brown mess mixed with something that resembled overcooked noodles. “What is it?” he asked her as she walked away.

“Cook’s surprise,” she answered. “And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He picked up his fork, starving, as he hadn’t had time to eat today. But after one mouthful, he spit it into the napkin.

“Mabel,” he said, calling the ex-mayor by her first name, “what the devil is this? This place used to be so good.”

“That’s what we’re trying to tell you,” she said. “You’ve been gone a long time and things have changed in Sweet Water. That last corrupt sheriff, Bert Grimkel screwed things up big time and we haven’t been able to recover from the damage he’s done to this town.”

“Like what?” Levi asked.

“Like bringing in his friends to open that strip joint,” she said. “Since most of us on the council are women, we had no idea what went on inside of there and when we did find out, our hands were tied. Being sheriff, he threatened us with tickets and false arrests every time we questioned anything he did.”

“I see,” said Levi. “But how does that affect the state of the diner?”

“He kept bringing in his friends to eat for free,” said Valerie Wolf, the head of the town’s school board. “After awhile they became so rowdy that people stopped coming in. And then poor Margery couldn’t afford to pay Carlos and he took off for the city.”

“And how is the Sweet Water’s school systems going?” he asked.

“We’re going to need to hire a teacher for the high school soon. The one we have is pregnant and will be leaving right after Christmas.”

“And that’s a problem?” he asked.

“It is when the kids have all turned into vandals and bullies, not to mention the pay is low. Everyone knows the reputation of Sweet Water High and no one wants to come in to teach. The only reason why Evelyn even stays there while she’s pregnant is because one of the students is her son and she wants to keep an eye on him.”

“The police department is begging for a sheriff,” said Mabel, “and now you’ve promised them not only a town hall but a fire department as well. So tell me, how do you expect to pay for all this?”

“Well, we’ll just have to bring in more people from out of town and bump up the revenue that way.”

“How?” she
asked. “Every year the fair has fewer and fewer people coming to it, and that is the one main big attraction we count on to bring in funds every summer.”

“Well, I’m not sure,” he answered, “but I’m sure we will find a way out of this mess.”

Levi looked down the list at all the problems discussed and also at the financial report that was looking pretty grim. He needed a miracle to pull this town up by the bootstraps and he had no flipping clue what he was going to do.

“Hello?” called out a v
oice that he recognized as Candace’s.

“We’re over here,” he called out across the room, raising his hand in the air.

She marched on over to the table, looking so hot in her tight jeans that he had to look the other way or risk getting a hard-on just thinking about making love with her last night.

“Mayor
, everyone,” she said with a nod of her head, “I’d like you to meet Landon Filmore.”

Levi hadn’t even noticed the man that followed her in, and he had a sudden twang of jealousy course through him, wondering who this man was and why the hell she was bringing him here.

“He is the executive producer from the dining network in Chicago,” she told them. “I found out he was not far from here on business and met with him early this morning to discuss the idea of bringing
Sliced
here to Sweet Water for a live taping.”

The council talked quietly amongst themselves and Levi looked up to her, hoping the news was going to be good.

“So what’s the verdict?” asked Levi. “Are you going to do the show here or not?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the man, looking around. “I suppose we could bring in our set and the cameras and tape it here. I like th
e idea of bringing in
Sliced
to shoot live at a small town. But of course we’ll have to have people who can actually cook to be the contestants. At least two of them who are pretty good to make it to the final round. We usually put in two throw-aways also, so we don’t need a whole lot of real talent.”

“Throw-
aways?” asked Levi.

“You know,” he said. “Two people who make good
TV but don’t necessarily have to really know how to cook.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” Levi answered.

“I told Landon that two of the fair winners would be used as the throw-aways and he agreed,” Candace informed them. “And I’ll be competing as a celebrity guest chef, and he just needs to know there is someone who can match me.”

“That’s right, if not, the deal’s off.”

“The town has decided our mayor should be a contestant,” Candace pointed out.

“
But can he cook?” the man asked.

“
Levi can cook,” Candace said. “I reviewed his restaurant years ago and he got the highest rating in the state for his food.”

“Good, good,” said the man with a nod. “So we can film you working at
your restaurant and air that to work up some excitement as a prequel to the show.”

“No, you can’t,” said L
evi. “Because I no longer have a restaurant.”

“Why not?” he asked. “If you’re such a good cook, why don’t
you still have it?”

“I lost it when I went to prison,” said Levi, knowing he couldn’t lie. They would find out and
only make things hard for Candace later on if he wasn’t honest.

The man put his hand to his chin in thought, and Levi cringed, knowing after what he’d just told him t
hat the man would most definitely turn them down. Then to his surprise the man nodded and answered.

“Prison, that’s great
TV. That’ll bring in a lot of viewers. And you’re the mayor as well?” he asked.

“I am,” he answered.

“Better yet.” He chuckled. “This will be one of the most viewed episodes yet with back story like this. Great TV. Ok, you’ve got yourself a deal.” He held out his hand and Levi shook it.