To Get Me To You: A Small Town Southern Romance (Wishful Romance Book 1) (13 page)

Vick waved that away as if it meant nothing. “The site isn’t the most important. We’ll find a place for it. The point is that even you can’t stop all progress, Crawford. We have ambitions for our town.”

Ambition was exactly what Cam was afraid of. In his experience, ambition destroyed everything it touched, and he wasn’t about to stand by and allow it to change the heart of his town.

~*~

“Over my dead body.” The all but shouted pronouncement was punctuated by Cam slamming the front door.

The entire Campbell clan went silent, waiting to find out what was going on. He stalked into the room, hands balled to fists, face set. Norah could see the worry beneath the simmering temper and struggled not to cross over to try and soothe.

“Campbell Alexander Crawford, you go right back out that door and prove you know how to enter it in a civilized manner,” Grammy snapped.

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but Cam did an about face and followed his grandmother’s order.

Aunt Liz rose. “What on earth?”

“I take it the City Council meeting didn’t go well?” Miranda asked dryly.

“That depends on who you ask.” Sandra sank into a chair.

The front door opened and shut again, softer this time. Cam prowled back into the living room. “I apologize, Grammy.”

His grandmother sniffed. “Do you want cobbler before or after you tell us what you’re tantruming about?”

“Respectfully, I don’t want any cobbler.”

“Oh, man,” Mitch said, “it must be bad.”

“I’m evidently the only one to think so,” Cam growled.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” Reed suggested.

“At tonight’s City Council meeting, we received a formal proposal from GrandGoods.”

Norah’s hand fisted on the arm of the sofa. “The megastore?”

He nodded. “They want to use Wishful as a pilot site for a new, smaller store designed to expand their market share into more rural locales. I have a number of problems with it, not the least of which is that they’ve already made an offer on the property where they want to build—the acreage owned by Abe Costello that wraps around two sides of Hope Springs. They want to put a goddamned parking lot almost to the edge of the springs.”

Norah expected Grammy to call him out on his language, but she said nothing.

“We can block that,” his mother said. “If not the direct purchase of the property, then the zoning restrictions on what and how they could build on it.”

“We need to do a hell of a lot more than that to update the zoning code. Have you even
looked
at the minimal site review process out there? I have. And we don’t have time to change that before the Council meets again in two weeks to talk about this. You saw everybody in that room. I was the only one thinking in terms other than ‘Ooo, shopping.’”

“Campbell.” Sandra’s tone was a warning.

“I don’t want our history paved over by some soulless corporate giant.”

“We don’t know that it would be that bad. Their presentation—”

Cam interrupted. “The guy gave an impressive presentation. Slick. Too slick.”

“What exactly was their pitch?” Uncle Pete asked.

“They don’t want to damage the identity of the town,” Sandra began.

“Of course, they’ll lead with that.” Norah’s chest went tight. Unable to keep still, she shoved to her feet, tucking her hands beneath her arms. “They want to get your guard down. I bet they said that they’re on the side of the people. That their philosophy is to embrace the identity of the community and that the store and the town will be equal partners. They’ll offer choice and convenience to the masses. Jobs and an influx of capital to the local economy. They probably rounded things out with a nice speech about how there’s value in the future and that progress lives on. How’m I doing?”

Cam stared at her with disbelief. “What? Were you hiding under the table in the Council chambers? How do you know all that?”

Norah closed her eyes and felt the blood drain out of her cheeks. “Because it’s what
I
said. On behalf of one of their biggest competitors, in another small town, just like this one.” She began to pace the room, her steps short and jerky. There wasn’t enough space for what she was feeling amid all these people. “I told them all of that and more. I convinced them everything would be great. That Hugo’s would be an asset and partner to the community. And within three years, seventy percent of the businesses downtown had been wiped out and the town was so swollen from urban sprawl, it was barely recognizable.” She looked at Miranda. “Have Your Cake was gone.”

“Morton.”

“I didn’t know.” Not that saying so made it any better. “Not until my drive back from New York. I tried to stop in and downtown was a ghost town. So I asked one of the locals what happened. Hugo’s came in and violated pretty much every selling point I’d used to get them into the community. As soon as I saw what happened, I went straight to the office and dug into the old files. And it was all there. Helios was working as an extension of Hugo’s marketing and sales team, as a third party. My partner did the due diligence—that was his job as Market Research Director—and he didn’t bother to share the facts and the bad publicity the company had gotten elsewhere because he didn’t want my inconvenient moral compass to get in the way of closing the deal. I wasn’t on the development team. They just brought me in at the end to do the pitch to Morton for Hugo’s because closing the deal is my specialty, and I have a gift for bringing creative campaigns to life. I was just the face, the voice, the charm. What did I need with the truth? Apparently that’s been standard operating procedure the last few years—or so he said when I confronted him about it. And our boss knew and encouraged it, because I was just an asset to be used, and they figured that was the best way to handle me. I have absolutely no idea how many other lives I’ve managed to ruin in the name of profit. I didn’t get a chance to find out before they fired me.”

“Oh honey.” Miranda was off the sofa in an instant, pulling Norah into a hard hug. “That’s why you’ve been able to stay so long?”

Norah ducked her head. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you
tell
me?”

She felt her lips twist into a sardonic smile. “Because Burkes don’t fail and we sure as hell don’t get fired.” She hissed out a breath and stepped away, waving an impatient hand. “But that isn’t my point. The only reason I’m bringing any of this up is that GrandGoods is going to have someone like me on their side. They’re going to make it sound like a dream come true and have an answer to downplay or eliminate all of your concerns. They’re going to offer jobs and discounts and services, and the public is going to eat it up because the economy is in the toilet, and they want someone big to come in and save them.”

“I saw some of that just in the other Council members. I’ve got two weeks to change their minds.”

Norah fixed her gaze on him. “If you want to play David to their Goliath, you’re going to need a helluva lot more than a rock. It doesn’t matter how well you think you know people here. GrandGoods is going to make this come down to economic survival, and by the time they’re through, people will believe that they’re some kind of savior. At least until they get here and the blindfold comes off. By then it’ll be too late. You
can’t
let that happen here, Cam.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“Excuse me for interjecting,” Uncle Jimmy said, “but exactly how do you intend to stop it? In two weeks, no less. The public’s going to want this, once word gets out. Like Norah said, that’s just the economic climate we’re in.”

“It’s going to take a miracle,” Anita said.

Something lightened in Cam’s face, a dawning realization. “No, it’s going to take somebody to counteract whatever silver-tongued devil they send. I can’t think of anybody better than the woman who once sold solar panels to an oil man.” He shifted his gaze back to Norah. “You said I need something bigger than a rock. You’re the next best thing to having an inside man. You’ve proved you know how they think, how they’ll approach this. And I know you know how to counter all that. So stay. Stay and make this fight less David versus Goliath and more Sparta versus the Persian army. You’re pissed off, and you have every right to be for how your firm used you. So take all that anger and use it. Redirect it to a new target and fight for us. We’ll hire you freelance.”

She thought back to the day they’d gone to the fountain, to the wish she’d made.

I wish for my time here to show me the right path, what my purpose really is.

Was it really so simple? So perfectly aligned with circumstance?

The whole idea of it smacked far too much of fate, which wasn’t a concept Norah was comfortable with. She believed in making her own fate, her own destiny. And yet, how could she say no to a chance to put her skills to use and stop the ruination of the town she loved, to atone, in part, for the damage she’d inadvertently done elsewhere.

Then there was Cam. If she agreed to do this, she had to end things. Anything else would be leading him on. She
couldn’t
stay forever, and remaining involved for however long this campaign might take would just make that ultimate parting worse for both of them in the end. Knowing what she knew now about his history… They’d slid too far, too fast already, getting so emotionally tangled, she hadn’t been able to think beyond the now to the practicalities of the future.

Resolute, Norah squared her shoulders. “I’ll fight for you, but I’ll do it pro bono.”

Cam frowned. “That hardly seems fair to you. You’re doing a job; you should get paid for it.”

She shook her head. “I’ve got a lot of work to do to balance out the bad karma for what I did in Morton.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it’s my fault. They only reason they were there at all was because I convinced those people it was a good idea. You can pretty it up all you want, but I
lied
to them.
I
did that.”

“You were manipulated.”

“That’s no excuse. I should have double checked his work, should’ve followed up, done my own digging…
something.
” Cam opened his mouth to say something else, but Norah held up a hand. “We can argue about my culpability until we’re blue in the face, but I won’t budge on this. I was exceptionally well paid for what I did, and I worked too damned much to spend much of it. I don’t need the money right now. I need the fight. Let me do this my way.”

“Okay. Your way, then.” Cam offered his hand.

Norah took it, curling her fingers around his in a firm shake. “Cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war. Clear your schedule, Leonidas. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

He smiled, the tension visibly draining out of him. “Let’s give ’em hell.”

Grammy stepped toward the kitchen. “Save your hell raisin’ for after cobbler. No war was ever won on an empty stomach.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Cam said, “it’s to always respect my elders.”

Chapter 8

“You live…in a barn.” Norah made the statement slowly, as if that might make it a dream.

“Above one, actually.” Cam climbed out of the truck and reached for the bags in the backseat.

“Um…why?”

“It happens the house that was here burned to the ground a few years back. The owners didn't have the means or desire to rebuild. So I bought it and all the land that went with it. The barn loft was easy enough to convert into an apartment. Mitch and a few other friends helped me do it the summer I bought the place. I keep meaning to start on a house, but it...just hasn't been a priority. Come on in and let’s see how far I’ve offended your city girl sensibilities.”

Norah climbed out of his truck and stalked around the front. “Just because I’ve lived in cities more than half my life doesn’t change the fact that I’m Mississippi born and bred.”

He chuckled at the irritated twitch to her hips and led her up the stairs to the converted loft. Hush met them at the door, wagging in ecstasy at her visitor. While she and Norah greeted each other as if it’d been years rather than a few hours since they’d played together, Cam brushed past them and deposited the bags on the coffee table.

“Can I get you anything? There’s a pitcher of tea in the fridge. Or beer if you want.”

Norah extricated herself from the dog and finally stepped inside, her heels clicking across the hardwood floors he’d sanded and stained himself. “Coffee, if you’ve got it.”

“Comin’ right up.”

Hush bounced across the room and laid claim to her end of the sofa. As he set up the coffee to brew, Cam watched Norah taking in his space and wondered what she saw. Would she notice the reclaimed wood they’d fashioned into window seats and cabinetry along the length of both long walls? Or the solid butcher block counters polished to a gleam? Would she appreciate the small touches of the antique and the rustic? Or would she only see the lack of sleek and modern?

Norah turned a slow circle. "It's...wonderful. Cozy.”

Something in him eased at that. She really wasn’t the city girl he teased her of being. Not completely. “It’s unique anyway. I like my privacy.”