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Pearl’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. “What about his hands?”
“Not like that. He has calluses. He’s not just a suit.” I dropped onto the stool behind the register. “He knew about the foundation crack, the electrical panel, and the roof. He’s studied this building like he cares what happens to it.”
“Maybe he does.”
“Or maybe he’s calculating what demolition will cost. He invited me to the council meeting and told me to evaluate his plans before I assumed the worst.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“I know. That’s what worries me.”
Pearl collected her pastry box and stopped with one hand on the front door. “I’m not saying you’re attracted to him.”
“Good.”
“I’m saying I’ve known you eight years, and I’ve never seen a man’s hands make you abandon a sentence.”
She returned to her bakery before I found a comeback.
The next two hours disappeared under customers. By noon, the shop was full. Business thinned that afternoon, and I checked the empty storefront whenever my bell went quiet. I closed at six, finished unpacking the shipment, and lined the newly unpacked red cardinals beneath the front window. Their tails pointed the same way because it bothered me when they did not.
At seven that evening, Griffin was still bent over his blueprints across the street. My ornament box stood open beside his tape measure, and the glass inside caught the light when he moved. Then he looked up, and our eyes met through two storefront windows and the dark width of Main Street. Every Christmas light on the block was behind me.
Tomorrow, I would see his plans. Then I would find the part he wasn’t showing me.
CHAPTER 2
GRIFFIN
The next evening, the town council met in a building that smelled like old paper and institutional coffee. I’d arrived thirty minutes early to set up my presentation materials, which gave me plenty of time to notice the hostile audience filling the public seating area.
Owen had quietly identified the merchants as they filed in. Frank Donnelly had claimed the front row, arms crossed and flannel buttoned to the throat. Ivy Callahan, who owned the only building on the block I hadn’t bought, settled beside him with a notebook already open. Pearl, the baker next door to Nora, sat behind them with three other owners I recognized from my surveys.
Nora Winters sat among them with her auburn hair twisted into a knot that was already escaping. If she’d brought a pitchfork, it was under the chair.
She was beautiful, which was inconvenient and beside the point.
I’d invited her to evaluate the evidence. Apparently she’d interpreted that as an invitation to organize the opposition.
Six months was long enough to establish phase one and prove the model. It was short enough that rejection here would not cost me work elsewhere. The plan had assumed resistance from the merchants. It had not accounted for Nora Winters, who had left a welcome gift on my blueprints before promising to fight me.
“Mr. Cole.” Owen gestured toward the presentation area. “We’re ready when you are.”
I connected my laptop to the ancient projector. My slides covered market analysis, vacancy trends, and the demographic data that told Holly Creek’s story in numbers most people didn’t want to read.
“Thank you for the opportunity to present.” I kept my voice even. “I’ll start with the current state of Main Street’s commercial district and outline the proposed intervention timeline.”
“Intervention.” Nora’s voice carried from the third row. “Are the buildings supposed to admit they have a problem?”
Owen aimed his pen at her. “Public comment comes after the presentation, Nora.”
She leaned back but kept staring until I tugged at my collar.
I advanced to the next slide. “Over the past decade, Holly Creek has lost approximately twenty-two percent of its population, and the median age has gone up seven years. People under thirty are leaving faster than new families are arriving. Commercial vacancy on Main Street has risen from twelve percent to twenty-seven, with projections suggesting thirty by next summer.”
Nobody said anything. In the third row, a man in a Carhartt jacket did the arithmetic on his fingers, twice, and then stopped doing it.
“Main Street’s central block contains eight commercial properties.” I put up the parcel map. “I bought six between August and the end of September: the Donnelly Hardware building, which Mr. Donnelly sold to a Portland management company in 2009 and now rents; the Sweet Provisions building, which Margaret Ferris sold to me; the old pharmacy; the empty corner unit; the boarded feed store; and one-fourteen Main, which houses Winters Wonderland and the apartment above it.”
