Bluegrass Blessings. Allie Pleiter

have wanted to surround myself with upwardly mobile hunks, I’d have stayed back in Jersey.”

      “But the hunk’s come to you. Divine intervention?”

      Dinah put down her iced tea. “Let’s list the reasons why that would be a bad idea, shall we?” She held up one finger. “He’s my landlord now. I don’t plan to change my ‘never mix business with pleasure’ mentality. Two,” she held up a second finger, “you can take the man out of the suit, but you definitely can’t take the suit out of that man. Look at him.” She nodded in Cameron’s direction, grabbing Emily’s arm when she actually started looking over her shoulder. “No, I don’t mean really look at him. Figure of speech here?” She blew a curl out of her eye in exasperation—she didn’t want to be having this conversation at all, much less with Emily’s current love-struck outlook on life. “He’s gonna last one year in this place, tops. The guy practically considers himself in exile out here.”

      Emily popped a potato chip into her mouth. “He goes to church, Dinah. And he negotiates a mean oven. And he loaned you the money to get it—you can’t say that wasn’t a nice thing to do.”

      “Again, mixing business with pleasure. Which brings me to reason number three: The guy’s a tycoon in training. A predator in a three-piece suit. You should have seen him trying to get the last fifty dollars knocked off the purchase price. You’d have thought lives were at stake. No, I think I’ve seen enough to know he’s not my kind of guy. The last thing I’m looking for is a guy who’s got to go through life with the upper hand.”

      Emily smiled and selected another potato chip. “A girl could do worse.”

      Dinah mentally calculated the two months left until Emily was married off and her romantic energies could be trained elsewhere. Then again, it might get even worse once she was knee-deep in marital bliss.

      Hadn’t she fled New Jersey to get away from just this kind of thing?

      Chapter Five

      Cameron had never seen anything like this.

      Well, actually he had, just under far more believable circumstances. He’d almost had to pinch himself to remind him that he was at the Middleburg town council meeting.

      It wasn’t the concept of a town council Cameron found strange. It was how seriously these people took their jobs. He’d seen less attention paid to civic ordinances in the city council chambers of New York. It was the oddest thing—no suits, no ties, no reporters and Emily Montague actually walked in carrying her papers in a basket (which nearly made Aunt Sandy’s lime green iridescent tote look normal)—but deeply serious. Everyone had read all the materials sent to them in advance of the meeting—such conscientiousness might have made a few of his New York colleagues faint from surprise. No staffers spoon-feeding facts in this Town Hall.

      They were talking about, of all things, the widening of a local road from one lane to two. A route that ran within a few blocks of “Cameronville” as he now called it in his head. Even though it sounded a bit too much like the infamous Pottersville from It’s a Wonderful Life, it still was easier to swallow than Lullaby Lane.

      Sure, the name change seemed a minor detail, but it set the tone for any future projects he’d have in this town. In this region. One day he’d need zoning variances, or streets widened, or sewers expanded, or permission for unattached three-car garages. Change. This name thing would set the pace for all his future expansions, lay a precedent for all the future changes he’d bring. It was vital. He had to win.

      That meant stacking the deck in his favor. Last night, he’d conducted an Internet search of half a dozen Web sites and produced a long list of musical terms. No sense making this first change harder by bucking Middleburg’s truly odd fascination with musical street names. But as one could expect from a town nearing the age of Middleburg, most of the good ones were taken.

      So far, he’d come up with Fox Trot Lane, Tango Court, Cadenza Place, Prelude Circle and Sonata Avenue. Sure, most of them sounded more like they belonged on the billboards advertising ritzy suburban subdivisions he’d seen on tri-state turnpikes, but Cameron was too close to begging to be choosy. At this rate, anything that wasn’t gooey-sweet and wasn’t Lullaby Lane was on the table.

      “Sidewalks?” Aunt Sandy asked peering above her sparkly reading glasses. “It costs that much to put in sidewalks? Aren’t we spending enough puttin’ in that second lane that we have to spring for sidewalks now?”

      “Well,” said “Mac” MacCarthy, “it’s safer with the additional traffic. Kids walk to school along this route.” He had his office in the space below Cameron’s apartment and they’d had an intriguing conversation the other day about how Middleburg could be appropriately developed.

      “All the more reason not to widen the road,” said a rather crusty old man peering so closely at his papers that his nose practically touched the table. “Who needs more cars?”

      “People drive cars,” Gil Sorrent said wearily. Emily had introduced Cameron to Gil earlier this week, and Cameron had liked him instantly. “People who buy things and pay taxes and want to send their kids to good schools with adequate resources.”

      People who’ll buy houses in Cameronville someday, Cameron rooted silently for Gil and Mac to succeed. They were trying—very hard—but from the looks of things, this road expansion plan had been on the table for months.

      Great, Cameron thought to himself. I could be staring at Lullaby Lane until Labor Day. He was beginning to think his goal of locking in the name change by St. Patrick’s Day was a bit optimistic. It was, after all, the first week of January. Give me a break. I wanted a faster start than this.

      “Lots of our streets already have sidewalks, Monty,” Emily addressed the crusty old man in a persuasive tone. “This isn’t anything new.”

      “Well, it is expensive,” the man said. “Expensive-er with those sidewalks. Seems to me, we wouldn’t have to be putting in sidewalks if we wasn’t putting in those lanes.”

      Cameron decided Cameronville would come with free sidewalks. And giant but tasteful signs that proclaimed “This isn’t anything new.” Well, except for the name. And the new houses. When did this get so complicated?

      “Progress does cost money,” Gil said tensely.

      “May I remind you, Gil and Emily,” Howard stated, “that one of you will have to step down off the council once you’ve married.”

      A woman Cameron recognized from the town library immediately flipped open a massive notebook and began thumbing through pages. “Spouses may not both serve on the council simultaneously,” she read. “But we’ve never had council members marry while in office before.” She looked up warmly at Emily. “It’s rather sweet, if you ask me.”

      “You’re all invited,” Emily said with that dreamy tone of voice Cameron’s cousin had used when discussing her impending wedding.

      “You should come for the cake if nothing else,” Dinah whispered over Cameron’s shoulder. He’d been so intent on scouting out the town council that he hadn’t even noticed her slip into the seat behind him. “It’ll knock your socks off.”

      Cameron grinned and shook his head. He hadn’t heard someone use that phrase since he was six.

      Dinah leaned both elbows over the seat back beside him. “Hadn’t even thought about the town council seat thing,” she said quietly. “Man, that’ll be a fight. Hope they don’t ask my opinion. I like ’em both, but Emily’s my pal. She’s all about keeping things the way they are and Gil’s all about progress. But really, they’re Middleburg’s biggest dilemma wrapped up in one adorable romance. Preservation versus progress. Look out, mister, you might have to choose sides.”

      “So, instead of asking ‘Are you with the bride or the groom?’ the ushers will ask ‘Are you on the side of progress or preservation?’”

      Dinah grinned.