A Small-Town Temptation. Terry Mclaughlin

      Behind the crew, a taller-than-average man with wavy black hair pitched a cell phone into the cab of a black pickup truck. “Can I help you?” he asked.

      “Just watching, if that’s okay.” Jack extended his hand. “Jack Maguire.”

      The dark-haired man wiped his hand on his jeans before shaking Jack’s. “Quinn. You the man from Continental?”

      “Word gets around,” said Jack with a grin.

      Quinn’s mouth tightened in a thin line that might have passed for a smile if his level stare had warmed a degree or two. But it didn’t. “Is Continental putting in a bid on Sawyer’s outfit?” he asked.

      “Not sure.” Jack studied the finishing work. “Depends on the market around here. The supply.”

      “The customers.”

      “That, too.”

      Jack already knew Quinn was considered one of the best contractors in the area. He had a steady crew, did the job well and on time and paid his bills promptly. Agatha had offered a few more details with her macaroons: in spite of his professional reputation for quality work, Quinn’s personal reputation—as a recovering alcoholic with a troublesome past—kept him scrambling more than most for opportunities to keep his crew employed and his redemption on track.

      “In my experience,” said Jack with a glance at the Keene mixer, “customers tend to be loyal to one supplier.”

      “Unless there’s enough incentive to switch.” Quinn raised one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Might be a one-time deal, though. Loyalty and all.”

      Jack matched Quinn’s shrug with one of his own. “You get what you pay for.”

      Quinn gave him another long, level stare and then nodded and moved off to check on his crew. Loyalty was an admirable virtue, and Jack understood better than most how it greased the gears of small-town economics, but the home-team advantage wouldn’t last long if it came at a premium price.

      He glanced up to watch gulls swoop overhead, searching for scraps. Scavengers had a purpose and a place in life, too. But all in all, he mused as he shoved his hands back into his pockets and started the trek toward the Villa Veneto, he’d rather be a hawk than a gull.

      CHARLIE COASTED TO THE curb in front of her mother’s house an hour after dark on Friday night. She pulled the key from the ignition and slumped in her seat, waiting for hunger to override the temptation to skip another rerun of her real-life family feud.

      Dad had been fond of saying the reason his daughter and his wife couldn’t understand each other better was because they were two peas in a pod. When she was young, Charlie had spent a lot of time wondering what alien legume life form Dad had had in mind when he’d made that crack.

      She was in no mood to face the coming scene with her mother. The day had been a trial, starting before dawn with a couple of big pours and continuing with David’s stubborn resistance to engage in a meaningful discussion about BayRock. She’d spent a tense lunch hour reminding Earl about all the reasons he’d agreed to sell BayRock to the Keenes—and reassuring him he’d have a business left to sell once she’d sent the visitor from Continental packing.

      Now all she had to do was figure out a way to do it. She’d imagined every worst-case scenario and best-case possibility, plotted her way through every twist and turn, and all she had to show for the long day of physical labor and mental efforts were a headache and a queasy stomach.

      She was still sitting there a quarter of an hour later, staring at the mellow light glowing through her mother’s ruffly gingham curtains hanging from slightly sagging café rods. Charlie had banned ruffles and gingham from her house on the other side of town, along with Jell-O, doilies, Barry Manilow or anything pink. She was also opposed, on nearly religious principles, to anything that could be done to a woman in a beauty parlor.

      It wasn’t just a matter of style; her differences with her mother went deeper than that. While Charlie had always struggled for independence, Maudie Keene had cultivated clinging as a survival tactic. She’d had more than thirty years to practice the technique on her husband.

      And now, Charlie thought as she watched her brother’s overdeveloped, overpriced truck muscle its way into their mother’s driveway, Maudie was directing the full force of her neediness at her son. In spite of Charlie’s frustrations with her brother, she didn’t envy him the burden of their mother’s insecurities.

      She climbed out of her truck. “David. Wait up.”

      He turned at the sound of her voice and shifted a paper bag to one hip. “What are you doing here?”

      “Same as you. Getting a free meal.”

      “Nothing’s free in this house,” said David.

      She bit back her reply. No point in starting an argument before they sat down together at the table. He had his own reasons for his resentment. “Well,” she said, “tonight we’re getting dinner in trade. What’s in the bag?”

      “Beer. She never has any in the house since Dad died. And ice cream. She asked me to pick some up, ’cause she made apple cobbler.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Yeah.”

      They stood for a moment, awkward with sharing an appreciation for their mother’s cobbler in the midst of everything dividing them. “Go ahead and knock,” he said. “My hands are full.”

      Maudie opened the door, her large brown eyes shadowed with a habitual anxious expression. The silver threads winding through her hair—a faded version of David’s rich, dark red—glinted in the porch light. “Come in, come in. Is that the ice cream? Better get it in the freezer.”

      David brushed past them both, heading for the back of the house. Maudie rubbed her hands on her apron and stared after him. “I made cobbler.”

      “So I heard.” Charlie shrugged out of her coat and tossed it over one of the hooks on the coat rack. “Sounds great, Mom.”

      “Pot roast, too. With extra gravy. Just the way you like it.”

      “And potato chunks? The crispy ones?”

      “Of course.”

      “Mmm.” Charlie took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh, trying to ease away some of the tension with it. “Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.”

      Maudie beamed at the compliment and toyed with the edge of her apron. “I don’t mind the extra trouble. It’s nice to have some company at a meal for a change.”

      An appetizer of guilt served before the first course. It was going to be a long evening.

      “Mom,” David called from the kitchen. “How come the table’s set for four?”

      “I forgot to mention.” Maudie blushed and lifted a fluttering hand to smooth her hair. “Ben’s joining us.”

      Ben Chandler. It was difficult to imagine her mother having romantic feelings for someone else. Charlie pasted on a smile. “It’ll be good to see him again.”

      Maudie smiled. “I’d better see to the gravy.” She turned and walked down the hall, her stylish pumps clicking over the wood floor. She was a trim woman who looked younger than her age, an energetic woman who filled her mornings with volunteer activities and lunched with friends in the afternoon. Which left the evenings…

      Her mother. And Ben Chandler.

      Charlie took a deep breath and stepped into the front room. She wasn’t sure she approved of her mother’s flushed cheeks or the reason for the pearl earrings and the dressy green sweater beneath the apron, but she approved of Ben. He’d maintained his dignity and reputation while so many members of the wealthy and influential Chandler clan had ruined their lives with drink and disastrous choices.

      And he’d helped keep