Crashing the Congressman’s Wedding (Crimson Romance) (12 page)

Kathleen chuckled. “There are ten minds on the committee, Justin, and they’ve all been made. Let me say that the winner is impressive … and a repeat applicant. Like I said, encourage her to apply again next year.”

He stifled a groan. Without immediate help, Alice would be in full traction by next year.

“Thank you, Kathleen. I’ll let her know.”

It wasn’t a conversation Justin was looking forward to. Not after last night and the way he’d behaved. First the kiss, then the insult.

He hung up the phone and rested his forehead in his hands. Maybe he wouldn’t tell her. She’d get the official news soon enough. Why insert himself where he didn’t belong? Why keep concocting reasons to see her?

“Congressman Mitchell, Mayor Parrish is here.”

Justin nodded toward the bodiless voice, coming from his desk phone. “Send him in.”

Another conversation he wasn’t looking forward to …

“Mitchell.” Robert walked into the room with his shoulders squared and his head back. “You have a few weeks of congressional recess left. I think it’s high time we form a political action committee. Test your broad range appeal. Raise some dough.” His gaze locked like radar on the contract.

Justin expected acknowledgement of the meeting he’d been unceremoniously excluded from, but once again his expectations were wrong. Robert returned his gaze to Justin, and continued to ramble about precursors to a presidential bid.

All the while, Justin’s ornery mind churned, ruminating on the last several hours. He hadn’t just been blocked from a pet project, he’d been excluded from MCI business. MCI. Mitchell Company, Inc., the company that bore his name.

Screw being powerless.

“Robert … ” Justin held up his hand, halting the blowhard’s soliloquy. “ … how does forming a PAC lead to my exclusion from last night’s meeting?”

Robert sniffed and stared out the window. His eyebrow raised, and Justin wondered what he saw. Then he remembered Alice.

“You need to focus on what’s most important, Mitchell. If you lose focus, you lose elections.” He turned his head and glared at Justin. “I did you a favor, son. This is small potatoes compared to where you’re going.” He tapped his sausage-like fingers atop the contract.

Justin slapped his hand on the uppermost edge of the same document, causing a twitch in Robert’s shoulders. “
This
is my family’s company. There never has been, nor will there ever be, anything small about it. I did this … ” — he gestured around his congressional office space — “ … for my father and the future of MCI.”

Robert’s lips pursed in a skeptical sort of way. He looked out the window again. Seconds of silence ticked by. “Do you think she knows it’s a lost cause?”

Justin flinched. He might be ready to speak loud and clear for himself, but was he ready to do the same for Alice?

Robert chuckled. “She’ll make out in the end. Selling that shithole to Harold will bring her enough dough to bankroll another venture, maybe a strip club. She sure has the ass for one, just as long as it’s not around here.”

The voice Justin didn’t think he had pushed past the lump in his throat and exploded out his mouth. “Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”

Robert rolled his beady eyes in Justin’s direction. “Oh, that’s right. You missed the meeting.” He tapped the contract again and clucked his tongue. “Page thirteen, an ironic number since it’s one hell of a lucky deal — for everyone.”

Justin refused to be goaded. Robert had warned him there’d be a test. Perhaps this was it. If so, Justin wanted to pass … so he could figure out what was going on and bring about its end.

With an imperceptible breath, Justin nodded. “I haven’t had the chance to read through the contract yet.” Which was the point, wasn’t it? If Justin was a betting man, he’d put money on Robert excluding him from the meeting for this very reason, a reason that had to do with Alice selling her theatre.

“Don’t bother,” Robert said with a twisted smile. “It’s boring as hell.”

Yeah, Justin bet it was. Still, as soon as he was rid of Robert he was going to flip to page thirteen, and then he was going to read the contract from front to back, and then read it again. He had news for the Parrishes. No matter what this document said, Alice wasn’t going to sell. She had big dreams and big plans for the theatre.

He just wished she had the grant to get her there.

Robert walked toward the door. “We’ll talk, Mitchell.”

You bet we will
, Justin thought as he reached for the contract. He had the document opened to page thirteen before the carpet cooled from Robert’s feet. Justin skimmed until he read:

The sum of three hundred fifty thousand dollars ($350,000) as payment in full for land and buildings located at one hundred ninety-eight (198) Main Street and two hundred two (202) Main Street.

Harold bought more than thirty acres of land on the edge of town for his plastics plant. He bought the vacant buildings on either side of Alice’s theatre too. If she agreed to sell, he’d own the block across the street from Justin’s congressional offices. But why would Harold want to? Thirty acres of land was more than enough space to house the plant and its corporate offices. Unless those thirty acres weren’t high profile enough for what the Parrishes had planned.

A dull ache at the base of Justin’s skull had him squirming. Whatever the scheme, Alice wouldn’t sell. But without the grant, she’d think about it. He couldn’t let her take them seriously. If she sold, they might as well rename this town Parrish Falls. Maybe that was what they wanted. Talk about power.

Justin tossed the contract aside and returned to his earlier spot by the window. What would his father think of the sacred plan now that it had mutated into a means to control other people? And if Justin’s hunch was right, the Parrishes wouldn’t be happy until they had complete control at the highest level.

Bracing his palms on the radiator, Justin hung his head.
Harmony in Harmony Falls
had been his father’s campaign slogan. Marvin dreamed of joy and prosperity in the town he loved for generations to come, and there’d been harmony — when Justin towed the line, much like his father had. But there was nothing harmonious about Justin’s exclusion from last night’s meeting or the hurtful gleam in Robert’s eye when he talked about ridding the town of Alice Cramer.

Justin lifted his head and stared across Main Street. He had a choice to make: a false sense of harmony or a fight for what was right.

Alice and her ladder were long gone, but the yellowed marquis remained. He tried to imagine the streetscape without it — without her. He couldn’t. And he wouldn’t let that happen. The disappointment of losing the grant and the daunting task of rehabilitating the theatre might tempt her to sell, to give up on her dream, but she had options. He’d just make damn sure she knew what those options were.

So much for keeping his distance.

Alice stared at her monthly direct deposit slip from the energy company. Receiving four hundred dollars a month as compensation for unused Cramer land to house wind turbines had seemed like a generous gift when she and Charlie first signed on the dotted line. But after she bought the theatre, not a day went by when she didn’t wish they’d negotiated for more. Not that she was ungrateful. The initial lump sum paid by the company to replace transmission cords across the property was what allowed the theatre purchase in the first place.

Four hundred dollars.
Alice sighed. She needed groceries, gas for her car, and there were utilities to pay. Thank God Charlie used his portion of the lump sum to pay off the mortgage.

But what about her theatre? She needed bulbs for the fixtures in at least one hallway, a back staircase and the alleyway door. Tossing the piece of paper on the kitchen counter, Alice marched into the living room, straight for Mama’s reading lamp. Nobody had turned it on in years. She unscrewed the dusty bulb. So what if nobody could turn it on now? Nobody was here anyway. She was always at the theatre, and Charlie was gone.

He said he’d call when he got to Connecticut. He should’ve been there by now. She pushed away her worry and dropped the bulb in her coat pocket, setting out in search of more.

Alice looked around the room, but hesitated to take anything too useful. The bulbs would have to come from unused spaces, like Mama and Daddy’s room. There, she stole the bedside bulbs.
Kinda like robbing Peter to pay Paul,
she heard Mama say. The pitiful truth made Alice laugh.

With her pockets full, Alice fed and watered Mouse, and then returned to her theatre. She kept her cell phone on the passenger seat in case Charlie called. Why hadn’t she heard from him?

Driving down Main Street, she noticed the bright glow of Justin’s office light. Congress was in recess, but still the congressman worked late, putting his stamp of approval on those who were worthy. She wrinkled her face, grinding her teeth, wanting to march into that office and give him a piece of her mind. He had known Charlie loved Morgan and he went through with the proposal anyway. What kind of friend did something like that?

She was no expert on friendship, having preferred imaginary friends to judgmental live ones. Only the awkward girl down the street, the one who operated on squirrels and birds who’d been shot with BBs by the hooligan neighbor boys, found a way into Alice’s life. Kory and Alice never would’ve so much as looked at the same guy. Then again, Kory and Alice weren’t wrapped up in any so-called political games. Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe the Mitchells and Parrishes were crazy.

Alice glanced at Justin’s side of the street again. “Keep your crazy over there,” she said with a sassy grin and pulled around the block to the alley. But even as she said it, she knew she didn’t mean it. As much as Justin’s recent actions hurt her, she wanted to understand him more than she wanted him to stay away. Love made a person want the craziest things. Huh, maybe she was crazy too.

Shaking her head to scatter thoughts of Justin, she inched the car between dumpsters and crumbling brick walls. She wished somebody would get enough courage to buy the empty buildings beside hers, fix them up and make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Then maybe she wouldn’t be the only one driving in and out of this creepy alley.

Something scurried in front of her slow-moving car, and she shuddered. Having more people around was bound to cut down on the rodent population.

Parking so her headlights illuminated the backstage door, Alice got out of the car and snatched a bulb from her pocket. A couple minutes later, she stepped back and smiled at the soft glow of security light alongside the backdoor
. Thanks, Mama.

Something rustled in the dark distance, and Alice snapped her head in the sound’s direction, struggling to see beyond the blinding headlights. Her heart pounded.

Harmony Falls is safe
, she thought. Nothing remotely dangerous ever happened here, unless one counted crashing the congressman’s wedding. She swallowed a whimper, certain her overactive imagination was to blame. Imagination or not, if she had money to waste, she’d open the backstage door and bolt inside, leaving her car to run. But that half-tank of gas needed to last her until next month’s direct deposit.

Walk to the car, Alice. Walk to the car. Turn off the engine. Get inside the theatre. Nothing’s going to happen. There’s nothing after you.

She sucked a breath and stepped toward the car.

Good girl.

She took another step. And another. And another. Until she reached her open door and leaned inside, snatching her cell phone off the passenger seat and the keys from the ignition. When she did, the headlights darkened, and the alley shadows lengthened.

Wind kicked up around her, scattering old newspapers and other debris.
The wind of change,
she thought for some odd reason. She rolled her eyes and slammed the car door, shuddering against the chill. It was just a storm moving in. Nothing ominous about it.

Three leaps, and she was back in the glow of the security light, her heart throbbing in her throat. Adrenaline skittered beneath her skin as though someone was watching her. But who?

Before she could answer her silly question, someone screeched.

Alice lunged for the door, grasping the handle at the same time a black ball of fluff sprinted over her feet. More screeching, and a gray ball of fluff darted past. Two kittens collided, rolling around in the dim light showering her feet.

Their cuteness calmed her fear, and Alice crouched beside them. “You guys scared me.”

She glanced around the alley for more. Litters were usually bigger than two, but then again, life on the street was hard. Maybe only two survived.

The wind howled again, and the kittens scurried away, disappearing behind the dumpster closest to her theatre. It wasn’t much of a shelter, not with a storm moving in. If she could grab them, she’d take them inside until the storm passed. They’d stay dry, and she’d have company.

Alice snatched an empty cardboard box off the stack she’d disposed of earlier in the day. With a little luck and much less aggravation than she expected, she wrestled both kittens into the box and closed the flaps. They mewed and clawed at the cardboard.

“It’s all right. You’ll be fine,” she said as the wind whipped the hood of her jacket around her throat.

Once inside, she locked the backstage door, flipped the light switches and chatted to the whiny kittens as she carried them across the stage, down the stage-left stairs and through the dimly lit house. Only when she arrived in the relative safety of her office — with the door closed — did she let them out.

The black one hissed.

“Well, that’s a fine thank-you.”

The gray one bolted across the room, hiding behind a box Alice was using as a trash can. So much for company.

She returned her attention to the black kitten hissing at her feet. “I’m going to call you Oscar, partly because this is a theatre, and Oscar Hammerstein wrote amazing songs. But mostly I’m calling you Oscar because you’re a grouch.” She hissed back at him. Or her. She wasn’t sure.