Starting Over In Wickham Falls

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll let you know if I find something.”

Georgina knew Viviana Remington was a direct descendant of the infamous Wolfe family who’d owned most of the coal mines in the county and were reviled for how they’d made their fortune taking advantage of their workers. And they preferred closing the mines rather than upgrade to meet the government’s safety regulations. She was grateful to be seated at the table with Langston, because he’d given her the lead she needed to find somewhere to live before she sought out Miss Reilly, the local real estate agent.

He leaned close enough for their shoulders to touch. “I need a favor from you.”

She went completely still. The last man who’d asked her for a favor needed fifteen thousand dollars to cover his gambling debts. He’d been siphoning money from the sale of cars at his father’s used-car dealership to gamble, and when the accountant called to say he was coming to go over the books in order to file the corporate tax return, he panicked. Although they’d dated for almost eight months and Georgina thought she was in love with him, she ended their relationship and blocked his phone number.

She’d wanted to believe he was different because he worked for his father who had one of the most successful used-car dealerships in Beckley, but it was apparent he was no different from the men in the Falls who equated her to dollar signs. Boys in high school vied for her attention not because they’d thought her pretty, smart, or even talented, but because she was now sole heir to a business that had earned the reputation as the longest-running family-owned business in the town’s history.

Georgina swallowed to relieve the constriction in her throat. “What do you want?”

Langston placed his hand over her fisted one. “Why do you make it sound as if I’m asking you to give up your firstborn?”

“That would be easy, because I don’t have any children.”

He angled his head. “Do you want children?”

His question gave her pause. It had been too many years since she had been involved with a man to even consider marriage and children. “I suppose I’d like one or two somewhere down the road.”

Langston chuckled. “Just how long is that road, Georgi?”

She smiled. It was the second time he’d called her by the nickname kids in the Falls gave her to distinguish between her and another girl named Georgiana. “I really don’t know, because I have a few requisites before I can even consider motherhood.”

“Does finding a husband figure in your requisites?”

“That helps, but it’s not mandatory.”

“So,” he drawled, “it wouldn’t bother you to be an unwed mother?”

She scrunched up her nose. “I prefer the term single mother. If I decide to adopt a baby and not marry, I would be a single, not an unwed, mother.”

Langston inclined his head. “Point taken.”

“Now that we’ve settled that,” she said after a pregnant pause, “what favor do you want from me?”

He leaned even closer, his nose brushing her ear. “Save a dance for me.”

Georgina was shocked and relieved that all he wanted was a dance. The invitation indicated there would be music and dancing. “What if I save you two?”

Langston chuckled. “If I’d known you were that generous, then I would’ve asked for three or maybe even four.”

“Don’t push it, Langston.”

He held up both hands. “Okay. Two it is.”

Georgina didn’t know Langston well, had had very little interaction with him in the past, yet she wanted to think of him as a friend. And she’d had very few close friends in the Falls other than Sasha Manning. She and Sasha had shared many of the same classes and confided in each other as to what they wanted once they graduated school. And now that Sasha had returned to town as a former contestant in a televised bakeoff, and the ex-wife of an A-list country singer, she’d sought her out to solicit her advice as to the steps she should take to realize her dream to become an independent businesswoman that did not include the department store.

Pushing back her chair, she rose to her feet, Langston rising with her. “Please excuse me, but Sasha just walked in and I need to talk to her.”

Chapter Two

Langston watched Georgina walk, and felt as if he was able to breathe normally for the first time. He didn’t know what it was about Georgina Powell that made him less confident in her presence than he was with other women he’d known or grown up with. The only other woman to have a similar effect on him he married. However, his ex-wife proved to be the opposite of Georgina, but he hadn’t known that until after they were married. And, although he found it odd that as a thirty-something young woman Georgina still lived at home with her parents, he was curious to know the reason for her wanting to change residences.

He’d traveled the world, lived abroad for more years than he could count and had interacted with people he wasn’t certain were friend or foe. All of which served to hone and heighten his acuity when perceiving a situation. Langston did not want to relate to Georgina as a journalist, watching and waiting for a clue behind what she said, but as a man who’d found himself pleasantly enthralled with the very grown-up Georgina Powell.

She was at least three, or maybe even four, years his junior, which meant they did not share the same classes or friends, although they’d grown up in the same neighborhood. What they had in common was their parents were business owners. His parents, both pharmacists, owned the local pharmacy, and the Powells, the department store. By Wickham Falls’ economic standards, the Coopers and Powells were considered well-to-do, but their social standing was of no import when they enrolled their children in the Johnson County Public School system. Every student was treated equally, which fostered an environment of one school, one team.

Langston was aware that despite its seemingly picture-postcard appearance with one-and two-story homes, and two traffic lights, and being touted as one of the best little towns in the state, Wickham Falls did have a history of labor unrest that came close to rivaling Matewan’s coal-mining strikes, with months-long battles between union and nonunion workers. After the owners closed the mines, it taught the residents to depend on one another to ensure survival because of labor solidarity. And it was in the Falls that he felt more relaxed and able to recapture the peace he’d known and felt when growing up.

The decision to resign from the cable news station, where he’d worked as a foreign correspondent, sell his Washington, DC, condo and purchase the house in Wickham Falls from his parents after they’d retired and planned to live in their vacation home on Key West was an easy one for Langston. His contemplating buying a biweekly with a dwindling circulation was much more difficult. Despite becoming an award-winning journalist, and a New York Times bestselling nonfiction writer, he wasn’t certain whether to invest in a newspaper when local papers had folded, and popular magazines were going from print to an electronic format.

He’d approached the owner of The Sentinel with an offer and after several weeks of negotiations, Langston had become the publisher and editor-in-chief of a failing paper. He’d thrown his experience and energies into revamping the biweekly’s format, meeting several times a week with the staff to solicit their input for new ideas that would resurrect what had been a popular and necessary medium to disseminate information to the community. It had taken a year to realize an increase in circulation, and the paper’s new design, columns and highlighting of individuals and businesses seemed to resonate with many subscribers.

Langston’s focus shifted to Georgina as she laughed at something Sasha Manning said. He hadn’t had any direct contact with her since returning. He’d caught glimpses of her whenever he went into the department store if she was summoned from the office to assist a customer or an employee. And he never would’ve suspected she had been hiding a magnificent figure under the loose-fitting smock and slacks. The generous slit in the body-hugging gown revealed a pair of slender, shapely legs and ankles in the sexy heels.

She’s like Cinderella, he mused. During the day she went about with a bare face, shapeless clothes and her hair fashioned in a single braid; however, tonight she’d transformed into a seductress that had him and other men taking furtive glances at her.

Langston hadn’t come back home to become involved with a woman; he’d come back to hopefully recover and heal from recurring episodes of PTSD, which had plagued him when he least expected. Spending too many years covering wars in two African countries and the Middle East had affected him psychologically. He’d gone into therapy to help cope with the nightmares, and it was only after he resigned his position as a correspondent had the macabre images decreased in frequency.

He stood up when Georgina returned to the table. He pulled out her chair, seating her. Langston retook his seat and turned to look at the well-dressed elderly woman with bluish hair next to him when she rested a hand on his arm. Bessie Daniels had become a fixture in the town as the proprietress of Perfect Tresses hair salon. She’d begun using a blue rinse once she grayed prematurely and had earned the moniker of The Blue Lady.

“Langston, I wanted to tell you that I like what you’ve done with the newspaper. Eddie Miller ran The Sentinel into the ground after he took over from his father. What had been a fine newspaper was filled with reprinted articles no one cared about. Trust me, Langston, we don’t mind reading about events that occurred a long time ago, but in my opinion, he was just too damn lazy to go out and gather current news to print.”

“I’m glad you like the new format,” he said. There was no way he was going to bash the former owner of the newspaper because not only did he still live in the Falls, but Bessie was an incurable gossip and whatever he said to her would no doubt be repeated and get back to Eddie.

“Your folks must be very proud of you, Langston.”

He smiled. “I’d like to think they are.”

“Please send them my best whenever you talk to or see them again.”

“I will.”

“By the way,” Bessie continued, seemingly without taking a breath, “do you know why Bruce sent his daughter when he usually comes every year?”

Langston smothered a groan. He didn’t know why the woman was interrogating him about something she probably knew, but just needed confirmation on. “I do not know.” The four words were pregnant with a finality that he hoped she understood.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated,” came an announcement over the PA system. “Our mayor and the officers of the Chamber would like to say a few words before dinner is served.”

“Nice timing,” Georgina whispered in his ear.

Langston shared a knowing smile with her. It was apparent she’d overheard his conversation with Bessie Daniels. “Do you want to switch seats?” he teased, sotto voce.

“You’re a big boy, Langston. Please don’t tell me you’re afraid of a harmless little lady.”

He wanted to tell Georgina that the little lady was not harmless, and if the paper had a gossip column then he would’ve hired her. He’d added two new columns. “Sound Off”, in which residents could anonymously voice their concerns about any or everything they felt strongly about, had replaced the “Letters to the Editor,” and “Who’s Who” to highlight residents who have made a difference. Langston blew out an audible breath when he realized Mrs. Daniels had turned her attention to the woman on her left. He had been given a pass from the chatty woman—for now.

The speakers droned on, and Georgina knew why her father had tired of attending the fund-raiser; there were too many speeches, which were much too long. She realized she had to get used to it because once she became a business owner it was incumbent she support the Chamber.

She lowered her head, hiding a smile when she saw Sasha roll her eyes upward while shaking her head. Her friend had turned heads in a chocolate-brown, off-the-shoulder dress with a revealing neckline. Georgina assumed it wasn’t only the pastry chef’s attire that had garnered attention, but also who she’d come with. Her date was the town’s resident dentist and single father, Dr. Dwight Adams. Sasha had insisted her part-time employee’s father was only a friend, and Georgina wondered, noticing the couple’s entrancement with each other, how long they would remain friends. Even given the dearth of romance in her own life, Georgina was a romantic at heart, and she silently cheered for her friend to be given a second chance at love.

Now that she was focused on opening a craft shop, the notion of dating was not on her agenda and it nagged at her that she’d had to use subterfuge because she feared her father would use his influence to block her signing a lease on the vacant store around the corner from Main Street. Georgina had planned carefully when she directed an attorney to set up an LLC for her and gave them power of attorney to negotiate the terms of the lease on her behalf. With the executed lease, she’d applied to the town’s housing department for a permit to operate a business and was currently awaiting their approval. The clerk at the town council told her there was a minimum two-month wait before her application would come up for review.

There had been a time when she resented her parents once they’d withdrawn their offer to pay the tuition for her to attend college because they expected her to assume complete control of Powell’s once they retired. Georgina had argued they were nowhere near retirement age and her leaving home for four years would not negatively impact the viability of the store. As a recent high school graduate, she hadn't been aware of her mother’s emotional instability. One moment she could be laughing, and then without warning she would dissolve into tears about losing her baby. Seeing her mother cry achieved the result Evelyn sought when Georgina promised she would stay. And she’d stayed for fourteen years while feeling as if she was losing a bit of herself day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute if she did not take control of her life and destiny.

Living with her parents and adhering to their rules had taken its toll on her own emotional well-being. She loved her mother and father, respected them as her parents, but she didn’t want to turn into someone angry and resentful with the hand she’d been dealt because she had surrendered her will to others who had their own agenda.

“A penny for your thoughts, Georgi.”

Langston’s voice broke into her musings. “I can’t believe how long these speeches are,” she lied smoothly. Being deceitful did not come easily for Georgina, yet lately she’d become very closemouthed about her plans because she didn’t want anything to come up that would delay or derail them.

“My folks told me when they first joined there wasn’t a cocktail hour and the speeches went on for what appeared to be hours before dinner was served. That changed after some of the members threatened to leave the organization if the officers did not change the fund-raiser format.”

“It’s apparent they listened,” she said, smiling.

“They didn’t have a choice,” Langston countered. “But there was a trade off. Membership dues and the price of the dinner tickets were increased to offset the cost of a cocktail hour. This year they’ve projected realizing a larger profit from the fund-raiser because they didn’t have to rent space at the hotel because the Gibsons decided to donate this venue.”

Georgina liked talking with Langston because he was a wealth of information about the goings-on in the town. The store had become her world, isolating her from everything outside the doors of Powell’s Department Store.

She’d spend most of the day in the office, checking invoices, inventory, and managing payroll, while her father passed the time on the floor, interacting with customers and meeting with various vendors and deliverymen. And whenever she felt as if she was going stir-crazy, Georgina would leave the office to exchange pleasantries with customers, walk down to the bank to deposit receipts, or go across the street to Ruthie’s for lunch. Working at the store since graduating high school had become a good and bad experience. Good because she’d learned the inner workings of to how to operate a business, and bad because after spending so many hours at the store she had little or no energy to do much more than take a long soak in the tub and go to bed, just to get up the next day and do it all over again.

She had already established hours for her own shop so she wouldn’t work seven days a week, or ten hours a day, and it would be the first time when she would be able to balance work with possibly a future social life.

The speeches ended to rousing applause, and within minutes the waitstaff began serving those on the dais, town officials and then the assembly, while the DJ increased the volume on the music, but not so loud that one had to shout to be heard. Georgina had to admit her choice of roast capon with rosemary cider gravy, roasted cauliflower with scallion and lemon, and rice pilaf was not only appealing in presentation but also scrumptious. Meanwhile, bartenders wheeled carts around the room, filling beverage orders.

The man on her right, the owner of the laundromat/dry cleaner, talked incessantly about missing his wife of more than thirty years who’d died earlier in the year, and that running his business wasn’t the same without her presence. The cheerful woman who’d manned the laundromat had greeted everyone with a smile, and most of the residents in the Falls turned out for her funeral.

Georgina had to admit, aside from the long-winded speeches, she was enjoying herself. Various floating conversations had her smiling when someone let it slip that a woman was cheating on her husband with their neighbor. She hadn’t been to a social event since prom, so she did not have a frame of reference from which to ascertain whether the fund-raiser was an overwhelming success. The silent voice in her head chided her for not experiencing normal events a twenty-and thirty-something single woman would or should have. She’d become the good daughter in every sense of the word, but to her emotional detriment, which threatened to make her as socially reclusive as her mother.

She coveted what little free time she had occasionally watching her favorite TV shows, knitting or crocheting, and she had to thank her grandmother for teaching her the handicrafts passed down through generations of Reed women. Grandmother Dorothea, or Dot, insisted she pay close attention when she taught her to cast on stitches to knit her first garment. Georgina proudly wore the scarf and then began her next project—a crocheted ski cap. By the time she’d celebrated her twelfth birthday she was able to follow and complete difficult patterns utilizing multiple colors, needles and hand or machine quilting. Although Powell's had stocked fat quarters for those who still pieced quilts, it had been years since Georgina had made a quilt.

She had inherited a prized collection of antique quilts hand sewn by her great-great-great-grandmother she had wrapped in tissue paper and stored in moisture-free plastic containers on a top shelf of her bedroom’s walk-in closet.

Georgina shifted her attention to Langston. “How’s your fish?” He’d selected broiled flounder stuffed with lump crab and topped with shrimp in a béarnaise sauce.

“It’s delicious. The Gibsons have outdone themselves tonight. I’m so used to their smoked brisket, ribs and chicken that I had no idea they could get hoity-toity on us.”

Georgina laughed at Langston’s description of the dinner choices of roast prime rib with an herbed horseradish crust, fish and chicken. “They had to change it up if they want repeat business.”

Langston draped his right arm over the back of her chair. “Do you ever go to the Den?”

“Hardly ever. Once I come home, I veg out.”

“Are you saying it’s all work and no play for you?” he asked.

“Just about. I work six days a week, and alternate Sundays with my father.”

“That’s a heavy schedule.”

“It is. But I’m used to it.” Georgina was used to it and she was counting down to the time when she would log a forty-hour workweek instead of an average of sixty-five. “How about you, Langston? Do you put in long hours?”

“It all depends. If I must cover a town council meeting in the evening, then I come in later in the day.”

Georgina met his eyes, silently admiring the length of his lashes. It had been a while since she’d taken out her sketch pad to draw, but there was something about Langston’s face that made her want to capture his image on paper. “Do you like working for yourself?” He smiled, bringing her gaze to linger on his mouth and still lower to the slight cleft in his strong chin.

“What I like is the flexibility. I have an incredible office manager who doesn’t need me to be there to supervise her. She’s been with the paper for years and she’s not shy about telling me what our subscribers don’t want. I trust her instincts because I’ve been away for almost twenty years.”

Many young people left the Falls to go to college or enlist in the military, but Georgina had become the exception. “You left and I stayed.” Georgina had spoken her musings aloud.

Langston leaned closer. “Did you ever think about leaving?”

Georgina lowered her eyes. “More times than I can count.”

“What about now, Georgi?”

“I can’t now.”

“Are you engaged?”

A slow smile parted Georgina’s lips. “No. I don’t have time for a boyfriend. And if a man did ask me out, he’d have to have me home before midnight because I’m up at six and in the store at eight to get everything ready to open at nine.”

“What about tonight? This event is scheduled to end sometime around one. Last year it wasn’t over until after two.”

“I’m not scheduled to work tomorrow.” The store’s Sunday hours were twelve noon to six.

“So Cinderella can stay out beyond midnight,” Langston teased.

“She can stay out all night if she chooses.”

Georgina could not remember the last time she’d stayed out all night. When she’d dated a man from Beckley, she would occasionally spend the night at his house even though she had to get up early the next morning to drive back to Wickham Falls. Her father knew she was sleeping with a man, but never broached the subject with her. After all, she was an adult and responsible for her own actions and behavior.

“Now if we were in DC or New York we could leave here and hang out at a jazz club and listen to music until the sun comes up. Then we would go to an all-night diner for breakfast.”

She was intrigued by his supposition. “What would we do the next day?”

“Sleep in late. I’d also make dinner for you before taking you home.”

Georgina laughed softly. “So you do cook.”

A smile ruffled Langston’s mouth. “I do all right.”

“How much is all right?” she questioned.

“It depends on which type of cuisine you’d want. I’m partial to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes.”

Georgina slumped back in her chair, then sat straight when Langston’s fingers grazed her exposed skin. His touch raised goose bumps on her arms as shivers eddied down her celibate body. And not for an instant could she forget that Langston Cooper was a very attractive man and eligible bachelor.

Langston had become a hometown celebrity after he was hired by a major all-news cable station where he was assigned to cover wars and skirmishes on the other side of the world. When his first book depicting his experience as a foreign correspondent was released it was as if every resident in Wickham Falls was reading it at the same time. The follow-up to his first book proved to be controversial when he was summoned to appear before a congressional committee where some members had accused him of being a spy or collaborating with enemy forces because of his knowledge of classified information. The charges proved unfounded. Langston resigned from the news station and returned home with superstar status.