Warm Front Read online

  “It’s seen life. And family.”

  There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that except a grunt conveyeing she’d heard his words.

  They settled back into work.

  An hour later, as she went to refill her coffee mug, she caught a glimpse of his screen as she passed.

  It was enough to stop her.

  That was not for Zeke-Tech.

  “What are you looking at that for?” she asked.

  “Reading up on growing oats in Illinois. Ever considered expanding your repertoire?”

  “We seed oats as a cover crop. I seed oats as a cover crop.”

  “But you grew the oats to make the oatmeal you fed me and gave to Vanessa and the others. It’s delicious.”

  “Yeah, we have a small plot of oats for us. But you liked that oatmeal because of all the other stuff in it, not the oats.”

  “The extras were great, but the oatmeal itself was the best I’ve ever had. Why not grow more?”

  Her mouth lifted slightly. “There’s a reason farmers around here grow corn and soybeans. Oats don’t pay us as well.”

  “I’m still going to learn about oat-growing.”

  Despite herself, she chuckled. “Knock yourself out, Mr. Smooth.”

  He groaned. “You’ve heard that already? Can’t decide if it’s better or worse than Everett calling me slick.”

  She waggled her hand. He groaned again.

  Time for her to get back to work.

  If he wanted to do his studying up on oats in the kitchen because he liked the novelty of a working kitchen, that was no skin off her nose.

  She could concentrate on her work just fine.

  Just fine.

  *

  Everett, the original tech-hater, had the computer on when she came downstairs Wednesday morning.

  That was why she stopped in her tracks. Shocked that he knew how to turn it on.

  She was sure that was why.

  Not because of the voice she heard coming from the speakers.

  Quince.

  Supper had been quiet last night. So had the kitchen after Everett went off to watch TV and she began her work.

  Strictly because she’d gotten used to having another person in the house. Which also explained why she’d tossed and turned last night.

  She’d been so restless overnight, she’d succumbed to temptation and hit the snooze button a couple times this morning.

  Why was it that getting up before sunrise seemed so much darker and harder some mornings than others?

  Thanks to her late start, she’d prepared breakfast wearing her bathrobe — drawing a few pointed comments from Everett — then went back up to get ready for her appointment two counties over, which would be followed by another round of errands.

  “What’s going on?” she asked him.

  “Shh. I can’t hear with you yammering.”

  That was why she stayed to listen. And watch. It was the only way to get an answer to her question.

  Everett did contribute a few words during periods of sustained applause. “Release.” “Streaming.” And in a burst of loquacity, “Quince set it up. Showed me how to run this thing.”

  By then she’d figured out that this was the big event — the official announcement of a new release from Zeke-Tech.

  What specifically it was, she had no idea. If she’d concentrated she could have handled the tech talk. But she was less interested in what they were presenting than how they went about it.

  Quince and Zeke were on a full-blown stage, sitting in easy chairs angled so they could see each other and the audience could see them, against a simple backdrop of drapes. Flanking the chairs were huge screens that provided close-up viewing for the live audience and the — well, she had no idea how many people watched on computers and devices around the world.

  Zeke was the star, of course.

  But she found herself focusing on how Quince kept the metaphorical spotlight perfectly centered on Zeke. He fed him questions, he filled in non-tech speak when needed, he gave Zeke confidence and ease by preserving the illusion that it was just the two of them talking, at the same time he made each member of the audience feel as if she or he were a privileged third member in that conversation.

  When the camera went to Vanessa, standing in the wings, Quince smoothed over her abrupt pull-back and drew her in with a few questions, until it seemed natural to shift back to Zeke, leaving the last impression of Vanessa as assured and comfortable.

  Quince was good at this.

  No, he was great at this.

  If it were the only thing he did for Zeke-Tech, she could see that he must be hugely valuable.

  But of course this wasn’t the only thing he did.

  She supposed at some level she’d understood that he must be good at what he did.

  Understood, but hadn’t felt it.

  Not really.

  From that first moment of seeing him, she’d focused on what he wasn’t, what he couldn’t do, what he didn’t know. She hadn’t seen what he did know, what he could do, who he was.

  Because she needed to be so focused on the farm. Because she couldn’t afford to be distracted by anything.

  Anyone.

  But now it was as if the computer screen had reached out and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a good shake and saying, “Look. Look. For these few moments, look at Peter Quincy III and see him.”

  And she did.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  At Zeke’s instigation, the deluxe town car delivering them from O’Hare back to Drago became the site of an impromptu executive meeting of CEO, COO, and CFO.

  It wasn’t the first time the three of them had met on the go.

  In the pre-Drago days it would have been because Zeke wanted to get these meetings out of the way so he had more time to invent more things Vanessa had to finance and Quince had to make and sell.

  Now Zeke wanted to make use of this time so it freed him to spend more with Darcie.

  Not that the man had stopped inventing. By Quince’s reckoning, the next release event would come up by mid-summer if he couldn’t slow the process.

  He wanted to slow the pace partly because the public was hard to excite when these events came too close together. New! Exciting! Revolutionary! Started to feel humdrum when trumpeted daily.

  Also partly because it took a whole lot of work to pull these off.

  Not that he could complain much about this one. His assistant had done a fine job handling the onsite preparations.

  Which probably meant she’d be moving on soon.

  Well, he’d make sure hiring her replacement was among her duties.

  “…don’t you think so, Quince?”

  “I know you’ve put a lot of thought into it, Vanessa. And I trust your judgment.”

  “You weren’t listening.”

  Six months ago, he would have gotten away with that.

  He opened his mouth but she raised a hand, as if to tell him not to bother. “I said recommended that, rather than bringing business cars in from Virginia, we arrange with Stenner Autos for a fleet here. Folding in a repair agreement it would make it more economical, as well as generate good will locally.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Speaking of doing business locally,” Zeke said, “What about using Chitmell’s bank? What’s the name of it? Trusted, Secure something or other.”

  He directed the question to Vanessa, but Quince spoke up before she could.

  “He’s not a good choice.”

  “You’re the one who introduced us,” Zeke objected with surprise. Quince was aware of Vanessa’s questioning look.

  “Introduced, not endorsed.”

  “But—”

  “Have you heard something that makes you reluctant to do business with him?” Vanessa asked.

  He met her gaze. She was getting the hang of reading people faster than he ever would have believed. Sometimes he missed the old, unaware Vanessa. Especially when he wasn’t sure of his ow
n motives.

  “Not directly,” he said.

  She gave a slight nod.

  “What about the benefit of generating good will by keeping things local and the insights someone local can give us?” Zeke asked.

  “We benefit from local perspective and good will most if we’re doing business with the right people,” Vanessa said. “I’ll get recommendations from Jennifer. She has broad experience with how local banks treat businesses. I’ll see what she says, then we can decide.”

  “You can decide,” Zeke amended. “I only brought the guy up because Quince introduced us New Year’s Eve.”

  “And that’s a good point, too, Zeke,” Quince said. “You don’t want to be seen as playing favorites in your hometown. Far better to let Vanessa and me take on the role of saying yes or no to the locals.”

  “Yeah.” Zeke brightened visibly. “I like that.”

  *

  Anne sat at the café counter, nursing her mug of coffee.

  Her appointment had been yet another bust. She’d knocked off her list of errands by rote. She should have gone home and worked. Instead, she’d come in here to indulge herself by paying for coffee that someone else made.

  The chatter around her was mostly about yesterday’s Zeke-Tech event.

  A year ago maybe a handful of people in Drago would have known it had even happened.

  Now, the café seasonal conversation standbys of the weather, the high school basketball team, and the Chicago Cubs’ prospects when baseball started were jostled by commentary on technical advances, stock prices, and how Zeke-Tech was positioning itself in the market.

  “Here he is!” called out Ted Warinke from down the counter.

  Anne turned and saw a grinning Quince enter, wearing his beautiful coat that looked no worse for its hay dust shower. It must have cost the earth in dry cleaning to have it looking this good. Though dry cleaning had nothing to do with the fit of the shoulders or—

  Tailoring. Really, really good tailoring.

  Ted and Mrs. Richards got up to meet him by the door and shake his hand. Over Ted’s shoulder, he met her eyes and she found herself smiling back at him.

  Amid congratulations and general comments, he sat next to her, with the others moving down a spot.

  Had that happened by accident? She couldn’t be sure.

  He ordered another round for everybody and while Loris behind the counter was carrying that out, she quietly said, “They’re right. You were really good yesterday.”

  “You watched? You thought it went well?”

  “It went great. I can’t believe— Never mind.”

  “You can’t leave something like that dangling. You can’t believe what? That we used the blue background again? That we couldn’t get Vanessa to come on stage? That I stumbled over the name of darned thing twice — well, one and a half times.”

  “Twice.”

  He grimaced. “Fine. Twice. What can’t you believe?”

  “That you did it so well so fast.”

  “Fast? We’ve been working on this for more than a year.”

  “The software, yeah, but—”

  “The release presentation, too.”

  “But you said last week you were working with Zeke on the release announcement.”

  “A release announcement. Not this release announcement. Was talking to him about the one after the next one. Pulling these together is a process, a long process. If I don’t get with Zeke when he’s in the throes of developing something new, by the time it’s released he’s lost all enthusiasm for it. Heck, he can barely remember what it is. So I get with him early to capture what excites him about it so I can toss that back to him and rekindle that excitement for the release. Being there early-on also lets me start the ball rolling on what we’ll need for manufacturing, packaging, marketing. So when— What? What’s that look for?”

  “It’s like farming. Each season is so different and demands your attention. Yet in each season you need to think about the others or you’ll miss important indicators and be behind when the others roll around.”

  He pulled his head back, studying her. She refused to fidget under that examination.

  Or under the beam of the slow, spreading smile that followed it.

  “That’s right.” He sounded pleased. “I never would have thought of it being like farming, but you’re absolutely right. The planting, growing, harvesting, preparing, then repeating. And rotating, balancing, so you don’t deplete the soil.”

  She was smiling back at him.

  She could feel it. In the muscles around her mouth, at the corners of her eyes. And somewhere deeper.

  She slid off the stool, going off the side away from him, finding her feet barely in time.

  He reached for her, as if she might fall, but she stepped back, proving she wouldn’t.

  “I have to go. Just saw the time. No, Loris, thanks, I can’t stay for another coffee. Have to run.” She’d pulled on her parka and mittens with the speed of practice. She waved down the line at the counter. “See you. Bye.”

  Quince had turned on his stool, watching her.

  “See you at home.”

  She flashed a look at him at those words, then away. Already pivoting for the door.

  *

  Quince watched her go with his head saying don’t make something out of nothing.

  Outside the door she barreled into Darcie, in uniform.

  Before his muscles did more than twitch, Darcie planted her feet wide and kept them both from going down.

  They had an exchange, accompanied by smiles — Anne’s a little tight — then she continued on her way, while Darcie came in.

  Spotting the empty stool next to him she took it, unzipping her jacket, as she exchanged greetings with the group. “Loris, you are an angel in heaven, already having a coffee ready.”

  “Thank Quince. He bought a round for the place and Anne left before she drank hers. So you’ve got her leavings. Clean mug, though.” She drifted toward the other end of the counter where the Drago Dragons’ latest basketball game was being dissected.

  Darcie picked up the mug, toasted it toward Quince and said, “I thank you. When it comes to enjoying an alternative to the coffee down at the station, I’m definitely not too proud to take Anne’s leavings. She did seem in a hurry.”

  She glinted a speculative look at him over the rim of the mug.

  “You’re welcome. Still on duty? Zeke will be disappointed. He was after the driver all the way from O’Hare to make better time. He might have mentioned it to the pilot of the plane, too.”

  She t’ched. “I told him I wouldn’t be home until after eight tonight.”

  “He forgot, if he heard you at all. In fact, he tried to finagle an early departure last night until Brenda reminded him he was committed to meetings this morning.”

  “If Brenda won’t move here, Zeke-Tech’s next invention better be a way to clone her. You all did great yesterday, by the way. I already told Zeke on the phone to tell you and Vanessa you both deserve raises. I know, I know, he forgot to tell you that, too. But I mean it. You’re miracle workers. Vanessa in the financial bowels of Zeke-Tech and you in making my husband appear like an easy-going bon vivant instead of the dear curmudgeon genius he is. And, yes, I did notice how you changed the subject away from Anne Hooper.”

  Even as he admired her delivery of that last part — didn’t draw a breath, didn’t change tone — he faced the reality that either the women in this town were sharper than he was used to or he was really slipping. He’d have to work on that. Especially with them infecting Vanessa.

  In the meantime, he had another approach to try.

  In the same easy tone that wouldn’t be easy to overhear yet gave no indication they might be trying to keep their conversation from the others, he said, “You want to talk about her? Then tell me what her husband was like.”

  Her eyebrows hiked.

  She sipped her coffee.

  Spaced-out, thoughtful, tormenting sips.


  Finally, she said, “Seemed nice enough.”

  “Seemed?”

  “Don’t read anything into that. He was a few years ahead of me, from kindergarten through high school, but I never got to know him. He kept himself to himself, if you know what I mean.”

  “Even after he married?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much. I never knew Anne to do more than say hello to in the grocery store until she started working for Jen at the dealership. Maybe it was different with her fellow farmers. They help each other at busy times or if something big comes up, that kind of thing. So, once she was accepted as part of that community, they’d get to know her real well. Although…”

  He waited. But, c’mon. How long did she need to think this over? “Although, what?”

  “I know a lot of the farm families better than I knew Anne until recently. Maybe that’s because of the other families’ kids — so they’re in town a lot for school things. But, then I was thinking, too, that I’ve probably known Everett better all along than I ever knew Chris. He was just so quiet.”

  So, once she was accepted as part of that community, they’d get to know her real well.

  But what if she hadn’t been accepted? Farmers spent a lot of time alone by the demands of their job. Plus, she’d been an outsider. With a quiet husband. Who died unexpectedly. So she had to work like crazy. That had to have kept her apart. Add in her great-uncle’s pride and he had to wonder how isolated she’d been.

  And then there were the finances of Hooper Farm.

  “Quiet, yet he went on a spending spree not long before he died that left the farm in a hole?” he asked.

  She studied him a moment. “That’s what I hear. But—”

  “Darcie. C’mon down here. We need somebody to settle this,” Mrs. Richards called. “These two can’t agree if it was four years ago or five when the Dragons lost the game that would have sent them to the playoffs on that horrible foul call by Oren DeWitt from over in Lee County.”

  “Four,” Loris said.

  “Five,” disputed Ted.

  Darcie put down her empty mug. “Keeper of the peace, that’s me.”

  She patted his arm as she passed him on her way to arbitrate the dispute.

  It almost felt like compassion.