Chapter 7
Jenna Miller had an expression on her face that would curdle milk—lip curled, eyes narrowed, arms folded, head cocked to one side like she was seriously skeptical about anything he might say before he’d even spoken.
Jack kept his expression friendly and relaxed as he flicked his gaze away from her.
Lizzy Harper had invited him to this meeting, and he was going to do his utmost to be helpful to those attending, no matter what Jenna Miller thought about it.
Admittedly, he’d been reluctant when Michael had first floated the idea to him, at the boardgame evening last week. “We could really use an injection of energy into our little group,” he’d told him with enthusiasm. “And as someone with so much experience…”
Not that he’d even talked up his experience.
He’d asked him what he’d done before moving to Starr’s Fall, and he’d told him, end of.
When Michael had, with obvious interest, pressed for more information, Jack had given it to him—just the facts, no humble (or otherwise) bragging.
And when he’d practically begged him to come to their little Business Association meeting, he’d agreed, because it seemed rude not to and, the truth was, he was going a little crazy with the boredom and isolation.
He should have realized Jenna Miller would be here… and looking like she was spitting nails.
“Jack…?” Michael prompted, and belatedly he realized he was supposed to speak.
Michael seemed to be waiting for him to impart some serious pearls of wisdom, like he had the magic formula for financial success in his back pocket.
And once he might have, but now, stupidly, considering the way Michael had just bigged him up—and he hadn’t even mentioned all his accomplishments—he felt nervous.
That, he suspected, was down to Jenna and the look on her face.
Jack gave the room a friendly smile, making sure his gaze skimmed right over the woman glaring at him from the back right of the table.
“Before I say anything myself,” he told them all, “I’d love to hear from you, and what your experiences have been, operating a small business in Starr’s Fall.
What are the advantages, the challenges?
” He raised his eyebrows, smile still in place, although he could feel Jenna fuming.
“What excites you about having a business here, and what worries or even frightens you? What’s happened in the past, and what is your vision for the future?
” He could feel himself getting into the rhythm of what he was saying, his voice falling into that upbeat and confidently coaxing tone that had won over so many would-be investors.
It felt good, getting back into it, even if he was just advising a bunch of small fish in a very small pond.
How the mighty have fallen.
He could imagine Alex, his old nemesis from Axios Investments, snickering at the sight of him sitting here, like he was at the head of an important board meeting in some gleaming tower on Wall Street, instead of in a church basement that smelled like gym socks and stale coffee.
Never mind. These were, he’d discovered over the last few weeks, kindhearted and decent people—at least bar one, who was now openly scowling at him.
He almost felt like telling her to be careful, because her face might freeze that way.
He could imagine his mom saying that to him once upon a time, a thought that made him ache with sorrow and so he pushed it away.
“Anyone?”
“An advantage is definitely the community here,” Laurie volunteered with a warm smile for the whole group.
“I moved here a year ago, totally on my own, and everyone was incredibly welcoming and supportive. The number of people who turned up for my grand opening…” Her eyes brightened with emotion as she looked around at everyone assembled.
“It still makes me choke up. People want businesses here to succeed?—”
“Well, save that adults-only store that guy from Torrington tried to open, next to where that new pizza place is,” Rhonda chimed in darkly.
“We didn’t want that kind of thing going on here, let me tell you.
He was selling VHS tapes out of his trunk in the parking lot before we had him move on.
” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper as she explained to Jack, “We had Mike, the town mechanic, give him a friendly nudge. If you’ve ever seen Mike, you’d know how that went. ”
“All right,” Jack replied, both startled and amused and trying to hide both emotions. “Thank you.”
“Rhonda, that was twenty-five years ago,” Liz interjected good-naturedly.
She turned to Jack with a smile. “I didn’t even live here then, but I know that nothing like that has happened since.
” She tucked her silver hair behind her ears.
“But I agree with Laurie. The community here is great in terms of support. But…” She hesitated, glancing around at everyone almost in apology.
“Sometimes people can be a little stuck in their ways. I get it, because no one wants Starr’s Fall to change?—”
“Except we want the empty storefronts to be filled,” a young woman with a shock of bright pink hair chipped in. “Not all of us are against change, Liz.”
Jack saw the pink-haired woman give Jenna a friendly but rather pointed smile, and he realized that there was history here. History he must have accidentally stumbled into when he’d walked into Miller’s Mercantile.
“I know that,” Liz replied, also with a glance at Jenna, “but pretty much everyone in Starr’s Fall likes tradition.
There’s the way things have always been done, and that’s just accepted and not to be discussed.
” She gave a little shrug. “I’ve been here for over twenty years, and I still feel like a newbie sometimes.
What about you, Michael? You and Lizzy have only been here a couple of years. Do you feel like that?”
“In some ways, yes,” Michael replied. Jack knew he and his wife ran The Rolling Pin, which was a much more upmarket establishment than Miller’s Mercantile and seemed to do a fairly brisk trade in baked goods and coffees.
Jack thought there were some ways in which they could expand, but he hadn’t shared them with the Harpers yet.
“Certainly there’s a protocol in place for a lot of things,” Michael continued.
“The first time Lizzy and I judged the cake walk we didn’t rig the music right, and we got an earful. ”
Laurie laughed. “I remember Jenna telling me about that.” She glanced at Jenna, eyebrows raised, smile still in place.
“Jenna, what do you think? You’ve been in Starr’s Fall longer than any of us here, except for Rhonda and Annie.
” She turned to Jack. “Annie Lyman’s a lifer, too, but she’s not here tonight. ”
Jack nodded, waiting for his nemesis to speak. Jenna looked like she was chewing her tongue, no doubt in an effort to keep from spitting out something snarky about him. Jack found he enjoyed her fluster.
“Yes, Jenna,” he chimed in, all solicitude. “I’d love to know what you think.” He smiled as he met her narrowed gaze with a deliberately pleasant one of his own, suspecting it would annoy her more.
“What I think?” Jenna finally said, unfolding her arms and sitting up straighter. “I think we don’t need some New York hotshot telling us how to turn Starr’s Fall into something it’s not and never will—or should—be.”
Her words landed with a figurative splat, making everyone blink and recoil, just a little.
She’d spoken flatly, without any overt hostility, but she’d definitely soured the mood, and, Jack saw, she realized it, shifting in her seat as color came into her face and she glanced away.
Jack almost felt sorry for her. Almost, but not quite.
“Oh, come on, Jenna,” Michael finally said in a jovial, cajoling kind of voice. “I think we could certainly take some advice, at least.”
“And what kind of advice does Jack Wexler want to give?” Jenna asked with acid sweetness. She turned back to face him. “I’d love to hear it.”
“Before I give any advice,” Jack replied, instinctively mimicking her pseudo-sweet tone, “I’d love to hear from you .
What challenges do you face with Miller’s Mercantile?
” He kept her gaze as her face flared redder and her beady gaze turned into a full-on glare.
Jack waited. Maybe he shouldn’t be, but he found he was enjoying putting her on the spot.
* * *
Jenna shifted in her chair, willing the flush she could feel scorching her face to die down. Of course Jack was enjoying tormenting her like this. She could see it from the way his mouth kicked up at one corner, in a telling smirk. He was going to make her squirm… but she wouldn’t let him.
“Well, like everyone else, I face all the challenges of a twenty-first-century world with everything available online,” she stated evenly as she kept his ice-blue gaze.
“These days it seems like people want things to be cheap, convenient, and quick, and I’m not sure Miller’s Mercantile can be all three, although I have always tried to keep the prices low.
You might not know it, Jack,” she continued conversationally, “but over 10 percent of the residents in this part of Connecticut are living below the poverty line, and another 10 percent are hovering around it. Admittedly, we have our fair share of ex-urbanites and celebrities who come here for a taste of rural life, rocketing around the countryside in their Porsches and Beamers, but the average resident is struggling to make ends meet, and so my store, shabby though it might seem, reflects that.”
She stared at him, and he stared back, a glint of something that almost seemed like admiration but was probably just amusement in his eyes.
For a long moment no one spoke, and Jenna could feel the curious gazes of every single person in that basement boring into her as they watched her and Jack’s exchange like it was a tense tennis match.