June Arrives, August Stays (Bean There, Done That #7)

Chapter 1

Someone Good

Melissa

Melissa Brandt had shaken forty-three hands in the past two hours, and her smile was starting to feel like a mask that had been glued on crooked.

The Redwood Hollow Community Center was packed for the Friday breakfast event.

Local business owners and retirees and young families crammed around folding tables, paper plates piled with scrambled eggs and fruit cups, the low hum of conversation bouncing off the linoleum floors.

Morning sunlight streamed through the tall windows, warm for early June, promising a day that would have families heading to Ridgeline Lake by noon.

Melissa had dressed carefully this morning: charcoal blazer over a dove-grey silk blouse, her dark hair swept back in its usual low twist, not a strand out of place despite the humidity already building outside.

At forty-two, she’d learned that appearance was armor, and she wore hers like a second skin: the subtle pearl earrings, the neutral lipstick, the posture that made her five-foot-nine frame seem even taller.

Cool, composed, untouchable—exactly as intended.

She moved through the crowd, asking after grandchildren and business ventures and the potholes on Adams Street that apparently hadn't been filled since the last ice age.

Smile. Nod. Pivot. Repeat.

“Senator Brandt, wonderful to see you—”

“The zoning committee still hasn’t gotten back to us about—”

“My daughter just graduated from Oregon State. I was hoping you might—”

Melissa fielded each approach with the same measured warmth, the same attentive tilt of her head, the same promise to “absolutely look into that” or “have my office follow up.” It wasn’t a lie, though she knew some things would have priority over others. Such were politics.

In the far corner of the room, near the folding tables laden with fruit cups and mini muffins, Lila sat with a coloring book and a juice box.

Melissa’s gaze kept drifting there between conversations.

Her daughter was bent over her page with fierce concentration, her dark hair currently in the messy braid she’d attempted herself that morning.

She looked small against the institutional beige of the walls, her bright yellow sundress a spot of color in the sea of business casual.

Her grey-blue eyes, so like Melissa’s, were focused on her drawing.

Every few minutes, she’d glance up, scanning the room until she found Melissa, confirming she was still there, before returning to her markers.

She shouldn’t have to check that I’m here. As if I’d forget her…

“Senator Brandt?”

Melissa snapped back to the woman in front of her, a retired teacher whose name was either Margaret or Marjorie. “I’m so sorry, you were saying?”

“Just that we’re all so proud of what you’re doing with that infrastructure bill. My grandson lives out in Pinecrest, and they still don’t have reliable internet. Can you imagine? In this day and age?”

“It’s exactly why we’re pushing so hard for broadband expansion,” Melissa said. “Rural communities deserve the same access as everyone else.”

“Indeed.” The woman nodded toward Lila. “Such a well-behaved daughter you have, by the way. So quiet. You must be very proud.”

The compliment landed wrong, the way it always did. Melissa kept her smile intact. “She’s wonderful, yes.”

She’s quiet because she’s learned not to ask for much.

Margaret drifted away, and Melissa used the opening to check her phone. Three texts from her aide about the afternoon’s schedule. One from Rachel that just said:

You owe me brunch.

She shouldn’t have cancelled on Rachel last minute yesterday, but things had come up.

They always did.

“Senator Brandt.” A male voice, smooth and unpleasant. “That is quite the ambitious proposal you’ve put forward.”

Melissa looked up into the face of Warren Holt, Thornfield Development’s pet lobbyist. He was smiling with too many teeth, his suit too expensive for a community breakfast in Redwood Hollow.

“Mr. Holt.” She didn’t offer her hand. “I didn’t realize you were coming.”

She had hoped he wasn’t.

“We take an interest in anything that affects Oregon’s infrastructure.” His smile didn’t falter. “Though some of us wonder if the scope might be a bit… overreaching. Given the current political climate.”

“The current political climate seems quite favorable, actually,” she said, returning the chilly smile. “Seventy-three percent of Oregonians support expanded broadband access.”

“Polls can be fickle things. So can public opinion.” He adjusted his cufflinks, an idle gesture that managed to be a threat. “I’m sure you understand the value of… careful positioning.”

“I understand the value of doing my job, Mr. Holt. If you’ll excuse me.”

She walked away before he could respond, her heels striking the floor with more force than necessary.

The back of her neck prickled with the certainty that he was still watching.

Thornfield had been circling for weeks now, ever since the bill had gained traction.

They stood to lose millions if it passed, because of the added costs of broadband infrastructure.

They’d find something to use against her. They always did. The divorce had already done its circles through the news, but they’d find something else.

Or make something up.

Melissa made herself stop, take a breath, smooth her expression back into something camera-ready. A cluster of small business owners waved her over, and she went, because that was what she did. She went where she was needed, said what needed saying, smiled until her face ached.

Across the room, Lila had finished her juice box and was now carefully folding the empty container into a tiny accordion.

By ten-thirty, the crowd had thinned enough for Melissa to make her exit. She collected Lila’s coloring book and markers, helped her into her cardigan, and guided her toward the door with a hand on her small shoulder.

“Did you have fun, sweetheart?”

Lila considered this with seven-year-old gravity. “Mrs. Anderson said my elephant was ‘creative.’” A pause. “I think she meant it was bad.”

“Elephants are very difficult to draw. I’m sure it was lovely.”

“It had six legs.”

“Some elephants are more ambitious than others.”

Lila regarded her with serious eyes, as if trying to decide if her mother was making fun of her or not, and Melissa once again felt like she did everything wrong with her child.

The June morning was already warming as they stepped into the parking lot, sunlight cutting through the scattered clouds.

Redwood Hollow spread out around them in its familiar patchwork, and Melissa imagined it in her mind’s eye: the brick storefronts of downtown visible a few blocks north, the green rise of hills to the east, the houses spreading out.

In the air hung the faint smell of pine, drifting down from the forests surrounding the town.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“What’s ‘overreaching’ mean?”

Melissa’s step faltered. Lila had been listening. Of course Lila had been listening—she was always listening, always watching, absorbing everything with those quiet grey-blue eyes that were too observant for comfort.

“It means… trying to do too much at once.” Melissa unlocked the car, held the back door open. “Why do you ask?”

“The man in the shiny suit said it about you.” Lila climbed into her booster seat. “He seemed mean.”

“He’s not mean, exactly. He just wants different things than I do.”

“That’s what you said about Dad.”

The words hit like a sucker punch, perfectly aimed, even though Lila hadn’t meant for it to hurt. Melissa busied herself with the seatbelt, with adjusting the straps, with anything that meant not meeting her daughter’s eyes.

“That’s different,” she said, and hated how thin her voice sounded.

Lila didn’t push. She rarely did. She just accepted the non-answer with that unsettling composure that Melissa recognized too well—the same composure she’d taught herself at the same age, sitting quiet in corners while her parents fought, learning that stillness meant safety.

You’re supposed to be better than this. She’s supposed to be different.

The drive home took just over ten minutes through Redwood Hollow’s modest traffic.

They passed the coffee shop on the corner of Main and Cedar, past the library, past the newer developments creeping up the hillside that had changed the town’s skyline since Melissa’s first campaign eight years ago.

The car’s air conditioning blasted against the warmth that had built up while they were inside, and Melissa caught the scent of honeysuckle through the vents—someone’s garden in full bloom, spilling sweetness into the June air.

She pulled into the driveway of their Craftsman-style home, its sage-green exterior and white trim immaculate, the lawn freshly mowed, the flower beds full of both flowers and opportunist greens.

The hydrangeas along the front path were just beginning to bloom—fat clusters of blue and purple that the previous owners had planted and that Melissa had never quite gotten around to taking care of.

Her phone buzzed as she cut the engine. Rachel again.

Hi, I’m in your driveway.

So she was. The silver Prius parked to the side of the wide driveway belonged to Rachel Carter, who was currently leaning against its hood with two iced coffees and an expression of stubborn affection.

She wore pants and a light linen jacket, her dark curls escaping from a practical ponytail, a takeout coffee cup in each hand.

She had the kind of face that put people at ease—warm brown skin, laugh lines around her brown eyes, and lips that usually tugged upward.

At forty-three, she carried herself with the confidence of someone who’d spent two decades in emergency rooms and had long since stopped caring what anyone thought of her.

“This is new,” Melissa said, climbing out of the car.