Hometown Hero Read online

  “I’m sure our readers would like to know how you intend to manage your investments. Won’t your loss of memory put you at a disadvantage?”

  Most of the soldiers he’d met in the Army hospital had been heading back stateside for a life on Army disability pay and dependence on already over-extended relatives. He’s been a little surprised to learn that he was the exception. In the decade after he’d graduated from college, he’d taken a few thousand dollars he’d inherited from an aunt and earned from a variety of summer jobs, and piled it into a small fortune of ten million dollars. Despite neglecting his investments when he’d been in the hospital, the fortune was largely intact. Between money, a beautiful fiancée, a supportive family, and a community that idolized him, he could hardly be considered disadvantaged.

  “You know, that’s the first good question you’ve asked.”

  “Thanks.” She didn’t speak the follow-up—for nothing--but it was definitely there. Cynthia Meadows had an attitude a mile wide. For some reason, he found he liked it. It was probably just because he was sick of the combination of sympathy and obsequiousness that normally seemed to surround a wounded veteran who just happened to own half the town of Shermann.

  “As it turned out, just as I didn’t lose my ability to speak English, read, or handle basic arithmetic, it also seems that I didn’t lose my sense of the market, of trends and timing. I certainly can’t explain why, and it certainly isn’t something that I can take special credit for, but the knack with investments is still there.”

  She scribbled something. “Interesting. Are you planning on continuing the, uh, philanthropic ways you had before you went to war?”

  From her lips, the word philanthropic sounded almost like a slur. Maybe she was one of those people who figured that charities made people dependent and kept them from going out and doing things on their own.

  He wouldn’t have guessed that of her, but then again, he couldn’t remember whether he’d been particularly skillful at judging people. Maybe he was as bad at people as he was good at investments.

  He considered her question, then decided to give her the truth.

  “Let me tell you what I’m planning. I’m planning to recover my life.” He clenched a fist. “Recover my entire life, exactly the way it was before I went off to the war and had a huge chunk of it ripped away. That’s why I want to look at the papers you brought for me. That’s why I’m spending so much time with Heather and my parents. That’s why I came back to Shermann in the first place, when for all I can remember of growing up here, of even my parents’ faces, I might as well have gone to New York where, at least, the cultural life is more than the annual Junior League faire.”

  He’d said it baldly, but he meant it. From the newspapers, from the people with the faces of strangers who swore they’d been his friends, from the testimonials lining his office walls, and from Heather, the beautiful woman who was to be the future Mrs. Russell Lyons, he’d learned that his life had been close to perfect. Loved and respected in his community, the man who’d hooked the most beautiful woman in town—a woman who stuck with him despite the disaster of war—and a financial success. Who wouldn’t want to reclaim that heritage?

  His answer, or perhaps the emotional force behind it, appeared to rock Cynthia back on her figurative heels. It sure wasn’t what she wanted to publish in her newspaper.

  “I see. Well, you’ll find a lot of your life documented in the Shermie.”

  She reached down and unzipped the cheap oversized suitcase she’d stored her newspapers in.

  “The bad news is, it’s going to take a while to go through them. Not only are you in every issue. In most issues, you’re covered in more than one article.”

  “Perfect,” Russ told her. “The more I learn about myself, the sooner I can get back to being the person I was: the person I am meant to be.”

  “Right. Since I did most of the paste-up, how about if I find the articles and pass them to you? You can check them over and, if you’re interested, you can scan them into your computer or run them through the copy machine.”

  * * *

  “This is going to take longer than I thought. Let’s grab some lunch and we can get back into it—unless you’ve got other plans.” Russ stretched his body, wincing slightly as he went through one particular contortion. He’d been sitting almost motionless for hours, reading one article after another about a young man who shared his name, his body, but who had none of the same memories.

  Cynthia’s brown eyes softened and she reached a comforting hand to touch him on the arm. “Are you okay? I knew you were injured, but I guess I only really heard about your memory.”

  He told himself to ignore the sensation of her touch. Cynthia was simply showing concern. She didn’t want him responding to her in a sexual way. Besides, he was an engaged man. Sooner or later, he’d start responding sexually to Heather, and he wasn’t the kind of guy who would just sex up a girl and dump her—at least he didn’t think he was.

  He pulled his arm away from her touch. “The good news is, I’ve still got all my pieces. Which is a lot more than I can say for some of the other soldiers in the military hospital. The bad news is, I’ve got a few bonus bits—including some hunks from a bomb and some bolts and pins the doctors put in. Believe me, you don’t want to be near me when there’s a metal detector around.”

  Cynthia felt like whimpering when Russell jerked his arm away from her. She knew she wasn’t a fashion-plate like Heather, but she worked out, ran, studied T’ai Chi. She wasn’t horrible and pudgy the way she’d been in high school. It hurt that Russell couldn’t stand her touch, even for a second, even when every female instinct inside of her needed to comfort him, to care for the man who had sacrificed so much.

  An injured Russell Lyons just didn’t fit into her mental model. She was used to him being perfect.

  “Sorry.”

  He shrugged, then winced again. “As far as I know, I can’t blame this on you. Anyway, you’ve got to eat, you might as well join me.”

  He must have assumed she was apologizing for his injury rather than for touching him. Well, that made sense. He’d probably already suppressed the memory of that brief contact.

  “While we’re eating, you can tell me more about what I was like in high school, and afterwards.”

  It wasn’t a date, but a small, uncontrolled, part of her wanted to jump up and dance. He’d never taken her anywhere before, even when she’d been his Parliamentarian in the Student Council.

  A louder part started sending warning flags. Shermann was a small community. If rumors started floating around that she was trying to horn in on Heather’s man, no matter how unlikely it was that he would respond, she would be cut off from that community, ostracized by the businesses who bought advertising in the Advertiser-Dispatch, the society leaders who created the stories, and the ordinary people who bought the newspaper and allowed the paper to survive in a world where newspapers were becoming a dying artifact of an earlier, simpler time.

  “I don’t think Heather would approve,” she said.

  “Heather? Why should she—“ He caught himself. “Listen, I’m talking about having lunch with a friend, someone who’s known me for what, fifteen years? That’s half my life, more than half of yours. Nobody is going to mind.”

  Apparently Russell had forgotten more than he was letting on. Cynthia thought he was wrong, that people would gossip. Still, Heather knew she was working on this article, had actually suggested the write-up at the same time she’d conceived the parade in Russell’s honor. And if Heather didn’t mind, she would make sure the rest of Shermann went along. Between running her father’s department store, being Russell’s steady girlfriend, and her dominant personality, Heather created, rather than followed, the conventions of Shermann, Missouri.

  “I guess that would be all right.”

  “Good. We’ll take my car.”

  Heather’s Mini-Cooper was a good dependable car: one distinctive enough that it caught p
eople’s eyes, especially here in rural Missouri where pickup trucks were more common than gas-sipping coupes. She’d scrimped for years before she could afford to buy it. Compared to the leather luxury of Russell’s Jaguar, however, it was a broken-down jalopy.

  He opened the door for her, lightly grasping her elbow as she slid into the car, carefully tugging down her skirt even though she knew Russell wouldn’t bother looking at her legs in a million years.

  Again, her heart responded to his touch, pounding so hard she wondered if he was only pretending he didn’t hear it.

  His stereo started a bluesy jazz number the instant he fired up the Jaguar’s massive engine.

  “I never knew you liked jazz.”

  “Really?” He engaged the gear and pulled out of his office parking lot. “What kind of music did I like?”

  “Punk Rock, I think.”

  “You’re kidding.” He looked genuinely confused. “Why?”

  “You never told me why.” And she wouldn’t have presumed to ask.

  “Right. I guess I’ll have to learn to like it again, then. Maybe my time in the hospital exposed me to some different influences.”

  Something about his answer sent her reporter instincts into high gear. “Why would you force yourself to appreciate a type of music you don’t even like now?”

  He glanced at her as if seeing her for the first time. “I already explained this to you. I’m going to recover my life—and you’re going to help.”

  He signaled, then turned into the parking lot for the Shermann Winery and Brew-Pub, an upscale restaurant where Shermann’s business elite gathered to mingle and exchange gossip.

  Cynthia had eaten at the Brew-Pub exactly twice in her life. Her aunt had brought her there the day she’d graduated from high school—and learned that the scholarship she had hoped to achieve would never be hers. And the Advertiser-Dispatch’s publisher had invited her to accompany him when he’d been pitching the banker for a loan to expand his operation shortly after he’d hired her.

  With meals starting at close to fifty bucks, and even a Diet Coke setting a customer back five, there was no way the Advertiser-Dispatch was going to allow this on an expense report.

  “Uh, maybe we could go someplace a bit more, uh, casual.”

  “You look fine to me.” He engaged the parking brake and stood.

  As a high school athlete, Russell had been all lean muscle. After college, he’d relaxed a bit, not getting fat at all but tending toward trim and firm rather than cut and rock-hard. His stints in active duty and rehab had chiseled muscles she knew she’d never seen before—and she’d been the reporter who had taken the shots of Russell emerging from the pool the day he’d won the state champion in the butterfly—the day his Speedo had nearly slipped off.

  “It’s just that--” she might as well say it. “Look, Russell, I don’t have the cash handy to buy lunch here.”

  He laughed easily, as if she’d told a mildly amusing story. “I picked the restaurant, I’ll pick up the tab. Besides, Heather tells me I always eat here. You’re helping me get back into the person I am.”

  Maybe that was true. Before he’d set off to war, Russell had liked to hobnob with his peers, the men and women with money, the people who made decisions about zoning, growth, and where Shermann was heading.

  “I’m writing an article on you; it’s only fair that I pay for expenses.” She could put it on plastic and skimp for the rest of the month.

  “The day I make a beautiful woman buy me lunch is the day I have my head examined.”

  Another reason for her not to like Russell Lyons: as if she needed any more. He was a chauvinist and he could turn her heart without even meaning to. Beautiful, right.

  He opened the restaurant door for her, waved away the waiter who tried to seat her, and then sat across from her at the narrow rough-hewn wooden table that the Brew-Pub used in a failed attempt to pretend to be a German country-style restaurant rather than the exclusive place it was.

  He glanced at the menu quickly, then looked at her. “Okay, Cynthia. Tell me why I shouldn’t like this place.”

  Chapter 2

  Russell’s question caught her by surprise. “It’s one of Shermann’s major attractions,” she protested. “Of course you should like it. We get people from Jeff City, even St. Louis coming here. Many of them spend the weekend at B&Bs, shop in our antique stores, and help generate the revenues that keep the entire city vibrant.”

  His crooked smile showed amusement at her. “I wondered who wrote the content for the Chamber of Commerce website. Now I know. And everything you said is true. There are plenty of small towns, here in Missouri and everywhere around the country, which have either dried up, or turned into suburbs for the expanding cities. Shermann is holding its own partly because of places like this. That’s one reason I like to patronize it.”

  If that was true, Russell had changed in a big way since he’d gone off to war. Always before, his philanthropy had come complete with big strings and massive marketing. If he’d eaten at the Brew-Pub regularly, it was because it was the place to be seen, not because of any wish to support the community.

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” she demanded.

  “They also have excellent food. Have you decided?”

  The waiter responded instantly to a slight crook of Russell’s hand, taking their orders and, without being asked, bringing an appetizer sampler for them to enjoy before their meal arrived.

  Cynthia glanced around, checking to see if the other diners also received the appetizers. Instead, what she saw looked like a medieval court. People lining up, waiting for a chance to talk with the king.

  And the king was Russell. Russell, the man with the millions of dollars to invest in their town, the man whose whim could create a business out of nothing, start a fad, or destroy a business’s reputation.

  Russell glanced at the crowd and shrugged. “I want to continue that conversation when we have a moment to ourselves. In the meantime, it looks like a few people want to bend my ear. Do you mind if I take a couple of minutes to handle this? I assure you, you’ll have my full attention once the food gets here.”

  “Whatever. There’s a bench in the bar. I can wait there.”

  Russell’s laugh was infectious to the point where everyone around smiled. “Now that really would be rude of me. Please don’t leave. I promise I won’t be long. And if anyone wants to tell me something that couldn’t be printed in the paper, I don’t want to hear it anyway.”

  Prepared to be humiliated, Cynthia nodded and sunk back in her chair.

  But Russell included her in the conversation, got people talking to her about what they wanted covered in the newspaper, what they saw in the future of Shermann, what they wanted from their lives.

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise for her. Russell had always been good with people. But it had been his personal magnetism, his confident leadership, certainly not his interest in others, that had propelled him to the top.

  Two members of the city council asked for his guidance on a zoning ordinance coming up, an older farmer wanted his opinion on whether to sell his corn futures now or wait until later in the year when prices might be higher—or might collapse.

  Then Heather commanded the stage.

  If Cynthia had always felt a sense of rivalry between herself and Russell, she had never felt anything but inadequate compared to his fiancée. Heather oozed charm, had turned down a million-dollar modeling contract when she’d decided to return home to manage her father’s department store, and was always the first choice for President for every charity event, every social activity, every major municipal function. At twenty-five, she’d already served a term as Mayor and had only missed becoming Miss America because the networks had wanted to award the title to a richer media market than central Missouri.

  The worst, and most sickening part was, Heather was genuinely nice. She included Cynthia in activities when many of the other women would have rejected her for her poo
r background and lack of family connections.

  Unlike many others, Heather actually cared about the charities as well as the social activities the charity groups ran. She’d re-invigorated the OctoberFest that put Shermann on the Missouri tourism map and helped halt the decline in downtown Shermann businesses.

  Sure, she sometimes treated Cynthia like she should be more interested in getting another department store ad than in covering a real story, but Cynthia guessed that was because Heather thought ads were more important than the news. She might never read the front page of the paper, but Heather always knew what was stylish and what was heading out.

  Heather kissed Russell on his cheek, promised Cynthia that she would make sure every source opened up to her for the feature on Russell, and then led her group of Junior Leaguers to the back of the restaurant where a private room had been set up for her.

  “Don’t you need to go talk to her?” Cynthia swallowed down the huge rock of guilt and shame that built up in her breast. How dare she have sexy fantasies about Russell when he was already engaged to this perfect woman? “I mean, she has to have more memories of what you’ve been doing over the past decade than I do.”

  He considered his answer. “Heather is high energy, but the things she notices and she thinks are important aren’t the kind of things that I’m looking for. I’m looking for the emotional context, not what people were wearing or even what those outfits cost. I need someone who looks below the surface. That’s why I need you.”

  That was a big laugh. If deep thought had been on the list of qualifications guys looked for, Cynthia might have had a chance at being homecoming queen instead of being relegated to taking charge of the Senior Poetry Anthology.

  “She’s not stupid, of course,” Russell went on, apparently misunderstanding Cynthia’s silence. “But she’s more interested in society than the individual. I don’t know that she ever looked deeper into me than knowing my position in society—both when I was in high school, and afterwards when I returned from college and went into the investment business.”