Page 23 of A Secret Chance
“I know the type. The guys whose plaid jackets had never seen sawdust, the kind that didn’t know how to change a tire, let alone operate a chainsaw.” She laughed. “When did you...” she held her hand out and raised it up and down in front of his face and expensive wool jacket.
“Sell out?” he quipped.
“I wasn’t going to say that.” Lauren pressed her lips together in an attempt to suppress her smile. “I was going to go with ‘go to the dark side’.”
“That works too.” There it was. That glint in his eye again.
“Tell me more about your camping.” Her lawyer's brain rationalized that this was a legitimate business question or even a strategy. If Baxter Caldwell had an affinity for the outdoors, she might be able to appeal to his granola roots and get him to modify the plans. Yes, that was the reason she was hooked on every word that came out of his mouth. Not because she wanted to hear his deep voice talk about the beauty of high-altitude lakes, or to picture this gorgeous man chopping wood and lighting a campfire. She was good at lying to herself.
She hadn’t noticed the time slipping away, the background disappearing behind Baxter, the bustling coffee shop noise fading into white noise behind them until they were the only two people in the world, but as soon as someone dropped a plate in the background, she snapped out of it. He was talking about some three-week canoe trip somewhere in Maine.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. She took the last sip of her coffee that had gone cold. “As much as I love hearing about your hand-built lean-to shelters, we need to talk about your development.”
Baxter thinned his lips and looked down into his cup of coffee. “I wish you wouldn’t see me as the enemy.” He looked up and folded his hands on the table.
“Enemy?” Lauren laughed. “I’m not the only one who feels that way. You’re the biggest, baddest guy to roll into this town in years.”
Baxter sighed. “I wish I had known that before I showed up.”
“How could you not?” Lauren asked. “This project is going to destroy the town and the natural wildlife around it.”
“But it’s not.” Baxter leaned onto his elbows. “It’s going to bring so much more tourism here. This will put Chance Rapids on the global scene. This place is going to be dripping with celebrities.”
Lauren crossed her arms, “And what makes you think that the people who live here want to be bumping elbows with Britney Spears.”
Baxter’s eyes shot open wide and he laughed. “Britney Spears?”
“That’s the only celebrity I could think of off the top of my head.” Lauren hadn’t listened to pop music or kept up with trends since, well, since Britney was on the charts. She felt the redness surging to her cheeks.
Baxter smiled and shrugged. “Maybe she’ll film her next video here.”
Lauren studied Baxter’s face. She couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.
“I’m friends with a few big producers in the industry and they’ve already expressed interest in shooting here.”
He wasn’t joking.
“What about your camping, or your love of the outdoors?” she asked. “That doesn’t seem to fit in with your master plan of jet setting celebrities and penis towers.”
His eyebrows looked like they were going to disappear up into his thick hairline. “Penis towers?”
“Yeah.” She folded her arms. “Someone on your design team is making up for some shortcomings in the pants department.”
“Ha,” Baxter laughed and touched his fingertips to his eyebrows as he shook his head. “You’re probably right.” His shoulders shook as he laughed. He looked to her with tears in his eyes. “You mean the underpants department, right?”
She knew that he was playing with her but couldn’t help but find his naïve wide-eyed act endearing, and discovered that he was one of those guys who could raise just one eyebrow, something she’d never been able to do.
“That’s the one.”
Baxter drained the last of his cold coffee. “Look, Lauren. There are things I’d like to change about the project. That tower is one of them. But I represent a company, one that employs thousands of people that have to feed their families. This plan isn’t perfect, but it’s going to help a lot of people.”
“Just not these people here.” Lauren looked around the room.
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.”
“What do you mean by that?” Lauren could feel ice seeping into her veins.
“This town needs this. It will help people. Everyone here is just too narrow-minded or short-sighted to see that.”
