Stephanie Bond - Baby, Don't Go

When she chanced another glance, he was walking away, his head and shoulders back. She watched his big body until he was out of sight.

Alicia bit into her lip. Marcus Armstrong seemed like an intelligent man. She was going to be disappointed if she discovered he was unstable, or some kind of religious zealot. The town didn’t have a church, but she’d noticed postings downstairs about “services” on Sunday in the great room. While she wasn’t a particularly religious person, she planned to attend to make sure nothing kinky was going on. Because something strange had to be going on. A town where the women and children lived in a boardinghouse and the men lived in barracks and a water tower supplied hot showers and the General Store sold live bait and haircuts were five dollars and everyone honked and waved…well, that was just… crazy . Wasn’t it?

Alicia sat down and booted up her notebook computer, then opened a new file and began to type. Undercover Feminist by Alicia Randall

A little more than a year ago, the Armstrong brothers, ex-military men, banded together to rebuild their hometown in the North Georgia mountains. Sweetness, Georgia was a tiny map dot decimated by an F-5 tornado just over ten years ago. The Armstrongs secured a federal grant to rebuild the town on the platform of recycling and alternative energy and set about reconstructing Sweetness. But to attract women to their fledgling remote town, they took the novel approach of placing an ad in a newspaper in economically depressed Broadway, Michigan, for women with a “pioneering spirit” looking for a fresh start. The ad promised lots of single, Southern men, although it wasn’t clear what was expected of the women in return. I decided to go undercover in Sweetness to see how the matchmaking and town-building experiment is working.

When I drove into town in a borrowed pickup truck, I felt as if I’d gone back in time fifty years. A covered bridge over a picturesque stream welcomed me to the outskirts of town. A water tower straight out of the movies stands watch over visitors driving in. The drivers of cars I passed honked and waved, as if we were old friends. In my mind I could see someone phoning someone else that they’d just spotted a stranger driving into town and to pass the word.

At first glance, the town looks like a movie set. The hair salon, for example, is named simply Hair Salon. But at second glance…well, the town still seems to be out of some zombie movie plot because I soon learned that the men and women don’t live together . The women and children live in a boardinghouse, and the men live in a barracks reminiscent of a military facility. And strangely, no one seems to think the living arrangements are odd. Methinks I will stay awhile and investigate further.

I walked into the town diner carrying a help-wanted sign and walked out with a job as manager. I figure it will give me the opportunity to meet some of the women who came to Sweetness in search of a new life, and find out if the experience has been all they expected it to be. The bonus? My boss is one of the Armstrong brothers—the eldest, in fact, and he appears to be the de facto leader of the community. He’s an imposing figure, single and about as approachable as a grizzly bear. I’ve been told that “he doesn’t like women.” (Although he’s infinitely straight.) In between slinging hash and dishing up apple pie, I hope to gain some insight into what he has in mind for the town, and what part he sees women playing in the future of Sweetness. Stay tuned…

“Still waiting on bacon!” Sheila shouted toward the grill.

Marcus flagged that he’d heard her, then turned a half dozen fried eggs and glanced around for Alicia Waters, his alleged cook. She stood at the opposite end of the counter chatting with Susan Sosa. Irritation ballooned in his chest—the woman seemed more interested in talking to the customers than tending the grill. Considering that she’d already caught a stack of menus on fire this morning, he was inclined to let her float around chinwagging, but his skills gained in KP duty in the Marines were limited, and he was falling more and more behind.

“Alicia!”

She looked over and he bit down on the inside of his cheek. When would those enormous brown eyes stop sending a jolt through his system?

“I could use some help over here.”

She held up a well-manicured finger. “I’ll be right there.”

A waitress named Terri scooted past him with a coffeepot. “Are the biscuits done?”

Marcus peeked into the oven to find it empty. Damn—he’d forgotten to put them in. “Not yet.”

A third waitress named Gina walked up and extended a half-empty plate of food. “The guy at table six said his steak was too well-done—he ordered medium rare.”

Marcus noticed it hadn’t kept the man from eating half of the T-bone. He tamped down his frustration and glanced toward the cook-wanted sign in the window. “Gina, can you cook?”

“No,” she said definitively.

“Do you know anyone who can?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Somebody in this town must cook—what does everyone eat at the boardinghouse?”

“Mac and cheese, frozen dinners, pizza and Crock-Pot stuff.” She gestured to the crowded tables. “Why do you think this place is so packed, especially now that everyone knows it’s under new management?”

He grunted.

“Still waiting for bacon!” Sheila called.

“And the biscuits,” Terri added.

“What about the steak?” Gina asked.

He massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’ll fix another one.” This time, he’d leave it bleeding.

He sent another glance toward Alicia, only to find the woman bent over retrieving a pen from the floor. He hardened his jaw. She wore a pair of red shorts that were too short, in his opinion, no matter how nicely they hugged her derriere. And who wore high-heeled sandals to work in? Sure, they made her long legs look great, but they weren’t very practical. And thank goodness the apron she wore covered the T-shirt that was tight enough to remind him of the display he’d seen yesterday at the creek.

As if he needed a reminder.

The images had kept him awake most of the night, grinding his teeth against his body’s reaction.

She straightened, then headed his way, tucking her notebook into her pocket. Her hair was still in those silly pigtails. She walked up, then wrinkled her nose. “Something’s burning.”

He glanced down at the eggs and at the sight of the blackened edges, muttered a curse before scraping them all into the food waste canister.

“Someone’s not paying attention,” Alicia teased.

The words leapt to his tongue that his attention span had been fine before she came to town and started taking baths in the wild and wearing short shorts. Marcus closed his eyes. His lack of sleep— also her fault—was wearing on him. He opened his eyes, but averted his gaze.

“I need another dozen eggs from the kitchen, plus a T-bone steak and a tray of biscuits.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

He tucked his tongue into his cheek. His workers called him “boss” all the time…so why did it sound mocking coming out of her curvy red mouth? He tried to force his mind away from the woman and concentrate on the orders that were coming in. The three waitresses were tossing around slang he could barely decipher.

“Flop two, over easy.” (Two fried eggs, runny yoke.)

“Heart attack on a rack.” (Biscuits and sausage gravy.)

“Two pigs in a blanket.” (Sausage links wrapped in pancakes.)

He was on the verge of throwing up his hands when Alicia returned with the promised food from the kitchen. She glanced over the food orders written on tickets posted over the grill. “I’ll do the eggs and pancakes if you’ll take care of the meat.”