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“Too much.” Mike sighed. “Budgets, purchasing, fees and licenses, billings. You’ll see tomorrow. I don’t know half of the stuff she does.” He shook his head and took a bite, oblivious to the fact that his words had stopped her heart.
What if she wasn’t up to it? What if she was all just big talk? What if she let Mike and the town down?
“Hey, Mayor. How’s it hanging?”
Mike looked up from a bite of salad to greet the man who’d stopped at their table. “Hey, Ned,” he said. “How’s the welcome sign coming along?”
“We’ll have it done for the festival. No worries.”
“Good.” Mike introduced her to Ned Langton, who’d bought Mike’s family’s landscaping business a few years back.
“So, I tried to join your Chamber last night,” Ned drawled, an amused grin on his face, “but couldn’t get your brother to give me the time of day.”
“Oh, yeah?” Mike stopped chewing.
“Couldn’t take his hands off his girl long enough to round up the form for me.”
“I see.” Mike set down his fork, his mouth grim, despite his easy words. “Stop by tomorrow and Evelyn can fix you up.”
“What I want to know is where he found her.” Ned leaned lower and winked, “And are there any more where she came from?”
“With a wife like Jill, why would you think twice, Ned?” There was an edge to Mike’s words.
“I’m not thinking about me. She got a friend for you? That’s what I mean.”
Mike shot an apologetic glance at Autumn. “I don’t know, Ned, but how about you write me a check for Chamber dues and we’ll mail you the temporary card. Save you time. How’s that?”
Ned didn’t like that suggestion, it seemed. He patted his shirt pocket and frowned sheepishly. “Left my checkbook at the house. I’ll stop by another day. Enjoy your dinner.”
“You called his bluff,” Autumn said when Ned had gone.
“Yeah.” He gave a rueful smile. “It’s pulling teeth to get these guys to join up. The Chamber funds economic projects and we really need everyone to ante up, but they don’t all see it.”
“That’s not what’s bothering you though, is it?”
“No. It’s my brother.” He shook his head. “Seems like the affair’s all over town. Since he met your friend, his brains have drained out his ears.”
“How so?” She hoped he wasn’t about to insult Jasmine.
“The minute Mark heard Jasmine was doing the pageant, he auditioned for it. What was he thinking? He’s got a business to run, he’s head of the Chamber and chair of my economic development committee. He doesn’t have time to be in a play, for God’s sake.” He shook his head.
“Maybe it’s true love.”
He shot her a look. “Your friend is a beautiful woman.”
“You mean she’s a stripper.” Anger flared, fast and hot as a suddenly lit match.
He quirked a brow. “I don’t care what she does for a living. The problem is how fast this is going.”
She just looked at him.
“Come on. You were rolling your eyes right along with me. They’re acting like a couple of teenagers. The man came back from a weekend in Phoenix and declared his dreams had come true. Lord.”
“Yeah,” she said, softening. “I know what you mean. Jasmine falls in love with love and gets hurt every time.”
“The thing is…” He hesitated. “Mark was like this once before.” He frowned and picked at his Tecate label. “He met this woman at a real estate seminar and right off he’s loaning her money and they’re talking about buying a house. Then he finds out she’s got a husband in Nevada and a check fraud conviction. Took him years to get over her.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yep. And he’s wild like that about your friend.”
“Look, Jasmine is a good person. She—”
“I’m sure she is. It’s just too fast and crazy. It’s—”
“Reckless. I know. They barely know each other. They’re telling themselves fairy tales.”
“Exactly,” he said. “So we’re both worried about them.”
“Yeah,” she said, relieved that Mike’s concerns matched her own. “I mean if it’s right, why not slow down?”
“There you go. Just what I told him.”
They shared a smile of commiseration.
“Hey, Mayor Mike!” A stylish blonde stopped at their booth, her arm around the waist of a tall guy in a cowboy hat.
“Celia. Hi,” Mike said. “Dan.” He nodded at the man.
“So, that sister of yours pregnant yet?” Celia asked him.
“You’ll know before me,” he said. “We both know that.”
Autumn recognized Celia’s name. She owned the beauty salon where Heidi had worked before moving to Phoenix.
“I want you to meet Autumn Beshkin,” Mike said. “She’s filling in for Lydia.”
“Autumn…I know that name….”
“Heidi’s a friend of mine. She does my hair.” She spoke fast, praying Heidi hadn’t mentioned what Autumn did for a living. She pushed a strand of hair into her braid.
“We miss Heidi so much,” Celia said. “Her counseling almost more than her hair work. She left us her self-help books when she went to Phoenix, but it’s not the same.”
Heidi was studying to become a therapist, Autumn knew. In fact, Heidi had helped convince Autumn she belonged in college.
“When you get us a regular clinic, Mike, get us a shrink, too, wouldja?” Celia said.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “We need a bigger population to keep a full-time doc busy.”
“I’m just teasing. Criminy Christmas, Mike, lighten up. He’s so serious all the time.” Celia smiled at Autumn. “I mean, heck, if you can’t laugh at yourself then everyone else will just have to do it behind your back.”
“I’m sure they already do, Celia.” Mike sighed.
“Cheer him up, would you?” she said to Autumn. “How long will you be here?”
“Just until Lydia gets back,” Mike said. “A month.”
“Don’t be rushing a new mother back on the job, Mayor Mike. Not everyone lives for council meetings. Maybe Autumn can stick around longer.” She smiled at her.
“This is just an internship. School starts up again soon. And I have a job.” They’d booked rehearsals for the new season of the revue right after the pageant was over.
“Well, shoot. Too bad you can’t stay. At the very least, maybe you can talk the man into getting a bowling team together. He’s got a good arm.”
“Hmm.” She looked at Mike.
“I’m too busy,” he said, lifting his hands as if for mercy.
“We’ve got a tournament coming. This boy needs a life. See if you can convince him.”
“I’ll try.” Autumn smiled and Celia and Dan moved on. “So, is she right?” she asked him, resting her chin on her fist.
“About my bowling? I do okay.”
“No, that you need a life.”
He shrugged. “Celia likes to pick at you till you bleed,” he said. “I hope you don’t need your hair done while you’re here. The Cut ’N Curl is a hive.”
“I think I’m fine.” She touched her hair.
“Yeah. Your hair is—nice. I, uh, like the color.” His tan darkened with blush.
The sexual vibe, a low rumbling between them as they’d talked, revved fiercely.
“Thanks. It’s natural.” Why had she said that? In her world, most strippers had extensions, blond dye jobs and fake boobs, so she took pride in what nature gave her. But Mike didn’t know that, nor would he care.
“So you won’t need the salon.” His voice was low, full of leashed heat. She pictured him freeing her hair, running his fingers through the strands, his eyes hungry. “That’s lucky.” He seemed to force out a laugh. “The place is like a cross between Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil. I don’t know why that happens.”
“It’s because this is a small town.” She knew that from her mother’s stories. “Doesn’t it bug you that everyone knows your business?” The idea seemed suffocating to her.
“It can, I guess. It depends. Are you from a small town?”
“No. My mom was and she hated it.” Anne Muldoon grew up in a trailer on the grimy side of town with a reputation as a tramp with a temper. The chip on her shoulder never went away, even after she moved to Phoenix, where she eventually married Autumn’s father, Adam Beshkin. She chased him away when Autumn was twelve, almost triumphant when he left.
You can only count on yourself in this world, Autumn. Don’t kid yourself different. Decent advice, Autumn knew, despite her mother’s bitterness.
“Small towns aren’t for everyone,” Mike said.
“That’s not very visitor’s bureau-like of you, Mayor Mike. Shouldn’t you promote the low crime rate, the neighborliness—an entire town where everybody knows your name?” She used a teasing tone. She didn’t hate small towns the way her mother did, but she saw their limits and certainly didn’t want to end up in one.
He shrugged. “It’s a closed system. There’s not much privacy. People have history and long memories.”
“Yeah. My mom felt kind of second class and I guess that’s how they treated her.”
“So you grew up where? Phoenix?”
“Yes.” She’d experienced the pain and trap of reputation in high school, which was its own brand of small town. In truth, Autumn never felt as though she fit anywhere. “But you like it here, right? You’re the mayor.”
“Yeah. And I’m lucky I can afford to do it full time. My goal is to boost our economy, but it’s a tough go.”
“How so?”
“Attracting new business isn’t easy for small towns. We almost scored a herbal tea factory, but the company balked over helping to extend the water lines. Then, because we lost the factory, the motel chain that was looking at us evaporated. The domino effect.”
“That would be discouraging.”
“If we could get some grants, that would help. But I need time to work up the proposals. Meanwhile, our police department needs a new computer system and we’ve got to replace the fire trucks and—” Mike shot her a look. “I’ve been going on and on,” he said softly. “Sorry.”
“No, no. I’m very interested. Part of my internship is to become aware of the context of my work. We aren’t just about the numbers, you know.”
He smiled. “So there’s more to you than meets the eye.” There was a teasing, sexual tone to his words. They’d fallen easily into that mode of relating.
“I would hope so,” she said in the same tone. “How about you? Are you a complicated man?”
“Not at all.” He grinned.
But she knew that wasn’t quite true and she was curious. Too curious. Maybe because of how easy it was to talk to him, to think out loud with him, the way he listened so closely.
As the meal had continued, the gaps in their conversation had been filled with knowing glances and a building tension that was difficult to ignore.
Mike paid the tab for dinner and they stepped out into the warm summer night. Streetlights lit the sidewalk and the full moon glowed silver overhead, surrounded by distant stars in a black, black sky.
Under the cooking smells from the restaurant, Autumn picked up the welcome scent of desert dust and creosote. To her it was the smell of home.
She was full of good food and just a little buzzed from the Tecates, so that when Mike turned to her, ready to end the evening, she said, “So what do folks do for fun around here?”
“You mean besides watch the grass grow and peer at the neighbors through binoculars?” His tone held self-mockery with an edge of cynicism. He wasn’t entirely thrilled with small town life either, she guessed.
“Besides that,” she said.
“Okay, let’s see.” He stared off into the sky, silhouetted against the blackness. “For music, there’s a mariachi group that plays weekends. A local boy has a jazz trio that plays at Louie’s Italian Place on Thursday nights.”
“So there’s a music scene. What else?”
“The Brew and Cue for pool at the far end of town. There’s bowling, like Celia mentioned. Wicked Skeeball tourneys at the Green Dragon Pizzeria. High school sports. Tours of the historic district, including the Copper Strike Mine. Our prickly pear candy factory, Cactus Confections, has some regional fame.”
He shrugged. “Not much, huh? You’ll find what you want in Tucson, Autumn.”
“And what is it you think I want?” She spoke lightly, but sexual energy underlined her words. Maybe she should have stopped at one beer.
