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“Apparently.” The closest Charity had ever come to a town festival had been a craft show back in college. “I look forward to going to the events.”
“If only that were all that was involved,” Pia said dramatically. “You and I are going to have to talk. I’ll call and set up an appointment.”
“Should I be nervous?” Charity asked with a laugh.
“No. It’ll be fine. Enjoy your lunch,” she called over her shoulder as she sailed toward the door.
“She’s nice,” Charity said. And close to her age. Maybe Pia was a potential friend.
“Just so you know, Pia’s a lot more talk than action, at least when it comes to being bad.” Marsha shook her head. “Oh, Charity, you’re being thrown in the deep end. I hope that’s all right.”
“I was looking for a challenge,” Charity told her. Not to mention a job that was far away from her old one. She’d wanted a fresh start and the job in Fool’s Gold had offered exactly that.
“Good. I don’t want to scare you away on your first day. Maybe on your second.”
Charity laughed. “I don’t scare so easy. In fact, this weekend I’m going to drive around and get to know the different neighborhoods in town.”
“Thinking of buying a house?”
“Not right away, but in a couple of months. I want to settle down.” Having a permanent address and ties to a community had always been her fantasy.
“There are some lovely homes. Although with all the men who will be moving to town, you might want to wait a bit. You did mention you were single. Maybe you’ll meet Mr. Right.”
“Uh-huh,” Charity said and sipped her coffee. Mayor Marsha was very nice, but not the most subtle person.
As for Mr. Right—Charity wasn’t looking for perfect. She just wanted a nice guy who loved her as much as she loved him. Oh, and a man who was single, honest and faithful. Characteristics depressingly hard to find on the dating scene—at least in her experience.
“If anyone around town catches your eye,” Marsha said as their food was delivered. “Just ask me. I know everyone.”
Once again Charity’s brain flashed to Josh. Fifteen kinds of physically amazing and a thousand kinds of trouble, she thought grimly. She might not be able to ignore the weird way her body reacted when he was in the room, but she could do her best to ignore him. And she would. Even in a town as small as Fool’s Gold, it couldn’t be hard.
“YOU MAKE ME crazy. You know that, right?”
Josh continued to study his computer screen and ignore his assistant. Something he was good at. It came from years of practice.
Unfortunately Eddie wasn’t the type to take the hint. “I’m talking to you, Josh.”
“I knew that.” He turned his attention from the e-mail to his seventy-something assistant who stood with her hands on her hips.
Eddie Carberry wore her white hair in short curls. She liked heavy makeup and velour track suits. She had one for every day of the week. If it was Monday, she was wearing violet.
“They’re getting on my nerves,” she announced. “What the hell were you thinking? I know you’re not sleeping with them, so it’s not about sex. Don’t tell me you’re being nice, either. You know how I hate that.” Eddie glared at him as she spoke.
He knew better than to take her temper seriously, just as he knew the “they” in question were the three college-aged girls that were supposed to be helping her in the office.
“You said you wanted to cut back on your responsibilities,” he hedged. “You said you wanted a staff.”
Eddie rolled her eyes. “I said I wanted to look like Demi Moore, too, but I don’t see you doing anything about that. They’re not staff, they’re blonde and every cliché that goes with the hair color. All they want to talk about is you.” She raised her voice. “Josh is just so handsome,” she said in a mocking squeak. “Do you think he’s going to ask me out?”
She lowered her voice to its normal gravelly tone. “I thought you’d explained everything when you hired them.”
He winced. “I did. In detail.”
“Then you’re going to have to do it again.”
Apparently.
Young women had done everything from showing up in his bed naked and uninvited to claiming to be pregnant with his baby—all in a bid to get his attention. He understood the theory. If they belonged to someone the public perceived as special then they were special, as well. Telling them he wasn’t worth their time didn’t seem to get through. This summer he’d tried offering jobs instead, thinking the reality of working around him would allow them to see the man behind the myth. So far the plan wasn’t working.
“I could get more help out of a couple of cats,” Eddie grumbled. “And you know how I feel about cats.”
He did. She resented any creature who dared to shed on one of her track suits.
“I’ll talk to them,” he said.
“You’d better.” She lowered her arms to her sides, then walked toward his desk. “The storefront on Third leased out.”
He leaned back in his chair as she sat down. “Good.” It had been vacant nearly three months.
“The lease is at the attorney’s. I’ll pick it up later today for you to read.” She cleared her throat. “You have a request to ride in a charity race.”
“No.”
“It’s for sick kids.”
“It usually is.”
“You should do this one.”
She was trying to provoke him. For some reason Eddie believed if she could get him to yell, he would give in.
“It’s in Florida,” she said. “You could go to Disney World.”
“I’ve been to Disney World.”
“You need to get out, Josh. Ride again. You can’t—”
“Next?” he asked cutting her off.
She stared at him, her eyes narrowed. He stared back.
She blinked first. “Fine. Be that way.” She sighed heavily, as if her life was nothing but pain. “I keep getting calls about a charity golf tournament. The sponsor has a connection with the ski resort and they’re thinking of holding it in town.”
Golf he could do. It wasn’t his sport, so excellence wasn’t expected or required. He could simply be charming for the cameras, raise some money and call it a day.
“Okay on the golf.”
“At least that’s something,” she grumbled. “I’ll have the sales figures for the sporting goods store later today. Preliminary numbers are good. The flyers did a nice job of bringing in business. Internet sales are up, too. Now if we could get a picture of you on some of the bikes we carry…”
He ignored her. Which meant looking away. One of the blondes walked by just then and assumed he was glancing at her rather than away from Eddie. The young woman smiled and slowed.
Damn.
Eddie turned and saw the girl. “Get back to work,” she snapped. “This isn’t about you.”
The girl pouted, but did as she was told.
“Did I say they make me crazy?” Eddie asked.
“More than once.”
“You need a girlfriend. If they think you’re with someone else, they’ll back off.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Probably not,” she agreed. “I swear, Josh, there’s something about you. Women everywhere are just dying to be in your bed.”
He winced, not wanting to have this conversation with his septuagenarian assistant.
“I guess the good news is if you’d done it as much as they said, you’d be dead now.”
“A cheerful thought,” he said dryly.
Eddie stood. “I’ll be back later with those numbers.”
“I’ll count the hours.”
She barked a laugh as she left. Josh returned his gaze to the computer screen, but not his attention. The girls in his office were the least of his problems. What kept him up nights wasn’t the young women so convinced he was the answer to every prayer they’d ever had. It was the reality of knowing he was a total fraud and no one had seemed to figure that out.
OVER THE NEXT FEW days Charity continued to learn about her job and meet the rest of the staff. She noticed that every one of them was female, with the exception of Robert Anderson, the treasurer.
“Robert’s been with us five years,” Marsha said after a meeting on Wednesday, then excused herself to make a call to the county commissioner.
Robert was a nice-looking man in his early thirties. His dark eyes sparkled with amusement as he shook Charity’s hand. “You look a little surprised to see me. Is it because I’m a guy? Did the Mayor tell you about our little problem?”
“Yes, which must make you really popular.”
He grinned and motioned for her to follow him into his office, where they sat on opposite sides of his desk. “I do okay.”
“Did you know about the odds being in your favor when you took the job?”
He chuckled. “No, and I never noticed during my interviews. I was focused on the job, not the surroundings. Not very observant, I guess. About the second week after I moved here, I realized that a lot of women were dropping in to welcome me.”
Charity was still having trouble grasping the whole “man shortage” concept. “It’s real then—the demographic issue?”
“A very delicate way of putting things. Yes, it’s real. I haven’t figured out why, not that I put a lot of thought into it. Men don’t stay. Or move here. Statistically in an average population, more male babies are born than female babies. It’s around one hundred and ten male babies for every one hundred female babies. But more males die before the age of eighteen, and by middle age there are more women in any given population. Except here. There are more females of every age group.”
Charity had thought the fried computer and seeing Josh Golden’s butt on her assistant’s screen saver would be the strangest parts of her week.
“I’m speechless,” she admitted. “I don’t say that often.”
Robert laughed. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Not for you. Not only are you one of the precious few, you haven’t been instructed to bring in more male-based businesses.”
His laugh turned into a wince. “Marsha said that?”
“It was a clear directive.” She glanced at Robert’s left hand. “Hmm, I don’t see a wedding ring there. Why aren’t you doing your part for the town by being married?”
He held up both hands, palms facing her. “I tried. I got engaged. We broke things off when we realized we had different ideas about family. I wanted kids, she didn’t. She moved to Sacramento.”
“One less single female to worry about,” Charity murmured, wondering if some TV personality was going to jump out of a closet and tell her she’d been part of an elaborate hoax. As much as she wouldn’t enjoy the humiliation, it would be kind of nice to find out the mayor had been kidding about the man thing. Not that she thought her luck was that good.
Then she realized her response to Robert had been slightly less than sensitive. “Oh, wait. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m sorry your engagement didn’t work out.”
He shrugged. “It was a while ago. I’m dating again.”
“Are they rejoicing in the streets?”
“There was a parade last week.”
“Sorry I missed that. I met Pia O’Brian a couple of days ago. It seems there are a lot of parades in Fool’s Gold.”
“Festivals,” he corrected. “It’s our thing. There’s one nearly every month. It brings in tourists and the locals seem to love them. Is this your first small town?”
She nodded. “I’ve mostly grown up in large suburbs, which isn’t the same thing. I’m looking forward to the change.”
“Just be aware that everyone knows everything about everyone. There aren’t any secrets. But I grew up in a place like this. I wouldn’t want to be in the big city.” He leaned toward her. “We should grab lunch sometime. I could fill you in on small town eccentricities.”
Robert was nice, she thought, looking into his dark eyes. Smart, with a good sense of humor. “I’d like that.”
She paused, hoping for a slight whisper of anticipation, a quiver or a hint of physical reaction. Something. Anything.
Nothing, she thought with a sigh, refusing to think about her amazing reaction to Josh Golden. It had been a blood sugar thing. Or too much coffee and not enough sleep. Robert was a better choice by far.
She was about to excuse herself when her gaze fell on a plastic toy on Robert’s desk. It was a bobblehead and the oversized head looked oddly familiar.
“Is that…”
“Josh Golden,” Robert told her. “Have you met him?”
“Um, yes.” The man had his own bobbleheads?
“What did you think?” Robert’s voice was casual but she thought she saw a flash of something intense in his gaze.
“I didn’t have time to think anything,” she said, telling herself it was nearly the truth. Not being able to breathe meant fewer functioning brain cells.
“He’s pretty famous. A cyclist. Tour de France, and all that.”
