Celebrity Bachelor

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“So the mountain man thing I’ve been seeing in pictures of you was on purpose?”

He smiled with both sides of his mouth this time. “Kind of gross, wasn’t it? There were actually rumors that I was turning into Howard Hughes.”

Rumors that had apparently amused him.

“Anyway,” he went on, “Alyssa put off cutting her hair when she wanted to, too. Then we registered her at a high-security private finishing school in Switzerland and I paid the school to put her name on reports and rosters to confirm that she’s secluded there. I also have someone inside who’s leaking information about her to make it look good. Then, occasionally—this week for sure—I’ll pay a guy who resembles me and grew out his hair and beard, to go to the Swiss village near the school. I have a house rented there and we did a whole clandestine arrival the way I would if I were trying to sneak into town. The guy will mostly stay holed up there except to appear in public periodically to go to the school—dodging the photographers and press the whole time to keep them convinced he’s me—”

“And in the meantime, while everyone is looking for a guy with long hair and a beard, and his long-haired sister, you shaved and cut your hair, Alyssa cut hers, and you’re calling yourselves the Johansens,” Cassie finished for him.

His smile became a grin she couldn’t help mirroring as she added, “And you’re really getting a kick out of it all.”

He shrugged a broad shoulder. “You have to make the best of things.”

“Even if the best of things is complicated and expensive?”

“Yep. Whatever it takes. If you can’t make light of it as much as possible, it gets to you.”

That last part had a more serious overtone to it that Cassie didn’t understand. But she couldn’t very well question him about it, so she glanced around at the now-empty auditorium and said, “Well, shall we go out and test your disguise?”

“Sure. But first, I had a thought last night that might aid the cause, if you’re game. A cover story for you and me.”

“You and me?”

“Consider it sleight of hand—if we keep people’s focus on the two of us, they’ll tend to pay less attention to the connection between Alyssa and me. You know, if I can make you look at this hand—” He raised his right hand in the air and wiggled his fingers. “You’re missing what’s going on with this hand.” He used the index finger of his other hand to brush her hair away from her face.

Cassie understood what he was demonstrating, but if he thought for a minute that touching her—even lightly—was going to be the thing she paid the least attention to, he was so wrong. Especially when the bare hint of his fingertip against her face set off little sparks in response.

She pretended that wasn’t the case, however, and got back to the point of this. “What kind of cover story did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking we could invent something that put the two of us together—like maybe we were college sweethearts.”

“I went to college right here. And this is a small town. More than half the people on the street could probably tell you my shoe size. They definitely know about all my former sweethearts.”

“Okay. How about if we say we sort of hooked up on your last vacation?”

“Last year in Disneyland?” Cassie said as if that seemed unbelievable.

Joshua grinned at her again. “You went to Disneyland?”

“I’d never been, so, yes, a friend and I went to Disneyland because we wanted to see it,” she said with a defiant tilt to her chin.

He laughed. “Okay. We can say we met waiting to get on a ride, got to talking, spent some time together, you told me about the college and since seeing you again came in the bargain, I persuaded my sister to come here for her higher education.”

“You don’t have any idea what a small town would do with a story like that, do you?”

“Run with it, I’m hoping. And in the process, keep their eyes on us, gossip about me as Joe Regular Guy who just might be the new suitor of One Of Their Own, and leave Alyssa just an inconsequential afterthought. Like I said, sleight of hand.”

“Yes, but at my expense. And I have to go on living here. Answering the questions about you and why you didn’t stick around and when you’ll be back and if we’re serious and on and on and on.”

“If I apologize in advance, will you do it anyway? For Alyssa’s sake? I really want this to work out for her. Something happened a while back that rocked her—that rocked us both, to be honest—and I want her to have whatever sane time I can give her.”

Cassie’s students and her own family were important to her. A plea that hit both of those hot buttons in her wasn’t one she could turn down.

Still, she was smart enough not to agree blindly. “How, exactly, would this cover story come out?”

His smile this time was softer, grateful. “We don’t want anything that seems forced. But, for instance, when you introduce me to someone you know, if the opportunity arises, one of us can work the cover story into the conversation. It will also make it seem more understandable for us to be together as much as I’m sure we will be this week. Plus I might lean over and whisper to you now and then—”

He demonstrated that as he said it, too, and the feel of his warm breath against her skin caused more of those sparks his finger had set off moments before.

“Or I might touch you a little,” he continued. “Innocently. Like here…”

He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Or here…”

He moved that hand to her arm.

“Or here…”

It went to the small of her back…

And with each split second of contact Cassie found it more difficult to breathe.

“Nothing big,” he finished. “Just enough to make us look friendly, explain why we’re together a lot, and let Alyssa be just one of the kids around here.”

Air in, air out, Cassie told herself, consciously breathing and hoping he hadn’t noticed that she had been affected by the whisper and the mock caresses.

He might have, though, because then he put that breath-stealing hand in his jean pocket and added, “But if it bothers you, we can stick with the status quo. It’s your call.”

She didn’t want him to know she could be unnerved by anything so small—which was ordinarily not true. She didn’t understand why she had been unnerved by something so small when it had come from him. So without much delay, she said, “No, it’s okay. It’s probably a good idea, even,” she admitted, keeping her fingers crossed that when his pretend attentions didn’t come unexpectedly she would be impervious to them.

“And actually,” she continued, “the story might help appease my family, too. We’re very close and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain to them why I needed to concentrate on you this week when they know I planned to duck out of as many Parents’ Week activities as I could to unpack and set up the house.”

“Great!” Joshua said without further ado, making her think he was accustomed to being granted his wishes and whims, no matter what they were. “Then I feel better about going out into the fray.”

“So now you are ready to test the disguise?” she asked to be certain.

“To test the disguise and the cover story, if we can work it in somewhere,” he reminded.

He took a step backward and motioned with one arm for her to take the lead, clearly intending to stay as much in the background as possible right from the get-go.

Even though she had no idea what he’d been referring to when he’d mentioned something rocking both Alyssa and himself, Cassie assumed it had left him serious about blending in. She accepted the role of decoy and left the auditorium with him following close behind.

The lobby was considerably less spacious and with everyone there now, it made for cramped quarters. Still, Alyssa must have been watching for her brother because not long after Cassie and Joshua got there, his sister found them and urged them through the crowd to meet the students and parents she’d been sitting with.

Cassie noted that Joshua was introduced as Joshua Johansen and she watched for signs of recognition in the faces of the other people. But there wasn’t a single indication that any of them doubted Joshua was who he’d been presented as.

That proved to be the case through the entire meet-and-greet and Cassie hoped for his and Alyssa’s sake that that had set the course for the remainder of the week, as well.

After about an hour and a half people began to drift out, ending the opening of Parents’ Week. Alyssa announced that she needed to read three chapters of biology for her next day’s class and when Joshua encouraged her to go back to the dorm to do that, she bid her brother good-night.

Which once more left Cassie alone with Joshua Cantrell.

It wasn’t quite nine o’clock by then—not late by big city standards but not early by Northbridge standards, either, so Cassie debated whether to simply usher Joshua to the chancellor’s cottage or offer to extend the evening.

In the end, she decided to leave it to him.

“Would you like to get back to the cottage or—”

“Or,” he said, jumping at the option before she’d actually given him one.

“Okay. Northbridge doesn’t have a bustling nightlife but we could take a walking tour of the town.” Which was the only thing she could come up with on the spur of the moment. It might also appease the mayor if he accused her of not doing the promotions he wanted. “How would that be?”

“I’d like it,” he said. “It seems like a small-town thing to do. Unless I’d be keeping you from someone— I asked Alyssa if she knew if playing diplomatic envoy with me was driving a wedge between you and a husband or a fiancé or a boyfriend, but she didn’t know.”

He’d asked his sister about her? Cassie thought, mentally stalling on that tidbit. Had he asked only to make sure he wasn’t interfering or because he wanted to know if there was a man in her life?

Not that it mattered, Cassie told herself.

And yet it did matter to her a little. Deep down. She couldn’t deny it.

Was it really possible that he had tried to find out if she was single? That the illustrious Joshua Cantrell, man of the world, escort of ladies extraordinaire, was even curious about whether or not the playing field was open with Cassie?

Even the possibility—slight though she was sure it was—boosted her ego.

Still, she tried not to pay too much attention to it and said simply, “You’re not keeping me from anyone, no.”

“I already know I’m keeping you from something—unpacking—but if I’m not going to have an angry man tracking me down to do me bodily harm, I’ll take you up on that walk.”

“No, no one will track you down to do bodily harm,” she assured. “There’s no husband, fiancé or boyfriend.”

Joshua Cantrell’s handsome face erupted into a wide grin that gave a second boost to her ego, because it looked nothing but pleased to hear that. “Then by all means, give me the grand tour.”

“Tour maybe, I don’t know how grand it will be,” Cassie said, working as they left the building to contain what almost felt like a hint of glee at the lingering notion that this man—of all men—had wondered if she were free.

And had been happy to learn that she was…

Chapter Five

When Cassie and Joshua left the campus, Cassie led them toward the town square that stood between the college to the west and, to the east, the school compound that educated Northbridge’s kindergartners to twelfth graders and offered the town’s only sports field.

“Wrought-iron pole lamps that look like they came from Victorian England, and a gazebo. Huh,” Joshua mused as he glanced around at the town square’s lighting and the gazebo at its heart. “Do you have band concerts here in the summertime?”

Was he making fun? She couldn’t be sure. She also couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of her voice when she answered.

“As a matter of fact, we do. Along with a lot of other activities year-round. The square is one of my favorite parts of Northbridge. I love the big trees and the gazebo— I think it’s beautiful with its redbrick base and the railing and pillars painted white, and that pointy red roof with the cupola. It’s all part of what says home to me.”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” he told her, apparently having picked up on her defensiveness. “I think your town square is great. I like it, too. It’s quaint.”

Cassie wasn’t sure if quaint really was a good thing to someone like Joshua Cantrell, but she wasn’t going to take issue with him.

Instead, as they crossed South Street to the east side of Main, she said, “Quaint. Well, that will describe most of what you’re about to see.”

Not all of it, however. Part of that first block nearest to the square had a few more boxy, contemporary-looking buildings and storefronts housing the ice cream parlor and Ling’s Chinese Palace—the new restaurant. Plus the government building/police station had a more modern feel to it.

But from the northwest corner of that block, where the old four-story, redbrick former mercantile had been turned into the medical facility, all the rest of the way up Main, the buildings were pretty quaint, Cassie had to admit.

Quaint in the best sense of the word, though, she thought as she pointed out businesses, shops and stores that occupied the two-and three-storied, primarily brick structures that gave Northbridge an old-fashioned, country-town feel. Quaint in the best sense of the word when it came to the awnings and overhangs and farreaching eaves that provided shade and character to most of the edifices. Quaint in the best sense when it came to more of those same town square pole lights lining the sidewalks on both sides of the street, each of them circled with flower boxes that were decorated for the season—planted with white and yellow mums now for autumn—lending that homey, small-town feeling.

Cassie and Joshua weren’t the only post-meet-and-greet attendees to graduate to the stroll along Main Street. Several other faces from the college’s Parents’ Week orientation were out and about, too, to mingle with a few Northbridgers.

Smiles and greetings were exchanged along the way but no one seemed to think any more about Joshua’s real identity now than they had earlier, and so Cassie and Joshua were able to take their walk without incident.

They did, however, encounter Roy Webber, the local Mr. Fix-it, and one of the town’s biggest busybodies, and in introducing Joshua to him, Cassie included the cover story she’d agreed to.

It clearly pleased Joshua, who nudged her with his shoulder once Roy Webber had moved on and said, “Thanks for getting that out there.”

“By tomorrow noon, the whole town will have heard it,” she informed Joshua. “Roy Webber is a bigger gossip than any woman I’ve ever met.”

“Perfect,” Joshua said with satisfaction. “I owe you.”

“Yes, you do,” Cassie said from atop her high horse as they made a U-turn at the northernmost end of Main.

They’d gone up an incline to reach what was the formal entrance to Northbridge and as they crossed from the gas station to the bus station, Joshua paused halfway between the two to peer down at the view of nearly the entire town from that vantage point.

“This is nice,” he mused.

“Quaint,” she repeated a bit facetiously.

“I like quaint. I don’t know what made you think that was an insult,” he insisted.

Cassie knew she could be overly sensitive when it came to things like that. She admitted to herself that she was probably being harder on Joshua than he deserved for something that was a part of her own baggage. So she tried to get out of the course she’d set with some semblance of aplomb.

“Okay, I’m sorry if I misunderstood.”

“Apology accepted,” he decreed as if something about her amused him.

They finished to cross the street but Joshua continued to look out at the town, this time focusing on Adz, which stood in the center of the block at the base of the hill.

“Did you say that that Adz place belongs to your brother?”

“I did,” Cassie confirmed as they went on at a leisurely pace.

“And it’s a pub and restaurant?”

“Right.” Cassie briefly considered asking Joshua if he wanted to cross back again and go in for a drink, but the idea of introducing him to Ad and having to explain why she was with Joshua in a social situation wasn’t something she was eager to do. So she didn’t make the suggestion.