0451471040

by Kimberly Lang

  “I do appreciate your coming to my aid, though,” she said quickly to mollify him, and he pulled his chair back again. “But you were already involved in this circus.”

  “It’s not a circus. It’s a fair,” he corrected.

  “Whatever. How’d you get sucked into Mrs. K’s pet project anyway?”

  He shrugged. “With all the animals, it made sense for the clinic to be a sponsor, and it’s important to participate and be a part of things and . . . um . . .” He trailed off almost sheepishly.

  She didn’t believe that at all and couldn’t believe he thought she might. She just looked at him and shook her head.

  “Fine.” He sighed. “I have a hard time telling little old ladies no, okay? You happy now?”

  That made her laugh, and it took the edge off, making her feel almost normal around him again. “Yep. That’s kind of how I got into this. I’d hate to think I was the only weenie in town.”

  Tate frowned at the “weenie” comment, but he let it pass. “It’s diabolical; that’s what it is. I think this is why we’re raised to respect our elders. It makes us easy pickings later, because we can’t say no without being rude and bringing down the wrath of our ancestors on our heads.”

  It would have been funny if it hadn’t been absolutely true. “And that’s why I’m reluctantly running a children’s fair complete with a face-painting booth and—” She squinted at Tate’s list. He had the handwriting of a doctor, all right. “What are ‘dours’?”

  “That’s ‘clowns.’” He crossed it out and rewrote it a bit more legibly.

  She repressed a shudder. Clowns creeped her out, but now probably wasn’t a good time to mention it. “See? It really is a circus.”

  Tate’s cup was nearly empty, and habit had her taking it for a refill before he could ask. On her way back, she grabbed a lemon bar from the pastry case to take with her to the table as a thank-you.

  Setting it beside Tate’s coffee, she said, “You are an angel and a saint to help me with this.”

  Tate looked at the lemon bar and then at her, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I’m helping you with this,” he said emphatically, indicating the mess on the table. “Just this part. The getting-you-sorted-out part.”

  “You can’t be serious.” At his nod, she added a guilt-laden wheedle to her voice. “You can’t abandon me in my hour of need.”

  “I’m not. I’m here in your hour of need. But only this particular hour of need. No way am I getting hip deep in this.”

  Doing her best to flutter her eyelashes and look pitiful, she said, “I’m still damseling and distressing, though.”

  Tate rolled his eyes at her sudden about-face. “You are not sucking me in. I will get you going in the right direction. I will sign your checks and back your plays, but the details are all you.”

  She tried to flutter again. “Tate . . .”

  “You are not a sixty-something-year-old woman, so I can still tell you no.” He grinned at her. “Flutter those eyelashes all you want, honey. It won’t work on me.”

  “Fine.” She pulled the lemon bar back to her side of the table. “But I’m blaming you if it all goes to hell.”

  “I have no problem with that,” he countered. “But I do want that lemon bar.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, picking it up as if about to take a bite. His eyebrows went up. This was suddenly fun.

  “Even if I told you I’d decoded Mrs. K’s notes and had all the answers you seek?”

  She paused, the lemon bar inches from her mouth. “Do you?”

  “Give me the lemon bar and find out.”

  The door opened and a small group walked in. She looked over and called out, “Hi! Be right with you,” then turned back to stare Tate down. “Do you?”

  He looked pointedly at the pastry in her hand. With a sigh, she set it down on the plate and slid it over to him. He picked it up immediately and took a bite, claiming it as his before she could reconsider. “Now go take care of your customers.”

  “You’re terrible, Tate Harris.”

  “But I’ll have this budget sorted out by the time you’re done with them,” he promised with a cheeky smile.

  Damsels in distress can’t be picky about how they get rescued, she thought, and went to help her customers.

  • • •

  Molly didn’t exactly flounce away, but it was close—and kind of funny. He’d never sparred with her before like that, but it had been more fun than he’d anticipated and, more importantly, meant that last night’s awfulness had been forgotten—or at least they would pretend it had never happened.

  He still wanted to strangle this newfound need to meddle out of Helena, but Ryan would probably protest.

  He had to give Molly props, though. She’d been a good sport about the whole thing, at least up until he’d doubled down on the fiasco with his apology. He might not have hurt her feelings, but he now knew exactly how she’d felt when she’d heard him snap at Helena. It was definitely a ding to the ego; that was for sure.

  Especially since she’d been so very earnest in her declaration. That level of frankness wasn’t just her trying to salvage her pride.

  And, yeah, it stung.

  He’d gone home and eaten the cookies Iona had made in her quest to win his hand, wondering—just a little—what about him had caused that level of distaste in Molly. It wasn’t as if he could ask, though, so he’d been left wondering.

  And since she was being so friendly today, it made him wonder even more.

  He watched as Molly seemed to be debating the qualities of two different kinds of coffee with her customers and wondered why Helena was so gung-ho on fixing Molly up with him. Pretty, smart, successful business owner, kind—all the fine qualities Helena was marketing were all right there on display. Her charms weren’t some well-kept secret or anything. If Molly wanted to date, she shouldn’t have any problem finding someone.

  So why was she single, then?

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. That wasn’t his business, and why did he care? He was here to sort out Mrs. K’s disaster of a record-keeping system, not ponder Molly’s love life.

  Just before he went back to the paperwork mess in front of him, he saw Molly smile at her customers. And while he’d seen her smile hundreds of times—the woman was always smiling, it seemed—this time he realized that it was always the exact same smile.

  That made him pause.

  Molly certainly wasn’t afraid to tease or flirt—after all, she worked in the service industry; it was practically part of her job description—but it was always safely within the expected and socially approved boundaries. He thought about the conversations he’d had with her. At Latte Dah, she was professional, perky, and friendly. When she brought Nigel into the clinic, she was friendly, perky, and concerned. Around Helena, she was friendly, perky, and fun. Half of what was so strange about last night was that she hadn’t been like that. It was what had led him to offer his services today—not, as Helena wanted to think, due to some desire to play Lancelot. Sheesh.

  Right now her face was open and interested as she talked to her customers—exactly the same as it usually was.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Molly acknowledged people, included people, and even listened to them, but she didn’t actually engage with them, even though it seemed like she did. It had to be intentional, and she was so good at it that he doubted anyone ever noticed the difference.

  But now he had noticed, and it seemed downright strange. In fact, her plea for help, her admitted confusion at the mess Mrs. Kennedy had left her in, and the frustration exposed by Helena’s clumsy attempts at matchmaking probably meant he’d had more deeper and meaningful conversations with Molly in the last twenty-four hours than he’d had in the last two and a half years combined.

  Helena considered Molly a good friend, and Helena had no patience at all for shallow or superficial people. It would stand to reason, then, that Molly had to regularly engage wit
h her on some genuine level. Which meant Molly was actively choosing to keep her interactions with other people—including him—very superficial.

  Of course, Molly might just be a naturally private person—a hard stance in a town this size—but, try as he might, he couldn’t dredge up much “widely known knowledge” about Molly Richards beyond the basics. And he’d actually spent time in her company and had a common friend. That just crossed straight into weird.

  Now he really was curious.

  Molly pulled out one of the maps provided by the tourism board and pointed something out to the customers. That jarred him into remembering what he was supposed to be doing right now.

  And it wasn’t delving into the psyche of Molly Richards, as interesting as that might be.

  He looked at the pile of papers in front of him. Half the problem was that Mrs. Kennedy had never thrown anything away, so some of her notes and lists were years old. And since he doubted Molly had set foot in the Children’s Fair before, she’d have no way of knowing that, making this overwhelming. All the information she really needed equaled maybe twenty of the two hundred or so pieces of paper Mrs. Kennedy had dumped on her.

  Once he’d pointed her in the right direction, she’d be fine. If she could run Latte Dah, the Children’s Fair shouldn’t be much of a problem.

  And while he didn’t want to be dragged into the minutiae of planning, he did have an interest in its success—which was why he was here sorting things out for her. But as he’d learned the hard way, showing any interest in the success of an event was often interpreted as an offer to volunteer—if not run it single-handedly. That was something he simply did not have time for—even if he did have the temperament to deal with Mrs. Kennedy and her cabal of a bridge club.

  He snorted quietly to himself. Everyone knew who really ran this town—and it wasn’t Mayor Tanner and the council.

  Two other customers had come in, keeping Molly busy behind the counter and giving him a few much needed extra minutes after his mental wanderings into Molly’s life had put him behind. Hell, a good spreadsheet program was really all Molly needed. The budget was actually pretty simple—the point was to raise money, after all, and aside from some table and tent rentals and a little printing, there wasn’t a lot of overhead as it was mostly people volunteering their time.

  Volunteers were on a separate list, which he labeled in large letters across the top.

  Pushing the other piles of paper into an untidy stack, he carefully lined up the edges of the important ones and centered them in front of the chair where she’d been sitting earlier. Then he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and smugly waited for her to look his way.

  When she finally did look over, eyebrows raised in question, he smiled back at her as it registered on her face that he was done with the task. Then he picked up the lemon bar and finished it off.

  A few minutes later, Molly finally came back to the table. “You’re done? Really?”

  “Of course. I told you I would be.”

  Her mouth twisted. “How very annoying.”

  That was not what he’d been expecting to hear. “Why is that annoying?”

  “I spent hours going through all of this. You show up and presto! Either you’re a genius or I really suck.”

  “I am a genius, of course.” He waited for her to frown at him, and she did. “And you don’t suck. The truth is,” he said, dropping his voice to a confession-level whisper, “I’ve worked with Mrs. K on this long enough to not only know the basics of the event, but also how her mind works.”

  Molly didn’t look mollified in the least.

  “But honestly, all of your extensive sorting and organizing made this so much easier,” he added.

  “Of course,” Molly said, with just enough sarcasm to assure him she didn’t believe that at all. She sat and picked up the stack he’d left for her.

  “You might want to contact everyone—the vendors, the volunteers, and all—just to get on top of everything, but the big picture is all there.”

  It took him about half an hour to walk her through that big picture—Molly had to get up at least twice to care for her customers—but he could tell she felt a little better about the event once he was done. “I’m sure it will be the best Children’s Fair ever,” he concluded.

  Her eyes flew to his face. “Bite your tongue.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t want it to be the best. I just want it to be good enough.”

  “Good enough for what?”

  “Good enough for it to be a success, but not so good they’ll want me to do it next year.”

  “Smart girl.” He could tell she was only half joking. She obviously took this responsibility seriously, if grudgingly.

  “And what about all this other stuff?” She indicated the large pile of leftover paper.

  “Stick it in a bag and hand it to Mrs. K when she gets back.”

  “I owe you big-time, Tate.” He could almost see the tension leave her shoulders. Despite her words, she not only wanted to do it right, she cared about doing it right. “Thank you,” she said, reaching over to gently squeeze his forearm. “Really.”

  Her hand was cool and smooth, and his muscle jumped at her touch, sending a jolt through him. He’d felt it last night, too, when he’d touched her, but he’d chalked that up to the stress and tension of the evening overall. Having it happen again was just . . . weird. He cleared his throat. “No problem.”

  Molly looked at her hand as if she’d never seen it before, then moved it to her lap with forced nonchalance. “You should probably leave now.”

  Not entirely sure what he’d done, he was lost for words now. But her tune and ’tude had certainly changed. “What?”

  Her head tilted in the direction of a large wall clock. “Samantha’s shift starts in about fifteen minutes. She might be early for her first day—I know I would be—and do you really want to be here when she arrives?”

  And have Sam think he was checking up on her? Hell no. “Good point. How much do I owe you?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

  She waved him off. “It’s on me. It’s the very least I can do in return for your help today.”

  Grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair, he shoved his arms through the sleeves. “If you have any other questions—”

  An eyebrow went up. “Call Mrs. K?” she supplied.

  That made him laugh. “Bye, Molly.”

  “Bye, Dr. Harris.”

  He was waylaid on his way out by Heather Jones wanting to ask about the possibility of Prozac for her dog—a dog that simply needed obedience classes and a long, exhausting walk each day, although Heather wouldn’t believe him no matter how many times he told her—and Sam was arriving just as Heather was walking away.

  She eyed him with extreme suspicion.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not here to check up on you.”

  “I want to believe you—”

  “Then please do.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “But your past behaviors kind of damn you outright.”

  Like it’s a bad thing I want to look out for my sister. He sighed. “I came to talk to Molly about Memorial Day weekend activities. She’s the one who set the meeting place and time.”

  “Really.” It was a statement, but a disbelieving one.

  “Ask her yourself.”

  “I will. Bye now.”

  The emphasis on him leaving was impossible to miss. “Good luck,” he said over his shoulder, leaving her in the doorway to Latte Dah.

  Odd as his conversation with Molly had been, it had one thing going for it that made him happy.

  It proved there was at least one woman in Magnolia Beach who not only asked for his advice or help, but was willing to actually take it as well.

  How refreshing.

  Chapter 5

  Attitude was important. Everything else could be taught.

  Three days later, Molly wanted to pat herself on the back fo
r hiring Samantha Harris. Samantha still needed cheat sheets for recipes, and she was a little intimidated by the cappuccino machine, but she had a knack for creating rapport with customers and being attentive to their needs. The people she knew—more than half the clientele—teased and encouraged her and seemed to have great patience with her learning curve, but that rapport building meant the customers who didn’t know her also had no problems with her lack of speed and occasional confusion, either. She had charm and wit and was cute as a button, too. She was going to do just fine at Latte Dah.

  Plus, the girl could upsell like a master car salesman.

  “Don’t you want to take a cookie home to Anna? She’s four now, right?”

  “If you’re going to the council meeting, you might want to get a large coffee instead of a small. Don’t want to fall asleep in the middle of it!”

  “We have this coffee mug with a puppy I swear looks exactly like your Muffin. She was such a great dog. You must miss her so much. Here, let me show you.”

  Samantha did it all with a great smile and genuine interest, and damn if they didn’t all buy what she recommended.

  Molly was updating the payroll with Samantha’s information while Samantha frowned at the cappuccino machine again. “I promise it won’t bite you,” she said with a smile.

  “I just don’t want to break it.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to break it, either, because it’s an expensive machine, but at least show it who’s boss, Samantha.”

  “You can just call me Sam.”

  “Which would you prefer?”

  Sam looked up. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve heard you called both, but noticed you put Samantha on your name tag. I thought maybe you preferred that over Sam. I mean, my real name is Marlene, but my grandmother always called me Molly. It stuck and I like it, but I know not everyone likes their nicknames.”

  Sam thought it over for a minute. “I actually like Sam better, but I always start out with Samantha. Later on, when someone calls me from across the street, I know if they’re a friend or an acquaintance.”

  “Very smart.” She totally understood. Being Molly all the time instead of Marlene or Marley was a nice line between old and new, Fuller and Magnolia Beach, and one of the many perks of moving to a town where no one knew her before she was Molly.