“We’d thought you had a better offer,” Dallas said, nodding at Eric.
Only Eric’s preening at the other man’s words stopped her from blushing. She tapped his foot under the table, and he stopped.
Caroline brought their coffee and buns over. At the delicious smell of the warmed buns, Amanda’s stomach growled. “Excuse me, she said. “I got caught up on a project at work and didn’t get to grab anything to eat before the meeting.”
“You’d better take the plate with two buns,” Eric said, sliding it in front of her as she took her coffee from Caroline.
“We can split the third one,” she said.
“No, as one-of-a-kind delicious as Caroline’s cinnamon buns are, I can make the sacrifice.” He paused before adding a dramatic, “For you.”
“Maybe, I’d better take all three,” she said. “I think you’re syrupy sweet enough.”
“Not a chance.” He lifted the bun on the plate in front of him and took a big bite.
Amanda busied her mouth with a large swig of coffee.
The group talked about the holiday festivities and the animal shelter’s fundraiser, carefully avoiding some of the contentious points of each that they’d hammered out at the meeting. Gradually, they all finished their drinks and exited, leaving just them and Caroline.
“We should let Caroline close. I can take the rest of my cinnamon bun with me.”
“Right.” He finished his coffee. “I just need the, uh, facilities, and then I’ll settle up.”
Amanda couldn’t help but find Eric’s discomfort at saying he had to use the bathroom endearing.
Eric was hardly out of his seat before Caroline came over. “So you and our visiting celebrity?”
“Um. We’re trying it out.”
“Good for you. And don’t worry, you won’t hear any gossip about it from me.”
“I’m not worried. Now, some of my opposition colleagues could be another story.”
Caroline laughed.
“So, what do I owe?” Eric asked, returning and walking her and Caroline to the counter.
“It’s on the house.” Caroline winked at Amanda.
“You didn’t pay, did you?” He asked as they stepped outside.
Amanda halted with feigned affront. “What and diminish your man-of-action mystique in Caroline’s eyes? Never.”
“That’s certainly a relief.”
“Almost as much as having that group tet-a-tet with my fellow guardians of the city over.”
“I thought it went well.” He put his free arm around her waist and pulled her to his side.
“No one’s around, we can cut the act.”
Eric nuzzled her ear, alerting her nerves twice as much and the coffee had, and kissed her cheek.
“What act?”
Chapter 7
Fueled by the fact that Amanda had been silent in voice and action about his display of affection, Eric woke up the next day more rested than he’d felt in a good long time. Knowing when not to push his luck, he’d dropped her off at her place, not even turning his bike off, although he waited until she was safely inside before roaring off. He couldn’t resist that.
“Good morning,” he said to Lisa, who appeared to be going out when he came down.
“Good morning. I’m going grocery shopping. Anything particular you want?”
“Yes.” He reached in his wallet and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills.
Lisa stiffened, taking on the pinched look she’d had when he’d first met her. “You’re already paying for your room and board with the house repairs.”
He kept the money out. “That was before I told you that it looks like I’ll be here more than a couple days.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I am now.” He shot her a practiced winsome smile. “Amanda told me last night that the whole sewer line from the Mansion B&B to the public beach has to be replaced before the suite can be rentable.”
“Oh. Poor Sonja and Jeff. What about the rest of the B&B? What about the ballroom? The gala there?”
“Oddly, the suite and is on a separate outflow line with the unoccupied caretaker’s house, which was added after the mansion was built.”
“That’s good for Sonja and the gala. I still don’t need your money, though. I’ve always taken care of myself.”
And others, from what Amanda had told him. He put the bills back. “Okay, for now.” He’d figure out another way to repay her.
Lisa’s face softened. “Did you and Amanda have a nice time last night?”
She caught him off-guard. Nothing like jumping topics. “What do you mean?”
Lisa shrugged. “Facebook. I saw a picture of the group of you at Caroline’s.”
“Oh, yeah. We did.” He made a mental note to let Amanda know he’d had nothing to do with that post.
“Good.” Her face took on an earnest expression, he’d seen Amanda’s on occasion. “I don’t need to know if this is just a holiday fling or what. Amanda needs some fun in her life. If you can give her that fun, more power to you.”
Eric swallowed the elation that welled at Lisa’s apparent approval.
“But one important thing.”
The elation evaporated.
“Be upfront with her. She’s been hurt in the past.”
“I will.” He’d already crossed that line and been read the riot act.
“So what do you have planned for today?” she asked as she picked up her purse.
“Since it’s cool this morning, I’m going to check out those missing roof shingles. See if any more are loose.”
“You’re okay with no one here. I mean if you slip …”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Then, see you later.” Lisa left.
His first inclination was to check his Facebook profile. He stopped. He didn’t have a presence there, rarely checked it, and wasn’t friends with anyone he knew in Indigo or anywhere else. But he could have fan club members here who were friends or family of whoever had posted the picture at Caroline’s that Lisa had seen. He closed his eyes trying to remember if he’d seen anyone with their phones out last night. He had, but the phones had been sitting on the table.
Might as well check the damage. He pulled his own phone from his pocket and went to his fan page. There it was. Taken through the window of the café. With the written post: Mystery woman identified. It wasn’t a bad picture of the two of them talking with Caroline. It had been posted by one of the fan page administrators, so he didn’t know who had taken the picture and sent it to the page. He should have asked Lisa how she’d seen it. He was sure she didn’t frequent his fan page.
Eric weighed whether this required a city hall appearance, which he certainly wouldn’t mind making. But he did want to get any roof repairs made before the heat of the day. He texted Amanda.
We made my fan page again. Not my doing.
I know and I know. Mom alerted me that she’d seen it, thanks to Lucille.
Lucille was on Facebook? He shook his head. And probably every other social media platform.
You think she took the picture?
No. She probably shared it. Want me to check Lucille’s profile. We’re friends.
Nah, I don’t really need to know as long as you’re okay with it.
I am.
Amanda didn’t sound thrilled about it. Eric thought about Lisa’s warning.
It may end up in a tabloid.
I accept that comes with the territory.
Okay. Talk to you later?
Leaving that as a question would open it to Amanda contacting him. He didn’t want to be the only one pursuing their relationship. And, despite it being behind him suggesting the fake romance, he needed to think about exposing them to what she’d said comes with the territory.
That and his suddenly growing aversion to the spotlight he’d put them in.
“You have a call from a Chris Slade,” Tracy said when Amanda picked up her office phone. “Do you want to
take it?”
Why would Eric’s son be calling her? She’d only met him once, when he came to Indigo Bay just after he’d gotten out of the service. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
Tracy clicked the call through.
“Hi, Chris.”
“Mayor Strickland.”
“Yes.” The voice didn’t sound like Chris, but she’d never talked to him on the phone before.”
“This is Graham Backland. From Scoop …”
One of the tackiest of the tabloid magazines. “No comment.” Amanda hung up and buzzed Tracy. “If you got a caller ID number on that call, put it on our don’t accept calls list.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t Chris Slade? The ID said Private Caller. I thought with him being Eric’s son and all, he was protecting his phone number.”
“No, it was one of the tabloid magazines.”
“What did they want?”
“I didn’t ask. Put any call for me from unknown numbers or private callers directly through to my voicemail.”
“All right.”
Amanda tried to get her concentration back on the list of raffle gifts and silent auction items for the gala received so far from local businesses and residents. She wanted to give Sonja an idea of what would be dropped off at the B&B ahead of the event and project a ballpark amount the animal shelter might receive.
But the only projection her mind was forming was not enough. Items or gala tickets. Despite the excellent promotion Gina Andrews had done getting signs about the gala and other fundraising activities up all over town. Too bad it wasn’t blazing across social media the way her and Eric’s charade was. That was it.
She punched in Eric’s number, and her call went directly to his voicemail. He may have gotten the same call she did. Or he could be busy with work for her mother or at Seaside Cycles with Jeff. He didn’t say earlier what he had on tap for today. Not that she expected him to report into her daily. Well, she kind of did, but only if he wanted to.
Amanda decided to move the data she had on the list on her desk to Excel to help with her projections. Once she had her spreadsheet created and started adding the information, her mind wandered to last night … what he said about not pretending.
Her office phone rang. She weighed whether to let it go to voicemail. Amanda picked it up. Tracy would have fielded any calls that weren’t dialed directly to her number.
“Hello. Mayor Strickland,” she said.
“Good morning mayor,” Eric said. “You called?”
Was there a slight huskiness in his voice? No, more likely in her brain affecting its functions. “Yes, I did, with official business.”
“City business or our deal business?”
“A little of both,” she said after a moment of disappointment that he seemed to see them both on the same plain.
“Ah, let me hear it.”
Amanda explained her concerns about the fundraising and gala ticket sales. “My thought is to get a feature in the happenings section of the Charleston daily newspaper stressing your participation in both. We don’t have a lot of time to pull it off.”
“And it would help if I had my publicity people be the contact.”
“Exactly.”
“Where do you want the interview? I assume you want an interview.”
“That’s the goal. I’m going back and forth about the location. The B&B since the gala is there or the shelter for the emotional impact.”
“Let’s leave it up to my people. Maybe they can get coverage of the gala, too.”
“Great. Get back to me as soon as you know anything.”
“I will. Or sooner. How about supper at your mother’s tonight and a stroll along Seaside Boulevard and the beach afterwards to look at the holiday decorations.”
“Another photo opportunity like us at Caroline’s?”
“No.” He still sounded confused. “I thought you might like to.”
“I would. Definitely. I’ll change and come over right after I finish my afternoon work.”
“See you then.”
Amanda held the phone receiver in her hand for a few moments after Eric had hung up. Had her mother said something to him about her love of seeing everything decorated for the holidays?
She placed the receiver firmly on the phone. No. She preferred to think that Eric knew her well enough to come up with the idea himself.
To please her.
Eric got right on contacting his promotion team, who jumped on it being good publicity for him, although he stressed it was for the animal shelter.
“I see the interview as being with both you and the Indigo Bay mayor. At the shelter. Definitely at the shelter with pictures of you with the animals,” his publicist said.
“I’m not sure that’s what the mayor wants.”
“No, you need that. Let me send you a link to what’s in the Scoop blog today. It makes your friend the mayor sound about as appealing as a root canal.”
Eric’s hackles rose, even before he clicked the link to the blog. There was that picture taken at Seaside Cycles, followed by what looked to be Amanda’s official biography pasted from the Indigo Bay website with snide and derogatory comments from the blog writer interspersed throughout. He bit back the words that came to his tongue. The blog ended with, How far has America’s formerly most sought-after star fallen? followed by a terse Ms. Strickland declined to comment. Eric’s bitten-back words came out in a torrent.
His agent sighed. “Now that that’s out of your system, you see why your friend needs to be included in the interview.”
“Yeah and why the blog writer needs to be blasted off the top of a skyscraper,” Eric said, referring to a scene in one of his movies.
“Hold off on that, and we’ll set up the newspaper gig.”
“Thanks, and can you express print copies of a couple of my publicity photos. Amanda, the mayor, wants them for publicity here. I have electronic copies, but print is better.”
“You’ll have them tomorrow. To your friend’s B&B? Anything else?
“That would be good and no.” Eric clicked off and punched Amanda office number. “It’s me. Call when you have a chance.”
He checked the shingles while he waited for a callback from Amanda before grabbing his helmet from the house and heading back out to his bike. She must be busy. Eric put his helmet on and fastened the chin strap. He couldn’t expect her to drop everything and take his call whenever he phoned. She had a life. Another life, he corrected himself, besides the one he was beginning to think they had together. Smiling, he swung onto his bike, cruised to the local hardware store to order the paint Lisa had decided on to be delivered to the house, and headed back to finish the new front porch railing he’d started yesterday.
Lisa returned home as he was nailing down the last piece of the top rail. “Looking good,” she said.
“You, too,” he returned, taking in the rich brown with honey highlights that had replaced her salt and pepper hair color.
“Thank you.” She smiled as she walked up the steps. Amanda has been after me forever to do something. In a nice way.”
“Speaking of Amanda.” Eric started putting the tools Jeff had lent him in Jeff’s toolbox. “Hope you don’t mind that I invited her to eat with us this evening.”
“Mind? Not at all. I’d have her join us every night.”
Eric laughed. “I thought we’d make it a joint effort. If I can borrow your car, I’ll pick up some steaks and get the propane tank for your grill filled so I can grill them. You can do the sides?”
“Fine with me.” She opened the screen door.
“Ah.” Eric shuffled his feet. “Before you go in, I want to ask something else about Amanda.”
Lisa grinned. Most likely at the school-boy uncertainty that had invaded his body. The first grin he’d ever seen from her.
“I thought I’d take her on a walk to look at the Christmas decorations around town,” he said double checking his plans even though Amanda had agreed.
“She’ll like that. Christmas is her favorite holiday. She can’t get enough of the decorations, everything to do with the season. She’s probably told you I was an Army nurse.”
He nodded.
“Christmas was the one holiday I could usually count on having off to spend with her. So, we did things up big. For her, there can’t be too much Christmas.”
“Good to know.”
“It’s so magical, she’s even willing to accept surprises at Christmastime. I’m sure you know how she is with her planning. She leaves no room for surprises.”
He thought about her reaction to the unexpected publicity about them and about her surprise pickup at the Charleston airport. Except for surprising others? Maybe only certain others. His heart thrummed. Like him?
“So,” Lisa continued. “At Christmas she’s open to surprises, good surprises, that don’t disrupt her plans too much.”
Eric processed that information and laughed. “I think I have that. Don’t be late for Christmas dinner unless I have a just-what-she-always-wanted-gift with me.”
Lisa laughed back. “Breaking it down to its essence, yes. And, um…” Now it was her turn to hesitate. “You and whatever you have going with my daughter. I think it’s good for her.”
Lisa left him with that. What he heard as expectations. Of him. His chest tightened.
And aside from acting, he had a losing record of fulfilling other people’s expectations.
Chapter 8
Amanda breezed into her architecture office. She had a couple hours of simple work, and she’d be done for the day. Done and able to leave in plenty of time to get home, change, and be ready for supper at Mom’s. And for strolling with Eric under the stars, enjoying the unusually warm weather they were having today.
She turned on her computer, clicked her design program to complete her proposal drawing and nothing happened. She’d clicked again, then shut down and tried once more. Amanda huffed. She had no idea what the problem was. All her software was up to date. She regularly ran spyware and antivirus programs and did routine computer maintenance. “There shouldn’t be a problem,” she told the computer.
Sweet Tidings Page 6
