Ford dropped the bottle into the blue recycling bin, then headed down the hall. Gideon put in a CD, then searched until he found the right track.
“You Keep Me Hanging On” began to play.
* * *
FELICIA HURRIED TOWARD Brew-haha. She was late, which never happened. She liked her life to be organized and calm. Structured. Which meant she always knew where she was going to be and what she was going to be doing. Being late was not part of her plan.
But ever since she’d seen Gideon the day before, she’d been out of sorts. The man confused her. No, she thought as she walked by the park, her reaction to him confused her.
She was used to being around physically powerful men. She’d worked with soldiers for years. But Gideon was different. The result of their sexual history, she thought. Percentage-wise, a single night was such a small part of a person’s life, yet it could have lasting impact. A trauma of any kind could stay with a person forever. But her time with Gideon had been wonderful, not traumatic. The memories of that night along with their meeting yesterday kept swirling in her head. As a woman who liked her brain as tidy as she liked her life, she was unprepared for being so unsettled.
She paused to wait for the light so she could cross the street. As she stood, she saw a young mother with two small boys. They were maybe two and four, the youngest still a little unsteady as he ran across the grass. He came to a stop, turned and saw his mother and brother, then smiled broadly.
Felicia stared greedily, absorbing the pure joy of the moment, the unselfconsciousness of the happy toddler. This was why she’d come to Fool’s Gold, she reminded herself. To be somewhere normal. To try to be like everyone else. To maybe even fall in love and have a family. To belong.
For someone who had grown up as a whiz kid on a university college campus, normal sounded like heaven. She wanted what other people took for granted.
The light changed, and she crossed quickly, aware of her lateness. Mayor Marsha hadn’t said why she wanted to meet and Felicia hadn’t asked. She’d assumed her skills were needed on a project of some kind. Maybe setting up an inventory system for the city.
She walked through the open door into the coffeehouse. Brew-haha had opened a couple of months before. Hardwood floors gleamed as sunlight spilled through the big windows. There were plenty of tables, a nice selection of pastries and delicious caffeine in all forms.
Patience, the owner and one of Felicia’s friends, smiled. “You’re late,” she said cheerfully. “I’m excited to know you have flaws. There’s hope for the rest of us.”
Felicia groaned as her friend pointed to a table toward the back. Sure enough, Mayor Marsha Tilson and Pia Moreno were already seated there.
“I’ll bring you a latte,” Patience added, already reaching for a large mug.
“Thanks.”
Felicia made her way through the tables toward the other women. Mayor Marsha, California’s longest-serving mayor, was a well-dressed woman in her early seventies. She favored suits and, during business hours, wore her white hair up in a classic bun. She was, Felicia thought wistfully, the perfect combination of competent and motherly.
Pia, a willowy brunette with curly hair and a ready smile, jumped to her feet as Felicia approached. “You made it. Thanks for coming. It’s summer with what feels like a festival every fifteen minutes. I’m happy to be out of my office, even for a business meeting.”
She gave Felicia a quick hug. Felicia responded in kind, despite her surprise. She’d only met Pia a couple of times and didn’t think they were all that close. Still, the physical contact was pleasant and implied a connection.
Patience brought over the latte and a plate of cookies. “We’re sampling today,” she said with a grin. “From the bakery. They’re too fabulous.” She pushed the plate into the center of the table with her left hand. Her diamond ring flashed.
Mayor Marsha touched Patience’s ring finger. “What a beautiful setting,” she said. “Justice did a very nice job choosing the ring.”
Patience sighed and studied her engagement ring. “I know. I keep staring at it when I should be working. But I can’t help myself.”
She returned to the front of the store. Pia watched her go.
“Young love,” she said with a sigh.
“You’re still young and very much in love,” the mayor reminded her.
“I am still in love,” Pia said and laughed. “Most days I don’t feel so young. But I’ll agree with you on the ring. It’s impressive.”
Mayor Marsha turned to Felicia and raised her eyebrows. “Not a big diamond fan?”
“I don’t get the appeal,” she admitted. “They sparkle, but they’re simply pressurized rocks.”
“Expensive rocks,” Pia teased.
“Because we assign them significance. They have little intrinsic value, except for their hardness. In some industrial settings...” She paused, aware she was not only talking too much, she was heading into a subject everyone else would find boring. “Fossils are interesting,” she murmured. “Their formation seems more serendipitous.”
The other two women glanced at each other, then back at her. Their expressions were polite, but Felicia recognized the signs. They were both thinking she was a freak. Sadly, they were right about that.
Moments like this one were the main reasons she worried about having the family she wanted so desperately. What if she couldn’t have children? Not biologically. There was no reason to assume she couldn’t procreate as well as the next woman. But was she emotionally sound enough? Could she learn what she didn’t know? She trusted her brain implicitly but was less sure about her instincts, and maybe her heart.
She’d grown up never fitting in—a reality she would never want to foist on any child she might have.
“Amber is tree sap, isn’t it?” Pia asked. “Wasn’t that the basis of that movie? The dinosaur one?”
“Jurassic Park,” the mayor said.
“Right. Raoul loves that movie. He and Peter watch it together. I won’t let the twins anywhere near the room, though. They wouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks after seeing T.rex eating that man.”
Felicia started to point out all the scientific inconsistencies in the movie, then pressed her lips together. She believed that many life lessons could be found in clichés, and right now the phrase “less is more” came to mind.
Mayor Marsha took a sip of her coffee. “Felicia, I’m sure you’re wondering why we wanted to meet with you today.”
Pia shook her head. “Right. The meeting.” She smiled. “I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations.”
The expected response, Felicia thought, not sure why the other woman was sharing the information. But then they’d hugged, so perhaps Pia thought they were closer than Felicia did. She wasn’t always good at judging things like that.
Pia laughed. “Thanks. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Ask poor Patience. I had a complete breakdown in front of her not that long ago. I’ve been forgetful and disorganized. Then I found out I’m pregnant. It was good to have a physical cause for my craziness and not have to worry about going insane.”
She cupped her hands around her mug of tea. “I already have three kids. Peter and the twins. I love my work, but with a fourth baby on the way, I can’t possibly stay on top of everything that’s happening. I’ve been wrestling with the fact that I can’t be in charge of the festivals anymore.”
Felicia nodded politely. She doubted they were going to ask for her recommendation on who should take Pia’s place. They would know that better than she would. Unless they wanted her to help with the search. She could easily come up with a list of criteria and—
Mayor Marsha smiled at her over her mug. “We were thinking of you.”
Felicia opened her mouth, then closed it. Words genuinely failed her—a very uncommon experience. “For the job?”
“Yes. You have an unusual skill set. Your time with the military has given you experience at dealing with a bureaucrac
y. While I like to think we’re more nimble than most city governments, the truth is we still move very slowly and there’s a form for everything. Logistics are your gift, and the festivals are all about logistics. You’ll bring a fresh set of eyes to what we’ve been doing.”
Mayor Marsha paused to smile at Pia. “Not that you haven’t been brilliant.”
Pia laughed. “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. Felicia can be better than me. If she is, I won’t have to feel guilty.”
“I don’t understand,” Felicia whispered. “You want me to be in charge of the festivals?”
“Yes,” the mayor said firmly.
“But they’re important to the town. I know you have other industries, but I would guess that tourism is your main source of income. The university and the hospital would be the largest employers, but the visitors are the real money.”
“You’re right,” Pia said. “Don’t get me started on how much per person, because I can tell you within a couple of dollars.”
Felicia thought about mentioning she was the sort of person who enjoyed math, then told herself it wasn’t pertinent to the subject at hand.
“Why would you trust me with the festivals?” she asked, knowing it was the only question that mattered.
“Because you’ll make sure they’re done right,” Mayor Marsha told her. “You’ll stand up for what you believe in. But mostly because you’ll care as much as we do.”
“You can’t know that,” Felicia told her.
The mayor smiled. “Of course I can, dear.”
CHAPTER TWO
FELICIA DROVE UP the mountain. She’d left town a couple miles back and was now on a two-lane road with a gentle grade and wide shoulders. She took the curves slowly, not wanting to find herself grill-to-nose with any wildlife out foraging in the warm summer night. Overhead the sky was a mass of stars with the moon only partially visible through a canopy of leaves.
It was after two in the morning. She’d gone to bed at her usual time, but had been unable to sleep. She’d been restless much of the day. Actually since her meeting, she thought. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around what the mayor and Pia had suggested. That she run the festivals.
Her usual response to a difficult problem was to brainstorm solutions. Only this wasn’t that kind of problem. This was about people and tradition and an intangible she couldn’t identify. She was both excited by the opportunity and frightened. She had never shied away from responsibility before, but this was different, and she didn’t know what to do.
The result of which was her drive up the mountain.
She turned down a small, paved road that was marked as private. A quarter mile later, she saw the house set back in the trees. Gideon’s house.
She hadn’t known who else to talk to. She had started to make friends in town, women who tried to understand her and appreciate the effort she made to bond. Funny, charming women who all had a connection with the town. And that was the problem. The town. She needed an outside opinion.
Normally she would have gone to Justice, but he had recently gotten engaged to Patience. Felicia wasn’t clear on all the dynamics that went into falling in love, but she was pretty sure keeping secrets broke a major rule. Which meant Justice would tell Patience what Felicia said, bringing her back to needing an outside opinion.
She parked in the wide, circular driveway and got out of her car. There was a long front porch and big windows that would allow in plenty of light. She would guess that light and sky would be important to a man like Gideon.
She walked to the porch and sat on the steps to wait. His shift ended at two, so she would expect him to arrive shortly. He didn’t strike her as the type to stop in a bar on the way home. Not that she could say how she knew that about him.
The little information she had on Gideon was sketchy at best. Their time together four years ago had been more physical than conversational. She knew that he was former military, that he’d been assigned to covert ops and that his work had taken him places no man should have to go. She knew that he and his team had been taken prisoner for nearly two years. That had happened before they’d met.
She’d never discovered any details on his captivity, mostly because the information had been classified beyond her pay grade. Technically she could have gotten into the file, but Felicia was less concerned about if she could do something than if she should. What she did know was that Gideon had been involved in the kind of missions that were so exciting in movies but deadly in real life. The kind that if the operative got caught—no one was coming after him. Because of that, Gideon had spent twenty-two months in the hands of the Taliban. She assumed he’d been tortured and abused until death had seemed like the best possible outcome. Then he’d been rescued. The other men with him hadn’t made it out.
Headlights appeared through the bushes. She watched Gideon’s truck pull up behind her car. He turned off the engine, then got out and walked toward her.
He was tall, with broad shoulders. In the starlight there were no details—just the silhouette of the man. A shiver raced through her. Not apprehension, she thought. Anticipation. Her body remembered what Gideon had done, how he’d touched her with a combination of tenderness and desperation. His hunger had chased away any nerves.
While she’d studied the subject of sexual intimacy, knowing in her head and experiencing in person were two different things. Reading about the states of arousal had been nothing like experiencing them. Intellectual knowledge of why a tongue stroke on a nipple might feel good hadn’t prepared her for the wet heat of his mouth on her breast. And knowing the progression of an orgasm hadn’t come close to actually feeling the shuddering release that had claimed her.
“You’re unexpected,” he said, pausing at the foot of the stairs.
In the starlight, she couldn’t read his expression. She couldn’t see if he was remembering, too. “I need to talk to someone,” she admitted. “You came to mind.”
His eyebrows rose. “Okay. That’s a new one. I haven’t seen you in four years and you thought of me?”
“Technically you saw me in the warehouse.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “Yes, and it was meaningful for me, too.” The almost-smile faded. “What do you want to talk about?”
“It’s work related, but if you don’t want to have a conversation, I can leave.”
He studied her for a few seconds. “Come on in. I’m too wired to sleep after I work. I usually do Tai Chi to relax, but having a conversation works, too.”
He walked past her. She rose and followed him inside.
The house was big and open, with plenty of wood and high ceilings. Gideon flipped on lights as he moved through a great room with a fireplace at one end. There were floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the darkness. While she couldn’t make out details of the view, she had a sense of vastness beyond.
“Is the house on the edge of a canyon?” she asked.
“Side of a mountain.”
He went into the kitchen. There were plenty of cabinets, lots of granite countertops and stainless appliances. He pulled two beers out of the refrigerator and handed her one.
“I thought you were avoiding me,” he said.
“I was, but now that we’ve spoken there didn’t seem to be any need to continue.”
“Huh.”
His dark gaze was steady but unreadable. She had no idea what he was thinking. His voice was appealing, but that was more about physiology than any interest in her. Gideon had one of those low, rumbly voices that sounded so good on the radio. He could make a detergent sound sexy if he put any effort into it.
He flipped off the kitchen lights. She blinked in the sudden darkness, then heard more than saw him walk across the room and open a sliding glass door. Moonlight illuminated the shadow of him disappearing onto what would be the back deck of the house. She followed.
There were a few lounge chairs and a couple of small tables. Forest stretched out beyond the railing. The trees
angled down—Gideon hadn’t been kidding about the house being on the side of a mountain.
She settled in a chair close to his, with one of the tables between them. She rested her head against the cushions and stared up at the star-filled sky. The half-moon had nearly cleared the mountain, illuminating the quiet forest and still mountain.
The air was cool, but not cold. In the distance she heard the faint hoot of an owl. An occasional leaf rustled.
“I can see why you like it here,” she said, reaching for her beer. “It’s restful. You’re close enough to town to get to the station but far enough away to not have to deal with too many unexpected visitors.” She smiled. “Excluding me, of course.”
“I like it.”
“Do you get snowed in during the winter?”
“I didn’t last year. We hardly had any snow. But it’s going to happen.” He shrugged. “I’m prepared.”
He would be, she thought, because of his military training. She’d noticed that she and Justice often came at a problem from different angles but with the same objective. And speaking of her friend...
“I couldn’t talk to Justice about this,” she said.
Gideon raised his eyebrows. “All right.”
“I thought you’d want to know why. Because he and I are like family.” She turned on the lounge chair, angling herself toward him.
He was in silhouette again. A powerful man momentarily tamed. Her gaze drifted to his hands. She was tall, but with Gideon she’d felt delicate. For a few hours in his bed, she hadn’t been frighteningly brilliant or freakishly organized. She’d been a woman—just like everyone else.
“So what’s the problem?”
For a second she thought he was referring to her study of his hands, and the resulting memories. “It’s the town.”
“You don’t like it here?”
“I like it very much.” She drew in a breath. “The mayor has asked me to take over running the festivals. Pia Moreno had been doing it for several years, but she already has three kids and is pregnant with a fourth. It’s too much for her.”
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