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.”