Read Online 0451471040 by Kimberly Lang - Free Book Online Page B

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 Helenahad no patience at all for shallow or superficial people. It would stand to reason, then, that Molly had to regularly engage with 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 interpretedas 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