the one in front, a violet-haired woman using a cane.
“Sister and me?” asked the other, wrinkling her powdery brow.
Gina rushed forward to greet them. “Oh, no, of course not, Miss Tess and Miss Dora. Please come in. What can I get for you today? More goldenseal, or perhaps a bit of catnip for dear little Felix?” Over their heads, she glared at Josh.
“We don’t need goldenseal, do we, Dora? Catnip would be good. Felix is feeling his age, and it perks him right up.” The one with the cane started down the aisle toward the catnip.
“I’d like one of those nice cookbooks, you know, the one that benefits the teen center. We’re going to send it to our cousin in Seattle.”
“Right over here, Miss Tess.” Gina guided her toward the rustic cabinet where the cookbooks were displayed and helped her to pull one down from the shelf.
Josh realized that he was standing beside a wicker basket piled high with lavender sachets. In addition to buying some for his landlady, he supposed he could send packets to his mother and sister. Their scent made his nose itch, though. Lavender always did.
Gina rang up the ladies’ order, which took a while because they’d bought a number of items. When she had finished, she turned to Josh. “You’ll help Miss Tess and Miss Dora carry these things out to their car, won’t you, Josh?”
He stacked the lavender sachets on the counter beside the cash register. “I’d be glad to,” he said easily, scooping up their bag.
Neither one of the ladies moved particularly fast, so he was treated to a long and drawn-out account of Felix’s last hairball episode, whereupon the two of them became involved in an argument about the best remedies for feline hair-balls. By the time he had installed the women in their elderly compact sedan, Josh was eager to get back inside. Then the sedan backed up, heading straight for him. He jumped out of the way barely before being hit.
Miss Tess leaned out the window. “Young man, you look a lot like that Mr. Moneybags fellow. Are you?”
Josh nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“You listen to me, sir. Our Gina is a nice girl. Don’t you dare hurt her again!”
“I—” Josh began. He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, since Miss Dora, who was driving, scratched off and left him standing in a cloud of dust.
Did everyone in town dislike him for what he had done to Gina on the show? Didn’t they understand it was all a bit of make-believe, conjured up by a couple of producers who were interested in the show’s entertainment value and not much else? They hadn’t expected him to fall in love with the woman he chose. The most they had hinted should happen was that he and Tahoma might want to keep in touch and give themselves a chance for real romance to develop. He wished there were some way he could let everyone know that he realized he’d chosen the wrong woman. What was he supposed to do—emblazon a sign across his forehead? He pondered the wording of such a sign. I Should Have Picked Gina. No, that made her sound like a bunch of grapes. I Was Stupid. Now, that was more like it. It seemed to fit in with the locals’ opinions of him.
Josh walked slowly back into the cottage. Gina was arranging fresh flowers in a vase on one of the front window-sills, and he marched up to her.
“Gina, tell me one thing. Do you hate me for the way the show turned out?”
She was so startled that she dropped a handful of cut ferns, which scattered around her feet. Josh bent to help her pick them up.
“Well,” Josh demanded, “do you?”
At that moment several other customers came in, and Gina, after one last annoyed glance in his direction, went to see to their needs.
She hadn’t answered. So perhaps she did hate him. If so, was any of this pursuing doing any good? Was she so totally dead set against renewing their friendship that all his efforts were a waste of time? Would it help if he told her how much he’d matured since the Mr. Moneybags experience, now that he’d reflected on what had happened? If he mentioned that, ultimately, choosing the wrong woman had made him a wiser, better man?
He hoped that the customers wouldn’t linger over their choices, but two of them seemed inclined to study every bin and the card next to it in order to learn more about treating various symptoms with herbs, and another, who was apparently a friend of Gina’s, embarked on a long explanation of a complicated family situation that required patient listening on Gina’s part.
As if that weren’t enough, Josh stood too near some dried goldenrod, began to sneeze and couldn’t stop. He fled outside and sat down on a garden bench beneath an oak tree while he waited for the customers to leave.
The trouble was, they stayed longer than Josh expected, and fast on their heels came three more carloads of people. He peered in the window and saw Gina talking animatedly with one group while the others browsed, and she soon had a line at the cash register.
As soon as everyone left, Josh ambled back inside. Gina, who wore a pencil behind one ear and was adding up receipts, glanced up with a smile of greeting as he entered. It quickly faded when she saw him.
“I thought you’d gone,” she said pointedly.
“I was only biding my time. Could you ring up those sachets for me, please?”
“Glad to,” she said through tight lips.
“About lunch, Gina.”
She tucked his lavender and his cash register receipt into a bag and handed it to him.
“What about it?”
“Let’s run downtown and grab a sandwich.”
She let out a long sigh. “I can’t leave. My relief salesperson won’t be in today, so I’m going to make do with peanut butter and crackers.”
Disappointment washed over him. “Who’s your relief?” The thought occurred to him that he could find whoever it was and beg him or her to show up.
“My sister fills in for me when I need a break. She lives so close that it usually works out well. Today she’s at the winery, cleaning up after last night’s party. Oh, hello, Shelley. How are things at the Bootery?”
Josh grew glum as he listened to the two women talking about Shelley’s business, a shoe store downtown, and soon more customers arrived, some on a tour bus on a day trip to the valley from San Francisco, which was only an hour and a half’s drive away. Getting time alone with Gina was almost impossible.
When twelve o’clock came and went, he decided that he might as well leave, but not for good. He’d be back soon, this time with food.
GINA BREATHED AN AUDIBLE sigh of relief as she saw Josh’s car exit the parking lot. She and Shelley had business to discuss: the bachelor auction, which was Gina’s latest project. Gina had shepherded the auction project through the city council’s permit process, had assembled a crackerjack committee and was going to emcee the event. The project would benefit the teen center that was so important to Gina and her family as well as the entire community.
“I’ll see you at the next committee meeting,” Shelley said after they’d hammered out several decisions concerning the wine to
