the finishing touches on your shelves right now. Come on back and have a look-see.”
Daniel was surprised the hunch-shouldered senior citizen could move so fast. She scurried off in her orthopedic shoes, her cotton dress swishing around her as she went.
While Alice and Mattie did their thing in the workroom, Daniel circumnavigated the store, marveling at several other eye-catching displays of woodcrafts, ceramics and unusual antiques. Mattie Roland was obviously a whiz when it came to interior decorating. Daniel never would have thought to assemble these particular items and arrange them as she had, but the effect was extraordinary. The woman definitely had a gift!
Daniel’s brain short-circuited when he glanced over his shoulder to see a petite but voluptuous female, dressed in paint-splattered jeans and T-shirt, walking toward him. There was a smudge of Lucky Shamrock Green on the tip of her nose and a streak of Longjohn Red on her elbow. Her raven-colored ponytail was slightly off center, but amethyst-colored eyes, rimmed with incredibly long lashes, dominated her pixielike face. Mattie Roland was five feet four inches, one hundred fifteen pounds—give or take—of arresting female who reminded him of an enchanting leprechaun.
Mesmerized, Daniel stood there like a tongue-tied doofus. This vivacious young woman was Mattie Roland? Employee of the Year?
“Hi,” Mattie greeted cheerily. “Is there something I can help you find in Hobby Hut?”
The sizzling jolt of awareness caused his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth. He, who spent the past several years with prima donnas latched to his arms like English ivy, had suddenly encountered the girl-next-door variety of female. Mattie wasn’t what Daniel was accustomed to, but he definitely approved of the look of her.
Daniel was excessively pleased that he’d selected Fox Hollow for his hiatus. And speaking of fox, Mattie Roland was definitely that, in his opinion. She appealed to everything male in him. She had that wholesome, vital appearance that he much preferred over the bottled variety and surgically implanted artificial beauty women relied on to enhance their facial features and figures. The indifference he’d been experiencing with his shallow, glamorous companions of late took a flying leap when Mattie, with an energetic spring in her walk, strode up to him and blessed him with a two-hundred-watt smile.
“Sir?” she prompted when he continued to stand there, absorbing the refreshing sight of her. “Are you looking for a gift for your wife or girlfriend? Need supplies for a woodcrafting project?”
“No wife, no girlfriend,” he said when his vocal apparatus began to function. “I’m looking for a job.”
“Really?” She seemed startled. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I just arrived in town, and I’m looking for work,” he lied convincingly. Then he inwardly winced when he realized he was no better than his yes-executives who would lie through their smiles if it would get them onto a higher rung on the corporate ladder.
“I’m surprised you came in here,” she said, as she absently reached over to rearrange a porcelain figurine that wasn’t perfectly aligned on the shelf.
“Why?” He wanted to know.
“Most men in town consider this a sissified store where their wives and girlfriends shop. Most of my customers are women.”
“Other men think woodcrafting is sissy stuff?” he asked, affronted. “That is beyond ridiculous. Table saws, miter saws, and nail guns are not for the faint of heart. You could lose a finger if you accidentally cut skin and bone rather than wood. I spent my teenage years in a workshop, creating shelving, tables and cabinets. Sissy stuff?” He snorted in objection. “No, I don’t think so!”
Her bubbling laughter filled the space between them. Her violet eyes danced with amusement, and Daniel blushed, realizing this was the first time in a year that he’d expressed much sentiment on any subject. Mattie probably thought he was wacko because he had such strong feelings about woodcraft—the same kind of passion that he and his grandfather experienced while they labored on their craft projects in the old days.
“Obviously you have experience and a love for woodcrafting,” she said, chuckling. “I share and appreciate your enthusiasm. And you probably won’t believe this, but I just received a fax from the corporate office an hour ago, indicating that I should hire an assistant.”
Of course he believed it. Daniel had sent that fax from his office immediately before he headed south to Fox Hollow. He was here to fill the position he had created.
“As it happens,” she was saying when he tuned back in, “I’ve been swamped, and my only other employee is a high school art student who helps out after class and on Saturdays. I have so many special projects going that I can’t keep up, even though I’ve been working double days.”
She pivoted on her heels, allowing Daniel an alluring view of her inverted heart-shaped derriere wrapped in faded denim. “Come back to my office and fill out the application.”
He followed the enticing sway of her hips like a kitten on the trail of fresh cream. The past few years Daniel had begun to think his sex drive had withered away. However, one look at Mattie Roland’s hourglass figure and infectious smile and his male body woke up and was ready to party on. It had been a long time since Daniel felt such a spontaneous attraction.
He really shouldn’t have been surprised Mattie affected him instantaneously, he told himself as he followed his fantasy version of the Pied Piper. Mattie was real people. She was warm, outgoing, friendly and seemingly content with life. She was obviously doing what she loved and loved what she was doing. Daniel envied that about her.
Enthusiasm personified, he realized. That’s what she was. Mattie was exactly what he needed—someone who cared as deeply for his business as he once had. He could use an injection of her spirit and zest. He needed to bottle her up so he could take daily doses to counteract the mounting frustration he had been experiencing in his corporate office.
“Here you go,” she said, handing him the application. “Park yourself at my desk and fill this out. This is just red tape sent down by Double H at Double H.”
“Double H?” he questioned curiously.
“The head honcho at Hobby Hut,” Mattie informed him. “Ask me, the man requires entirely too much paperwork, which prohibits a manager from going one-on-one with customers. But you know how those highbrow executives are. They don’t trust us little guys and gals to manage business properly, especially way down here in the boondocks. Probably think that we small-town folks only operate with half a brain.” She shrugged, and her dark ponytail rippled over her shoulder. “But the big boss in corporateland didn’t ask my opinion, even if I’m the one out here in the trenches selling his products.”
Daniel inwardly cringed when she confided her complaints about the head honcho. If Mattie knew she was talking to the CEO of Hobby Hut, she’d be thoroughly embarrassed.
“So, do you dislike all company executives on general principle or just this big boss in particular?” he asked as he plunked down in her chair at the desk.
“I had a personal run-in with a hotshot executive before I landed this job,” she explained. “He seemed to think it was my company duty to offer him fringe benefits and that he was doing me a tremendous favor by suggesting that I join his corporate harem. He also thought who he was should impress me enormously, which it didn’t. I quit and applied for this position.
“I
