Goody Two Shoes (Invertary Book 2) (5 page)

“You’ll be wanting a cup of tea,” one of the old guys said.

Josh would rather drink water from a puddle. “Tea sounds great.” He ignored the frown of disapproval on Caroline’s face and followed the old guys.

“I need to make a quick phone call,” Caroline said. “Reschedule my appointment.”

“Don’t worry”—Archie flashed a wicked smile—“we’ll take good care of him.”

“That’s exactly what worries me.” Caroline disappeared through a door in the foyer marked “Manager.”

Josh followed the guys into a room with blue walls, and over to a large brown Formica table near the window. There were four tables in the room, all large and well worn, surrounded by an assortment of wooden chairs. At the end of the room, farthest away from the door, someone had put in an old gas fire and arranged some high-back armchairs around it. It looked like one of the retirement homes Josh had sung in as a kid.

One of the guys placed a plate of cookies and a mug of tea in front of him. They stared at him while he wolfed down the cookies.

“So, you’re the singer.” Archie eyed him speculatively.

“Guilty as charged.” The tea was revolting.

“I saw Sinatra play in ’62,” Archie said. “You’ve got nothing on him.”

Josh barked out a laugh. “Who does?”

The old man grinned.

“I hear you have sex with all your groupies,” Brian said.

Josh forced himself to take a sip of the tea. “I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. But I eventually grew up.”

The guy looked disappointed. “So there’s no groupie sex, then?”

“Not for a long time.”

“Pity,” Brian muttered. “I was trying to live vicariously. It’s not like there’s a lot of action in this town.”

One of the other men cleared his throat and nodded at the door. A second later, Caroline swept through.

“Okay.” She stood beside him. Her back straight as a board. “I’ve cancelled my appointment. Let’s go to my office and talk.”

The men’s shoulders slumped with disappointment. Caroline glanced pointedly at her watch. Josh smothered a chuckle. Everything about her made him want to mess with her. “Pull up a chair, baby. I’m happy here.”

He thought he saw her jaw clench. She stared at him for a moment, as though trying to figure out the best way to get him to comply. He winked at her. Her eyes went wide, then she blinked hard. Without a word, she turned a chair from the table beside them and perched on the edge of it. She folded her hands in her lap and waited. The domino boys were astonished, and Josh felt kind of smug. It was then he caught her thin smile and realised his actions would have consequences. It sent a thrill right through him.

“As I was saying before…” Josh gave Caroline his best dazzling smile. She was unimpressed. “There’s a work crew in my house and none of them are there to build a studio. Want to explain it to me?”

The men leaned in towards them.

“And explain loudly,” James said. “I don’t have my hearing aids.”

Caroline frowned at Josh. “You agreed that I could do whatever I liked with the castle. Did you not?”

“Yes, I did. But I also remember telling you I needed a sound studio.”

“You can build one in the grounds, or rent a portable one, or something.”

“Or you could put one in the room where I want it to be.”

“That wasn’t our agreement. You said I could do what I want without interference. I want to restore the castle.” She gave him a frosty look.

“I like the castle the way it is. It’s comfortable.”

“It looks like a city apartment. All the period details have been wiped out. I’m putting them back.”

“I didn’t want a restoration. I wanted a renovation. I need somewhere to work on my next album.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How about New York?”

Josh burst out laughing. She glared at him. Her perfect little nose thrust in the air and her pink lips were in a tight line.

“You can’t get rid of me that easy,” he said. “We have an agreement.”

“Yes. We agreed that I get the castle.”

“Yep, you get the castle.” Josh grinned wide and slow. “And I get you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Caroline wanted to melt into the ugly brown carpet—straight after she wiped the smug smile off of Mr. America’s face.

“Caroline.” Archie folded his arms and frowned. “What’s the Yank talking about?”

Josh folded his arms and raised an eyebrow in her direction. His eyes twinkled with amusement. The message was clear. She was on her own.

She took a slow, steadying breath. “Josh and I have agreed to get married.”

There was a stunned silence.

“To each other?” Findlay said.

Josh burst out laughing, and Caroline had the uncharacteristic urge to kick him.

She fought for patience. “Of course to each other. What else would I mean?”

“But you don’t even know each other,” Brian said.

Josh was being no help at all. Worse still, he seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Apparently this is the in thing for celebrities. You choose a woman at random and propose.”

“But you’re not the marrying kind,” James boomed. The other men shushed him. “We all thought you’d come to terms with being a spinster.”

Anger fought with humiliation as Caroline watched the men’s faces.

“It’s a bit confusing, lass.” Archie leaned forward and gently patted her hand. “We assumed you weren’t interested in all that stuff.”

“All what stuff?” Caroline hoped they would note her icy tone.

They didn’t. “You know,” Brian said. “Husband, kids, S-E-X.”

Her jaw dropped. “You do know I can spell, right?”

Brian at least had the good grace to look embarrassed.

Caroline wished she had the power to turn invisible at will. Instead she had to sit there pretending she wasn’t humiliated, while the boys informed the man she was going to marry that she was an asexual spinster. She had absolutely no doubt that Josh was rethinking his decision to wed her. She only hoped she’d get the castle restored before he found another woman to take her place.

“You’ve got this all wrong.” There was a smile in Josh’s voice.

Here it comes, the rejection
. She sat up straighter and made sure her face was carefully blank. Suddenly, she felt a strong hand curl around hers. Startled, she looked down to see Josh’s fingers linked with hers.

“Caroline here has a very healthy interest in S-E-X.” Josh winked at her. “Seems like we know two different people.”

Caroline blinked hard. Was he defending her? Josh squeezed her hand. She tried to pull it away. He held tight. It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that she could look after herself. When she turned to tell him so, the soft look in his eyes made the words stick in her throat.

Archie dragged her attention back to the domino boys. “When’s the wedding?”

“Three weeks.” Josh’s fingertips caressed the palm of her hand. “I have a wedding planner flying up from London to help sort things out.”

Caroline tried to hide her disappointment. “I was going to organise it. I made a list.”

“She’s working for you, baby. You can use her any way you like.”

There was an awkward silence. Caroline tried again to pry her hand from out of Josh’s grip, but it was impossible. Worse still, he seemed amused by her efforts.

Josh turned to the domino boys. “We’d be grateful if you could keep this information to yourselves. We don’t want the town overrun with press.”

The boys shared a look that Caroline didn’t like one bit.

“It’s going to cost you,” Archie said at last.

“Archie Mcpherson!” Caroline started to lay into him, but Josh held up a hand.

“I want to hear this.” He turned back to the boys, who were looking craftier than ever. “What’s it going to cost?”

“Oh, we don’t want money,” Archie said as the other men nodded.

“No”—Brian grinned widely—“we want something much better than that.”

Caroline had an awful sense of foreboding.

James leaned across the table towards Josh. “We want in.” The boys nodded in unison.

Josh just grinned. “And by ‘in,’ you mean?”

“We want to work on the wedding,” Hamish said. “You have your namby-pamby English planner coming in, but we want to be wedding planners too. Caroline needs someone looking out for her interests, so that she doesn’t get overlooked in this whole celebrity shindig.”

“Yeah,” Josh drawled. “Because we all know that Caroline has a problem standing up for herself.”

They all laughed.

“Sitting here,” Caroline snapped at them. “Sitting right here and planning to check out the book on poisons we have in the library. Remember that the next time I make you a pot of tea. Also remember that I know where to hide the bodies.”

Josh seemed impressed. The rest of the men paled.

“Caroline Patterson,” Archie said. “Don’t go telling lies. We all know you’re far too moral to break the law. You’d no more murder us than you would steal from the post office.”

“Fine.” Caroline glared at him. “But I have no problem lacing everything you eat and drink with laxatives.”

Josh put up his hands. “There’s no need for that.” He winked at Caroline, making her even madder. “Why the hell would you guys want to plan a wedding?”

All four answered as one: “Boredom.”

“And if we don’t get to help, we’ll entertain ourselves with the only other option we have available,” Archie said with calculation in his eyes.

“Aye,” Brian said, “with talking to the press.”

Caroline was gritting her teeth so hard she was sure she’d pulverised a few. “I won’t be blackmailed.”

“Maybe not.” James smirked. “But I bet he will.” He pointed at Josh.

“Sorry, honey,” Josh told her. “The man has a point. We need this kept under the radar more than we need these guys to butt out.”

“One.” Caroline held up a finger. “I am
not
your baby, honey, sweetheart or darling. Two.” She pointed at each of the men in turn. “You will all be sorry about this. Not one of you knows anything about weddings. What makes you think you can ‘help’?”

“Between us we’ve been married seven times,” Archie said. “Not to mention we know everyone and everything in Invertary. And”—he gave her a smug look—“as you keep telling us, we’re in a library—what we don’t know, there’s bound to be a book on it somewhere.” The four men cackled like Macbeth’s witches. “Let’s face it. You need us. Without us you’d plan something so uptight that no one would have any fun.”

Caroline stood before taking a slow, measured breath. “You have one chance. If you screw up, that’s it. I don’t give a flying fig if you run to the press or not.”

“We’ll make you proud.” Hamish nodded to his friends, and they all made the sign of the boy scout’s promise.

Caroline rolled her eyes in disgust before striding out of the room and into her office.

A few minutes later, the boys were sitting at a table in the library room surrounded by bridal magazines. At least they were occupied and had stopped annoying her. Caroline shut the large windows in her office. There were two: one that faced into the library room and another into the reception area. Normally she liked being able to see everything that went on in the centre. Today it felt a little bit too much like a goldfish bowl. She turned to Josh, who was perched on the edge of her desk. He wore faded jeans, a blue T-shirt with Scooby-Doo on it and a pair of grey Converse. Everything he had on was worn, yet he looked more put together than Caroline did on her best day.

“You’re taking up too much space.” She wanted to push him out of her office into the foyer, but instead she sat behind her desk and scowled at him.

“There’s not a lot I can do about that, baby.”

“Stop calling me baby. Do I look like an infant?”

“Would you prefer ‘sweetheart’?”

“I prefer Caroline.”

Josh sauntered around to sit closer to her. Caroline tried to put some space between them, but the wall blocked her retreat.

“We need to clear up a few things.” Josh’s laid-back attitude irritated her.

“I’m not putting a studio in the castle.” A deal was a deal. She was restoring the place, not converting it into a musician’s playground.

He reached for her hair, making Caroline jerk away from him.

“I need to work.”

“Well do it somewhere else.”

“I also need to live. You’re ripping out all the comfort in the place.”

“I’m putting the character back in.”

“Character is a pain in the ass. I want to be able to relax.”

“Relax somewhere else.”

He studied her for a moment, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “You want me out of the castle, don’t you?”

Caroline thought about it. “No. I just want it to be perfect. You can stay there as long as you don’t interfere.”

With an amused smile, he shook his head. “There needs to be compromise in a marriage. Your husband needs to be able to work and relax.”