The other women stared at him without responding. He noticed Bella in the crowd, but she didn’t look as happy as she had the day she’d also helped rescue him from the overaggressive tourists.
“We need to talk to you,” Denise told him.
“This isn’t a good time for me.”
“Do we look like we’re getting any younger?” the oldest in the group snapped. “You’ll listen, young man, and you’ll listen good. We have ways of making your life a living hell. Do you really want to test us on that?”
Like any good sportsman, he knew when he’d met a superior opponent. “No, ma’am.”
“I didn’t think so.” She sniffed. “Go on, Denise.”
“We’ve been talking,” Dakota’s mother told him. “We looked you up on the Internet. I don’t know what went wrong with your first wife, but she wasn’t anyone we would trust.”
The other women nodded in agreement.
“You’ve been single a few years now, so you’re obviously over her. You came here to settle down, which shows you’re intelligent. You seem like a nice enough man.”
Obviously these women hadn’t been talking to Mayor Marsha, he thought grimly.
“But you’re stuck.”
Bella pushed through the other women and moved in front of him. “Pia loves you, so we want her to have you.”
Denise patted her friend’s arm. “Bella, I think we need to be more delicate. Raoul might not know he’s in love with Pia. We might have to explain things.”
“He gets it,” another woman said. “How could he not? She’s wonderful. If he doesn’t love her, he doesn’t deserve her.”
“I agree,” someone else said. “But I’ve said it before. If we wait for the man we deserve, we’ll never get married.”
“At least he’s handsome.”
“And rich.”
“He has nice, thick hair,” Bella told them.
“And a great butt.”
The last comment was Raoul’s tipping point. “Ladies,” he said loudly. “I appreciate the intervention. I know Pia will be grateful when she hears of your very vocal support.” Humiliated, he thought while smiling for the first time in hours, but grateful.
“However, this is between me and Pia. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go talk to her.”
Denise grabbed his arm in a surprisingly strong grip. “Not so fast. What are you going to say?”
He stared at them all. While he could easily tell them it wasn’t their business, he hadn’t changed his mind about settling here. Fool’s Gold was going to be his home for a very long time, and these women were his neighbors.
“The truth,” he said simply. “That I’m desperately in love with her and I’m begging her to give me a second chance.”
Several of the women sighed.
Denise gave him a shove. “Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Go find her.”
He took off at a jog, trying to figure out where to go first. It was midafternoon. He would start with her office and spread out from there.
He took the stairs two at a time and burst onto the landing. Her door stood partially open. He hurried toward it, aware of voices down by the first-floor entrance. Ignoring them, he pushed open Pia’s door and found her alone in her small office.
She looked much as she had the first time he’d seen her. Pretty with curly brown hair and bright, hazel eyes that showed every emotion. The difference was now he knew that she was kind and loving, funny and smart. That she was rational and compassionate, even when panicked, that she gave with her whole heart and that he could search the world and never find anyone even close to her.
She looked up, startled. “Raoul. Are you okay? I heard about Marsha’s visit and I want to tell you I had nothing to do with that.”
“I know.”
“She’s upset, but no one wants you to leave town.”
“Good, because I’m not going.”
“Really? Well, that’s great. I mean of course you can live where you want. This is a free country. Sometimes small towns have an inflated sense of themselves.”
He moved around the desk and drew her to her feet. Her gaze flickered, as if she was afraid to stare directly at him.
“Pia?”
“Yes.”
“Look at me.”
She sighed, then did as he requested.
He knew her face. He’d seen it hundreds of times. But he would never get tired of seeing her and touching her. Only her, he thought. He would take the chance with her, because he didn’t have a choice. Without her, he was only half-alive.
“I offered you a marriage of convenience,” he began. “Because I wasn’t willing to get involved again. My first marriage ended badly. I’d made a mistake and I didn’t know where I’d gone wrong. Rather than figure that out, I decided to never take the chance again.”