Chasing Perfect (11 page)

He nodded.

“Have you talked to anyone about what happened? A sports psychologist?”

He glanced away. “When it first happened. I've seen the pictures, the TV coverage. I know there was nothing I could have done. But knowing and believing aren't the same thing.”

There was something in his voice, a hopelessness. As if something important had been lost.

“You want to go back,” she said quietly.

“Every damn day. I miss being who I was. Not the fame, but the competition. Winning. The training. I ride here, but it's not the same. I miss my teammates, the anticipation of the race.”

She suspected he missed the fame, as well. Who wouldn't?

“You've tried riding with other people?” she asked.

He stiffened. “More than once.” He glanced at his watch in obvious dismissal. “We should see the upstairs.”

Without thinking, she crossed to him, then lightly touched his arm. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. The past, I mean. It's not my business.”

One corner of his mouth twisted into a smile. “I'm not delicate, Charity. You can say what you want.”

She seemed unable to look away from his mouth. The shape of his upper lip, the unexpected fullness of the bottom one. She remembered the feel of his kiss, how she'd wanted to surrender. He was a man with way too much power.

“I'm seeing someone.”

The words fell out of her without warning.

Josh looked more amused than put off. “Robert?”

“Uh-huh. We've been out to dinner.”

“I remember hearing something about that. He's a good guy.”

Now she felt stupid. What had she expected? That Josh would get jealous and tell her to stop seeing Robert? That he would make a move on her?

“Yes, he is,” she said primly. “A very nice man.”

“I hope the two of you will be very happy together.

The upstairs is that way.”

She moved toward the stairs, when in truth she felt like both crying and stomping her foot. She did neither.
Instead she followed him to the second floor and tried to tell herself it was for the best. Wanting Josh was a one-way ticket to disasterville. A place where she'd already spent way too much time.

C
HARITY WAS LOOKING
forward to her meeting with Ethan Hendrix. He was a tall, good-looking guy. He and Josh used to be best friends and ride together. Then Ethan had gotten hurt ten or twelve years ago. The details on the whole thing were vague at best and she hadn't been able to figure out a way to ask without appearing too interested in either man.

Ethan owned a construction company in town and a wind turbine manufacturing facility about ten miles out. As they were meeting at the latter location, it gave her a chance to actually drive her car for once. At least she wasn't spending a lot on gas these days. Or wasting time sitting in traffic.

She followed the directions Ethan had given her, turning off at the big driveway leading to Hendrix Turbine. The site was massive, with large warehouse-like buildings and huge towers being loaded onto long trucks.

She followed arrows pointing to the office, then parked and walked inside. A small foyer led into a reception area. Beyond that were offices, desks and computers, with lots of pictures of wind turbines.

She'd done some research in anticipation of the meeting and knew that Hendrix Turbine was a fast-growing company. Wind power was popular, as were windmills. After the initial start-up costs, ongoing expenses were minimal. While wind turbine “farms” hadn't become the norm, wind power was a great potential source of green power, especially in rural communities.

An attractive woman in her twenties looked up. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and had short blond hair.

“Hi,” she said with a smile. “You must be Charity Jones. You're Ethan's eleven o'clock. He'll be back any second. There was a delivery issue.” She wrinkled her nose as she walked toward Charity. “There's always a delivery issue.”

When Charity shook hands with her, the woman continued, “I'm Nevada Hendrix, Ethan's sister. I'm one of the engineers here.”

“Nice to meet you. A female engineer. The mayor will be so disappointed.”

Nevada laughed. “When I graduated from college Marsha told me to bring as many of my male classmates as I could to town. So far none of them have followed me, but I keep asking.”

“I'm sure we all appreciate the effort.”

A door slammed in the back. “That's Ethan.” Nevada lowered her voice. “He's single, by the way. One of the few in town, if you're interested.”

“Ah, thank you,” she said, not sure of the correct and polite response. Fool's Gold might not be swimming in men, but Charity had had more single guys tossed her way in the past month than in the past three years. Okay—only three, but still.

Ethan strode around the corner. “Am I late?” he asked.

“Right on time,” Charity told him.

Ethan was tall, with dark hair and eyes, and very nice looking. Not up there with Josh, but few mortals were.

Nevada introduced them, then went back to her computer. When she was behind Ethan, she gave Charity a thumb's up.

“You have your sister working for you,” she said. “So this is a family business?”

“Three out of six,” he told her, motioning for her to lead the way out of the office. “My brother handles the sales end of things. I oversee manufacturing. Nevada is our resident engineer. I tell her she's not all that, just because she's in on the technical end of things, but she doesn't believe me.”

“There are six of you?” she asked, thinking it would have been great to have a brother or sister. And a whole lot less lonely when she'd been growing up.

“Sometimes it felt like twenty, but it was good. We're a close family.”

“Everyone still in Fool's Gold?”

“One of my brothers moved away, but the girls are
here.” He pointed to one of the big warehouses. “That's where we store the components. They're not here long. We have a whole lot more demand than we can fill. Wind turbines are popular.”

“That's what I hear,” Charity told him. “As I said in my call, I'm the new city planner. I'm coming around and meeting all the business owners in the area.” She was also interested in his relationship with Josh, but doubted she would figure out a way to bring that up.

“What do you know about wind turbines?”

She thought for a second. “They're really tall?”

He grinned. “Good start. Come on. I'll take you to the sales office and give you a quick course in what we do here.”

The sales office was another building. Inside there was a model of a wind farm, with working wind turbines, pictures of different kinds of wind turbines, cutaways of the machinery and several blank TV screens.

“I won't show you the entire DVD collection. Not until you have a few million you'd like to invest.”

“Not this week. I'm thinking of buying a house.”

“Maybe when the budget's not so tight?”

She laughed. “You'll be first on my list.”

He pointed to the models of turbines. “This is what we build. They come in various sizes, the largest of which produces six megawatts of power. Assume it's going at full speed twenty-four-seven, we're talking
about enough electricity generated to power fifteen hundred households a year.”

“You're kidding? From one of those? We all should have one in our yard.”

“Don't get too excited, that's under extremely optimal conditions. Reality is a little less easy to calculate. The wind doesn't always blow, and the turbines are fairly loud.”

He hit a switch and one of the TV screens came on. The picture scanned across a seemingly isolated patch of desert scrub. The background noise increased until it was uncomfortably loud.

“That's close to what they're like at fifty feet.”

Charity wanted to cover her ears. “Okay, maybe not in the front yard.”

He hit another button and the picture shifted to a large display of wind turbines.

“There are other considerations,” he said. “Some areas are windier than others. We use something called Wind Power Density to determine the best placement for the turbines. There are also problems with delivery. The towers are usually between two and three hundred feet tall. The blades are between sixty-five and a hundred and thirty feet long.”

She tried to picture that, but couldn't. Ethan must have been used to those unfamiliar with his industry. He immediately hit a button and the TV screen changed to a drawing of a blade next to a six foot man.

“The blade wins,” she murmured.

“It's going about a hundred and sixty miles an hour. It always wins. So we want a relatively isolated location that we can deliver to and provide service to. Not too close to the community but not too far away. Lots of wind, but not so much wildlife.”

“Right,” she said. “Birds get clipped by the blades and die.”

“We actually have a bigger problem with bats.”

She blinked. “Bats, as in bats? Don't they have sonar that allows them to see anything that's moving in the sky?”

“Yes, but the spinning blades create a change in pressure.” He paused. “You don't want to know. Let's just say turbines can have a negative impact on bat migration. To change that, we recommend owners shut down the turbines during slow wind nights.”

“A computer does that, right?”

“It can. The biggest concerns are during late summer and early fall, when bats migrate.”

She had the weird feeling there was something crawling in her hair. “Um, bats migrate?”

He nodded.

“I could have gone my whole life without knowing that.”

“They don't want to hang with you any more than you want to hang with them.”

“Uh-huh. That sounds nice, but I don't actually believe that. I think bats get a good laugh out of making girls scream.”

“Maybe. I hadn't thought about it, but you could be right.”

He showed her part of a DVD and a few more pictures, then handed her a map of the area.

“Here's the closest wind farm,” he said, pointing to the map. “You can take a drive out there if you want to see them in person. The area is fenced off, but you can drive up close enough to get an idea of the size and the noise.” He grinned. “Go during the day and you'll avoid the bats.”

“Note to self,” she said, taking the paper. “Thanks. I appreciate all the info.”

They started back toward the main building.

“How are you liking small-town life?” he asked.

“It's great. I'm still learning everyone's name.”

“That will take a while. I've seen you and Josh Golden together a few times.”

His voice was casual, but she had an idea that the statement was anything but.

“We're not together,” she said quickly. “He showed me a house that's coming on the market and we're on a committee. Nothing more.”

Ethan laughed. “Women aren't usually so quick to separate themselves from any association with him.”

She winced. “I don't mean to say I don't like him.” She paused. “Just not, you know, in
that
way.”

Almost the truth, she reminded herself. Wanting to have sex with someone was not the same as liking the person. Erratic hormones had a will of their own,
while her mind was more concerned with the inner qualities of a man.

“Apparently,” Ethan said, his dark eyes twinkling with humor.

She sighed. “The local celebrity thing is a challenge. I don't know what to say.”

“You're doing fine. Truthfully, Josh is a whole lot more interesting than the guy who carves jewelry out of cattle dung.”

“At least he probably smells better.”

Ethan glanced at her. “He's not a bad guy.”

“I thought you two didn't get along,” she said, then clamped her fingers over her mouth. “Sorry,” she mumbled, dropping her hand. “People talk and sometimes I listen.”

“I understand. Don't worry about it.” He kept walking. “Whatever happened between Josh and me was a long time ago. Have you ever been to a race?”

She shook her head.

“There's always a crowd. The riders are in packs, so close together that the slightest mistake can take nearly anyone down. The speeds are incredible. On the downhill part of a course, fifty or sixty miles an hour isn't impossible. What happened to me wasn't Josh's fault. I actually hit him, but I'm the one who went down.”

“Then why aren't you two speaking?”

Ethan flashed her a grin. “You'll have to ask Josh that.”

They reached her car.

“I appreciate the time,” she told him. “Thanks for the tour and the lesson on bats.”

“Anytime.”

He waved and walked back to the office.

His stride was long and easy, with only the faintest hint of a limp. He was single, good-looking and charming. And she felt absolutely nothing when she was around him. Somebody somewhere sure had a sense of humor.

 

J
OSH LOOKED UP AS
both Marsha and Pia walked into his office. Eddie waved at him from her desk, then turned her back on him, as if silently claiming this wasn't her business. A sentiment that didn't leave Josh with an especially good feeling.

“Have you heard?” Pia asked, plopping into one of the chairs on the other side of his desk. “A big bike race got canceled and they're shopping for a new location. I just got a call. It's fantastic.”

“Yes. A company pulling out of an event because they're losing money
is
a reason to celebrate,” Marsha said dryly. “Maybe later we'll find out there are layoffs and we can really party.”

Pia rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Of course I don't want anyone to lose their job. But this doesn't have to be a bad thing for the charity. Not if someone else picks up the slack, which we're going to do.” She handed Josh a sheet of paper. “I know what
you're thinking. We're doing Race for the Cure, but that's a race for runners. And only one day. This is so much more. Major event on the tour, dozens of sexy guys on bikes. Heads in beds. They're desperate—which is where we come in.”

“We who?” he asked, already having a good idea of where this conversation was going.

“The town,” Pia told him triumphantly. “I've done some checking on the costs and expectations and I know we can pull this off. We'll move the entire bike race to Fool's Gold. It's a quiet weekend for us, so there are plenty of hotel rooms. I've already put a tentative hold on every empty room between here and Sacramento. Heads in beds. You know how we love that.”

Marsha studied him. He read the concern in her gaze and knew she was worried about him.

“The town can't cover all the costs,” he began.

“I know, but I'm already talking to a few companies,” Pia told him, slapping a folder on his desk. “If they'll cough up the prize money, we're good to go. The rest of the work can be done by volunteers. You know how this town loves a good project. Especially when that project supports you.”

Here it comes, he thought grimly. “How does it support me?”

“It's bike racing, Josh,” Pia told him. “Your thing. I was thinking we'd have a little parade and you can be the grand marshal. Then you can give the prizes at the finish. You know, the old guard, the new guard.”

Right. Because the highlight of his day would be handing out prize money to guys he used to race with. Guys who could still compete.

“Or you could even race,” she added with a wink. “Announce your comeback. It would mean a huge boost in publicity. The charity is for sick kids, Josh.”

“It always is.”

Marsha leaned toward Pia. “I think you've hit him with the highlights. Why don't you give him a couple of days to think about all of this?”

“Okay, but we don't have long. I would hate to see some other town snap up this opportunity.”

“That would be bad,” Josh said as Pia stood and left. He turned his attention to Marsha. “What do you think?”