Only Mine

The man looked as if he would rather rip off her head than be polite, but after a couple of deep breaths, he shook hands with her and muttered, “Finn Andersson.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Andersson.”

“Finn.”

“Finn,” she repeated, being more perky than usual, simply because she thought it would bug him. “How can I help you?”

“I want to get my brothers off the show.”

“Hence the threats.”

He frowned. “Hence? Who says that?”

“It’s a perfectly good word.”

“Not where I come from.”

She glanced down at the worn work boots he wore, then back to his shirt. “I’m almost afraid to ask where that is.”

“South Salmon, Alaska.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Worse, I’m in California.”

“Hey, you’re in my hometown. I’ll thank you to be polite.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Whatever. You win. Can you help me with my brothers or not?”

“It depends. What’s the problem?”

She motioned to the seat across from her small desk. Finn hesitated for a second, then folded his long body into a seated position. She took her chair and waited.

“They’re here,” he said at last, as if that explained everything.

“Here instead of back in South Salmon?”

“Here instead of finishing their last semester of college. They’re twins. They go to UA. University of Alaska,” he added.

“But if they’re on the show, then they’re over eighteen,” she said gently, feeling his pain, but knowing there was very little she could do about it.

“Meaning I don’t have any legal authority?” he asked, sounding both resigned and bitter. “Tell me about it.” He leaned toward her, his gaze intense. “I need your help. Like I said, they’re one semester from graduating, and they walked away from that to come here.”

Dakota had grown up in the town of Fool’s Gold and had chosen to return after she’d finished her schooling, >so she didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to live in town. But she would guess Finn was a lot more worried about his brothers’ future than their location.

He stood. “Why am I even talking to you? You’re one of those Hollywood types. You’re probably happy they’ve given up everything to be on your stupid show.”

She rose as well, then shook her head. “First of all, it’s not my stupid show. I’m with the town, not the production company. Second, if you’ll give me a moment to think instead of instantly getting angry, maybe I can come up with something that will help. If you’re like this with your brothers, I’m not surprised they want to get a couple thousand miles away from you.”

Given the little she knew about Finn from their thirty-second relationship, she half expected him to snarl at her, then disappear. Instead he surprised her by grinning.

The curve of his lips, the flash of teeth, wasn’t anything unique, but it hit her in the stomach all the same. She felt as if all the air had rushed out of her lungs and she couldn’t breathe. Seconds later, she managed to recover and told herself it was a momentary blip on her otherwise emotionally smooth radar. Nothing more than an anomaly. Like a sunspot.

“That’s what they said,” he admitted, returning to his seat with a sigh. “That they’d hoped being at college would be far enough away, but it wasn’t.” The grin faded. “Damn, this is hard.”

She sat down and rested her hands on the table between them. “What do your parents say about all this?”

“I’m their parents.”

“Oh.” She swallowed, not sure what tragedy had brought that about. She would guess Finn was all of thirty, maybe thirty-two. “How long ago …?”

“Eight years.”

“You’ve been raising your brothers since they were what? Twelve?”

“They were thirteen, but yes.”

“Congratulations. You’ve done a good job.”

The smile faded as he scowled at her. “How would you know that?”

“They made it into college, were successful enough to get to their final semester and now they’re emotionally tough enough to stand up to you.”

The scowl turned into a sneer. “Let me guess. You’re one of those people who calls rain ‘liquid sunshine.’ If I’d done my job with my brothers, they would still be in college, instead of here, trying to get on some idiotic reality show.”

There was that, Dakota thought. From Finn’s perspective, nothing about this was good.

He shook his head. “I can’t figure out where I went wrong. All I wanted was to get them through college. Three more months. They only needed to stay in school three more months. But could they do that? No. They even sent me an email, telling me where they were—like I’d be happy for them.”

She reached for the files on her desk. “What are their names?”

“Sasha and Stephen.” His expression cleared. “Is there something you can do to help?”

“I don’t know. As I said, I’m here representing the town. The producers came to us with the reality show idea. Believe me, Fool’s Gold wasn’t looking for this kind of publicity. We wanted to say no, but were concerned they would go ahead and do it anyway. This way, we’re involved and hope to have some kind of control over the outcome.”

She glanced at him and smiled. “Or at least the illusion of control.”

“Trust me. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’m getting that. All the potential contestants were vetted thoroughly, background checks on everyone. We insisted on that.”

“Trying to avoid the truly insane?”

“Yes, and criminals. Reality television puts a lot of pressure on people.”

“How did the TV people hear about Fool’s Gold if the town wasn’t courting them?” he asked.

“It was just plain bad luck. A year ago a grad student writing her thesis on human geography discovered we had a chronic man shortage in town. The hows and whys became a chapter in her project. In an effort to bring attention to her work, she shopped her thesis around various media outlets, where the part about Fool’s Gold was picked up.”