Tessa and Trinity were talking numbers when she felt a hand on her arm pull her out of her chair.

"Can I have a moment of your time, Tessa?" Josiah asked in a pleasant voice that had a subtle edge to it.

Tessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then opened them, noted Trinity and Rita's amused glances, and agreed. As they left the dining room, she noticed that Amber was nowhere to be seen.

Josiah led her through the lobby and pulled her to a small hall beside the reservation desk.

Holly would be able to hear every word, which was probably the point. She figured out that very little slipped past Josiah. 

"What was that, Tessa?" Josiah asked, crossing his arms. He wasn't being loud, nor was he talking softly.

Tessa regarded him for a few moments before she spoke. She guessed that he was doing this for Holly's benefit. He would try to squash rumors before they started since he couldn't take back the look he had given her, which still made her heartbeat erratically when she thought of it.

"I don't know how it became my responsibility to get you out of that situation, but between Rita, Trinity, and you all insisting that I do, I didn't have much choice. I didn't realize saving you from old girlfriends was part of my job description." Tessa crossed her arms.

"Rita and Trinity?" he asked, ignoring her outburst.

"Yes, they both came here and asked me to do something to save you from Amber's evil clutches, and I agreed if they promised to help me win Levi over to the idea of giving me the cottages to manage. I conveniently left out the fact that you asked me to help, too." Tessa dropped her voice low on the last bit.

Josiah's lips quirked in amusement. 

"It was a win-win for everyone," Tessa shrugged as she realized she may have said too much.

"Except you, you got insulted by Amber." Josiah shook his head.

"That's alright. It was kind of true. Rita already said that I was hired out of desperation, only I don't think it was meant in the same context as what Amber Woods said."

Josiah looked angry for a moment so Tessa spoke again in an effort to attract him. What kind of name is Amber Woods? Is that her real name? She sounds like a perfume and not a good one. Kind of moldy." Tessa said the last bit in an attempt to distract him from the fact that her feelings had indeed been hurt.

Tessa heard Holly snort on the other side of the wall, and her eyes met Josiah's eyes as they remembered they had an audience.

"Why did you choose to lead her to believe we were dating?" Josiah asked, getting back to the point. "I don't date staff, weren't you worried that rumors would start?"

"No, Amber was right about that, I wouldn't be the first one that you would choose to date out of all the beautiful women surrounding you, and I'm definitely not the person you would choose to break the no fraternization rule for, am I?"

"Who would be?" he asked, trying to bait her, and for the life of her she couldn't figure out why. However, Trinity instantly popped into her head. 

"Couldn't say," Tessa said straight-faced, keeping her thoughts to herself.

Josiah eyed her for a moment, considering if he should push her on the issue, but he didn't, instead he circled back around to where they had started and the point of the conversation.

"Back to the question at hand. Why did you choose to say that we're dating when we're not?" And never would be, Tessa finished silently for him. He hadn't said it aloud, but the words were there, hanging between them.

"I could have said there was an emergency in the kitchen, but I got the feeling you wanted her gone for good, and I thought the best way to do that was to tell her you had a girlfriend. How was I to know -" Josiah shook his head sharply and cut her off mid-sentence, saving her from embarrassing herself further.

"You're going to have to ensure the staff understands it was all a misunderstanding." The conversation was done. "Walk me out." 

He headed down the hall and toward the entrance with Tessa following him.

When they reached the sidewalk, he took a deep breath. "God, I hated every moment of that!"

"What now?" Tessa asked, changing the subject. She wanted to tell him that he could have let the rumors go like he did with Trinity. Whether he or Trinity were having an affair or not, he didn't mind that people thought they were. But he did mind if people thought he had Tessa were having an affair. Tessa was trying her hardest not to take it personally.

Josiah looked around him. "Either way your tactics didn't work, and Amber has decided to hang around, so I invited her to dinner at your place this evening. She can see us being a loving couple."

Tessa took in a sharp breath.

"Hey, it was your play, now we have to see it through." Josiah looked down at her. "If it works, I'll owe you one. Amber keeps popping up every so often. She likes the idea of me and my money, but not the idea of living in this town. The older she gets, the more desperate - he hit the word desperate hard - she gets, and I think she's to the point that she would consider living in this town. She's not as young as she once was."

"And you're not into her anymore?" Tessa mused.

"I never really was, but she's attractive and she was hard to say no to when I was younger." He gave a rueful grin.

Not like me, Tessa thought. The woman was either in disbelief that Josiah would go for a girl like Tessa or she thought it would be easy to steal him away from her.

"I can't cook that well," Tessa admitted.

"That's alright, I can." Josiah turned as he heard his name, and they saw Trinity and Rita joining them.

"Well, our sending in Tessa to save you didn't go as expected," Trinity said, obviously past the care that Josiah would be mad at them for interfering.

"No, it didn't," Josiah agreed, "but least Tessa got something from it in the form of you two helping her with the cabins."

Trinity and Rita both shot Tessa a look, realizing she had already given up the fact that they had asked her to step in and help. 

"What? I wasn't going to take the fall. I've only worked here for a few months and like my job." She had never mentioned that Josiah had asked her to help, and she knew it wouldn't be beneficial to her request that the favor be returned if she did. 

"If you were both so worried about me, why didn't one of you step in to save me?" Josiah asked innocently.

"She never would have believed that I was your lover," Rita said just as innocently.

They all looked at Trinity, who smiled and shrugged. "You know why."

The answer made Tessa's head spin with the possibilities, and it sounded like they shared an important secret that hinted at intimacy.

"Women!" Josiah shook his head with a smile.

"I'll be at your place at six tonight, Tessa. Bring the information on the cabins, we might as well get some work done while we're trying to convince Amber that we're a boring old couple."

Tessa couldn't help but see the look that Rita and Trinity exchanged.

"You two caused this, so no comments!" Josiah saw it too.

Rita held up her hands with a smile.

"Amber Woods!" She shook her head. "Maybe not a perfume, but a scented candle at the very least." She said under her breath. "All of you owe me!" Tessa said before she marched back into the hotel.

She headed to the reception desk, where Holly and Annie were talking in hushed tones.

"Holly, which room did you put Ms. Woods in?" Tessa asked.

"I put her on the third floor in a suite. She looked like she could afford it." Holly grinned. "Is Joey mad at you?"

Tessa shook her head. "It's hard to make Joey mad. I think he's worried about what the staff will think about my attempt to help him out of a sticky situation. I told him you all know there would never be anything between us."

"I don't understand why Trinity didn't save him. Everyone knows they have a thing going on. He's been so protective of her since she was attacked." Holly shook her head. "Why did she send you in to deal with the shrew?"

Tessa was floored by Holly's comment. She thought that they had kept Trinity's attack quiet.  Then, just as quickly as she had that thought, she did her best to figure out if the comment might be true. In the end, she couldn't because she didn't see Trinity and Josiah together all that often.

"Probably because they're trying to keep it secret, and if she had, we all would have known the truth. I think it was really unfair of them to ask you to do it, Tessa." Annie shook her head. "I don't much care for Trinity. She's cold, Joey could do better."

Tessa shook her head. "Trinity has been a pleasure to work with and very helpful. Whatever her relationship is with Josiah, it's their private business." Tessa was putting on a brave face.

She did need to figure out the relationship between the two; she just wasn't sure how to do it. She told herself she needed to know so that she didn't step on any toes along the way, but she also knew that her heart would be much safer if Josiah were spoken for.