Twenty
Over the next week, Bel did a total of five radio interviews and two more interviews with television shows. She’d expected the fuss to have died down by now, but it seemed the country, and even some other parts of the world, were invested in the whole #WhereIsElvis campaign. She’d been encouraged to do daily updates on her social media, which had included reposting a legion of supposed Elvis sightings, ranging from veryaliveversions of roosters that looked like Elvis from all around the world, to one gruesome, yet kind of funny, image of a pile of feathers in a what-was-left-of-Elvis photo. Her posts sparked a thread of why-did-the-rooster-cross-the-road jokes, along with some humorous alternative ransom notes. It was as crazy as it was confounding, and it came with an unexpected windfall: tourists. And lots of them. For the firsttime since their tourism campaign had started, the town was seeing results.
A steady stream of mobile homes and caravans had been rolling into town ever since that first morning show broadcast and they hadn’t stopped. It was now almost impossible to get a park in the main street.
Bel smiled ruefully as she passed the supermarket window and saw the poster someone had put up with a cartoon drawing of Elvis the rooster captioned ‘Who stole Elvis?’ The signs had been popping up all over town as everyone got behind the push to find Elvis.
‘The whole place has gone nuts,’ Dean muttered later when they met for coffee. She’d been shopping when he’d messaged to tell her he was in town to pick up a part and had a few minutes to catch up. Lately, that was pretty much all they’d been able to do. Between the harvest and the kids, there wasn’t a lot of alone time.
‘I know, right?’ she said with a chuckle.
‘Whoever was behind this is a freaking promotional genius, though,’ he added, looking over at her thoughtfully.
‘What?’ she said nervously.
‘Nothing. It’s just that you turn up in town and suddenly this whole Elvis thing goes off. If I didn’t know any better I’d think maybe …’ He let the words trail off sheepishly.
‘That I had something to do with it? Well, Sherlock, there’s one small flaw in your theory. He went missingbeforeI came back, remember?’
‘Oh. Yeah,’ he said, sounding a little disappointed.
‘I can’t believe you think I’d resort to stealing as a PR stunt,’ she said with only the slightest tone of indignation. Actually, she was more miffed that shehadn’tthought of it. It really was next-level clever. Although, until she’d posted about it, nothing had really happened. It was all just a huge fluke.
‘Stealing for a reason would be a little better than trying to figure out why someone would take a dusty old bird from a museum in the first place, don’t you think?’
He did have point there.
‘Well, well, well,’ Larrisa said as she came to the table with their coffee order. ‘I see maybe the rumour mill is actually right for once?’
Bel resisted the urge to squirm in her seat as she forced a smile onto her face. They hadn’t really spoken about what this relationship was, and they certainly hadn’t spoken about what to do when they appeared in public together … like now.Rookie mistake.Everyone in town knew they’d been helping out at Fernvale, and apparently already had them picked as a couple.
‘Come on, Larrisa, you should know by now not to listen to rumours,’ Dean said with a smile.
‘Well, in certain cases, like with the ones that were going around about you and me a few months ago,’ she tossed back. Bel hesitated, cup halfway to her mouth, glancing up at Dean.
‘Uh, yeah. Like that.’
Bel wasn’t sure, but it looked like he might have been blushing.
‘I think it’s great. I always thought you two would make a great couple,’ Larrisa said, turning back to the counter to serve as other patrons entered.
Dean shifted a little in his seat in the short silence that followed her departure. ‘So, you and Larrisa were an item?’ she asked lightly.
‘No,’ he said, a little too quickly.
Bel lifted an eyebrow.
‘I gave her a hand finishing off some of the renovations in here, so I was in the cafe a bit. That naturally started a few tongues wagging. We didn’t date or anything.’
‘Why not?’
‘What?’ He looked up at her, surprised by her question.
‘You were both single. She’s a lovely person,’ she said. ‘How come you two didn’t get together? It’s not like the dating pool is limitless around here.’
‘I don’t know.’ He glanced down at his cup briefly before looking back up. ‘She’s great, but I guess … she wasn’t you.’
She smiled. ‘You say that. But we weren’t dating before I left.’
