“Hi, Johnny,” she said, smiling. “Do you know Connor MacLaren?”
“Aw, hell,” Johnny said with a grin. “Of course I do. How you doing, man?”
“Hey, Johnny.” The two men shook hands. Then Connor looked at Maggie. “I’m going to head inside the hall for a minute to check the schedule.”
“I’ll wait out here.”
“I won’t be long.”
He took off and Maggie chatted with Johnny for another minute until he had to get back to his line of people. Then she began to browse the long tables that had been set up to display the hundreds of promotional gadgets and giveaways. There were flyers, as well, and booklets that described the latest seminars and vendor products that might be useful to the industry professionals attending the festival.
She picked up a few clever gadgets and grabbed some flyers that looked interesting. Five minutes later, she glanced up and saw Connor waving at her as he exited the door at the far end of the judges’ room.
Just as Maggie started walking down the corridor to meet him, three attractive women approached Connor from the opposite direction. There was a loud, feminine shriek and all three began to flutter and buzz around him. “Connor MacLaren! I thought it was you!”
“Ooh, it is Connor!” the blonde said. “Hey, you! You’re looking good.”
Maggie recognized the blonde as Sarah Myers, one of her best friends from high school. Sarah was also the first person to turn on Maggie when she returned home.
“Hi, Connor,” the second woman said, and wound her arm around his. “I was hoping we’d see you here this week.”
“Hi, Connor,” the brown-haired woman said. She seemed more shy than the other two and as she got closer, Maggie recognized her. She was the angry woman who had stared at her the first day of the festival. The one who had glowered and glared and frowned, then flipped her hair and walked away.
And now she was staring at Maggie again. Maggie had an urge to rub her arms to ward off the chill.
Connor nodded at the brunette. “Hey, Lucinda. Are you working today?”
“No.” Ignoring Maggie now, she grinned up at Connor. “Jake gave me the day off and we decided to check out the festival before it gets too crowded.”
Did she work for MacLaren? Maggie wondered. If so, it was no wonder she wasn’t quite as forward with Connor as her two friends were.
Sarah looked up at the Judges Only sign over the doorway. “Oh, hey, are you one of the judges? That’s so cool!”
Maggie’s stomach did a sharp nosedive. She felt ridiculous just standing there thirty or forty feet away from them, but she had no intention of joining the group and watching Connor be devoured by drooling groupies. There was no reason to be so annoyed. She had no claim on him, but that didn’t seem to matter to her topsy-turvy emotions. She whipped around and took off in the opposite direction, praying that Connor hadn’t seen her rapid retreat.
Maggie walked quickly, skirting the crowd until she reached Johnny’s check-in line. She had resigned herself to the fact that she would eventually run into some familiar faces from town, but she didn’t think it would happen until the weekend when the festival was opened to the public. Just her luck that Sarah and her posse had decided to show up early.
She slipped between the short queue of people waiting for Johnny and made her way farther down the hall to the ladies’ room.