Romeo: A Payne Brothers Romance

by Frost, Sosie

  “Of course they did!” Selma scolded her. “She got stung by a bee. That was anaphylactic shock.”

  Kathy glanced at the other women, nodding their heads. “And yet she still wore ruby red lipstick to the hospital—and you were the one talking about it for the next three days. You turned the knitting club into a sweat shop for gossip. You’re not making rompers, you stitch rumors.”

  Three of the women fluttered and flapped in agreement. Lady did her best to stall Regent from escaping, but it was Cassi who called the group to order.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Cassi whistled between two fingers, silencing the chatter. “Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting real tired of all this fighting. We used to be such good friends, and everybody loved this community. I miss this time together, whether we were knitting or gossiping.”

  The women quieted, torn between sitting down or storming into the chapel. I joined Cassi sighed, shaming them with a wag of my finger.

  “You guys used to represent everything good about Butterpond,” I said. “Now look at you.”

  Cassi was on to me, but she hadn’t figured out the plan. “Quint, I’ve never seen you wear a scarf. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’re right.”

  “Love to hear it.”

  “Maybe it would be nice to do a big project together,” Cassi said. “Alicia could use something to cover up…and the more we can conceal of her, the better. It would be a nice thing to do for an animal in need…provided we can get the sweater on to Alicia without her trying to eat our flesh.”

  The peace was tentative, but Kathy and Selma both sat down. They scoured through their pattern books and simultaneously tapped the same page, choosing a deliriously yellow oversized pullover.

  Unfortunately, Regent wasn’t convinced. “You are all free to do what you want, but my sister and I aren’t interested in giving charity to the Paynes.”

  The word was nails on a chalkboard to Cassi.

  “This isn’t charity.” Her voice turned cold. “It’s for an animal.”

  “An animal with better behavior than anyone else in your family.”

  Lady winced. “Regent, come on. It’s just a sweater.”

  Regent disagreed. “Oh, it’s never just a sweater with the Paynes. It’s always something. Some catastrophe, problem, incident. Any time there’s trouble in town, it’s because of the Paynes.”

  I’d hoped Cassi hadn’t heard that comment, but the women had quieted for the showdown. All five foot nothing of her stepped forward to defend the family.

  “And I would say anytime something good happens in this town, it’s because of the Paynes,” Cassi said.

  Regent arched an eyebrow. “Like what?”

  “Like the ministry?” Cassi would’ve started her own crusade for Varius. “Everybody loves this church.”

  Regent frowned. “It’s no fair invoking God.”

  Cassi was more than willing to give additional examples. I only wished she hadn’t done it by encroaching on Regent’s personal space.

  To her credit, Regent didn’t move, nor did the much taller woman squash my sister like a bug.

  “What about the mayoral race?” she asked. “There’s a lot of people in town who would love to see my brother, Marius, as Mayor.”

  Regent elbowed Lady, though she didn’t wait for her sister to speak. “Oh, I’m sure the drunkards and alcoholics of this town would be thrilled that Marius Payne stumbled into the race.”

  “That better not be a jab at Marius’s leg.”

  I tugged Cassi away before she got a little too heated. Lady did the same, helping separate the two.

  “Believe me, if I wanted to insult the Paynes, I wouldn’t piss on a wounded veteran,” Regent said. “But I’m not the only one who’s tired of your family in this town. And I’m not doing anything to help you or your mangy animals.”

  Lady bit her lip. “Technically, Alicia doesn’t have mange. She has a condition which prevents her from growing hair...”

  Regent sighed. “It doesn’t matter because any charity I would’ve offered to the Paynes and their hairless, weird animals was spent on the market that their family torched. If they want a sweater to cover their freak alpaca, they can do it themselves. I’ll be working overtime at the market with Duchess and Tessa to earn back what we lost from our bakery fund.”

  The tension thickened. But maybe that was good. Maybe an airing of grievances was all it would take before both sides saw a reason?

  Cassi swore.

  Or maybe not.

  “Don’t you dare blame that fire on us,” my sister hissed.

  Regent wasn’t afraid of her. That was a mistake. “Who else are we gonna blame it on?”

  “How about the kids who actually set that fire?”

  “Are you going to lie to my face and pretend that it wasn’t Spencer Townsend who set off that firecracker?”

  The women murmured amongst themselves, more than a few grabbing their bags and either heading for the door or hitting the deck.

  Cassi tensed. “It is not a lie. And I’m getting super tired of your family spreading that rumor, slandering his name, and ruining his life. That poor kid had to go travel with Tidus and Honey in their barbeque truck this summer because of all the lies being spread about him in this town.”

  Regent challenged her with a slick smile. “Maybe that’s why it’s been such a peaceful summer. Imagine how wonderful it will be once the rest of the Paynes leave too.”

  Cassi braced for a fight, but Regent grabbed Lady and yanked her from the room. That scattered everybody else as well. The women clucked and scratched, their own arguments filling the rec room. The trenches were dug once more. The town split into, Knitters versus Knotters, Paynes versus Barlows.

  Just like always.

  But Cassi wasn’t done. She grabbed her toddler nieces and stormed out of the room. I followed, calling her name and chasing her into the sanctuary before she got us banned from the church by our own brother. Again.

  Disaster often spread quickly in Butterpond.

  I nearly collided with a herd of preschoolers dressed as either meerkats or monkeys. Three children swung from rope vines cast over the stage. Five of them had collapsed where they stood and mounted a tantrum of biblical proportions. The rest screamed and raced over the pews, diving from cushion to cushion in an attempt to keep their feet off the ground.

  I would’ve thought it was a game had the church ladies not been screaming and clamoring off the ground as well.

  “Nobody move!”

  Glory Hawkins, Varius’s girlfriend and church pageant choreographer, shouted for everyone’s attention. Didn’t need to do much. She usually had all the attention in town—from both the intrigued men and the bitter women. Though she’d assumed the role of minister’s girlfriend with ease, she had yet to ditch her four-inch heals or the rumors of her scandalous past. The woman was beautiful, street tough, and a perfect match for my brother, but she maintained a very particular stage presence that made life difficult for her in such a small, Godly town.

  “We’re missing a snake.” Glory held a clipboard in one hand and her baby girl in the other. Stress had taken its toll as the toddler now held the pencil, and Glory had clipped a pink sock to the board. “Please watch where you step.”

  Lady’s terrified scream echoed across the Chapel. “I found it!”

  I dodged a child dressed as either an octopus or Cthulhu and landed at Lady’s feet. The slithering black serpent attempted to hide within a stack of Bibles, but I seized it before it could escape.

  “Got it!” I held the snake up for Glory, frowning as it wiggled. The puny thing was hardly worthy of representing the deceiver. “You know we got bigger ones on the farm? I could get you a black snake that’s six-foot long—easy.”

  The screams were unnecessary, but Glory’s reaction was stranger. She slapped a hand over her mouth, shoved her baby into Cassie’s arms, and bolted across the sanctuary toward the bathrooms.r />
  Jesus. It was only a snake.

  A little boy raced to my side, holding a five-gallon terrarium in his arms. He took the snake from me and lowered it into the container.

  “Bad Satan.” He locked the lid and thanked me with a shrug. “He keeps trying to escape the garden. But if I lose him, my brothers are gonna be real mad at me.”

  More than just his brothers. I sensed a rather rowdy church meeting this week and reminded myself to attend.

  Lady collapsed in a nearby pew, drawing her legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. She still studied the floor, as if another serpent would drop out of the rafters. In her defense, it had happened about three times in the past. But Tidus and I stopped doing that a while ago.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Chaos distracted most of the church, and Regent had fled at the mere prospect of a snake. That left us as alone as two crazy kids could get in Butterpond.

  “So…” I knelt at her side, pretending to restack the overturned Bibles. “Seems like there’s still a bit of hostility between our families.”

  Lady stared at me, eyes wide. “You think?”

  “It’s not that bad. Regent’s just being unreasonable.”

  “Unreasonable?” Lady practically bared her teeth. “Your grand plan was to put a shirt on a naked llama?”

  “She’s an alpaca.”

  “Now who’s being unreasonable?”

  I shrugged. “I was gonna say bitchy, but I was trying to be polite.”

  Lady’s feet hit the ground. Hard. “Don’t you get it? Regent and Contessa were going to help Duchess start a bakery in Ironfield. After the fire, my family needed money to renovate the market—and since Duke and Marquis are incapable of sticking to a budget, they used the money my sisters set aside for their construction cost. So, yeah. They’re all a little angry about the fire.”

  This again?

  I shook my head. “Your family had an insurance payout. It would’ve covered the cost of the repairs. It was your brothers who decided to blow this out of proportion so they could justify renovating the market.”

  Lady frowned. “This is our flagship store. We’re opening franchises around the country. My brothers wanted to update the market.”

  “And, as always, the Barlows over-reacted.”

  “And the Paynes always under-react. That fire really hurt my family.”

  “And it’s really hurting mine,” I said. “It’s especially hurting Spence since he didn’t even set the fire. And until your family pulls their heads out of their asses and realizes what actually went down that night, we’re both going to be stuck cleaning up this mess.”

  Lady attempted to walk away, but the end of the pew had turned into a staging ground for a variety of Christmas decorations turned Garden of Eden prop pieces. The centerpiece Christmas tree had exchanged ornaments for apples, toppled over, and spilled forbidden fruit throughout the aisle. Lady huffed with impatience.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” she said. “But someone needs to.”

  I sighed. “What’s wrong now?”

  She bristled. “You make it seem like your family is completely innocent in all of this. But there have been years of bad blood between us. Some of it my brothers’ fault, but most of it the Paynes. Don’t pretend that you guys are the only victims.”

  “I never said we were.”

  “No, but you want the Barlows to forgive everything without even considering how hard this past summer has been on my family.”

  What did she want from me? “I’m just trying to put the whole shit show behind us.”

  “No, you’re looking for the easy way out.” She tilted her head. “Something tells me you’re always looking for something or someone easy.”

  Did she really want to start this in the middle of the church?

  “That’s hitting below the belt,” I said.

  “Everything is below the belt with you.”

  “I got no complaints. Maybe if you dropped your pants, you might loosen up a bit.”

  Her voice rose. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m saying you’re such a goddamned prude that it’s amazing you managed to get that stick up your ass.”

  I laughed.

  She didn’t.

  It was the second time today that I’d fucked up.

  “You know…I wasn’t sure what I was thinking when I agreed to help you,” she said. “But now I realize I’ve averted making a big mistake.”

  Out of the family, Marius and Tidus had the worst tempers, but I’d shoved my foot in my mouth when I should have been sucking on her toes. I heaved a breath.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “I’m just frustrated.”

  Lady took my hand. Her lovely smile confused the hell out of me.

  “No. It’s okay.” Her eyes grew impossibly wide under those glasses. “I thought this would work, and I was wrong. And I’m glad. I am.”

  “Uh…you are?”

  “We’re so different, you and me. Our families. What we want in life. How we react to things. Even how we plan. I mean, what are we even doing here together?”

  I shrugged. “We’re working on fixing these problems.”

  “Right,” she said. “We tried, and we failed.”

  “Wait…we did?”

  Lady’s voice bounced with brightness. “Absolutely. Failed miserably.”

  “I guess?”

  “But at least we tried. It’s given me a new perspective on everything. I understand now.”

  I didn’t. “Good?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I thought I wanted something, and I went for it. But now?” She took a deep, steadying breath. “We know it won’t work. I can walk away. This was a mistake, but it didn’t hurt. Much. And that’s the best I could have hoped for.”

  In my experience, I preferred a very particular type of woman. A simple woman. The kind that said what they meant with no hidden meanings. When they smiled, they offered a kiss. When they touched my leg, they wanted what I packed inside the jeans. When they opened their legs, nothing was up to interpretation.

  Sure, they were easy to get into bed, but they were also easy to understand.

  And then there was Lady.

  Were we even having the same conversation?

  “You’re giving up?” I asked. “Because of the Knitters?”

  “It’s not about the Knitters,” Lady said. “It’s about something bigger than that, and you don’t even know what I’m talking about. And for that, I am so relieved. I’m sorry about all of this, Quint. But I think we know where we stand now.”

  She stood on her tippy-toes and leaned close, pressing a delicate kiss to my cheek. With a sad, confident smile, she left me to find her sister at the front of the church. Together, they escaped from the insanity and into the bright morning.

  What the hell just happened?

  I searched for answers, but the roving bands of preschoolers toppling a papier-mâché Garden of Eden made more sense than Lady.

  I studied the church altar, then raised my eyes to God. “Did you make all the Barlow girls absolutely insane?”

  The big guy didn’t have to respond. The answer was clear. And I knew it was a bad idea to chase her.

  But sometimes, even a simple guy needed a bit of complication in his life.

  And what better trouble existed in Butterpond than Lady Barlow?

  5

  Lady

  The most foolproof way to fall out of love was to break your own heart.

  It sounded stupid. It felt worse.

  But it was the right thing to do.

  If I was ever going to get out of Butterpond, see the world, and find happiness, I had to end things with Quint before anything began.

  Fortunately, the arguments at the church presented an opportunity to break things off cleanly and effectively. We’d tried to work together. It had failed. Easy as that.

  Problem was, I’d believed Quint when he defended Spencer. And I knew
, in his own way, he only wanted what was best for both the Paynes and Barlows. Still, the tension strangling Butterpond was real. No matter my feelings for the man, we had problems that couldn’t be mended by knitting sweaters for naked farm animals or tricking our sisters into having a thoroughly unproductive conversation.

  Quint was a flirt, a player, and a man who had never taken anything serious in his life, including his relationships with women. No childhood crush would change that.

  It was better for me to take the opportunity and run than to torture myself with foolish fantasies any longer.

  Right?

  My flight to Paris was in two days. And I wouldn’t be back to Butterpond until Christmas, at least. And those months would give me plenty of time to forget Quint Payne and prove to myself that the feelings I had couldn’t possibly be real.

  My bags were packed. The itinerary set. All I needed to do was survive my last few hours in Butterpond without catastrophe.

  Easier said than done in a town like ours.

  Or with a family like mine.

  The Barlows reserved every Friday night for a very important event.

  Dinner at Grandma’s.

  Growing up, our Friday night interrogation hadn’t been so much dinner as it was a formal inspection of our appearance, grades, and current life choices. Grandma was strict, and she expected much from her grandchildren. After all, she’d raised a successful son who had started a very profitable grocery in Butterpond then franchised those markets to locations across the country. While our family always had money, nothing made Grandma prouder than seeing it used appropriately. That meant in business, charity, and prudent life decisions.

  The Widow Barlow was a tough cookie despite completely eschewing sweets.

  Fortunately, as adults, dinner started with a glass of freshly squeezed lemonade, not an examination of our fingernails and any dirt underneath. And while Contessa slipped a bit of vodka into her lemonade, the rest of us were not nearly so brave in Grandma’s home. She might’ve been old, but she was feisty and armed with her cane. We’d earned enough bruises on our knuckles and knees as children to learn how to behave as adults while food was on the table.