Romeo: A Payne Brothers Romance

by Frost, Sosie

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’m nowhere near where I’d planned to travel. But I’m starting to think I’m right where I belong.”

  “In Butterpond?”

  It sounded crazy to me too. “All my life I’ve been trying to avoid getting stuck in Butterpond. I wanted to run away to better places—somewhere exotic and exciting. Different people. More opportunities. I thought if I traveled far enough, I might have a different life.”

  Grandma took many things seriously, but she took particular pride in the name Barlow and every reputation it’d earned. Her expression pinched, but she didn’t scold. Simply listened.

  “And what is so wrong with your life?” she asked

  “Only that I might be the biggest fool in town.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  “Then start by telling me the truth,” she said.

  I might’ve made up some excuse. Formulated yet another elaborate, cockamamie scheme. This was my one chance to convince her of things I didn’t believe myself.

  But what good would it do?

  “I fell in love,” I said.

  “I know, child.”

  “And it complicated everything.”

  Grandma’s wry smile shocked me. “Yes. It always does.”

  “I think it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “And so you would deny yourself life’s greatest gift because…you embarrassed yourself?”

  “Big time.” I covered my face. “But it’s so much more than that.”

  Grandma tutted. Her dark, gnarled hands gripped her cane harder.

  “Everyone believes their love is the most complicated, most foolish relationship in the world,” she said. “But do you know the reality of it?”

  “I wish I did.”

  “There is no such thing as uncomplicated or logical love. That’s what makes it so dangerous.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “And that’s what also makes it so wonderful.” Grandma had a fierce stare even the cataracts couldn’t temper. I knew how best to avoid it. “Lady, I’m disappointed in you.”

  It wouldn’t be the only time she said that this morning.

  I accepted her scorn. “I know. I’m mad at myself too.”

  “I am astounded you would dare to reject such a beautiful blessing.”

  I looked up. “Wait…what?”

  “You are an intelligent, sensible woman. Since when are you so infuriatingly arrogant as to believe that you are better than falling in love?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “I wanted to fall in love.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I chose the wrong man.”

  Grandma rarely chuckled. Her laugh wrung every bit of moisture from the room. “If you chose him, Lady…how bad can he be?”

  Oh, I could tell her some stories, but she’d probably already heard the gossip, if not around town, then definitely from Sheriff Samson. But that didn’t matter much now. Nothing Quint did in the past could compare to the secret that would unfold over the next nine months.

  “He’s…bad,” I admitted. “Not from the best of families. And some people in town have a poor opinion of him as well.”

  “Why should I care what the people of Butterpond think?” Grandma tapped her cane on the floor. “I want to know what you feel for this boy? Is he good enough for you?”

  “He might be.”

  “Then why all this moping? Where is he now?”

  “We…broke it off.”

  She frowned. “Why would you end it?”

  “Because it never should’ve started.” How in the world was I supposed to explain this without sounding totally and completely lovesick? “I’ve had feelings for him ever since I was a kid, but I always believed it was just a crush. Nothing real. So…after I graduated, I proved it to myself. I left Butterpond and followed Mom and Dad to Colorado.”

  “You told me you’d planned to help them start the new franchises.”

  At least she’d forgive me for this one fib once she realized how many other sins I’d committed.

  “I did want to help them,” I said. “But I also thought it’d be a good opportunity to get outside Butterpond. To see who else was out there. Meet someone new.”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “And when Colorado proved fruitless, you thought you would expand your search to the ends of the world?”

  When she put it that way, it sounded crazier than simply confessing my feelings to Quint.

  “It was Europe, Grandma. There have to be good guys over there.”

  This disappointed her. “You would search the entire world for someone different while the one you want waits for you at home?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “More lies,” she said. “I’m ashamed of you.”

  Finally, her chastisement began. Grandma was harsh with the punishments, but I’d never considered her cruel enough to torment me with the anticipation.

  “I’m ashamed too,” I admitted.

  “I cannot believe you’d squander something as precious as your heart.”

  I met her gaze.

  I’d expected lectures and scripture, not compassion and sympathy.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t know if it was real.”

  This didn’t satisfy her. “And what about now? You’ve delayed your trip. Remained in Butterpond for reasons even our Lord can’t comprehend. You must have learned something about yourself this summer, Lady.”

  “Nothing good.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I made a mess of things.”

  “Love tends to be messy.”

  “No one ever told me that.”

  Grandma arched an eyebrow. “You never asked.”

  I slipped from the table and busied myself with my own tea, even slipping a bit of sugar in the cup. Grandma spotted it, but she said nothing.

  “I didn’t think you’d understand…” I said.

  I’d offended her.

  Grandma bristled. “You thought that I wouldn’t understand anything about love?”

  “I…”

  She refolded her palms, and her gold wedding band shimmered in the light.

  “Lady, there is a reason this town calls me the Widow Barlow and not the Remarried Barlow. More than anything else in this world, I understand love.”

  The air puffed out of my lungs. “Grandpa?”

  “I knew your grandfather was the only man for me. One special person exists for everyone, but it’s up to us to find them.” She wagged a finger at me. “And that does not mean gallivanting all over the world because you don’t like the one God has chosen for you.”

  I glanced to the Heavens. “Good thing He picked him. I’ll have somebody to blame when this all goes south.”

  Grandma disliked the blasphemy, but she had enough reasons to scold me. I’d used up her patience, and she tapped the table.

  “Out with it,” she said. “How bad can one boy possibly be?”

  Bad enough that the turning of my stomach was not the result of morning sickness.

  “He’s a Payne.”

  Grandma murmured under her breath. “Sweet mercy.”

  “I know.”

  “So…it is Quint Payne then?”

  I nodded. “I told you to drink some tea.”

  “This family will need something stronger than tea when they hear this news, child.”

  “I could probably score some of that homebrewed moonshine.”

  Grandma placed a hand over her chest. “Oh no. I’ve lived to be eighty-five years old, and that drink was the source of most of the mistakes in my life.”

  “Well, I’m only twenty, and I think I’ve made a whole lot more.”

  Grandma had only limited patience, and I’d reached the end of it. “Lady, how long have you been seeing this boy?”

  Quick like a Band-Aid.

/>   I’d spout it all out, reveal the truth, and hopefully would bombard Grandma with so much information she’d condense all her disapproval into one piercing stare before disowning me.

  “All summer,” I said.

  “And?”

  “Well…I don’t think he’s a horny toad,” I paused. “Though he might be a horse’s ass.”

  To my surprise, she laughed. “And now that you’ve had ample time to decipher your feelings, is it still a crush? Or have you fallen in love with him?”

  The answer would tear me apart.

  “I love him more than I did before.”

  This pleased Grandma. “Then why are you not properly introducing this boy to me now?”

  “We broke it off.”

  “And why would you do something foolish like that?”

  “It was my choice.”

  “Did he not love you?” she asked.

  Quint could deny it all he wanted, but I knew the truth. “He absolutely loves me.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  I sighed, falling back in my chair. For once, Grandma permitted me to slouch.

  “He’s afraid of the future.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “It’s different with him,” I said. “You know Quint has Type I Diabetes. He’s worried about becoming sick. He’s afraid he won’t be able to give me a good life.”

  She contemplated the problem with a grunt. “I like this boy more now.”

  “Because of his pancreas?”

  “Because he’s acting recklessly and inappropriately, but it’s for the right reasons,” she said. “He wants to do right by you, and he’s afraid of breaking your heart. But with love comes many trials. Including sickness. That’s the reason why we love so hard, because if we weren’t blessed with such a big heart, we would never survive losing the ones closest to us.” She held my gaze. “There is nothing to fear from the future…only what we might miss now if we refuse to accept it.”

  “Maybe you could talk to him,” I said.

  “He doesn’t need to hear it from me.” She gestured with her cane. “He needs to hear it from you.”

  “He needs to hear a lot of things, Grandma. But I’m not quite sure how to tell him.”

  “What could be frightening about telling a man that you love him?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “It’s never more complicated than that.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  I expected hellfire and damnation, spite and wrath, penances and punishments.

  My eyes burned, but I wasn’t ashamed of letting her see me cry. Something told me more than a few tears would be shed on my behalf.

  She’d expected so much of me.

  And I ruined everything.

  I braced myself as Grandma stood. Wrapped my hands around my teacup and stared only at the wide-eyed, terrified girl peeking back at me between the tealeaves.

  But Grandma didn’t head to the door. With a strength I didn’t know she possessed, she hauled me to my feet.

  Then she enveloped me in the fiercest hug of my life.

  “Oh, Lady.” Her arthritic hands did the best they could to stroke my hair. “Why did you not come to me sooner?”

  Now the tears did come, both born from hormones and relief. I gripped her tight and spoke into her neck, breathing deep to inhale her peppermint scent.

  “I thought you would be ashamed of me.”

  “Ashamed of a baby?” Grandma shushed me. “The only shame in having a baby is not telling that man that he is going to be a father. I taught you better than that.”

  “I’m going to tell him. I just don’t know when. I don’t know how. When we last spoke, we were so broken. And there’s so much that’s happened since then. With Duke. With the town.”

  Grandma held me at arm’s length just to banish the thought. “Are you going to let your brother stand in the way of your happiness?”

  “Oh, you don’t know how hard we’ve been working to fix this so we could be happy,” I said. “Quint and I wanted to end the feud and bring our families together. We’ve spent all summer attempting to mend the fences, but I think we’ve only made more splinters.”

  “No better way of uniting a family than by having a baby.”

  “He’ll love that you voted for the conjugal plan.”

  “The what?”

  “Never mind.” I nearly laughed. “All we wanted was to make peace. But now with this?” I pointed to my tummy. “We’ve started a war.”

  Grandma shook her head. “Your sisters have gone, and Duke was sufficiently cowed by your declaration of support for Marius Payne at the debates. This family has more than enough problems uniting itself let alone starting any more problems with the Paynes.”

  “What can we do?”

  “In only one day?” Grandma saw right through me. “You have very little time to make things right before you go to Europe.”

  A lifetime of dreams instantly vanished.

  And I couldn’t be more relieved.

  The truth flooded out of me, every dam broken, and broken part of me damned.

  “The only reason I wanted to go to Europe was to find what I already had here. You’d always talked about how you wanted to see those beautiful places, and I thought I could make you happy by traveling to all those cities you loved while I denied everything I felt.”

  “And now you see how foolish that was?”

  Of course. “The longer I stayed in Butterpond, and the crazier everything became, the more I realized that I don’t want to leave. This is my home. This is where I want to be. And everything I want is here. My family. Entertainment. Quint.” I touched my belly, smiling as Grandma offered her hand as well. “I was raised here. It might be a good place to raise my baby too.”

  “I agree.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  Grandma frowned. “Why, I thought it was obvious.”

  “We broke up. I’m pregnant. I’m supposed to be in Europe tomorrow.”

  “Do you love him?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you love that baby?”

  I’d never been so sure of anything in my life. “Absolutely.”

  “Then things are simply out of order,” she said. “Why are you sitting here, fretting with your elderly grandmother when you could be racing across town to find that strapping young man?”

  “I—”

  “I will not hear it, young lady. You march out this door this instant, find that boy, confess your love…and then bring him back here so that I might have a moment with the gentleman who got my Lady in trouble.”

  I flinched.

  But Grandma smiled. “And then stole her heart.”

  I wrapped her in a hug, but she shooed me toward the door.

  “It’s no use running from love, Lady,” she said. “You will never hide from it, guard yourself from it, or forget it once it’s gone. The only way that you will ever find the happiness you deserve is if you go out there and confront it.”

  “Thank you, Grandma.”

  She kissed my forehead. “Go after him, Lady. And once you find him, don’t you dare let him go.”

  19

  Quint

  Winning Lady back was hard enough.

  But ending the feud so we could be together without causing an international incident? That was harder.

  It wasn’t fair to love the woman if we had to hide it, keep it quiet, or even ignore what we felt while living on the battlefield that was Butterpond.

  I’d sabotaged my own happiness for far too long now.

  No way in Hell I’d let the feud destroy anything else.

  The only problem was finding a way to end a twenty-year rivalry that we’d already spent all summer attempting to resolve. We’d tried clandestine plans, arranging the occasional coincidental meeting between members of our families. The Barlows were too rich and my family too stubborn for bribes. Sentimentality hadn’t worked. Community spirit had la
nded us in jail.

  The only thing left was a problem I could solve in an hour.

  Fuck the alpacas and the geese. We didn’t need to worry about weddings or jobs or the complete annihilation of the community’s church and faith.

  It’d been the damned market fire that had started all the bullshit.

  A couple roadside flares mistaken for rockets had sparked more than a fire. They’d rekindled a generation of insults and petty arguments and retaliation that had plagued our families since we were kids.

  But that fire hadn’t been Spencer’s fault—and it wasn’t our family who needed to answer for those crimes.

  And it was time Duke understood that.

  Spencer had the goods on the boys who’d started the fire. He was a good kid who did dumb shit and made bad friends, but at least he’d learned a valuable life lesson after the trouble-making teenagers blamed him for the vandalism. Spence had the common sense to not actually set off the fireworks—but he’d been there.

  The boys responsible—Justin and Jimmy Abernacki—had three years and probably a dozen misdemeanors on Spencer. Earlier in the summer, it had made Spence admire them more. At least, until they stole his fireworks and pitched them in the dumpster behind the market.

  The easiest way to corroborate Spencer’s innocence and clear the Payne family name was to prove those little shits were the pyromaniacs responsible for the fire. And since we couldn’t go back in time, all we could do was encourage them to do it again.

  Spencer sent the text for me—a picture of a mound of fireworks so titillating only a pair of tits could’ve made the explosives look any sexier. The boys eagerly responded and promised to meet Spence behind the market at three o’clock sharp. Of course, he’d had plopped down on the couch and vowed not to leave the farmhouse. The twins had already ruined enough of his summer, and he wasn’t getting into any more trouble.

  Not sure why the kid was so worried. Trouble just found men like us. No sense trying to avoid it when two dashing dimples forgave all sins while scoring any and all phone numbers.

  My message to Lady wasn’t brimming with the apologies she deserved. I kept it simple. Direct.

  New plan – be ready behind the market at 3pm.

  Record anything you see.

  In the past, such an invitation might have included a sexy strip tease or recited poem of beautiful images and unconscionable vulgarity.