“Bluebonnet, so help me—” Petty began.
“Lucky, would you like to walk in the backyard before dessert?” Ransom blurted.
“I would.” She pushed her chair back and headed out the back door.
“What is your problem? How are we supposed to pull off a wedding in two weeks when you three can’t stop bickering?” Ransom demanded.
Petty sniffed. “Oh, go for your walk. You handle your end. We’ll handle ours. We’ve been doing this a lot longer than you.”
“Maybe start getting it right, then.”
Jonquil made a sound that was not unlike that of a startled bird. “Insolent boy. We should zap your bottom.”
“Or turn you into a toad for a week,” Bluebonnet threatened.
“I can’t woo the girl if I’m a frog, now can I?” Ransom grinned, sure of himself.
“It can be done,” Petty said with a surety that made Ransom cringe. “But our Ransom has never been a frog. We save that for special cases. Everyone is on edge. We really need this to work.”
“I know, Godmother. But give us a little space, okay?”
“We’ve given you several years of space. Really, it’s above and beyond, I think,” Jonquil informed him.
“Yes, Godmothers. But you do remember this marriage is fake?”
The three old dears flashed him their best smiles and nodded.
Ransom arched a brow. “Uh-huh. Well, you know to be legal, we have to sign a marriage license. Which we’re not doing.”
“We said we understand, darling. Do run along. She’s waiting under the cherry tree.” Jonquil came over behind him and nudged him toward the door.
He allowed them to usher him outside and they closed the door behind him, leaving him mostly alone with Lucky.
“I can see their sweet little faces in the window watching us,” Lucky said. “They look like little kids in line for an ice cream truck.”
“I know. They want so desperately for this to be real.”
Lucky pressed her lips together and looked down at her feet for a moment. It seemed as if she had something to say, but ultimately decided not to share whatever it was.
“Do you think the town really needs help? They seem like they’re doing okay.”
“I think it’s a front. They don’t usually bicker like that. A little back and forth, for sure. But there’s an edge to them. I think they’ve been struggling.”
“Question, and feel free not to answer if you don’t want to.”
Ransom cleared his throat. “Well, let me have it.”
“If the town is struggling so hard, if our godmothers are struggling so hard, why don’t you just give them the money? They gave you the seed money for Heart’s Desire, after all.”
“That’s a fair question.” But he didn’t know how to answer it. It was obvious now that Lucky didn’t know about the fairy part of their godmothers. That they didn’t need money. They needed love to fill up their magical wells. “You know I would, if they’d take it.”
Lucky looked around his shoulder back to the window. She made a motion with her hand, waving them away. “For the love of . . . everything. How are we supposed to talk with them perched over us like pigeons on a bag of bread?” She shook her head. “I know they love us, but . . .”
“Yeah, it feels a bit like being in a fishbowl. Much like how we’re going to feel when the press gets here.”
“That terrifies me.”
“Me too.”
She snorted. “Thanks.”
“No, I didn’t mean . . . Me. Not because of you.”
Lucky bit her lip. “Honestly, if it was because of me, I wouldn’t blame you.”
He remembered her reaction to seeing him by the fountain and he understood it. “None of that is your fault. You don’t have any control over it.”
“I have control over what I do. Who I spend my time with.” She looked up at him. “Who I touch.”
The way that she looked at him now, like she was thinking about touching him. That couldn’t possibly be what she was thinking.
Could it?
No, no. Even if it was, he wasn’t going there. It could only end badly for both of them.
“We should probably get our stories straight. I was thinking it would be easier to lie if we came up with them together.”
A lie. Right. That’s all this was.
“Good idea.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. “It’s not all a lie, though.”
“No,” she agreed softly. “Can I ask you something else?”
“You just did?”
“I mean . . . something real.”
“Of course.”
“My friend Gwen thinks that we should sleep together. I kind of do, too.”
He coughed and took a moment to breathe before replying. “Is that the question?”
“Maybe.”
“Lucky . . .”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t either, if I were you. I mean, a tornado, feral pigs, wasps, leeches, fire . . . Actually, I’d probably run screaming.”
Ransom tried not to think about how he was being offered something he still desperately wanted. “Why does she think that?”
“I’ve always been unlucky, but things didn’t start to go horribly wrong for me until our near misses. She thinks if we followed through, that would bring my old not-great luck back. Which is better than my unluck.”
“So it’s not because you’re still attracted to me?”
“Oh for . . . Have you seen yourself? Of course, I’m still attracted to you. A board would be attracted to you.”
He felt his lips curl into a self-assured half grin. “Oh yeah. Tell me about it.”
“Not a chance. I’m definitely not feeding your beast.”
“That’s not what you said five minutes ago.”
She gasped. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re awful.” The smile on her face said she didn’t believe any such thing.
Stuffing his hands in his pockets worked for only so long. She was so close, and she smelled so good, and she offered everything. He reached up to touch her cheek, sliding his thumb over the elegant arch.
“Maybe we should get our stories straight first.”
Her skin was so soft, and he remembered what it was like to touch almost every part of her body.
“Our stories.” She nodded and turned her face into his palm.
“I suppose it would go much like it is now. We ran into each other after these long years apart, and nothing had changed. We both knew we wanted forever. So we decided to tie the knot in the quaint little town where our godmothers live. We decided we get the fairy tale.”
If only that were true.
What would he give to make it true?
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” she murmured, her lips brushing against his skin.
He knew he shouldn’t kiss her.
But when she turned her face up to his, the polarity between them was undeniable.
She rose up on her tiptoes, and he bent down to meet her.
Their lips collided and for a solid minute, he was in heaven. Lucky felt so good in his arms, and everything was right with the world.
Lucky melted into him, her arms around him and her body pressed so tightly against him. She tasted like the cherry tea she’d been drinking and sunshine. He couldn’t get enough. She seemed as hungry for him as he was for her, which pushed his need even higher. He wanted to taste her every desire, push her higher than she’d ever been, and stay that way with her until the stars burned out.
Until the scent of cherry blossoms exploded around them. Which in and of itself was rather lovely, but the tree began to creak and groan, and even though Ransom was sure he was in mortal peril, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
Not until Lucky broke away and looked up at the branches of the tree above them.
Holy God, she mouthed.
Ransom looked up just in time to see a cherry the size of a grapefr
uit drop like an anvil. He pushed Lucky out of the way and barely dodged the missile himself.
Only the tree shifted and groaned, heavy with the ridiculously large fruit, and more of the cherry brethren followed to cannonball to the ground below.
Lucky and Ransom made a mad dash for the back porch as the rain of monster cherries continued.
He turned around to take stock of the devastation and that’s when he saw it.
A dark-red softball-size cherry comet headed right for his face. Ransom’s brain screamed at him to duck, to move, to do anything but stand there and wait for it to hit him in the face.
Unfortunately, his body didn’t obey his mind and the missile made contact with his face.
Damn, but that thing had weight. Even though it split apart on contact, some of the flesh of the cherry found its way up his nose and it packed a devil of a punch.
So much so that to Ransom’s utter humiliation, the cherry, as they say, knocked him the fuck out.
Chapter 5
Lucky was horrified.
As she looked down at him, prone on the couch, where she and the godmothers had managed to drag him, the little voice in her head got stuck on a loop. And that loop was that this was all her fault.
She knew the risks when she’d tried to entice him, but Lord, that man could still kiss. Lucky missed kissing him. Missed feeling his arms around her.
She missed him.
But all of those mishaps—correction, flukes or coincidences—were because of Lucky and her unluck.
Everything had been mostly fine until she kissed him. So basically, she just had to keep her paws to herself.
Or her lips.
She looked down at where he lay on the overstuffed old couch, his face stained with red smears from the cherry attack.
“This is awful,” she whispered.
Ransom’s eyes fluttered.
“See, he’s fine. I told you he’d be just fine,” Jonquil reassured her.
“I feel like I was run over by a truck,” Ransom groaned, and then sneezed into a kerchief, blowing errant cherry bits out of his nose.
“A cherry truck dear, yes,” Petty agreed.
“Where did they all come from? I don’t understand. There was only one bloom when we went outside. It’s like my very existence conjures bad luck.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Bluebonnet replied. “Of course, it doesn’t. Why don’t you help us get Ransom upstairs?”
“I can get myself upstairs,” he grumbled while he struggled to sit up.
Lucky helped him up, but then stepped back. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
“But wasn’t it?”
“Did you direct the tree to make grapefruit-size cherries and fling them at me?” Ransom asked her.
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s not your fault.”
“Definitely not your fault,” the godmothers said in unison.
“You know what I mean.”
“Just help me upstairs, please?” he asked her.
“Are you sure you want me to?”
“Go on, dear. Go on. We’ll bring dessert up to you later,” Jonquil said.
“Don’t use the white washcloth for that cherry juice. There are red ones in the drawer and some homemade scrub in the rose petal jar that will take it right off,” Petty called up after them.
After they shuffled up the stairs and into the attic suite, Ransom sank down on the twin bed that was the closest to the door.
Lucky had always slept on the one closest to the wall.
Nothing about the upstairs rooms had changed.
It still smelled of vanilla and cinnamon, and the scent washed over her, enveloping her in familiar safety.
Being a cottage attic, the room had a lot of odd angles and shapes. The two twin beds were positioned by the coolest window to ever exist. With a couple of pulleys and levers, it folded out into a balcony and overlooked the backyard and the possessed cherry tree. As a child, Lucky used to pretend that she was Rapunzel and trapped in an enchanted forest. Well, sometimes she was Rapunzel, but other times she was the witch.
Most of the time she was the witch, if she was honest with herself.
Farther into the room was a living room space, with a TV that got only three channels and still had the old VCR and VHS tapes on the shelf underneath it. And against the far wall was a mini kitchen.
Those visits in her childhood made her feel so grown up to have her own sink, fridge, and microwave. The fridge was always stocked with cherry cola and chicken fingers, even though she would tiptoe downstairs for midnight ice cream sodas. So much of what Lucky would call the magic of childhood she’d experienced here with the godmothers.
However, the crowning glory of the attic suite was the bathroom. It took up as much room as the bedroom portion and had a giant Roman bath, where Lucky used to spend hours pretending she was a mermaid.
“This place was a castle for a kid,” Ransom said. “So many nooks and crannies to explore. So many worlds to build and experience. This place brings back so many memories.”
“I still think it’s so strange I never saw you here.” Lucky had often wondered at the connections between Ransom and the godmothers, but they’d never spoken of it.
“Nothing really surprises me with the godmothers anymore.” He pulled himself up off the bed and wandered into the bathroom.
“You seem to be feeling better.” Relief flooded her.
“I think I was more surprised than anything else and I got cherry juice in my eye.”
They both knew he’d actually lost consciousness for a moment, but she was content to let him believe he was simply surprised.
“Here, let me help.” Lucky pulled out the washcloth and the rose soap Petty had suggested. “Sit down.”
Ransom sat on the edge of the Roman bath and Lucky set about scrubbing the proof of their almost indiscretion from his face.
“That was insane. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.”
His fingers closed around her wrist, sending electric jolts through her whole body, and their eyes met.
It was almost as if the cherry tree incident hadn’t happened, even though the proof was right there on his face.
Lucky wanted nothing more than to lean down and kiss him, but she looked away and tugged softly at her arm.
He released her and she continued her work. Before long his face was as clean as if it had never happened.
“There. All better.”
“Do you still think that we should try to finish what we started?” he asked.
He obviously wasn’t going to let this go. The man didn’t have the survival sense the Lord gave a flea.
And neither did she, honestly.
She still wanted to do exactly that—finish what they’d started all those years ago. Only she didn’t get to make decisions based solely on what she wanted.
“How can you even ask that after what happened?” Her eyes widened, but then she wilted and sank down next to him. “How are we going to get through our fake wedding? All we did was kiss, which is what we have to do when we get married, and a cherry tree went all exorcist. What’s going to happen to our guests?”
“I’m sure the godmothers have it in hand.”
“I’m not.”
A trio of cackles danced up through the windows from the outside, and Lucky ran over to look and saw her godmothers running around the yard, their ankles red with the cherries they’d stepped on and baskets and baskets full of the monster fruit.
“Well, the godmothers are thrilled with all those cherries.”
Ransom came up behind her. “You know we’ll be eating cherry cakes, pies, jams, and jellies until we die, right?”
“Dried cherries. Candied cherries. Chocolate-covered cherries. Cherry tea.”
“This might send them right over the edge into cherry coffee.”
Lucky considered. “That doesn’t sound too terribly awful. B
ut a little bit awful.” She was thoughtful for a long moment. “I’m sorry, Ransom.”
“Stop, it’s not your fault. I wanted to kiss you as much as you wanted to kiss me.”
“But we can’t.”
“We could try again. Right now,” he offered.
“And risk the whole cottage falling down around our ears?” She sat down on her own bed and leaned with her head in the bowl of her hand.
Ransom eased down on his bed. “It would teach the godmothers not to meddle, wouldn’t it?”
They looked at each other and then said in unison, “No.”
They laughed, and it was the deep kind of belly laugh Lucky hadn’t felt all the way to her bones in a very long time.
“Don’t forget to ‘textural’ Roderick.”
“Oh yeah. You know, maybe the godmothers are wrong on that. Roderick and Gwen, I mean.”
“You think? They’re not usually wrong about much.”
“They’re wrong about us. You think they could be wrong about two couples in the same week? Is it possible?” Ransom gave her a gentle smile.
That smile melted her heart into goo.
And other parts of her.
Why did it have to be the one guy she couldn’t have?
Lucky needed some air, some distance. She shouldn’t be crying over spilt milk, but that’s exactly what her heart wanted to do.
“I need to go call my mother. I’m gonna take a walk.”
“I’ll catch up with Roderick and maybe text me Gwen’s number so I can coordinate?”
Lucky pulled out her phone. “I have a hard time texting.”
“How did you do that?” He motioned to the cracked screen.
“Oh, you know. The usual. I sat on it.”
She wrote down Gwen’s number for him and headed downstairs and out the front door. Lucky didn’t want to make this call, but she knew she had to do it before the godmothers did. Her mother would be so hurt if someone else told her.
Plus, she didn’t trust the godmothers to tell her that this was, in fact, a fake wedding.
She walked down the winding path to the creek and checked to make sure she still had a signal. Lucky took a deep breath and exhaled.
She realized Gwen’s plan had appealed to her because she wasn’t over Ransom Payne. She wanted to be mad at him, blame him for everything. It was easier than blaming some stupid thing she couldn’t control.
A Hilarious and Charming Feel-Good Read Page 5
