Which was a bit much considering Maisie had sent her several text updates the previous night, from So, I see what you mean about having sex against a door to OMG, Jack’s brother just puked on Blue’s shoes. But her little sister had always liked a good story, even before she’d become a blogger, and truth be told, she felt a powerful urge to see Molly’s face. The previous day had changed her in ways she hadn’t thought a single day could. It had felt…transformative, and she wanted to talk it out.
She set up her laptop on the desk near the window and dialed Molly, Chaco resting her paws on the edge of the desk as if she wanted to take part in the conversation. It came as no surprise when Molly answered right away.
“Thank God you called me, Chaco,” she said with a wicked grin. “I was beginning to feel neglected. You love your aunt Molly, don’t you?”
Chaco wagged her tail agreeably. She and Molly had actually never met—it had been much too long since Molly had come home, and Chaco was a recent addition—but they’d become steadfast video chat buddies.
“Should I leave the two of you alone?” Maisie asked, though she couldn’t help but grin back.
“Just spill it. All of it,” Molly said, making a sweeping motion with her hand. She was holding the phone with the gesticulating hand, and the picture went wild before settling back on her face. “Chaco’s with me on this one. She wants to know what Mama’s been up to.”
“Only if you tell me about the real date you mentioned. The one that’s not for the Twelve Dates of Christmas.”
Molly pulled a face. “He seemed perfect until he tried to recruit me for his cult.”
“You’re exaggerating. Like with Blake and all his underwear.”
“That was no joke,” Molly said seriously. “Blake probably bears sole responsibility for one of our landfills.” She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right about the veterinarian, but I’m mighty suspicious about those self-betterment groups that peddle sunshine and probably sell uppers on the side. But I don’t want to talk about me for once. I need this epic story you’ve been teasing me with for hours.”
Molly’s description made her think about Blue, who’d been quite rightfully horrified by the whole puking incident. Dan had been waiting with an aggrieved expression when they got back from the bathroom. He’d gotten Blue another beer on top of her untouched one, which seemed to represent a certain hardheadedness. He didn’t want to know much about Blue’s work or her friends, and he couldn’t even be bothered to remember what she liked to drink? Upon learning Maisie’s “friend” had vomited on Blue, he’d turned even colder. It had obviously solidified his bad impression of Maisie—just like his behavior had made her more certain she’d made the right call about him.
If the Bad Luck Club had led Blue to that gem, it might not be much of a winner.
But Molly cleared her throat, lifting her eyebrows in expectation, and forced her to table the thought. She’d promised Blue an explanation for Lee’s behavior, but she could catch up with her later.
“To be clear,” Maisie said, her gaze shooting to the pen and pad ready and waiting next to her sister, “this absolutely cannot go in a blog post, anonymous or otherwise. It’s too personal to Jack.”
Her warning only seemed to make Molly more eager, and because Maisie had never intended not to tell her, she started with Victoria’s close, personal friendship with the Biltmores. Molly laughed plenty, made inappropriate comments even more, and cheered Maisie for talking so frankly with River and Georgie. And, of course, for the whole sex-against-the-door incident. When Maisie made it to the end, her voice almost hoarse from talking, Molly shook her head dramatically.
“That’s one hell of a story,” she said, “and it physically pains me that you don’t want me to write about it.”
“You’ll survive. You can write about the cult.”
Molly’s only response was to make a speculative sound in her throat.
Something creaked in the hall, but when Maisie glanced over, she didn’t see anything through the crack in the door. Old houses.
“That would be interesting,” Molly continued. “But unfortunately Beyond the Sheets only does puff pieces. An undercover piece would be too in-depth for them.” A pause. “I can’t believe you and River finally had a real talk. That’s about seven or eight years overdue.” From the speed with which she’d changed the subject, it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about work. Maisie wondered, as she had for some time, when Molly was going to get sick of working for Beyond the Sheets. It was fun, but fun only got you so far. Someday she’d want more of a challenge.
“Yeah, I guess it was time.” Thinking about it, her throat got thick with emotion. “It went so much better than I could have hoped. I…God, as much as I hate to say it, Mary was right, we were codependent on each other after Mom and Dad died. If we’d gotten together, it wouldn’t have been good for either of us. He thanked me for pushing him away that day. For not kissing him.”
“You agonized over it for like a week. Okay, until a few months ago,” Molly said, her eyes dancing. “Guess you made the right call after all, although you’ll have to throw away all of those old notebooks with Maisie Reeves written on the margins. I’m sure you still have them.”
“Nah, I went for River O’Shea. I’ve always been a modern woman,” Maisie joked. “And I’ll have you know I’ve started throwing things out.” She waved at the room around her. “This is just the beginning. I’m done living in the past, Molly. I’m ready.”
“And Jack? Is he going to be part of this splendiferous future? I know you were worried in the beginning because of Mary’s whole thing about the guys you date being too similar to River, but she’s full of it. Everyone has a type, Maisie, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It helps keep us honest.”
Chaco looked up at Maisie, wagging her tail, and she smiled at both of her girls. “I hope so, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
They talked for another minute or so, then signed off, Maisie promising to text her after the sure-to-be-disastrous engagement party. If it wasn’t canceled, of course, and it really, really should be. She wasn’t confident the Buchanan family could sit down to break bread together at this point without at least one person being poisoned or otherwise dispatched. She and Molly were supposed to talk to Mary in a three-way video chat tomorrow, although Maisie would be at the shelter on and off all day. She’d needed to take yesterday and today off, mostly, but she planned to make up for it by being the primary on-duty staffer for Christmas.
After they hung up, Maisie left the room and lingered at the top of the stairs for a moment, listening for sounds of conversation from the kitchen. There were none, so she headed down to the living room, Chaco climbing down after her.
Jack was pacing in front of the Charlie Brown tree, Einstein following at his heels, and from the look on his face—dark, tortured, angry—she knew it hadn’t gone well.
Had Lee been fool enough to reject their indisputable evidence of Prescott Buchanan’s wrongdoing? Had he managed to convince himself it was some other woman in those pictures, maybe someone else’s voice on that tape? Because people were good at convincing themselves to believe the things they wished to be true. She’d fallen victim to it before, and she never wanted to again.
Chaco gave a little whine, and Jack flinched—physically flinched—and looked over.
“So I take it everything went well?” she asked with a small smile, hoping to lighten his mood, but his gaze only darkened.
In the back of her mind she realized this foul mood he was in, this cloud he was under, wasn’t because of Lee. Or at least it wasn’t only because of Lee. It was because of her. And that meant…
“I overheard part of your conversation with your sister,” he said in a ragged voice. “River’s the reason you didn’t want to start a relationship with me.”
Part of her knew she should apologize for not telling him sooner. She hadn’t wanted him to find out like this, and she wasn’t even altogether certain of
what she’d said to Molly. But she’d learned on her first-grade kickball team that defense was the best offense, and the lesson had stuck. “You know, when Dottie invited us to listen in on her conversation with Prescott, she wasn’t suggesting we spy on each other.”
His jaw flexed. “I came up to tell you Lee walked out. I overheard some of what you said, I didn’t eavesdrop. And for the record, I didn’t want to eavesdrop on Prescott either. You’re the one who did.”
He was right. But he’d said it with such acid, when just this morning they’d sat pressed together on the couch, drinking their coffee with the dogs. A unit. That moment of perfection felt so far away right now, and tears pricked at her eyes. Tears she couldn’t bear for him to see when he was this angry with her.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve been so forthright about everything else. Why not this?”
If he’d said it more softly, with more understanding, she would have reacted differently. She would have let those tears fall, maybe. But it was almost an accusation.
So she steeled her back, trying to calm her hammering heart, and said, “Because it’s not an issue. Yes, I had feelings for River in the past. I’ll admit it was confusing for me when he first met Georgie…and even when they got engaged. Which I knew about weeks before you did. But we were never together. We’ve never even kissed. Have you told me about all of your old high school crushes?”
Defense, defense, defense. She knew what she was doing, and it made her sick inside. So she forced herself to stop. To take a breath.
Looking into his eyes, pleading with him to see her perspective, she reached for him. He let her take his hands, and something eased inside of her. “Jack, you’re the one I want. I haven’t lied to you about anything. The thing with River…it was hard to let go of it, just like it has been to sort through the things in this house. He was going through a tough time too after my parents died, and we leaned on each other harder than we should have. It was inevitable that I would feel that way about him. But we’re not right for each other. It never would have worked between us.”
She tried to communicate silently that she wanted a life with him. She could see that life so crisply. The holiday lights outside the house. Family dinners around the table, only they’d get a new table, one they picked out together. Iris would help her choose which things to keep and which to give away. Maybe Molly would too. And…
“I work with him,” he said. “He’s going to be my brother-in-law.”
And it felt like something cracked inside of her. The vision that had been so clear moments ago felt like glass coated in grime. She dropped his hands. “Georgie doesn’t hold it against me, so I don’t know why you would.”
He cocked his head. “Are you sure about that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, but the look on his face said it wasn’t nothing. Her fury must have shown because he sighed deeply. “She just told me that you might not be ready for a relationship.”
It felt like a little knife of betrayal pierced her heart. “When was this? I talked to her yesterday, and I thought we were cool.”
He squirmed. “Before that. She must have guessed your secret.”
He said it like he’d found out she kept a secret collection of dead spiders in a Tupperware under her bed. Or that she was like Blake, only she kept the dirty underwear rather than throwing them out.
Jack had always struck her as someone who respected other people’s silence. Someone who didn’t press and push and bully. Someone who gave a person the time to share what they wanted to. Where was that man? Then she thought again about that agreement Lee had wanted River to sign, and how he hadn’t seen fit to mention it to her.
“How about you, Jack? You have your secrets. You didn’t say anything about that shitty agreement Lee wants River to sign. I’m guessing you didn’t tell me because you want it to happen.” Something flashed in his eyes, and Ein pawed at his pants a little. A bit of Maisie’s anger leaked out. “And look, I get that, I do—it’s your life, your work that’s at stake—but how fair is it for you to keep secrets on your terms and not expect me to have some of my own?”
“That’s completely different,” he said. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t have the chance.”
She just lifted her brows, letting her silence speak for her.
“Look,” he said, “I feel like I’m not handling this well.”
Again, she didn’t say anything, because no, he wasn’t. Neither was she.
“This isn’t a good time for me to process this. I need some space to think, to—”
But she was already laughing, a bitter, humorless laugh.
“Oh, big surprise. You want space. You’ve been looking for every excuse you could find to stay away from me. Maybe you should thank me for hand-delivering one.”
“I’ve been nothing but honest with you,” he said, his face hard, closed down from emotion. “From the very beginning, I told you why I needed to wait.”
The tears pressing at her eyes became more urgent, and she knew it wouldn’t be long now before she lost the battle. She didn’t want that to happen in front of him. Not now. Not when he was looking at her like this, like she was some bug pinned to a board.
Her eyes fell on the small pile of wrapped presents under the tree. She’d wrapped her dad’s watch for him. It had felt like such a beautiful marriage of the past and present—giving something she’d cherished to the man she hoped would be her future, but now she wondered if she’d been naïve.
“I think you should leave,” she said. “Since you’re so desperate to get away from me.”
Einstein whined, but he came to stand at her feet, gazing mournfully at Jack.
For a moment, Jack looked like he was maybe on the verge of tears too, but then something hardened in him again, and he nodded. “Yeah, I guess maybe I should.”
And he just turned and left, leaving Maisie with her dogs and the heaviness of knowing he might not be coming back.
In a minute, she’d put herself together. Leave for the shelter so she could put in a few hours with the dogs, get their stockings together. Iris had helped her gather all the elements for them. But right now, she lowered herself where she stood, in front of the tree sparkling in lights he’d put there, and let the tears fall.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jack couldn’t remember ever being this miserable. Not from anything Prescott or Genevieve had done. Not even from the realization that his problems in Chicago had very much followed him to Asheville. It struck him as odd that a woman he barely knew could make him hurt so badly. But that wasn’t true. He knew her, and that was why he hurt so badly. She was the last person he’d expected to hurt him.
But as he stomped away from her house, realizing that she had driven him here and his car was parked several miles away at the Buchanan house, he told himself he had to put all of the emotions twisting inside of him away for now. His family disaster was still unfolding, after all, and as unbelievable as it was, he was supposed to be putting on Georgie and River’s engagement party tonight.
Shit.
River.
Lee.
Jack had to make sure Adalia and Georgie knew about their father. Would Lee tell them? Where had he even gone? He didn’t have a car either.
Maisie had accused Jack of running away, and maybe there was some truth to that, but this was how he’d learned to process anger. Any obvious shows of emotion had been like blood in the water with Genevieve, but she would occasionally cave if he went to her calmly and explained his side. So he had learned to internalize his anger and let it simmer until he could sort through the facts logically. If Maisie couldn’t deal with that, then this was never going to work. If it was going to work at all.
Part of him wanted to say to hell with it all. How was he supposed to face River now? It felt stupid and petty, and yes, a little unfair, but he was jealous of the history they shared. Maisie had been in love with River for a
lmost a decade, until she was forced to confront the fact that he loved someone else. Now Jack was supposed to believe she wanted him? He’d spent his entire life as his mother’s consolation prize, and he wasn’t playing that role ever again.
He’d walked about a half mile before realizing it was stupid to think he could walk the rest of the way. He had to get home, shower, then head to the brewery to set up for the engagement party. If the party was still happening. It was inconceivable to imagine it would, yet he didn’t want to disappoint Georgie.
Damn, he really didn’t want to break the Prescott news to his sisters. Maybe Lee had gone to tell them. Regardless, he needed to find out what was going on, sooner rather than later. He considered ordering an Uber, but he’d have to wait for it by the side of the road. Calling Iris was out. He’d get the third degree.
It wasn’t like he had a lot of friends in Asheville, so he called the only person he knew who wouldn’t make him feel worse.
“Hey,” Finn said when he answered. “We missed you guys last night. We got kicked out of Libations after Lurch tried to start a conga line. And, get this, he and Stella got back together by the end of the night. Apparently, she told him she didn’t want to break up with him after all. She wanted them to be part of a thruple with the fireman.”
“Yeah, well…” Jack trailed off because he didn’t really know what to do with that, then took a deep breath. “I need to ask a favor, man.”
“Sure,” Finn said, perking up. “Shoot.”
“Can you pick me up? I’m kind of stranded, and I need to deal with a situation before I set up for the party tonight.”
“Yeah, of course. Where are you?”
Jack scrubbed the back of his neck as he looked around. “About a half mile from Maisie’s house. I’ll send you a pin of my location.”
“Did your car break down?”
“No.”
Getting Lucky Page 29
