Come to think of it, I loved all the things he’d mentioned; kayaking, hiking, and exploring were all on my list of favorite things.
“Sure. We can chat about it next time.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my cheek before walking away.
My fingers found the tingling spot as I stared after him.
12
Cole
“I think it went well yesterday.” Laney snorted sarcastically, her drink of water spilling down her chin as she ducked her head and turned away from me.
I chuckled, gripped the steering wheel and tried to focus on the road.
“Okay, it didn’t go well,” she said. “But we’re going to make up for it today.”
Our coffee date had been awful in so many ways, but the analyst in me said that things were overall going well. On a work level, even though I knew she was a risk, I wanted to invest. Maybe not all in for a sure thing, but I wanted to be in on the ground level because I saw the potential for great things.
My truck hit a bump and she made a noise, spilling the water down the front of her shirt this time. “You did that on purpose!” She turned to me, water beading on her amethyst athletic tank top and trickling toward her thighs.
This carefree, excited version of her made me smile. I liked being around her when she was like this. Sure, what she was asking me to do, tricking her family, was unforgivable, but the way she looked right now in the passenger seat of my truck… Incredible. Everything about her surprised me.
She’d tied up her fawn-colored hair and her hazel eyes were sparkling with excitement. “So you never did tell me, what do you do for a living?” She pinched the fabric, pulling it away from her body before letting go, the water bouncing off her shirt. I loved the outline of her body in the tight sports bra under the tank and the lines of her taut belly. She looked damn good, so good I wanted to taste her.
“I invest.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Please tell me your job isn’t math.”
I nodded. It was a lot of math and numbers and understanding graphs, projected growth rates…
She dropped her head back on the headrest, groaning loudly, and I held back a smile. I didn’t want to tell her about it. Just like I didn’t want to tell her why the coffee girl’d had such a fix on me. I knew why; the bistro had franchised from a company I’d invested in a few years back that absolutely exploded. The founder was the girl’s father, and she’d been gifted her own shop for her eighteenth birthday. I’d forgotten about that when I set up the date. It was a convoluted situation that didn’t happen often. The girl knew me, thanks to her father, and recognized my name on my card. It wasn’t a big leap to figure out why she’d suddenly been in hot pursuit—she looked at me and saw money. That’s all it took to make me worth her time.
It was disgusting, and had happened all too often. The second a woman decided that my money made me worth her time, that woman became garbage in my eyes. I didn’t need or want people like that in my life.
“What do I need to know about you?” My question, an attempt to curb her questions, seemed like a win as she thought for a moment. I turned off the highway and my truck bounced over the old, overgrown road.
“Well…”
“You love everything avocado.”
She laughed. “Yep, that’s all there is to know!” Her hand found the oh-shit handle above the door and she held on for dear life as I slowed a bit.
“We’re almost there.” The road was rough, but it was the only way in.
“I’m enjoying myself.” She turned her smile on me and something in me tugged in a way it had no business doing. “I’m a nanny for an adorable little girl. She’s an infant, her name is Olivia. I’m on a two-week break for my sister’s wedding, which thrills the baby’s grandparents because both sides get to spend more time with her until I get back.”
I sucked in a breath between my teeth. “I bet that pisses your mother off. If I know her, she doesn’t want you taking care of someone else’s kids, she wants you to find a nice, rich man and settled down, trap him with a family, right?” As I said the words, meaning them fully as a joke, a sick sensation twisted in my gut. What if this was all another huge set-up? What if Laney’d played me all those years ago, and what if she was playing me now?
“Yeah.” Her enthusiasm dimmed a bit, then she brightened right back up. “But I love my job. I love babies and kids.”
I imagined her with a baby on her hip, and I didn’t hate the idea.
“There really isn’t much to know about me. I moved to Reedsport. I’m still best friends with Amber. I work, I go home, I hang out with her on the weekends watching movies, or kayaking, or hiking.” Her words began to lose momentum as she spoke, as if she was coming to some realization.
“Sounds like a good life.” It surprised me that she went hiking and kayaking. I wouldn’t have guessed those were things she enjoyed.
“It is.” She didn’t sound convinced.
As we reached our destination, I almost audibly breathed a sigh of relief. Amongst the trees, several moss-covered buildings still stood, while others had caved in and were not much more than rubble overtaken by nature. I’d made calls to all the local guides and had paid each one to take the day off, as well as reaching out to the landowner to be sure the place would be closed to visitors for the day. Laney and I would be alone here today.
I got out to unlock the gate, locking it again behind us after I drove the truck through. I’d considered just buying the four-hundred acres the old ghost town rested on, but the owner was unwilling to sell—which was code for he hadn’t had an offer worth it to him yet. I’d change his mind someday.
All in all, I’d shelled out about ten thousand, and it was worth it for the look on her face. Her stunned features brought a smile to my lips. The little o of her mouth and her wide eyes taking in everything had me glancing at the ruins with new appreciation.
“So pretty.” She breathed the words as she slid out of the truck onto solid ground.
I stepped out and closed my truck door as softly as I could. She followed suit, her attention on the nearest old building. The roof was brilliant green with moss and the wood creaked as wind rushed through the trees.
“You’re standing in Leightonville, an old mining town. The mines are up the hill there.” I pointed toward them and she moved in close to me. From where I was standing, I could just see the first wide-open maw of a mineshaft. “The miners and their families lived down here and eventually a little shop was opened as well as a post office.” I watched her scan the area before her gaze found mine, excited and filled with the same sense of adventure building in me.
“Why is it a ghost town?” She shifted away a bit, her pulse thrumming in her throat.
“Illness swept through and wiped out about half the families. Healthcare back then wasn’t the best. Bad luck followed those who lived, and it was said the gold ran out.”
Her expression turned melancholy as she took in the ruins again.
I went ahead and laid the last devastating fact out there like a cherry perched on a shit sundae. “Later, when the mines were reopened, they found gold. But only after a miner slipped and hit his head. A whole new vein was hiding behind the memorial wall they’d installed just inside the mine for those they’d lost.”
She frowned, so I backed up a step.
“Mining was incredibly dangerous. So just inside the shaft, it was common to have a memorial wall with the names of those who’d died in that mine. They’d brush their fingers along it as they went in to work, for luck.”
“Oh. That likely contributed to the illnesses.” Her eyelids fluttered rapidly, like she was blinking back tears.
I nodded. “Possibly. I did save the best for last; most of these houses were not cleared out. The ones still standing have been partially kept up and we’re free to look inside.”
I chuckled as she bounced up and down on her toes. “Seriously?”
“One more thing.”
“There’s more?” She was
so impatient, I could practically feel her vibrating.
“Yes. If we’re brave enough to peek into the mine, we’re welcome to keep what we find.” That wasn’t one-hundred-percent true. I’d take a picture of what we found and pay the owner handsomely for the experience. I didn’t give a damn about the money, I was here for the experience with her. Watching her face light up was priceless.
“Let’s go!” She grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the nearest standing building.
We swung the door open together, and were immediately taken back to another age. In the light of the surprisingly well kept windows, which showed their age in their lack of true transparency, was a spread of gold rush era items, decaying blankets, old oil lanterns. But they didn’t hold my attention, I was focused on her face. Her excitement, her sheer childlike wonder.
I didn’t want to like her. I wanted to hate her. To think that when she took me home to meet her parents all those years ago, she’d meant to humiliate me. I wanted her to be the bad guy. Because if she wasn’t all those things, then I could see myself falling for her. And that was bad news all around.
After all, I’d liked the tawny-haired girl with the big hazel eyes back in high school, a little too much than was good for me. She’d always been upbeat, quick to laughter and never treated me poorly or ignored me, like a lot of the other kids. That’s why it had hurt so much when she took me home and it’d ended up like it had. I’d trusted her.
I knew what happened when you trusted people and loved people who didn’t feel the same way about you. It had happened to me in my first two foster homes. I’d thought I was finding a family. Instead, I’d found someone looking for free labor, someone itching to punish me to take out their own frustrations. There had been no love in those places, and they’d hardened me. Which had turned out to be a blessing, because now I knew better.
“This is incredible,” she whispered as we stepped out of the first house. We wandered toward the sad rubble of a second home and she squatted down and peeked under the collapsed roof. “So much stuff.”
She moved on to the next, but I wanted to take her to the old store, so I slipped my hand into hers. The connection zapped me like a doorknob on a cold winter’s day, and we stared at each other for a second.
“Ghosts?” Her smile broke the tension and she squeezed my hand.
I chuckled. “Yep, ghosts.”
“This is too much fun.” She stared up at me as I led her toward the store. When she realized where we were going, she had a skip in her step as I opened the door.
This was by far the best preserved building in the place. Shelves still held items that had been available for purchase, and even some yellowed, tattered, handwritten price tags could still be read.
She wandered in before softly calling back to me, “We have to do this again sometime.”
“We will.” I could have kicked myself. Why was I making promises? This wasn’t real. It wasn’t a real date, we weren’t really together, and I really didn’t need the heartache.
I knew better than to get attached. Everyone always left in the end, or only wanted one thing. I was better off alone.
“Ready to go find a diamond in the rough?” Heading back toward the door, she tiptoed past an antique shelf littered with unopened packages.
“Take a girl to look for gold and she’ll ask for diamonds.” I’d meant it as a joke, but my flat tone made her stop suddenly.
“Sorry, I don’t know any catchphrases about gold.” Then she lit right up. “Oh, I know! I’m ready to be the best gold digger I can be!”
It wasn’t possible for me to tense up tighter than it did with those words.
13
Laney
“You’re in love with him.”
I stared at Amber as she sat next to me on my couch, her elbow propped up on the seat back and her chin resting in her hand. Her black hair resembled ribbons curling slightly and her big blue eyes were sparkling brightly.
I shook my head. “I’m not! I’m just…it was such a great time.”
“Date. It was such a great date.” She shifted, pulling her legs up under her. “At least be honest and call it what it was.”
“But none of this is real. We’re pretending. He doesn’t actually like or love me.” I rolled my eyes at her. “We needed to make sure we could be convincing and now I’m pretty sure we can be.”
“And you’re in love with him.”
Hadn’t I just told her I wasn’t in love with him? “I just told you, he doesn’t actually have feelings for me. Didn’t you hear that?”
“I did.” She nodded her head, blinking at me and offering the sweet smile that had made her the heart of so much desire in high school. But she was such a shy girl then that she’d never even noticed how the guys fawned over her. She just thought they were all super nice. “But you didn’t say that you’re not in love with him. So…” She trailed off before sitting up and gathering her hair off her shoulders and tossing it down her back.
I blinked. She was right. I hadn’t said I didn’t love him. So I said the words. “I’m not in love with him.” They were true. Right?
“You really need to stop lying to yourself.” Amber sprang up as the microwave beeped. As she went into the kitchen, I inhaled the rich scent of popcorn. My mouth watered as I glanced at the TV screen. We’d already gone through a bag of popcorn and hadn’t even started our traditional Friday night movie. I’d been too busy telling her about the exciting day I’d had with Cole.
“I’m not lying to myself.” I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until she was quick to call out to me from the kitchen.
“Yes, you are!” She came back into the room, bowl of popcorn in hand, and plopped down next to me.
I reached for a handful of the hot, popped kernels, and she pulled the bowl away from me.
“Hey!” I glared at her, but she lifted both eyebrows with a serious expression.
“You are in love with him. And you’re lying to yourself about it. You’re being stupid and stubborn.”
I grabbed her arm and pulled the bowl closer before digging into it. “This is only to annoy—”
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re just trying to annoy your parents. You were in love with this guy in high school! You always have been! It didn’t work out the first time, and now you’re getting a second chance. Even if it’s under false pretenses. Give him a chance to fall in love with you, because I swear, he’s going to.” She popped a single kernel of puffed corn into her mouth and smiled.
I crunched into mine, loving the salty buttery flavor, but mostly to stall for time. Amber and I had done movie nights once a week since I’d moved into this apartment and I was grateful for the company and conversation. But I hated how she called me out when she thought I needed to realize the truth about something. “You’ve got this all wrong.” I knew she wasn’t hearing me anymore, but I had to try to get the truth across.
“No, Laney, you’ve got it all wrong.”
I sighed and shook my head, throwing my hands up in the air.
“So, tell me more about this fake date.” She set the bowl between us on the couch and we both crunched while I explained.
“The date itself wasn’t fake…or was it? Now I’m confused.” Was it fake? I knew we were going to be pretend dating, but the trip to the ghost town had been so perfect that my brain struggled against the thought of it being fake. Was it an actual date if we’d gone on it to plan a fake date?
Amber stared at me with an arched eyebrow. “So it wasn’t fake? It was a real date?”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Shut up. I’m confused because you keep talking about real dates and real love and mixing me up. We’re pretend dating, it was a fake date, and I had fun.”
“Tell me more about the mine.” She turned toward me, crossing her legs. I’d told her everything up to the point where we’d arrived, before she’d interjected that I was in love with him.
I glanced at the screen. We were breaking our
traditional movie night.
She flipped her hand in the air like she was brushing away the TV. “This is way more interesting than some old movie about giant sandworms.”
“Okay. You could see the mine from the little ghost town. It was a short walk up the hill to it, maybe a quarter of a mile. The whole way, I imagined what those old miners thought about as they made that same walk, you know? What were they worried about.”
“Obviously, a cave-in.” I stared at her in horror, but she lifted her shoulders. “It’s a valid concern!”
People had lost their lives, but her joke did make me smile a tiny bit. “You’re awful, making a joke out of tragedy.”
“Humor is a good coping mechanism. Anyway, I bet they hated the job. I bet they soaked in the sunshine and breathed really deep, and just enjoyed being outside before going into the tiny, cramped mines.” She took another bite of popcorn, watching me intently.
I nodded. “That’s about what I thought too. I imagined they worried for their families’ safety while they were underground. Maybe they prayed that day wouldn’t be the day the mine caved in, and they’d make it out safe at the end of their shift. Wouldn’t that be a sad, scary existence?”
“Yeah, I can’t live without my phone.” She nodded at her phone, which was facedown on the coffee table, a rule for our movie nights. On silent, and facedown. We’d check them on bathroom breaks, but otherwise, they were dead to us.
“In today’s world, we would tweet about it.” I mimed holding my phone and squinting in the dark. “Help! Mine caved in! My job sucks.” I pursed my lips, squinting my eyes as I pretended to angrily jab the phone to send a tweet.
Amber laughed, falling back onto the couch cushions. “I feel bad laughing at that, but you really nailed it. Well done.”
“Thank you.” I smiled as she boomeranged back to sitting before me. “So anyway, we went into the mines looking for gold. He said we could keep anything we found—”
Faking for Her Page 8
