Infatuation and Independence

by Jennifer Becton

  “And for someone who claims not to be able to offer guidance to young people, you’re awfully good at it.” He nodded to the kitchen window, just above the hot tub. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

  “Oh, that was nothing special,” Kitty said, blushing again at his praise. “I’ve done the same thing for my own sister for years, though I never got through to her.”

  “I think you got through to that young lady,” Josh said. He paused to consider her a moment. “I heard you say you wished you could do that sort of counseling as a career but worried people wouldn’t be able to pay you.”

  Kitty nodded.

  “But others do it,” he pointed out. “There’s that guy on the radio and the woman with the TV show.”

  “Yeah, but they get a great deal of their income from commercials and ads. I don’t do radio or TV,” Kitty said. “Plus, I don’t want to be a famous financial guru. I just like helping.”

  “Who says you have to become a talk show host?” he asked. “A go-getter like you could find another way. You could build your business online or create an app.”

  Though these were valid ways to creating an ad-supported business, Kitty balked. “Design an app? I can’t do that!”

  “Why not? It’s not that hard,” he said sounding as if he actually knew what he was talking about. “The woman I saw change a tire the other day by jumping on a tire iron—”

  “Lug wrench,” she corrected, giving him a slightly flirty wink that she wished she regretted.

  “Lug wrench,” he repeated, grinning at her. “That woman can do anything she wants. If financial counseling is something you truly want to do, there’s a way to make it happen.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Kitty said, wishing that were true. But starting her own business and creating an app…those were serious career moves. It was a big risk to take on her own. “But I have a job waiting for me back home. I’ll be leaving at the end of summer.”

  “Is that why you turned me down for a date?” he asked, surprising her by switching gears. His eyes searched hers for an answer. “Because you’re only here for the summer?”

  Kitty felt her face heat. On paper, Josh seemed like the perfect potential date. He was cute, which followed Lydia’s advice. He was kind and responsible, which followed Jane and Liz’s advice. And he was smart, which followed Mary’s advice. And he was a contractor, which her mother would hate.

  Kitty was attracted to him, but more importantly, she had a good opinion of him. All in all, he seemed like a worthy candidate.

  “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t say no to a date with you,” she confessed, watching Josh’s eyes brighten.

  “I like where this is going,” Josh said, stepping closer.

  “Unfortunately, there’s no point in dating if I’m just going to leave at the end of the summer.” His face fell, and her heart pitched a little too. “But we can be friends.”

  “Friends?” He mulled that over for a moment and seemed to rebound quickly. “Okay, not a date then,” he said slowly. Then, he offered her a charming smile that made her heart flutter. “How about two friends going for ice cream?”

  His persistence and charming smile were hard to resist.

  “I do like ice cream,” she admitted slowly. “And I’ve been dying to try the shop near the dairy that churns it fresh. But I haven’t had time yet.”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked, looking hopeful.

  “Yes,” Kitty said, grinning at him.

  What was the harm?

  She couldn’t get in trouble over ice cream.

  Part 2: Ice Cream and Impersonation

  “So did you ever figure out how the bed got in the road?” Kitty asked between bites of sinfully rich vanilla ice cream.

  Josh leaned a hip against the wood fence that delineated the ice cream shop from the cow pasture and took another bite of his cone.

  “Belated senior prank,” he explained. “It was a prop in a local production of Peter Pan. A group of graduating theater students thought it would be funny to leave it in the road.”

  Kitty considered the merits of the joke. “I don’t get it.”

  “Me neither.” He shrugged.

  “I guess most pranks don’t really make much sense when you think about them,” Kitty mused.

  “Toilet paper in trees? Who came up with that?”

  “I don’t know, but my sister Lydia thought it was pretty funny.”

  Josh laughed. “I once helped carry my teacher’s MG into the high school gymnasium. He freaked out when he saw his car indoors.”

  Kitty was just about to tell him about the time she and her friends spent the night prank calling neighbors when her phone rang. Thinking it would be Georgie reporting back from her talk with Will, she pulled it from her pocket. “I should take this. It might be about the financial crisis you witnessed earlier.”

  Josh didn’t look put out by the interruption at all. He just smiled, his blue eyes accentuated by the navy ball cap.

  With her attention still mostly focused on Josh and his pretty blue eyes, she swiped to take the video call.

  Her mother’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Mother!” Kitty would never have taken the call if she had seen the identity of the caller. Why hadn’t she been more careful? Now, Josh was going to find out what a busybody the Queen Mum was, and lord help her if her mother saw Josh.

  Kitty angled the phone as far away from Josh as she could, putting the cows in the shot behind her.

  “Kitty,” her mother said in greeting. Then, she blinked at the screen. “Where are you? Is that a cow?”

  “I’m at the ice cream shop in Rosings, and yes, that is a cow. That’s where ice cream comes from. More or less.”

  Her mother grimaced and then looked behind her, presumably toward her father, who was probably hiding in his man cave. “I told you this wasn’t a good idea, dear,” she called. “She’s in a cow pasture.”

  “I’m not in a cow pasture,” Kitty corrected, but her words fell on deaf ears. “I’m at an ice cream shop.”

  When her mother looked back at the phone, Kitty held up her cone for good measure.

  “Sugar isn’t good for your figure,” the Queen Mum intoned with a shake of her head. “She’s eating sugar!” she called to her father.

  Kitty heard her father shut his door.

  The Queen Mum refocused on Kitty. “This foolishness has gone on long enough. It’s time for you to come home.”

  Kitty winced at the declaration and sent a glance in Josh’s direction. He could hear every word, but he kept his gaze focused elsewhere, ostensibly giving her privacy.

  “Mother,” Kitty hissed, trying to control her frustration. “I told you. I’m not coming home. I’m spending the whole summer here.”

  The Queen Mum raised a skeptical brow. “When you hear what I’ve done, I think you’ll want to come home.”

  Kitty doubted it very much. In fact, her back prickled at the prospect of whatever her mother was plotting.

  “What have you done?”

  The Queen Mum raised a triumphant hand. “I’ve found you a gentleman.”

  This drew Josh’s attention. He looked at her, blue eyes curious.

  Kitty flushed and wished she could close a door on this conversation, as her father had.

  “I don’t want you to find me a gentleman, Mother.”

  “He’s handsome and comes from a very good family.”

  Translation: his family had a lot of money. Kitty didn’t care about that.

  The Queen Mum prattled on. “He graduated from UGA and is going to take over his father’s car dealership. Just think. You’ll always have a new car to drive every year!”

  “Mother—”

  “I’ve set up a date for Friday night, so you’ll have to come home now to prepare. You’ll need the full treatment: haircut, color, mani, pedi…improvements to your diet.”

  “Mother! No!” Kitty protested. “I am not going on a diet. Or a blind date.”

&nbs
p; “Why ever not?”

  Saying no should have been sufficient, but it never was. Not with the Queen Mum.

  Kitty cast about for a reason that would throw her mother off her matchmaking schemes once and for all. If living in another town wouldn’t even put her off, what would?

  Illness?

  No, that would only make her insist she come home sooner. She might even send an ambulance to get her.

  Work?

  She didn’t have a job.

  Witness protection?

  That might have merits, but it was utterly impractical.

  Frowning, Kitty admitted to herself that only one thing—short of her complete disappearance—would make her mother stop this nonsense.

  There was only one answer. Kitty had to be in a relationship already.

  Kitty sent Josh an apologetic look. “Because I’m already seeing someone here,” Kitty blurted.

  Josh watched her openly now.

  “What?” her mother scoffed. “I don’t believe that for a moment.”

  “Well, you should,” Kitty said, letting her frustration take control. “You’re interrupting our date right now.”

  Josh perked up. He took a few steps closer. And now that she had dragged him into this…well, scheme…she had no right to demand privacy.

  Her mother looked horror-stricken. “A date in a cow pasture?”

  “I told you it’s an ice cream shop near a cow p—” Kitty broke off. Why bother?

  “Is this an imaginary boyfriend? Like you had years ago?”

  Josh poked his head into the frame beside hers.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bennet,” he said removing his hat. He gave her a polite smile and nod. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Her mother began to sputter in shock. It took a few beats for words to form on her lips. “Catherine Bennet, I demand to know what’s going on there. Who is that man?”

  Her last question was hissed rather than spoken.

  “Josh Parrish,” he answered for himself, still sounding utterly at ease.

  Her mother ignored Josh and spoke again to Kitty. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a contractor,” Kitty informed her petulantly, knowing how her mother would react. She believed there was no dignity in a hard day’s work. The Queen Mum preferred honest inheritance to honest labor.

  “A contractor?” her mother echoed, clasping her bosom as if fending off palpitations. If she had a handkerchief, she would have fluttered it and called for smelling salts. Then, recalling that the contractor in question was listening to every word and observing every gesture, she added, “How nice for you, Jim.”

  “It’s Josh,” Kitty corrected.

  “In that case, Josh must understand that no daughter of mine dates a contractor.”

  Kitty sent an apologetic look at Josh. Her mother had lowered herself to an appalling level of rudeness. To Josh’s credit, he seemed to be handling it well, but no one should have to face that kind of onslaught.

  Without thinking, Kitty reached for his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  Meanwhile, her mother looked over her shoulder again and demanded in a voice loud enough to carry through her father’s door, “What is wrong with our daughter that she would choose to be the wife of a contractor over the prospect of getting a brand new car every year? This must be from your side of the family.”

  If her father responded, Kitty couldn’t hear it over her own outrage.

  “Mother!” Kitty said, watching her mother spin back to look at the phone. Kitty clutched Josh’s hand even harder. The Queen Mum had insulted him in every possible way and insinuated that they would be getting married. And still, Josh appeared completely unaffected. In fact, he seemed amused by her mother’s snobbery and presumptuousness.

  But Kitty was not amused. She had heard far too much of this in her lifetime. She was so over it. “You’ve said quite enough, Mother. Josh is a nice man, nice enough to listen to you deride is career and insult him without offering any reproach. And I’m dating him whether you like it or not. Dating. Not marrying. So calm down.”

  “What about the car dealer’s son?” her mother whined.

  “He’s your problem,” Kitty declared. “Not mine.”

  Her mother huffed. “You’ve lost your sense, child. You’ve left me no choice. Your father and I will be there this weekend to inspect your young man.”

  She said it as if Josh were a horse for sale.

  “And if we disapprove, we are bringing you straight home.”

  “No,” Kitty protested. “If you disapprove, you’ll just have to find a way to deal with it. I’m not coming home.”

  Giving Kitty’s hand a comforting pat, Josh cleared his throat and smiled into the camera. “I’ll make reservations for dinner Saturday night,” he said, shocking both the Bennet women. “I look forward to meeting you.”

  The Queen Mum was stunned into silence, and Kitty figured now was as good a time as any to end the video call. The screen went blank.

  Realizing she was still gripping Josh’s hand, Kitty let go and sent a confused look in Josh’s general direction. Too embarrassed to meet his eyes fully, she tucked some stray hair behind her ear and managed to look somewhere in the vicinity of his chin.

  “Dinner reservations?” Kitty squeaked. She cleared her throat and continued in a semi-normal tone of voice. “You have no idea what you’ve just gotten us into.”

  “I was hoping for a nice dinner.” Josh didn’t sound the least bit apologetic. “Besides, I got the feeling that your mother wasn’t going to let it go. She was going to show up here anyway to ‘inspect me,’ right?”

  “Yes,” Kitty admitted. In the whole history of time, her mother had never let anything go. Usually, she made things worse. “Probably with the car dealer tied up in her trunk.”

  Josh laughed, and Kitty forgot her embarrassment. She stood on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

  When she finally had the courage to meet his gaze, she found a quizzical expression in his blue eyes. “Don’t get me wrong because I’m certainly not complaining, but what was that for?”

  Shrugging, Kitty decided she might as well admit the truth. “Because I wanted to.”

  A wave of guilt washed over her. Kitty shouldn’t be using Josh to stave off her own mother.

  “And because I’m sorry,” she added.

  “I liked the first reason better,” he said, stepping slightly closer. “But what are you sorry for?”

  “Claiming you were my boyfriend for starters,” Kitty said, shuffling backward a step. “And for everything my mother said after that. She’s always been obsessed with other people’s résumés. You are under no obligation to take part any further in my charade—”

  “But I want to have dinner with you,” Josh interrupted, taking another step forward. “That’s why I offered to make reservations in the first place.”

  Kitty furrowed her brow. Why would anyone want to deal with her mother for the duration of a meal? She was giving him an out. Why wouldn’t he take it?

  “I don’t need you to come to my rescue,” Kitty told him. She might have panicked and claimed they were dating, but now that the pressure was off temporarily, she realized how unfair she had been. She would just have to handle her mother’s meddling some other way.

  “I know,” Josh agreed easily, his warm tone making Kitty want to kiss him all over again. “I wish I could claim such chivalry. But the truth is I agreed to dinner for purely selfish reasons. I wanted a date with you, and now I have it.”

  Whatever Kitty might have said disappeared in a flurry of frustration, flattery, and a tinge of gratitude. She liked Josh. He was good and kind, and clearly, he was not put off by her mother. Under other circumstances, she would already be dating him officially.

  But she reminded herself for the dozenth time: this trip was about finding herself, not finding a man. Kitty absolutely could not allow herself to be sidetracked by a pair of fine eyes.

  “Yeah, well, the jo
ke’s on you,” Kitty said, halfheartedly jabbing a finger at him. “You are volunteering to eat dinner with my parents. And I’m still not going to agree to date you.”

  Josh grinned back at her with all the confidence in the world. “We’ll see.”

  Kitty was marinating in the hot tub—alone—later that night when her phone rang. Praying it wasn’t her mother again, Kitty peeked at the screen. Upon seeing her sister Liz’s info on the caller ID, Kitty didn’t know whether to be relieved or apprehensive.

  She’d nearly forgotten all about Georgie’s situation.

  By now, she must have confessed her crimes to Will, which meant Kitty could be in for an unpleasant conversation with Liz. After all, there was a chance that Liz and Will thought she had overstepped her aunt-ly bounds.

  Hoping for the best, Kitty took the call. “Hey, Liz,” she said, going for a cheerful tone. “What’s up?”

  “I got a call from the Queen Mum,” Liz informed her. “She’s beside herself over the ‘hillbilly’ you’re dating. Her word, not mine.”

  “Oh lord,” Kitty moaned, sinking lower into the tub. “She told you about Josh?”

  Liz laughed. Her sister had a bubbly, infectious laugh, and Kitty would have joined her if the situation weren’t so awkward.

  “Technically, she referred to him as ‘the hillbilly’ and ‘the contractor,’” Liz corrected. “Is your boyfriend’s name Josh?”

  “Well…,” Kitty hedged. “The man in question’s name is Josh, and he is a contractor. But he’s neither a hillbilly nor my boyfriend.”

  “According to the Queen Mum,” Liz’s tone turned quizzical, “this Josh was the reason you refused a date with a ‘perfectly good car salesman.’”

  Was there such a thing as a perfectly good car salesman chosen by her mother? Kitty thought not.

  “Actually, I refused to allow our mother to set me up on a blind date just to get me back home.” Kitty paused. “Josh happened to be a convenient excuse. I had to tell her something. You know how she is.”

  “I do,” Liz agreed. “But you know she’s going to descend on you in a matter of days.”