Stone Princess

by Devney Perry

  My paranoia that the town was talking about me, pitying me, was as strong as it had been the day after the wedding. Maybe in a year or two, I wouldn’t be that girl who’d been dumped at the altar. Maybe they’d see me as the woman who stood on her own two feet.

  Sometimes small towns sucked.

  The gossip mill in Clifton Forge wasn’t particularly interesting, but I’d always kept my ear to the wind. I’d stayed on the fringe. I knew who was cheating on whom. I knew who had hooked up with whom at The Betsy. My source was almost always my stylist at the salon. I might be on the outer edge of the circle, but the women who worked at the salon were in the thick of it. Since I got my hair done every two weeks—it grew fast and the short style required maintenance—I usually knew what was happening. Plus, I’d overhear things at the garage while waiting customers talked about folks around town.

  Since the wedding, I’d vowed no more.

  Call it ignorance, but now that I knew how it felt when people were talking about me behind my back, I’d never spread a lick of gossip again. If I could avoid hearing it, I would. Even if that meant I had to grow my hair out and drive the two hours to Bozeman for a new stylist.

  I pushed my cart to the checkout line and loaded my things onto the conveyor belt. My eyes stayed fixed on the items in the cart, not wanting to make eye contact with the cashier until the last possible second.

  When I did, she gave me a sad smile—all the smiles aimed my way were sad—and I turned to the candy display to hide an eye roll. As the last items beeped through, I plastered on a smile and went through the motions of checking out.

  My groceries were loaded and I was pulling out of the parking lot when the phone rang. I almost answered Jeremiah’s call like I had a thousand times before. Hey, babe.

  He wasn’t mine anymore. And I wasn’t his. So why was he calling me?

  It rang, twice, three times, as my heart raced. Should I answer? What did he want? Why was he calling me now?

  It rang a fourth time, then the noise stopped. I blinked, placing my hands on the wheel as I focused on the road.

  I didn’t need to talk to him. I didn’t need to hear his voice, and nothing good would come of this. Maybe he’d called me accidentally, an old habit.

  “I’m not calling him back,” I muttered.

  I didn’t need to. The phone rang again and his name came up on the display.

  “Grr. What do you want?” I spat.

  He had to know we were over. I wasn’t taking him back after this. Never. But what if something was wrong? Was he sick? Or hurt? Maybe he’d gotten into some trouble with the club.

  I gritted my teeth as the phone kept ringing. The leather wrapping the steering wheel squeaked as I strangled it beneath my palms. Every ring seemed louder than the last, jolting me in my seat.

  Then, silence descended—blissful silence—and I could breathe again. I blew out the air in my lungs and relaxed my spine.

  My heart had climbed down out of my throat by the time I turned off Central to take the residential streets home. I was five blocks away when my phone rang again.

  Jeremiah.

  “Ugh.” Was he going to keep calling all night? Should I get it over with? Tell him goodbye, get that closure for myself, then hang up and move on with my life? My thumb made the decision for me, pressing the button to answer. “What?”

  “Hey, Pres.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  His voice sounded soft and kind. Apologetic. I hated Sorry Jeremiah. He was pathetic in all the ways that made me forgive him. But not this time. The line had been drawn and if I crossed it, I’d only be that much closer to becoming my mother again. I’d die before that happened.

  With my foot on the brake, I slowed down and steered the Jeep to the curb, putting it in park. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  To hear my voice? Wrong answer. How about to fucking apologize? “I’m busy.”

  My voice was flat. Was that the voice he’d wanted to hear?

  “Oh.” The silence dragged on, itchy and uncomfortable. But he’d called me. If there was something he wanted, he could speak up. “You’re mad.”

  My mouth fell open. Seriously? This was the guy I’d chosen to marry? I was so dumb. “Mad doesn’t begin to cover it.”

  The silence returned.

  Why hadn’t I listened to the guys? Why? Draven, Dash, Emmett and Leo had all badmouthed Jeremiah. For years, they’d muttered words like loser, dumb fuck and piece of shit under their breaths whenever I brought him up. Each time, it would start a fight. I’d defend Jeremiah while they’d rake him over the coals. Fight after fight.

  I’d gotten so sick of their commentary that I’d eventually flown off the handle. I’d scolded them for not being supportive and told them to mind their own business. At that time, none of them had been in relationships and none of them had been in a position to tell me how to conduct my love life.

  My stubborn streak had reared its ugly head.

  They’d only been trying to help.

  Draven had gone so far as to try and warn Jeremiah off. It had been right before he was supposed to receive his verdict in Amina’s murder trial. We’d all known he was going to be pronounced guilty, and he’d spent weeks putting his affairs in order, which included actually retiring from the garage and deeming me the office manager.

  That was when there’d been a lot of animosity between the former Tin Gypsies and the Arrowhead Warriors. I’d stayed on the cusp, careful not to get involved, but I’d heeded warnings and kept a close watch out for Warriors in town. Draven and Dash had suspected they were lurking and might try to hurt one of us.

  Yeah, they’d been lurking.

  In my house.

  Jeremiah had brought over some friends he’d met at the poker table. He’d play cards two or three times a week. Some days, he’d win. Sometimes, he’d lose. But it made him happy so I’d kept my mouth shut.

  I’d been so scared of losing him that I’d walked on eggshells about his lack of a job and lack of money and lack of . . . love.

  Jeremiah’s friends had actually been Warriors. I hadn’t known, obviously. Unless they were wearing their cuts, making a statement with those leather vests, they’d just been Jeremiah’s friends.

  When I’d learned who they were and that they’d been trying to glean information from me about Draven and Dash, I’d been floored. I’d told Jeremiah they weren’t welcome in our home, hoping he’d cut ties. Nope. Instead, he’d decided to join their club.

  To be part of a brotherhood.

  You know my family, Presley. This is a good thing for me.

  Draven had gone to Jeremiah and encouraged him to prospect for the Warriors. He’d been sure that if Jeremiah moved to Ashton, that would be the end of our engagement.

  But then Draven had killed himself.

  He’d left me.

  And I’d clung to the one man who, for better or worse, had never abandoned me.

  Until the day he had.

  “Pres, you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you gonna talk?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  The wound he’d slashed in me in June ripped wide open. “You humiliated me.”

  “I forgot.”

  “Our wedding?” My voice cracked and my temper spiked. “After everything, all we’d been through, you forgot? Fuck you.” Now that felt good. Too good.

  “I didn’t want to get married.”

  “Uh, I gathered that,” I seethed. “But why not tell me sooner? You sat by and watched me plan the wedding. I bought a dress. And you never said a word.”

  “I was confused. I didn’t—”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up. I don’t care about your reasons. It was wrong and you know it.” No matter what his excuse, it would never erase what he’d done.

  “Pres.” He paused. “Look, I need something.”

  I scoffed. So that was what this phone
call was about. Jeremiah always needed something and I was sick and tired of being the one to give it to him. “No.”

  “Hear me out.”

  “No.”

  It was like talking to Shaw. Except saying no to Shaw felt like foreplay, a battle of wills to see if I could hold up my stone heart against his persuasive smile. Saying no to Jeremiah just felt overdue.

  “Was there anything else? I’m busy.” My eyes were aimed down the road as I waited. I was giving him five seconds, then I was hanging up.

  Five. Four. Three.

  “I need Scarlett’s phone number. I lost it and I just . . . I need it.”

  My stomach dropped. The elation I’d had, the pride in my backbone, was gone. “Why?”

  “Because I do. Can you give it to me?”

  “No.”

  “Presley.” The pitiful tone to his voice disappeared, replaced by a thread of frustration. “I need Scarlett’s number.”

  “Why?” I repeated.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  I closed my eyes, my heart breaking all over again like it had at the altar when I’d told people to take their gifts home. “No. I guess not.”

  “Then give it to me.”

  “Did you know I invited her to the wedding? Is that why you didn’t show? Because you were worried she’d be there? She wasn’t, by the way.”

  Jeremiah and I are getting married on June 1st in Clifton Forge, Montana.

  There’d been no reply.

  I’d invited my sister because she was my sister. I’d texted the number that had been hers in high school—ironically, on the phone Jeremiah had bought her. He should have remembered it. But maybe it wasn’t her number anymore, I wasn’t sure. She’d never texted me back, not after the wedding text or any of the others I’d sent her over the years.

  I hadn’t spoken to my sister in ten years. My parents the same. The day I’d left Chicago, I’d promised myself that this new life, my life, would be of my own making. I’d been eighteen years old and the only way I’d been strong enough to start fresh had been by cutting them out.

  I’d refused to live in fear.

  Not a day had gone by that I’d missed my parents. Not once had I regretted leaving without so much as a goodbye.

  But Scarlett, she was different.

  I thought of her often. I hoped, with all my heart, she’d freed herself and found happiness. I hoped she’d found someone to love her, like I’d once believed Jeremiah loved me.

  Or maybe Jeremiah had been in love with Scarlett all those years.

  Maybe I had been the stand-in. Maybe, when it had come time to make a real commitment, he hadn’t been able to say my name instead of hers.

  “Do you love her?” I whispered. “Still?”

  He didn’t answer, which was Jeremiah’s way of saying yes.

  “Why did you even propose in the first place?” I wanted to scream. Why? “We were good as friends. Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me. Please,” I begged. “Do this one thing for me. Tell me so I can put it behind me. You owe me that and you know it.”

  “I don’t know. Things were crazy back then. You left. Scarlett and I broke up. I went on with my life. Then I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  Jeremiah had left Chicago five years after I’d made my escape. He’d shown up in Clifton Forge one day and I’d been shocked. He’d told me he’d needed some space from his parents—their cold shoulders and dismissive waves. Though given that he hadn’t worked, clearly they hadn’t dismissed his wallet.

  None of the reasons had mattered because it had been so good to see him and have that connection to the past. Jeremiah had been a constant source of light in my life as a teenager. He’d been in love with Scarlett, but he’d been my friend. My only true friend.

  Then the boy who’d been my friend and my savior had become the man I’d loved.

  “Why did you leave Chicago?” No matter how many times I’d asked, Jeremiah had never given me a straight answer. He’d been bored. He’d been ready for a change. “Was it because of Scarlett? You said you two had been done a long time. Is that true?”

  “She cut me out of her life, Presley. Just like you did. Except I knew if I came to see you, you wouldn’t slam the door in my face.”

  “Then why do you want to talk to her now?”

  “Just give me her number and we can be done with this.”

  This. Us.

  We’d been done since June first.

  And we’d probably been doomed from the start.

  “Goodbye, Jeremiah.” I ended the call on the steering wheel’s control, then dove for my purse. My hands trembled as I dug out my phone and maneuvered through my contacts, pulling up his name. My finger hovered over the screen for a split second before I tapped Block.

  This had never been about me. It had always been Scarlett.

  Jeremiah and Scarlett.

  How many times had I said their names paired together? How many times had I told myself that if she really loved him, she would have left ten years ago too?

  A tear slipped from my eye. A pathetic, broken tear.

  He loved her, after all this time.

  He couldn’t marry me when he loved my twin sister.

  Not a soul in Clifton Forge knew that Jeremiah had been Scarlett’s. Not a living soul, that is.

  When I’d shown up in Clifton Forge, I’d been eighteen with no credit cards and a pay-by-the-minute cell phone number. I’d had a car that I’d bought with the money I’d hidden away in my room since I was sixteen. It had cost two thousand dollars and I hadn’t known if it would survive the trip from Chicago to Montana.

  It had. I’d driven to this small town where a garage owner had taken a risk by hiring a barely legal adult after a phone interview where I’d promised to make coffee and learn.

  Draven Slater had saved my life.

  He’d given me the means to break free from my parents.

  I never spoke about them, my parents or my sister. Draven had been the only person to know that Jeremiah had made it possible for me to leave Chicago.

  That car? Jeremiah had found it. He’d bought it with my cash so my parents wouldn’t know. That phone? Jeremiah had given it to me. He’d given the same kind to Scarlett.

  He’d tried so hard to get her out, but she’d refused.

  I’d left her behind.

  Were these tears, this humiliation, my punishment? Was this the universe’s way of reminding me that I should never have left her in the first place? Or was this my punishment for taking what was hers? Except Scarlett had given him up. Maybe she’d clued into the real Jeremiah long before I had.

  I dried my cheeks and swallowed the lump in my throat, then I put the Jeep in drive and eased onto the road.

  No matter how things had unraveled at the end, I missed my sister.

  There were days when I was so alone, like now, and wished I could tell her about my day. I wished I could have one of her hugs.

  The guys at the garage were always teasing me for being a hugger, but I had nothing on Scarlett. Her hugs had been magical. They’d saved me on the horrific days. They’d kept my world from turning black.

  I turned right onto my quiet cul-de-sac, expecting to see a neighborhood kid riding their bike or the little girl across the street playing in her splash pool like she did every evening, her mother watching on from the front steps.

  Instead, a huge yellow moving truck was parked in front of the house next door, blocking the view to my driveway.

  It had sold? When? Had the owners finally given up and decided to rent it instead?

  The neighbor’s house had been for sale for months. I’d contemplated buying it myself, before Jeremiah had moved to Ashton. I didn’t want to be a lifelong renter and I loved my tiny street.

  Damn. I’d missed my chance. The yellow home, bright and cheery, now belonged to someone else. My spirits plummeted as I pulled into the driveway. Normally, I’d go over an
d introduce myself, but I wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t need to fake a smile right now. I was going to go inside, unload my groceries and order a pizza.

  Screw cooking.

  I went to the back of the Jeep and looped the handles of the paper bags over my palms. Footsteps echoed next door as I collected my groceries, a guy climbing into the driver’s seat of the moving van.

  “Miss.” He tipped an invisible hat.

  I was always miss. No matter that I was probably five or six years older than that kid, I was a miss. People saw me as a child.

  I ignored him and finished loading up my bags. My hands were full, and I had to close the Jeep with an elbow as the truck pulled away, its diesel engine rumbling through the whole block. It took three steps for me to notice my new neighbor.

  He stood at the top of his stairs. Four stairs, to be exact, identical to the four that led to the small porch of my own front door. Our homes were identical from the outside, except for the color. Mine was a pale blue so light it was practically white. His was the color of a fluffy baby chick.

  Shaw lifted a hand. “Hey, neighbor.”

  Chapter Seven

  Shaw

  My realtor would have earned a higher commission if she had mentioned that the woman who lived next door was Presley Marks.

  “Isn’t this a surprise?”

  “Is it?” Presley asked, frowning as I descended my steps and crossed the lawn, meeting her in her driveway. She raised a dark blond eyebrow. “Because it sort of feels like stalking.”

  I chuckled. “I swear I had no idea you lived next door.”

  But what a bonus.

  I wouldn’t have to make excuses to stop by the garage to see her. She could tear that insurance waiver to shreds. Presley had to know I didn’t give a damn about that bike they were building for me.

  “You bought this house?”

  “Yeah.” I reached for the grocery bags she had in her hands. “Here, let me help.”

  She twisted away. “I’ve got them.”

  “Come on.” I stepped forward and she took a step back. Wait, did she really think I was stalking her? “I’m just trying to help. I mean, I’ll probably start writing down your daily schedule so I can make sure our paths cross at least once a day. But that’s normal, right? For stalkers?”