by Megan Crane
Her uncle Jason ran the saloon that had been a mainstay of the area since the pre-Marietta days, and Skylar thought that if she squinted she could see old-time cowboys swaggering down Main Street with itchy trigger fingers while fancy ladies plied their trade from the upstairs balcony of Grey’s the way they had back when.
The summer evening was that impossible dark blue edging into full black as she walked down the street with her sister and Scottie’s absurdly attractive boyfriend, Damon. Marietta was filled to bursting with Greys this weekend, which was just the way Skylar liked it best. Her grandparents had moved out to Big Sky a while back, a valley or two over, but were staying in Marietta to be closer to all the wedding festivities—like tonight’s rehearsal dinner that Jesse and Michaela had thrown at the recently restored Crawford House Museum way up at the top of Black Bart Road.
Skylar had stood on the lawn of gorgeous old grande dame of a house she’d always wanted to peek into when she was a kid, looking down over the stretch of mountains in the distance and Marietta down there on either side of the river, and she’d felt something in her battered, half-frozen heart swell.
As if maybe she wasn’t as battered or frozen as she imagined.
And more, as if this was a homecoming, this weekend with her family in a place she would always think of as theirs no matter who else might live in it. This celebration of love and laughter and two people finding each other against all odds that made her long for all the things she knew she couldn’t have.
But the man she thought of when her stomach knotted up wasn’t the one she’d lost. It was the one she’d left.
Skylar didn’t want to think about Cody.
Not tonight. Not when she was surrounded by so many members of her family, all of whom had entirely too many opinions about how she’d spent the last few weeks of her life. She’d been contending with them since she’d arrived late the night before. All those miles, all those states she’d flown over, all that distance between her and Cody now, and she still felt him as if he was right beside her.
As if he’d wormed his way deep into her heart, and was now in residence there, when she’d been so certain that could never happen.
You will never be free of him, a small voice inside her had intoned while she’d stood on the edge of the sweeping Crawford House lawn. It’s like he marked you.
And the crazy part was, something in her had thrilled a little to that idea.
“Did you see Grandma’s face?” Scottie was asking the whole of Main Street, laughing into the gathering night as they walked from Damon’s rented SUV toward Grey’s, where the rehearsal dinner after party was taking place. “I’ve always heard the expression ‘she looked like she was sucking on a lemon,’ but I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen lemon-sucking face in action before. Until tonight.”
“It was a lot of lemon,” Damon agreed in that low, lazy way of his.
Damon was problematic. He was as shockingly good-looking as Skylar remembered—though she and her cousin Luce had been forced to confess that they’d actually downgraded him in their minds because who could be that attractive? All that dark black hair and bright blue eyes. He had big-city rich guy written all over him, which would have made a lesser man look silly on a Montana street. But not Damon. He looked like there wasn’t a place in all the world where he wouldn’t feel perfectly at his ease.
And Scottie herself looked as happy as Skylar had ever seen her. Certainly much happier than she had throughout her pointless Alexander years, the ex no one missed, least of all Scottie. She and Damon were never not touching each other. They weren’t all over each other like teenagers in the back of a movie theater, like some couples Skylar could name—her loved-up and hugely pregnant cousin Christina, for example, who hung on her longtime and clearly equally besotted husband Dare as if they’d just met and didn’t already have a toddler—but still. They were always in contact.
It made Skylar’s chest feel a little tight.
“Grandma’s face is a work of angry art,” Skylar agreed. “I don’t think she’s liked a single thing in the last thirty years.”
Elly Grey was a Marietta institution. She was famous for her bad temper, her husband’s wandering eye, her boundless disappointment in three of her four adult children, and the trickle-down dismay she felt for all of her grandchildren. Even the occasion of Jesse’s wedding couldn’t make her feel any better about the whole lot of them. She’d sat at her place at the table, shooting irritated looks at Grandpa as he’d enjoyed himself a drink, and pursing up her lips every time Billy or Uncle Jason or dizzy Aunt Melody opened their mouths. It was only Christina and Luce’s father Ryan that she liked, something she made absolutely clear whenever possible, because he’d married Aunt Gracie right out of high school and they’d been together ever since.
“What I love is that it’s all seemed to turn a corner lately,” Scottie said now. “Maybe the famous Grey Curse is a thing of the past.”
You’re all cursed, Grandma had said one Thanksgiving a few years back to her own flesh and blood, because that was how she liked to celebrate. Blood will tell.
Skylar smiled as wide as she could as they walked up to the old, western-style doors of Grey’s Saloon. Damon held the door for them, and Scottie grabbed Skylar’s arm as they walked inside as if they were walking into a theme park. Because in a way, they were. The Grey Family Adventure.
The saloon was exactly as it always was, deceptively simple and rustic, with Uncle Jason already back behind the bar and his saloon manager, a-Grey-in-all-but-name Reese Kendrick at his side. And a couple of Uncle Jason’s usually absent daughters there besides, Rayanne and Joey, helping their father sling drinks to a crowd that was almost entirely relatives or other wedding guests.
Some things never changed. Grey’s was one of them. The Grey Curse was another. When Grandma had issued her dire proclamation, most of the cousins had been about as unlucky in love as it was possible to get. Most of their parents redefined unhappiness, so it made sense they’d follow suit. Uncle Jason was surly and gruff and never spoke about the wife who’d just up and left him and their girls one day. Aunt Melody flitted from one bad decision to the next, though at least she’d had the sense to stop having babies after she’d had Devyn and Sydney with different fathers. The same, of course, could not be said for Billy.
It had seemed for a long time that the cousins were destined to follow suit. The oldest Grey cousin, Lorelai, had all but fallen off the face of the planet—probably because she had a complicated history with Reese and a fractious relationship with her father, Jason. Her sisters Rayanne and Joey weren’t any luckier in love, though at least they bothered to come home every now and again. Jesse had sworn off women after Angelique and Billy had gotten together, at least for more than a night or two. Scottie had lived with Alexander for years while he’d cheated on her. Luce had kicked out her high school sweetheart Hal after she finally got sick enough of his cheating.
None of you know a single thing about longevity, Grandma had thundered, forever more Calamity Jane than Mrs. Butterworth, because she was nothing like other people’s soft, sweet, pancake-flipping grandmothers.
But things were changing. Christina and Dare had been on the verge of divorce, but had worked it out to the tune of giddiness and babies. Jesse was so happy with Michaela that he was actually getting married in a big ceremony to celebrate it, involving the entire family and most of Montana, it seemed. Even Scottie, having dated that idiot all through college and law school and well into her life in San Francisco, had finally found Damon. For a long time, Skylar had considered herself evidence that the curse wasn’t a thing. That it was just something Grandma had said because she liked to say mean things, because she was one of those old women with a sharp tongue and no boundaries.
Of course, after she’d lost Thayer, Skylar had been pretty sure that she was Exhibit Number One that the curse lived on.
Now she didn’t know what the hell she was.
“I have absolut
ely no doubt that every last one of us will live happily ever after,” Skylar assured her sister as they moved further into the throng. Because if the possessive look in Damon’s eyes every time he looked at Scottie was any guide, that was certainly going to be true for them.
Skylar was a little less sure about herself.
But the great thing about a huge family wedding was that it allowed Skylar to wander around Grey’s as if she was a local. As if she knew everybody—because tonight, as a sister of the groom, she kind of did. There were locals that she had never met before, like local microbrewery-owner Jasper Flint of FlintWorks and his schoolteacher wife Chelsea, who entertained Skylar with stories of Copper Mountain Rodeo shenanigans a few years running. Or local tattoo artist Griffin Hyatt and his wife Emmy, who confided in Skylar that Jesse and Michaela had gotten matching tattoos as an engagement gift to themselves.
“If they’re not sharing their tattoos, Bug, we probably shouldn’t either,” Griffin said mildly after Emmy tried to draw a picture of the outline of Grey’s Saloon that Jesse and Michaela supposedly now both had stamped on their bodies in the air before her.
Emmy, who neither looked like a bug nor appeared to mind being called one, wrinkled up her nose at her husband, who had visible tattoos and the kind of still, watchful readiness that made any red-blooded woman look at him twice. Once because of that vibe he gave off that made him look like some kind of athlete. And again because he was silly hot, with all those tattoos besides.
“It’s not like they got them in sensitive areas. How private can they be?”
“Isn’t it the kiss of death to get matching tattoos?” Skylar asked, laughing. She saw Jesse and Michaela standing over near the bar with some of Michaela’s local relatives, neither looking as if they were being stalked by the actual, known and proven curse of tattooing their love on each other. “Just look at any celebrity breakup. I thought the minute anyone got a tattoo about their relationship, much less matching ones, the relationship is pretty much instantly doomed.”
“That’s only if you use actual names,” Griffin assured her, his eyes gleaming. “There’s something about putting a name on skin that ruins everything. No name, no problem.”
“We don’t have commemorative tattoos, if you’re wondering,” Emmy said then. “Because I’m with you. That’s crazy.”
And then they were drawn into a conversation with other locals about the possibility that the Copper Mountain Rodeo wouldn’t happen this year, and Skylar drifted away.
She talked to as many of her relatives as she could find, while giving her grandparents a wide berth. It wasn’t exactly a hardship. Her cousins were an endless source of entertainment for her, because she loved nothing more than catching up with them and seeing what was going on in their always-interesting lives. For example, Luce, the cousin who’d stayed right here in Marietta, always made Skylar laugh. Because as far she could tell, Luce had been pissed off about pretty much everything since grade school.
“Is it delightful?” Christina asked when Skylar advanced that theory over a game of pool. “Or is she a rageaholic?”
“Don’t let her hear you call her that,” Dare muttered. “Or you’ll experience it firsthand.”
“I would never be so silly as to get on Luce’s bad side,” Skylar assured them with a laugh.
And then she went off to mingle some more, ignoring that restless feeling in the pit of her stomach that made her feel like she was that character in a fairy tale, forced to keep dancing or she’d burst into flame.
It had been all rush rush rush since she’d left California. Cody had dropped her off at the airport in Eureka—but she wasn’t letting herself think about him, not here in public—and she’d been running around ever since. One airport to another. Then the car ride into Marietta. Then racing around today doing last-minute bridesmaid things and generally making herself available to Michaela as needed.
Anything and everything to block the past three weeks from her mind.
It’s absolutely working, she told herself staunchly. You’re totally fine.
But she launched herself at a table of Michaela’s Seattle friends—including noted famous computer genius Amos Burke, who was surprisingly friendly for a man who encouraged people to think of him as an eccentric hermit—just to make sure she couldn’t take a breath and question that.
“I’m glad you decided to come,” Angelique said stiffly, when Skylar couldn’t avoid it any longer and found herself face-to-face with her stepmother.
She clenched her bottle of local beer, called Triple C, and wished she could chug it twice. “I was always coming to Jesse’s wedding, Angelique.”
Her stepmother lifted one shoulder, then dropped it. “I don’t know how anyone would know whether you were or not. You fell off the face of the planet for weeks.”
“It was three weeks. I think some people spend longer than that on a shopping trip.”
“You could have let us know you were okay,” Angelique said, her voice as brittle as the way she held herself. “Or answered a call. I don’t think it would have killed you.”
And so many things bubbled up inside Skylar then. The injustice of all this, of course. The urge to smack Angelique down, put her in her place, remind her that she was in no position to judge anyone—particularly not a stepdaughter who was the same age as she was. To say nothing of Angelique’s own dirty little past with Billy.
But this was a wedding, not a bruising family dinner in her grandma’s inimitable style. And if Jesse could see his way clear to spending time with Angelique and Billy without losing his cool, Skylar had no excuse not to do the same.
She took a deep breath, then let it go. She made herself count to ten.
“I don’t understand what this is,” she said quietly. When Angelique stiffened, she reached out and hooked her hand around her stepmother’s bony wrist, to show she wasn’t launching an attack. “You’re acting as if I hurt your feelings. And I’m not trying to be rude, Angelique, but I don’t understand how this has anything to do with you. Why are you so upset?”
Angelique looked as if she hadn’t expected the question. And something in her face changed, then. That brittleness disappeared and she blinked, as if she was considering what Skylar had said.
“I guess I thought that everything would go differently,” she said after a minute.
“So did I,” Skylar said dryly.
“That’s not what I mean,” Angelique replied. “When you moved back to Billings, I thought it would be a good thing for you. For me. For your dad and Lacey and Layla. All of us.”
Skylar squeezed her wrist, then let go. “Of course it was a good thing. You gave me somewhere to go after Atlanta and I appreciate that more than you know.”
Angelique’s lovely face shifted into something wry, reminding Skylar that when she’d first met her, years back at that fateful Christmas when she’d been Jesse’s girlfriend, Skylar had imagined they’d be friends. Good friends, even. It made her heart thud a little too hard to remember that now.
Maybe, that voice inside of her that seemed to get more strident by the minute said loudly, you should think about practicing a little forgiveness. Inside and out.
Angelique shrugged, and she didn’t look like a wounded stepmother, or the model she’d been, or Jesse’s big mistake. She just looked like a woman with a complicated past and a possibly messy life, like anyone else.
Like Skylar.
“I guess I thought that it was my chance to prove that I wasn’t the monster that everybody thinks I am,” Angelique said simply. “I thought if I could take care of you, I could actually do something for this family. Instead of being Billy’s little embarrassment.” She smiled slightly, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I guess that was stupid.”
And Skylar didn’t have it in her to lash out at that. To parse every word and look for signs of self-pity and judge her stepmother’s right to say something like that.
It would have been different three weeks ago
, she understood in a sudden flash. Before she’d followed her heart, and maybe other parts, into something that absolutely nobody understood. It would have been different if she had still been the grieving almost-widow she’d been when she arrived in Montana. But she wasn’t that Skylar anymore. Maybe that was the trouble. She still didn’t know who the hell she was.
And yet she found that there was space inside of her for compassion, when she would have said her stepmother didn’t deserve any. But she knew what it felt like now. She knew what it was like to stand in this great big mess of Greys and know that everyone in the room was talking about her business. She knew what it was like to be the subject of whispers, weird texts, and too much speculation.
“You don’t have to prove anything, Angelique,” she said, very distinctly. “The only person whose opinion you need to worry about is my father’s. He’s the one you married.” She lifted her beer bottle and tilted it, like some kind of salute. Or a toast to fallen women, maybe, like the ones who had lived and worked in these walls so long ago. “All these people are going to talk about you no matter what you do. You might as well do what makes you happy.”
“Are you happy?” Angelique asked after a moment, an assessing sort of light in her gaze. “Are you really?”
And Skylar couldn’t have said why that caught at her. Maybe it was because she thought Angelique really meant it. She was really asking. She wasn’t trying to prove a point and she didn’t appear to have an agenda. Unlike every other person who’d set up that same question like a trap for Skylar to stumble into, Angelique was actually asking as if she wanted to know the answer.
But Skylar didn’t know it herself.
“That’s a complicated question,” she murmured, surprised to feel her throat a little tight with emotion. “I’m going to have to get back to you on that.”
She moved away from Angelique when one of Michaela’s relatives interrupted them, smiling as she went. She flitted from one knot of wedding guests to another, laughing with her family and avoiding more speculation by guiding the conversation away from her recent behavior. She was good at guiding. She watched Michaela, looking as pretty as any bride should in a bright blue dress that made her dark hair and hazel eyes seem to glow. Or then again, maybe that was the bright love that gleamed between Michaela and Jesse, evident even when they stood on different sides of the saloon.
