Positively Pippa

by Sarah Hegger

  “Do you need to go?”

  “No.” His body language said the exact opposite. “I needed him on-site this morning. We have a job that might go late if we don’t get our thumbs out our ass. But I promised Jo.”

  How many pieces of this man were there? Certainly not enough to go around. “Why don’t you leave me with Jo?” she said. “It will probably be better if you’re not there.”

  He shook his head as he turned into Eighth. “Jo needs me.” And Cressy needed him, and it sounded like Isaac needed him too.

  “I got this, Matt.” She touched the warm skin of his arm. “This is what I do and I’m good at it. You come in, get Jo and me reacquainted, and then go deal with your brother and the site.”

  “Really?” A flicker of hope played around his eyes.

  “Really.” Pippa squeezed his arm to reassure him, and also because it was a seriously hot arm and why let an opportunity go to waste?

  “Thanks.” He whipped into a parking spot three doors down from Bella’s. “This is what Eric doesn’t get. He thinks I can leave here, but it’s never going to work.”

  He could leave here. She opened her mouth to agree with Eric, and snapped it shut. Whatever this thing between them was, it wasn’t about sharing burdens and life stuff.

  Matt walked around the truck to open her door. He’d given up seventeen years of his life to take care of his family, a football scholarship, and God knows how many other small parts of what he wanted. It wasn’t right.

  And it so wasn’t any of her business. She took his hand to slide off the seat.

  Bella bustled over as they opened the door. She saw Pippa and stopped. “Pippa.”

  “Hello, Bella.” All the women in the family were named some version of Bella. This one, had been Rosabella in high school. Her mother, Arabella, and her grandmother Clarabella. Now she was Bella, like her shop.

  “Hey, Bella.” Matt eased in behind her. “You remember Pippa?”

  “Um . . . sure.” Bella put her hand out. “We were in school together.”

  “Pippa is going to help Jo with her dress,” Matt said.

  Bella dragged her eyes away from Pippa and blinked at him. “But Jo already chose a dress.”

  This could get ugly, especially if the dress was paid for. Bella had every right to insist they stick with the dress Jo chose. So, why the hell had Matt brought her here today if the thing was done? He needn’t think he was getting out of dinner, either.

  “I tell you, Bella.” Matt dropped his head, and gave it a slow shake. “I’ve been thinking about that dress nonstop.”

  Bella frowned at him and threw Pippa a fleeting glance.

  News to her, too. Pippa shrugged.

  “It’s the one she wanted,” Bella said.

  “Yeah, I know.” Matt gave a rueful grimace and rubbed the back of his neck. He could add an “aw shucks” to that performance and get away with it. “I just think she could do better. You know what I mean?”

  Bella folded like a cheap deck chair. “Sh . . . sure.”

  “She’s such a pretty girl, and I want a dress for her that makes her look like a princess.”

  The cocky bastard used the same line on her. Pippa empathized with Bella as the other woman melted into a warm puddle of goo. “Of course you do.”

  “I don’t know much about this stuff.” Matt went right on spreading it with a paddle. “Pippa agreed to rescue me.”

  Only so she could drown him later. Pippa tossed him a glittering smile.

  He winked at her. Matt Evans was such a smug, cocksure, too-charming-for-his-own-good son of a bitch. Someone should take him down a notch or two. She hid her grin, because she was the right girl for the job.

  Bella was no help. Fluttering her lashes, and squirming like a Labrador puppy as she asked after his family. Bella went through each member, one by one. Taking a little extra time on their smoking hot sheriff. What woman wouldn’t?

  “You leave it with us.” Bella patted his arm. Clearly, the arms fetish was another thing they had in common. “Pippa and I will get Jo into a dress that makes her shine like the diamond she is.”

  Matt’s topaz eyes gleamed liquid gold as he gazed at Bella. “Of course, I’m happy to pay for any inconvenience this causes. I mean if you’ve ordered the other—”

  “Pffft.” Bella batted her hand at him. “We can talk about that later. The important thing is to get Jo into the right dress.”

  “Is Jo late?” Matt glanced around the shop.

  Bella shrugged. “She’ll be here.”

  “It’s just that I promised to introduce Pippa and Jo and—”

  “I’ll do it.” Bella beamed at him.

  Matt turned his jelly-knees smile on her. “Only if that’s okay with Pippa.”

  “It’s fine. You go on now.” Pippa shook her head. When it came down to it, she was as bad as Bella.

  “Thanks, Bella, you’re a sweetheart.” Matt leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “You girls play nice, now.” With a quick hug for Pippa, he disappeared out the door and into his truck.

  “You should so charge for the first dress,” Pippa said.

  “Yeah, I know.” Bella sighed. “But he’s just so, so . . .”

  Pippa sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I thought I was going to marry an Evans brother when we were in high school.” Bella gazed out the window as Matt got his sexy ass into his truck.

  Not Pippa. In high school, all Pippa wanted to do was get the hell out of Ghost Falls. Maybe if the sperm donor hadn’t left her freshman year she might have felt differently about it. Probably not.

  Bella shook her head and turned back to her. “So.” Her pretty face tightened. “How’ve you been?”

  The thing is, Pippa could slap on her TV smile and give Bella all the brittle layers of glamour she had in her. Except, Bella was one of those truly nice people. Sweet ran right through the core of her, and Pippa didn’t want to do it. “I suspect we both know how I’ve been.”

  Bella’s manic smile flipped upside down and she winced. “I saw.”

  “Everyone saw.” The idea of sweet, nice Bella looking at that clip and making the inevitable conclusions made her want to crawl away and hide.

  Bella leaned forward on a waft of fresh, sweet perfume. “Matt doesn’t think you said it.”

  Good to know. “I explained it to him.”

  “No, before then.” Bella waved her hand over her shoulder. “When we were in the shop with Jo before. We showed him the clip and he said straight away that you didn’t say it.”

  Huh! That needed some more thought. It made her feel good, though, that Matt had taken her side before she’d explained. “Well, I didn’t say it.” Bella deserved an explanation. “I said it, but I didn’t say it.”

  “What did you say then?” Bella cocked her head.

  “I can’t even remember the exact words anymore, but Allie asked me how a pair of shoes could make her life different. And I said something like, ‘You’re right, a pair of shoes can’t change your life. Neither can a pretty dress or even new makeup. Nothing you put on can really change you. The answer is inside you. If you believe you’re fat, ugly, unwanted, or not worth loving, a dress is not going to make any difference. The only thing that can change that is you. But for now, put the dress on, wear the pretty shoes, and see if they help you find something you can love about yourself.’”

  “But on the clip, you said—”

  “They edited out enough of it to make it sound really, really bad.”

  Bella’s big blues were even wider. “That’s dreadful! You have to say something. Don’t let them get away with that.” She clenched her fists, a militant light in her eyes. Who knew sweet Bella had teeth?

  “I tried that.” And she had, there were rules about doing what Ray did. “But the ratings on the show were off the charts, and a scandal is always more interesting than the truth. Ray has some powerful friends.” Pippa didn’t want to bore Bella with all the other details that played
almost constantly through her mind. How Jen was scared for her job, or her conversation with Allie’s husband. “It seemed better to leave LA and live to fight another day.”

  “Of course it did.” Bella bubbled back into sugar right before Pippa’s eyes. “You did the right thing.”

  Had she? There were girls who would have stayed and fought, manned up and gone toe to toe with Ray and let the mud stick where it fell, but she wasn’t one of them. Being back in Ghost Falls made her feel like taking a swing back. Here she reconnected with that feisty eighteen-year-old who had streaked out of town like a meteor on a straight trajectory to stardom. LA Pippa would never have sent that tweet, and never have discovered how much support she had in the real world.

  “Would you like to look around?” Bella flushed. “I made some changes since I took over.”

  Pippa really looked at the shop for the first time. It had changed since the days of Bella II, aka this Bella’s mother. The racks of twin sets were banished to a small corner near the back of the store. Her eagle eye homed in on a line of clothes on the front rack. “Bella.” Nothing thrilled Pippa like beautiful styling. Fabric and cut, the two absolute must-haves. “You have some great stuff in here.”

  “Really?” Bella’s eyes shone. “You’re not just saying that?”

  Pippa strode over to her find and flipped through the hangers. “I am definitely not just saying that, Bella. This is gorgeous.” She tugged a silk sheath out and held it up. “Do you have this in my size?”

  Bella did a little happy tap dance on the spot. “Do I ever.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pippa kept her distance as Jo blew into Bella’s bristling with antagonism.

  Bella took it all in her stride. Sweet, lovely, and an instant panacea to whatever bug Jo had up her ass. Probably a bug that strongly resembled Matt Evans. The damn man had that way with him. A little charm, a little good ol’ boy, a smidgen of helpless and they were all putty in his hands.

  “Hi, Jo.” Time to get the meet and greet over with. If Jo didn’t want to do this, coffee was always an option. Coffee and cake. Lots and lots of cake, with calories oozing off the plate and into her mouth. Ray said she was packing on the pounds anyway.

  Jo had changed in the years since Pippa had seen her. Gone was the pretty princess in her frilly pink dresses. Jo sported a biker grunge look, complete with a beautiful scrolling of ink up her arm. The eyebrow piercing—not so much.

  “You’re back.” Jo packed a whole lot of attitude into two and a half words.

  “Matt said you weren’t happy with your dress.” Bella charged straight in there, candy-coated balls to the wall.

  “Which means Matt isn’t happy with my dress.” Jo stuck her lip out.

  Her second year on the show, Pippa had dealt with a woman named Carly. Carly didn’t think she needed a makeover, and resented the fact that her mother did. It took Pippa three long weeks to come to the inevitable conclusion, you could lead a horse to water . . . “Okay.” She shrugged and smiled. “If you’re happy with your dress, that’s all that counts. It’s your day, after all.”

  Jo blinked at her. “Yeah.”

  “Do you have this in red?” She turned back to Bella.

  Bella’s gaze flitted between her and Jo. “No. Red is not a big seller around here.”

  “I don’t know why he wasted everyone’s time.” Jo clumped her big-ass boots farther into the shop. “Why didn’t he say he hated it when he was here?”

  “You know men.” Bella fluttered her hand and turned back to Pippa. “I do have it in the most awesome midnight blue. It would go great with your complexion.”

  “Do you hate the dress?” Jo fiddled with the edge of her eyebrow piercing.

  Bella gave her a gentle smile. “I think you could wear a garbage bag and look beautiful, Jo. But, it really doesn’t matter what I think, or even Pippa. It only matters what you think.”

  Damn, Pippa had underestimated Bella all these years. It was too easy to look at Bella and see pretty and harmless. If she was staying in Ghost Falls, getting to know Bella better would be top of her list. Friends, at least good ones, had been thin on the ground in LA. “She’s right.” Pippa kept her shrug light. “Midnight blue?”

  “It’s not one of the most requested colors, but I think it really brings the fabric to life.” Bella flipped through the hangers with a practiced flick of her wrists.

  “I hate blue,” Jo said.

  “Really?” Pippa stole a smile from Bella’s arsenal. “Because you could probably wear most shades of it, with your skin tones.”

  Jo shifted her weight onto one hip. “I like black, it goes with everything.”

  “It sure does.” Bella produced the shirt. “Here we go.”

  Pippa examined it. Bella was right on the money. The deep, almost purple hue gave the fabric a rich, luxurious quality. “I am so trying this on as well.”

  “And I have a great pencil skirt that would look fabulous with that.” Bella bustled over to another rack.

  Jo edged closer. She really was a beautiful girl with her mother’s delicate bone structure and porcelain skin. You didn’t have to like Cressy to acknowledge she was a very lovely woman.

  “What’s so special about it?” Jo pointed at the shirt.

  “The cut.” Pippa laid the shirt on top of a row of hangers. “You see these darts here. They taper the shirt in underneath the bust. It gives you a narrow waist and draws the eyes away from the widest part of me. In my case, my hips.”

  Jo glanced down at Pippa’s hips. “They don’t look wide to me.”

  “Then I’ve got the right outfit on.” Talking clothes was her crack and Pippa smiled. “Also, years of television will keep you on a diet.”

  Jo had a killer body to go with that face. All long legs and sleek lines. God, she’d love to get the girl into a long tube of ivory satin. Nothing elaborate, nothing too overwrought. A perfect simple foil for Jo’s looks. “You don’t have my problem,” she said. “You have near perfect proportions.”

  Jo blushed. “I have a fat ass.”

  “You most certainly do not.” Bella appeared with a gorgeous gray pencil skirt in her hand.

  Pippa itched to get her hands on it.

  Bella turned and stuck her booty out. “I have a curvy ass because I’m an hourglass.” She swiveled back with a grin. “But I’ve got a rack to balance it.”

  “Gimme.” Pippa nearly snatched the hanger from Bella.

  “Maybe, I could . . . like, try the dress on for you.” Jo shrugged and tugged at her eyebrow ring.

  “If you like,” Pippa tossed over her shoulder as she headed for the fitting room.

  Bella followed her halfway and stopped beside Jo. “I have your dress in the back. I haven’t made the alterations yet, so I could pin it for you.”

  “Okay.” Jo stomped into the fitting room beside Pippa and yanked the curtains across.

  Bella danced over and gave Pippa a quick high-five. How had she missed out on Bella all these years?

  Pippa did love the skirt and she hurried into her fitting room to try it on. It fit like a glove. Bella had guessed her size perfectly. The woman had mad skills. In her previous life, she would have found a way to steal those kinds of skills for her show.

  Curtain rings clattered as Bella entered the fitting room next door. Fabric rustled as she pinned Jo into the dress.

  Pippa pulled her clothes back on, kept the skirt firmly by her side, and went to sit on one of the pink velveteen divans.

  With Bella’s impeccable taste in clothing, it seemed odd the decor had survived. It still looked like an eighties music video in here. Then again, Bella senior was stuck like glue in her ways.

  Bella opened the curtains and Jo stepped out.

  Dear God in Heaven.

  Pippa schooled her features into neutral lines. It had to be the ugliest dress in creation. Ice white, so bright it hurt the eyes to look at the thing. It exploded around Jo in a myriad of ruffles and bows and goofy thin
gs that Pippa didn’t even have a name for. A great wad of fabric obscured the line of her waist completely. Huge capped sleeves ballooned out from her shoulders to her wrists and ended in more of those marshmallow puffs.

  “What do you think?” Jo stuck her hands on her hips. Her biker boots poked out from the bottom of the dress.

  Pippa thought the designer should be shot. She made a business of studying Jo. “Are you happy with your dress?”

  “It’s a dress.” Jo shrugged.

  Warning tingles shot up Pippa’s spine. A wedding dress should never be just a dress. Even the most low-key bride wanted to look good on her wedding day. Damn, Matt owed her lobster and Moët & Chandon for this. She raised her eyebrows in question. “You want my honest opinion?”

  Jo hesitated, and nodded.

  “I think you could do better.”

  “Why?” Jo’s face clouded over with a brewing storm.

  Make that lobster and Moët for the rest of her natural life. “That’s a lot of dress.” More dress than mortal man could stand. “And you’re getting lost in it.”

  What had Bella been thinking, ordering that thing? Pippa threw her a quick glance.

  Bella shrugged apologetically. “Jo picked it out of a magazine and we ordered it for her.”

  “You hate it, don’t you?” Jo crossed her arms over her chest, obscuring her face with the sleeves.

  There wasn’t a nice way to say this. “Yes.”

  “And you?” Jo whirled on Bella.

  “I think it’s the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen,” Bella said. “On the most beautiful girl in Ghost Falls, and that makes me mad as hell.”

  “Well, damn.” Jo glowered down at her boots. “You could have said something before.”

  Bella stared at her and Jo had the grace to blush. “Okay, maybe not.” Her head whipped around to Pippa again. “But I bought it, so now what do I do?”

  The magic question, and it brought joy to Pippa’s day. “You let me give you a couple of dresses to try on.”

  “I have the perfect dress.” Bella flat-out ran across the store to the formal dresses. Pippa would bet her head Bella did.