by Lizzie Shane
“Suitorettes? Seriously? That’s what they call you?”
Caitlyn reached for the coat she’d dropped on the seat beside her. “Look, I’ll pay for your burger, but if you’re going to be a jerk all night, I think I’ll take mine to go.”
His expression was arrested for a moment, then the chill slowly thawed, melting into a grimace. “Sorry. I’ll behave. I just can’t imagine what would make someone want to make a spectacle of themselves like that.”
“You could just ask me.”
The waitress appeared then to take their order and flirt shamelessly with Will—even though she was happily married with two kids who took piano from Caitlyn. Caitlyn ordered the Lodge Burger and a Coke, for here, giving Will the benefit of the doubt. Will asked for the same—though his came with a wink and an extra sashay from Melissa as she headed off to put in their order and collect their drinks.
“You’re awfully popular,” Caitlyn said, more amused than jealous, especially when Will blushed.
“Pity flirtation. All the ladies here really stepped up their game after my break up last summer.”
She eyed his muscular shoulders, stretching the seams of his soft grey Henley. “Somehow I doubt pity is the main reason most women flirt with you.”
“You don’t exactly look like the sort of girl who is lacking for masculine company either. So why did you do it?”
“Do what?” He wasn’t asking her why she’d flirted with him, was he?
“You said I could just ask. So I’m asking. Why did you go on the show?”
Right. The show. Now it was Caitlyn who blushed, but there was no sense evading the question. He could just watch the show to learn the truth. “Honestly? I wanted the happily ever after.”
His eyebrows arched, a reaction she was coming to expect whenever he was skeptical. “Hey, I get that. I want a family too, but there are easier ways to get it.”
“Oh really?” she challenged. “When you’re a hot male ski instructor who meets a dozen sexy little ski nymphs every day, maybe. But some of us are homebody piano teachers in a town with exactly five single men and every guy we spend time with is either married to a friend or the married father of a student.”
“Ski nymphs?”
She ignored the interjection, and the wry—sexy—twist of his lips, plunging on. “So yeah, maybe it was desperate and stupid to go on the show. But when you want something, sometimes you have to be stupid.”
Though maybe agreeing to marry a man you barely know is taking that stupidity a bit far.
Caitlyn pushed on, ignoring the little voice in her head. “I love my life, but I was starting to hate my empty apartment. I had to do something. Even if it was ridiculous and even if I fell flat on my face. I had to take a chance on love.”
Will blinked, his face—which had been clinging to an unusual hardness all night—finally softening that last notch. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I get the empty apartment thing. I think you’re a lot braver than I am, and I should have given you credit for that. Pax?”
She nodded, as Melissa returned with their drinks. “Pax.”
Chapter Eighteen
The tension, that awful stilted tension, evaporated then, and soon Caitlyn found herself grinning, leaning forward over the table, laughing and telling him things she’d never have dreamed she’d blurt out on a first non-date.
He was a great listener—when he wasn’t silently judging her, so thank God that had stopped—and everything she’d told Daniel on the show was public record anyway. For the first time, being exposed like that felt sort of freeing. Like the normal restrictions she placed on herself had been lifted.
By the time their burgers arrived, Caitlyn was sharing stories about the show, her musical career, even her deeply dysfunctional childhood—and Will seemed genuinely interested.
“Are you glad you did it?” he asked, sinking his teeth into his own burger as she shook ketchup onto the corner of her plate.
“The show?” She stalled for time by swiping a fry through the ketchup and popping it into her mouth, chewing slowly. Was she glad? She was glad. Before. For those few little slivers of time in there when everything had been perfect and she’d thought her happy ending was assured. But looking back she was starting to realize that by the time the exotic two day dates had rolled around, she’d begun to have doubts. Now she wasn’t so sure. And without that certainty… “I don’t know. Ask me in a few weeks.”
“Mysterious,” he murmured.
She hummed around a bite of burger and for a moment they fell silent, eating. This time the silence was comfortable, but she didn’t let it stretch too long.
“I learned a little something about your history too,” she admitted.
“Oh?”
“My friend Mimi wanted to set me up with you as soon as I got back. She said you were engaged last summer before I auditioned to be on the show, but you aren’t any more?”
“Jilted.” Will set down his burger, reaching for his soda. “Not quite at the altar, but close enough that we had to return a lot of gifts.”
“Ouch. Sorry. I guess I just assumed it was you who…” She couldn’t imagine a woman deciding she didn’t want to wake up next to Will Hamilton every morning.
“You though I was the dumper, not the dumpee.” His face moved the right muscles for a smile, but it didn’t look right. There was too much suppressed emotion beneath it. So much pent up inside. “I guess it was naïve of me to think if you promise to spend the rest of your life with someone, then you’re expected to keep that promise.”
Wow. He really was not over that. Not that she had any right to tell him when he should have emotionally processed something, but wow.
And here she was, the girl who had impetuously agreed to marry a man she barely knew and now was wavering on whether or not she could keep that promise.
He splashed ketchup over his fries. “I guess you understand about people like that, don’t you? The vowbreakers.”
“I do?” She swallowed past a knot of guilt. Was she breaking a vow to Daniel?
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have… I just thought, from what you said about your mom—”
“Oh! Oh, yeah, there wasn’t a vow she didn’t break. To my dad or to me. I guess I just hadn’t thought of it that way.”
Was it the same? She certainly hadn’t had a Brady Bunch upbringing, but she’d fantasized about one and Daniel had seemed like her hope to get it. If she broke her word to him, was she just like her mom? Lying and not caring whose feeling got stepped on as long as she got what she wanted?
Her mother had been the last person Caitlyn had wanted to grow up into, so she’d run as far from her mother and all her mother wanted as possible. Tuller Springs had been a far cry from the Upper West Side, and about as close to paradise as she could have imagined. The only thing that could have made it perfect was a partner to share it with.
Daniel. Except he didn’t seem to want the Tuller Springs life. But relationships were about compromise, weren’t they? They would find a way to build a life that was the culmination of both their dreams.
Will’s face was set again. Stiff. His eyes shadowed. Caitlyn regretted bringing up his ex, but she had a feeling if she apologized that would only make things worse.
She dragged a French fry through her ketchup. “What made you want to teach skiing?”
The darkness in his expression eased. “What made you want to teach piano?”
“I wanted to stop performing and it was pretty much my only marketable skill.”
He blinked, seeming startled by her honesty and she shot him an arch I showed you mine look. He half-grinned. “Would you believe skiing is my only marketable skill?”
“This from the man who also fights fires and repairs houses and… I’m sorry, how many other jobs do you have? I can’t keep up.”
His grin spread until it started to look genuine. “Okay, fine. You want the real story? I warn you, it’s pretty boring.”
“Bore me,” s
he dared him.
“I was a slacker in college, skipping classes to hit the slopes whenever the powder was fresh. I graduated—barely—with a degree in sociology and zero marketable skills. I came back home for a few months to get my shit together, crashed at my parents’ house and picked up a job as a chair lift operator so I could ski for free. The resort wanted all their instructors to have basic first aid training and the best paid guys on the mountain were on ski patrol, so when they offered to promote anyone who took the EMT training, I signed up. After that it was only an extra couple classes to get the certification I needed to volunteer at the fire department and once I had that training I was more valuable as a river guide—since I could revive any idiot who fell into the river and drowned. I never really thought about a career or picked a path, I just fell into what I was good at and patched it together. Then suddenly I’m twenty-eight, still working on the mountain, and I realize I’ve got a pretty sweet deal going. My 401-K is for shit, so of course my sisters nag me about doing something real with my life, but to make more money doing what I’m doing now, I’d have to leave Tuller Springs, and I don’t want that. So I keep on doing what I’m doing.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine not having a plan. I feel like every day of my life has been scheduled since birth—either by me or someone else. And here you are, playing it by ear and patching it together.”
“Don’t act too impressed. I’m just a ski bum who’s never played Carnegie Hall.”
“There’s more to life than Carnegie Hall.” Something it had taken her far too long to figure out.
The weather had shifted while they were in the pub. The wind was biting and the footing more treacherous as they made their way back to the row of chalets that included their building. Caitlyn hooked her arm through his for balance and Will kept her tucked tight to his side, as much for the feel of her as to use his bulk to buffer her from the wind. The top of her white knit cap came just above his shoulder and he could feel the soft warmth of her pressed against his arm as she leaned in.
The night hadn’t gone at all how he’d thought it would on Friday when she’d asked him to dinner. Nor how he’d envisioned after his shock last night after realizing she was a reality TV diva.
But she wasn’t a diva and after he’d gotten over his prejudices, he realized a lot of things made a lot more sense.
“The show explains the hot and cold routine.”
She looked up at him, cheeks rosy and eyes bright from the chill. “Hot and cold?”
“Mixed signals,” he clarified. “One second I think you might be into me a little and then…”
“Oh.” He had a feeling the rosy cheeks weren’t just from the cold as her gaze skittered away from his. “That might have just been me being completely inept at social cues. I don’t think I would know how to send a clear signal if I tried.”
“So if I kissed you right now…”
Her head jerked up so fast she would have clocked him if he’d been leaning in to try to get some sugar. “I couldn’t! I really can’t date.” Her face was definitely flaming now. “The show. It’s against the rules.”
“Did you really buy into the show?” he heard himself asking. “Were you really into that guy?”
Her gaze skittered away again. “It’s easy to get caught up in it,” she murmured. “Last night, the date I won, it was heavenly. One of the most romantic experiences of my life.”
“But is it really romantic if it’s all fabricated? I feel like real romance is about an honest connection and I don’t know how anything can be honest when the trappings are so obviously fake.”
“The settings are carefully controlled by the producers, but the people involved are real. The emotions are real. Amplified, maybe, because of the circumstances, but real. When Daniel kissed me last night, I really did think he could be the one. That it might be the last first kiss I ever had.”
Will found himself staring at Caitlyn’s lips. A little pang struck him at the idea of another guy kissing those lips and he knew he was in trouble. Maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t kiss her, but he suddenly wanted to more than anything in the world. He wanted to prove to her that she hadn’t had her last first kiss yet, because she hadn’t had his.
He didn’t realize he was leaning toward her until she pulled away.
“I can’t,” she said again, disentangling her arm from his. They were at the entrance to the chalet now. As soon as they were inside, she would head upstairs and he would stay down and their Just Friends date would be over. “I do like you, Will,” she said softly. “But there isn’t room in my life right now for anything more than a friend. Even if I wanted more, it’s just… complicated.”
There was a hitch in her voice, a hesitation that spoke of something she wasn’t saying.
He’d been there for too long to hold it against her. He slid his key into the lock and opened the door, holding it for her.
Caitlyn slid past him. She paused on the first step, the shadows of the foyer obscuring her face. “Friends?”
“Absolutely.”
A flash of teeth in the dark, a little spark of a smile, and then she turned away, climbing the stairs.
“Thank you for dinner, Caitlyn,” he called up after her, leaning a shoulder against the door to his apartment.
She paused with her key in the lock. “Thank you for everything, Will.”
Then she was gone.
He watched the door close behind her like a lovesick idiot before unlocking his own. He stripped out of his jacket, replaying the evening in his mind. He wanted more than friends, and now that he could read the code of her hot and cold, he was pretty sure she wanted the same. She’d never said no. She’d only said she couldn’t now. He could be patient. He could be her friend. He could woo her slowly and when her obligation to the show was over, he’d be there with open arms as soon as she was free.
He hadn’t realized how closed off he’d been until something happened to make him want to throw himself open again.
Or someone happened.
Above him, the sounds of the piano crept through the ceiling. The tune wasn’t one he recognized. Dreamy and romantic, the song wove around him like a magic spell, dripping with sweet, soulful longing.
He’d made her feel that.
Unless it was the other guy. The famous one.
Will kicked aside the thought. He refused to make himself crazy. If she was still pining for the other guy, he’d be able to tell, wouldn’t he? But that wasn’t what he saw when he looked in her eyes. He saw hesitant hope and the promise for a future. He would just have to hang onto that look until she was free to say the words.
Chapter Nineteen
“Quick, turn on TMZ!” Mimi yelped as soon as Caitlyn answered the phone.
Caitlyn’s stomach bottomed out. It had been a blissfully quiet three days since the second episode aired. She’d almost felt normal. What now? “Oh God, is it Daniel?”
“Hurry, Caitlyn!” Mimi squealed.
Caitlyn obediently flipped on the television. “What channel?”
“Four. You’re missing it!”
She turned to channel four and her breath whooshed out when she saw the image there. “Oh my God.”
“It’s us!” Mimi squealed delightedly.
It was indeed them. In the still photo that dominated the screen, she and Mimi were walking down the main street of Tuller Springs, carrying shopping bags and to go cups from the Java Hut. Mimi’s hair was still red and green. Christmas shopping, she realized distantly as the rest of her brain jabbered hysterically. The photo had been taken weeks ago. And she’d had no idea. Someone had stood on the far side of the street, or sat in a car, and shot pictures of her while she was completely oblivious.
The picture vanished and another story popped up to take its place.
“What were they saying?” She hadn’t been able to process any of the words, too busy taking in the horror of her first paparazzi experience. She’d never been that kind of famous when sh
e was a musician.
“They found out about the fire. They were joking about turning pyro because you were forced to date Daniel and stuff. Usual TMZ snark.”
“But that photo had nothing to do with the fire.”
“I know, but it was us,” Mimi squeaked. “I was on TMZ! Admittedly, it was as ‘and friend’, but who’s complaining? Oh! Do you think it’s on the website too?”
“Oh God.”
“Caitlyn? You okay?”
“I didn’t even know he was there. He was taking pictures of us and I had no clue.” He could have walked up to her and asked and she would have smiled and given him his shot. She’d had media training. She knew what to do. Mimi would have loved it. But no. He had to take it from across the street like a freaking peeping Tom. “Did you know we were being photographed?”
“Well, no. But that’s the price for fame, eh?”
“I never wanted to be famous. I didn’t think reality TV people were really that big a deal—I mean yes, people know who the Kardashians are, but who cares who the third runner up on last year’s Survivor was?”
“Honey,” Mimi said, her shrill enthusiasm somewhat tamed, “in a year no one will remember who was on this year’s Marrying Mister Perfect, but this is your fifteen minutes. Try to enjoy it. Or at least accept it.”
“You sound like…” Daniel. She almost said it aloud.
Everyone was telling her to suck it up and accept the attention—even if she couldn’t quite embrace it. Maybe she should start listening. A shot on TMZ wasn’t going to hurt her—not that kind of shot anyway. Was she overreacting? To all of it?
She’d had this idea, ever since the finale of the show, that Daniel was more concerned with his fame as Mister Perfect than he was with actually settling down with her, but had she been blowing things out of proportion? Had she heard him accepting and embracing the fifteen minutes of fame that came with the territory and just assumed he’d gone over to the dark side? She had fought so hard to get out of the limelight, was she hyper-sensitive to any signs that she might be pulled back in?
