“You drive me so freaking crazy, Logan,” she says as I stare at her pink, sexy mouth. “So freaking out of my mind.”
I shift my gaze from her mouth to her eyes, studying her like I can decipher her heart. Her lips are a fraction away from touching mine, her tongue tantalizingly close to tasting…
When Mr. Henwood bursts into the room, Macey leaps back like a fire alarm just went off, and I exhale, realizing I’d been holding my breath.
“What is going on in here?” her father asks. “No one should be in the cell!”
“Riley and Blake locked us in here,” Macey says. “They thought they were being funny.”
“Good Lord.” Mr. Henwood shakes his head. “Let me get you out.”
As soon as he unlocks the cell, Macey stumbles out like she can’t get away from me fast enough.
I thank her father and make for the exit. Within a minute, I’m on my motorcycle and peeling away in the direction of the fishing hole.
Jesus. I almost kissed her.
I pull up to the fishing hole and sit by the water.
And my phone rings.
I would let it go to voicemail, but it’s Luke.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound normal. “Everything okay?”
“Don’t you think I should be asking you that question?” he says.
I can hear commotion in the background. “Where are you?”
“In my office in the barn.” He curses. “The place is a mess.”
“You need help,” I tell him. “You’ve needed it for a while.”
“I know. But I hate inviting a stranger into the family business.”
“An assistant would be there to assist, not screw things up,” I say. “Maybe then you could actually have an hour to yourself now and again.”
“Maybe. So.” He lowers his voice. “You sound off. Did Macey find out?”
“No. I almost screwed everything up though.”
“You kissed her.”
“Not quite.”
“You almost kissed her.”
“I used to be okay with the way things were,” I say without planning on it.
“What do you mean?”
“Our…arrangement. It worked for us. Casual and only once a year or so.”
“And now?”
“Now, it feels like a lifetime ago. Ever since Vegas, things felt like they sped up a thousand-fold.”
“Things changed,” he says. “That makes sense.”
Now every single time I see Macey, I want to kiss her and make her mine again. Bring her up against a wall, or a desk, and run my tongue over her soft skin that always smells like wildflowers. Bury myself inside her and hear her cry out in bliss.
Every. Single. Time.
“I guess it does. But the timing is shit. With what I’m in the middle of…”
“Just a few more months, and you’ll be able to give her everything,” Luke says to me. “You’re doing the right thing, Logan. It may not be the conventional solution, but it’s the cowboy one. Which means it’ll work.”
I look out at the water. Just a few more months of this misery. Gigi and I will exchange vows, she’ll turn twenty, and then we’re done.
Then I can go to Macey and tell her how I feel. That I’ll take her any way she’ll have me. I always would. And I always will.
“Remember why you’re doing this.” Luke’s reminder comes through the line loud and clear. “For Macey.”
“Right.”
For Macey.
And I have to keep it together until then. Remember why I’m doing this in the first place. For her. And that’s always worth it. Even if I lose her in the end, she deserves to be free.
Because nobody deserves to be happy and to have someone looking out for them more than Macey Henwood does.
I’m not trying to rescue her. I’m just trying to make sure she doesn’t have the chance to rescue herself taken away.
Chapter Seventeen
Macey
“What was your sister doing?” Daddy says to me. “Everyone knows you can’t open Jane’s cell. What if the legend is wrong and she gets out before the soul mates are found?”
I spin on him. “Are you really that selfish that you’re willing to hold someone here against her will because you’re scared to run this bar on your own? If you can’t manage it without a ghost, maybe you’re not doing a very good job.”
“I don’t think I can run it without her,” Daddy admits. “Her legend is everything to The Cowherd.”
I stare at him. “You don’t think you can run The Cowherd without Jane? Or without me?”
“Macey Henwood, you watch that tongue,” he warns me. “What’s gotten into you?”
I don’t answer him. I just take the key out of his hand, put it away, and leave the room.
I grab my laptop from behind the bar and keep walking until I hit the outside air. No one’s out by the picnic table. People rarely come out here. This table gathers more cobwebs than most attics.
I turn my back on the saloon and face the cow pasture.
I can still feel Logan’s hot hands around my waist and hear his raspy breath so close to me. I wanted him so badly it hurt.
It still hurts.
Because he’s taken. And I let him go. I asked him for a divorce, for goodness sake.
Shit.
When did my life get this out of control?
I open up Ghost Love on my laptop. Maybe I can lose myself in the love story I’m writing that will definitely have a happy ending. Really, I’m grateful for something to do. Writing this novel has helped get me through the summer of hell.
Except—I’m having a bit of a meltdown at the moment. So I can’t really concentrate on my book. Maybe I can finish it next summer when I’ll have more time. Ginny will be a mother, and Logan will be—
Gone.
The back door slams, and Ben takes a seat across from me at the table.
“Sorry you were stuck in the cell,” he says with a chuckle. “Riley and Blake are assholes.”
I close my laptop and laugh. “They were so thrilled with themselves.”
“I’m sure they were. I just got back and Daddy told me what happened. Oh, Ginny called me. Said she couldn’t reach you.”
Shit. I forgot about my phone.
“She and her mama are going to the bakery. They want you to meet them there.”
I nod. “Got it.”
Ben starts fidgeting, first with his hands, and then he takes a stick off the ground and starts breaking it into pieces.
“What’s up?” I say finally.
He looks at me. “I’ve made a decision about my future. I want to run my own business someday.”
I tell him how proud I am of him, silently realizing this is the second time this summer that one of my siblings hasn’t needed me the way they used to. They’re all grown up.
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that I had to come work at The Cowherd to figure that out,” he says. “You’ve been a good mentor, Mace. I appreciate all your support”
I rub his head affectionately. “Daddy’s the owner of this bar. He’s who you want to learn from, not the chick running the place for him.”
“You know you do everything here,” Ben says. “I don’t know how you did it so young is all. Feels like you had to grow up way too soon.”
“Yeah, well.” The smoky-sweet smell of the surrounding mesquite trees wafts through my nose, and I breathe in the familiar scent. “I think you have a real talent for this. You’ve already helped increase our profit margins. And you didn’t have to use a dead woman to do it.”
Ben laughs. “Daddy never did stop thinking Jane Austen would save his soul. Kind of like a lot of folks around here.”
“I guess it’s habit.”
“You could do so much more than this, you know,” he says to me after a long pause.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m scared of giving all this up.”
I stretch out my arm and gesture aimlessly around
me.
“Why?” Ben asks me. “You mean The Cowherd? I know it’s been like home, but it’s not really you, is it?”
“Maybe not. But it’s what I know.”
“Are you ashamed?” he asks me out of the blue.
I whip my head over to him.
“I mean about your story,” he explains. “Like maybe you don’t want to share it with the world?”
“I’m not ashamed. Really. Maybe I’m a little uncomfortable putting it all out there. My weaknesses. My words. This summer’s been hard. The fact that the guy I…” I stop. “That the guy this town claims is Mr. Darcy is about to leave forever. But if the soul mates are a real thing and the ghost somehow goes free, it’s all good. Maybe we’ll get to see Daddy actually stay sober and in charge for once. That would be worth it.”
“You know you’re gonna have to let him go.”
I start. “Daddy?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“Logan?” I say almost breathlessly. “Who do you mean?”
“You know who I mean.” He kisses my cheek and stands up to leave. “Have fun at the bakery. See you in a bit.”
I watch Ben walk out to the pick-up truck he’s had since he first got his license. I don’t know how that thing still runs, but that’s Ben. Never quits on anything—or anyone— he cares about. As he starts up the engine and pulls out, I wonder. I wonder if he’d want it. I wonder if it might just be the perfect fit, much more perfect than it ever was for me. Maybe my dream really is sitting on my laptop.
I slip back into the bar to grab my purse. My father’s nowhere in sight as I glance up at the supposed photos of Jane Austen’s ghost.
“I know you didn’t demand that somebody lock you down and steal your crown,” I say softly. “Your crown wasn’t even something you wrote for.” Queen of romance, queen of anything; Jane Austen just wanted to tell a good story.
Chapter Eighteen
Mrs. Rattles starts frowning as soon as Elaina brings out the cake.
“You finished it already?” She glares at Elaina, who shrinks back. “The wedding’s not till Thursday! I bet Gigi’s cake isn’t finished yet.”
Mrs. Rattles turns on her heel and ushers Ginny and me out of the cake shop. “We’re going up to Austin to meet with some real bakers. Just the three of us, and we’re leaving first thing tomorrow. Whatever plans you girls have, break them!”
“Yes, ma’am.” I squeeze Ginny’s hand as we fall in line behind her mother. “The baby’s getting a real good vantage point of what his or her grandmother’s like, huh?”
“He or she is kicking up a storm.” Ginny puts my hand to her belly. “Kicking to get away from Mama’s shrieking.”
I laugh. “Smart baby.”
“I can’t talk,” I tell my mother the next day. “Mrs. Rattles is outside my door honking right now.”
“That’s why I’m calling,” Mama says. “Riley told me about your upcoming trip to Austin today. And it got me thinking—do you remember about twenty years ago, you were around four or five, and the Darcy Museum agreed to loan Vivian’s diary to that newfangled place up in Austin, the one that specializes in haunted buildings?”
“Um, no…”
“I sent for a brochure, and it looked quite interesting. They collect items from haunted buildings all over the world. It was Darcy’s first brush with statewide fame.”
“Is the museum still there?”
I open my door and wave at Mrs. Rattles. She replies with another loud honk.
“It’s been downsized to a pop-up,” Mama’s saying in my ear. “So it moves around.”
“Like a food truck?” I grab my keys and sling my purse over my shoulder.
“Yes. And I’m looking online, and it says that this week the museum will be on East 7th Street.”
The honking is getting steadier. And louder.
“Okay. But why would I go there, Mama?”
“I was going through Vivian’s diary again, and in one section, a sentence doesn’t match up to the next page.” She’s talking a mile a minute. “I looked closely at the seam of the book, and sure enough—ripped paper! Fitting, isn’t it? The capital of our great state could be holding such an important piece of evidence for the purpose of liberating a great author’s spirit.”
“Mama, you’re talking nonsense.”
I step out of my duplex and turn to lock the door behind me. The honking increases.
“A clue was lost in Austin!” Mama insists. “It’s the only time Vivian’s words were taken out of Darcy. Someone in that museum up there must have torn a page out!”
“Okay, relax.”
Loud, insistent leaning-on-the-horn type honking is happening now in my driveway.
“I’ll find the place and call you from there. Love you, bye.”
I stand outside the truck titled “Haunted, Ghosts, The Dead, and More” and knock tentatively. The windows are dusty and tinted, and I’m not sure anyone’s inside. But when I called, the hours said nine to five, and it’s just after noon.
Ginny and her mother are happily relaxing at a café down the block after our smashing success in ordering Ginny a cake that the baker swore up and down could be done by the thirtieth of June and delivered to the reception hall in Darcy. Mrs. Rattles convinced the poor woman that Ginny would fall apart if they couldn’t get her a cake, and who wants to disappoint a pregnant woman? And who wants to say no to a domineering lady bearing down on you angrily from the other side of the counter? Either way, the cake is a go.
When no one answers my three knocks, I try the doorknob and am surprised when it opens.
I step inside and close the door behind me. I look around the nondescript room with photographs of buildings all along the walls and paintings of ghosts and goblins in between. Ropes separate the different sections. One area is called “New York’s Most Famous Spirits” and another “The Dead Live on—See Where They Lurk.”
A young girl wearing square-rimmed black glasses and chewing a huge wad of pink bubblegum sits at a makeshift welcome area and asks if she can help me.
“I hope so. I’m from Darcy in Hill Country, and a number of years ago, y’all borrowed one of our haunted items for an exhibit. And a page of it didn’t make it back.”
She points to a glass case in the corner. “That’s all of our archived items. We kept some things from old exhibits. Nobody usually wants them back. Nobody cares about ghosts’ belongings.”
“Well, I’m the exception.” I head for the case.
“The couple must be free of false entanglements and embody the true nature of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet,” Mama repeats into the phone to me. “Wow, that’s the best clue yet! I’m right here in the liquor room, and now I’m writing it down on a pad of paper—”
“I don’t need a play-by-play, Mama.” I look out the back seat window of Mrs. Rattles’ SUV as we roll past the car dealerships along I-35 on our way home to Darcy.
Ginny’s in the shotgun seat, and she and her mother continue their argument over her older sister’s bridesmaid dress.
Mama’s shrill scream, in a tone only God could love, effectively stops even Helena Rattles from talking. She and Ginny whip their heads around to the back seat.
“She’s fine. Just overly excited as usual.” I give them both a thumbs up, and they withdraw their attention.
“Macey!” Mama gasps. “Ginny’s pregnant before walking down the aisle—that could be the entanglement! I know all about what that’s like. So maybe Logan and Gigi are the soul mates after all.”
I nearly throw the phone out the window. “Mama, I wish I’d never gone to that haunted truck for you. You’re just making things worse!” And I hang up.
Chapter Nineteen
That night, I take Ginny out for a mellow bachelorette party. We start at a baby store in San Antonio and then go to Mamacita’s for fajitas and chips. It’s just the two of us—her older sister and two cousins aren’t in town yet, and Mrs. Rattles has grounded Ginny’s younger sist
er for breaking curfew three nights in a row.
Ginny says Logan and Blake took Dave out tonight, too. And she said Dave swore they’d come to Mamacita’s also so we can all hang out together.
But the boys never show up. At first, I think it’s just Dave being Dave except…
“Dave just texted.” Ginny frowns as she looks at her phone. “He says Logan won’t let them come here. Says it’s too far from Darcy and he’s on a tight schedule.”
He’s avoiding me.
“He says he has to meet Gigi at the ranch by eleven or else.” Ginny looks up at me. “Does that sound fishy to you?”
I avert my eyes. “I don’t know. I mean, not necessarily…”
“Austen Macey Henwood.”
Stern Ginny is so much harder to lie to than Sweet Ginny.
“Yes, it’s fishy, and I know why.” I run a tortilla chip through the salsa bowl but don’t actually raise it to my mouth. “Logan and I got locked in Jane Austen’s cell yesterday, and…”
“How the hell did—”
“Riley and Blake.”
Ginny puts her hand over her mouth, but a laugh escapes. “Is that their five-year-old way of trying to get you and Logan to talk?”
“It’s their five-year-old way of being annoying.” I take another chip and drag it through the salsa, and this time I just leave it in the bowl. “So the thing is…Logan and I almost kissed, Gin. And when I say almost, I mean if my daddy hadn’t stormed through the door like his hair was on fire, well…who knows what would have happened.”
Ginny eyes are huge. “He almost kissed you? Or you almost kissed him?”
“Both? But he was definitely not holding back. Thank God my father interrupted because now, at least, Logan can keep a clear conscience.” I furrow my brow. “He can, right? I mean, he didn’t cheat on Gigi. Not technically.”
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