Harlequin Heartwarming June 2021 Box Set

by Patricia Johns

  Mara set it before Krista. “But you have to serve us first.”

  “That boy just wants a foot in the door,” their mom said. “But you are taking caution to an insane level. Of course, you two will end things if it’s not working out, but why put a deadline on it?”

  “It’s not a deadline. It’s a renewal date.”

  “Different name, same beast. Are you worried about Phillip?”

  “That part of my life is over. I’ve received no hate mail on my website and no snarky comments on my social media. See?” Krista opened her phone to show them the post of her and Will on Instagram.

  In the space of an hour seven comments had popped up. Probably Laura and other friends.

  There was Laura’s, congratulatory and complimentary with an emoji row of hearts, smiley faces, a cowboy hat and a dollar sign.

  Alyssa with Thank you for your support! Bland but professional. She had also shared to the Celebrity Ride page with the comment, Will poses with his latest special friend. Okay, accurate but it made Will sound as if he went through women like tissues, and it made her seem...disposable.

  Alyssa had shared the image on her personal page and tagged Krista’s Place, making the post available to all her friends. One friend, in particular. Lindee, Phillip’s right-hand warrior in the charge against Krista.

  Oh, that poor cowboy! He has no idea who he’s hitched himself to.

  “Oh no,” Krista murmured.

  “What? What?” her mother and sister pressed. Krista shook her head and continued to follow the trail.

  Lindee had shared Alyssa’s post and the comments were coming in fast and furious.

  Krista’s back to taking the innocent for a ride!

  There’s gold to be dug in them thar hills.

  WARNING: Proceed with caution, cowboy. That was accompanied with a poison symbol.

  “Krista! Tell us what’s going on,” her mom commanded. “Or, at least, put that phone away and eat your cheesecake.”

  “Cheesecake isn’t going to fix this,” Krista murmured. She showed them the feed, stunning Mara and her mom into sympathetic silence.

  Mara picked at a strawberry. “What are you going to do?”

  Hide. Remove her page, and wait until the storm blew over. Except this time the attack wouldn’t only affect her. Now Will was involved. The Claverley family, the celebrity ride sponsors, the list went on. Such was the power of social media.

  Her throat blocked up, her cheeks flamed. Her fingers twitched at the urge to rebut all the comments, to tell her story. But she’d gone down that road before and it would only add fuel to the fire. Then again, if she didn’t take a stand, her past would always hound her. There would always be someone out there ready to grind her into dust for simply existing.

  “I will fight them,” she said. “I don’t know how but I will.”

  Her cheesecake still sat prettily on her plate. The trolls were a thousand miles away. The cheesecake was right here. Her family was right here. “But first, we eat cheesecake.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  KRISTA STARTED HER fight with a phone call to Alyssa. The other woman picked up after the fourth ring. There was laughter and loud male talk in the background. Was Will one of them?

  “Alyssa, sorry to bother you—”

  She gave a mild snort which Krista chose to ignore. “But a social media issue has come up that I wanted to address before it harms your clients.” Appealing to Alyssa’s self-interest had been Mara’s idea. Positioned across the room in support, she’d given her some other pointers, which Krista had written down on a pad she now kept on her jittering knee to bolster her confidence. Their mother had left because she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t rip the phone from Krista’s hand and tear a strip off Alyssa. Krista suspected her mother swathed herself in hippie gear and incense in an effort to disguise her inner red-eyed monster.

  “What is it?”

  “I noticed that you shared a picture of Will and me.”

  “It’s a good photo.”

  “It is, and that for me is not the issue.” Krista strained to keep her voice calm and diplomatic. “Unfortunately, in sharing it on your personal page, my former connections in Toronto have identified it and have posted comments that are...demeaning to me and—”

  “Not this again,” Alyssa interrupted. “Did someone accuse you of being a Barbie doll and your feelings got hurt?”

  Krista had anticipated this response and referred to Mara’s notepad. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Will and by extension the charity ride.”

  There was a pause. “What do you mean?”

  “There are some comments about Will now, too, and they’re not flattering. I thought as the promoter of the ride, you might consider damage control.”

  “I’ll have to read these comments,” Alyssa said. “What do you want exactly?”

  “It might be best if you remove the post.”

  There was a second pause. Krista imagined Alyssa’s stony expression. “When I get a moment, I’ll take a look.”

  The moment must’ve arisen quickly, because Alyssa called back even before Krista had time to relay all of her conversation to Mara. “I’ve read the comments and they’re not doing Will any favors, so I deleted the post. It usually takes a while for the deletion to affect the shares, but it should disappear in a few hours.”

  Relief percolated through Krista like a cool rush of water. “Thank you for understanding, Alyssa.”

  “Yeah, well, I did it for the sake of the ride, not you. I should’ve known better than to bring you into the picture. Literally.”

  “I thought everything had died down,” Krista said, trying not to sound defensive. “And I wasn’t aware you were friends with Lindee.”

  “After what she just pulled off, I wouldn’t exactly call her a friend.”

  Krista dug her teeth into her bottom lip to prevent her from screaming that this was the kettle calling the pot black. “Well, lesson learned. I hope this is the end of it.”

  Except it wasn’t. Later that day, she spotted a comment with a link to Phillip’s Facebook page. Weird. He usually relied on Instagram to troll her.

  There on his page, he’d resurrected the Krista doll with the pink pouty lips and poufy blond hair. He’d dressed it in a cowboy hat and an outfit straight out of the closet of a buckle bunny extraordinaire. The quip: She rides again! There was a hashtag for the celebrity ride and another for buckle bunnies. Great. Phil had portrayed her as exactly the type of woman Will avoided.

  Only there wasn’t just one inflatable doll. Beside the Krista doll was one that looked like Sheriff Woody from Toy Story. Will. A comment balloon floated over the Krista-doll. “How do you like me so far?” Will-doll: “Please don’t ruin it by talking.”

  Phillip had depicted Will as cruel and shallow. But her ex was clever. Two dolls, two caricatures. No names, so no use complaining to Facebook.

  “If he doesn’t reference us by name, there’s no harm, right?” Krista asked Mara.

  Even as she spoke, another Instagram post from Phil appeared. It was the one Krista had posted. He’d found her again.

  Krista takes a cowboy for a ride. Another one bites the dust.

  “Oh, Krista,” Mara sighed. “What a horrible thing to say.”

  “I sometimes wonder if I made him that way.”

  “No one has that kind of power over someone else. As much as we’d like to think so.”

  Krista posed her pen over the notebook. “What should I do? Never mind. You’ll just turn it back to me.”

  “You shouldn’t ask me what I want you to do, because it’s highly illegal and is driven by protective rage. Is there a sister’s equivalent to a mother bear?”

  “The three little sister bears?” Krista offered up.

  “We know who the big bad wolf is,” Mara said. �
��To mash up the fairy tales.”

  Krista hated to do this, but... “I should make a second call.”

  After she and Mara had brainstormed several pages of notes, Krista made the call, her fingers shaking. Not unexpectedly it went to voice mail. She left a long, winding message that was cut off by the tone. She waited a half hour and called again, leaving a simple message to call her.

  “So much for that,” Krista said. “Phillip won’t call. Why would he?”

  “Why would he not? Murderers return to the scene of their crime, don’t they?” her mild-mannered sister replied.

  Her sister’s uncharacteristic venom cheered Krista somewhat as she drove out to see Will in the late afternoon. She’d left a few items at the Claverley house and had thought to bring lotion samples out to Janet and Laura. At the ranch driveway, her phone rang. Phillip. She parked her car halfway off the shoulder and was connected by the third ring.

  “Thanks for calling back,” Krista said right off the top. She wished she had Mara’s notes in front of her.

  “I was a little surprised you called at all,” he said. She could tell he had her on speakerphone. Was someone else listening in?

  “I wouldn’t normally but as you heard on my message, I thought it best.”

  “I couldn’t follow what you were saying. What’s your problem?” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  He knew exactly what her problem was, but he was going to make her repeat it for the sake of his audience. Krista bit back her anger and said, “I am sorry I hurt you, Phillip. I didn’t realize how much I had until your reaction on Facebook...and again now.”

  There was a fraction of a pause. “Don’t assume you have that kind of power over me, Krista.”

  “It’s not power, Phil,” Krista said. “I mean, it’s the kind of power we give anyone when we enter into a relationship with them.”

  “Been talking to your psycho sister lately?”

  “My psychologist sister,” Krista clarified, not able to keep the sharpness from her voice. “I am sorry for not discussing our relationship sooner with you, and breaking up with you over the phone was not...kind.”

  “Nearly a year of my life flushed away with one phone call.”

  “I’m sorry.” It wouldn’t do to point out that it had also been a year of her life.

  “You tried to make a fool out of me.”

  “That wasn’t it.”

  “Of course it was. Run across the country to your family, drop me and never have to face our friends, our coworkers. Leave me hanging. You humiliated me, Krista.”

  He was alone. No way would he allow anyone to hear that confession. “So...the doll...the posts...the comments, it was all because you wanted to get back at me for making you look bad?”

  “What did you think it was about?”

  “I thought it was because I made you feel bad.”

  “I could’ve dealt with that at home with a few bottles. But this was about my reputation and you knew it. If you didn’t, Krista, that’s almost worse because it shows how clueless you were.

  “We were in the business of appearances. Makeup, costumes, sets. The way things look is all we have between us and the rest of the world. Tear that down and the world attacks.”

  Krista gazed out her side window at the Claverley Ranch. There were still a few horse trailers, but largely the place had returned to its usual quietness.

  “So you tried to tear down my world, the way you thought I’d torn down yours.”

  “Thought? I didn’t dream up the stares of pity, the drop in invites to parties, the drying up of gigs. No one wanted me without you. They seemed to believe you were the better one.”

  “I had no idea,” Krista murmured. “I always assumed you sort of...let me tag along. Cut me in for a share as a favor.”

  “You had a whole lot of wrong assumptions.”

  “But the doll, that’s wrong, too.”

  “That doll was a brilliant stroke of genius on my part.”

  “Why did you stop? No, I only need to know why you started again. This guy, Will, he has nothing to do with us.”

  “He has everything to do with it. Believe it or not, I’m doing you a favor so you’re not wasting ten months of your life like I did.”

  Leave it to Phillip to paint himself as a paragon of virtue. He should have his own superhero movie. Hypocrisy would be his superpower. “How’s that?”

  “This cowboy of yours is no different. Appearances matter to him, too.”

  “He’s not like that,” she said but as soon as the words left her mouth, she remembered how much value he placed on the Claverley name, the ranching tradition.

  “Has he seen the posts?”

  “No.”

  “Because you know what his reaction will be. Once he realizes that being with you is a liability, he’ll drop you faster than hot crap. Nobody likes to be made a fool of, Krista.”

  Phillip was wrong. She’d been totally honest with Will about their chances, and he’d still wanted her. If anyone was under the microscope, it was her. She would stick by Will and see this through. “That’s what you want, right? For me to be humiliated the way you believe you were?”

  “I don’t believe it. I lived it. Yes, I want you to be humiliated. Your business destroyed and more than anything, your love life ripped apart. Just as you did to me.”

  Beneath his scorn, she could hear his pain, still raw after eight months. They’d almost been broken up for as long as they were together, and he still hadn’t let go. And even though she had shed relationships and jobs like muddy clothes, she had no idea how to make him let go of her. No experience in how to make a heart no longer want, to change it into a forgiving heart.

  Still, for the sake of Will and Alyssa and the charity ride itself, and for the sake of all she’d built at her salon, she tried one more time to reach Phillip. “Could I ask you to at least remove the posts and not put up any more?”

  “You could always ask.”

  She thought of another idea. “Phil, if I were to come to Toronto and talk to you in person instead of over the phone, would you then?”

  “If you got down on bended knee and begged?”

  Krista swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Could I post the video of you doing it?”

  “No!”

  “Then no deal.”

  “You don’t want this to end, do you?”

  “Sure I do, Krista. Only I’m the one who gets to say when it will.”

  * * *

  WILL TOSSED DOWN two anti-inflammatories, lowered himself onto his bed, positioning his right shoulder on its own pillow. He wrapped two ice packs around it like saddlebags. At the first prickle of cold, he closed his eyes in anticipation of cool peace.

  Then came a rap on his door he didn’t recognize. Alyssa, probably. “Come in.”

  Hinges squeaked and footsteps lightly followed. “Hello?”

  Krista, cuddable in shorts and a T-shirt with threads of every color running every which way across the front. He scrambled up but it was too late. She spotted him, his pill bottle and the ice packs. He braced for her to let loose on him. Instead she sighed. “Oh, Will. Glory wounds of the firstborn, is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it sounds better than a screaming bunch of busted muscles.”

  She came over and dropped a kiss on his forehead. He would’ve preferred one on his mouth but he’d take it. “Go on, lie down.”

  “I’m good—”

  “Lie down.” And he did. She knelt on the mattress beside him, beefed up his shoulder pillow and squared his ice packs into place. She really did know how to make a guy feel comfortable.

  She gave her tanned legs a satisfied slap. “There. Now, did Alyssa talk to you today?”

  Will blinked at the sudden change in topic. “
Briefly. About the ride. That she’d be in touch if I needed to make any appearances.” Krista cringed at the word. “Why?”

  “She didn’t mention the post of you and me on Facebook?”

  His free hand reached for his phone kept in a leather holder on his belt. “No, but I take it she should have.”

  She put her hand on his, her touch cool and solid, its own kind of ice pack. “Too late. It’s been deleted. There’s another one. A far worse one.”

  She unrolled the whole story, showing him pictures of the Krista and Will dolls, the rude comments and the upshot of her phone call with her ex. She plucked at the fringe on her shorts. “I’m so sorry about all of this.”

  Will silently cursed the ex for crushing his bright, fun-loving, Krista. “It’s not you who should be sorry.” He drew her hand onto his stomach and covered both of her hands with his. He meant to offer comfort but could feel her touch seeping its own healing strength across his belly. “You really do have talented hands.” He intended to sound lighthearted, flirtatious. Instead it came out like a vow.

  She gave a faint smile. “So I’ve been told.” She frowned. “I guess we should develop a plan.”

  They should, but not until he’d gotten his old Krista back. He stroked her hand with his thumb. “Who was the first to tell you?”

  This time Krista’s smile didn’t seem forced. “An actor.

  “There came a point when I knew that I wanted something Phillip couldn’t ever give me. She was having a hard day. A bunch of retakes was pushing back the schedule, she was distracted by her sick toddler at home. The director called a break for her to get a makeup change. She was in tears when she hit my chair, which isn’t great for makeup. She said, ‘My feet hurt.’ She’d been all day in these four-inch stiletto boots, a size too small. I helped her out of her boots and I gave her a massage. By the end, she said, ‘You’ve got the hands of an angel, Krista.’ And that’s when I realized my calling.”

  “It worked on me. It worked on my mother.” Will lifted her hand in his. “It’s working on me right now.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Phillip did not want me pursuing that dream, and I was almost giving up on it when I came out for my aunt’s funeral, and she’d given Mara and me a place to set up. It was an opportunity I couldn’t walk away from.”