by Jane Porter
“Do you know why I gave her the RV?” his grandmother asked, and when he didn’t answer she filled the silence. “Mandy was one of the few people who came to see me at the hospital when I was recovering from my surgery. And she didn’t just come with some flowers or chocolates. No, she came to the hospital and did my hair. She washed it, and set it, and made me feel beautiful when I was at an all-time low—and then she came to the house every week, for the next eight weeks to do my hair. She came to me because I’d given up. I’d lost your grandfather a few years before, and then your dad died, and I had both my hips replaced and a part of me just stopped fighting. I felt tired and useless and for eight weeks Mandy came every Tuesday night with dinner, and we’d eat together and she’d do my hair, and then while my hair was drying we’d watch a show, and she wouldn’t take a penny for any of it. She said we were friends, and that’s what friends did for each other.”
Gram gave him a quelling look. “And so, Tyler, I appreciate that you’re a big city guy, and you make all this money and know a thing or two about people and motives, but you’re wrong about her, and you’re wrong to speak to me as if I’m senile and throwing my money around. But if I should want to throw my money around, well, that’s fine, too, because it’s my money, and I’m an adult, and I have the right to do what I want with my property and investments.”
For a moment there was just silence. She was waiting for him to reply but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Gram,” he said at length.
“But at what cost? You risk alienating everyone by being so mistrustful.”
“Dad would want me to take care of you.”
“You forget, I was his mother.”
They were just going around in circles, he thought, and it was incredibly frustrating because his intentions were good. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. He was trying to be a protective grandson. “I love you, Gram. That’s all.”
“And I love you, which is why maybe you need to step away from your computer and games and open your eyes to all the wonderful people and things in this world. Life is so much bigger than a video screen.”
“I know that.”
“I’m not so sure you do, because ever since Coby died, you’ve made games your world, and I love that you’re creative and ambitious. I admire how you turned a hobby into a career, but it seems to me you’ve left out the most important thing, which is people.”
Chapter Six
Tyler was relieved to be back in Texas so he could be on-site for the discussion about TexTron’s future, but Marietta was never far from his thoughts, even though his visit felt like it had been one complication after another, with the complication being Mandy, Mandy, Mandy.
He sat through an intense four-hour meeting listening to the board of directors mandate change—grateful he wasn’t the CEO of TexTron, but merely the head of the corporation’s game division, and scribbled notes to himself regarding his division’s numbers and profitability. Justice Games was doing well, he knew that much, but he was less clear on the other arms of TexTron’s entertainment division.
While making notes, he found himself thinking of Amanda again, namely the thing she’d said to him the first day they met, that people needed entertainment. They needed a way to escape the world’s chaos… or unplug from the world… something along those lines.
She understood people. That was what made her successful. Not the pink palette, or her retro style, but her empathy, and her desire to make people—women—feel special, and valuable.
She was also beautiful and smart and incredibly frustrating. The fact that he was attracted to her just made everything more difficult. It had been years since he’d felt this way about a woman. And yet she’d caught his attention, and worse, gotten under his skin and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even in the middle of tense meetings.
Why her? He didn’t want to want her. He didn’t want to feel this pull toward her. He hadn’t needed two haircuts. But he couldn’t stay away from her…
So Texas was definitely a better place for him until he figured out how to manage her, and the tug and pull that made him want to bring her close and hold her, and lightly stroke the sweep of her cheekbones and trace her lovely full mouth.
Because if he’d stayed in Marietta, he’d want to take her out to dinner just to see what she’d wear. He’d want to see how she’d do her hair. He’d want to make her laugh, she had such a lovely throaty laugh, and he’d wait for her smile, and the dimple that would flash. In his work, he created worlds and characters and he gave them a storyline and they followed it. He knew what would happen in advance. He had to. But with Amanda he didn’t know what would happen, and it was exciting, and stimulating, as well as exasperating.
And just thinking about her, he pictured her at Rocco’s in the dark peach dress with the tiny belt around her waist, and then of her on the path following the Marietta River, dressed in black and lavender, her long blonde ponytail swinging as she ran ahead of him, and then at Grey’s with her sister, in a French blue cashmere sweater that hugged all of her curves a little too well, and made her eyes brighter, and richer, as if they were Montana sapphires.
She was pretty and smart and kind and funny… and she was most definitely a problem.
Amanda told herself she was glad Tyler had left town. Good riddance, she’d added under her breath, as she turned off the lights in the salon for the night and dead-locked the front door.
But later on, upstairs in her apartment, she found herself thinking about him, and wondering why she felt empty and a little let down.
If she was truly glad he was gone, wouldn’t she feel relief? Happiness? Freedom? Instead she sagged into her couch, unaccountably blue.
Charity arrived an hour later with a pizza, a bottle of red wine, and a big paper bag. While Amanda opened the wine, Charity dumped the paper bag onto the velvet covered ottoman that served as footstool and impromptu dining table. “Look what I found at the thrift store in Bozeman. Romance novels! Dozens of them.”
Amanda smiled at the wash of pink and teal and purple covers on her ottoman as she handed Charity a glass of wine. “How much were all of these?”
“Four for a dollar. I couldn’t resist.”
Amanda picked up one book with a cover featuring a handsome, elegantly dressed duke. It had been years since she’d actually sat and read a romance, too busy trying to get her salon going, too stressed by the constant financial worries of running her own business, never mind keeping her parents from financial disaster, because it seemed as if her parents wanted financial ruin. They had a history of making the worst decisions not just in Marietta, maybe in all of Montana.
She wouldn’t say that her father had a gambling addiction, but he certainly lacked self-control when it came to making purchases that were not needed. Particularly purchases online, whether it be eBay, or any other Internet auction. He loved online auctions. He loved online shopping. He loved shopping off the TV. He loved small and medium packages arriving at the house. He felt like a victor… a winner… when he “won” an auction, somehow failing to put two and two together that he hadn’t won anything, but rather he’d bought something, and he’d been the one who’d simply paid the most. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that those endless, unnecessary purchases meant he was blowing his and Mom’s meager income on silly things instead of necessities.
“I couldn’t remember if you liked historicals or contemporaries better so I bought them all,” Charity added, sipping her wine. “Let’s divide the pile and then we’ll switch—”
“I don’t think I’m going to read them.” Mandy dropped the book and sat down in a corner of the sofa, curling her legs under her. “There isn’t time, and it’s not the same anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not going to meet men like that… handsome, successful, sexy… not here, not in Marietta.”
“There are plenty
of handsome men in Marietta!” Charity took another slow, thoughtful sip before casually adding, “Ty Justice.”
“He’s returned to Texas, and he doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s pompous and arrogant and makes far too many assumptions.”
“Alpha heroes always do. Remember every Barbara Cartland we read? Arrogant, impossible, interfering aristocrat—”
“Tyler is not an aristocrat.”
“But he’s incredibly wealthy. He’s mega rich.”
“He isn’t.”
“He is. Look him up. In fact, let’s Google him together.”
“Let’s not. And I don’t want to discuss him anymore. Let’s talk about the men who live here. The men who love Marietta. They’re nice guys, but, face it, we’ve known them since we were in diapers. It’s awfully hard to be excited about a man you’ve watched go through puberty and pimples.”
“I don’t even mind puberty and pimples. I just don’t want to be dragged out to a ranch. I want to find a great guy with a career in town as we both know I’m not cut out for country living.”
“That’s why you don’t date cowboys.”
“Exactly.” Charity tucked long honey-blonde hair behind her ear. “But the cute ones do look so good in their Wranglers and boots—”
“You’re cursing yourself, you know. You’re destined to end up with a cowboy now.”
“Only if I could be the Cowboy Tycoon’s Kidnapped Bride.”
“No. You would hate being kidnapped, much less to an isolated ranch. Texas ones might be different, but ours are muddy. They’re not romantic. Stay in town. Much less dirt, and manure odors.”
“Definitely don’t like manure odor.”
“I know.”
“Maybe we should just eat pizza and stop talking.”
“Good idea.”
They got halfway through the pizza before calling it quits. Amanda topped off their wineglasses and curled back into the couch.
“Is it bad to want a tycoon?” Charity said after a moment, reaching for a faded, battered paperback, the book apparently well read, and much loved.
“I suppose it depends on why you want him.”
“I just want a man who will love me, but also, make things easier, not harder.” She stared down at the book on her lap, studying the cover of the novel. “Men not like Dad,” she added under her breath.
Mandy heard, though.
She lifted her head and looked at Charity, at the same moment Charity looked at her, and nothing else needed to be said because Amanda knew what Charity was thinking, just as Charity knew what Amanda was thinking.
“A man that can hold down a job, and not botch everything up because he can’t stay sober.” Charity’s voice was rough with emotion. “A man with pride and self-respect who wouldn’t dream of expecting his daughters to pay his bills because he’d rather drink than get sober.”
Amanda closed her eyes, holding her breath, hating the wash of pain.
“I’m so angry he did that to you,” Charity added quietly, fiercely. “I’m so mad that he nearly ruined everything for you.”
Only Charity knew Mandy had destroyed her own credit last year, trying to help her parents when they couldn’t pay their bills. Neither Charity nor Amanda had told Jenny, certain Jenny would feel obligated to rush in and help—again—and so Amanda decided she’d shoulder the responsibility this time, but it had cost her, dearly. If it wasn’t for Bette, Amanda wouldn’t have been able to close on her new salon.
“Dad has a problem,” Amanda said after a moment.
“And Mom doesn’t do anything about it.”
“Mom’s still afraid Dad might walk out.”
“Why? That makes me crazy, because where would he go? What would he do? Mom takes care of everything for him. They’re seriously dysfunctional.”
“This is why Jenny insisted we go to college.”
“And paid for our college.”
“She didn’t want us to end up without an education, or skills.”
“She didn’t want us to be Mom.”
Charity returned the pink paperback to the ottoman. “That’s sad.”
And it was, Amanda thought, leaning forward to begin stacking the books into four tidy piles. Their mom had once been beautiful. She’d told her girls that in high school she’d won a modeling competition hosted by a local photographer and was told she had a bright future ahead of her, if she was willing to move to New York.
Apparently she wasn’t, or couldn’t, because two years later she was nineteen and pregnant with Jenny.
“I don’t think we can look at it that way,” Amanda said after a moment. “I think we have to be grateful Jenny was so level-headed and practical. If it weren’t for her, neither of us would have gone to college. We wouldn’t have thought it was possible. We wouldn’t have thought anything was possible.”
“Maybe Jenny was the smart one. She didn’t read romances and she didn’t daydream, and she didn’t give in to fantasies about the way the world could be, and yet she still fell in love, and found her prince. He was from Marietta, too.”
Mandy pushed the four piles together, making them one large square. “Maybe we need to leave Marietta.”
“What?”
“I’m just beginning to think that we’re never going to escape the past, or the names people used to call us.”
“But that’s all in the past!”
“Is it? Then why does Tyler Justice think I’m trying to take advantage of Bette?”
“He doesn’t!”
“He does. He asked me if I knew her finances—”
“He didn’t!”
“He did. And he hasn’t put it in these exact words, but he seems to think I’m a manipulative gold digger—”
“If that’s true, I won’t want to be part of his fan club anymore. But are you sure he really thinks that, or are you possibly being a little sensitive?” Charity jumped from her seat onto the couch and wrapped her arms around her younger sister. “And I wouldn’t blame you for being sensitive because you’re as honest as they come, but he’s an outsider and he doesn’t know that.”
“If Bette hadn’t given me a loan, he’d respect my accomplishments,” she answered darkly.
“I’m sure he respects what you’ve done. How can he not? You’ve started your own business. You have all these truly fantastic ideas on how to expand it, and that takes guts, and vision. Jenny played it safe as a secretary, working for others. I’ve gone the same route. But you’re doing your own thing and it’s impressive, so don’t let anyone make you feel inferior.”
Charity’s advice and pep talk was exactly what Amanda needed, but later that night, as Amanda struggled to fall asleep, she heard a little voice asking why did she care so much about Tyler’s opinion in the first place?
Why should she care about what he thought?
The answer was so obvious, it annoyed her. She liked him, and not just a little, but the kind of attraction that made her feel fizzy and excited and a little breathless every time she was near him.
Just thinking about him now made her heart go faster.
Now if only he could see the best in her, not the worst.
The weekend arrived, bringing with it beautiful weather, the temperature positively balmy for Montana for the last weekend of February. Amanda attended the early morning service at St. James and then returned home and changed and paid a visit to the local mercantile to buy paint.
Home again, she gave the charming picket fence in front of her house a fresh coat of white paint, and since she had the fence done by noon, she tackled the house, giving it a lovely, fresh coat of paint, too, because wasn’t everything better when it was pink?
Charity, Sadie, and Tricia all joined her after lunch, and then Sadie’s husband, Rory, came over when he realized Sadie was on a tall ladder, trying to paint the second floor. Rory made a few calls and by midafternoon he had a half dozen cowboy friends showing up with paint brushes, an
d the entire house was completed by dinner.
While Amanda cleaned all the brushes, Charity called a to-go order into the Chinese restaurant for dinner for twelve, and Tricia went to pick up plastic cups and wine, and they all ate sitting on the front porch and in folding chairs in the lawn, as twilight turned to dusk and then the dark lavender blue of night. She turned on her porch lights and the fairy lights she strung in her trees year round, and returned to her folding chair, now bundled in a winter coat, she kept smiling at her pink house with the soft aqua front door.
It was outrageous, and rather shocking, but it was also fun, and it’d be beautiful come summer when all the lavender bushes bloomed.
Maybe this would be the year her climbing roses took off. And maybe she could find some clematis that would flower, too.
Maybe tough alpha men wouldn’t really hate a pink Barbie dream house.
Shifting in her folding chair, she lifted her plastic tumbler, and toasted her friends. “Thank you, everyone, for pitching in today. I really, really appreciate you. It wouldn’t have happened without you.”
“That might have been a good thing,” one of Rory’s cowboy friends teased from the back.
Charity made a face. “I love the pink house,” she said to Amanda, “and most of all, I love you.”
Amanda blew her sister a kiss and, tipping her head back, studied her house. She felt full of so many emotions, most good, but also a tiny bit wistful. Today was pretty much perfect. The only thing that could have made it better was having Tyler here, and seeing more of her world. She suspected, though, that if he was here, he wouldn’t have been supportive of the paint job, never mind being part of the painting party, and the painting party was what made her love Marietta so very much. Here, people helped people. Even when it meant turning a perfectly respectable white house rose.
Monday morning Tyler woke to a text from the CEO of TexTron. In a bid to placate an angry board, he’d made the difficult decision to sell the entire entertainment division. The entertainment division was likely to be broken up in the sale, with different arms of the division going to different buyers. The CEO had been approached a month ago with an offer from a company interested in acquiring Justice Games, offering a significant amount of money and the CEO planned on accepting the offer today, which meant that Tyler was free to move on to different things.
