Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  She wrinkled her nose and seemed to think about this. “The fewer people who know we’re pretending, the better, I guess.”

  Great. The pressure just doubled—there’d be no chance to take a breath, let down my guard.

  “Is that okay?” she asked, sounding sincerely sorry.

  “It’s fine, Juliet. That’s what I agreed to, right? I save your image, you save my career.”

  She smiled and laughed, but it was a practiced response. “We’ll see what we can manage on both counts.”

  “So this is your sister’s house?” The car had turned between the tall brick posts of a wrought iron fence and was headed down a long gravel drive between two fields of what looked like corn. “Is your sister a farmer?” I angled my head at the crop, shadowed and eerie in the moonlight.

  Juliet laughed. “No,” she said. “She runs a river adventure shop, actually, teaching people to kayak, stand-up paddleboard, do yoga on the river, that kind of thing. There’s a family that lives across the road here that farms the property. And the house is really my grandmother’s, but my sister lives here and looks after her.”

  “That’s nice of her.”

  “It is,” she agreed, though something in her voice was hesitant. “Gran’s kind of a handful.”

  The woman was about to turn ninety. I doubted she could be too much of a handful.

  “So it’s like a farm? Animals and stuff?”

  Juliet laughed, something wistful in the sound as she leaned back into the seat and stared out the window. “Used to have. She loved horses, but can’t care for them now. She still has chickens, some goats…”

  “Pigs?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine a farm without pigs. I’d seen the Wizard of Oz, after all.

  Juliet’s face lost its smile. “No, and definitely don’t bring up pigs around Gran.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. Juliet sounded strangely alarmed and I needed to understand why.

  “She hates pigs. Like really hates them.”

  “Who hates pigs? They’re so cute. Look.” I pulled up a gif of a pig waving a pinwheel out a car window. “Cute.”

  “Not cute. She thinks pigs are possessed by the devil.”

  Gran did sound like a handful, I decided. “Huh.”

  “Something about being attacked at the Achilles tendon by one at some point.”

  I had no idea what to say to that, so another “huh” escaped me and I turned my attention back to the windows.

  After a moment, a huge two-story brick house came into view, lit up against the darkness, with wings reaching out on each side of the main structure. There were huge trees towering over the smaller wings, casting parts of the enormous structure into shadow. A fountain stood in the center of the circular drive, surrounded by a lawn that rolled around the property and spread out beyond. The whole place was lit up like a national monument. I guess maybe because they were expecting us.

  On one side of the house, the lawn reached down a hill and I thought there might be water back there, shaded by trees hanging at the bank.

  “It’s incredible,” I said, my voice holding a reverence I hadn’t intended. I’d seen plenty of waterfront property, but this wasn’t Malibu. There was something much more stately and reserved about this kind of luxury, about the way it was tucked quietly back here along the shore of a river. I’d never had known Maryland had houses like this or that Juliet had grown up in one. Not that I knew much about Juliet.

  “It was a plantation originally,” she explained as the car pulled to a stop in front of the house. “The original house was actually built in early 1700, and it’s evolved over the years. The British took over the property during the War of 1812 when they blockaded the Chesapeake,” she was saying, but my attention was no longer on Juliet’s words or on the hulking historic house before us. It was laser-focused on something else. Someone else.

  A woman had just stepped out the front door and stood on the front steps, watching our car with wide eyes, dark hair cascading in waves around her face as the lights caught her in their glow.

  Juliet stopped speaking, following my gaze out the window. “And that,” she said. “Is my little sister. Tess.”

  Tess. Everything I didn’t feel when I looked at Juliet jumped to attention when I spotted her sister.

  The weekend had just become a whole lot more interesting.

  Chapter 4

  Tess

  Gran had gone to bed by the time two dark cars pulled into the driveway. Juliet had called an hour ago, so I’d been watching for them, unsure how to feel about seeing her with my ridiculous celebrity crush. I bit a nail as I stepped out onto the porch to greet them.

  My sister slid from the back seat of the car looking every bit the movie star she was. I hoped everything was going to meet her standards. The security guys had looked around the property for God-only-knew what, and asked me questions about our alarm system (nonexistent), our security perimeter (also nonexistent) and our emergency evacuation CONOPS (seriously? Once they explained what a “CONOPS” was—a concept of operations, in case you’re wondering—I explained that was also nonexistent).

  My big sister Juliet lived in a world I could barely begin to understand, where movie stars were people you actually knew. People like Ryan McDonnell.

  Sigh. Deep, lovelorn sigh.

  My sister had never really belonged here, and she didn’t fit in any better now, with slim-fitted pink capris and high-heeled sandals. The second I saw her, I felt myself inching toward invisibility again. I loved her, but my life worked better when Juliet wasn’t standing at my side, begging the world to wonder how two sisters could be so different.

  I pushed down my own insecurities and smiled at her.

  “You look great,” I told her. It was true. She always looked great.

  “Hey,” she said in that breathy voice she’d become famous for. She pulled me into a tight hug, smiled at me, and then took a step back, ducking her chin a tiny bit as she said, “I want to introduce you to someone.”

  A pair of long jean-clad legs slid out of the car behind her, attached to a broad tall body that I already knew too well was Ryan McDonnell. I was more than familiar with this particular ‘someone.’ He’d been my on-screen crush forever, though I hadn’t seen him in anything lately. There had been a movie I hadn’t seen—one that hadn’t done too well, but it included zombies, which were not my thing, even if you added in Ryan McDonnell hotness.

  The object of my movie star affections had bright blue eyes, perfectly tousled dark hair—cropped close now, I noticed—and a body that appeared to have been carved from stone, or so I’d thought in the last role I’d seen him in as a comic book hero reimagined as a dark avenger. God, he was hot.

  “Tess?” My sister’s voice cut through my stupor.

  “Sorry,” I said, shaking off the dreamy haze. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” He asked me, a smile spreading slowly across the perfect lips I couldn’t stop staring at. He chuckled, and I realized he hadn’t asked me a question. Embarrassment surged inside me, making my stomach churn.

  “No,” I said, covering my affirmative declaration with an equally unnecessary negative word. “Or, I … um, hello.”

  “I apologize for the short notice,” Ryan said letting my idiocy slide. People probably acted like loons around him all the time. I tried not to look at him, but there were parts of my body that were not listening at all to my brain. Ryan’s smile was like a speeding train coming right at me and freezing me to the spot where I stood, stupid and dazed. “I hope it’s not an inconvenience having us both here,” he said.

  I watched his perfect full lips as he spoke, almost unable to process the actual words. I was having trouble being human, thanks to his actual existence right in front of me.

  “Sure,” I said, my voice higher than I remembered it being.

  More answering questions no one asked. My sister was smiling at me, shaking her head. Juliet knew about my long-time Ryan McDonnell affliction, and it was pretty obvi
ous at this point. I hated that she undoubtedly knew I was flustered just trying to form actual words around her new boyfriend.

  I forced myself back to sanity.

  “Can I help get your things?” I had no idea if it would be weird to acknowledge his status as my favorite actor or if it was rude to pretend I had no idea who he was.

  I settled for a moronic silence on the topic.

  Juliet put her arm around me. “You don’t need to get the bags,” she said lightly, as two of the men from her security team emerged from a second car, all black T-shirts and muscled arms pulling suitcases from the trunk.

  Of course not. My sister had people for that.

  I’d given the security guys a few rooms in the east wing of the house. With only Gran and me here, we barely even went into most of the rooms on that side, but I’d managed to get a few rooms decent. The house was hardly celebrity material the way we usually lived, the two of us moving mostly through three or four rooms. Gran had talked me into setting up her gaming computer in what had once been the formal parlor because it was the warmest room in the house and Gran was always chilly. The setup—with her dual monitors and the noisy fan-cooled computer coupled with her gigantic ergonomic gaming chair—hadn’t really contributed much to the general décor or historic feel of the place, though, and I’d spent the last hour moving it since talking to my sister about some magazine feature Juliet thought would be happening this weekend.

  I couldn’t wait for Gran to wake up to find I’d moved her beloved computer.

  “I wasn’t sure where to put you,” I said, looking at my sister as we entered the house and headed upstairs to the west wing after pointing out the east side to the security crew. “They’re over there, and I set up the two rooms across the hall from each other up here for you.” Those rooms had been ours when we’d come to visit as kids. “I wasn’t sure if you and, er … Ryan, would be sharing a room.”

  There was a question in my voice, and I wished I could reel back time and sound a bit more confident, but there was an unfamiliar feeling ricocheting around inside me.

  I was having a hard time believing that my sister was dating Ryan McDonnell. And that she hadn’t mentioned who exactly she’d be bringing, just that she had a new boyfriend who’d be joining her. If I hadn’t seen the Internet video, I’d have been far less prepared than I was now for meeting Ryan. At least, with a bit of notice, I’d been almost verbal. If I’d had no idea and he’d just popped out of the car like that, I probably would’ve fainted.

  “We’ll take them both and play it by ear,” she said, smiling at Ryan with her eyes aglow, shimmering like they shared ten thousand secrets together.

  My stomach churned with what I was horrified to admit was jealousy.

  Ryan reached out and traced a gentle finger down her cheek, returning the look.

  “Um. So.” I wasn’t sure if I was intruding by speaking when he was looking at her like that. I cleared my throat. “Are you hungry? I mean…it’s late, but you’ve been traveling.”

  “I’m okay,” Juliet said. “Tired mostly. Ryan?”

  He shrugged and smiled at me, “I can always eat. But if it’s any trouble, I can wait until breakfast.”

  “No trouble,” I said, something multi-legged spinning around inside me, making it hard to stand still as it jigged and jumped.

  “Do you mind helping him find something?” Juliet asked. “I might just go to bed.”

  “Yes, well, sure…” I was still not coherent. This wasn’t good.

  “Okay, great,” Juliet said, giving Ryan a quick kiss on the cheek and heading into one of the rooms I’d set up for them.

  “I might just grab a quick rinse to wash off the flight,” Ryan said. “I’ll be five minutes,” he said, grinning and then disappearing into the bedroom behind me. The one Juliet hadn’t gone into, which seemed a little odd, but I was too busy trying to recover my ability to speak to worry much about it.

  I tried hard not to think about the fact that he was very likely taking his clothes off in there, stepping into the tiny bathroom for a shower. Ryan McDonnell. Naked. In my house.

  Juliet stepped back out of her room, frowning. “I just realized I didn’t really even get to say hi,” she said, pulling me into a hug. “I hope this is all okay, having Ryan and me.”

  My sister held me tightly and I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent that I remembered, her nearness erasing all the distance created by the fact that she lived all the way across the country and was more famous than the president. She was still my big sister, and I’d missed her. For a long time, we’d been partners and best friends. And it was good to have her back.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s good. Gran will be thrilled to see you.”

  “I wish it wasn’t so late. I want to say hi, introduce Ryan.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “Although she’s going to be pretty pissed off because I moved the game rig to the back of the house.”

  Juliet’s mouth formed a little “o.” “She’s still obsessed with that game?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Pretty much.”

  “I thought you were going to wean her off of it.” Her eyes narrowed at me.

  “She’s so mean when I don’t let her play.” I heard the whining tone in my voice and tried to squash it. “I figure there’s not much harm. She’s ninety years old—who am I to tell her what she can and can’t do?”

  “It can’t be good for her,” Juliet said.

  “She doesn’t smoke as much pot when she’s playing,” I pointed out. “So I think it’s actually good for her health.”

  Juliet shook her head, one blond tendril escaping her messy bun and falling down around her cheek.

  “So this thing with Ryan,” I said, walking around one side of her bed to smooth a fold in the duvet I hadn’t noticed before. “Is it pretty … uh … serious?” I hated the way my stomach clenched as I waited for her answer.

  She pressed her lips together and glanced to one side before she answered, and then gave a quick shake of her head. “I don’t know.” She threw out a false little laugh.

  Something was up. That was the Juliet trifecta. She might be the country’s most popular actress, but I could see through her. The side-glance and the lip press were hallmarks of a Juliet Manchester untruth.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I took a step closer.

  “There’s nothing to tell, Tess. Zac was a shit, and now I’m seeing Ryan.” She turned. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Good night,” I said, my mind still trying to work out what she wasn’t saying. She didn’t seem as excited as I would be to be dating the hottest man on Earth. I left Juliet in her room, and stepped into my own room a few feet down the corridor.

  I needed a moment before I could attempt to act like a normal person and help Ryan find something to eat. I stepped into my own room’s ensuite bathroom and closed the door behind me.

  I stared into the mirror. I could handle this. I could figure out how to form coherent words around my sister’s new boyfriend, and I could figure out how to stifle the pointless jealousy I felt that of all the men in the world, she had chosen him.

  It was ridiculous to be jealous. That’s just how her life was.

  But it was difficult for me ever to prepare myself for the churn of feelings my sister stirred up in me. It was like the second she was near, I shrank down and became invisible. Now, as grownups, I felt like I should have been able to hold my own. I wasn’t an insecure teenager anymore, after all. And I loved my sister, I really did. But she had a way of sucking all the air out of a space, of pulling every eye and mind and leaving no room for anyone else.

  And God, having her here with Ryan McDonnell? I was going to be a disaster all weekend.

  “It’ll be fine,” I told myself. “Once you get past your fanatic crush and see that he’s just a normal person, it’ll be fine.”

  He was just a normal, very hot person who, of course, probably loved
my sister.

  And why wouldn’t he love Juliet? Everyone always had. Hell, even I loved Juliet in a ridiculously overprotective and self-sacrificing way. That was just the effect she had on people. That was what compelled people to her on screen.

  It was kind of like the effect Ryan had on me. I would have been happy just to watch him move. Hell, I’d be happy watching him breathe.

  “Tess?” I heard his deep voice just outside my door and my heart hammered into action. So much for normal.

  “Yes, coming,” I called back, my own voice sounding high and bizarre, like a crazed squirrel. I stepped back out into the hallway to find him standing in a fitted white South Bay Sharks T-shirt, a pair of dark jeans, and his hair wet and pushed away from his face. He smelled like soap and something else I could only describe as absolute manly perfection. With a hint of mint.

  “I’ll show you the kitchen,” I managed to say. I found it was easier to speak to him if I didn’t look at him. Or breathe. Or think too much. “We’ve got some leftovers from dinner.”

  I turned and we went down the stairs, my hyperawareness of Ryan’s presence at my back making me feel dizzy and loopy. Still, we arrived in the long galley kitchen without incident, and I waved toward the little table at the side of the space.

  “This house is amazing,” he said, wandering the length of the counter and peering out the windows toward the back yard. At the end of the counter were bags of flour and cans of cherries and a huge block of dark chocolate I’d gotten from the little chocolate store in town. “And whatever is about to happen here looks pretty amazing, too.”

  “Oh, that’s going to be a cake,” I told him. “If I can figure out how to actually bake.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me, shooting me a smile that might have actually caused my panties to disintegrate.

  I was so screwed.

  “I’m a decent baker, actually,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Black forest cake?” He asked, holding up a can of cherries.

  “Gran’s favorite.” I was leaning against the counter next to the refrigerator, my arms crossed over my chest as I considered him. I didn’t really need new reasons to appreciate the man, but if he could actually help me make the cake I’d promised Gran, I might be willing to add baking to the things I loved about him. “I ordered a bunch of decorations to put on top… but the actual making of the cake might be a little beyond me. I can cook. But baking…”