Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  “So when you’re working,” I began. “You kayak? Juliet said you were an adventure guide.”

  She nodded, the eyes brightening again. “That’s right. Kayaks, canoes, stand up paddleboards. If you can do it on the water, I’m on it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Anything? Water skiing? Snorkeling?”

  “Yes and yes.” She rose to my challenge, her chest pushing forward as she crossed her arms.

  “What else?”

  A laugh escaped her. “Name it. We just started doing yoga on stand up paddleboards.”

  “That sounds more like swimming.” I imagined myself attempting a yoga pose and toppling off the board into the water.

  “That’s why we wear life jackets,” she said, smiling. “Want to try it?”

  I wanted to try pretty much anything that would find me with Tess Manchester wearing a bathing suit. “Sure.”

  She grinned, but then her face dropped. “We’ve got these cakes to finish,” she said. “And by the time they’re done, it’ll be getting dark.”

  My heart jumped a bit at her clear disappointment. Did Tess want to spend time with me the way I found myself looking for reasons to be with her? “I’d love to try it sometime,” I said, realizing I was making plans again. My stomach saved me, offering a distraction with an audible growl.

  “Maybe we should eat something.”

  “I’m not super hungry,” she said, “but I can find something for you.”

  “I’m always hungry.” I grinned at her. “I can hunt for a snack if that’s okay. You don’t have to go to any trouble.”

  “No, you sit. I have some crab cakes in here, I think.” Tess was already pulling a plate from the refrigerator.

  I sat up straighter. Yum. “Crab cakes?”

  Tess brought the plate my way to show me the tasty round mounds and my mouth began watering. “Did you make these?” I asked her.

  “I make them every week. Gran likes to have them pretty regularly. Do they look okay to you?”

  “They look amazing.”

  She heated them for a minute or two in the microwave, and I watched her move around the kitchen, trying not to be obvious. She was graceful and strong, and I wanted to know everything about her. After a moment, Tess put the plate down and then sat across from me, watching me as I began to eat.

  “This is amazing,” I told Tess, pointing my fork at the crab cake on my plate.

  “Well, it is what we’re known for,” she said, her voice almost a mocking song. “You come to Maryland, you get crabs.”

  I raised an eyebrow, unable to keep the grin from my face. “That should be the state motto.”

  She laughed, and a blush crawled up her neck, spreading over the line of her delicate jaw. When she laughed, it was a breathy sound that pulled at something inside me and made my stomach jump. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  I chuckled and kept eating, but sensed she had something else to say. I glanced at her, a silent invitation to talk.

  “So this afternoon,” she began. “In the tent …”

  She was going to ask me about those few heady seconds when she’d been so close I could just catch that delicate jasmine scent coming from her skin, when I’d let my eyes drop to her plump pink lips, slid my hands around her little waist, and actually thought about kissing her. I’d been a second away from letting instinct take charge—when my better judgment had kicked in. Or maybe Tess had stepped away.

  Either way, I was not here to romance hot little sisters. I was here to get the boost being associated with Juliet would give my career. I was here to be her costar in the promised film being cast when we returned. Even if my heart had begun trying to elbow my mind out of the way to take charge.

  “Yeah, so, glad I could help with that,” I said quickly, hoping she’d go with it.

  She shook her head, her adorable brow wrinkling and a breathy laugh coming from her that made me wonder what other breathy sounds I could get her to make. “Okay.” She frowned, seemed to decide something. “Yeah. Thanks for helping.” She stared at her cup for a long minute.

  Then she set her teacup on the table and peered up at me from beneath dark lashes. Her almost ebony hair was pulled back into a loose high ponytail and I couldn’t help imagining my hand wrapped in that dark hair, my body pressed up against hers. “Look, Ryan. I’m not a movie star,” she continued. “I don’t live the lifestyle you and my sister do, and I don’t know what’s typical in Hollywood, California. I’m more familiar with Hollywood, Maryland, and—”

  “There’s a place called Hollywood, Maryland?” I didn't really mean to interrupt her. But once I had, I thought I might be able to derail the dangerous train she was heading my way.

  “Yes, actually. It’s just north of California, Maryland.” A little smile lifted one corner of her mouth.

  “There’s a place called California, Maryland?” This was a strange state.

  She nodded. “I know. It’s weird.”

  “Weird,” I agreed, glad we seemed to be veering away from discussing what had happened in the tent that afternoon.

  Just then, the oven timer dinged, and I stood, maybe too quickly, to pull the first pan from the oven. With cakes this big, I didn’t want to put more than one pan in at a time.

  “How’s it look?” she asked, peering over my shoulder as I set it on the cooling rack. She wasn’t touching me, but it didn’t matter. Every cell in my body lit up at her proximity and my dick decided this cake-baking thing was some kind of complex foreplay and that maybe now was a good time for him to wake up. I’d had enough trouble calming the guy down after the barn earlier.

  I took a wooden skewer and inserted it in the center of the pan, pulling it out clean. A totally misplaced pride washed through me. I didn’t fail in front of her. So there was something.

  “Looks good,” I said.

  “Here we go.” She slid the second pan in, and I closed the door once it was settled, moving back to my seat.

  “Look, the thing is,” Tess said, picking up the thread of conversation where the timer had interrupted it. “I just … I’m not used to being around movie stars, I guess. It’s just, I mean the way you touched me this afternoon…” Her eyes met mine and there was something vulnerable in her gaze, so pleading and innocent—I felt something protective shift inside me, a feeling I needed to hold firm. She was not mine to protect.

  She shook her head, as if to force her thoughts to fall into line. “Things are just pretty simple here most of the time, that’s all.”

  “You fucking hackers!” Gran’s voice came from somewhere deeper in the house, causing my head to snap toward the doorway. What in the world?

  “Is she … um, should we go check on her?” Gran was an interesting character. I didn’t know what she was up to, but I was starting to like her almost as much as I liked her granddaughter, Tess. Although right now Gran sounded pretty angry.

  “No, she’s fine. It’s her game.”

  Game? I wasn’t sure what game Tess meant, and just as I was about to ask, Gran’s voice came again.

  “You can’t fucking camp the spawn! You can’t camp the spawn, you fucking hackers!”

  Tess just smiled at me, her eyes dancing. “You really shouldn’t camp the spawn. It’s not polite.”

  The question I was about to ask must have been clear on my face as I started to smile, and Tess answered quickly.

  “World of Warcraft. She’s addicted.”

  “Oh,” I said, the confusion turning to amusement as I leaned back in my chair. “I had a roommate in college who played that. He ended up failing out. Never went to class.”

  “He was probably camping the spawn,” she suggested, grinning.

  “Must have been.” I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, though I’d played my roommate’s game a few times, but I’d sit here joking about it all night if it meant getting to see Tess smile like that again. The warm feeling I’d had being in this kitchen with her the night before returned. It was
homey and close, and so fucking right it terrified me.

  I needed to watch myself. It would be so easy to lean into this reassuring comfort. But Tess wasn’t the Manchester sister I was supposed to lean into.

  “Sorry. She’s nuts. But she’s happy, so …” Tess smiled. “Look. I don’t know exactly what happened outside today. Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing.”

  I was about to jump in, to let her know that she definitely didn’t hallucinate it. The memory playing on constant loop in my brain, and the way my dick jumped to attention every time I let myself focus on that memory could attest to that.

  But Tess went on. “I shouldn’t even tell you this …” she laughed lightly, one of my favorite sounds. “I’m probably just bound to read too much into things because I’ve had this ridiculous movie-star crush on you literally forever.” That laugh again.

  My body stirred to life when she said this, my heart doing a little tap dance in my chest. “Seriously?”

  The blush brightened her skin again, and I had to grip the edge of the table to keep my fingers from chasing it up her cheek. “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head lightly. “So maybe it makes it hard to separate reality from years of seeing you in movies. But you’re with my sister. So maybe don’t touch me. It’s just confusing, you know?”

  I nodded, sure the pain of my disappointment must show on my face. She was right, she was only telling me what I already knew. So why did I feel like I was losing something? “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry, Tess.”

  I was. I was sorry for putting her in a situation that had made her uncomfortable. I had to do better. Somehow.

  “I’ll hold my fan-girling back, but in small towns like this, you can’t just go around … touching people.” She said this as if she knew the idea that I’d almost kissed her had absolutely nothing to do with some misguided belief on my part that it was totally normal behavior. She was giving me an out.

  “I’m really sorry, Tess. I shouldn’t have touched you like that. It was just… it kind of felt like there was a moment out there, and …” I wanted to tell her how my blood rushed when I stood near her, how my mind stopped turning when that light scent of hers wafted my way. “I guess both Manchester sisters are pretty irresistible.”

  Her face smoothed, becoming an inscrutable mask as her shoulders stiffened. She blew out a little breath that sounded a lot like frustration, and I had the distinct sense I’d put my foot in my mouth. “I mean, no. That isn’t what I meant.” But it was too late. Her eyes blazed as she took a breath and fixed me in my seat.

  “Can I ask you a question?” She said after a brief silence.

  “Yeah, of course.” My voice revealed just a hint too much of the longing I felt for her. I wasn’t sure if she heard it.

  “You came here dating my sister, nearly kissed me earlier, and just told me the Manchester sisters are essentially interchangeable in your mind. Don’t you think that makes you a bit of an asshole?”

  Oh God. Is that what I said? It wasn’t what I’d meant to say at all. “I think it came out wrong.”

  The light did not come back into her eyes and I had a sudden desperate churning feeling in my stomach, like I needed to fix this immediately.

  “I’m not sure there’s a right way for that to come out. This is a small town, Ryan. Maybe we do things differently here than in places like Hollywood. We’re careful with people’s feelings.” She paused, straightening her shoulders. “And if you hurt my sister after everything she’s been through … or if I find out you’re just using her…” she trailed off and the warning in her words lingered in the air between us.

  “I don’t want to,” I told her, guilt flooding every cell in my body and sending the semi-erection I’d had all through our baking adventure wilting like an ashamed flower. Because wasn’t that the deal I’d made? I was going to use Juliet, with her permission, to advance my own career, to land myself the financial security I hadn’t found so far. “Of course,” I said, my stomach twisting with what felt a lot like a lie.

  “Good,” Tess said, standing and carrying her cup to the sink. “Well, thanks for your help with the cake, movie star Ryan McDonnell. I can get it from here.”

  I was being dismissed. And even though it made my heart ache to realize it, maybe it was for the best. I made a promise to Juliet. And I needed to keep it. Spending too much time with her sister, no matter what my soul seemed to be telling me, would only complicate things.

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay, sure.”

  I turned and left the kitchen, heading back upstairs to try to get my head on straight.

  I couldn’t let my heart move closer to Tess Manchester and still honor my contract with Juliet.

  Chapter 8

  Tess

  I finished baking the cakes myself, feeling the quiet and emptiness around me—it almost felt as if things had gone back to normal. Just me here on my own, Gran screeching intermittently at her computer, and Chessy flapping around here and there. Though Chessy had been distracted since Juliet’s entourage had arrived. But even with four guards and two movie stars in the house, it was easy to feel at this moment that I was just as alone as usual.

  I let my mind trace over the events of the day so far. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the moments in the barn and tent were the most exciting I’d had in years. Maybe ever. But Ryan’s words, about both Manchester sisters being irresistible, kept coming back to me too. And I kept reminding myself what a shitty thing that was for him to say—or at least how shitty it was to act on it, to assume that just because he was Ryan-fucking-McDonnell, he could almost-kiss whomever he liked.

  What bothered me most was that some part of what he’d said didn’t feel entirely true. And he didn’t really seem like an asshole.

  I couldn’t explain it, but something in my gut had clenched at his words, had signaled that something might be off. But I doubted I could trust my gut where hot movie stars were concerned, and besides, it was unlikely that anyone interested in my sister would look twice at me. In fact, I’d had plenty of experience with guys who’d seemed interested in me at first then suddenly became interested in my sister after meeting her.

  I’d even had a guy I was dating fall in love with my sister after she’d moved away. He’d fallen for her when she wasn’t even here—when there was no real possibility of him even meeting her. He’d found out my sister was the famous Juliet Manchester, and become convinced that if he could just hang around long enough to meet her, she’d fall for him too. Gran had taken care of that guy for me, ushering him directly back out the front door with the gun in her hand after I’d told her what was up.

  “You deserve better, Tessy,” she’d said, waving the barrel around over our heads as if to make her point.

  I’d taken the gun from her and tried to smile, wishing my heart could believe her words as much as she seemed to. I didn’t know what I deserved exactly. But maybe years of being jealous of my sister had poisoned karma against me. Maybe I deserved to be alone.

  I hoped that wasn’t true. And I was tired of being alone. Being with Ryan today had been strange—but nice. I was wildly attracted to him, sure. But even as the initial shock of hanging out with the actual human version of my movie star fantasy had begun to wear off, there was something really nice about being with him, if I just overlooked the way it ended.

  Nice wasn’t really the word I wanted to use. It was so much more than that. It was heady and powerful, basic and simple. It was like I was supposed to be with him, but I knew that didn’t make any sense.

  Because Ryan was Juliet’s boyfriend.

  I could hear them talking in the front room with Gran as I pulled the final layer of cake from the oven. I’d frost and decorate it tomorrow.

  Dinner was going to be simple. I grilled some fish, made a green salad and put a pitcher of lemonade and one of iced tea in the center of the table, and then wandered the house, calling out that it was dinner time. Two of the guards came in the front door, and Chessy’s favori
te, Jack, was already out on the back porch.

  “Shoo, chicken,” he said waving his hands down at Chessy. But when I poked my head out there to see if anyone else had come down yet, Chessy was running at him, butting her head into his shins, a sign of chicken affection. I called up the stairs, and heard doors open and feet moving. After stepping through Gran’s new gaming room and having a small argument about her being in the midst of a quest, she came outside. It was early enough in the summer that it wasn’t stifling hot, and when the breeze picked up off the river, the mosquitos weren’t too bad.

  The meal was quiet. Juliet mostly stared off into the distance, looking haunted and sad, while Ryan didn’t say much either. Gran shoveled her food down and then stood.

  “I’m missing a raid tonight,” she said, sounding grumpy. “I thought y’all would be more fun than this. It’s like everyone’s practicing for starring in some shitty soap opera. Is “Life Sucks and Then You Die” filming here tomorrow? It’s supposed to be my birthday this weekend!”

  “Gran!” I said, wishing sometimes I could slip something into her Manhattans to make her more polite.

  Juliet stood and went around to wrap Gran in a hug. “I’m sorry Gran. I’m distracted.”

  “What’s his excuse?” She asked, pointing at Ryan. “Or theirs?”

  The four big men at the table looked embarrassed and muttered apologies before turning back to their food.

  Ryan actually blushed, and shook his head lightly. “I apologize, ma’am. I’ve been a terrible guest.” He looked between Gran and me as he said it, as if part of that apology was meant for me. My earlier anger had already softened, and now I found it hard to locate at all.

  “Hmph.” Gran wasn’t letting this go easily. Evidently she’d expected quite a bit more entertainment from our famous guests than she was getting.