Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  I hated that idea and it caused a visceral reaction, my stomach turning my muscles tensing. I frowned, wishing I could see her eyes behind the shades. “Is that what you want?”

  She laughed, but it held no joy at all. “What I want? I just want to go back to my regular life where I know what’s going on and movie stars don’t pop in, kiss me, and then make wild proposals about moving to Maryland.”

  “What if we went back to before I made a wild proposal, and just stayed at the kissing part?” A man could hope. Maybe if we took things more slowly, Tess would come around. I knew—because I’d been the one kissing her—that there was more here than she was willing to admit. If I could give her some time, I suspected she might be more willing to admit it.

  She parked and turned off the engine, turning to look at me and finally pulling the shades from her eyes. “My sister might be good at pretending,” she said. “But I live in the real world. I like you, Ryan. I mean—I was kind of helpless in all this. I’ve been kind of in love with some image of you forever, so how could I not want to kiss the real thing?”

  A thrill went through me at the thought of Tess being in love with any version of me. I was about to speak, my mouth eager to fill the void, to apologize some more for being rash, to convince her that I could back off. But she lifted a finger and I snapped my mouth shut.

  “We could maybe go back to the kissing part,” she said. “But you can’t say things about moving, about staying. It’s too much, way too soon, and even though I know you’re insane and it would never really happen, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from believing just a tiny bit that you might do it. And then, when you left …”

  “I get it.” Her explanation was perfect, and it rekindled the hopeful desire that had been growing inside me. Her eyes were sad as she spoke, those full lips nearly pouting as she said the words, and I just wanted to pull her into my arms again. God help me, I wanted to bury myself in her and never come up for air.

  “Okay, good.” She turned and got out of the car, and I realized my heart was racing. I took a deep breath and stepped out too, catching her hand before she could climb the steps to the house.

  She turned and looked up at me, her eyes cloudy and dark. I traced my thumb over her full bottom lip, and she exhaled, her warm breath dancing over my skin. I leaned in slightly, careful and slow, not sure exactly where we stood now. But Tess didn’t back away, and as my lips brushed hers, all hesitation slid away. Whatever else we lacked—geographical convenience, similar lifestyles—we made up for in chemistry.

  Our lips met and Tess’s tongue found mine, pieces of a puzzle that had been apart too long. She nipped at my bottom lip, pulling a groan from somewhere deep inside me, and then somehow she was in my arms, and our bodies reached for one another. My mind was flying, my body warming and tightening, and I wondered if her intention was to have her way with me here in the driveway, because she was suddenly so driven. Her hands were pulling at my clothes and the most incredible little moans were coming from her mouth. I wanted to throw her down and take her right there on the ground.

  As images of Tess in every compromising position I could imagine flew through my mind and my body began to take over, a sound came from the front porch, causing us both to freeze.

  We turned our heads to find Granny standing just outside the front door, grinning, wearing a T-shirt with a picture of some kind of warlock or something that said “Max DPS” above it. The fire inside me was doused. Caught.

  And Gran still thought I was dating Juliet.

  “Oh God,” Tess moaned, stepping away from me. “Gran,” she said, as she stood up.

  “Hello, kiddies,” Gran said, her voice full of glee. “Mr. McDonnell, you sure do get around. Tess, I thought this was Juliet’s boyfriend.” She turned the grin on me.

  Shit, shit, shit. I was already failing both Manchester sisters. This would make things very difficult between Tess and Juliet, not to mention with Gran. And between Juliet and me. I looked at Tess, not sure how much to say.

  “It’s kind of complicated, Gran,” she said. “I’m sorry we’re so late. Ready for dinner?”

  Gran didn’t seem interested in moving inside quite yet. “Young man, I thought I warned you earlier … You don’t get to mess around with both my granddaughters.”

  “No ma’am,” I said, “I would definitely never do that.” I was suddenly terrified of this tiny fierce woman, and could only imaging how scary she must have been as a school principal.

  “Tell me this then. Since you’re Juliet’s boyfriend, am I wrong in assuming it was you I heard Juliet with in her room last night, then?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “All that husky moaning?”

  Tess turned her head and gave me a look to match Gran’s. Dark, angry, suspicious.

  I had no idea what the old woman was talking about, but a frenzied worry began to build in me. “No,” I said, hoping my confusion made me sound innocent. “Definitely not me.”

  “Hmm.” Gran didn’t say anything else as she turned and went back inside the house, but Tess was watching me warily. I hadn’t slept with Juliet. Not last night, not ever. I thought back to the moans I’d heard myself coming from her room—I’d thought maybe she was sleeping, but they had possessed a slightly sexual tone, now that I was thinking about it. What was going on?

  “I swear,” I said, turning to Tess. “I told you the truth. If Juliet’s got someone in her room …” I’d just gotten Tess to a place where she was willing to explore this thing between us. If she believed I was playing her, she’d never trust me. My heart pounded and felt like it might actually explode.

  “Ryan,” she said, her voice low. “You’re the only guy here.”

  “We’re sleeping in separate rooms,” I said.

  “Doesn’t sound like Gran is talking about sleeping,” Tess said.

  “You know,” I said, scrambling to follow Tess up the steps. “There is the security team.”

  She turned then and shot me a disbelieving look. “Juliet is not getting together with a bodyguard.” Her voice dismissed the possibility of continuing the conversation, and I swallowed the rest of my protest. Whoever had been in Juliet’s room, it wasn’t me. I just needed to make sure Tess believed me.

  Chapter 14

  Tess

  As I made dinner, I spent the evening trying to understand what was happening. With me, with Ryan.

  With Juliet. She kept disappearing and reappearing, looking confused and distraught and honestly nothing like herself. Dinner was a strange affair, and after the day I’d had with Ryan I just wanted to go to bed and think about things. Tomorrow was Gran’s party and the press would be back, and so would half of Southern Maryland. I needed to be ready.

  “I’ll get these,” Ryan said, clearing plates from in front of us.

  “So polite,” Juliet said, smiling up at him.

  I stared at the look that passed between them, trying to see whether there was something there, whether they were keeping something from me. But why would they lie about being together if they really were getting together? It made no sense. I swung my gaze to Gran, who was sitting smugly at the head of the table, rolling a joint like that was something all ninety-year-old women did at the dinner table.

  “Gran, at the table?” I sighed.

  She shrugged and winked at me. “Big raid in an hour.”

  That game was going to be the death of me.

  “Get it out of your system tonight. Tomorrow you have to dress up and be the center of attention and act like a proper old lady.”

  She sighed deeply. “I had kind of hoped I’d keel over before then. I guess there’s still tonight … sometimes wishes come true, right? You got to kiss your Hollywood crush, after all.”

  It was like the room had just caved in on my head. I cringed and my blood turned to sludge as I swung my head to look at Juliet. What would she think? She’d just told me this afternoon that she and Ryan were pretending. What if she thought I’d been kissing him when I
believed they were together and I just didn’t care?

  “Jules,” I whispered, about to explain.

  Ryan had just walked back into the dining room in time to hear this proclamation and he looked at me, wide-eyed.

  Juliet’s head snapped to me. “You kissed Ryan?” She looked angry.

  Shit. This was all getting too complicated. “What? No,” I lied, not sure why I was lying now. “I mean … no, he’s your boyfriend, right?” After all, we were still playing that game for Gran, weren’t we? I nodded my head toward Gran in an exaggerated kind of don’t-forget-Gran-doesn’t-know motion.

  Of course Gran knew more than any of us ever gave her credit for, but as far as Juliet knew, the ruse was still going on.

  “I mean, he was in your room last night,” I went on babbling, feeling a little out of control. One of the security team in the hallway stepped around the other door and stood behind Juliet, listening more intently than I thought he should have been. “Moaning huskily, right Gran?”

  “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Gran said quickly. Too quickly. Then she flushed and looked ashamed of herself, slumping slightly. “I couldn’t help it,” she said. “You were so loud. I haven’t heard those noises in this house since I quit watching Erika Lust films.” She shot a defiant look at Juliet and then rose. “I’m expected elsewhere.” She picked up her joint and walked slowly from the room past the guard who had slipped back around the corner.

  “What the hell is going on?” Juliet asked, looking between Ryan and me. “Are you two hooking up?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  Oh God. Why couldn’t he just go be gorgeous and perfect in Hollywood and let me pine away for him when I watched his movies? Why was this happening in real life? I stared at my sister, whose mouth had dropped open slightly as she turned to look at Ryan. “Seriously?” Her voice was an accusation.

  Ryan stood at the end of the table where Gran had been. His mouth opened and then closed, and then I watched as something seemed to solidify in his eyes, his expression steeling. “Jules,” he said. “I didn’t plan it. It’s just … I think there’s something here.” He gestured toward me.

  It was the same thing he’d been saying in the car, and while I knew it was crazy, a warm certainty bubbled up inside me before my very rational thoughts forced it back down. This was not a thing. It couldn’t be anything.

  “Yeah, something’s here,” Juliet said. “My little sister’s here. And she doesn’t need you barreling into her life and screwing everything up, just to leave when your next movie role takes you to Timbuktu.”

  “What are the odds there’ll be another movie in Timbuktu?” Ryan said. “I think it was just that one—”

  “No,” Juliet said, standing up. “You don’t get to charm your way out of this one, you … you …” Juliet seemed to be searching for a scathing word to blast him with as her hands balled into fists and her lips formed a tight line. In the end I found myself wishing she’d reached out for help in the creative slur department because she finished up with: “Man!” She hissed the word at him, but it fell a little flat. I sensed that Juliet was unleashing her own anger at men in general at Ryan on my behalf, and I realized we still hadn’t really talked. I had no idea what was actually going on with my sister, but it couldn’t be good.

  “Not much of a burn,” I muttered, shaking my head. This entire thing was ridiculous. “Listen, guys,” I said, wanting to run away, to stick my head beneath the comforting pillow of my normal life. I forced myself not to look at Ryan, keeping my eyes on Juliet. “Let’s just pretend none of this happened,” I suggested. “If you’re hooking up, that’s perfect. That’s what you want everyone to think anyway, right? And you’ll be gone in a couple days, and Gran and I can go back to our regular lives. Whatever happened between me and Ryan, which was pretty much nothing, was just a lighthearted fling. It was nothing.” I glanced at him, the pain and disappointment on his face more pronounced than I would have expected. A little ache developed in my chest and I pressed a hand against it.

  “Um …” Ryan said, looking confused.

  “No. Look,” Juliet said, stepping in close to him, her face reddening. “You’re here because I’m doing you a favor. I didn’t bring you here to charm the pants off my naïve little sister and break her heart. That’s not what this is about. This is about—”

  Naïve little sister. Right. That did it.

  I stood up too, my blood heating. “You.” I finished her sentence for her. “Everything is about you. It always has been. Right, Jules? And this, this weekend—which was supposed to be about Gran, by the way—has become a media circus so you can show the world that Juliet Manchester is just fine after her nasty divorce. And what makes a woman fine? Another man, of course! So you picked one off the man tree to help you out, and we all have to play along, right?”

  Juliet and Ryan were both staring at me now, but I’d opened the door to the closet full of secret feelings and they were all rushing out into the light. My mouth marched forward and it was almost like I was standing apart from myself, watching in horror as I told my sister everything I’d ever felt. In front of Ryan.

  “It’s so hard for you to imagine that maybe someone might actually be interested in me, isn’t it? It’s just completely outside your realm of experience. After all, what do I have to offer? I’m the short one, the fat one, the unpopular one … I’m Juliet Manchester’s little sister, right? That’s all I’ve ever been, and with you around, it’s all I’ll ever be.”

  Ryan had moved to stand closer to me now, looking torn. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and let him comfort me, but another piece of me just wanted to throw things, flip tables and scream at him for bringing me to a place where all these feelings demanded to be unleashed.

  “No, Tess …” Juliet said, but I had twenty-five years of repressing my real feelings and I couldn’t stuff them back in now. I realized I was burning down my world, destroying whatever relationship I had with my big sister, but I couldn’t go on pretending I was happy to stand in her shadow. I wasn’t. I deserved to be seen too.

  “Let’s just get through tomorrow night’s charade and then you can all go back where you belong,” I said, turning. “You can take your fame and your angst and your enormous security guards and just go home. Both of you.” I walked out of the dining room past one of the looming guards and headed for the stairs; glad to hear no one was following me. Chessy shrieked as I walked by, and I felt a strange chicken-girl kinship. Like she got me somehow.

  In my room, I paced, waiting for the confusing mass of feelings inside me to stop swirling around long enough to sort through them. But they didn’t. Age-old anger and hurt at being perpetually in Juliet’s shadow had risen within me, making me feel vulnerable and young. And whatever had been bubbling between Ryan and me wasn’t helping. I wanted him. God, did I want him … and the weird thing was, I was pretty sure he was legitimately interested in me, too. Or else he was a better actor than I thought.

  The way we’d sat this afternoon over the water, holding hands on the tabletop talking like we’d known each other for years … why would he fake any of that? And the kissing. My God … the kissing. Just thinking about the way his arms felt around me, the way his breath had been hot on my neck, in my ear … it had muscles deep inside me tightening in expectation.

  Shit.

  He had to go back home. They both needed to go. I just had to survive watching them pretend to be a couple for the press at the party tomorrow, and then I could go back to my regular life, teaching people to kayak, leading tours, watching over Gran … being alone.

  Shit.

  “Tess?” Ryan’s voice came through the door, interrupting me mid-angst. Everything in my body heated, knowing he was just outside my bedroom door, but my mind took charge.

  “I think you better just go away,” I told him, squeezing my eyes shut in an effort to steady my voice.

  The door opened.

  “Go
d, you don’t listen, do you?” I said, my body vibrating the second he was in the room with me.

  He shut the door behind him and stepped forward, his bright eyes on mine, those perfect full lips slightly parted. He pushed a hand through his amazing messy hair and sighed.

  “Tess, I know I’m doing everything wrong,” he said. “But I can’t leave here until I know what’s between us.” His eyes searched mine and I took a step toward him without meaning to. “I know there’s something here,” he went on. “I can feel it, and I know you feel it, too. And look, I mean … I don’t know what it is. Because I’ve never felt anything like it before. All I know is that I want you like I’ve never wanted anyone, anything, in my life. I want to be near you, to breathe you in, to hear you talk and see you move, and … God, I sound like an idiot.”

  My mind stopped pounding around inside my head looking for an answer and the room stilled at his words. I believed him. And all I wanted was to believe him long enough to never have to think about all of the complications surrounding us again. I took another step toward him and suddenly I was in his arms, our mouths locked together in a desperate kiss that sent spirals of longing through my limbs, my stomach, my mind. I closed my eyes and light burst in flashes inside my mind as I let go.

  A little voice deep inside was screaming at me to be stronger; not to be that girl, not to be the girl every woman probably became near Ryan McDonnell. But I couldn’t stop now, and I let Ryan’s hard firm body press against mine and pull me into him because the temptation was too great and I was weak. Maybe my sister was right and I was just her naïve little sister.

  Maybe I didn’t care.

  Maybe I could use people too, and maybe I could use Ryan tonight. Maybe it didn’t mean anything.

  I stopped thinking.

  I Just. Let. Go.

  His mouth was hot and insistent on mine, and his hands were sliding over my body, gripping and rubbing, pulling at my clothes. I slid my palms up beneath his T-shirt, up the firm solid muscle of his back, feeling the corded strength on each side of his spine. And then the shirt was gone, and I was unfastening his pants, pushing them down his body as he undressed me. We stumbled around the room, pulling off items of clothing and sliding our hands over each other, and it felt like neither of us would ever get enough of the other’s hands or mouth.