Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  I’d tell her my plans, see the gleam in her light eyes and know I’d made the right choice—for both of us. And I’d have whatever reassurance my silly heart needed that the guy on the lawn had been no one to her. A friend. Or … someone. I couldn’t imagine who he could be to Tess. All I knew was that he was someone who felt it was in his right to kiss her. To hold her hand.

  Someone I didn’t like very much but found myself envying a lot.

  I needed to talk to her.

  But as I stepped near to her door I heard Gran’s voice from inside. “I told you, no frills, no lace!”

  Evidently Tess was helping Gran get ready for the party.

  Now wasn’t a time to talk. My stomach fell.

  I turned and went back to my room, pulling my tux from the closet and heading for the shower, confusion roiling inside me.

  Thirty minutes later I was sitting on the end of my bed, distracting myself by scrolling through photos of the house I’d bought, the house I’d hoped to share with Tess someday. Eventually, Juliet came to knock at the door.

  I opened it, and realized that what stood there on the threshold of the bedroom I occupied was pretty much every American man’s red-hot fantasy. Juliet Manchester, glowing and gorgeous, in an emerald off-the-shoulder dress that perfectly matched her green eyes, stood waiting for me. Her skin was smooth and perfect, milky and beautiful, and her platinum hair fell in cascading waves over her shoulders. She looked every bit the movie star she was, and I wished for a few minutes I could make this all easier and find myself attracted to her.

  But as she stepped near to tell me quietly she’d just heard from her lawyer again, another door opened and Tess stepped out. Over Juliet’s head, I watched her emerge from her room and stop, her light hazel eyes wide as she saw us there in my doorway, Juliet leaning in close, one of her hands on my arm.

  Tess wore a simple dress, a straight rust-colored silk sheath that hugged her curves but not too tightly. The color was like burnished gold, and it set off gold strands in her hair and lit her skin with a glow I wanted to be near, to feel. Her lips were plump and pink and perfect, and every part of my body and mind responded to her as she met my gaze.

  This. This wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a misplaced fantasy. I was supposed to be with this woman. I knew it with a certainty I’d never felt about anything.

  But right now I couldn’t be. Right now I had a job to do.

  Tess looked between Juliet and me for a long second, then sighed and turned, walking away as Juliet leaned in closer, bracing her hand on my chest as she finished quietly describing the article that had evidently been published on one of the trashier Hollywood news sites. An article Zac had clearly paid for, which detailed all of Juliet’s affairs.

  “It’ll be okay,” I told her, wishing she could have told me all this from just a few feet away. I knew what it must’ve looked like to Tess—Juliet and I pressed together in the doorway of my room. And I knew I needed to talk to her, to reassure her, to make it clear how I felt about her.

  “I really don’t see how it will be okay,” Juliet sniffed as we turned to head downstairs.

  “Because it’s not true,” I said. “Maybe all the public needs to know, all anyone needs to know, is the truth.”

  “Zac will ruin me,” she said quietly. “The tape … I can’t …”

  I stopped her on the stairs and turned her to face me. “Juliet. You are a good person. In the end, isn’t that what really matters? Doesn’t that matter more than what the public believes? More than what Zac sells them about you?”

  “Maybe you’ve forgotten what our lives are about,” she said. “In our line of work, it doesn’t matter what’s true. It only matters what people believe.”

  “We’re in a shitty line of work,” I said, feeling the darkness in my words settle on my face, drape my shoulders.

  “Smile, lovebirds!” Alison was waiting like a vulture at the bottom of the stairs, which were lit brilliantly by the photographers’ lights switching on so they could capture our descent. “How about a kiss?”

  Juliet leaned in, and though every cell in my body screamed at me not to, I pulled her close and kissed her for the cameras.

  “That was perfect,” Alison cooed as we descended the rest of the way.

  “It was,” Tess agreed, her voice coming from the shadows behind the photographer’s bright lights. As they switched off the lights to move them, I found her standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “It was perfect,” she said, her voice flat and dull.

  I didn’t know if she was talking about the kiss, or about what had happened between us the day before.

  “Tess,” I whispered, moving close to her. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Ryan! Juliet!” Alison called to us as the crew moved out toward the back porch. I glanced in the direction from which Alison’s voice had come, then turned back to Tess, torn.

  “You should go,” Tess said, looking beyond me to the ever-perky Alison, and then she turned, heading back into the kitchen, where the catering staff flitted from place to place like butterflies. I watched her go, her perfect form moving away from me as my heart sank.

  Two hours later, the party was in full swing. Well-dressed locals meandered over the rolling green bank of the back lawn, glasses in hand, as waiters passed among the guests wielding silver trays filled with dainty hors d’ouevres.

  Alison and the camera crew dogged every move Juliet and I made, and I was beginning to feel more like a crime suspect than a movie star. Every time I turned around, one of them was there, waiting to catch any remotely interesting action on film, to overhear a romantic tidbit shared between my fake girlfriend and me.

  They were certainly disappointed, because I was quickly learning that either due to the stress and strangeness of the situation, or because of simpler, biochemical causes, Juliet and I didn’t have much to say to one another.

  “Tess looks happy at least,” she said at one point, sending my gaze back across the lawn to the front of the big tent where Tess was standing with the tall man I’d seen kiss her earlier. I hadn’t noticed him returning, and I wasn’t pleased to see him now, standing there in his too-short suit and staring at Tess like she made the sun rise.

  Maybe she did. I didn’t really blame him.

  And Juliet was wrong, I thought. Tess was smiling, but she wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I just knew. There was a tightness around the corners of her smile, a hesitancy in her posture as the tall man leaned in to say something next to her ear. I might have known her only a few short days, but Tess was the one thing in the world that made sense to me, the one thing I knew I understood. And I hated seeing her fake happiness almost as much as I hated faking it myself.

  Watching him close to her perturbed me. No, that wasn’t it. It infuriated me. I wanted to stride over there, yank him away from her and demand that he never touch her again.

  Which would have been insane, but what about this weekend hadn’t been? Between my sudden heartsick love over a girl I couldn’t have, Gran’s not-so-subtle jabs at everyone, a lovesick house-chicken…the weekend had been weird. Insane, really. Punching out a stranger would fit right in.

  “Who is that guy?” I asked Juliet, pleased when the question came out interested instead of crazy.

  “Oh, that’s Tony Myers. He and Tess have had a thing, like, forever.”

  Jealousy leapt into my gut, a green-eyed horned imp with a thirst for vengeance. “A thing?” What kind of thing?” That question came out much closer to crazy, and Juliet side-eyed me.

  She waved her hand in the air. “They dated forever ago. He’s still hanging on.” She narrowed her gaze at me. “Why? Do you think whatever’s between you two could be … serious?” I couldn’t tell if she sounded concerned or just curious. Either way, she didn’t sound happy.

  “Do you think she likes him?” I hated that the question sounded like something I would have asked in fifth grade and even more insane than the last one. And then I made it
worse. “Like, likes him likes him?”

  Juliet laughed, but her words didn’t reassure me. “I think she likes him enough. He’s local,” she said. “And eventually they’ll probably end up together. It just makes sense.”

  It didn’t make sense to me. Tess didn’t love him. I could see that across the wide space between us. I had a sudden urge to sweep in, rescue her, cameras be damned. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Tess is a local girl,” Juliet went on. “She’s never had big plans, never wanted to leave here.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s the right guy for her.”

  Juliet turned to face me, her posture more relaxed than it had been all night, and her interest in whatever I might say clear. The camera crew noticed her sudden shift, and flashes strobed as she stepped in even closer. “You do think there’s something serious going on with my sister,” she said, her eyes widening.

  “Not that I can do anything about it with the vultures here,” I said, wishing I hadn’t voiced my regret aloud as I watched Juliet’s face morph from amused to sad. She let out a sigh.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan. For all of this.” She said the words to me, but looked over my shoulder at the security team next to the tent entrance as she spoke. She really did look sorry in that instant, like this pretense was every bit as difficult for her as it had become for me.

  “Come on, movie stars. Time to eat pig and celebrate me not being dead. Tess made a fantastic cake.” Gran stepped between us and took each of us by the elbow, dragging us toward the tent where the rest of the crowd was already sitting down and a pit-roasted pig was being paraded in on an extravagant platter.

  Wow. That was something you did not see in Los Angeles every day.

  Juliet and I were seated at a table across from Tess and Tony, who I was beginning to despise. He was leaning in close to her, kept draping an arm over the back of her chair, and was generally acting as if they were a couple. The guy in my gut poked me a few times with the stick I imagined him holding, trying to prod me into doing something crazy.

  While I was essentially being paid to act as if Juliet and I were a couple.

  Everything was a disaster.

  But it was made impossibly worse when Alison and the camera crew set up on the opposite side of the tent, cameras aimed directly at Juliet and me. There wasn’t a moment when I might dare to stare at Tess, or throw a knife at Tony, since it could potentially be caught on camera and would undoubtedly be splashed across the Internet almost instantaneously. We were under a microscope, and I owed it to Juliet to remember that. I’d made her a promise, and she’d been hurt enough. My career wasn’t even my focus at this point—I would see this farce through and then… I didn’t know what would come next, but more and more I thought there was a different life for me. Waiting here in Maryland. My mind flashed to the other space the real estate agent had shown me—the vacant warehouse near the square.

  “So, you guys … how long have you been together?” It was Tony, leaning across the table to talk to Juliet and me. He waved between us with a steak knife, and I suppressed a shudder. Not that I hadn’t used my flatware to converse before, it was just one more thing I could choose to dislike about this guy.

  I tried to impale him with tiny daggers fired from my eyeballs as Juliet smiled sweetly at him. “It’s new,” she said. “Just a few weeks now.” She leaned into me and I wrapped my arm around her, rubbing my hand up and down her arm. The motions came naturally, but they felt forced and wrong.

  Tess’s eyes were on my hand, and I had to keep my heart from leaping out of my chest. It was killing me to know I was hurting her, and the way she was watching us made it clear that despite telling me to stay away, there were feelings there. A tiny hope inside me was trying to elbow Mr. Jealousy out of the way.

  “Love in Hollywood,” Tony said, grinning. And then he reached for Tess and pulled her into his side. “We kind of have that too, right Tess? Just Hollywood, Maryland.”

  Tess said nothing, but busied herself with her drink before stealing a glance up at me. Our eyes locked and heat washed through me. This was all so, so wrong.

  “So Brian,” Tony said, pulling my gaze to his open grinning face. “What was that last movie I saw you in? On an island somewhere or something? Weren’t there like zombie islanders?”

  I gritted my teeth, reminding myself that I was being filmed. I had to be nice. Or at least I could not leap across the table, remove the bright red apple from the pig’s mouth and shove it into Tony’s. “Pacific Pandemic,” I said.

  “Ho, ho, yeah,” Tony said, laughing and shaking his head of too-shaggy dark hair. “That’s destined to be a cult classic, right man? Like way over the top stupid silly.”

  “It was a horror thriller,” I said through my teeth. “The studio’s answer to World War Z.”

  Tony guffawed some more and stuffed some corn in his mouth. Then he continued to insult my career. “Brian, man,” he leaned in conspiratorially. “So when you’re in the middle of making a flop like that, do the actors know it? Or do you like, think things are going really well? Like you know you’re standing in a pile of shit, right? But you sign a contract or whatever, so you have to do it, right?” Juliet squeezed my hand, which helped slow down the angry rushing blood that was about to send me over the table to strangle Tony.

  Tess was staring at Tony with her own mouth hanging open slightly, and she punched him in the upper arm as he finished this question. I opened my mouth to answer, but Juliet saved me.

  “Tony,” Juliet said sweetly. “Hollywood is complicated, and sometimes we do movies we know won’t be blockbusters for strategic reasons. To get to know a director, or to be connected to another actor. It’s hard to explain. And it’s not Brian. It’s Ryan. Ryan McDonnell is going to be a household name pretty soon. He’s moving on to much bigger things,” she added. “Right, babe?”

  Juliet held my hand tightly and she leaned close, clearly wanting me to kiss her now, to make this good for the ever-vigilant cameras. I appreciated her help with the d-bag, but my mind was a whir. My whole body was reaching for Tess, and her wide hazel eyes were so sad I felt like my heart was dissolving inside my chest. Had I done that to her?

  I felt like whatever I did here was a choice laid out in front of me: Continue to go along with this charade, watching Tess being groped by some moronic redneck ex-boyfriend from her past, or stand up right here and tell her what I wanted, what I hoped, what I knew we could have.

  But before I could make my choice, Tess abruptly stood. “Excuse me.” She turned and left the tent without another word, and Tony shrugged, returning his attention to the mountain of shredded pork on his plate.

  I nearly stood to go after her, but then the DJ turned up the volume and Juliet pulled me out of my seat. “We’d better dance, put on a good show.”

  Sadness floated inside me as I followed her to the dance floor, every cell in my body screaming to head the other way, to follow Tess from that tent.

  Tony must’ve heard my body’s message because a few minutes later, he wiped his mouth, stood, and headed out the door of the tent, as my mind darkened.

  Chapter 20

  Tess

  It wasn’t the mature thing to do. It wasn’t the right thing, considering this was Gran’s party. It wasn’t an even vaguely advisable thing to do, but I left the party. I stood up and walked out.

  I couldn’t take one more second of watching Juliet and Ryan fawn over one another like the happy couple they were pretending to be. Were they even pretending? How could I trust a man who lied for a living when he told me it was all for show? How could I trust my sister’s words when her job was exactly the same? They were both too good at it, and I’d seen the way men fell for my sister for far too long. And that kiss on the lawn. That hadn’t been pretend. No one was that good an actor.

  And then I’d seen them coming out of his room earlier.

  I didn’t know Ryan McDonnell at all. He was an actor, and evidently a much better one than I’
d realized. He was playing me, having both the Manchester sisters. I wondered if he and Juliet had a much more complicated deal than the one they’d told me about.

  Even if Ryan had felt something for me—and honestly, that was unlikely given the amount of time he’d known me, and considering the Juliet-Manchester effect—it was probable that Juliet was the only Manchester girl in his heart now. She charmed everyone. Without even meaning to.

  What started out as pretending might have evolved. She had that effect on people. On men. And it looked like Ryan had fallen under the spell. Just like every man who’d ever been interested in me—but then met my sister—besides Tony. A flat acceptance landed with a thud in my gut. I’d end up with Tony. He loved me, at least. But could I ever find even a spark of what I’d felt for Ryan with him?

  I couldn’t think about it now.

  I knew I’d have to go back inside. There were speeches to be made. I had to present the cake we’d made to Gran. She deserved everything and I needed to get over my own issues and go celebrate the woman who was parent and best friend to me now.

  But I needed a few minutes of fresh air—even if the humidity that suffused Maryland’s signature evening atmosphere was pretty far from refreshing. I stood on the riverbank and looked out across the water.

  This was home. This was grounding for me. This water, this land. This was where I belonged and what I was made of. And I’d forgotten it for a while in the grip of a wildly intoxicating fantasy. But I remembered it now.

  Ryan McDonnell and Juliet would go back to Hollywood tomorrow, and I could go back to kayaks and calm. But I was pretty sure I’d never be settling down with Tony, no matter what everyone seemed to expect. He didn’t deserve a woman who didn’t love him.

  I’d opened my mind for the evening, tried to give him a chance. But there was just nothing there, no more than there had been in seventh grade. We were not meant to be together any more than Buffy and Angel were—though we had a lot less of the star-crossed love thing going on. And a lot less blood sucking and general badassery, too.