by Debbie Mason
How rude…and mean! But hearing the pain in her sister’s voice, a thread of guilt wound its way through Chloe’s anger. Not only had Easton played her, he’d told Cat what Chloe had done. Though she wasn’t exactly thrilled with her sister’s mean-spirited remarks, she supposed she couldn’t blame her.
As they walked past the hot tub, Easton put a hand on Cat’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about you and Grayson. If I had known Chloe was going to send you that poem and buy you the Sig, I would have stopped her.”
“It’s not your fault. I practically had to twist your arm to get you to go along with her plan and have her stay with you. I should have listened to you and told Ty to disinvite her from the grand opening and put her on the first plane back to LA.”
Chloe covered her mouth; reaching with her other hand for the edge of the mattress she slowly lowered herself onto the bed.
Easton put both hands on Cat’s shoulders. “Let me call Grayson; I’ll explain everything to him.”
“I told him there was nothing going on between us, Easton. If he can’t trust me enough to believe me, then we shouldn’t be together. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Look at how he’s reacted to me working on the Martinez security detail. He doesn’t even trust me to do my job.”
“Come on, you know he loves you. He’s just trying to protect you.”
Cat rested her forehead against Easton’s chest and shook her head. He put his arms around her. Her sister looked up at him, her gaze roaming his face. Then she lifted up on her toes and put her arms around Easton’s neck and…Chloe rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Easton was kissing her sister. It was like she’d been hurled seventeen years into the past and was watching her dreams shatter all over again. Her throat aching and her eyes burning, she raised her cell phone. If she was ever stupid enough to believe in signs and Easton McBride again, all she had to do was look at the picture she’d just taken.
She turned away from the window and packed her bags. Wiping furiously at her eyes, she grabbed the handles of her suitcases. As she walked toward the front door, she took one last look around the small space. In a matter of months, Easton would level it. Somehow it seemed fitting. At least she wouldn’t be here to see the destruction he left behind.
Fighting the temptation to slam the door, she quietly closed it. She wouldn’t give her sister or Easton the satisfaction of seeing the devastation their betrayal had wrought. The bags thumped on each step as she dragged them behind her and headed down the road. Dust kicked up from the gravel, covering her luggage in a thin layer of grime. Halfway down the gravel drive, she was out of breath. She didn’t dare stop. Even as sweat trickled down her face, stinging her eyes, she trudged onward toward the shimmering blacktop in the distance. She told herself the erratic beat of her pulse had nothing to do with her heart. It was a result of her humiliation and anger at the thought of Easton and Cat cooking up their scheme and laughing at her.
In the distance, she heard Bessie moo, and Easton and Cat laugh. Chloe quickened her pace and hit a rut. She turned her ankle and winced in pain. Looking down, she released a small cry of frustration. She’d broken her heel! She lifted her foot and reached back to snap it off, then threw it in a ditch and hobbled on. And with every uneven step she took, she got angrier.
Once she reached the main road, her blood was practically boiling, and she dug her phone from her purse. She glanced back at the gravel drive, limping a few yards to a weeping willow that would hide her from view. She texted Grayson, attaching the photo. I’m sorry, but you deserve to know. She typed, then shoved her phone back in her purse and stuck out her thumb.
Chapter Eleven
Around this time last year, if someone had told him he’d be kissing Cat O’Connor in his backyard today, Easton would have given a resounding “Hell, yeah.” And it wasn’t because he’d been pining after her all these years. It was just that as he stood on the sidelines watching his brothers find their one, he’d wondered if his had gotten away. He inwardly rolled his eyes at the thought. He was becoming as sappy as his older brothers. But that was the thing: he wasn’t getting any younger, and he wanted a family.
He wanted what his brothers had, what his father had had with their mother, what he now had with Liz. But Easton hadn’t found a woman he wanted to share forever with. Forever? The longest he managed to stay in a relationship before the attraction fizzled was a couple of months.
Yet here he was kissing the woman he’d almost proposed to, and instead of being overcome with lust and thoughts of forever, he was wondering how he could extricate himself without hurting her feelings. He couldn’t help but compare the explosive desire he’d felt while kissing Chloe to the…Okay, this was just getting weird. He felt like he was kissing his sister. Easton eased back, reaching up to gently remove Cat’s arms from his neck.
She jerked away from him, dropping her hands to her sides. Her cheeks flushed. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I kissed you.” She did a faceplant into his chest and groaned.
“Hey, don’t apologize. We’re friends, Cat. You’ve had a crappy day, that’s all.” He hoped that’s all it was.
She looked up at him through her long, wispy bangs. “Friends don’t jump friends. Well, unless they’re, you know…”
“Yeah, and we’re not that kind of friends, right?”
“No, not at all.” She pulled back. “Now I’ve made you uncomfortable. Don’t try and deny it, I can see the panic on your face.”
“It’s just…” He scratched his chin. “Didn’t it feel weird to you, too?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. It was really bad.”
For a guy who considered himself a talented kisser, he was a little offended. “It wasn’t bad, just…more friendly than hot. Kind of like making out with your sister. I don’t mean Chloe…” Well, hell. He cleared his throat. “You know what I mean.”
She stepped away and scrubbed her hands over her face. “I do, and this is all Chloe’s fault. She’s the reason I kissed you.”
He stiffened. They hadn’t talked about it, but he’d been pretty sure Chloe was on the same page as him and her win-back-Cat plan was off. “You’ve lost me. How does Chloe factor into it?”
“Last Christmas, she had a dream, kind of like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol… Yeah, yeah, I know, but this is Chloe we’re talking about,” she said in response to his low laugh. “Anyway, she said your mom visited her and took her on a trip down memory lane. Back to high school, where, as you know, the memories weren’t so happy. But your mom told Chloe she could make things right between us.”
“Not exactly following you, Cat.”
She looked away, then shrugged. “I guess with the problems Grayson and I are having, I wondered…Dammit, I wondered if maybe I was supposed to be with you and not him.” She threw up her arms. “I know, it’s crazy. But between Chloe and her plan, and Estelle and Grayson’s dad, I started to think Grayson and I weren’t meant to be together.”
“Okay, I get it now. But the kiss pretty much cleared that up, didn’t it?” For both of them.
“Yeah, it did.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. “You need to call Grayson and talk this through. And you need to send Estelle back to LA. She’s as big a shit disturber as Aunt Nell.”
“I know she is. If she hadn’t shown Grayson that poem…It doesn’t matter. He obviously has trust issues, and I’m not sure we can get past them.”
“It’s not like you to give up this easily. You love him, don’t you?”
She nodded and said quietly, “Yeah, I do. After Michael, I never thought I’d feel this way about someone else.”
“You had your own trust issues to get over. Maybe you should cut him some slack.”
“You’re right, I did. And I can understand why he overreacted to the poem. He caught his first wife in bed with another man.”
“That’s rough,” Easton said with a grimace. He slung his arm around Cat’s shoulders. “Let’s load up Bessie and the
chickens, and we’ll figure it out. All it would take is one call from Chloe, you know. She can tell Grayson what she did and—”
“You’re talking about my sister Chloe, right? You more than anyone know what she’s like. She won’t accept responsibility for this, she never does. She’ll just pull a scene, then she’ll fake-faint.”
“I think you’re wrong. And Cat, she doesn’t fake-faint. She has a panic disorder,” he said, then filled her in.
“Wow, do I feel like an idiot now. How did I miss the signs? I should have picked up on that.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she sighed. “She sucks me in every time. She’s screwed up my life, and I’m the one who feels guilty. How messed up is that?”
“Honestly, I don’t think she means to, Cat. She’s—”
“Whoa, you’re defending my sister?”
He rubbed his chin. “Yeah, I know. But the past couple of days with her have been…enlightening. It’s an act, Cat. She’s not a spoiled drama queen…all right, so she’s a bit of a drama queen,” he amended at Cat’s arched eyebrow, “but underneath it all, she’s still the sweet, generous—”
“Oh. My. God. She’s sucked you in, too.”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“Yes, she has. You’re falling for her.”
Shoving his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, he looked out over the field. “Maybe. I don’t know, but there’s something there. She’s changed, and if you’d just give her a chance to explain everything to Grayson, I’m sure she’d make it right.”
Cat was staring at him when her cell phone pinged. She pulled it from her back pocket and looked at the screen. She briefly closed her eyes, then handed him the phone. “You were saying…”
* * *
The late-model orange pickup jerked to a jarring stop on Main Street. Chloe, sitting in the open bed, stopped chanting, “It’s not my heart,” and grabbed the wood side panels to avoid being hurled backward. Although the weight of the hound dog lying halfway across her lap probably would have held her in place.
Easton’s neighbor, Mr. Hanson, shuffled around to open the gate. His weathered face broke into a wide smile. “Old Blue doesn’t take to everyone, you know. Sure seems to like you, though.”
“Yes, he’s very, ah, friendly.” And smelly. She gingerly patted the dog’s mangy coat. “I have to go now, Blue. Up you go.”
“Just give him a good push,” Mr. Hanson said as he dragged her suitcases across the rusty floorboards.
She cringed at the sound of fabric tearing; her bags would never be the same. With a resigned sigh, she gave Blue a push. He snuffled deeper into her lap. Mr. Hanson chuckled as he set the luggage on the sidewalk, then returned to grab the dog by the collar, hauling the animal off her.
The older man closed one eye and scrunched up his face. “He made a right mess of your dress. You should have taken Gertrude up on her offer and sat in the cab. She wouldn’t have minded sitting in the back, you know,” he said, referring to his wife.
Chloe drew her horrified gaze from the blobs of doggy drool that stained her dress and forced a smile. “Don’t worry about this old rag.” It was an eight-hundred-dollar original Shelby Rae. If Mrs. Hanson wasn’t on oxygen, Chloe might have considered the older woman’s offer. “I appreciated the ride. It brought back fond memories of when I was a little girl.” It wasn’t true. She was only ever allowed to ride in the cab.
“It was our pleasure, Chloe. And I hate to ask, but would you mind taking a picture with Gertrude?” He held up his cell phone. “She’d be tickled pink. She never misses an episode of As the Sun Sets.”
Instinctively, Chloe’s hand went to her wind-blown hair. “Now?”
“Well that’s wonderful, just wonderful.”
He must not have heard the question in her voice.
Mr. Hanson took her by the arm and led her to the passenger-side. Opening the door, he smiled at the frail, white-haired woman in the front seat. “I have a surprise for you, Gertrude. Chloe’s agreed to have her picture taken with you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to be a nuisance,” the older woman said in a reed-thin voice. But Chloe didn’t miss the hopeful light in Gertrude’s eyes.
“It’s no trouble at all,” she said, moving beside the older woman. They put their heads together and smiled as Mr. Hanson directed. He turned the screen to show them the picture. Chloe swallowed a traumatized whimper. Her face was wind burned, there were dark smudges under her eyes from her mascara, and all she could think when she looked at herself was fright night.
“I’ll have the picture blown up for you, Gertrude. We’ll put it up in a place of honor in the TV room,” he told his wife.
“What a wonderful idea.” Gertrude beamed at her husband, then smiled at Chloe, who was doing her best to hide her horror at the thought of anyone other than the sweet elderly couple seeing that picture. “Did Harold tell you Mr. McBride responded to his text? He didn’t want to keep the animals, but Harold did as you suggested and insisted he keep the cow and chickens,” Mrs. Hanson said.
That piece of news just made the ride from Hades worthwhile. By the time the Hansons picked her up, Chloe had been half a mile from Easton’s. She’d told them her car had broken down, and the tow truck didn’t have room for her. While Mr. Hanson loaded her into the back of the pickup, the chatty couple filled her in on the goings-on in the area. They were charmed by their handsome neighbor who wanted to try his hand at farming. “You didn’t tell him it was my suggestion, did you?” Chloe asked Mr. Hanson.
“No, but if you ask me, when you give someone a gift like that, you should get the credit. And I feel bad accepting your money. Like I told you, we’re getting too old to take care of the animals anyway.”
“I like to give back to my community when I can, Mr. Hanson. It was lovely to meet you both, and thanks again for the ride.” She gave them each a kiss on the cheek, then turned to walk away.
“Oh, boy, looks like you got some rust spots on your pretty dress,” Mr. Hanson said and began brushing at Chloe’s behind. “Whad’ya know, must have been chicken poop.”
Chloe covered her mouth to contain the mewling sound before it escaped.
“You have a safe trip back to Hollywood, you hear. You can bet I’ll be watching you on the boob tube from now on.”
Chloe didn’t have the heart to tell them Tessa was dead. She waved good-bye, then rubbed her chest, reassuring herself that the feeling she was minutes away from ending up like Tessa was all in her head. She had to stop thinking about Cat and Easton’s betrayal. It was making her symptoms worse. And the best way to do that was to leave Christmas.
After everyone discovered what she’d done, they wouldn’t want her here anyway. It wouldn’t matter that Cat and Easton were in the wrong. Chloe’s family would put the blame squarely on her. Although, maybe, if she hadn’t sent the photo to Grayson…She couldn’t think about that now. What’s done was done. She’d acted without thinking. No, that wasn’t quite true: she had thought about it, only her hurt and humiliation had overrode any worry about the consequences. Her broken heel and her walk of shame down the gravel road hadn’t helped either.
And neither was reliving it all over again. She hobbled toward the sidewalk to retrieve her bags. If not for Ty, she’d be on her way to the airport by now. But she owed him an explanation as to why she couldn’t attend his grand opening. She glanced at the pastel-painted buildings along Main Street and spotted his salon. He’d opted for sophisticated instead of charming. His shop was painted a creamy white with a large window overlooking Main Street, the black-lacquered door framed by black iron pots filled with lavender flowers. As her gaze lifted to the sign above the black awning, her chin began to tremble. On the ride into town, she’d vowed not to let her emotions get the best of her anymore, but her eyes filled when she read the curvy, lavender lettering—Diva. Ty had named his salon after her.
Sniffing back tears, Chloe pulled up the handles of her luggage and limped toward his shop. Through
the window, she saw Ty laughing with the older woman sitting in one of the stylist chairs. Chloe recognized the red hair, and her panicked gaze darted down the street. She couldn’t let Nell and Ty see her. But just as she was about to make a run for the bakery three shops down, they turned to look out the window. Ty slapped his hand to his mouth, then rushed to open the door.
Wearing a black silk shirt and impeccably pressed black pants, he stared at her in horror. “Diva, what happened to you? You look…”
“I know. I’ve had a terrible, awful day. And I don’t have time to talk.” She wanted to fall into his arms and tell him everything, but she couldn’t. Not with Nell there. “I have to get back to LA. But I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.”
He blinked. “You can’t leave. I’ve told everyone you’ll be here for the grand opening.”
“Trust me, Ty. They’ll be happy I’m not.” Because of her, they’d probably boycott his grand opening, which made it a little easier to disappoint him now.
“Well, I’m not happy. And it’s not just the people in town. I’ve spent a fortune advertising in four counties. Denver, too. We’re having a fashion show in the park, and you’re the main attraction.”
“I wish I could stay, Ty. I truly do.” Chloe had to come up with an excuse important enough that Ty would forgive her. And she had no doubt Nell was hanging on her every word. “Steven Spielberg has offered me a part in his next movie, and I have to—”
Ty gave a dismissive wave of the comb he held in his hand, then grabbed her bags and dragged her into the shop. “You’re not leaving. I forbid it.”
“But Steven…”
Ty gave her a you’re-not-fooling-me look and parked her luggage behind a potted plant. Taking her by the hand, he scanned the space. It was as high-end as any salon in Hollywood, with modern lighting, four black stylist chairs lining one side with comfortable-looking lavender chairs under the space-age dryers against the opposite wall. And it was just as terrifyingly full.
