by Beth Labonte
“Has he noticed us yet?” he asked, turning his back to the inn and facing me.
“I think so,” I said. “He’s leaning up against the railing. Oh, but now he’s going back inside.”
“Give it a minute.”
A moment later, the screen door slammed again, and now everybody was out on the front porch watching us—including my mother, who must have driven over to the inn for a visit.
“Now we’re in business,” said Riley. With some difficulty, he climbed back out of his swing and came around behind me, giving me a gentle push.
“This is pretty fun,” I said, my feet skimming back and forth over the fallen leaves. “I can see why Catrina was so into it.” At the mention of Catrina, he pushed me harder, making me laugh.
After a few more swings, Riley suddenly stopped the tire with both hands and spun me around to face him. My heart didn’t seem to care that there was a big rubber tire swing between the two of us; it was hammering away like crazy. I looked nervously up, while he looked awkwardly down. What next? Everybody was lined up against the porch railing, gawking at us. What would make us look like a couple in love? Kissing was the obvious answer. As many times as I’d dreamed about kissing Riley over the summer, the thought of faking it in front of everybody on that porch just wasn’t appealing at all.
“Come on, Moneybags,” he said. “Time for phase two.”
“Phase two?” I climbed out of the swing and followed him over to a small cooler that he’d hidden behind the slide. There was a blanket folded on top of it that Riley spread out on the grass. Then he pulled two mini bottles of champagne out of the cooler.
“Oh, wow!” I said, my jaw dropping. “You came prepared. You want that money even more than I thought.” I was only joking, but Riley looked at me with a bit of hurt in his eyes.
“I really want those two toolbags to get the message,” he said, jerking his head toward the inn.
I sank down onto the blanket, watching Riley as he poured us two glasses.
“A toast.” He held his glass into the air. “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
I laughed and raised my own glass into the air. “If the ocean were whiskey and I were a duck, I would swim to the bottom and drink my way up!” I’d heard that one from Uncle Burt when I was ten, and it stuck. We clinked glasses and I took a sip. Riley drained his glass.
“It’s freezing out here,” I said, feeling the frozen ground right through the blanket. “You realize we look ridiculous?”
“Yes, but do we also look convincing?”
I glanced over at the inn. My mother had taken her phone out and was probably trying to zoom in on us. I hesitated for just a moment, then scooted myself between Riley’s bent knees, pressing my back against his chest. One sip of champagne, Josie? Really? Hey, he was the one who’d asked if we looked convincing enough. He wrapped his arms around me and I downed the rest of my champagne.
“Better?” I asked.
“Better.”
“Now what?”
“Now we act like we’re having a really serious conversation.”
“Right. So, um…how’s life in Summerboro?”
“Unseasonably warm,” he said, his lips close to my ear. “How’s your big dinner coming along?”
“Not bad,” I said. “I got a permit from the town, and I found a company that can deliver a tent and everything a few days before Thanksgiving. And according to my dad, I have a whole team of chefs at home just waiting to help with the food prep—even though they’ve never once offered to help me cook on Thanksgiving.”
“I can’t believe that kid messed up your newspaper ad so badly.” He reached over to the bottle of champagne and refilled both of our glasses.
“It’s fine,” I sighed. “Believe me, the next person to place an ad with Lee Moriarty will have much better results. I’m actually happy to feed everyone that shows up; the only thing I’m worried about is random strangers finding out about my money and not taking no for an answer. Or finding out where I live.” I shuddered.
“You know, I never really thought about all the things you have to deal with,” said Riley, shifting on the blanket, but keeping his arms around me. “You’re always so cheerful, even after everything you’ve told me.”
“I have hundreds of millions in the bank, Riley. Cheerful isn’t that hard.”
He chuckled. “You know what I mean. Your ex…your worries about your family…” He paused to take a sip of champagne. “Let me pretend to be the lottery winner this time.”
I slowly scooted out from between his legs and turned to face him, rolling onto my knees. “What?”
“At your dinner,” he said. “I could pretend to be the lottery winner. The random strangers can try to take advantage of me. They can find out where I live.”
“That’s crazy!” I laughed. “Everybody in this town knows us. They already know it’s me, silly.”
“I’ll tell everyone in Autumnboro the plan ahead of time. They’d go along with it! Everybody in this town loves you.”
“Oh, Riley,” I said, swallowing around the lump in my throat. What could I even say? His idea was sweet, but it was straight out of Funny Farm.
“What?” he asked. “If I were your real boyfriend, that’s what I would do.”
“If you were my boyfriend in a goofball comedy movie, that’s what you would do. But you’re my fake boyfriend, in real life, and doing something like that wasn’t part of our deal.”
“This isn’t about the deal. It’s about wanting to protect a person I care about.” He reached over and squeezed both of my hands, then looked into my eyes. “Everybody in this town loves you, Josie. Just think about it.”
Everybody? He could probably see my heart beating right through my thick winter coat. The way he was looking at me and holding my hands could all be part of the act for our audience across the street. But the words? Nobody over at the inn could hear the words he’d said. It’s about wanting to protect a person I care about. As I looked into his dark eyes, all the feelings I’d been fighting since the summer washed over me. Both Amy and my mother’s words came back to me. When the right man comes along, you won’t be able to fight it. What are you going to do? Turn and run away?
I slid my hands up to his wrists and gently pulled him toward me. There was no resistance, no time to rethink my impulsive decision, before his lips were on mine—warm and soft and tasting of champagne. He paused for a moment, pulling away and looking at me as if trying to decide if this was real or still part of the act. It was one hundred percent real for me. For him? I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I needed to get this out of my system. I leaned forward into his space, one hand on the back of his neck, and kissed him again. He kissed me back with more intensity this time, as if he’d made the decision in his head. Real.
It was even better than I’d imagined all summer. Better than I’d ever been kissed in my whole entire life. Better than Dean, better than quarterback Ryan Lavoie in tenth grade, better than the dreams I’ve had about Jensen Ackles. This kiss was a long time coming on my end, but I couldn’t help feeling that maybe it had been for Riley, too. There was just so much heat coming through him. This much passion couldn’t possibly have come out of nowhere. Could it?
I slipped my hand into the front of his coat, pressing it against his chest and sliding it down to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt. We could go back to his apartment. Back to his bedroom with the cozy lamps and the rumpled gray sheets. What harm was there, really? Just one night to get him out of my system. I deserved that much; it had been a long summer of pining away. The sound of the door slamming from across the street snapped me rudely back to reality. I looked over to find that everyone had had enough of our impromptu PDA, and gone back inside the inn. I turned back to Riley, my heart still racing. I found him looking at me like I was a hot drink on a cold night.
There was no way one night would get him out
of my system. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking, duh. My hormones had hijacked my brain, and the one simple rule I tried to live by—falling in love again will only end in heartache, so don’t do it—had almost been forgotten.
“I should get home,” I said, forcing the words out. There would be no cozy apartment in Summerboro. No rumpled gray sheets. With nobody watching, we seriously needed to stop.
“Right,” said Riley, blowing out a breath as he ran his hand through his hair. “Okay.”
Using all my willpower, I started gathering up our things, practically yanking the blanket out from under him. He stepped onto the grass, adjusting his coat and pants. We finished cleaning up in silence, and then set off, wordlessly, across the common. My whole body was still flushed and warm. How had all of that started, again? That’s right. Let me pretend to be the lottery winner, he’d said. It’s about me wanting to protect a person I care about.
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to let him do that. Moose would kill me if he ever heard me say this, but winning the lottery was my burden to bear. I didn’t want my parents and my sister to have to deal with the responsibility, and the same went for Riley. If some nut job showed up at his apartment, it would be my fault. No thanks. Riley said he wanted to protect a person he cared about; well, so did I.
“I thought about your idea,” I said, gently nudging his elbow as we walked. “About pretending to be the lottery winner? I can’t let you do it. It’s completely nuts. You know that, right?”
“I know,” said Riley. “But I’m willing to go a little nuts if it makes things easier on you.”
I fought off the urge to pull him to a stop, drop the cooler and blanket, and kiss him again. Instead, I inhaled the clean, crisp mountain air and looked up into the darkening sky.
“Maybe it’s me,” I said, “but I think it feels like snow.”
“Could be,” he said.
Chapter 18
It didn’t snow.
Autumnboro was still stuck in its gray November blah-ness when I arrived at Pumpkin Everything the next morning. Mom and Dad had come along, too, since they hadn’t been up to visit the store since I’d first bought it earlier in the year.
I unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. Pixie—in a pink and black plaid belted coat—darted in ahead of us. “Come on in and I’ll show you around again!”
Mom, Dad, and Pixie followed me obediently around the store, while I pointed out all the different sections—kitchen, bath, home décor, coffee, specialty foods—with each of their pumpkin-centric merchandise. Mom actually noticed that I’d rearranged a few of the displays, and was impressed with the pumpkin spice deodorant I’d ordered from a woman in Vermont. Dad had a chuckle over the pumpkin spice-flavored Tums. When I told him that he was welcome to take all of them, free of charge, he muttered a polite no thank you.
“And the best for last!” I ran over to the fireplace that I’d had converted to electric earlier in the year. I turned it on, watching the flames materialize out of nowhere. Pixie ran over and curled up on the fluffy sheepskin rug. In front of the fireplace were two big, fluffy Lovesac beanbags. Beside the fireplace was a bookcase, filled with books that anybody in town could borrow. Since the Autumnboro Public Library was about the size of a postage stamp, I figured the town could use some help.
“This top shelf”—I pointed—"is full of my friend Amy’s horror novels.”
Amy hated the fact that I still kept those books around. I explained to my parents how Amy had made a big effort to write a new series of cozy mysteries—books that were still based on the people in our town, but with everybody portrayed in a more flattering light, and nobody getting eaten by monsters. The new series was a tad dull, if you asked me, which was why I liked to keep her older books available. The funny thing was that they were extremely popular among the very same people who’d been angry about them last year. A few of the books even had lengthy waiting lists. Go figure.
“I set this up so anybody can just stop by to relax and read.” Mom looked at me skeptically, which made me laugh. “And talk,” I added. “If they want to.” Tom once joked that I’d set the area up as a people trap.
“We’re so proud of you, sweetheart,” said Dad. “If we lived closer, I’d be in here talking with you all the time.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I beamed back at him, even though his words were bittersweet. If my mother would stop trying to fix me up, I’d love for them to live closer too.
After finishing up the short tour of my store, I took them next door to The Plaid Apple. I introduced my parents to Jackie and ordered a dozen cinnamon apple muffins to go. Next, we went across the street to The Shaky Maple for coffee, then headed down Main Street to the senior center. I dropped the fresh muffins off in the kitchen, then I introduced my parents to Deb. I showed them the Josie Morgan Fitness Studio, the shuffleboard table, and the place where I stood to call bingo numbers.
“Let’s make one more quick stop,” I said, as the door to the senior center closed behind us. The office of The Autumnboro Times was just a few steps away.
I opened the door to find Lee alone in the office, standing at one end of his desk and bouncing a ping-pong ball into a red plastic cup. The sound of the door made him miss his shot, sending the ping-pong ball ricocheting around the office. Pixie took off after it.
“Beer pong?” I said, picking up the ball. “Seriously?”
“Slow morning,” he said, plucking the ball out of my hand and tossing it into his desk drawer, along with the cup. “And it’s a Friday. You’re not gonna tell my boss, are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Add it to the list of things I let you get away with.”
“Thanks. So, what’s up? Who are they?”
“These are my parents. Mom, Dad, this is my friend, Lee Moriarty.”
I waited for the murmuring of hellos to be finished, then I placed one hand on my father’s shoulder and looked at Lee. “My dad, here, used to be a teacher.” Then I placed my other hand on Lee’s shoulder and looked at Dad. “Lee, here, is thinking about becoming a teacher.”
“Is that right?” asked Dad, his interest piqued. “What subjects are you interested in?”
Lee shrugged.
“Grade level?”
Lee shrugged. “I’ve only been giving it serious thought since last week. After I met your daughter.”
Dad’s eyes lit up, the way they used to on the first day of a new school year. “If you have a few minutes,” he said, “I’d love to discuss it with you. I can answer any questions you have. Maybe figure out your next steps?”
Lee looked around the vacant office, then down at his nearly empty desk. “Sure. Why not?”
“Great!” I reached into my purse and pulled out the brochures I’d picked up from White Mountains Community College. I tossed them onto Lee’s desk, then I put my arm around my mother and guided her back toward the door. “You two take your time. Mom and I will finish up the tour and we’ll meet you later! Come on, Pix.”
I turned to my mother as soon as we were back out on the street. “So, do you want to go see the funeral home?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You know, Josephine, if you ever start giving these tours professionally, I’d advise skipping the funeral home.”
I snorted. “You’re funny. I meant to stop in and say hello to Riley.”
I’d tossed and turned all night, replaying what had happened between us on the common, too hot and bothered to sleep. I’d awoken this morning feeling heartsick, lonely, and basically dying to see him. I was hopeless.
“Ah,” said Mom. “I should’ve known. You two certainly seemed to be having a good time last night.” She glanced at me as we walked, and my cheeks warmed. I’d never intended to have a full-on make-out session in front of everybody. In hindsight, it was a bit embarrassing.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “It’s just…you know…when the right man comes along, you won’t be able to fight it.” She couldn’t argue with her own words, could she?
“Well, Dylan and Quinn weren’t too thrilled about it,” said Mom. “They took off late last night to some bar in North Woodstock. Carla said she didn’t hear them come back until two o’clock in the morning. And she thinks they brought home girls.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m happy for them.”
Mission accomplished, thank you Riley. Although, the thought of strange girls hanging around at the inn made me anxious. I needed to go over there to check on everything, never mind bringing in the mail and watering the plants, like I was supposed to be doing. Kit and Amy would probably be calling soon to check in.
The three of us arrived at the funeral home, walked up the brick path beneath the striped awning, and I opened the door. Artie Goldwyn was sitting at Maggie’s desk, peering at her computer through his dark-rimmed glasses. I pushed the door shut, unzipped my coat, and shoved Pixie inside.
“What on Earth are you doing?” asked Mom.
“Dogs aren’t technically allowed inside,” I whispered. But I wasn’t about to leave her outside, either. I opened the door again. “Hi, Artie! Mom, this is Artie Goldwyn. He owns the place.” Artie looked up, his eyebrows pulling together at the sight of the big bulge in my coat, probably wondering if he should offer me congratulations.
“It’s nice to meet you,” said Mom. “Your funeral parlor is lovely.”
“Thank you,” said Artie, looking back at the computer just as Pixie did a complete three-sixty inside my coat. He looked up at us again. “Do either of you know anything about QuickBooks? With Maggie on vacation, I’m in a bit over my head here.”
“I use it at the store,” I said. “I’m sure I could figure—”
“Move,” said Mom, who’d already darted around me and was practically shoving Artie out of his chair. “I managed a small office for thirty years.” Her eyes had lit up and she looked almost as excited as Dad when I’d left him with Lee.
“I’m going to go look for Riley,” I said, taking a few steps toward the back office. “He’s not with a client, is he?”
