by Kait Nolan
Zach Warren refilled his glass from the pitcher of Corona. “You’re overlooking the obvious solution.”
“I’m not going to fire her. Do you know what kind of fight that would lead to with my mother?”
“Your commitment to avoiding confrontation has moved beyond pacifism and into wuss territory,” Eli said.
“It’s not pacifism or being a wuss. It’s being a gentleman,” Reed retorted. “Something I know your mama tried to train you to be. Not that it seems to have stuck.”
Eli made a face.
“If you’re finished?” Zach said. “No, you need a girlfriend.”
Went for that. Landed flat on my face.
Cecily hadn’t been back by the bookstore, leading him to conclude she really had just been shopping for her cousin, not out to renew some flirtation with him. He wondered if Blair liked Dark Defenders.
“There aren’t exactly any real candidates in that department at the moment. And I’m not going to start dating some woman with the express purpose of getting Brenda off my back. It wouldn’t be fair to lead somebody on like that. Not to mention I don’t need my mom to start hearing wedding bells where there are none. Now that Cam’s biting the bullet, the entire family has weddings on the brain.”
“What about a virtual girlfriend?”
Reed pinned Zach with a look. “Somehow I don’t think a blow-up doll or a Buffybot is going to get me out of this jam.”
“Not that kind of virtual girlfriend. Geez. I’m talking about Virtual Match.”
Eli picked up the pitcher. “Virtual what now?”
“Virtual Match. It’s this service where you can basically get an invisible significant other to get people off your back. You get to set up a profile, make up your story, pick a headshot or whatever, and when anybody asks, you have texts and emails that prove their existence.”
Reed’s interest piqued. “How’s that work?”
“They’ve got actual people on the other side writing the texts and emails, so you’re interacting with a human, not a computer. There are different levels of the service. But think about it. It’s perfect. Takes the lie of a long distance girlfriend and backs it up with actual proof. Then nobody’s the wiser, and your cougar backs off without being embarrassed about her crush on a much younger man.”
“The man makes a good point.” Eli peered down at his phone. “And at this price per month, it’s cheaper than an actual girlfriend, that’s for damn sure. Look, I’ll even sign you up for a gift subscription.”
“Seriously?”
“Don’t look a gift girlfriend in the mouth,” Leo told him. “Having regular female contact has apparently loosened his wallet. Just go with it.”
“Oh, what the hell. It’s not like I have any better ideas. Fire away.”
Over chips and queso, they signed Reed up for the service.
Leo plucked the phone out of Eli’s hand to take his turn. “Okay, so we need to name your girlfriend. I submit that since she’s rescuing you from your cougar, she should be named after the real-life alter ego of a superhero.”
“I second this motion,” Zach said.
“We’re doing this by committee now?” Reed asked.
Eli thumped him on the shoulder. “I think it should be Anna Marie after Rogue, since it's a virtual girl who can't touch you.”
“Oh, oh, or Jennifer Walters, the She-Hulk, since Reed needs protecting from the cougar.”
This time it was Reed flipping Zach the bird.
“No, she ought to be Sue Storm because she's an invisible girlfriend,” Leo argued.
“I am not dating a member of the Fantastic Four.”
“What about Betsy Braddock? She actually sounds like a real Southern girl,” Zach offered.
“Plus, lots of people haven’t ever heard of PsyLocke,” Eli added. “Less chance of being outed by accident.”
“She’s going to be my girlfriend,” Reed protested, “so I’m picking. Selina Kyle. Because who better to take on a cougar than Catwoman herself?”
Zach hooked his fingers into claws and pawed the air. “Rowr.”
“Selina Kyle it is. Here, pick a selfie.” Leo passed over the phone.
Reed scrolled through the gallery of pics, pausing over a few brunettes who vaguely resembled Cecily. No, he’d rather have the real thing or nothing at all. Moving on, he ultimately settled on blonde with Slavic blue eyes and a sassy smile. He hit next.
“Apparently we get to pick her personality, too.”
“Oh, gimme.” Zach snatched the phone.
“Remember, this has to be believable,” Reed reminded him.
They settled on something basic enough—intellectual rather than cheerleader bubbly—before moving on to customize the story of how he and Selina had met.
“She’s a graduate student at Ole Miss, getting her PhD in English. I met her at a reading up at Square Books,” Reed said.
“What’s she doing her dissertation on?” Leo wanted to know. His thumbs hovered over the phone.
“Gothic novels. Basically old school horror.”
“Seriously?” Eli looked up with interest. “You can actually write about cool stuff like that? I thought English was all about a bunch of boring, dead white dudes.”
Reed gave him a pitying look. “Go back to your woods, Ranger Rick.”
Leo finished entering the details and hit a button. “Okay. Last detail.”
Whatever that detail was faded into the background as Reed caught sight of Cecily standing near the hostess station, scanning the room. Her eyes met his, and she went very still for a moment, as if waiting. He thought about sliding out of the booth, crossing to her and laying his mouth over the lips she’d parted in surprise. Was it his imagination or were her cheeks going pink?
“Dude, how long have y’all been dating?”
Startled by Leo’s words, Reed blinked, and the tenuous connection was broken. Cecily began weaving her way through tables, over to Jessie and the rest of her friends.
Idiot. Of course she hadn’t come here looking for him.
“It shouldn’t be too long or people will want to know why they didn’t know,” Zach pointed out.
Cecily slid out of her coat and took a seat, reaching immediately for the drink one of them held out.
It should be after the disaster at the lake. Reed forced his attention back to his friends. “Two months. Long enough to have talked and gotten to know each other and decided to date.”
A few button clicks later and Leo gave the phone back to his brother. “You are officially off the market.”
“I wonder how long it’ll take to kick in.” Before Reed even finished the question, his phone was buzzing. He tugged it out of his pocket and read the incoming text.
Hey, Tiger. What are you up to tonight?
“Well, I guess that answers that question.”
“What’d she say?” Zach asked, craning his head to see.
Ignoring him, Reed thumbed a reply. Mexican out with the guys. You?
The answer came back a few moments later. Up to my eyeballs in dissertation and wishing we were watching a movie and eating popcorn. Extra butter, naturally.
Jumping into the middle of a conversation with a complete stranger who was supposed to be not a stranger was totally weird. Well, in for a penny, he thought, and typed in a response.
Chapter 3
By the time Cecily arrived at Los Pantalones, the parking lot was packed. She had to circle twice before finally snagging a space vacated by a pickup truck that’d been polished to a gleam for Friday night out on the town. Starving and tired, she was looking forward to the margarita the girls had ordered her when she’d texted she was leaving work.
Beth was delighted with Cecily’s ideas on how to effectively launch The Dixieland Biscuit Company. Norah was pleased, and that was always a nice ego stroke. As Norah got more and more tied up with other aspects of being city planner, more of the straight marketing work for local business owners was falling to Cecily. And
that suited her just fine. She enjoyed putting together campaigns for ways to market on a shoestring…creating something from almost nothing. Which was about the budget that most business owners in this economically-challenged town had to work with.
Cecily was still floating on a professional high as she stepped into the busy cantina and began searching for her friends’ table. That high shifted to something a lot hotter as she caught sight of Reed Campbell watching her from across the room. She went still, as if by not moving, she’d somehow blend into her surroundings. How could his eyes feel like a caress from thirty feet away? She felt her skin heat, her body pull tight with wanting.
He blinked and whatever strange hold he’d had on her was broken. More than a little unnerved, she sucked in a steadying breath and hurried across to her friends.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Avery Cahill held out a margarita with a sympathetic look. “We can go, if you want.”
Of course they hadn’t missed that little show.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Cecily shrugged out of her coat and took the margarita, drinking a tad deeper than she normally would. He’d been on her mind far too much since her foray to the bookstore last week.
“Are you sure?” Jessie Applewhite reached out to stroke a hand down her arm. “I know things have been weird between you and Reed since that weekend at the lake.”
“You’re making far too much of that.” No, she really wasn’t. “Reed and I are fine. Wishful is a small town. We run into each other all the time.” And every single time, Cecily had to remind herself why she’d walked away. She reached for the chip basket. “So, what are we talking about?”
“Men,” Avery said.
Of course they were. “Shouldn’t four adult women be capable of passing the Bechdel test and talking about something else on a Friday night out?”
“Not when Jessie’s looking all googly-eyed at her guy like we’re at some kind of middle school dance.” Brooke Redding rolled her eyes and sipped at a margarita. “Way better punch than they had in junior high, though.”
Jessie turned back to them, feigning insult. “I’m allowed to be googly-eyed.”
“According to the Girl Code, she is,” Avery declared. “She gets a full three months by default, plus an extra month due to his level of exceptional hotness.”
“I cannot argue with his hotness,” Brooke admitted. “Who knew working with trees did that for a man?”
“Mostly it’s just genetics. See exhibit A, the still very single Leo, who shares his DNA.” Jessie gestured toward Eli’s twin brother.
They all turned to look at Leo, distinguishable from his brother only by dint of shorter hair and a slightly leaner build. But Cecily’s gaze skimmed past him to Reed’s rangy frame. Tall, with swimmer’s shoulders, his brown hair curled a bit at his collar. She didn’t think he’d had it cut since summer. As she watched, he leaned forward, apparently in intense debate with Zach about something.
“I’m sure Leo’s just fine, but I’m on a man diet,” Brooke declared.
Cecily turned back to the table. “A man diet?”
“I’ve had seriously craptastic luck with the last several guys I’ve been out with. The dating pool is not that big here, as you well know, and it’s shrinking. Leo Hamilton is one of the last unknown quantities out there in our age bracket. I’d hate to go out with him and find out there’s no chemistry, or worse, that he’s some kind of closet asshole.”
“Leo’s not an asshole,” Jessie assured her.
“Maybe not,” Brooke agreed, “but I’d rather enjoy him just hanging out on the horizon as a very pretty possibility than get confirmation he’s a frog instead of a prince.”
That was an attitude Cecily could get behind. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d done with Reed? It was just too damned bad that she’d kissed him. Now there was no erasing that first-hand knowledge that Reed Campbell’s poet’s mouth knew exactly how to drive her crazy.
She cursed her traitorous body for glancing back at him. One kiss. It was one kiss. So why the hell couldn’t she get it out of her system?
Naturally her friends noticed.
“Now that’s a prince I thought for sure would take,” Avery said. “I was positive you and Reed would hit it off, or I wouldn’t have dragged you both to the lake.”
Victims of Avery’s less than subtle matchmaking, Reed and Cecily had been invited as the lone singles to a couples weekend at a cabin up at Hope Springs. According to Avery, a weekend away was just the thing to finally ignite the slow burning fuse of attraction that had been sizzling between them during months of casual flirtation. And she’d been right. That latent spark of fun and humor had burst into something a whole lot hotter. Which was part of the problem. Because then he’d opened his mouth and ruined everything.
There’s no such thing as a woman raised in the lap of luxury, who has even the remotest grip on reality. Ivory tower princesses, all of them.
He hadn’t been talking about her at all. Cecily understood he’d been badly burned by his ex. But his casual and sweeping indictment proved he could never handle the truth about who she really was. Cecily had no desire to get more attached to him before the inevitable train wreck, so she’d politely but firmly put on the brakes.
She jerked a shoulder. “There’s no sense in me starting some kind of relationship when I’ll be leaving whenever I land a new job.”
Jessie arched a brow. “And that merited avoiding him for the last three months?”
“I haven’t been avoiding him.”
“Really? So the fact that you conveniently had other plans or had to work late every time a social occasion came up where he’d be there is just a coincidence?”
Cecily fought the urge to squirm beneath Avery’s gaze.
“Why don’t you give him another chance, honey?” Jessie suggested. “He really is a good guy.”
“I’m not arguing that he’s not a good guy.” He was one of the best ones she knew, which had made her disappointment all the keener. “He’s just not for me.” She was saving them both a lot of grief by acknowledging that on the front end. “And, as I said, I’m leaving, so the whole thing is an entirely moot point.”
But as the conversation finally turned to other topics, Cecily couldn’t resist glancing back toward him and thinking how much she was going to miss this place.
~*~
The new issues of M & S arrived on Monday. Reed had almost forgotten about Christoff having bought them all, but the mystery came flooding back as he pulled them out of the box. Since Brenda was manning the register, he paused in the midst of racking the rest of the shipment to look it over. The cover story was about billionaire philanthropist Cecil Davenport. Like the Vanderbilts or Rockefellers, Davenport was a household name—the kind of name that spoke of old money and breeding. People who lived stratospheres above the normal world. But unlike many of his contemporaries, Davenport was more often in the news for the good things he did with his wealth. Reed dimly remembered having read something about an enterprise he’d entered into with Warren Buffet last year. Something to do with trying to correct the latest debacle in public education.
As he studied Davenport’s picture on the front of the magazine, Reed couldn’t shake the sense that the guy looked familiar. Probably from having seen him on the news. He began to flip through, skimming articles and by-lines, wondering what had prompted Christoff to wipe out the local supply. Reed turned the page and suddenly he knew exactly why Cecil Davenport looked familiar. Because his gray eyes were staring out of the smiling face of…Cecily. Her picture was right there on the page of this national magazine.
“What the hell?”
Reed hurriedly turned back to the start of the Davenport story—a photo essay and interview designed to humanize the man by introducing the rest of his family.
Holy shit. Cecily was Cecil Davenport’s granddaughter?
Reed tried to imagine her in that privileged, private world and absolutely failed. She was
so…real and normal, without a shred of pretension.
What the hell was she doing in Wishful working for an hourly wage at City Hall? She could be doing…anything…anywhere. And yet she was here, hanging out with the likes of his small town, not giving off a single inkling that she was so much more than a displaced Yankee with a beautiful smile and a brilliant mind. Of course, that was making the gross assumption that the family fortune trickled down. For all he knew, she was having to work to get by the same as anyone else.
Reed started to rack the magazine, then stopped, whipping it back to beat against his thick skull as he realized, with an abrupt clarity, exactly what he’d done to earn her ill opinion.
“You idiot,” he muttered.
That night under the stars, after that one, glorious kiss, they’d talked about careers and life. She’d asked him what prompted him to take over the bookstore. And instead of talking about his desire to make it a hub of the community and his pleasure in spreading his deep love of books, he’d talked about how it was a big screw you to Annelise Arrington, his money-worshiping college girlfriend, who’d wanted nothing to do with his small-time, small town life.
There’s no such thing as a woman raised in the lap of luxury, who has even the remotest grip on reality. Ivory tower princesses, all of them.
Jesus Christ. Why had he said that? He’d needed some giant cartoon cork shoved in his pie hole to save him from his own stupidity.
After rejecting him, Annelise had gone back home to the coast and ended up marrying some Pretentious Playboy the Fourth. Some heir to a beer distributorship or some such. Which Reed knew because they'd been smack dab on the cover of the Mississippi Magazine wedding issue two years ago. He'd spent three months being slapped in the face with the image, seriously considering discontinuing the entire periodicals section of the store the whole time.
He didn’t love Annelise anymore. The only reason he’d even been thinking about her at all that weekend was because he’d seen an article in The Clarion Ledger society pages talking about some political fund-raising gala she was chairing. The sight of her picture had stirred the whole noxious mess back up, reigniting all those feelings that his life was too small, that he was too unworthy. Instead of thanking God that he’d narrowly escaped a miserable marriage, only to be granted the gift of interest from a much better woman, that sense of inadequacy and bitterness had come pouring out.
