Hometown Hero

by Cate Cameron

  “Day after tomorrow,” he said thoughtfully. “I think I can wait that long.”

  Zara wasn’t sure she could. But now that she’d cooled down at least a little, she thought maybe she liked the idea of not rushing into anything that night. And she definitely wasn’t going to blow off a friend, even a new one, just to hook up with a guy. Ashley might understand, but that didn’t make it okay. So Zara nodded her agreement to the plan, and this time when she turned to get into her car, Cal didn’t stop her.

  She drove home, her mind spinning and hopping over all the excitement. She was doing something worthwhile at her job. She was maybe starting something with a sweet guy. She could ignore their history and his family and the rest of it, at least for right then.

  Zane’s car wasn’t in the driveway at home, and she wasn’t sure if that should add to her happiness or take away from it. If he was off somewhere having fun, she was happy for him. But if he was back at that damn trailer, or off somewhere else feeling miserable and alone . . . well, she’d be sure to check in with him, let him know she was there for him, and that was about all she could think of.

  She looked at her phone on the way into the house and that was what popped the happiness balloon. An e-mail from the company, reminding her of her next scheduled medical appointment.

  Because that was her life. Because she had made commitments in that world, and because she made money there and knew where she belonged there. Whatever she was doing in Lake Sullivan, with her job or with Cal, it wasn’t real. It was temporary, a distraction for her while she recovered enough to get back to her real world.

  A good distraction, she told herself as she opened the front door and let herself in to the empty house. If she’d managed to forget about the rest of it for a while, that was good. Everything was going according to plan.

  She just needed to remember that there was a plan. Something larger and more important than small-town community centers and handsome, charming distractions. She was the women’s MMA champion, and she needed to remember that.

  She typed in a quick reply to the reminder e-mail, confirming that she’d be there for the appointment. And when she went to bed, she tried not to think about Cal, or the center, or anything else that wasn’t related to her getting healthy, getting fit, and getting back in the ring. She tried. But it took her a long, long time to fall asleep.

  Twelve

  CAL ARRIVED TO work the next morning to find Michael and his father waiting in his office. Somehow it was them being in his office that he found most annoying. They were clearly making a point, showing that it was their building and they had a right to visit any part of it they wanted. They might as well have peed in the corners of the room.

  Cal was tempted to turn around and just start walking, but instead he smiled brightly at them. “Hey, guys! It’s good to see you! What’s up?”

  His father looked taken aback, but Michael just rolled his eyes at Cal’s fake charm. “You were seen in the parking lot at the community center last night. An inappropriate public display.”

  “Pull the stick out of your ass, Michael. It was a kiss.” An amazing kiss, but its quality didn’t make it any less appropriate.

  “We’ve made it clear that we have concerns about the relationship,” his father sputtered.

  “And I’ve made it clear that I’m not looking for your approval.” Cal shrugged his jacket off and kept talking as he hung it up. “I talked to an employment lawyer. He said that my employment is at will, so in general you can fire me if you want to. He said we could try for a wrongful dismissal lawsuit based on my right to privacy or something, but he said it’d be messy and not a guaranteed success.” He strolled behind his desk and sat down. “But I don’t think I’d sue you. So, you know, if this is a big enough deal for you, go ahead and fire me. If it isn’t, I think you should stop wasting everyone’s time with the threats and the bluster.”

  “We don’t want to fire you!” His father sounded genuinely shocked. “Why do you keep rushing ahead to that? We just want you to remember who you are, and your obligations to your family!”

  “By only dating family-approved women?” Cal shook his head. “No. I’m not interested in that.”

  “And you’d just walk away from the company?” Michael said. He sounded skeptical. “All because of a woman?”

  “No. I’d walk away from the company, but not because of Zara. I’d do it because I won’t live this way, with the two of you thinking you can run my life. I’m willing to follow your lead in business, but my private life is private.” And while he was at it, he might as well keep going. “And that applies to any pressure you try to apply on a family level as well. If you can’t support my decisions, fair enough. But I’m not going to listen to either one of you slamming either one of the Hales. So if I’m around, and you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.”

  “Or else what?” Michael scoffed. Another big brother who didn’t realize his younger sibling had grown up.

  “Or I won’t be around.” It was liberating to remember that he had options. “I can spend time with Mom without either of you, if I have to. And Michael, I can get a job somewhere else without any trouble. You understand that, right? I’m not like you; I haven’t turned myself into a Montgomery Holdings specialist. My education, my skills—they’re transferable. I’m working here because I’m loyal to the family, not because I have no other choice.”

  And that was the problem, Cal realized. The flash of clarity was somehow too bright, almost painful. For his father, at least, that was the problem. It wasn’t about Zara, not really. Well, it was, but not because he didn’t approve of her. It was because he feared her. He realized how tenuous his hold on Cal was, and saw her as a real threat to it. If Cal would just connect with a local woman, he’d have one more tie to the Lake Sullivan community, one more bond chaining him to the company and the family. But someone like Zara? Someone who’d left Lake Sullivan and thrived? She got in the way of that.

  “You want to make sure I stay here,” he said to his father. “I get that. But do you see that you’re making it less likely that I’ll stay?”

  “Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” Michael said, sneering.

  Cal turned to him and frowned. “Yeah. You wouldn’t mind if I left. But if I do stay, you want to make sure I’m under your control. Doing as I’m told, not challenging you for your place in the company. So you’re using this as an opportunity to throw your weight around when you know you’ve got Dad to back you up.” He shook his head. “But it could backfire on you, just like it could backfire on Dad. Because you can’t fire me, not without Dad’s agreement, and he won’t agree because his whole goal is to keep me in town and keep me working for the company. And if you can’t fire me, but you can make me really resent working under you?” He saw Michael’s expression change into something hard to look at, but made himself continue. “That’s when I might start looking for ways to bump you out of your place in the company, so I could take over and not have you bugging me all the time.”

  He leaned back, suddenly tired of it all. “So that’s where we’re at, I think. Is there anything you guys wanted to add, or disagree with? If not, I’ve got work to do.” He paused for just long enough to pretend he was giving them a chance to speak. “All right, then. As far as I’m concerned, the subject is closed. If you mention Zara or Zane Hale to me again, please speak with respect.”

  And that seemed to be that. Michael left the office looking like he’d swallowed a bug, but that was fairly close to his normal expression. Cal’s father stayed behind for long enough to give him a cryptic, thoughtful look, but that was all.

  Cal leaned back in his chair. He felt good. Light, and untroubled. He was looking forward to the future, leaving the past behind. And he definitely hoped that Zara Hale was part of his future. It was nice to have that out in the open.

  * * *

  “IT’S a stit
ch and bitch,” Ashley said as if the words made sense. “You have to bring something to work on. Do you knit or anything?”

  Zara stared at her. “You didn’t mention knitting. And you absolutely didn’t mention a stitch and bitch. You just said we should ‘do something.’ I was thinking . . . drinks maybe?”

  “I didn’t know about it until Mrs. Ryerson invited me this afternoon.” She leaned in, her eyes bright with excitement, and whispered, “This is a total honor! There are women in this town who’ve been waiting for years to be invited to Mrs. Ryerson’s stitch and bitch, and you and I are invited within weeks of moving to town. Yay!”

  Zara was still staring. “But . . . why? I mean, what? We’re supposed to knit? What is this about?”

  Ashley leaned back a little, laughing triumphantly. “I have no idea! I’ve never been to one! But they do them here, I guess, and I live here now so I’m going to do them, and I got invited to a good one! And when I told Mrs. Ryerson why I couldn’t make it, she was really excited to invite you, too. So we’re going.”

  “To knit?”

  “You could do some mending, if you have any?”

  Zara shook her head slowly. Of course she didn’t have mending. “You can just go without me,” she said. “I’m a bit tired anyway. I was thinking about bailing tonight.”

  “No you weren’t. And you’re not bailing now, either. Just . . . I don’t know, rip something, and put it in a bag, you can mend it and drink wine and bitch about stuff. Or whatever the hell it is we’re doing. Or you can share my knitting, if you want. I have yarn, and Mrs. Ryerson said she has needles I can borrow.”

  “Do you know how to knit?”

  “Of course not! I didn’t know how to fish, either, but now I’m—well, I don’t mean to brag, but I’m entering a derby this winter.”

  “Anyone can enter a derby.” Zara might not have had the happiest childhood in Lake Sullivan, but she’d managed to soak up a few basic facts about the place.

  But Ashley didn’t seem concerned. “And anyone can knit, too. So let’s go!”

  Zara let it happen. She’d been caught off guard, she supposed. Softened by her time in Lake Sullivan. Tricked into a strange friendship with this ridiculous woman who was so excited about something called a stitch and bitch. If she was ever kidnapped by aliens, she’d probably end up going to their weird social rituals, too, just because she’d be too confused to object.

  Ashley drove, which fit well into Zara’s sense of abandoning herself to fate, and they made their way out of town to one of the houses by the lake. This one wasn’t as palatial as some, but it was nice. Too nice. “Are you sure about this?” Zara asked. Maybe Ashley would just laugh and say the whole thing had been a prank, and they could go somewhere and have a couple beers and relax.

  But Ashley had already reached into the backseat and retrieved a cloth grocery bag and a bottle of wine. “We’re doing it,” she said firmly.

  So Zara let herself be led up the gravel driveway to the wide front porch. There was warm golden light shining out of the windows, and the night air was cool; Zara wanted inside, even though she wasn’t sure what she was going to find there.

  “Stitch and bitch,” she muttered to herself, and then the door opened and Mrs. Ryerson smiled sweetly at them.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” she said. “Come on in; you can hang your coats there. We’re in the back room.”

  They followed her back to find six other women of all ages sitting in easy chairs and on two long sofas, each of them with some sort of craft in their hands. They weren’t all knitting. One was cutting pieces of fabric into squares, another had an easel set up and seemed to be painting something, and another . . .

  Zara frowned at her. “Mrs. Grey?”

  The woman smiled. “Hello, sweetie. It’s good to see you.”

  The woman had taught Zara in second grade, and Zara had a sudden flash of memory, this woman giving her a sandwich—not once, but nearly every day. Zara had gone to her for lunch, even after she wasn’t in her class anymore. And Mrs. Grey had provided, without ever making Zara feel bad about it. “It’s good to see you, too,” she said, and she meant it. But this was no place to go too deep into her memories, not with all these ladies watching her. “What are you working on?” she asked, crossing the room to examine Mrs. Grey’s work.

  “I’m crocheting lace.”

  Zara crouched down and stared at the delicate web spread over the woman’s knee. Tiny filaments, thin even for thread, knotted together into an intricate, beautiful pattern. “What’s it for?”

  “I’m hoping it will be my granddaughter’s wedding veil.”

  Zara squinted at the teacher. “You have a granddaughter?” She seemed too young.

  And Mrs. Grey shook her head. “Not yet. But I have three children. And lace takes a long time to make, especially when I only work on it a couple times a month.”

  “So you might be putting all this time into it and it might never even get used?”

  Mrs. Grey smiled slyly, then reached for her glass of wine. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she said in a stage whisper, and only then did Zara realize that the attention of the whole room was on them. “At a good stitch and bitch, the ‘stitch’ part is of secondary importance.”

  Zara leaned back a little. “So you guys are bitching about stuff?”

  Mrs. Ryerson was beside them then, holding out a glass of wine for Zara. “It’s not usually bitching,” she said. “Just girl talk. I tried to get them to change the name to ‘create and relate,’ but it didn’t take hold. But we banish the men for the evening and get caught up, and we have our needlework to make us feel productive.” She smiled, then, and said, “I’m planning to show Ashley how to knit. Would you like me to show you, too?”

  “Is knitting . . .” Zara looked down at the pattern on Mrs. Grey’s knee. “Can you knit lace?”

  “You can,” Mrs. Ryerson said, “but I don’t think there’s anyone in our group who knows how to do it. If you’re interested in working toward lace, you’d probably be best off learning to crochet.”

  “I can help you with that,” Mrs. Grey said, setting her lace aside and burrowing through her bag before pulling out a much larger version of the needle she’d been using, along with a ball of mid-brown yarn. “Best to start big and work your way down.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt your lace,” Zara protested.

  Mrs. Grey’s eyes danced. “That’s okay. I wasn’t planning on doing much work after you two got here anyway. It’ll be hard to keep close count of my stitches when I’m hearing about you and Calvin Montgomery!”

  Zara stared at her, then at the circle of expectant faces. “What?” she managed, her mouth dry.

  “Is it a secret?” Mrs. Grey asked. “I mean, you were making out in the community center parking lot, as I understand it. That’s not exactly subtle.”

  “It’s not a secret,” Zara managed. “It’s just—there’s nothing—I mean, he’s a friend of my brother’s. . . .”

  The woman with the easel shook her head. “Pointless to deny it, honey. You forgot you were in Lake Sullivan, right? Everybody knows everybody, and with a public declaration like that? Privacy is gone.”

  It wasn’t so much that Zara had thought they were alone the night before in the parking lot. It was more that she hadn’t thought at all. Hadn’t wondered who might see them, hadn’t been concerned about how it all might look. She’d been completely unaware of her surroundings, oblivious to anything other than Cal’s strong arms and gentle smile.

  “No,” she said, mostly to herself, but willing to let anyone hear. “It was . . . it’s not a thing! I live in New York! I’m just visiting here, just—” She made herself stop. This was a funny little bit of gossip for everyone else; she was the only one making it into a big deal. She forced herself to laugh. “Wow. Okay, yeah,” she admitted to the painte
r. “I forgot I was back in Lake Sullivan. Good reminder, lesson learned.” She took a deep swallow of her wine, and it shut her up, at least for the moment.

  The other women mercifully changed the subject, and Mrs. Grey whispered, “Sorry. I didn’t think it would be a touchy subject.”

  Zara forced another laugh. “No, it’s fine. I’m just wound a little tight about that sort of stuff. Not good at, you know, at being casual about things. It’s not a big deal.” Not a big deal with Cal, and not a big deal that people knew about Cal. Not that there was anything to know.

  “Do you want it to be a big deal?” Mrs. Grey asked gently.

  “No! I mean, it really can’t be. I’m going home.” She’d already decided not to mention the occasional dizzy spells at her physical; she couldn’t be sure they were related to her concussion, but the doctors would be stupid about it. She was going back to fighting, and once she was back in that world, there wouldn’t be room for Cal. She couldn’t afford the distraction.

  Ashley was beside her now. Had been for a while maybe, but Zara’s panic had made her vision tunnel a bit. “There are ways to make long-distance work,” Ashley said. “It’s a challenge, but not impossible.”

  Mrs. Grey raised an eyebrow. “Have you and Josh spent more than two nights in a row apart since you got together?” She shook her head in amusement and told Zara, “Josh is family, so I know what he’s up to. Believe me when I tell you that, for those two, the ‘long-distance’ part is the travel they’re doing together, jetting from Vermont to wherever she’s shooting.”

  “It’s not the distance, really,” Zara said. Not the physical distance, at least.