by Amy Harmon
“I don’t know. Am I allowed to stay?”
Her gaze fell to the ground, and Taycee’s finger drew circles through the long blades of grass next to her towel. She owed him an apology. But what could she say without embarrassing herself even more?
“I’m sorry, Luke,” the words finally tumbled out. “I didn’t mean half of what I said. It’s just that… well, I’m sorry. You’re not a poor excuse for a friend. In fact, there was a time when you were one of my best friends.” She looked out over the swimming hole, not wanting him to see the emotion in her eyes or how badly she wished for those days back.
Luke scooted closer until they sat side-by-side with their shoulders lightly touching. “You say that like it’s behind us. But we can still be friends, can’t we? Even after all these years?”
Friends. As much as Taycee would love to say yes, she didn’t think she had it in her to just be friends. Once it had been enough, but now Luke’s reappearance in her life had exposed all the feelings she’d tried to bury over the years, making them even more imposing than they’d been before.
“You were right,” Luke said when Taycee remained silent. “I should have kept in touch. I guess I got a little self-absorbed and threw myself into college life without really looking back. Then when my parents moved, I figured it was better that I move on. So I graduated from college and vet school. I even did an internship. But after that… I don’t know. It’s like I took a peek into my past and couldn’t seem to stop looking back. I missed it. So I made the plunge and moved back to the one place I never thought I’d return to.” He paused. “Maybe I made a mistake, though. I never meant to stir up past hurts.”
There was a time when Taycee had wanted him to realize that—to leave Shelter and stay far away. But the thought of him disappearing again made her want to throw her arms around him and hold on tight. He’d break her heart all over again if he left now.
Not that it wouldn’t break if he stayed, too.
“And I’m sorry for not calling you back that day I first saw you again,” Luke continued. “I wanted to, but I figured after showing up at your shop and hanging out for a while, you might think it was overkill. So I didn’t. I thought I was saving you, not hurting you.”
Taycee wanted to crawl under her towel and hide. Why was everything so much more embarrassing in the light of day? “Can we just call a truce? Or, as Caleb would say, strike yesterday’s conversation from the record?”
Luke chuckled. “Consider it stricken.”
Taycee offered him a tentative, relieved smile. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you came back, even if it’s only temporary.” Whether it was because she’d let out all her frustrations yesterday, or because she now understood why he hadn’t kept in touch or called, Taycee meant it. She was glad he’d come home. Maybe now she’d finally be able to heal and move on.
His shoulder nudged hers. “Don’t kick me out just yet. Maybe Shelter’s Bachelorette really will be able to help save the town.”
Taycee pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Last night, Sterling asked if I’d be willing to move if I fell for one of the bachelors. It made me think.” She twisted her head to face him. “Don’t you think it’s kind of ironic that something I’m doing to help the town might be the one thing that finally gets me to leave?”
The waterfall and zipping bees suddenly sounded loud in the silence that followed.
“Are you falling for one of the bachelors?” Luke said.
Not falling—fallen. And yes—the one that got voted off last week. She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sterling’s starting to grow on me.”
His startled eyes shot her way, and then relaxed in a look of relief. “You’re joking.”
“Maybe.” Taycee shrugged, fighting back a smile.
Luke stared down at her, making her lips twitch. He shook his head. “I can’t believe I almost fell for that.”
“And I can’t believe you’d actually think I’d go for someone like him.”
Luke nudged her shoulder again, nodding toward the water. “Can you still do a flip off that boulder?”
“I will if you will.”
“You’re on.” He grabbed her hand. It was something he’d done all the time when they were younger—something a big brother would do. But now Taycee couldn’t help the goose bumps that broke out across her arms. She wanted it to mean more than brotherly friendship. She wanted it to mean that he liked her the way she liked him.
He dragged her into the frigid spring water, and then relinquished her hand as they swam to the boulder. He scrambled to the top, reaching to help her up behind him. Then he winked, ran forward, and let out a whoop as he threw his body off the boulder, completed a graceful one and a half, and dove neatly into the water. Moments later he surfaced and shook the water from his dripping hair. Taycee could have stared at him all day.
“Show off,” she said.
“Impressed?”
“Maybe.”
“Admit it. I’m the king of the swimming hole.”
“Never!” Taking a few steps back, Taycee rushed forward, leaped into the air, brought her knees to her chest and yelled, “Cannonball!” before landing with a whack right beside him.
She surfaced and wiped the water from her eyes. “I just blew up your kingdom. Now I’m the king of the swimming hole, so there.”
“So there? What are we, in second grade?”
“I was trying to speak on your level.”
“You are so going down for that one.” Luke grabbed her, twisting her so his arms came around her shoulders from behind. “Any final words?” he said into her ear, his breath sending chills down her spine.
“You forgot to say Your Majesty.”
With a hand on her head, Luke pushed her under the water, and then pulled her up seconds later. “Now who’s the king?”
Taycee blinked the water from her eyes. “You forgot to say Your Majesty again. Honestly, how many times do I have to—”
Down she went again.
When she resurfaced the second time, she laughed. “Fine, you win, but only because I said mean things to you yesterday.” She wiped her eyes and pointed a finger at him. “But the day you tell me you’ll call me and don’t, you become the scum of the earth forever.”
Luke’s smile widened. “Do you want me to call you?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what I heard.”
“You need to get your hearing checked.” She broke free and splashed him in the face. He splashed back, and then lunged for her and pulled her against him, making her heart pound like crazy. Without meaning to, her eyes rested on his mouth. A knowing smile tugged on his lips, making her face burn and her gaze drop to his tan, muscular chest. Her cheeks flushed even hotter.
“My hearing’s fine,” he said, his voice low and teasing, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Taycee pulled from his grasp and splashed him again. “Man, you’re cocky.” Then she swam back to her towel where she collapsed on her stomach and buried her face in the soft terry cloth, hoping he couldn’t tell how easily he’d gotten to her. A few words, a look, and she was a muddled-up mess.
Luke trudged from the water and dropped down next to her. She kept her face buried while her body shivered from the cool breeze. As the water evaporated from her skin, the warm rays of the sun warmed her, inch by inch. It was like she was fourteen all over again, hanging out with Luke on a gorgeous spring day.
If yelling at him produced this kind of day, maybe she should do it more often.
“What was it that made you start looking back, Luke?” Her voice was muffled, so she twisted her face to the side and clarified, “To Shelter, I mean.”
Luke let out a breath and shifted on his towel, squinting up at the sun. “I don’t know. Do I need a reason? Why didn’t you ever leave?“
Taycee raised her head, tucking her elbows beneath her as she picked at her towel. “I did leave for a few years. I g
ot an Associate in business, and then enrolled in a floral design program for another year. But you’re right. I always planned to come back, and I did.”
She snuck a peak at him. He watched her with an unreadable expression on his face. Did he think she should’ve moved away? Found a life outside of Shelter like so many other people had done? Or did he think she figured it out early on that Shelter was a good place to plant roots?
“And yes,” she said. “You do need a reason. Everyone has a reason for doing something that doesn’t make sense.”
“Moving back to Shelter doesn’t make sense?”
Taycee shook her head. “Why would it? Your parents don’t live here any longer, and you didn’t keep in touch with anyone. What prompted you to even consider it?”
Luke shifted again, tucking his hands under his head and squinting at the sky. “After high school, I couldn’t wait to get away from this place. I felt stuck here, as if Shelter would keep me from having experiences and living my dreams. So I jumped on the college bandwagon and left town.
“Fast forward ten years, and there I was, finishing my internship and considering a great opportunity to partner with the vet I worked for. He wanted to ease me into the practice before he retired so I could take over. The fact that I also happened to be engaged to his daughter made it a no-brainer.”
Taycee’s eyes flew to his. Luke had been engaged? The news slammed into her in an uncomfortable way, making her feel so many things. Hurt that he’d loved someone else. Curiosity about what had happened. Jealousy that he’d been able to date and fall for another person without the memory of someone else always getting in the way.
“Then one day a box arrived in the mail. My mom went through a de-cluttering phase and sent me a package of some of my old stuff. My high school yearbooks were in it, along with a bunch of pictures of you, me, and Caleb. As soon as I opened it, everything changed. I had so many amazing memories from this place. It made me start thinking about moving back here instead—to a place I could raise my kids with the kind of lifestyle I once had. This swimming hole, horseback riding, hiking, camping, fishing, sledding, even cow-tipping.” He chuckled at that. “I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, so I got on the internet and found the McCann place.”
“What happened?” Taycee asked, unable to hold the question back any longer. “To your fiancée, I mean.”
Luke twisted his head, and his gaze rested on Taycee. “She grew up in Ohio and wanted to stay there, near her family. She wanted me to take over her father’s practice and keep living the life she’d always wanted to live.” Luke swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob. “I guess the fact that I had a hard time deciding between her and Shelter made me realize that maybe I didn’t love her as much as I thought I did. So we broke up.”
“Just like that?”
“It was tough, but it felt right, you know? So I went with it. I called the McCanns and asked if they’d consider letting me lease their farm before I committed to buying,” he said. “It was my way of doing something that felt right without risking everything.”
Taycee flipped onto her back and shaded the sun with her hand. “Wow, I don’t even know what to say to that except—wow.”
“I know. I thought I would ease right back into my old life with no problem. But then I ran into you and quickly discovered that wasn’t going to happen.”
Taycee gave him a rueful smile. “I guess I didn’t really make it easy on you, did I?”
“Let’s just say I learned the hard way that I should have kept in touch.”
“You always were a slow learner.”
Luke laughed.
The rest of the afternoon, she and Luke caught up, laughed, swam, teased, and applied more sunscreen. It was one of those days that surpassed all the others before it. By the time they hiked back to their cars, Taycee realized that even though things could never be the way they once were, maybe they could be better. Maybe having Luke back as a friend really was enough.
For now.
Chapter Twenty-four
The interview at the end of the second round of dating went almost exactly as it had before. Taycee felt like a broken record as she answered Jessa’s questions. Great guys, check. Fun times, check. Looking forward to more, check, check, check.
And now here she was, at her flower shop on Monday morning, staring at her laptop screen once again and wondering what to write about the latest winners: Jake, Greg, Miles, and of course—Alec. Evidently there were a lot of people who thought that what Alec had to say about himself was incredibly interesting. Either that, or Burt and Megan did too good of an editing job, which Taycee wouldn’t know since she never clicked “play.”
Maybe it was time to set all the viewers straight. Right here. Right now. On this blank laptop screen that seemed to mock her with its glowing brightness.
First off, you should all know that Alec is a self-absorbed motocross fanatic who also happens to be the world’s worst date! Pick him again and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .
Taycee sighed, highlighting the words and hitting “delete.”
The viewers have done it again! I couldn’t have picked them better myself!
Delete.
So sorry to see you go, Sterling, but . . . well, not really.
Delete.
Hey, guess what? I’m secretly in love with Luke Carney, and as of today, I’m respectfully stepping aside as Shelter’s bachelorette. I’m going to be that lame girl who makes a fool of herself by chasing after a guy who only thinks of her as a sister. TTFN!
Delete, delete, delete.
Argh.
Jessa’s ringtone sounded, and Taycee gratefully grabbed her phone—anything to put off writing this post.
“Please tell me you haven’t posted the results yet,” Jessa’s voice blared in her ear.
Taycee bit her lip as she studied the blank screen that now seemed to glow brighter than ever before. “Um, not quite yet.”
“Whew.” Jessa let out a breath. “Okay, so Greg left town this morning.”
“He what?”
“After giving it some serious thought, he decided that you’re not the one for him,” Jessa said. “So sorry, Tace,” she added dryly, “I know how much this must devastate you.”
“It does devastate me.” Jessa could joke all she wanted about Greg, but this wasn’t good news at all. The show still had over three weeks to go, which meant they’d either have to end it early, an option Jessa would never go for, or—
“Looks like Sterling’s back in the lineup,” Jessa said, as if it was no big deal that Taycee would be subjected to his spitting and forced conversation for yet another night. “You don’t mind changing Greg’s name to his, do you?”
“Yes, I do mind. Why can’t we just end this thing a week earlier than planned? You did say that we were bringing in more money than you anticipated, right?” It seemed like a reasonable request to Taycee. More than reasonable, in fact.
“Yes, but it hasn’t been increasing the way I thought it would. We’re going to need every voting opportunity we can get. In fact, I’m wishing we’d gone from ten bachelors to seven, instead of five, so we could have carried this on for a couple weeks longer.”
It was a lesson in this-could-always-be-worse-so-be-grateful-you-only-have-one-more-date-with-Sterling. Taycee sighed and deleted Greg’s name. She forced her fingers to tap out Sterling’s while trying to tell herself that it could be worse. “Okay, it’s changed. Anything else?”
“Actually, yes.” Jessa hesitated, which was never a good sign. It meant something big was coming. Something Taycee probably wouldn’t want to hear.
“I need you to up the romance.”
“What!”
“Seriously, Tace. People are starting to comment about it a lot. ‘Why hasn’t he kissed her?’ ‘Does she even like these guys?’ ‘How is she not falling all over Jake?’” Jessa paused. “Would it kill you to show some affection?”
“Yes!” How could Jessa even ask such a thing, es
pecially when she knew full well that Taycee didn’t want to be here in the first place? Wasn’t it enough that she’d agreed to be the bachelorette? Wasn’t it enough that she’d gone along with it all, smiled for the camera, and gotten spit on, told off, and leered at in the process?
“C’mon,” Jessa coaxed. “You’ve done such a good job luring the voters in so far. But what they want now is some good old-fashioned romance.”
“Well, too bad for them.” No way would Taycee ever kiss Sterling or Alec. No. Way. As for Miles? That would be like kissing a brother. Jake? Well, he’d definitely be a step above brother, but it would still feel wrong.
The simple truth was that none of them gave her that tingly, warm feeling that made her want to wrap her arms around them and hold on tight. None of them goaded her into wanting to silence them with her mouth over theirs. And none of them dominated her thoughts.
In other words, none of them were Luke.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” said Taycee. “I just can’t.”
“Yes you can,” Jessa argued. “I’m sure this is the reason people aren’t voting as much. And if we don’t reach our goal… Tace, please, think of the farmers. My aunt and uncle. They need you to do this.” A pause. “I need you to do this.”
“Fine,” Taycee said, wishing she could fast forward the next few weeks and leave this stupid show behind.
* * *
Taycee yanked her apartment door closed with more force than necessary. Broken glass shattered across the hardwood floor as the framed picture of a bright red tulip hit the ground next to her feet.
“Perfect,” she muttered, dropping to her knees. “Just perfect.”
A low whistle sounded from across the room, making Taycee jump. Caleb’s head poked out from the arched opening of the kitchen as he tilted one of the chairs back. When did he get here? And how did he get in?
