The Fine Art of Faking It: A Small Town Love Story (Blue Moon Book 6)

by Lucy Score

  “Yeah, but they deserve it.”

  “Uh-huh. Don’t get me wrong. You probably couldn’t find a Mooner who wouldn’t agree with you. However, what did this town drum into our heads every day since kindergarten?”

  “Believe in karma and do no harma.” Eden recited. “What are you getting at, Sammy?”

  “What if you’ve spent a decade and a half fighting what you really want?”

  “You think I want Davis?”

  “Um. Duh. You’re Eden Moody. You don’t accidentally sleep with anyone.”

  “Maybe it’s just really good sex. I mean like superhuman amazing sex.”

  “Stop rubbing it in, jerk.”

  “I’m having a life crisis. I can’t be held responsible for the word vomit coming out of my mouth.”

  “Look, babe. If you like Davis, date Davis. Forget the B.C., forget your parents. And, most of all, forget high school. Stop being held hostage by the past.”

  “What if holding grudges is my thing?” Eden asked the question that turned her stomach to acid.

  “What if you have control over what your thing is? What if your thing is Davis’s thing? And by thing, I mean penis.”

  “You’re awfully wise when you’re woken up at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night.”

  “They all come to the single, Rocky Road-eating vet for knowledge bombs,” Sammy sang.

  “I need to think,” Eden decided. She needed some time, some space, and a lot of brain power.

  “Then get out of the bathroom before someone drops a deuce, and go think.”

  36

  “How would you two like to buy some rice flour cranberry almond orange zinger muffins? Only eight dollars apiece!” Amethyst Oakleigh announced cheerfully from the table in the Farm and Fresh vestibule. She was bundled up in a mint green parka with a rainbow beret and scarf distorting most of her face. Wilson Abramovich sat next to her in a puffy vest and an ivory turtleneck sweater.

  The doors opened, and a rush of cold night air barreled inside followed by a tropical wave of heat from the overhead heaters. They’d missed this little fundraiser when they entered the side door and Davis wished they’d gone out the same way they came in.

  Eden stopped and stared at them. “What are you raising money for?” she asked pleasantly, the death threats in her blue eyes going unheeded. Davis knew that benign tone. It was something to be feared, and those poor B.C. bastards had no idea what hell was about to rain down on them.

  “You know what? We just had rice flour muffins for dinner,” he said, wrapping an arm around Eden’s waist. “We’re going to leave. Right now.”

  Davis steered her toward the exit before she could show the Beautification Committee exactly what they could do with their rice flour muffins.

  She took a deep breath of the crisp winter night. “Thanks for that. Apparently, I have a problem with my temper and holding grudges… and never moving forward from the past.”

  She sounded so forlorn he reached down into the bag and fished out the pack of Sour Patch Kids he remembered her loving in junior high. He handed them over, and she clutched them to her chest like a beloved stuffed animal.

  “I have to know. What were the razors for?” He’d left those on the shelf, but he had purchased the whiskey while she was in the bathroom.

  “I was going to shave that weasel’s eyebrows off if he didn’t print a retraction. I could easily give him a real reason to think I’m unhinged,” she seethed.

  “Uh-huh.” Davis tucked her into the passenger seat of his SUV and crossed around to the driver’s side. “How about the whiskey?” he asked, settling in behind the wheel.

  “Just thirsty,” she pouted.

  He started the engine and looked at her. “We’re a team, right?”

  She shrugged, ripping open the candy and shoveling a handful into her mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then let’s handle this as a team.”

  “You want to shave one eyebrow while I get the other?” she asked him hopefully.

  “I have an even better idea.”

  “Better than shaving Anthony ‘Weasel Face’ Berkowicz’s eyebrows?” she challenged.

  “Don’t open the whiskey, yet. We have a couple of stops to make.”

  “Why are we parked in front of my aunt’s house?” Eden asked, peering out the window at the tidy electric blue ranch house. Garden gnomes were organized in a semicircle around the front porch.

  Davis pointed toward the house where a window opened and a pair of denim clad legs appeared. The legs slid out of the window followed by a torso and a lot of straight blonde hair.

  “Moon Beam?”

  The blonde slunk around the gnomes, skirted a large rhododendron, and then opened the back door to Davis’s SUV.

  “You guys didn’t have sex back here recently, did you?” Moon Beam asked, gingerly sliding over the seat.

  They had two nights ago, but Davis didn’t see any reason to share that knowledge with Moon Beam.

  “Why are we picking up my cousin?” Eden demanded.

  “We’re going to pay Weasel Face a visit,” Davis announced. “And what are we leaving in the car?”

  “Cigarettes and anything else flammable,” Moon Beam recited, popping a tube of lipstick out of her skin-tight jeans and leaning between the seats to apply it in the rearview mirror.

  “Why were you climbing out of your mom’s window?” Eden asked her cousin.

  Moon Beam rolled her eyes dramatically. “Mom’s on this ‘you need to act like an adult’ kick. Gag. Anyway, she got me this part-time job at the Snip Shack. Reception, hair sweeping. And I have to be there early tomorrow, so I’m supposed to be in bed like a loser.”

  “What has he dragged you into?” Eden asked.

  “Something that I should have dragged myself into years ago. Mind if I smoke?” she asked.

  “Kind of,” Davis told her.

  “Yeah,” Eden said.

  “Ugh. Fine. I’ll wait.”

  Eden peered out her window. “Where are we going?”

  Davis pulled onto Main Street and whipped his SUV into a parking space in front of the police station. “Here.”

  “I’m not talking to the police,” Eden announced, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Not there.” Davis rolled his eyes. “There.” He pointed up to where lights were blazing on the second floor. The offices of The Monthly Moon.

  “Why didn’t you let me buy the razors?” Eden asked, gleefully hopping out of the car.

  “Because we don’t need to shave his eyebrows. Ladies, if you’ll follow me.” Davis led them inside and up the brightly lit stairwell that smelled vaguely of stale coffee and old carpet. On the second floor, he paused outside the glass door labeled The Monthly Moon Where Blue Moon News Breaks First Once a Month. The tagline took up the entire door. “The plan is you let me do the talking until it’s Moon Beam’s turn to talk,” he said to Eden. “Got it? No screaming or punching or shaving. And no setting anything on fire.”

  Eden and Moon Beam nodded solemnly, and he was instantly suspicious.

  Davis tried the door and found it locked. He buzzed the button next to the door.

  “Monthly Moon. Everything you ever wanted to know about your neighbors,” a voice crackled over the speaker.

  “It’s Davis Gates. Let us in, Anthony,” Davis said.

  “I’m sorry. Do you have an appointment? Mr. Berkowicz is very busy. He is our editor-in-chief, you know. News is constantly breaking. You can’t expect to just walk in all willy-nilly and get some face time with him.”

  Moon Beam pressed her face up against the intercom. “Hey, how do you walk willy-nilly?”

  Davis gave her a helpful shove away from the speaker. “Anthony, I know this is you. Open the damn door. We have a scoop for you.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

  A buzzer sounded, and Davis opened the door before Anthony had second thoughts. The newspaper office had fudge brown carpet and industrial gray walls
that were papered with what looked like the front page of every issue of The Monthly Moon. Overflowing filing cabinets took up one whole wall with a bank of windows overlooking Main Street on another.

  Anthony Berkowicz, esteemed editor-in-chief and son to town fixtures Rainbow and Gordon Berkowicz, was wearing pajama pants and eating ramen noodles with his slippered feet propped up on his desk. Empty bottles of Diet Sprite and YooHoo crowded the surface.

  He wore gamer headphones slung around his skinny neck. Davis heard a crinkle and saw Eden stress eat the rest of her pack of candy.

  “Do you live here?” Moon Beam asked, eyeing the six cartons of Chinese takeout in and around the trashcan.

  “I’m a newspaper man. I live with the news. So, what’s the scoop?” Anthony demanded. “I start working on next month’s issue in three days so we need to move fast.”

  “Good because you’re going to need the entire issue for the retraction I’m demanding,” Eden said through clenched teeth.

  “Sexy news sells, sweetie pie.”

  Someone was about to die. Davis decided it might as well be him and stepped between Anthony and Eden. “What did you just call my girlfriend?” he said, pretending to snarl.

  Anthony’s feet hit the floor. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, sir… I mean, ma’am.”

  “Look,” Davis began. “We’re here about the exposé you printed about us.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Anthony grinned. “That was some of my finest work.”

  “It was also five pages of lies,” Eden snapped.

  Anthony shrugged his bony shoulders. “Listen, journalism is all about attracting advertisers. I can’t land Farm and Field or the bank with boring news.”

  “Your mother is the bank president,” Eden pointed out.

  Anthony’s gasp nearly knocked him out of his chair. “I’m shocked that you’d insinuate my family would practice nepotism!”

  Moon Beam, who had cigarettes to smoke, stepped in. “Look. Eden didn’t set the Gates’ yard on fire, dumbass. And she sure as hell didn’t burn down his kitchen.”

  Anthony held up his hands. “Look, it’s not my job to investigate—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Davis grabbed a notebook off the top of a counter buckling under the weight of yellowed newspaper. He slapped it down in front of Anthony and fished a pen out from under a half-dozen candy bar wrappers. “Shut your mouth and open your ears. Moon Beam? Talk.”

  “This isn’t how my process works,” Anthony whined. “First I need to formulate questions. Then I need to record the interview. Then I need to—”

  Davis growled in Anthony’s face.

  “Or, I could just try this way,” Anthony said, picking up the pen.

  37

  Feeling restless, Eden knocked on Davis’s door after they’d returned to the inn from setting the record straight with The Monthly Moon. But his room was empty.

  She tiptoed into the lobby and checked the security monitors. His car was still in the inn’s small lot. But Chewy was conspicuously missing from Eden’s couch, and she had a feeling the two were together. She drummed her fingers on the desk.

  She was restless after the rollercoaster of the evening and had hoped some naked fun would help her shake the feeling. She was going to have to stop calling them flukes, she supposed.

  The entire town would finally know the truth of what happened all those years ago. And Davis Gates was the one who’d stood up for her.

  She didn’t want to analyze the warm feeling in her stomach. She wanted to go about her life without the drama and chaos of the past few weeks. But did that mean she wanted to go back to her pre-Davis life?

  Wandering back into her quarters, Eden trailed a finger over the back of her sofa. She loved her rooms. Her own private oasis. The cozy living room with its white-washed trim and gold walls was decorated with off-white furniture and framed family photos. Tall windows offered a view of the acre of green lawn behind the inn. If business continued this very nice upswing, she’d be able to up the landscapers and yard crew to once a week and save herself a few hours of lawn mowing two or three times a month.

  She paced into her bedroom. Here were more ivories and beiges. Serene and simple. Thick bedding, luxurious window coverings, and a cozy seating area tucked into a nook of windows that looked toward the winery, a view she’d shunned until recently. There was a tiny utility room that doubled as kitchenette and laundry room for when she didn’t feel like using the inn’s facilities.

  Her tour complete, Eden returned to the living room. She’d loved this house. Had spent hours here whenever her aunt was in residence. And when she’d been forced to take an elective in college her sophomore year and landed in Hospitality 101, it had all come together. Bring the old home back to life and share the town she so loved with an endless stream of visitors.

  She’d built this business from the hardwood floors up. Usually the thought satisfied her. But tonight she was still restless. Still distracted. She debated, looking at the stack of paperbacks on her side table. She could sit and read until she was tired. Her pleasure reading had taken a backseat in recent weeks. Hell, maybe even months. The inn had never had a busier off-season. It was time to think about hiring more part-time help.

  And now, her free time was spent juggling HeHa organizational challenges. And with Davis… well, that was a whole new level of distraction.

  Dammit. She’d thought of him again. That settled it. She’d just send him a casual text.

  Eden: Have you been dognapped?

  Relief loosened her when she saw the dots on her screen.

  Davis: Just checking the vines. Pruning starts next week. Chewy’s with me.

  She bit her lip. Debated.

  Eden: Want some company? Of the human lady kind?

  Davis: Meet me in the vines out front. Dress warm.

  The vineyard was in all its frosty majesty under the nearly full moon. Eden picked her way down rows of silver vines, the frozen ground refusing to yield beneath her feet. She could hear him, that quiet, steady tone and knew he was talking to Chewy. She’d invited Vader. But the dog was smarter than the rest of them, choosing the comfort and warmth of bed.

  “Try not to piss on every single vine, Chew.”

  Eden smiled and shifted the bag in her hand when Davis’s form came into view. “Marco.”

  He turned and she could see his quick grin in the moonlight. “Polo.”

  Eden ignored the turmoil in her head and went instead with the lightness in her heart. She stepped into his open arms and placed a soft kiss on his mouth. “Should I ask what sent you on a midnight walkabout through the vines?” she asked.

  Davis slung an arm around her shoulders. They’d both made affectionate moves without an audience. Eden decided not to worry about what that did or didn’t mean.

  “Just clearing my head,” he told her. “We’ll be pruning soon. Earlier than last year. The cold came faster.”

  They walked slowly down the row as he talked. It was peaceful being surrounded by the promise of another harvest, Eden thought.

  “What does pruning do? How long does it take?” she asked, enjoying the cadence of his voice. It settled her thoughts. Stirred her blood.

  He explained the process, the purpose, with Chewy trotting faithfully at their heels.

  “What’s in the bag?” Davis asked.

  “Ah! I almost forgot.” She plucked the bottle from the bag and held it aloft.

  “Your whiskey,” Davis said, holding the bottle to the moonlight.

  She shook her head. “Our whiskey. I figured after tonight I owed you at least half.”

  “We’re partners.” He said it as if he meant it. As if their little revenge plot relationship were real. “What are we celebrating?” he asked.

  She looked around them in the dark, at the dormant vines, the frost tipped ground, and sighed. “New leaves?”

  “I like that,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

  The shiver that work
ed its way up her spine had nothing to do with the cold.

  “Can I show you something?” he asked.

  Davis’s house was small, charming, and smelled of stale smoke. He shut the front door behind them, and her gaze went immediately to the stretch of plywood that blocked off the fire damage from the rest of his home.

  “Davis, this is awful. I’m so sorry,” she breathed.

  “Hmm? Oh, that.” He glanced in the direction of the mess formerly known as his kitchen and scratched the back of his head. He nudged the thermostat out of the fifties.

  “It makes me angry all over again,” she told him. “Maybe this was a mistake? Maybe we should have gone to the police?”

  He shook his head, took her hand. “No, you were right. What good would come from having half the town arrested for what was probably an accident?”

  “An accident caused by a team of dumbasses.”

  “No argument there,” Davis said wryly, tugging her toward the stairs.

  “You’re not taking me to bed, are you?” she asked, stalling on the first step.

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “Scared you can’t resist me?”

  She scoffed. “Excuse me! Who resisted you for one and a half decades? That’s gold medaling in resistance.”

  Davis opened a door off of the second-floor landing, his cocky expression daring her to enter. Eden breezed past him into the tiny bedroom. It had the musty smell of an empty house mixed with the scents of smoke and soot. She stopped when she saw the easel.

  “Well, well. Unexplored depths,” she murmured. “You always were good in art class. May I?”

  At his nod, she handed him the bottle and flipped through the canvases stacked against the wall and was pleasantly surprised by landscapes, still life, and even the occasional abstract. Bold colors, beautiful light. “These are great, Davis. Really great.”

  He took a swig and crossed his arms, watching her. “It’s a hobby.”

  “I didn’t think you had time for hobbies.” She paused on a painting of rolling grass of emerald green, her inn in the distance. Fanciful and vibrant. “I want this one by the way. If you say I can’t buy it, I’ll smuggle it out under my shirt.”

  “It’s yours.”