by Elsa Nickle
Her mom gaped at Laurel like she had lost her mind. “Then bring an apron or something! If it’s a family lunch then Jackson’s fiancée is going to be there. You can’t go to a lunch where you’re meeting a movie star looking like this!” She gestured wildly to Laurel’s whole body.
Laurel’s brain still spun. “Well, I can’t wear a skirt or anything because I’m biking.”
A fresh, visible horror spread over Laurel’s mom. “You most certainly are not biking. I’ll drive you there before my shift.”
Oh no. This was just getting worse. It was like a cold ocean wave had come from behind and knocked Laurel flat—and now she was underwater. Under no circumstances could she actually show up at this lunch uninvited. If Ethan didn’t think she was crazy already, crashing his family lunch would cement her place in his mind as the most psychotic stalker he’d ever met. Laurel would just have to dig a hole, move into it, and never come out again.
This is why she hated lying: she always got uncomfortably stuck somehow. She had to get out of this without digging a bigger hole. “Oh no, that is totally unnecessary. I’ll bike.”
Her mom grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her lightly. “I’m sorry, but you do not seem to know what is necessary right now. You are not biking down the highway.”
“I always bike down the highway. So does everyone else. There’s a bike lane.”
“Well, you’re not doing it today.”
Laurel swallowed. “But I don’t want you to be late for work.”
Her mom snorted. “I don’t care if I’m an hour late. I’m going to make sure you get to that lunch. And you are not going to look like something the wind swept in. Go change.”
Laurel hobbled on wooden legs back to her bedroom and shut the door. How was she going to get out of this mess?
Her mom called from the kitchen. “It’s ten minutes after noon! What time was the lunch supposed to start?”
Was there a right answer to this? Was Mrs. Bassencherry going to tell her mom the real time and knock down Laurel’s house of cards? She yanked open her little closet, searching for quick replacement clothes that she could still wear while painting. She yelled back to her mom. “Ethan said to meet him at 12:30.”
Another yell through the house. “My shift starts at 12:30.”
“I can bike!”
“You can get ready faster!”
This was so stupid. Laurel pulled open a sticky drawer on her ancient, wooden dresser and grabbed a blue knit sweater with a nice drape. It was newish and could be considered dressy-casual. She would pull it off before she painted. And she was still going to wear jeans, but she would have to change into a pair without so many holes. She was leaving her hair as it was. There was no time to tame it.
As she changed, Laurel made a plan. She simply wouldn’t go inside the restaurant. She could walk the few blocks to the abandoned store she was using as a studio, and maybe pick up a sandwich or something on the way with the last five bucks in her wallet. This didn’t have to be difficult. Hopefully the time was totally wrong, and the family was meeting at one o’clock or something. She would miss them. Then she would have to pray that word didn’t get back to her mom that she wasn’t at the lunch.
She trudged down the hall to the kitchen, looking a little more presentable.
Her mom shook her head. “Uh-uh. What about your hair and makeup?”
Apparently, she still wasn’t presentable enough. “Mom, I didn’t wash my hair. I need to keep it up.”
Her mother dropped her head back and let out a frustrated grunt. “You are killing me. Honey, you are a very pretty girl, but you’ve gotta press every advantage here. What about your face?”
“You know I don’t usually wear much makeup.”
“How ’bout you make today one of those special days. The Spirit Room is a fancy place.”
Laurel scraped her teeth across her bottom lip. “Mom, you’re going to be late for work.” Suddenly, Laurel’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t I drop you off and take the car myself for the afternoon?”
Sheila shook her head and grabbed the keys from the peg by the door. “No can do. I need the car later. So grab some lipstick or something, and hurry up.”
Laurel deflated and hurried back down the hall.
There was no way she was doing lipstick. She simply wasn’t a lipstick-in-the-day kind of girl. But she did put on a smidge of mascara and a flick of eyeliner, just to make it look like she’d done something. She grabbed lip gloss and put it in her bag.
When she emerged, her mom nodded. “That’ll do. Let’s go.”
The car ride wasn’t long. It only took seven minutes to get to the Copper Queen Hotel where The Spirit Room was located. Laurel’s stomach twisted tighter and tighter the closer they got. Things should go smoothly, but what if she actually ran into Ethan? Or what if Mrs. Bassencherry got her days wrong, and when she inevitably talked about it with her mom, she was outed for lying? Perhaps her mom was playing an elaborate prank on her, and this was all a way to get her back for the obvious lie. Laurel didn’t think her mom was that great of an actor, but at this point, Laurel didn’t know which direction was up. Everything was suspect.
When they were just a couple minutes away, Laurel gave her mom the side-eye. “Hey, why do you care so much about this anyway?”
Her mother kept her eyes on the road. “What do you mean?”
Laurel dug the gloss out of her bag. “I mean, you seem weirdly excited about this lunch and awfully interested in the Wyle family in general.”
Her mom shrugged. “He’s a vet. If it works out, you’ll be set.”
Laurel flattened her lips to apply the shiny glaze. “But you’ve never been this excited about any of my other dates. What’s the deal?”
“There’s no deal. I just like setting you up.”
“Like, to torture me? Or so that you have something to talk about with the town gossips …”
“Can’t it be both?” Her mom laughed. “No, I’ll be honest. I do think it is exciting that a celebrity is marrying someone in our town. And you’re right—it certainly has given people like Mrs. Bassencherry something to talk about.”
The comment about being honest stung a little, but it was nice that one of them was being truthful. “Really? You’re just excited about a movie star?”
Laurel’s mom glanced toward her briefly. “I wouldn’t say no to meeting television’s Malia Kalama. But truly—I’m more happy that Ethan is so interested in you.”
Laurel turned her face away. This was the other part she didn’t like about lying. Tricking people into believing the actual lie. She suddenly felt like she should downplay everything. “It’s no big deal. I think he was just being polite. I showed up, and his family was talking about the lunch, and maybe he thought it would be rude or something not to invite me. In fact, maybe he didn’t really mean it, and I shouldn’t go in.”
They were now in front of hotel. The Copper Queen was a tidy, four-story building that had marked the middle of town for over a hundred years, the subject of historians and ghost hunters alike. It suddenly seemed like a harbinger of doom.
Her mother put the car in park and turned to Laurel. “If you got invited, you got invited. Don’t be nervous, honey—you are a great girl. You are smart and creative and loyal, and any man would be lucky to have you. You don’t need to be self-conscious. Heck, you probably didn’t need any of that makeup I made you put on, because you are so pretty.” She beamed at Laurel, then laughed. “And if you got invited to the family wedding lunch after one basket of muffins, that must mean that Ethan really likes you. And that’s wonderful, because like you said, you were running out of men.”
Her mother’s words shook something loose in Laurel’s head. She really had run out of decent men. And since her mom was set on sticking to her ludicrous plan, where Laurel went out with successful men in exchange for time spent painting, she didn’t have anyone else to date except Ethan. Unless a handsome actor moved into town to try the Mali
a Kalama experiment or a rich Bisbee-based lawyer suddenly got divorced, Ethan was her last and only chance right now. And since they didn’t have an actual relationship, she was going to have to do a lot more lying.
Laurel opened the car door and swung her legs out, shell-shocked. Her mom put a hand on Laurel’s arm. “Don’t be nervous! I’ll watch until you get safely in the door.”
Great.
New plan: walk in, hang by the front door with her head down, and slink out as soon as her mom’s car was gone. With every step forward, Laurel was holding on to the hope that this lunch was at a different time, on a different day, or somehow at a different establishment. She looked back at her mom’s car and was given a thumbs up and a bright smile. Laurel sighed. There was nothing else to do. She was going to have to go inside.
And then the door opened, and Laurel’s luck took an even sharper turn for the worse. Because the man who stepped out directly in front of her was one of the Wyle twins.
He had a ringing cell phone in his hand and seemed preoccupied. He almost strode right past without noticing her, but fate was having a laugh at Laurel’s expense today, so of course he did a double take and lowered his cell phone. “Laurel, right?”
Panic and humiliation swelled up in equal measure inside of her. “Oh, hi—Dillon?”
He gave her a mischievous grin. “Aw, come on now. Can’t you tell us apart? Dillon is the pastier one.”
Awesome. She had a fifty-fifty chance, and she still got it wrong. What else could she possibly mess up? “Sorry.”
The phone in his hand stopped ringing, but he didn’t seem to notice. “No big deal. Happens all the time. What are you doing here?”
She realized there was no way to claim that she was going to lunch here by herself. Nobody went to this expensive, historic restaurant alone. She paused for a little too long.
Jaxon raised his eyebrows. “Are you here for Ethan? Because he could really use your help. Our grandma is merciless.”
Laurel was having difficulty breathing from all the adrenaline surging through her body, but she was also confused. “Merciless?”
“Well, all the rest of us Wyle men have girlfriends and fiancées. But Ethan’s the oldest—and he’s unattached—and Granny cannot stop taking digs at him. Did he call you to help him out?”
Ethan hadn’t even given her his phone number, but Jaxon didn’t seem to know that. This situation was getting weirder by the second. Laurel glanced to the street where her mom was still smiling at her, and she panicked. “Yep. He did.”
Oh no! The lie had slipped out before she had time to really think it through. She could have said she was meeting a friend inside. She could have said she needed to use the restroom. Anything else.
She felt like her nose was probably a good two inches longer than usual from all the falsehoods piling up around her, but since she was lying so much already, what was one more fib? Maybe he would turn around at some point, and she could run away.
Jaxon’s smile was wide. “Well, I was going to take this call, but now I can walk you in like a gentleman.” He held out his elbow.
Oh, she was really stuck. Her pulse started hammering so fast she thought she might die of a heart attack if the shame didn’t kill her first. “Oh no, you don’t have to—you can take your call.”
“Don’t be silly. The phone stopped ringing. I can call him back in another minute. Allow me, ma’am.” His elbow lifted another inch.
Laurel reached for his arm in resignation. She might actually need his support at some point in the near future.
Jaxon opened the door for her and led her inside. The cozy, old-fashioned restaurant wasn’t crowded. The high prices must have kept Mrs. Bassencherry and her gossipy friends away.
Most of the noise in the room originated from one corner. And she was being led straight to that corner. She tried to calm her breathing, and she was doing a fairly good job under the circumstances, until Jaxon stopped and presented her. “Look what I found outside, everyone—Ethan’s date!”
All conversation at the table stopped, and every eye fastened on Laurel. Most of the faces were surprised, but none more so than Ethan’s.
If embarrassment could kill a girl, Laurel would have died right then.
She grasped for something to say—anything. But her mind was frozen. The only actions she managed were a small smile and an awkward wave.
Jaxon’s grin was wicked. He seemed to be the kind of guy that enjoyed making a splash. He cleared his throat. “I think you met most of us boys yesterday”—he hit Ethan with a mischievous squint—“but that there is Preston, our youngest brother.” Preston was a lot younger than the rest of the boys, just a teenager, but already tall and muscular like his brothers. He was the only one wearing a cowboy hat. He tipped it in her direction.
Laurel found a wisp of her voice. “Nice to meet you.”
Jaxon gestured around the table. “You met Dillon’s girlfriend, Skye, and Landon’s bride-to-be, Kitty—but you haven’t met my fiancée.” He beamed at the gorgeous, tan starlet who Laurel easily recognized from her mom’s magazines. “This beautiful creature right here is Malia.”
Laurel had lost her voice again. Honestly, she was having a hard time registering anything. She smiled and nodded at the women, vaguely aware that today might be the day that she did something terribly embarrassing in front of a movie star.
“Next to her, we have my daughter Audrey.”
He was gesturing toward the cutest little brunette angel, maybe seven or eight years old. The girl smiled. “We got to leave church early today. Are you late because you stayed the whole time?”
Jackson chuckled. “Save your questions for later, sweetheart. Let’s be polite.”
Audrey nodded gravely. “Okay. Sorry, ma’am.”
Laurel wanted to find her voice to complement Audrey on her good manners, but all she could do was smile and nod.
Jackson gestured to the older woman sitting at the head of the table. “Last, but not least, is our Granny.”
She was slender with short white hair, and the mischievous twinkle in her eyes matched Jackson’s to a tee. She clapped her hands together. “Am I ever glad to meet you!” She turned to Ethan, who was at the other end of the table, and loudly scolded him. “Silly boy! I wouldn’t have said those things earlier if you would have just told us that you had a beautiful girl coming!”
Ethan shook his head, eyebrows still up in shock, and Laurel wanted to melt into the floor. Now was the moment things would get really embarrassing for her. Ethan was going to tell everyone that she wasn’t invited, and she was going to have to crawl out of the restaurant in shame.
Instead, he stood up. “Well, Granny—I wasn’t sure she was coming, so I didn’t want to get your hopes up. But we’re all glad she’s here now. Laurel, take my seat.” He pulled his chair out for her.
Unable to fully let out a breath, Laurel floated over to his side of the table and sank down in the offered chair.
Ethan scooted her in. “I’ll go find a waiter to set one more place.”
Laurel looked around the table and realized that everyone was still staring at her. She had just sat down, but she bounced up again like a spring, almost knocking her chair to the ground. “I’ll help you.”
She rushed after Ethan, who was moving fast. She thought she heard the Wyles’ grandma say something about a frightened jackrabbit, but she tuned the rest of it out.
She caught up to Ethan around a corner—totally out of view from the table—and grabbed his arm. “Hey, wow, I’m so sorry.”
Ethan turned to her. “What are you sorry for? Didn’t Jax put you up to this?”
She could have gone with it—blamed it on Jaxon and saved a little face. But she was getting lost in all the lies, and she knew things would only get worse if she kept going. “No. He saw me outside and assumed I was here for you.”
Ethan was a caricature of confusion. “Seriously? So, this was still Jaxon, but—wait, what happened?”
Laurel sighed and hoped with all her heart that Ethan’s family wouldn’t miss them too much in the minutes it would take to have this conversation. Or that none of them came around the corner on their way to the bathroom. “Okay. I’m going to tell you how I came to be here, and I give you permission to despise me afterward.”
He crossed his arms and waited, like the gentleman he was.
Laurel took a few seconds more, because she couldn’t figure out where to start or how much to say. “Ugh—okay. So my mom is crazy. You know that part already. She made me bring you muffins yesterday. But the thing is, she has these weird rules while I’m living with her, and one of those rules is that I have to go out on frequent dates.”
His eyebrows furrowed, and he cocked his head. “What? Why?”
Dang, this was hard to explain. “It has something to do with baggage from my dad, being poor, and me dropping out of college.”
Now Ethan looked really puzzled. It was a cute look on him.
Laurel shook her head to knock that last thought to the back of her mind. “Maybe I can explain it better later. The only important thing to understand here is that my mom makes me go on dates.”
A drop of understanding lit Ethan’s eyes. “So that’s what you were doing when I pretended to be your brother the other night.”
Laurel cringed. “Yep. And thanks again for that.” She glanced up at the ceiling. There was no way she was coming out of this conversation looking like a normal person. “Anyway, what happened this time was—well, first of all I want you to know that I’m not usually a liar—”
Ethan lifted his eyebrows high.
“Okay, I know that I met you while I was misleading someone—but that was for a good reason. I promise it’s not a habit. However, when my mom was pressuring me to go on another date, I told her I was having lunch with you today.”
Ethan shifted his weight. “But how did you know where I was?”
Laurel could feel a fresh blush coming. “This is the crazy part. I swear I was just going to bike to my art studio downtown, but as soon as I said I was having lunch with you, my mom knew you were going to be here and insisted on driving me.”
