“Later?” I blink and peer up at him. What’s he thinking? “Why not now?”
A twitch at the corner of his mouth reveals how much he wants to go upstairs. “We’re on our last entree, and then we’ve got to look our best and get down to the event barn.” Then a more serious expression steals across his face. “We’ve got to do this right. Get that billboard.”
“I’ll be okay without the billboard.” The truth comes to me only as I’m already speaking. “My sister didn’t give me the house because she thought I was incapable.”
“You’re not.” A light flashes in Austin’s eyes. “But I’m invested, too. I have to prove to everybody that this is where I belong.”
“Everybody already knows—”
“It won’t last.” He shakes his head, grip tightening on my waist. “Eventually, Luke will talk about what’s really going on. Your sister will come home to visit. People will find out about the money. I can’t have them thinking I’m not a Paulson man.”
I untwine my arms from his neck and take a step back. “Nobody would think that.” Something cold steals across my chest. This—this right here. This is why it’ll never work out. Because Austin’s a Paulson man, through and through, and I’m...
I don’t know. Not a Paulson girl. I was never the homecoming queen, the Bliss patriarch didn’t root for me to get a scholarship, and Hal Kilroy would never choose me to win the contest. And Austin? He’s going to want a Paulson girl, in the end.
“All right.” I head back over to the sink with a hollow feeling at the pit of my gut and wash my hands, flicking the water briskly into the sink, not meeting his eyes. “What’s last on the list? Let’s win this thing.”
Chapter Seventeen
Austin
Winter’s come early.
At least that’s what it feels like when we get to the event barn. Brooke’s got me on a deep freeze, her mouth a thin line. She carries the casserole pan in her hands like a soldier going off to war. I can’t catch her elbow. If she drops it, we’re sunk. So I match pace with her instead.
“Don’t run with the pie in your hands,” she snaps. “We’re nothing without that pie.”
“Listen. I know we’ve got a history of being mortal enemies, but I thought we were over that. What’d I say?”
She side-eyes me, gray eyes framed by an expert coat of mascara. I watched her putting it on before we left. Brooke has sides to her that I’ve never noticed before. Like a steady hand with makeup. Not a single tremble. She was dead serious, putting that stuff on. “You didn’t say anything.”
“Lie.”
“Not lying.”
Mrs. Howard agrees to watch the table and we go back for the rest of the food and the warming lights. Brooke studiously ignores me the entire time. Then she fusses over the arrangement of the dishes on the table behind the curtain. Nobody’s going to see it except us.
“Good, you’re back.” Mrs. Howard pats us both on the arm. “Good luck, you two. Best of luck.” Then she’s gone, bustling off to arrange holidays for the rest of the year—something on that caliber.
“Just tell me what’s wrong.” I switch on the warming lights, feeling Brooke’s nervous energy hovering just off my shoulder. Everything was fine in the kitchen. Our biggest worry was whether there’d be a power strip for the warming lights. There is. We should be golden right now.
She doesn’t answer until I face her head-on.
“I’m good.” Brooke brushes a stray lock of hair away from her forehead and puts on a big smile. I see right through it. It’s awful, looking at that pain in her eyes and seeing her struggle to hide it. “I’m ready for all this to be over.” She waves her hand in a big, sweeping motion. “Everybody’s always watching, and staring. It’s like they know I don’t—“ Her smile softens and she shakes her head. “It’s nothing,” she insists. “I’ll be right back.” Brooke winks at me. Maybe this is going to be all right. Who’s to say? But I watch her as she goes, and the smile drops from her face before she’s even to the side hall where the restrooms are.
“I’m not surprised to find you here!” Hal’s voice in my ear is followed by a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You’re doing an incredible job, son. Incredible. What’s all this?”
“Farm-fresh dinner. Ranch-fresh,” I say, and give old Hal a big grin even though the adrenaline screaming through my veins is giving me more than enough warning. I’ve got to get away from him. But I can’t leave the food. You never know what might possess people who walk by unattended food, and we’re presenting this to the judges in half an hour.
“Is that Montana on your pumpkin pie?” Hal booms out a laugh. “You’re clever. Did your dad ever tell you that?”
“All the time, sir.” I need an excuse. Any excuse. I can’t ask him to get something for me, because Hal’s old and there’s nothing I really need. I can’t outright tell him to leave. He’s one of the judges on the panel. The back of my neck heats up, and I put a hand over it like covering the skin can shield me from everybody else’s eyes. More than one person heard Brooke back at the opening ceremony. You can bet that what she said has traveled all the way to the Mississippi and back by now, never mind Paulson. “He told me I was very clever. Now, if you’ll excuse me...” I gesture vaguely toward the food under the warming lights. “Finishing touches.”
Hal guffaws. “You don’t need any finishing touches. You’re a shoo-in. You’ve got to know that by now.” His hand comes down on my shoulder again and again. Feels like it’s driving me into the ground, only it can’t be. Hal’s old. He’s not that strong. Must be the dread that’s filling up my boots and dragging me under the hard-packed dirt. I pick one up, then the other. He leans in close. “The stunt you pulled, partnering up with the Carson girl was a stroke of genius. But you know you didn’t have to go and do that, right? It’s a bridge too far, in my opinion, even if all the old ladies love it.”
That’s it. It’s time for something truly egregious. I’ve got to get him out of here before a true disaster happens.
“—job well done,” Hal’s saying, pumping my hand like he’s giving me the grand prize. It’s too early for that, you old bastard. “I know you’ve got plans up your sleeve for that billboard. Just try not to get cozy with the sponsor until after the award ceremony, all right?”
Mrs. Howard bustles by behind him and I try to catch her eye. She doesn’t seem to see me, but at least she calls out, “Hal, get yourself to the judging table. You can rub elbows with the Bliss brothers after the event’s done.”
Hal shifts, nodding his head, and there she is.
One second, she was nowhere. The next, she’s right behind Hal. One look at Brooke’s face and my heart and lungs give up on me, throwing themselves to the ground in a spasm of pain and shame. She heard everything. There’s no way she didn’t. Hal’s words might as well be on the barn’s sound system, repeating over and over and over again. Stunt you pulled with the Carson girl....Carson girl...Carson girl... Christ, it couldn’t get any worse.
Until it does get worse.
I brush past Hal on the way to Brooke. “Don’t pay any mind to him. Whatever you heard—”
“I heard a lot, Austin. A lot. I don’t appreciate being a stunt.” She shakes her head, chin trembling, and I have never been more desperate to take her into my arms. “You didn’t have to make me a charity case.”
“That’s not what this was.”
“Wasn’t it? Everybody in town seems to think so.”
“Hal Kilroy—” In the corner of my vision, I see Hal hear his name from the other end of the barn. I wave him off, a big, huge sweep of my arm that I pray will keep him at bay for at least a few minutes. “Hal Kilroy’s not all of Paulson. And what he thinks about our partnership is meaningless. What matters is that we win this thing and rebuild your house.”
“It’s not just that, though, is it, Austin?” Brooke’s eyes shine with tears, but she won’t let them fall. “You want to prove you’re the hometown hero. You want to prove that
you’ve got this place under your thumb.”
“Under my thumb?”
“What better way to do it than by getting all of the judges in your pocket from the very beginning?” She looks toward the ceiling, lips pressed tightly together. “I should have known. I did know, and you told me I was wrong. God, I’m such a fool.” Brooke takes a deep, shuddering breath and lets it back out again. “I’m not going to be a fool any longer.”
My stomach wrenches itself violently in what feels like the wrong direction, and my mouth goes dry. “Wait. Don’t—”
But she’s already shoving past me. Brooke holds her head high all the way to the table, and then she’s stacking serving dishes on top of one another. There goes the pumpkin pie, the top smashed in by the plate with the glazed carrots. I’m at her side in a flash. “What are you doing?” I keep my voice as low as I can, but this is too much. We spent all day on this. We’ve spent the last week and a half working our asses off for this competition, and she’s destroying it. Right in front of me.
“I’m taking my contributions and leaving.” Brooke looks at me, stone-faced. “You can use the dish you made by yourself. Everything else is partly mine, and I’m not going to have anything that’s mine up there with you. Not now. Not ever again.”
“You don’t have to do this. You do not have to do this. We can go out there and show off this stuff, and when you have the money—”
“It’s not about the money,” she whisper-shouts, her voice breaking at a high pitch that tears at my heart. “I just wanted to get back on my feet, okay? That’s all I wanted.” She gulps in a breath. “At first, that’s all I wanted. And then I let myself believe that you—that you were different. That you weren’t as careless as you were when you told your dad I shouldn’t get that scholarship. I thought you were past that.”
“I am past it. We’re all past it.”
“But you’re not. You’ve been talking again, haven’t you? To Hal, and the sponsor—”
“I don’t know who the sponsor is.”
“I don’t believe you.” Brooke bites down hard on her lip. “I don’t. You showed me who you really are a long time ago, and I should’ve accepted it the first time instead of walking around for years with a horrible unrequited crush on a man who made me so furious—“ Her voice breaks, crumbles, and she clutches the serving dishes closer to her chest. “I’m going back to the house to pack up my things. Don’t follow me.”
Brooke heads for the exit, sticking close to the side of the barn. After three steps, she whirls on me. “I said don’t follow me.” Her tone is so deadly it just about stops my heart. “I’ll be gone by the time you’re back.”
“The hell you will. Who’s going to take you home? If you want to go back that badly, I’ll drive you.”
“No.” An awful, sad smile flashes across her face .”You’re a Paulson man, and you keep your word. So go participate. Do your thing. Show them all what a prince you are. I’m done.”
She leaves me standing there with one lonely dish of eggplant Parmesan. We sourced all the ingredients from our own gardens. I pick up the serving dish and stare down at it.
“Austin?” It’s Mrs. Howard, coming toward me at a fast clip. “You’re up.” She does a double-take at the table. “Where’s all your food?” She swivels her head around, taking the entirety of the barn in. “Did Brooke leave?” Her eyes trace a path down to the serving dish in my hands. “Oh, Austin, is that all you have?”
“Sure is,” I tell her. It’s all I have in the world.
Chapter Eighteen
Brooke
My phone rings so early I think it’s my alarm, and I slap it off the bedside table with my eyes squeezed shut. “Shit.” If it fell beneath the bed, there’s no way I’m answering this call. The bed in this tiny motel is snugged right up against the wall, and depending on how far it flew when it hit...
I force my eyes open and peer down blearily at the floor. Miracle of miracles. It’s still there. Still ringing. I answer it.
“Just checking in,” sings Everly. “I can still get a flight out. All you have to do is say the word.”
She laughs through my long groan. “I’m good. I promise. You don’t need to come out here.”
“You sure?”
“You do need to stop calling me at the crack of dawn.”
Everly sounds a bit breathless, like she’s walking fast. “I called you at just the right time. I’ve got your work schedule saved into my phone. Turn your alarm off.”
“I—” She’s too right. The alarm on the phone starts buzzing, and I stab at the side button to turn it off. “You have to stop, Ev.”
“I won’t,” she says briskly. “I’m worried about you. The next time you call me sobbing over Austin Bliss, I’m not going to listen when you tell me to stay here.”
“Oh, god, don’t bring that up again.” My clothes for my new job are in the narrow closet. The door creaks when I open it. I’m going to have to get some WD-40. I can fix creaky hinges. I just couldn’t fix anything else. I didn’t want to fix anything else. That’s what my mind keeps insisting, anyway, even while my heart feels like a big open pit exposed to the outside world. “You can’t judge the rest of my life based on a single phone call.”
“It was a big deal. Hang on, I’m crossing the street.” I listen to my sister breathe while she waits for a light to change, or for traffic to clear. She always pays attention at intersections. “You think it’ll be busy at Merry’s today?”
“I hope so.” I’ve got the pink, fifties-style uniform slung over my shoulder. “But I’ve got to get ready and head in.”
“Are you going to the festival tonight?” Everly is trying to be casual, and she is failing mightily. “Just wondering.”
“No.” I swallow down a flood of fresh tears. I’m not doing this before my shift. Not. “I’d rather focus on other things this year.” I definitely do not want to watch Austin Bliss get crowned the king of Paulson. I have no doubt he’ll still win, even though I walked off with most of our third-round displays and ate them alone in my new room at the Kilroy Motel, the only place I could afford in town. The irony is not lost on me. “I’m going to be late.”
Everly accepts my lie. “Okay. Call me later?”
“I won’t. But I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Thirty minutes later, the bell on the door of Merry’s Diner jangles as I push it open with my shift. A younger version of me detested the wall-to-wall pink in here, and even the vintage-style polyester uniforms the waitresses wear. Now it’s not so bad. It reminds me that things can be like they were. I can get back to how I was before, with a little elbow grease and some cash saved up. One of these days, working as a waitress is going to give me my old fight back.
It will.
I know it.
Merry herself stands behind the pie case, counting the slices for the day. Her face brightens when she sees me. “You look cute. Good for you.”
“You make the rules, I just follow them,” I needle, and she laughs.
“It’s going to be a slow one today.” Merry makes her way over to the soda fountain, takes a plastic cup from a drying rack on the back counter, and tests each one of the spouts. “If you want to head out early and go to the festival, it’s no big deal.”
“You must be in cahoots with my sister. She wants me to go, too. She wasn’t quite that direct about it, though.”
Merry grins. “How is Everly? I heard she went to New York. Very glamorous.”
“She’s not in the city,” I say, like New York City is the most glamorous part of the state. You couldn’t pay me to live in New York City. Well...maybe you could. Maybe, when I’ve saved up enough money from working at Merry’s, I’ll put my finger on a map and go wherever that is. Start over. A whole new me. “Her husband has a place.”
But Merry isn’t listening anymore. She’s looking over my shoulder, a bewildered expression on her face. “Well, I’ll be.” She pats her hands against her ap
ron. “Gird your loins, Brooke. I think we’ve got a crowd.”
It is a crowd. A family of eight, with two little kids and grandparents and an aunt and uncle. They take up a quarter of the diner at the biggest round table, easy. It becomes a flurry of pulling out high chairs and pouring coffee. On the way back to get a fresh pot Merry shoots me a look that says can you believe this? “I thought nobody’d be down this end of town with the festival in full swing,” she says. “What are they doing here?”
“Having lunch, by the looks of it.”
She clicks her tongue at me. “You are too snarky for your own good.”
“Don’t I know it, Merry.” But it feels good to be here. Better than I thought it would. It feels like I have my destiny in my own two hands, and that puts a genuine smile on my face.
I’m loading up the trays to take the food out to the eight-top when Merry comes into the kitchen at top speed. “I’ve got this.” She sweeps the biggest tray up onto her shoulder. “You get the next table.”
“Okay.” We’ve already seated two others—two tops, cute couples—so I don’t mention that we usually have a system. Whoever’s out in the dining room seats people. Whoever’s loading trays loads trays.
She winks at me on her way out.
What?
I’m seized by the urge to sneak out the back door and make a run for it. Whatever’s out there, Merry knows it’ll get a reaction out of me. A little kid in the dining room starts chanting pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, and Merry laughs, and the pancakes themselves sizzle on the griddle. Rich, the line cook, pokes his head around the hood. “You okay? You need one of these before you can go back out?” He flips one of the pancakes and it lands—thwap—onto a plate.
“I might take you up on that.” My pulse is strong and loud in my throat. Has my heart moved into my neck? That wouldn’t be the weirdest thing ever to happen to me. “Let me get back to you.”
Never the Cowboy’s Bride Page 11
