Jane Austen Girl (22 page)

“That, I’d rather not go into.”

“Sorry.”

“No, don’t be. It’s—”

“You don’t have to explain anything. It just doesn’t seem like something you’d need to do.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, you’re royalty. You look like a movie star. You could clearly have a date with pretty much anyone you wanted.”

He laughed again. “I’m not as good as I look on paper. I’m moody in the mornings. I don’t like to share popcorn at movies. And I’m really not a very good driver.”

Andy considered this and said, “Those are real deal breakers, for sure.” She met his gaze then, and they sized each other up for a few moments before she said, “Why did you ask me to come out here?”

“Because I think you’re interesting.”

This wasn’t at all what Andy expected to hear.

“I kind of sat there like a bump on a pickle when you were talking to everyone,” she said. “I don’t think I looked all that interesting.”

He laughed. “I wasn’t really thinking of pickles when I saw you at the end of the table.”

Andy’s face went instantly warm, and she felt a little curl of happiness at the words. “Do you like coffee or tea?”

 “A cup of hot tea would be great. I’m still feeling a bit of jetlag.”

“There’s a coffee shop another block down.”

“Let’s do it,” he said.

They walked the rest of the way without talking. He opened the door for her and then followed her inside.

A few kids sat in oversize leather chairs with laptops, their focus lasered on the screen in front of them. But it only took a few seconds for the buzz to begin, and Andy tried to ignore it as they stepped up to the counter.

“Hey, Andy,” Jennie McPherson stood at the register. She owned the place and went to Andy’s church.

“Hey, Jennie,” Andy said. “This is George. Duke—”

He cut her off there and stuck out his hand to Jennie. “Just George,” he said. “What kind of hot tea do you have?”

“What kind do you like, Just George?” Jennie said with a smile.

“Earl Grey?”

“Earl Grey, it is,” Jennie said. “How ‘bout you Andy? What can I get you?”

Realizing she hadn’t brought her purse with her, Andy shook her head and said, “Nothing, I’m good, thank you.”

“I’ve got it,” George said. Andy started to refuse again, but then said, “Just an iced tea, please. That would be great.”

They waited while Jennie got their drinks together, and then found a couple of chairs situated by the window. Andy could feel the stares of pretty much everyone in the shop, but she kept herself from meeting eyes with anyone, and took the seat that put her back to their audience.

“I guess you’re kind of used to that,” she said, sitting down.

He took a sip of his hot tea. “What’s that?”

“People looking at you.”

He shook his head and said, “It’s not real.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re looking at their interpretation of who they think I am. It isn’t usually very accurate. So I never think of it as real. If I really were all the things they think I am, maybe I would be a little intimidated by the stares. You know, thinking I had to live up to that. But I’m not, so it almost feels like they’re looking at somebody else.”

Andy didn’t really know what to make of that. “Doesn’t it get old?” she said. “People looking at you all the time?”

“It’s only when I’m out in public and someone actually knows who I am. But that’s not as often as you would imagine.”

“So you’re saying that you’re just a normal guy then?”

“Pretty much,” he said.

“A normal guy who gets a reality show made about him. A chance to pick a date from a dozen girls who are all gaga over him.”

He smiled. “All?”

“You know what I mean.”

He looked pleased by the admission, even if it wasn’t a complete one.

“So tell me who you are, Andy. What’s your life like?”

“Is this the interview part?”

“If you want to call it that. Actually, I just really want to know.”

“There’s not a lot to tell,” she said. “Kinda just an average girl living in a small town. Mom and dad are divorced. No brothers, no sisters.”

“Boyfriend?” he threw out.

She hesitated. Then, realizing it was an honest answer, she said, “No.”

“Are you free tonight?”

“Ah, yes,” she said. “I am.”

“Good.”

“Isn’t it better to just leave some doors in our lives closed?”

“Not if you’re always going to wonder what might have been behind them.”

Grier with therapist – ten years ago

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Grier was sitting on the bed, sharing her room service tray with Sebbie when the phone rang at just after six. She reached for the receiver, picked it up, and said, “Hello?”

“Grier?”

She absorbed her mother’s voice for a moment before saying, “Yes?”

“I hope I’m not disturbing you or interrupting anything.”

“No,” she said. “You’re not.”

“I was wondering if you might come out for another visit before you go. I wasn’t sure when you would be leaving. But—” Her words dropped off there, as if she weren’t sure where to go next.

The question surprised Grier and set off another flutter of panic in her chest. “I’m really not sure I’ll have time to.”

“I know you must have a full schedule, but it would mean a lot to me if you could.”

She considered sparing her mother’s feelings, and then let truth change her mind. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.

“I understand how you feel,” her mother said. “I wouldn’t expect you to feel anything else.”

Resentment swirled through Grier and then settled like bile in her throat. Guilt was not a card her mother had any right to play. “I really have to go,” she said, and hung up.

Grier sat on the side of the bed, willing her hands to stop shaking. She couldn’t decide whether the cause was anger or sadness, but she had no desire to indulge either one. Grier had spent years getting herself to a place of indifference. A place that gave her the ability to live a life unencumbered with the weight of her past. The last thing in the world she intended to do was give her mother the chance to ignite any of those old feelings. And especially not if she was doing it for her own peace of mind. Wasn’t it true there were some things people just had to live with? Some things that couldn’t ever be forgiven or pushed aside like they’d never happened?

Grier had to believe it was true. She couldn’t say that she had actually healed in the past nineteen years. But she could say that she had finally reached a place of acceptance for the things she would never be able to go back and change. For the things that had happened to her that had never been her fault. She didn’t want to open any of it back up again. Because despite everything, she knew the wounds were still there, raw and painful beneath the surface. And she just couldn’t let herself feel any of it again, not even to give her mother peace.

Does real love appear as a choice? Or does it arrive, inevitable, irresistible?

Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Restless and completely wide-awake, Grier left the room around nine o’clock to take Sebbie for a walk. She’d reached the middle of town when her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, glanced at the number, and recognizing it as local, answered “Hello?”

“Hey.” It was Bobby Jack’s voice, and just the sound of it sent a jolt from her midsection straight to her heart.

“I. . .how did you get my number?”

“Beaner,” Bobby Jack admitted.

“They really should fire him,” Grier said.

“Yeah, they really should,” Bobby Jack agreed. “Where are you?”

“Walking,” she said. “Actually, near the bakery on Main Street.”

“Can I pick you up?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Bobby Jack.”

“But can I pick you up?”

Totally devoid of any energy to fight her own doubts, she said, “Yes.”

“Be there in less than five minutes,” he said and hung up.

Grier sat down on the bench outside the bakery, which was now closed. Sebbie hopped up beside her and rested his head on her lap. She rubbed his back and said, “I should’ve said no, shouldn’t I?”

He whined his agreement.

Bobby Jack pulled up in less than five minutes, lowered the window on the passenger side, and just looked at her, silent. Grier scooped up Sebbie and got in the truck, as if the whole thing were inevitable. Which, she supposed, based on what had happened last night, it was. “Where are we going?” she said.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know, where do you want to go?”

“We could go to my house. Andy’s staying at her mama’s tonight.”

Grier considered this and then said, “I’m thinking that’s probably not such a good idea.”

“I’m thinking you’re probably right,” he said. “Want to come anyway?”

“Yes,” she said, and he drove.

People are almost never what you think.

Don’t even try to figure them out.

Something Andy once read in a magazine.

Turns out
it’s
true.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

So the plan was that Andy would pick George up at the Inn at seven o’clock.

Andy felt a little funny at the thought of picking a duke up in a truck, but when she’d told him that’s what she would be driving, all he’d said was, “Cool.”

He definitely got points for that.

She spent a good two hours getting dressed, fixing her hair with hot curlers, changing outfits half a dozen times until she finally closed her eyes and just picked one.

She had left a note for her dad on the refrigerator, telling him she was going out and then spending the night with her mom. She’d felt a little ping of guilt for the hurt she knew this would cause him. But then he hadn’t been exactly sensitive to her feelings lately, so why should she be to his?

All the way to the Inn, she drove with the radio cranked and the windows rolled down, partly to drown out her conscience and partly to subdue her nervousness over seeing George again. Of all the girls he had met today, she still couldn’t figure out why he’d picked her to hang with.

He was standing in the parking lot, waiting for her. She’d barely rolled to a stop when he popped the door latch and slid in.

“Hey,” he said with his megawatt smile.

“Hey,” she said back. “Don’t you have a bodyguard or something?”

“Do I need one?”

“From me? Maybe.” She heard herself flirting with him and wondered at her sudden confidence.

“I think I’ll take my chances,” he said.

“You may not like your odds.”

“Oh, I think I will.”

Andy pulled out of the parking lot and took a right, her hands shaking on the steering wheel. She felt as if a whole flock of butterflies had taken flight in her stomach. “Where to?”

“Wherever there’s action.”

“Not a lot of that around here.”

“Then we can make our own.”

She glanced over at him, and his smile made her feel like she had everything in the world going for her. “There’s a place I’d like to show you.”

“Drive on, then,” he said, reaching over to crank the radio.

They drove through town, blasting Nickelback, their windows down, hands stretched out into the night air. The county road that led to the lake had little traffic, and Andy kept the speedometer at the edge of the speed limit.

Fifteen minutes outside town, she slowed the truck and turned onto a narrow paved road, drove a few minutes more until they reached the gravel turnoff that led up the mountain overlooking Clearwater Lake.

“You game?” she asked him, pointing out the windshield at the rutted path ahead of them.

“Definitely,” he said.

Andy hit the accelerator, and off they went up the curving mountain road, bouncing and laughing most of the way. Some of the curves were near right angles, and she glanced at George to see if he’d lost his nerve yet.

“I take it you’ve done this before,” George shouted over the roar of the engine.

“Four-wheeling is part of driver’s ed here,” Andy teased.

“Good to know.”

She laughed, negotiating the last turn before the road straightened to flow out along the ridge of the mountain. She pulled the truck over, cut the engine and locked the emergency brake. “Come on,” she said, opening the door and sliding out.

He followed her, moonlight guiding their way. Large rocks dotted the edge of the woods, and Andy used them as stepping-stones until they were far enough in for the view to open up before them. Stretched out below the base of the mountain, Clearwater Lake lay like a jeweled carpet, boat lights winking in the distance, house lights dotting the shoreline.

“Wow,” George said, standing close behind her, close enough that she could feel his chest against her back. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s my favorite view in the county.”

“I can see why.”

She pointed out a blinking light in the distance. “That’s Arrowhead Point. Great place to eat there. And see that boat? That’s the Lennox Lee. It’s like a Mississippi river boat. They do dinner cruises.”

George slipped his arm around her waist and eased her back against him. His mouth close to her ear, he said, “Do go on.”

“If you. .  .if I—”

“If you turn your face a little more to the right, then I am going to kiss you.”

Andy went completely still, the instant kick of her heart proof of her inability to do anything other than exactly that. She lifted her face to his, her lips parting automatically.

He slipped both arms around her waist and turned her fully to him. Andy dropped her head back to look into his face. “I really want you to kiss me.”

“I really want to kiss you.”

And he did. A soft test of a kiss, at first. His lips wonderfully coaxing and insistent against hers.

Clearly, this wasn’t his first kiss. Except for the few experimental sessions she and Kyle had undertaken when they were fourteen, Andy would call this her first real kiss. By someone who knew what he was doing. How to whisk her up and make her want to follow him along a path on which he held the only light. She didn’t have to try and see what was ahead. All she had to do was hold onto him, let him take her wherever it led.