Chapter 31
Samuel
Tip #31: If the family who was once your bitter enemy offers help in winning back your fake fiancée, take it.
I sat in my office at Warner Print, staring blankly at my cell phone. The screen displayed a picture of Natalie and me, smiling with our faces smashed together so we could take a selfie. I’d snapped it during our visit to McBride Farm & Greenhouse.
My heart felt like a lead weight in my chest, and my mind seemed to be stuck in an endless loop of confusion. What should I do? What could I do?
“Wow, you really are here,” a voice interrupted my thoughts.
I looked up to see Owen poking his head through the open door. “What are you doing here? You look like hell, man.”
“Thanks.” I leaned my head back against my chair. “Are you here to pummel me on behalf of your sister?”
“Believe it or not, no.” Owen walked up to my desk and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “You already look terrible enough. I don’t think you need any more punishment.” He studied my face. “So, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I guess Natalie found out I’m in love with her?”
Owen coughed, then shook his head. “No, dude, that’s definitely not why she’s upset.” His expression was a mix of concern and embarrassment.
“Then what made her cut me off?”
“She overheard you and Miguel talking about some long-term plan of yours. She thought dating her was just part of some bigger scheme for you to accomplish that goal, and she was hurt.”
“Right, the long-term plan of dating and marrying Natalie that I settled on in college,” I said, deadpan.
“Dude!” Owen groaned and bent over, embarrassed on my behalf since I wasn’t. “Please say that kind of thing to her and not me!”
“What’s the big deal about telling you I’m interested in Natalie?” I rested my hands on my desk. “Everyone must know by now.”
“Not everyone,” Owen said.
“You knew about it.”
“Well. Jenna told me. She said you’d been mooning over Nat for years. Uh, although to your point, I had to fill my mom in when she called this morning saying you showed up at her house looking like death warmed up twice in the microwave. So it’s safe to assume most of the Mann clan knows too.”
“Great,” I muttered.
“However, Natalie still doesn’t know.”
I snapped to my feet, sending my chair rolling behind me. “She doesn’t know?”
“Nope.”
“But she must suspect something.”
Owen shook his head. “She doesn’t have a clue. That’s why she’s so upset. She had no idea what your long-term plan was. She thought you were using her for some other purpose.”
I nodded, unsure if Natalie’s obliviousness was good or bad. “How angry do you think she’ll be when she finds out?”
Owen made a strange noise. “I don’t know, but you will get to find out since you should be the one to tell her.”
I thought I was too numb to feel anything by this point, but I discovered there was a corner of my mind that was still operational as apprehension flooded my system. I wasn’t stoked at the idea of facing Natalie’s anger—or worse, her total indifference.
“Sam.” Owen’s voice took on a harder edge as he swapped into big brother mode. “You’re going to tell Natalie. You owe it to her. Yes, her idea to fake date was crazy and started a lie, but in lying through omission you’ve really hurt her feelings. She’s not crying because she’s mad.”
I stared at the patterned carpet of my office. “I’m sorry for hurting her.”
Owen’s expression softened. “Stop punishing yourself. Nobody in our family is mad at you. We all know you’re helplessly in love with my sister. And as for Natalie, well,” he hesitated, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “your proposal should have raised a few warning bells, but she was too stubborn to let herself notice.”
A weak chuckle that was more of a huff of air escaped me. “I didn’t think she’d buy any excuse I came up with, to be honest. I was surprised when she accepted it.”
“Yeah, you should have been,” Owen said. “So, are you ready to face her?”
I clenched my jaw. “It could mean losing her forever if she doesn’t take it well.”
“Before this winter Nat hated your guts. So you wouldn’t be much worse off.”
“If that was supposed to be encouraging, it wasn’t,” I wryly said.
“Look, Samuel.” Owen’s expression was earnest as he met my gaze. “I love my sister, and honestly, I like you too. Just tell her the truth, OK?”
I turned my phone so the screen brightened, casting a blue glow across my face as I looked at the picture of Natalie and me one more time. I was just as sick as ever at the thought of losing her, but after Jenna’s grilling, I knew both she and Owen were right. Natalie deserved to know.
“Do you know where she is?” I grabbed my wool coat from the coat hook, then slipped my car keys and phone into my coat pocket.
“Of course. Come on, I’ve even arranged a ride for you.”
“It’s fine. I can drive my Porsche.”
Owen patted me on the back as we exited my office and walked down the hallway. “Samuel, you’re practically an honorary Mann now. And being a Mann means you rarely get to do anything alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see,” Owen said cryptically.
A minute later, we stood outside facing the glorious ode-to-the-’90s full-size mouse-mobile van parked by the sidewalk. Grandma Mann yanked the side door open, hollering, “Time to move it or lose it, pretty boy!”
Owen shook my hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you the honor of riding up front.” He sprinted to the van and hurled himself into the seat next to Grandma Mann.
Slower to follow, I climbed into the front passenger seat and slammed the door shut.
“Keep your feet up!” Owen reminded me, buckling his seat belt. Memories of the furry mouse I’d evicted during my previous ride in this van were still fresh, so I hastily obeyed while securing my own seat belt.
“Good afternoon,” Grandpa Mann said. “You look terrible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I bet Mike twenty-four hours’ work at my table saw against twenty-four hours of labor with his chainsaw you’d look like this.” Grandpa Mann cackled as he started the van and pulled onto the street. “Looks like little Mike will be removing some shrubs for me!”
“I’m glad to hear someone is profiting from my pain,” I said.
“Spoken like a true Warner!” Grandma Mann laughed.
Grandpa Mann conspiratorially leaned in my direction. “I knew I’d get free labor. I’ve got the eye, so I know when a man is in love.”
“Please. Even without her glasses Marjorie could see Samuel loves Natalie, and she’s blind without her bifocals.” Grandma Mann scoffed. “How could anyone miss it?”
Owen, his knuckles white as he clutched the edge of his seat, stared at the ground. “The majority of Fox Creek and I didn’t know.”
“Congratulations on having worse eyesight than Marjorie,” Grandma Mann said.
I tried to muster a smile. “Thanks for your support.”
“Don’t thank us too early, kid.” Grandpa Mann cleared his throat. “You made our precious pumpkin cry her eyes out.”
Owen groaned. “I told Mom not to tell anyone about that! Natalie’s gonna kill me.”
Just then, a furry mouse hopped out from the space where the front dashboard console met the flooring.
I automatically grabbed the rolled-up newspaper from the dashboard, swatting at the tiny intruder. The mouse dodged each swing with impressive agility.
“I didn’t mean to make Natalie cry,” I said as I kept swinging at the mouse. “But I’m hoping she’ll let me make it up to her.”
“Good,” said Grandpa Mann. “That’s all we want.”
The mouse finally turned tail and fled, disappearing back into the console. I tossed the newspaper back onto the dashboard.
“I don’t know if I’m disappointed or happy that you adjust to the Mann brand of weirdness so easily,” Owen groused.
As we drove farther from town, the sides of the road switched from bustling neighborhoods to snow-covered farm fields and then to thick forest.
“I’m quite surprised at your forgiving attitude, considering I’ve been told about the grudge you’ve held, sir, against my grandfather Warner for buying the last pint of a specific flavor of ice cream once at Cherry’s Dairy Bar,” I said.
“That was New Year Mint, and it’s only in stock for two days out of the year!” Grandpa Mann grumbled. “Walter Warner doesn’t even like that flavor! I tell ya.”
“Anyway,” Grandma Mann chimed in tartly, “don’t give us too much credit. We’re fixing to be merciful because we know you’re about to run the gauntlet.”
“Gauntlet?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Grandma Mann said.
If she meant to be ominous, she was unsuccessful. I was already dreading Natalie’s reaction when I talked to her. Whatever this gauntlet was couldn’t be worse than that.
Grandpa Mann turned onto a familiar road. It took me a moment before I realized this was the lakeside lane most of my family and I lived on. “Is Natalie at my house?”
Owen hooted. “Nope.”
My dread started to build. If there was one thing worse than Natalie’s reaction to my feelings, that would be Natalie’s reaction to my feelings displayed in front of any of my family members. “Then… is she with my mother?”
“Better,” Grandpa Mann replied, a wicked grin on his face. “She’s got your cousins, twin, and grandfather there as well. Lover boy back there rendezvoused with his ladylove and made all the arrangements.” He jerked his thumb at Owen.
When I looked back at Owen, he winked at me. “Jenna and I owed you and Natalie one.”
Grandpa Mann turned into the driveway of my mother’s home, and for a moment I was confused.
The place looked like a parking lot, swarming with over a dozen cars and lots of people milling about. It took me a couple of moments to recognize them all as Natalie’s relatives.
“Welcome to the gauntlet, Samuel,” Grandma Mann said.
“Good luck.” Owen leaned forward to pat me on the shoulder as Grandpa Mann parked the van.
I unbuckled my seat belt and got out. I was braced for anger—a justified reaction—but glancing at my mother’s lake house made me more impatient than anything. Natalie was in there.
I made it around the front of the van before I was surrounded by Natalie’s family.
Keely, skidding to a stop in front of me, gave me a thumbs-up. “Good luck—you better make her happy!”
I blinked in surprise, but before I could react, she stepped aside and Natalie’s mother, Patty, was next.
Patty, misty-eyed, pulled me into a tight hug. “Don’t you worry, Samuel. You just need to be honest with Nat, and everything will turn out right.”
Patty pulled a tissue out of the sleeve of her jacket and turned to look behind her. “Paul? You coming?”
Paul, burly and stone-faced as usual, shouldered his way through the crowd of Manns. When he reached me, he stared for a long moment, his gaze unnervingly intense. Then, without a word, he offered his hand.
I took it. “I didn’t mean to hurt Natalie,” I said to Patty and Paul. “I’m sorry.”
“You better be!” The next Mann relative to eye me up was Natalie’s Uncle Mike. “Natalie’s too good for you, kid.”
“She is,” I agreed.
Uncle Mike awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Shoot. I didn’t mean to kick you when you’re down. Just treat her right, OK?”
I nodded and got a few steps closer to my mother’s house before little Noah—wearing a bright orange snowsuit—threw himself at me, slamming into my gut.
“I don’t care what Mom says about you, Samuel. You’re nice!” Noah clung to me like a koala.
“Thanks, Noah,” I smiled as Ryan peeled him off me.
“Lighten up, Samuel. You got this.” Ryan grinned at me.
There were many more Manns around me, but Natalie’s cousin Madison was the last one to stand between me and the front door. She narrowed her eyes as she studied me. “You’ll do, Warner,” she finally said. “You’re weird enough to match Natalie’s brand of chaos. Now go get her.”
Despite the numbness and dread that had eaten me since Natalie had gone radio silent, I was finally able to smile. “Thanks.”
I stepped onto the stoop and opened the front door. Just as I stepped inside I heard Keely shout, “Does anyone have an extra battery? My hearing aid just died.”
“I got a new package in the van,” Grandma Mann yelled. “Let me see if the mice got to ’em yet!”
With that exchange to cheer me up, I shut the front door.
Now, I just had to find Natalie and hope that I wasn’t too late.