Chapter 16
Claire
This was an interesting turn of events. Caught between two incredibly handsome men, what was a woman to do?
I wasn’t sure what urged my feet up to Levi’s place. I was bored now that I’d sent off the article. Maybe bored wasn’t the right word … I was itching for something. Restless with pent-up energy. Normally, I had my next project lined up, or at least a new fixation, to catch my attention. But being up here had me secluded, and aside from the room I was most assuredly not going to break into, I didn’t have anything currently piquing my interest.
Except Levi.
When he opened the door in his jeans and flannel, I was reminded just how handsome he was. It wasn’t boredom that drew me to him … it was something far more primal .
When his gaze lingered on my lips, my body grew heavy with his direct focus. My lips tingled with the need to feel his pressed against them.
Then his friend had arrived. Thankfully?
Pace’s dark blond hair had hints of red when the sun hit it and looked curly but was cropped close when he pulled off his cap. He rocked a mustache that seemed to be swinging back in trend that few people could pull off. He was one of the lucky ones. If the suspenders were any indication, his job as a firefighter made him even more filled out than Levi. Not that it was a competition. They were both good-looking men but in different fonts. And actually, Pace was almost too handsome, the sort of attractive that everybody was aware of, including himself. The sort of handsome that made me leery.
Levi had an attractiveness that grew with time. Every time I looked at him, I found a new striking feature to study, like the hard bump on the bridge of his nose before it sloped down or the gentle strength of his long sculptor fingers. He was far more interesting and distinguished.
I could only imagine what the ladies of Cozy Creek thought when these two went out on the town. Although it was hard to picture Levi going out to peruse for women. In fact, I didn’t care to think about that at all.
I realized I’d been lost in my thoughts of women throwing themselves at the sensitive and caring artist who was hosting me when Pace cleared his throat. I think he had asked me a question, but my gaze looked like it was locked on his shoulders. A blush burned my cheeks, and when I flicked a look at Levi, his eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms.
“I’m sorry, my mind wandered. It does that.” I waved my hand through the air.
Pace chuckled in a perfectly handsome way that almost felt rehearsed. “I’m used to that with this one.” He clapped Levi on his shoulder. Shoulders that tensed closer to his ears. “I was just telling Levi that tonight is the great pumpkin hunt. I was heading down there to help now. You can get your pumpkin to carve for the season and the winner of the largest pumpkin is announced.”
“Fun!” I clapped excitedly.
“Plenty of seasonal gourds competing for the big prize,” Pace said.
“And who doesn’t love a massive gourd?” I said without missing a beat.
Pace froze, and his gaze flicked between the two of us. I bit the inside of my cheek.
Levi sighed. “Ignore her. She’s got the humor of a teenage boy.”
Pace let out a cackle, far more authentic than his practiced laugh had been. “Wouldn’t you know, so do I? So what do you say, Miss Claire Wells? Would you like to leave Recluse Ranch and make a night of it?”
I wasn’t notorious for reading subtext, but I got the impression that Pace was laying it on a little thick, even for the natural charmer he seemed to be. This was Colorado, not the South, yet any moment, I expected him to start to call me ma’am in a thick Southern accent and wink before mounting a horse that appeared out of nowhere.
I snorted out loud at the visual and quickly covered my mouth. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
To my surprise, instead of being hurt by laughing in his face, Pace just shrugged his shoulders and laughed it off. “Never hurts to ask.”
“I better get back to—” I started to make an excuse that would bring me back to my fortress of solitude.
“Let’s go,” Levi said loudly.
Pace’s expression surely matched my own, eyebrows high, mouth forming an O of surprise.
Levi cleared his throat. “To town. The three of us, I mean. We’ve been cooped up because of the snow. It’ll be good to walk around a little.”
“For the love of gourds,” I said, unable to hide my giant smile.
Levi’s gaze snagged on me; it bounced from my neck and chin and lips, before returning back to my eyes, softening some of his hard edges as it flitted around my face.
Pace shifted, creaking a board on the deck. Levi and I blinked, unlocking our gazes, and looked at him. “All right, sounds like a plan.” Pace clapped his hands together once.
“I really need to get out of the cabin for a bit.” I started talking because the way Levi looked at me was doing something to me again. He had that same lovely, gooey look in his eyes. “I’m as introverted as it gets, but I’ve begun to have whole conversations with my reflection, and it’s starting to feel a little too normal.” I was still talking. Why wasn’t someone stopping me? “I’ll go grab my bag. Should we take both trucks?” I asked, already worrying about who I would ride down with and wondering if I should just drive myself. My car hadn’t been driven since my last visit to Cozy Creek, and it probably needed to be started. None of these racing thoughts mattered when, a second later, Pace stopped, abruptly snapping his fingers and sucking in a breath.
“Dang. You know what?” he said.
Levi stilled. The smallest flare of his nostrils was the only indication he’d heard his friend at all.
“I just remembered I told Ruth that I’d go help with the Aubergine Room before I went down to the fire station.”
Levi opened his mouth to speak.
Pace held up a hand. “Yes. It is a funny story, Levi. You’ll have to tell Claire about it.”
Levi turned to me and shared the story with little emotion. “It used to be called the eggplant room, but too many people were making jokes about it. When Ruth found out what the emoji meant, she changed the name.”
“I would have had a field day,” I said.
“You would have loved it,” Levi said at the same time.
Our eyes met, and we shared a quick smile before we both looked away. “That’s it. That’s the whole story,” he finished.
Pace looked between us, his eyes bright and smile almost as large as mine could get. “Yeah, well, sorry to suggest it and dash like that. But you two go. Have a great time.” He was already backing toward his truck to leave. “Give Ripley a smooch. Wait. Better yet.” He pulled his lip and made a high-pitched whistle. “ Why don’t I take her for the night so you don’t have to worry about her in the crowds or getting back too fast? Plus, she loves the attention she gets down at the station.”
Before Levi could answer, Ripley bolted out of the house and right into Pace’s arms. “Good girl.” He laughed as she licked all over his face. Once he wasn’t trying so hard, I found I liked Pace much more.
Levi was motionless. His eyes narrowed on Pace, but he didn’t stop him.
“Thanks, Pace. It was nice meeting you,” I said.
He waved as he and Ripley got in his truck.
I didn’t want to worry if this was pushing Levi outside his comfort zone. If he was still pretending either of us was following his rules. The rules would need an addendum soon.
Levi
The drive to town felt light-years longer than normal, and every second, dread gripped me tighter with its talons. I didn’t do “hanging out” in town. I wasn’t part of the Cozy Creek crowd anymore. It wasn’t that anybody was mean or judgmental; it was the opposite. They adored my mother. Their pity rolled off them in waves, drowning me in a tsunami of memories I wasn’t able to process in public. Lily Carmichael was stamped all over town from the origami cranes she made for Betsy that still hung in the display window of the store to her photographs that lined the walls of several of the establishments. They wanted to talk about her contagious laughter or recall the stern flare of her nostrils when Pace bullshitted her. They wanted to find peace in her memory. They wanted to share the bits of her before they were truly lost forever.
And I just couldn’t. I wasn’t at that stage of grief yet, and I wasn’t sure that I ever would be. The memory of my mother was so drenched in anger over the injustice done to her that I couldn’t think about one without drudging up the other.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter and glanced out the driver’s window away from Claire.
If the growing tension felt stifling, Claire was oblivious. She chatted happily down the winding roads back to Cozy Creek, one stream of consciousness thought melting into the next. She hadn’t stopped chittering since the moment we left the house. Claire didn’t need to suffer for my sins like the rest of them. She was passing through this town and deserved to see it in all its autumnal glory.
“And honestly, I think that’s what’s so weird about memories. They’re all as real and as fake as everything else. Like, what if your whole life was an illusion and a lamp was the thing that broke it? You had a wife and kids and were happy, only to wake up and find out you had a traumatic brain injury, you were eighteen, and none of that had happened.”
“That would suck,” I said as I parallel parked on Main Street. I had zoned out somewhere about a mile back, so I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
She unbuckled her seat belt. “But then, really, what is the culmination of our lives but memories? It’s trippy to think about. Wait. What were we talking about?”
“Be more specific,” I said, glancing at her quickly.
“Wasn’t I making a point?” Her nose crinkled in concentration.
“When we left the house, you were talking about cheese sticks. Now, we are talking about parallel universes and timeline hopping. Or faulty memories.” I wasn’t entirely sure.
“Oh right. Anyway. Are we here already?” She leaned forward to look out the window. “Whoa. I didn’t think places like this actually existed outside movies,” Claire said. Her smile was as wide as her eyes as she took in the setting. “It wasn’t like this when I got here.” I turned off the truck and looked at her as her brow furrowed. “Or maybe it was, and I’d missed it. I was a little distracted that day.” She shot me a wince at the reminder of our first meeting. That felt like a million years ago. It was hard to even think of her as that same person.
I went around to help her out of the cab like the proper gentleman my mother would have wanted me to be. She gave me an amused but questioning look as she took my extended hand.
“Thanks,” she said, coming to a stop at the corner. “Wow.”
I gave her a moment to take in our Main Street in all its kitschy delights. I imagined it through her eyes, seeing it for the first time, instead of these local eyes that had grown accustomed to the breathtaking sights. The streetlamps were wrapped in fall foliage garland, and many storefronts had hay stacks with scarecrows or sunflowers. Brightly colored marigolds and mums sat with pumpkins in the flower beds lining the road. And behind the old buildings of “downtown” were the great snow-capped Rockies, watching over the town of Cozy Creek.
This was pretty picturesque Americana at its finest.
“Where should we start?” she asked, her focus bouncing from one spot to another and never stopping.
I shrugged, wishing I had my tool chest and safety goggles on to slip by unnoticed. Already, Gigi and her visiting granddaughter, Madi, had noticed me and waved cheerily. I lifted my shoulders up to my ears. Billy Mackenzie warned me that there had already been a couple of offers on the storefront on Main Street and that I needed to give him an answer soon. Claire shot me a puzzled look with the interaction but didn’t comment.
“Usually, the town square is where the action is, but the whole town seems to be into the event.”
She nodded, listening but also highly distracted. “Oh my God, are those hay rides?”
“It’s much bigger than I remember,” I said. “Lots of tourists.”
I didn’t look but felt her studying the side of my face. “Then we’re both playing tourist today too.”
“More like the helpless being led by the clueless.”
“I can’t imagine there’s a bad place to start,” she said, ignoring my bad attitude. “This is gonna be fun! Look at us, both leaving the house, among the people.”
At that moment, Mack McCreedy came around the bend, steering his tractor down Main Street, pulling a hay-lined trailer full of grinning children and adults.
“How about there?” I pointed at the tractor, thinking at least if we were moving, nobody could talk to us.
“Yes!” She started in the direction where a small queue had formed at the next stop for hay rides. “Is that an apple cider stand?”
Her head whipped to the right, and her feet stopped mid-step, causing me to bump into her backside. I grabbed her shoulders to steady us both, and for just a flash, the full length of her body pressed against mine, and a pulse of nerves flashed through me.
“It is,” I said with gruffness.
“Okay, I want that first.” But even as we started toward the cider stand, she grew distracted by a small dog passing by dressed as a stormtrooper.
I ran a hand over my smile as she spun in the new direction to crouch to pet the dog. She was making it very difficult to wallow in my misery. It went on like that for a while. She bounced from one side of the street to the other and I followed right behind her. She visited several of the shops, and when she spotted one of my pieces, she raised an eyebrow and pointed at it questioningly.
I nodded and looked around, hoping not to be caught looking at my art. “Okay, I’ll stop torturing you.” She looped her arm through mine and dragged me away to the next delight.
A thrill shot through me.
“Stop. This cannot be real.” We rounded the corner to where the fire station sat next to the town hall. The old building had a vintage fire truck parked in front, decorated with pumpkins and children clambering up its sides. “This is the Cozy Creek Fire Brigade.” She whipped out her phone to take another hundred pictures. “My dad will absolutely love this.”
As we got closer, several of the local firefighters, including Pace and some of the guys from poker night, like Cole Sutter, were out front in their tees and fire pants with suspenders, handing out candy to the kids. Blatant pandering. Pace was not, in fact, helping Ruth as he said. Ripley was in the passenger seat of the fire truck, curled in a bright yellow coat and hiding under a hard helmet. She pretended not to hear me when I whistled for her. The little traitor.
Claire stopped in her tracks, arms out to the side as she took in the sight. “This looks like a calendar photo shoot for October.” She shook her head, her cheeks bright and her smile bigger.
“Not you too,” I mumbled.
“Me too, what?” she asked.
“Falling victim to the firefighter syndrome.”
Pace was holding a baby now that clapped happily on his cheeks as he laughed.
“Where did that baby come from?” I grumbled, rolling my eyes.
Claire followed my line of sight before laughing. Back to me, she made an “oops” face. “I’m but a mere mortal. It’s not really something I can control. I think it’s hardwired into DNA. Man in uniform. Children playing happily. Parents watching on with smiles.” She bent her arms at ninety-degree angles and moved robotically. “Beep boop. Alert, alert.” She made a powering-up sound. “Now ovulating.”
A surprised laugh burst out of me. Looking down at her, she studied the goofy, jerky movement, unable to hide the joy she dragged out of me. Her erratic gestures slowed to a stop as she blinked up at me. With her body still, her face lit with joy as her gaze moved to my mouth and around my face, and her smile grew bigger.
“I like seeing this.” She poked my cheek where my smile was still beaming.
I was on display, raw and vulnerable, but she made me feel so many things. Yet I couldn’t turn it off. I couldn’t make it melt away. I didn’t want to.
“Who are you?” I asked her, or maybe the universe, for bringing this weird, curiously funny woman into my life.
Her arms fell to her sides as she shrugged at me. “I’m just Claire.”
And she was disarming me piece by broken piece. I swallowed and held her gaze. My body leaned toward her gravitational pull.
“You’re not just anything,” I said softly.
Her smile melted, and she swallowed. Why couldn’t I stop staring at those lips of hers?
“Hey, there you are!” Pace strolled up with his, as ever, impeccable timing.
Claire waved, shifting to face him. I narrowed my eyes at him. He pretended not to notice.
“This is great,” Claire said, gesturing to the scene around us. She had dropped my arm at some point, and I noticed the absence of her more than ever. “I feel like a background character in a Hallmark movie. ”
“It’s pretty neat, huh? Cozy Creek doesn’t mess around when it comes to fall,” he said.
“Apparently.”
“You should see it at Christmas.”
She laughed nervously. “I wish I could, but I’ll be long gone by then.” She elbowed me lightly. “But probably not soon enough for this guy.”
I grunted as I crossed my arms and widened my stance. That had been what I wanted, to scare my renter away to have my place back. I wasn’t sure when the opposite became true. The thought of her being gone was … unsettling.
“I somehow doubt that.” Pace looked at me closely with a shit-eating grin plastered on his features.
He seemed to look pointedly where I stood slightly ahead of Claire, blocking her from the full blast of his charm. This desire to protect her from him was simply instinctual. The flirtatious playboy was all an act to pretend he wasn’t still hurting. Pace had given his heart to someone once, and it was never returned.
“Well, so far, he’s had to save me at a grocery store as I unloaded my recent drama onto him, put up with me accidentally dog-napping Ripley, saved me from a winter storm, and set up internet in the cabin despite the arguments that he never would. I’m sure he’s just about at the end of his tether,” she finished with a huff of laughter.
Her face melted as she spoke, like she understood in real time what a nuisance she’d been. Weirdly, as she listed things out, I found myself recalling the memories with dewy sentimentality .
Huh.
“You went in the cabin?” Pace asked me happily, eyebrows high with hope, obviously not hearing any of the other details.
I blinked at him once. “Yes.”
“Yeah.” Claire chuckled nervously. “He had to get me out of my clothes when I hurt my knee when I was all wet.” She stopped and put out a hand. “Saying that out loud, I hear how that sounds, but it wasn’t like that.”
“We’re going now,” I said and began to steer her away. Pace all but vibrated with the need to ask more questions.
“I’ll see you for poker night,” he called after us.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Oh, that’s not nice,” Claire whispered.
“Wednesday it is,” Pace yelled. “See you then!”
I gave him a sort of salute, much more PG than I wanted to give him, but was conscious of all the families around.
“Aw, that’s nice.” Claire waved goodbye one more time. “You guys are cute together.”
My social batteries were running low, and I needed the safety of my workspace. Claire, too, seemed to be wearing out. The sun was almost down, and the town glowed orangy-pink. I was about to suggest leaving when the next obstacle popped up.
Kathy Wilson spotted me and was making a beeline right for me. I froze in my tracks.
“Oh, my sweet Levi. I am so glad to see you out and about.” Mrs. Wilson was the Cozy Creek County clerk and would never relinquish that role because of the firsthand access to gossip .
“Hello, Mrs. Wilson. Nice to see you as well.” Not really. If ever there was a person who loved to watch people squirm, it was her.
“You know, I was just thinking about sweet Lily this morning. Gosh, I still can’t believe it’s been over a year already. I swear I can still smell her gardenia perfume sometimes in the street, and I’ll think oh, I just missed her, and then I’ll remember.”
My Adam’s apple lodged in my throat. I felt like I was drowning and having a heart attack at the same time. I couldn’t—what was I supposed to—What was anybody?—
Claire’s hand found my own, warm and stable, as her fingers linked through mine. She gently squeezed my hand, and the tension melted from me as I squeezed her once in return. An arm looped through mine. Only after being held by Claire did I realize my body had been trembling. I couldn’t admit how much strength I took from that simple action. Her other hand extended out.
“Hi. I’m Claire Wells.”
The older woman took us both in. She stared pointedly at Claire’s arm through mine. Claire’s thumb brushed over the back of my hand, soothing with our palms pressed tight. I had been there for Claire in her most vulnerable state, and now she instinctually knew how to show up for mine.
“I’m renting out Levi’s cabin, and so far, making a total nuisance of myself,” she said before Kathy could ask the question on the tip of her nosy tongue.
“Is that right?” They shook hands. “And what are you doing up here in Cozy Creek? ”
“I’m a reporter.”
The older woman seemed to feel like that necessitated straightening up and fluffing her short yellow-blond bob.
“Are you writing about Cozy Creek?”
“Should I be?” Claire asked in a co-conspiratorial tone.
“Every town has their secrets,” Kathy said, looking at me as if putting together pieces that weren’t there. Pieces that shouldn’t be uncovered. I stiffened, then shifted on my feet. Claire said something in response that my ringing ears couldn’t make out.
“Is Levi being a good host?” she asked, still trying to sniff out salacious details to spread through town.
“He is. This whole area is beautiful.”
But as the awkwardness grew, so did Claire’s momentum. She simply could not stop talking. Maybe I should interact with her more. Perhaps she had some sort of word quota for the year and had lost mileage to make up for. Maybe I should be down at the cabin talking to her more so this could be avoided.
Eventually, I dragged Claire away, insisting we had much more to see. We left a stunned Mrs. Wilson behind as Claire stiffened.
“Was I talking about breast exams with that woman?” she asked when I gently led her into an alley between shops for some privacy.
I nodded, unable to hide my smile now. The secret was out, so no point in locking them down. If anybody should get to see them, it should be Claire. I wouldn’t need to avoid the town and talking with people if Claire was here at my side.
“It’s like I black out when I start talking. Whatever they say lights up parts of my brain, and my mouth just spews it out. We skip the whole ‘is this an inside thought/outside thought’ filter on the way,” she said with a defeated sigh.
It was true. I had thought something about myself initially made her talk so honestly, but that was who she was. She was genuinely so earnest and open.
“You need to nudge me. Or we need to establish a code word when I start to go too far,” she said.
“Absolutely not.” I couldn’t help my chuckle. She had completely turned my mood around. I had been dreading every moment of that interaction, and by the end, I wanted to pull up a chair with some popcorn.
“You love my humiliation.” Claire hid her face in her hands. “My ex would give me a look so I knew when to stop.”
I ground my jaw.
“I really hate my brain sometimes,” she added.
“I really love your authenticity,” I countered. “And your ex sounds like an idiot.”
The words came out. I, too, lacked a filter, which was another reason I hated coming into town. But I loved it on Claire. I loved that from the second I met her, there were no games or pretenses. She was exactly what she presented herself as. I thought maybe it was just me who saw this side of her, but that was who she was. In every interaction, she was just a little too goofy and a little too earnest. People didn’t know what to do with her.
I knew exactly what I wanted to do with her.
I could kiss this woman senseless. And as soon as the thought formed, it grew and implanted itself deep in my brain tissue, where it would only be removed by a lobotomy that made me forget everything. I wanted this woman. I wanted her with every fiber of my being. And not because she saved me from Kathy Wilson, but because of every real thing about her.
Her head shot up, and her eye contact zinged down my spine. “Oh,” she said eventually. “That’s good. Because I don’t have any control over that.”
“Good.”
The back alley was quiet in our bubble of honesty.
“Thank you,” I said before I did something that might get me slapped. “For intercepting Kathy.”
I didn’t have to elaborate. Her cheeks went red, and she shook her head. “I’m a pro at dealing out dead mom diversion. Been doing it for a decade.” As soon as the words were out, she winced. “Shit. Sorry, that sounds so crass. I just meant?—”
My hand cupped her chin and lifted her gaze. “Thank you,” I repeated because, again, the desire to kiss her muted all other words.
She placed her hand over mine and nodded softly. “You’re welcome.”
After a moment that held too long, she dropped her hand, and I released her. Determined to give her a good time, I led her out of the alley and back toward the festivities. She buzzed to a few more places, and by the time we reached the town square, my arms were loaded with bags of souvenirs for her dad, kettle corn, fried food, and other various “irresistible” snacks .
She sipped her cider, humming happily as we rounded into the center of town. The town square had transitioned into a nighttime spectacle with hundreds of jack-o’-lanterns glowing along fake flickering candles and white fairy lights. She gasped as she took in the pumpkins that filled every square foot set up for the competition. She found a bench and sat, that ever-present smile still on her face. A few musicians were set up and playing an acoustic version of a song I recognized but couldn’t place. A group of kids were right in front of them, shaking their little bodies out of rhythm and without a care in the world. A few couples danced hand in hand just outside the kids, laughing and rocking to the light tempo. I groaned at myself and set down all her treasures.
“All right. Come on then,” I said and stood.
She frowned up at me. “We’re leaving?” Her brows contorted in the saddest expression I’d ever been victim to. Even if leaving had been the plan, it wouldn’t have been anymore.
“You’re wiggling so hard, you’re shaking the bench.”
I held out my hand. Her jaw dropped. “You want to dance? Out here? In front of God and everyone?”
I huffed. “You’re quickly talking me out of it.”
She set down her paper cup of cider. “No. No. This is happening.”
She bounced up so fast that I had to step back. She dropped her hand into mine and squeezed. It was dark and crowded enough that I didn’t worry too much about being seen. Also, what would my mother think if I didn’t dance with this beautiful woman? As we stepped to the makeshift dance floor in front of the musicians, the song transitioned from a fast beat to a slow, soft melody.
Because, of course, it did.