Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Greer lined up her shot on the seventh hole, swinging her focus back and forth from her neon yellow golf ball to the windmill that blocked the entryway to the hole approximately every ten seconds.
She pulled a little backswing and whacked the ball with her putter.
The ball careened off one of the windmill’s blades and ricocheted back at her, but her reflexes weren’t fast enough and the damn thing hopped over the tee box and did an impressive jump onto number six’s green.
Sure as shooting, the little traitor rolled directly into the wrong hole.
Delaney watched the whole scene with raised brows. “Impressive, but don’t even think you’re changing your score on six to a hole in one.”
Lily Justin, a relative newcomer to Prophecy, said, “That kind of creativity should get some acknowledgment. I mean, just the physics involved—”
“I knew I liked this girl.” Greer snatched up her ball then scooted over and pulled Lily in for a one-armed hug.
Lily didn’t hug back, but she did flash a small smile.
Greer was dying for the whole story on the middle school science teacher who dressed in khaki skirts and plain button-up shirts, but she had a feeling that pushing for it would send Lily scampering back into the little frame house she rented over near the park. “How about a mulligan instead?”
“Fine,” Delaney huffed, “but that’s the only one you’re getting tonight.” Sipping on—and scowling at—her virgin margarita while holding Greer’s fully loaded drink in her other hand, she trained her attention directly on Greer’s newly teed-up ball.
This time, Greer’s ball sailed through without a hitch, and she two-putted it into the hole.
Then she took her own margarita from Delaney and held out her hand for Lily’s so she could tee up her ball.
While Lily was concentrating on her shot, Greer leaned in to Delaney and whispered, “There’s more to her than meets the eye. ”
Delaney slid her a look. “Isn’t that the case with everyone? Most people aren’t open books like you. People are entitled to their privacy, you know that, right?”
Greer winced.
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
They watched Lily lay up so she was close to the windmill for her second shot.
Just the thought of that strategy made Greer twitchy.
Hit it hard. Go for broke. Do it now. Obviously not Lily’s mottos.
Once Lily’s ball was through the rotating arms and she headed to the other side, Delaney said, “What didn’t you mean to do? ”
“You know the little painted church I had delivered the other day?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I kinda walked in while Alex was praying.”
“Alex, praying?” Delaney’s hand drooped, which would’ve been disturbing if it was tequila dribbling onto the fake turf instead of just lime juice.
Greer lifted Delaney’s arm back to a perpendicular level. “He’s Catholic.”
“Okay, so that makes sense. But why in the world would you listen in on that kind of private conversation?” With narrowed eyes, Delaney cocked her head to one side. “Remind me to remind Cal never to give you a key to the house. There’s no telling what you’d walk in on and listen to.”
“Hey, just because I don’t have some of the artificial boundaries other people do is no reason to lash out at me.”
“But a man praying? You might’ve been better off interrupting him when he was jerking off.”
Now, it was Greer’s drink that splashed over her hand.
She could totally imagine doing that with Alex.
Somehow she didn’t think he’d have a problem with it either.
That was, if he was over being pissed off at having her offer him help and a sympathetic ear.
She slurped the sweet liquid off the back of her hand. “He’s got family problems.”
“Everyone’s got some family issues, and if anyone knows how hard it is to get past them and move on, it’s me.”
“But that’s just the thing, you did. And we have each other. You, me, Cal, Raylene, the whole town. It’s not just one person trying to take care of everything and everyone. We can always call in reinforcements. Not Alex. He goes all tight-mouthed.”
“Maybe he’s just not comfortable with the whole small-town, we-take-care-of-our-own thing.”
“But he needs to become a part of this community.” Greer took a healthy swig of her drink then stared down at her almost empty glass.
“To win the competition or to further your own agenda?”
“My agenda?” Greer looked up, glared at the woman she’d come to love like a sister. “Since I put my feet in these boots, I’m not sure I have an agenda anymore. I don’t have control of my own life, and dammit, Delaney. I need to know.”
“Four,” Lily called from the other end of the hole.
Delaney shoved her drink at Greer and took her position at the tee as though Greer had said nothing. None of them spoke for the three strokes it took Delaney to sink her ball. When she scooped it up, she pointed to a nearby picnic table with the butt of her putter.
Lily, completely in the dark about the tension waving between Greer and Delaney, looked back and forth between them. “Uh…anyone need a refill? I can just hop over to the snack bar and—”
Greer waved her to the table with a sigh. “No, sit down. I have a feeling Delaney’s about to read me the riot act. You can be a buffer.”
“I’m not all that good at conflict.”
That pulled a laugh from Greer. “You work with middle schoolers all day. Conflict is your stock in trade.”
Lily shot a last longing look at the far side of the course before sliding onto the bench beside Greer.
Delaney shot Greer a hard look, one laced with disappointment. “Why should you be any different from anyone else? Why should you get advance notice of your soul mate’s boots when no one else does?”
“You can do that?” Lily asked. “I thought it was all magic and mysterious and whatnot.”
“Tell her that.” Delaney angled her glass toward Greer. “She thinks the rules don’t apply to her.”
“That’s not true. I just don’t know how far to push Alex.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “Alex Villanueva? Lord, I wouldn’t push him a millimeter. He’s scary.”
“See?” Greer said to Delaney. “How will he ever feel comfortable here, like he belongs, if people don’t know him? If they don’t like him?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like him. I don’t really know him, of course. He’s very…” Lily’s expression went soft and far away.
“Sexy?” Greer supplied.
A sweet pink highlighted Lily’s cheeks. “In a sort of bad-boy kind of way. I mean, he’s not my type. Too rough. Too earthy.”
“You looking for a domesticated man?” Delaney chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
“I’m not looking for a man at all. I have a man in my life and…” Lily pulled in her lips and went mute.
“You’ve been holding out on us,” Greer said, leaning her elbows on the table. “Tell us about this man.”
“I spoke out of turn.”
“Fine, keep your sexy secrets.” Greer turned back to Delaney, giving Lily some emotional space to recover her composure. “About Alex. It’s complicated.”
“No, it’s really not. You want to know if you’re investing in the right man. If you’re falling for the right man.”
The truth settled into Greer’s bone. Delaney’s verb tense was wrong.
Greer wasn’t falling. Somehow she’d already fallen. “What if I’m in love with a man who’s not my soul mate?”
“You’ve only known him for a short time,” Lily protested. “How can you fall in love that quickly?”
“Sometimes you just know,” Delaney answered for Greer. “But I still can’t—won’t—talk with you about the other pair of boots. You know nothing happens until the time is right, even if the person is right.”
“I’m afraid. Afraid he isn’t the one. Afraid he is. And afraid even if he is that he won’t accept it.”
Delaney grasped Greer’s hand. “That, we can do something about. Maybe he just needs to meet more people in Prophecy, not only to make him feel at home, but to show him how many folks do believe in prophecy boots.”
“The PTO is hosting a community potluck fundraiser this weekend,” Lily chimed in. “Why don’t you bring him to that?”
Greer tried to picture Alex at an event with people milling around everywhere. Hard to imagine, but she had to try. “What if he says no?”
“Seriously, when have you ever let a little no stop you before?” Delaney asked. “If you care about him—not only his talent and what he can do for Wild Card—but him as a man, then you owe him the opportunity to fall in love with Prophecy.”
Only problem was whether or not she could get him to fall in love with her.
The next time Alex saw Greer she acted as though she’d forgotten their argument at the church, like neither of them had been out of sorts. This, in combination with the please-please-please smile she flashed him, threw Alex so off balance that he agreed to go to some damn potluck with her.
He should’ve said no. He needed to rest. Needed to sketch more designs because he wasn’t happy with a damn thing he’d tooled so far. And there were only two days left until the project submission and final judging.
But here he was, staring out her front windshield at a park pavilion crammed with what looked like every resident of Prophecy and the surrounding counties. Kids were chasing one another, cracking confetti eggs over one another’s heads.
Greer reached over and squeezed his arm. “It’s a picnic, not an execution.”
Most of his mamá’s side of the family lived in San Antonio, so back when he was a kid, they’d often had gatherings at public parks. But that was before his papá died and everything changed in the Villanueva household. “You know I’m not good with people.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye and batted her lashes like a cartoon bombshell. “I can testify that you’re excellent with some people.”
“So you want me to get personal and naked with your neighbors?”
“That’s fine with me,” she said sweetly, “as long as you can be happy without your testicles.”