Chapter 22 #2
I didn’t know how to explain to my sister what it was like to love Ian.
The way his sweet affection had altered my very makeup, rearranged my heart.
His patience and kindness, his attention, how he’d happily hold my hand in public, in private, for the rest of our lives, and probably even buried together, six feet in the grave.
There was no flowery way to describe it.
No clichés to do it justice. I’d read plenty of romance novels that made comparisons or gave helpful metaphors for falling in love.
For me, it wasn’t at all like wandering in a desert and having my thirst quenched.
Ian’s touch didn’t heal something broken in me.
It wasn’t as simple as feeling my cold, dead heart beat to new, radiant life.
To me, it was more like our cat growing up, Dolly.
It was the way my mother, before Candace was born, had coaxed an old barn cat into trusting her.
The endless patience and the minimal reward.
How she’d sat outside on the porch for hours, a warm presence next to a skittish creature who’d never been inclined to trust. The way Mom had hand delivered food over months of effort, and Dolly’s transition from something feral to nearly tolerant and, finally, doting.
That cat went from an unbothered, self-sufficient lioness to a contented house cat. She sat on the back of my father’s recliner for twelve years. There was no wild left in her, and she hadn’t even been mad about it. Dolly became an exclusively indoor pet with no desire for her past life.
That was what it felt like inside of me.
Ian had won me over, slowly but surely. He’d charmed and coaxed me despite my snarling and spitting. He’d met my distrust with patience and good humor. He made me feel safe and warm and content, and now I was incapable of returning to the way things had been before.
I still wanted the affection and the sweetness he’d promised when he’d tamed something wild in me—something fierce and biting.
I was as predictable as an old barn cat.
Maybe that was a silly way to say you knew what love was. But more accurately, it was how I’d been changed by finding it.
The same way that damn cat no longer remembered its instinct, I didn’t know how to go back to before. How to survive without Ian’s affection, his heart. His smile. His hand wrapped around mine.
And when I thought about trying to say goodbye to George . . .
“I realize there are a lot of complications,” Candace said.
“And that’s not ideal. But life isn’t simple.
It never is. Love and relationships take compromise and hard work.
But if the love is there, that’s step one.
You have to let yourself be vulnerable enough to fall, and trust the other person to catch you. ”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” I admitted.
Candace looked at me in surprise. “You are the hardest-working person I know. Once you dedicate yourself to something, you fight like hell to protect it. You just need to communicate with Ian. Figure out how to work together to solve this thing. Ian is a good guy, Joanie. He’s charming and fun and so good with Georgie.
He welcomes everyone into his orbit. Yes, he’s a movie star, but—”
“That’s not the only thing he is,” I finished.
My sister smiled like I was her prized student. “That’s right. He fits here, and you know it. Let him decide for himself what’s too much or not enough. Don’t make that decision for him. Maybe he’s been hoping you’d ask him to stay. Maybe he’s been too scared to ask. You never know until you try.”
I nodded because she was right.
“Although,” she mused, “you’re going to need to be honest with him.”
I frowned. “About what?”
Candace grinned. “About how terrible he is at making coffee. You can’t keep letting him poison you like that.”
My laughter gusted out of me, even as I felt my eyes fill with tears. I thought I might put up with a lot of terrible coffee for the rest of my life if it meant Ian was the one making it.
A week and a half later, I forced myself to stop working and go to bowling league with my sister and our friends, even though there was an hour of daylight left.
But with Ian gone, I knew they were all worried about me, and this was the easiest way to show everyone that I was doing okay, even if that wasn’t entirely true.
I’d started a top grafting project on a few rows in the orchard. It was laborious and required my focus and energy in order to graft a new apple variety onto an existing tree. That filled my time during my workday.
In the evenings, I generally checked in with Sophia and George over at the big house. My cabin was too quiet, so I liked cooking dinner across the highway while George colored or made friendship bracelets at the kitchen island.
Sophia had been happy to see me, and a few times I’d told her I was fine to watch George so that she could take a break. I got the impression she was dating someone in town, and I knew Ian wouldn’t mind if I read to his nephew and tucked him in for bed.
For months, we’d been a team, spending our evenings together—like a family. It felt natural to go through George’s nighttime routine and help him brush his teeth.
Only now, Ian was the one missing.
The ancient bowling alley still smelled like fried food and cheap beer. But oddly enough, the typical cacophony of clattering pins and rowdy conversation dwindled to nothing as I made my way to my team’s lane.
I was aware of eyes on me, gossip whispered into ears and behind cupped hands. But I kept my gaze forward and took my seat without acknowledging the sudden attention I’d unexpectedly garnered.
Eventually, folks went back to their own games and resumed drinking their beer.
“Do I want to know what that was all about?” I asked the group.
Candace, Bonnie, and Mac exchanged uneasy glances. A sense of déjà vu tickled the back of my mind. Last month, they’d been all aflutter over pictures of Ian and me from the Spring Fling.
Now, though, they appeared uneasy and reluctant.
“Well,” Mac said, taking the lead, “it looks like some of the celebrity gossip sites are finally reporting on your presence with Ian at the premiere.”
A sinking feeling pushed me lower into my seat. I had no idea what people were saying about me . . . but I could imagine. “Oh?”
“I guess photographers got a few shots of you in conversation,” Candace confirmed, looking miserable. That could have just been the morning sickness, though.
“Several have been spotted around town,” Bonnie said gently.
“Paparazzi?” I asked, shocked that anyone would care enough to fly all the way across the country for practically nothing. Ian wasn’t even here.
My friends nodded.
I glanced around us discreetly. “Should I be worried?”
“Oh, no,” Mac said. “The orchard is private property since it’s seasonal and not open to the public currently. We had someone show up at Grandpappy’s, and Larry talked them in circles for an hour. She loved it. Don’t worry, Joan. The town has a plan.”
I blinked. “The town has a plan?”
“We have a system,” Bonnie confirmed. “People are signing up for time slots, leading the cameramen on wild goose chases all over the place.”
“Especially the areas where the parking rates aren’t clearly visible,” Mac added with a wicked grin. “The meter maid sure has been busy writing all those tickets.”
Leaning forward in my seat, I tried to wrap my mind around this. “You’re telling me the town has, what? Banded together to fool the paparazzi and run them out of town? All for my benefit?”
“Well, yeah.” Mac shrugged. “You’re one of us, despite being allergic to the Kirby Falls Facebook group.”
“People care about you, Joan,” Bonnie said and reached out to pat my hand.
Los Angeles hadn’t gone as planned, and as a result, I’d brought trouble back to my hometown. It had been na?ve to think the press wouldn’t figure out who I was or attribute that to where Ian had been for the last six months.
I didn’t like the idea of accepting help. It made me feel all twisted up inside, a combination of guilt and self-loathing—like I should have been able to handle all this nonsense myself without bothering anyone else. But this was my town, my community. And they were standing up for me.
I swallowed an unwelcome rush of emotion and bowled the worst game of my life.
That night, I went back to my too-quiet cabin and opened up my laptop.
The photographs weren’t difficult to find.
A handful of candid images from the night of the premiere. Me looking out of place and uncomfortable in a beautiful dress.
Speculation ranged far and wide. Some outlets reported that I was a family member who’d flown in from the Midwest to attend the premiere with Dorian, but I’d gotten ill upon arrival and been forced to leave.
Another report hinted at a red-carpet argument.
A photo of me looking wide-eyed and shocked accompanied an image of Ian, his jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed.
It was easy to see how all of this had been twisted into fiction. I’d never look at another tabloid the same way again. Not a single one of these gossip sites had the actual story, but that hadn’t stopped them from reporting it anyway.
Well, there had been one that had gotten close to real-life events.
It was a website that boasted celebrity and entertainment news with all the top Hollywood headlines.
They’d called me “Mrs. Robinson,” and speculated over my age.
A body language “specialist” had examined the photos and noted my “discomfort around wealth and celebrities,” while they’d labeled Ian as “tense at the prospect of his worlds colliding.”
I didn’t read any more after that.
Instead, I navigated over to the Kirby Falls Facebook group to see what my friends had been up to.