Chapter 17 KELSEY GETS THE SURREY WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP
Chapter 17
K ELSEY G ETS THE S URREY WITH THE F RINGE ON T OP
I don’t know why Zachery refuses to let his marble walls down. Maybe it’s a rich-people thing.
He’s so kind, so courteous, so gallant.
And yet, he won’t talk about anything that matters.
We take in the glory of the Grand Canyon and pose for a selfie to show ... I dunno, Jester, I guess. Zachery can’t exactly post it to his star-studded Instagram.
Zachery snaps it on my phone, but I touch mine to his to transfer the file like I do all our shared profiles when we’re working.
Then we get in our separate cars and keep going to our next stop, the small town of Dillville, Colorado. This time, there is no live conversation, and no music challenge.
It’s a lot less fun.
I refuse to regret pushing him. Something about Zachery is broken, but I can’t quite get to the heart of it.
His parents used the “busy rich” style of parenting, often leaving him with nannies or staff while they jet set around the country.
But he does have fond memories with his mother, which is why he knows so many show tunes. I wanted to tap into that, but apparently something in our musical conversation triggered him.
It’s about three hours of quiet until we pull up to the town in the throes of preparing for its Dillfest.
While I showered earlier, Zachery booked a bed-and-breakfast right on Main Street so we could walk to all the festivities. I didn’t think we would be able to get something so last minute, but apparently, it’s more of a local event than one that draws outsiders.
We had something similar in the small town closest to our dairy. It was called the Root ’n’ Toot, and as far as I know, they still hold it. Vendors sell roasted corn, deep-fried candy bars, and homemade jams. There are crafts for kids and a balloon-twisting clown and always a beer trailer.
They make the principal of the high school sit in a dunk tank so the kids can pay a dollar to pitch a ball at the mechanism that will drop him into the pool.
The principal during my years was so unpopular that we made more money than usual. In fact, we got to upgrade prom from a recorded soundtrack chosen by the home ec teacher to an actual DJ from two towns over.
The only drawback was he played too many songs that weren’t radio edits, and the same principal who paid for him with his students’ disdain pulled the plug. The last third of prom was relegated to the local country and western station piped through the intercom.
With that history, I know what I’m getting into as I slow down to let two teen boys cross the road from a small grocer to a park, where I presume Dillfest will be happening.
The bed-and-breakfast is ahead, pale blue with two stories and a white lattice trim.
A small sign hand-painted with the words V ISITORS G O H ERE guides me along a concrete drive to the back side. A matching sign says P ARK H ERE against the outer wall of an old carriage house, meticulously restored to match the blue Victorian.
A woman leads two horses tethered to a beautifully preserved cart with a double row of seats and a canopy with fringe along the edge.
She’s dressed in a long pale-green skirt with a green-and-white-striped shirt, the sleeves puffed out at the top and buttons tight along her forearm. A green hat with a tall white plume sits beside her on the seat as she guides the cart out of the carriage house.
When she spots us, she pulls the horses up short and waves.
I roll down my window. “Hello! Wow! Look at that!”
“Isn’t it marvelous?” she calls. “Park right here. I’ll be down in a minute!”
I pull in by the blue wall. Zachery is not far behind me, and I watch the woman as she takes in his silver Jaguar, and then her eyebrows lift as she spots Zachery exiting the driver’s side.
Yeah, he’s pretty. And famous enough to light up a town like Dillville. I don’t know why I overreacted to his Ken song. I’m an idiot. This man has life on lock. He’s pulling up in a sexy car in front of a gorgeous woman who might actually start singing “I Cain’t Say No.”
No matter. I’m here to find my own meet-cute. And the recipient of my attention might be across the road, bringing a heavy sledgehammer down on a platform that will ring a bell for his superior strength. The giant teddy bear he wins will get handed to me.
So there.
I hop out of the car and move to the back seat to snag my overnight bag. I already packed my bear-winning, man-attracting yellow sundress, with cute white tennis shoes and a matching bow for my hair.
He’ll nickname me Sunshine, and we’ll walk arm in arm through the fair, sharing cotton candy.
I can feel it.
By the time I make it to Zachery, Miss Green Stripes has hopped down to talk to him, her cheeks flushed like she pinched them.
“You must be Kelly,” she says. “It’s not often we get Hollywood at our doorstep! Come inside.”
She can’t even get my name right. And Hollywood! I’ve been trying to fit in with the small towns like I used to.
I realize that Zachery is a liability. I can’t walk around with him if I want to shed my big-city glitz.
Why did I bring him on this trip?
I sling my bag over my shoulder. “It’s Kelsey.”
“Oh, my gosh. Of course. Kelsey. I’m Livia. I took over this bed-and-breakfast from my grandmother. I come from a long line of Dillville residents.”
Yeah, and I come from a long line of dairy farmers. “Do cucumbers even grow here?” I ask as she leads us inside the back of the house.
She laughs, and it’s like the tinkling of a bell.
I laugh like a horse.
“Of course! That’s how Dillville got its name. Now, in the higher elevations, it’s not as easy. But Dillville has a warmer climate, being so south and west.”
Zachery cuts his eyes at me as if to say, “Of course, Kelsey,” and I want to go hide in my room for a while. Maybe I am acting eighteen to his thirty-six. I feel like it.
Livia leads us up a curving staircase. “Your two rooms are on this end. There’s an adjoining bathroom between you.”
So, we share a bathroom. I know we did it last night as well. Shared a bed, even.
But today, I’m over it. I want to get out there and find someone, anyone, who will make me feel like I’ve made some progress.
She hands each of us a physical key, the ordinary kind like I have for my apartment. “For your rooms. Sorry they aren’t antique anymore. They kept getting stolen. Now please, excuse me. I have to get the cart over to the park. Please feel free to walk around and help yourself to any drinks and snacks in the main fridge in the kitchen. It will be a little hectic with Dillfest, but I’m sure you are here for that, so I know you’ll understand.”
She mainly says all this to Zachery.
“Will we see you there?” he asks.
She blushes again at the question, and I catch him glancing at her left hand.
No ring.
“I’ll be giving rides around the park. I’m more than happy to include a ride around the grounds of the festival for you as part of your stay, Mr. Carter.” Her eyes glitter as she waits for a response.
“Zach, please.”
“Oh! Yes, Zach, then.” Now even her neck is pink, what you can see above the high collar of the lacy blouse.
“It sounds delightful.” Zach lifts her hand and kisses the back of it.
Ugggh. It’s one thing to see Zach working an actor at Desdemona’s request, but this is another thing entirely. He’s on his own time. I turn to open my door.
“Oh, and you, too, Kelsey!” Livia croons, as if realizing she ought to be nice to me, since I’m clearly Zach’s underling, or niece or ward or something.
“Sure, thanks!” I don’t turn back, but go through my door and shut it.
There is another burst of giggles from old-timey Livia, and I flop on the bed. I’ll fetch my bigger suitcase in a minute, when the two of them aren’t flirting in the hall.
The room is gorgeous, with wood insets and classic paintings and everything in shades of pale peach and cream. A window overlooks the street and the festival beyond it, mostly a line of tent-topped booths.
I listen as Zach walks around his room, the floors creaking.
I roll over to determine which door is the closet and which is the bathroom.
I can’t tell from the layout.
Then one of the doors pops open, and Zachery’s head appears. “Boo.”
Dang it. I can’t help but smile.
“Hey.”
He sits on the end of the bed. “You all right?”
“Sure.” I push myself to seating, staying well away from him.
“Nervous about possibly meeting your future husband? It’s too hot for flannel, sadly. Will you recognize him without his signature look?”
I’m tempted to throw a pillow at him, but the room has a fair amount of china that might end up in the line of fire. “Of course.”
“Will he be blond like you?” His grin is infectious. “Or brown-haired like me?”
“It feels like you’re about to break out into song.”
“What would be the perfect one?” He starts the first line of “Till There Was You.”
Dang it. The man can sing. I can’t help but feel my heart squeeze. “You old-soul romantic.”
He leaps to his feet. “How do you solve a problem like Miss Kelsey?”
“Hey now!” And I’m up, too.
He launches us into a lively dance around the room as he starts the next song, insisting he’s going to take me out on a “Surrey with the Fringe on Top.”
And I let him lead me across the wood floor. I wonder why he never sang in anything, although of course, musicals are rare, and he got stuck in gross-out comedies. As the song continues, I realize I was jealous. Jealous of a woman in a green dress on a carriage.
And here Zach is, fixing it.
Maybe the other women get the flirts and the photos and the press and, probably, the sex.
But I get the best of Zachery Montgomery Carter. The pizza and movies. The coffee rushed down Hollywood Boulevard.
And the show tunes as I’m led into a dance in a Victorian mansion in Dillville, Colorado.