15. Candice
15
CANDICE
On Jenny’s day off she manages to convince me to take a couple of hours off and head into town to do some shopping and eat lunch. She has to pick up a few things for her small soap making business, and she also wants to find Lila a new winter coat at the thrift store.
“Are we taking Lila?” I ask Jenny.
“Nope,” she says. “I convinced your brother to look after her.”
“I’m sure he caved easily,” I say. “He loves Lila and loves babysitting her.”
I don’t add that he’s halfway in love with Jenny, too, but refuses to acknowledge it. Jenny isn’t interested in romance. She told me that when she showed up at the barn for her community service two years ago. She said, and I quote, “Spread the word all over town: I shot my last husband in the foot, and I’m not looking to find another one.”
“He does,” she admits, a blush stealing over her pale cheeks.
“Someday Beau is going to have a house full of babies. I can’t wait for the nieces and nephews.”
“And what about you?” Jenny asks, carefully steering the conversation away from my brother.
“What about me?” I ask, hopping into the passenger seat of my grandpa’s old pickup.
Jenny always drives. She knows I hate it, and I only do it when I absolutely have to. I’m better in the summer, when there’s no chance of there being snow on the roads.
“Don’t you want to have tons of babies, too?”
“You know I do,” I say as we drive down the long dirt road that leads to the barn. “But there aren’t many men around here who I can imagine settling down with.”
“It is certainly slim pickings out here,” Jenny mutters. “I didn’t see one attractive, eligible bachelor at the Horseshoe the other night. Except for Nate, that is.”
“Nathan isn’t exactly an eligible bachelor.”
“Why not? Does he have a girlfriend now or something?” Jenny asks. “I remember a year ago he was pictured with the same woman a few times, but I figured they broke up or it was never serious.”
“I have no idea if he’s seeing anyone at the moment,” I say primly.
Though, he better be single given the interaction we had the other night after he saved me from Ralph.
“But even if he is single, he’s not an eligible bachelor, Jenny. He’s a playboy,” I add.
“So?” she asks. “Don’t reformed rakes make the best husbands?”
“You’ve been reading too many historical romance novels.”
“I can’t help it,” she says, sighing dramatically. “They itch my brain in the right way. It’s the forbidden-ness of it all. Meeting in dark corners at balls and stealing kisses behind curtains. Pretending you don’t want the other person because you know you can’t have them, but deep down you desperately yearn for them.”
For some reason my brain hitches on the word forbidden. That’s it—that’s exactly what the conversation I had with Nathan the other night felt like. Forbidden. Not because he’s Beau’s friend—though I doubt Beau would be thrilled about the conversation we had—but because Nathan is the type of man I shouldn’t want.
“That sounds pretty dramatic,” I say. “I’m not sure I’d want a romance like that.”
“Oh, but it’s the fun kind of drama. The kind of drama that ends with peacefully and joyfully growing old together.”
With a wistful look on her face, Jenny steers the truck onto the winding backroad that leads from our barn to the Star Mountain village center.
“Don’t tell me you’re changing your tune, Jenny. You always said you never wanted another man,” I say, trying to keep a note of concern out of my voice. If my friend wants to date again, then she should. But she has a complicated past, and I worry for her.
“I meant it,” she says. “Romance novels are just a fantasy. A lovely, wonderful fantasy, but not reality.”
“If you could have one of those rakes or dukes, would you want him?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. I think what I really want is a man who has some honor.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re going to find a man with any honor at the Neon Horseshoe.”
I don’t mention that the most honorable man we both know is Beau, through and through. He comes off as a taciturn grump because he’s not chatty or friendly, but he’s got a moral code that could give a superhero a run for his money. And a gentle heart to boot, though he tries to hide it. But I know Jenny well enough to know she’s not ready to discuss what might be between her and my brother.
She might never be.
Jenny and I get all of the supplies she needs, and find an adorable pink coat for Lila at the thrift store. She grows so fast that Jenny tries to buy everything for her secondhand. After, we head to Mountain Diner, and almost run into Sarah Palmer as she’s leaving. She doesn’t see us, luckily, though I almost wish she did. Nathan would definitely come up in conversation—Star Mountain is small and there’s no one else interesting in town right now—and I’d be able to pump her for information about their conversation. Nathan was really pissed when I suggested they had been flirting. That, combined with his comment about how no one will work with him anymore, makes me feel like something is up with him.
He may be my enemy, now he’s also my coworker and teacher. And student, weirdly enough. I want to know what is going on.
After Jenny and I sit down at the diner, she pulls out her phone and starts scrolling through the barn’s social media page. She is extremely invested in our social media growth and makes sure to like and share every post I make.
“Oh my God,” she says.
“What?”
“Candice, who took these photos of you and Maggie?” Her voice is high-pitched, which is always what happens when she gets excited.
“Um,” I say.
The waiter comes over and I order us two iced teas. I don’t care if it’s freezing outside and the first snow is on the horizon. Diner iced tea with lemon and crunchy sugar mixed in is my kryptonite.
“Candice!” Jenny whines.
“Oh, right. Nathan took them. I mean, who else? Beau barely knows how to use his phone and Nathan is helping me with the account. You knew that.”
“Yes I knew that, but I didn’t think you two were doing romantic photoshoots together.” Jenny is basically hyperventilating now and the other people in the diner, all of whom we know, are starting to look at us.
“Jenny, keep it down. I don’t need all of Star Mountain thinking Nathan and I have a thing.”
“Well from where I’m sitting it basically seems like you do,” she says, her eyes wild.
“Nathan and I?—”
“And that’s the other thing,” she says. “Why do you always call him Nathan rather than Nate?”
That question silences me. Because honestly? I don’t know. He just feels like a Nathan to me. It’s how he introduced himself to me. He said, “I’m Nathan Booth,” pasted on that charming smile of his, and then proceeded to ignore me for most of the evening.
“No particular reason,” I say. I leave out the part where Nathan specifically asked me to keep calling him Nathan, not Nate.
“Sure,” Jenny says, crossing her arms.
We take a few minutes to browse the menu and order food, but as soon as we’re done, Jenny is back on the trail.
“So these photos,” she says, shoving her phone in my face. “They look like they were taken by someone who’s smitten with you.”
I glance down and see the first photo in the set. It’s one Nathan took of me with Maggie’s head in my lap. It’s of my profile, and soft golden hour light shines from behind my head. My hair is loose down my back and Maggie looks completely at ease, her eyes closed. I guess I can see what Jenny’s saying—it’s a nice photo.
“Look, taking these photos is purely part of me and Nathan’s deal. He teaches me how to use social media, and I teach him how to train. Besides, that wasn’t a romantic moment at all. At least not for me. The ground was cold as fuck.”
“You’re wearing plenty of layers in this picture,” Jenny says.
“Oh my God. It’s thirty-five degrees outside right now. It sucked.”
“Well if it’s not romantic for you, it could be for Nate,” she fires back. “I can tell. A man doesn’t take a photo like this unless he feels something for the woman in question. He’s not a professional photographer, Candice, but a lot of care went into this shot.”
“Nathan, for all that he disgusts me, does actually care about the mission of Star Mountain Horse Rescue,” I sniff. “He loves horses.”
“Why does he disgust you, though?” Jenny presses.
“Because he’s a player,” I say, but the words feel hollow.
“And?” Jenny prompts.
“And…” I trail off. Maybe it’s time for some honesty with one of my best friends. She’d do the same for me. “The first time I met him, he ignored me for nearly the entire night. I wanted to talk to him about horses and training and competition and he just blew me off. Looked right through me and spent his time talking to my brother or flirting with women.” The memory hisses through me and reminds me of everything I dislike about Nathan, deal or not. “He only cares about women if he can get into their pants. So if those photos look romantic, that’s probably because he's good at faking it.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good reason to hate him,” Jenny says.
“It is,” I say, though a seed of doubt worms its way through me. Nathan has treated me just fine for the last couple of days. In fact, helping me out with Ralph was pretty damn honorable of him. “Nathan may not be dating around in Star Mountain but he clearly doesn’t take relationships seriously and you know how I feel about that,” I continue.
“I know,” Jenny says sincerely. “You want something long term.”
“I do,” I say.
I swallow the lump in my throat and try not to well up. When my parents died, I managed okay because I was only five and I had my grandparents. They took the place of parents—my grandpa showed me how to drive a stick and my grandma taught me how to crochet. Beau was there, too, always looking out for me. I was confused about where our parents had gone, and I was really sad. But I was surrounded by love that healed me.
Since my grandparents died, though, I’ve felt a hole inside myself, almost like losing them magnified the loss of my parents tenfold. It’s as if my body remembered what that loss was like, even if my mind didn’t, and hated feeling it all over again. For Beau, I think it’s been even worse because he remembers our parents pretty well.
I want to find someone to be with. I want to start a family of my own. Not immediately, but hopefully before I’m old and ancient. The problem is, I’m so inexperienced with men that I clam up around them. I have no idea how to act. Whenever Ralph and I would hook up, I’d spend the entire time wondering if I was doing it right. I was so anxious I never found any pleasure for myself. The obvious answer to my problems is to find someone to casually hookup with to get over my nerves, but as Jenny and I discussed earlier, it’s slim pickings in Star Mountain. Plus, I’ve known every man here since I was a kid, save for one.
“You’ll have a huge family one day, Candice, I promise,” Jenny says. “And you’ll always have me and Beau and the horses. Plus Winnie, if we can ever convince her to come here.”
“Thanks Jenny,” I say, smiling. “You’ll always have us too.”