Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Lou
“Miss Kinkade.” Mrs. Tisdale strode up to the desk, patting her silk scarf down against her chest. “I was hoping to go out shopping today, but I see there is still a kerfuffle outside?—”
“Yes, Mrs. Tisdale, I’m so sorry about that. If you would prefer to use the back exit and follow the gravel alley to your left, it will take you to the next intersection where you return to Maine Street,” I instructed, dragging my finger along the path on the map resting on the counter like I had several times earlier today. “No one should bother you, but if they do, my legal team has advised to simply reply that you have no comment.”
My legal team consisted of Wade who’d outlined a clear framework for my guests on how to handle the media attention outside. He didn’t give them any information about Blaze, though I was sure by now most of the guests knew which celebrity caused this commotion.
“I see.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down, and then declared, “Well, I hope you get a ring from this young man after all this trouble.”
At this point, I was too numb to be shocked, but I couldn’t correct her even if I wanted to, and after yesterday, I didn’t want to.
I’d held the truth in my hands, a fragile, heartfelt apology, ready to give to Wade as soon as I saw him. And then one look at his torn expression, and I’d let the truth slip right through my fingers so I could help him by holding onto the lie. A lie that was so twisted and convoluted that I felt like I was walking a tightrope with my eyes closed. A lie Wade thought could protect his brother.
“Have a nice day,” I called belatedly after Mrs. Tisdale, watching her retreat toward the back door of the inn.
I stepped away from the desk and moved almost blindly to the first window in the living room. Resting my shoulder on the frame, I carefully lifted the curtain back with one finger.
The last twenty-four hours had been… not a whirlwind but a cyclone, with the inn sequestered in the eye of the storm.
Inside, Wade and I orbited each other in our own atmospheres of distraction, avoiding any conversation about what happened between us two nights ago. It wasn’t the right time to talk about it, which made it all the more obvious that the kiss—and everything after it—was all we thought about when we were around each other.
So, we did our best not to be.
I’d hyper-focused my attention to my guests. To making their stay feel as normal as possible even when stepping outside meant they were assaulted with questions. And Wade focused on his brother. He wouldn’t risk going back to the hospital, but he had been on the phone with Joanna, and then on calls with… I don’t even know who or how many people to try and figure out who’d leaked his brother’s whereabouts.
Outside, the Friendship police did what they could to break up the collected camera-wielding crowd out front that had spilled from the sidewalk and onto the street. Unfortunately, that didn’t do a whole lot to deter them.
Frankie said they’d infested the town like a band of cockroaches. Roaming. Listening. Waiting. Some had left when the police had shown up, but most were biding their time, waiting it out for their perfect shot. There were a handful of them still out there, roaming on the sidewalk, taking photos of Friendship and the inn from a distance like they were tourists.
Wade said they would do that, too. Pretend to be something else in order to get close and get what they wanted. Not unlike what I’d done.
I swallowed hard, feeling the tightness in my chest and then the way it erupted like a warm flutter of confetti as heavy footsteps approached. I never knew someone could come with a warning sign—physical, chemical alerts that went off whenever Wade came close.
I’d expected to have to look out for the big memories from that night. The power of his kiss, the force of my orgasm, those were like waves coming in the distance that I could try to avoid. But it was the little ones, the look of his hair making me remember its texture to grip, the scent of his musk drowning my lungs, the rumble of his voice—not the sound itself, but the way it felt against my skin. Even the sound of his footsteps brought me back to the moment he walked away—the moment he promised to give me everything if it was him I wanted. Those were the dangerous memories, catching me off guard and sweeping me away like a riptide.
I remained peering out the window when he stopped just behind me. My right hand toyed with the end of my braid like it was the strings I was trying to keep together.
“What if they don’t believe it?” I asked quietly.
“They will,” Wade said, his voice ebbing like a warm wave.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the people milling along the sidewalk. The lenses on some of their cameras looked like weapons. “How do you know?”
“Because people will believe anything when it’s something they want to believe,” he said. “I’ve dealt with this enough to know. ”
“I didn’t realize?—”
“How popular Blaze is?” Wade finished.
“I guess.” I shifted my weight.
“You wouldn’t believe how people will just show at the whisper that he might be somewhere…” Wade trailed off and cleared his throat. “Are you ready?”
Ready. The word sounded foreign to my ears.
I hadn’t slept. Between the distractions that didn’t feel numerous enough, all I’d thought about was Frankie’s plan. Not the sitting in a car and letting myself be seen part. That wasn’t much of an act, even though there was a lot weighing on it. But going to Mom’s after. Bringing Wade. Letting my family think…
I shuddered.
They’d wanted me to find someone… to find love… and now, not only had they learned about my first ‘relationship’ in a decade through the gossip mill, but that relationship was a lie. I was lying to the people I loved.
But I owed it to Blaze. To Wade. If this was the consequence of my lie, that it should hurt me, too, then I would take it.
“I’m ready,” I said and let the curtain slip from my fingers, blocking the window once more as I turned to Wade.
My breath stumbled when I looked at him. They weren’t twins, but goodness, did he look like his brother.
Even though he’d worn Blaze’s clothes before, there was something different about wearing them to intentionally impersonate his brother and wearing them out of necessity. The faded jeans seemed to hug a little tighter. The tee fit with a little more attention. And the leather jacket… it was the same one Blaze was wearing the night he fell. To top it all off, Wade sported a Red Sox baseball cap—something Blaze had been photographed wearing countless times.
The only marked difference from a distance would be the length of his hair. Blaze’s light brown locks were longer and unruly, while Wade’s were trimmed short. It made me nervous even with the hat on… even though we’d be inside a car .
“Is Frankie here?”
My sister and Chandler were going to cover the rest of the day for me. After that, Jamie’s wife, Violet, was going to help me at the desk and with the phones for the next few days to keep up the appearance that I was gone.
“Yeah, she and Chandler walked in as I was coming down. I think he went to unload some things into the fridge, and she was going to change a diaper.”
I nodded and turned robotically toward the back door. It was time. One step after another. That’s all— I gasped and looked down at my hand now armored inside a bigger, tanner one.
His fingers squeezed mine, bringing a familiar ache back to life—an ache I couldn’t think about now.
“I’m sorry about all of this, Lou.”
I shuddered, knowing I was the one who should be apologizing. “Don’t apologize for something that’s not your fault,” I reminded him.
We went to the back of the building. I hugged and thanked my sister and brother-in-law again, trying to hide the fear in my voice. Still, Frankie looked at me like she had this all figured out—like she knew how this was all going to work out.
Wade held the door open for me, the little back lot eerily calm compared to the front of the inn.
I stepped out into the warm breeze, the sun hanging like a yolk in the late afternoon sky. For the first time in my life, I wished the weather was horrible. I wished it was raining and stormy, the sky filled with dark clouds… anything that would help our plan.
“If I’d been better—done better—Blaze wouldn’t be the way that he is,” Wade said low, leading the way to Blaze’s car.
I don’t know why, but I always pictured famous celebrities riding around in their massive Suburbans or G-wagons. Of course, that wasn’t Blaze. He’d pulled up to the inn in a black Audi sports car, so small and low to the ground, I was surprised it fit him, let alone the single suitcase he’d brought.
“Sometimes I think that about Frankie,” I admitted, the lights flashing as Wade unlocked and opened the passenger door.
“Really? She doesn’t seem like the type to get into trouble.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The sound burst from my stomach like the swell of a geyser.
“She is all trouble,” I said and then tempered it with, “Well, not as much since Chandler and Logan, but our whole lives… she’s been the bold one. A prankster. This plan of hers? This is the kind of thing she’s known for. From the time we were young, she was the one who always spoke first, spoke the loudest, and once she had an idea in her head, there was no stopping her.”
I sank all the way down into the bucket seat, wishing it went deep enough to make me invisible through the window. Wade closed the door and rounded to the driver’s side, muttering a curse as he hit his head getting in.
“And how could you have changed that?” he wondered, starting the car and putting it in reverse.
“By being more,” I said softly, unsure why I was telling him this.
It didn’t matter—shouldn’t matter to him. Wouldn’t matter, if he knew the truth. But with my heart hammering against the front of my chest, it beat down the wall I should’ve kept up—the wall that kept me from getting closer to him.
Wade’s jaw pulsed, and then he put the car back in park.
“What—”
“What does that mean?” he asked with a low growl.
I inhaled quickly, shocked that he wanted to know—needed to know so much he put the entire plan on hold.
“Wade…”
He pulled off Blaze’s sunglasses and looked at me, his dark eyes pinning mine hostage. “I want to know what you mean.”
What did I mean?
I wasn’t sure I’d ever verbalized it before, not even to myself.
“I mean… I was always quiet. Shy. Unsure. And when I think about it now, I think Frankie tried to compensate for me. She tr ied to be louder, bolder, harder to ignore. She tried to spare me the attention I was afraid of. So many people think she’s too much.” I swallowed of the lump in my throat and then forced the last words out. “But it’s because of me. It’s because I wasn’t?—”
“Don’t,” he stopped me, his knuckles white where he gripped the shifter. “Don’t ever say that.”
Heat stole across my skin, thieving worry, frustration, and fear, and leaving instead the want to be closer to him. To trace the hard line of his jaw. To kiss the sudden anger from his mouth.
“Isn’t that how you feel about your brother?” I said instead, watching his nostrils flare.
“It’s not the same,” he muttered, sliding the sunglasses back on and putting the car in reverse.
The car moved the way I imagined a panther would, all instant response and smooth agility. As we pulled down the alley, I gripped the handle on the door, my breaths growing shallow, and my other hand fidgeted on my lap.
Wade stopped at the stop sign on Maine Street. Even though the coast was clear, he didn’t pull out right away. Not until he’d slid his hand from the console and claimed mine.
I wished I could say it was for show. I wished I could say the way it made me feel was just for show.
I wished I wasn’t falling for everything this lie was making me feel about my fake boyfriend’s older brother.
Wade drove slowly, giving the photographers plenty of time to spot the car that stuck out like a swanky sore thumb in a sleepy small town. I knew the moment the first one realized we were coming because Wade’s fingers tightened on mine. He tugged on the lip of the visor, keeping it low against the rim of his sunglasses, and drove forward.
“The police will keep them away from the car.” Wade’s low voice rippled through the small cab as we got closer.
I saw the moment the spark turned into wildfire. When the squinting and pointing of a few people suddenly turned into a swarm of focus .
In the daylight, there were no camera flashes, and I realized that was worse. The flash of light was as much of an alert as it was an assault. It gave away who was watching—who wanted to see. Without them, my head snapped side to side, unsure where to look. Unsure where the danger was coming from.
Sure enough, no one got too close. With some of those lenses, they didn’t need to. Then people started trickling into the street. Between parked cars. Along the roadway. Everyone inching to get a little closer than the person next to them. Pushing. Bumping. Intruding. The few police officers were now on alert, shouting at people to stay out of the road.
It would’ve been easy for Wade to hit the gas and blow past the crowd, but that wasn’t the point. We didn’t want to leave any question—any doubt. We wanted to give them this show.
Like a movie playing through the windshield, the scene suddenly went into slow motion. A man on my side of the car started causing a commotion—pushing in front of people, shouting, pointing—and the police officer instantly went to intervene. But it was a smoke show. A decoy.
As soon as the officer was diverted, a second man a few feet farther down the sidewalk stepped into the street.
“Wade.” I sucked in a breath, watching the man stride right into our lane without a single worry that he’d just walked into oncoming traffic. Anything for the head-on shot.
Wade hit the brakes. He didn’t have a choice. There was traffic in the other direction, and even if there wasn’t, this paparazzi wasn’t going to let us by without a good shot—one that would clearly show it wasn’t Blaze Stevens in the driver’s seat.
“Shit,” Wade muttered, keeping his head ducked down as his hand slammed into the horn.
The reporter didn’t care. He came closer. His camera firing like an automatic weapon.
I looked in the rearview. The officer realized something was wrong, but he was older and heavyset and wouldn’t make it to us before this reporter got the shot he wanted—the shot that would ruin this entire plan.
We were so close. We’d made it so far.
My jaw went slack, my pulse thumping in my ears. I turned to Wade, but aside from the horn, there wasn’t anything he could do.
“Look at me, Lou,” Wade ordered.
My heart tripped, the photographer swarming closer in my periphery. In another second, he’d be close enough, and this would all be for nothing.
The commotion around me started to blur. The sounds fogged together until nothing but his voice was strong enough to cut through them.
“Look at me, angel.” The tenor of his command… the promise buried in the rumble…
I turned my head. I couldn’t see Wade’s eyes through the sunglasses, but I felt the heat of them just as I had the other night, stoking an ache I didn’t know bones and blood could make.
His lips parted like a crack of lightning through the darkness before the low power of his words made the silence quake.
“Good girl.”
The praise erupted like a firework in my mind, not with thought but with instinct. In the single second that we had, I unclipped my seatbelt and launched myself across the console, crushing my mouth to Wade’s.
It was bold. Brash. Without thought. It was more.
He stiffened, his surprise coming as swift as it disappeared. A low groan rolled from his chest, and an instant later, he cupped the back of my head and held me to him, his tongue pressing through the seam of my lips.
It was supposed to be a diversion. A last-ditch attempt to hide Wade from the camera and preserve our plan. But the instant my lips touched his, the idea that it was a diversion became nothing but an excuse to kiss him again. To taste the way he wanted me and feel the way he made me ache. An excuse to go back to that moment where he made me feel everything and then promised that there was more.
Wade’s hand hooked into the notches of my braid like it was made to hold his fingers—made for him to hold me close as he deepened the kiss. My mouth opened, and my head tilted on instinct—a habit formed from a single night. A habit of wanting him.
Heat coiled through my body. I hardly felt the console digging into my side, only the hardness of him pressed to my front. I wanted to climb onto his lap even though there definitely wasn’t room for that. It didn’t matter. I ached for this. For him. For this thing I’d never felt before… never thought I’d wanted.
This thing I’d risk anything to try and hold onto.
And that was what frightened me the most. That I couldn’t stop myself from wanting Wade Stevens just as surely as I couldn’t reverse the lie that brought him into my life.
There was a loud bang on the hood. Three of them in sequence. And I jerked back, startled.
“Lou,” Wade growled, holding me steady. “Don’t move.”
I wanted to tell him I couldn’t—that I needed a moment to rewire my brain to the rest of my limbs after that kiss—but my mouth also seemed to forget it existed for any purpose other than to kiss him. All I could manage was a slight nod as he tipped ever so slightly to look out the windshield.
“It’s the police,” he rumbled low, his heavy breaths mirroring my own. “They’ve cleared the road. We’re safe.”
My sigh of relief was audible as I carefully pushed myself back into my seat. The police had the crowds contained to either side of the street—everyone where they were supposed to be.
The car moved forward, steadily gaining speed as we reached the edge of town. Neither of us said a word, our eyes flicking to the rearview, expecting at any moment for cars to follow. As soon as we passed the last of the buildings, Wade sped up, my back pressing harder into the seat as the car picked up speed like a racehorse finally let through the gate.
“Do you think they realized?” I asked, my voice hoarse as we got closer to Mom’s house. “Do you think we’re safe?”
I swore I saw Wade flinch at my second question, and his hand definitely tightened on the wheel. He looked tense. Uncomfortable. Maybe it hadn’t been enough. The kiss. Maybe that photographer got too close?—
“From the paparazzi… yes,” he said with a strained voice. His answer was meant to relieve me, but there was too much meaning behind it for that to matter.
I’d saved the plan with that kiss, but what I’d risked with it…I bit my lip, looking in the side mirror one last time as we turned onto Mom’s driveway. Another few seconds and we’d gone past the first rim of trees that obscured the rest of the driveway—and us—from sight, and another minute later, Mom’s beaming modern farmhouse appeared ahead of us. My family’s cars parked like sentries out front.
We’d made it, but we weren’t safe.
At least I wasn’t. It was one thing to keep up a lie to strangers from the confines of a car. It was another to hold up the farce in front of my family. My mom. My grandmother. My brothers. I wasn’t safe from their scrutiny.
Nor from the man sitting next to me.
How did I continue to pretend like his brother was a barrier when Wade was the only man I’d ever wanted?