Chapter 9 Brynn
Well, shoot. I’d meant to be out of there a whole lot earlier. Not that I could have gone far. I had to wait for Orly and
our Bronco-driving host with the most. But I could have scavenged around the kitchen for a granola bar or something and then
enjoyed it while hiding under the back porch with only raccoons and mountain lions to fear and avoid. But I was too late.
There were delicious smells wafting up the stairs. That part was nice. But there were also voices.
I stood at the top of the second flight of stairs and took a series of deep breaths. You can do this, Brynn. I could. Of course I could. And I would . A good night’s sleep had helped my perspective tremendously, and the only reason I wasn’t out of the inn by the time I wanted
to be was that I’d spent my morning figuring it all out. All I’d been missing was a plan.
When I’d told Colton to send me to my hometown, it had been all about action.
Sometimes you didn’t have the luxury of taking time to think things through.
You couldn’t always sit down and write out a pros and cons list. Sometimes you had to make a move when an opportunity arose and then, a little later, figure out how to deal with the consequences of the move you made.
That was how I’d escaped Adelaide Springs, it was how I’d gotten my first on-air segment at Good Day LA , and it was how I ended up sharing a beach house in the Hamptons with half the original cast of Hamilton over Thanksgiving weekend.
It was also how I’d ended up on a blind date at Chipotle with a Borat impersonator, so obviously
my “Act now, deal with the consequences later” approach to life came with risks. But the times it had failed me had been few
and far between.
I knew I could count on Orly to do what he did best. He would capture the right shots and make sure I stood in the best light.
He’d been in the business a lot longer than I had, and he understood what we were going for here every bit as well as I did.
I didn’t have to worry about Orly’s details. I just needed to worry about mine. It was time for me to kick into gear and do
what I did best—and that was charm the snot out of people.
The only problem, I’d quickly surmised as I’d spent the morning thinking about the move I’d made, was that Sebastian Sudworth
was uncharmable. So now the plan was to somehow ditch him. It should be easy enough.
After all, he had nothing to do with any of this. Kudos to him for sticking around. For making some impact. For breathing
some new life into the town. I wasn’t sure how long he’d lived here, but obviously he didn’t enter until after I had exited.
At the absolute maximum of things, maybe he’d been here close to twenty years. Great. Again, kudos. To get voted into city
council with any less than the deed to some property that had been obtained under the Homestead Act of 1862 was quite the
accomplishment.
But I had a history with these people. For better or worse, I was a descendant of one of those pioneer bloodlines.
My mother had squandered the money and the land deeds and the mineral rights left to her by her parents long before I was old enough to vote, much less run for local office, and when an attorney tracked me down after her death ten years ago, all I was bequeathed was debt that Elaine had fraudulently associated with my name.
Brynn. Not the name she had given me. No, she used a name she had never once known me by—which made sense, I figured.
B-R-Y-N-N was successful, even ten years ago.
B-R-Y-N-N was considered pretty and talented, and was on the verge of being famous. B-R-Y-N-N had value.
My legacy in this town was not a proud one, but deep down they still considered me one of them. They had to. For one week,
I needed them to think of me as one of them. And Sebastian Sudworth just wasn’t going to get the job done.
I took one more deep breath and looked down at myself to make sure I was ready. Admittedly, I looked a little too much like
a tourist, with my skinny jeans tucked into boots that were a little too pristine and a light blue cable-knit sweater that
reached midway down my thighs, but I’d done the best I could with the time I had. Did we even have a Cabela’s in Manhattan?
How would I have gone about finding an Adelaide Springs wardrobe without time to shop online?
Panic began rising in my chest, though I wasn’t entirely sure if it was due to the fear of being outed as a fraud or the sudden
realization that it would take a miracle to simultaneously fit in like a local and avoid ruining my new Prada knee-high boots.
The voices and the smells got stronger as I approached the second-floor landing.
Before descending onto the next flight of stairs, I peeked my head around the wall to see if I could figure out who was down there.
I listened intently and was able to quickly pick out Orly.
There was another male voice that I thought was probably Sebastian’s, but it sounded so different when it wasn’t berating me that I couldn’t be entirely sure.
That mystery was quickly solved as a third voice, that of a woman, spoke up.
“Now, Seb, how long are you going to hold that one over my head?”
Laughter from the entire group followed, and I pulled myself back to a normal standing position. Normal... except a little
straighter.
Twenty years had done nothing to erase Mrs. Stoddard’s voice from my head.
“Girls, if you don’t stop giggling, I’ll never get through this.”
That was the reprimand I’d heard from her more than any other. The “this” that she was trying to get through had changed over
the years—math equations, homework instructions, graduation rehearsal—but no matter what grade we were in, when we got together,
Addie, Laila, and I had been gigglers.
I momentarily contemplated looking around for a fire alarm to pull as a distraction so I could run down the stairs, out the
door, and into Sebastian’s ugly orange-and-white thing, but thanks to Cole I’d long ago learned how grumpy that little fire-alarm
trick made Mrs. Stoddard. It wasn’t worth it.
It was possible to sneak out the window at the end of the hall, then shimmy across the trellis and down the tree. Cole had
taught me many important lessons during my formative years, it seemed. But the way my luck had been going lately, there would probably be
a paparazzo there to capture the moment when I inevitably got my hair tangled in the branches and came out looking like Treebeard
from Lord of the Rings.
Grow up, Brynn , I lectured myself. Last Wednesday you macraméd plant hangers with Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Forfar . This is not beyond you.
My shoulders rose as I took in one last steeling breath and began descending the final flight of stairs.
All the laughter and chatter instantly subsided as I approached.
Either they had been talking about me or my very presence sucked all the joy out of a room.
Admittedly, that seemed more likely, although the countess had said I was a gem.
Either way, I had a job to do. Last night had been a fluke. Sebastian had been a fluke. He didn’t like me. So what? Colton hadn’t sent Orly and me here to charm badly dressed newbie vagabonds
with mysterious pasts.
Shoot!
That’s what I’d forgotten. I’d intended to text Orly for more background on how he and Sebastian knew each other.
All three of them were looking at me, probably waiting for me to say something, but first I needed to get a better look at
Sebastian, now that we were together in good lighting for the first time. “He’s Sebastian Sudworth , ” Orly had said to me, as if that explained everything, but he didn’t look any more familiar to me with fresh eyes and brain.
He appeared to be wearing the exact same thing he’d had on the day before. No, wait. Yesterday had been Smashing Pumpkins.
Now the Stone Temple Pilots graced the concert tee du jour. He wasn’t bad looking, truth be told. He had nice cheekbones and
a good build and kind of a cute, grungy-nerd thing going for him that would have made him quite the catch at Comic-Con, or
maybe in Portland. He was wearing glasses today, and the black frames accentuated his moss-green eyes nicely, and if it weren’t
for a few isolated gray whiskers in the stubble on his cheeks and chin, I might have questioned whether he was old enough
to be driving Orly and me around. Well, okay, that was an exaggeration, but seriously... If Kenneth Edmonds hadn’t already
claimed the name, this guy would have been deserving.
Stop it, Brynn. This is no time to be making Babyface pop-culture-geek references in your head. Focus.
In any other place, under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t have spent nearly as much time studying his features in such detail.
I probably wouldn’t have even noticed him.
But I’d stuck in there just a little too long already—his eyebrows were beginning to rise, making it clear there was nothing subtle about my observation skills.
I was locked in on him like he was my one hope of not puking my guts out on the Gravitron ride at the carnival.
I was spinning faster and faster, and the centrifugal force was kicking in .
. . and if I turned my head, everyone on the ride with me would be subject to a little trauma at 3 g’s.
Of course, true to form, it was just a matter of time before Mrs. Stoddard forced me to snap back to attention. “Eyes on the board, girls.”
“Yes, yes. We all know Sebastian’s very handsome, but you can stare at him later. Breakfast is getting cold.”
Orly chuckled, and Sebastian muttered, “Oh, good grief,” under his breath, and I was thirteen again, being called out by Mrs.
Stoddard for being—in her words—boy crazy. The truth was, I hadn’t meant to end up on the boys’ bus after the all-district field trip to the Underground Mining Museum. I’d just been talking to Cole