Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
He'd lied. To Dalene. To himself.
He'd been pretending then. He was pretending right now. He pretended he didn't still feel the small of her back in his palm. Pretended he didn't feel the warm weight of her in his arms. Pretended the way she'd drifted toward him when he'd inhaled the lavender hadn't affected him.
After the ladder incident, Eliot had gone to the grocery store for coffee. Somehow a sprig of lavender had ended up in his shopping cart. It was now on his kitchen counter.
But the truth still remained. He wasn't sticking around. He'd only be in Valor three months, maybe less. He had a slot to reclaim and a life to get back to.
Eliot didn't do fake. He also didn't do this. Whatever this was.
He picked up his phone and was confronted with fake news.
Weatherman Eliot Brooks Spotted in Tiny Town — But What's He Really Doing There?
The article, aside from the clickbait headline, was good.
That was the worst part. Gemma Lark wrote with the clean, interested precision of someone who understood that the most damaging pieces were the ones that didn't feel like attacks.
She hadn't called him anything cruel. She'd simply assembled the facts — the meltdown clip, the network's silence on his reassignment, his sudden appearance in Valor for a cloud festival — and arranged them into a shape that asked a question: What is a man who publicly despises clouds doing at a cloud festival?
And who, exactly, is the woman in his arms?
Okay, that was two questions. The second question had a picture. The green meadow. The strung lights twinkling. Dalene in Eliot's arms. Eliot looking down at Dalene as though she was precious. Dalene looking up at him as though he was a heart-shaped cloud.
Eliot's phone rang in his hand and he almost dropped it.
"I sent you there to keep your head down," Veronica said through the receiver. "I sent you there to be invisible. What part of invisible produced a photograph?"
"I was holding a ladder—"
"You were holding a woman."
"She slipped."
"She is also, according to this article, your neighbor, your frequent companion, and someone — let me read Ms. Lark's direct quote here — 'someone you appeared very interested in."
"She's the festival organizer. She's…" Eliot stopped.
"She's what?"
He looked at the photo still open on his screen. Her hand on his arm. Tristan's face just visible at the edge of the frame, walking towards them.
"She's not relevant to the network," he said.
"Everything is relevant to the network right now." Veronica's voice dropped into the register she used when she was being serious rather than just urgent. "Right now this picture is getting a lot of social media attention."
"Is that good?"
"It is if there's something real between you two. Everyone loves a love story; and a love story with heart-shaped clouds…"
"I'm not manufacturing a love story."
"Then you need to fix the narrative before Gemma Lark writes your next line."
And with that Veronica hung up.
Eliot stood in his kitchen for a long moment. The weather station blinked on the windowsill. Outside, the cloud cover was a layer of stratus moving in from the west, flat and grey and unhurried.
Dalene's light was on. It was eleven-fifteen at night. He'd spent the day doing his broadcast segment, and sitting in The Rusty Spur with Miles going over technical details. He was tired, but he knew he wasn't going to sleep. Somehow, he found himself knocking on her door.
There was a pause. Then footsteps. Then she was there.
Dalene was in a worn t-shirt and flour-dusted leggings. Her hair was piled up with a pencil. Behind her the kitchen smelled extraordinary; yeast and cinnamon and brown butter. Every surface appeared to be in use.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
They looked at each other. Eliot opened his mouth to tell her about the article. But when he opened his mouth, he breathed in the vanilla warmth of her. Behind him, he heard the trickle of feminine laughter followed by a male murmur.
Dalene went stiff. Her gaze darted past Eliot and over his shoulder. He knew without turning that Tristan and Brooke were coming up the stairs.
"Can I come in?" Eliot asked.
Dalene's gaze went back to him. Her shoulders relaxed incrementally. She stepped aside and let him in. As the door closed, they caught a glimpse of Tristan. The smile dropped from the other man's face as he watched the door close, shutting him out with the two of them on the other side.
Eliot turned around. But not before he grinned as the door closed. He didn't know what it was about that dude, but he didn't like him. Every time he got a chance to wipe the smug grin off his face, Eliot found he couldn't resist.
Dalene's kitchen was warm and fully alive — four trays of cinnamon rolls in various stages, the mixing bowl still cloudy with flour, a recipe journal propped open against the backsplash.
He recognized Vivienne's handwriting on the recipe card above the counter.
The small framed photograph beside it — a younger woman, laughing, flour on her hands, standing in what looked like Betty Ann's bakery.
Vivienne had the same smattering of freckles across her nose as Dalene.
Dreams was playing low from the kitchen speaker. Vanilla and brown butter and cinnamon sank into his chest as he breathed. His shoulders came down. He hadn't noticed they'd been up.
"Have you seen Gemma Lark's article?" he asked.
Dalene looked up from the tray she was arranging. "What article?"
He held out his phone. She wiped her hands on her apron and took it. He watched her read. Watched her expression move through several things in quick succession — surprise, recognition, something that might have been relief.
"That's why," she said.
"Why what?"
"I was getting fewer pity looks today." She handed the phone back. "I thought maybe people were finally moving on."
"Pity looks?"
She set down her spatula. "Tristan and I had been dating for months, just about a year."
The reason for Eliot's illogical dislike solidified. Clearly, Tristan was an idiot if he let go of someone as delectable as Dalene.
"It was good. Easy. Everyone in town was sure we were meant to be.
Then we watched a film one night. The hero realized he let the right one get away and spends the whole film going back for her.
Halfway through I looked at Tristan and he had this expression on his face.
I didn't know what it meant at the time.
The next day he told me he'd been thinking about Brooke.
His first love. He said he thought he needed closure.
Just a conversation, he said. Just to put it to rest properly so he could move forward. "
"He said that?"
"He said that."
"Idiot."
Dalene grinned and the clouds that had formed on her features from the memory dissipated.
"The day after that he said he needed to call her.
The day after that he said he needed to see her.
Four days. Start to finish. He said he was sorry, that he hadn't planned it, that he hoped I understood.
And then three weeks later Brooke moved in with him. "
"Which is why you sneak into your home every day?"
Dalene nodded.
"Why don't you move?"
"It's my grandmother's apartment," she said simply. "He doesn't get to take that too."
"And now the town gives you pitying looks?"
She nodded again.
"That's ridiculous," he said. "You're clearly fine."
She laughed. Short and genuine. "You're the only person in Valor who thinks so."
"I watched you sneak up your own stairs twice. You're clearly embarking on a promising criminal career."
She laughed again, longer this time. It changed her face. She looked open, unguarded, breathtaking.
"You're the only one who doesn't look at me like I'm about to fall apart," she said.
"Has the rest of this town met Trixie?"
"That's not his name."
"The man wears a letterman jacket to the farmers' market."
"That letterman jacket led the Valor High football team to states last year. He's a hero around here."
"You're organizing a festival that is getting national press coverage."
"I'm sorry about the article," she said. "I know how you feel about faking things. About lying."
"I think I was wrong," he said. "About the faking. It seems like it would do more good than harm. If Gemma Lark is going to write that story anyway, we might as well be the ones telling it. And if you want that jerk—"
"His name is Tristan."
"I do not commit to learning Tracy's name."
Dalene snorted.
Eliot decided he liked the snort even more than the belly laugh. He wanted to make her do it again. "If you want him and the town to think you've moved on, I can help you with that. We get Gemma off our back and we both get proof that we're fine."
"I am fine."
"So am I."
They grinned at each other. The oven ticked.
"Are you asking me to fake date you?" she said.
"Is that what the kids are calling it?" he asked.
She held his gaze. Steady, unsmiling, waiting. "When do we start?"