Chapter 6
Casey
I had to have lost my mind. Had to. Propositioning him? To teach me how to flirt? What was wrong with me?
Too late now, though. He agreed. And in exchange, I was going to what? Make Reegan jealous? That wasn’t what he said, but was it the plan? Everyone knew they were going to get back together. It was as inevitable as me never getting married again.
Which was why I agreed. I knew a man who was in love with someone else was safe. He wouldn’t be a threat to my heart. And if he was using me to get back together with the woman he loved… Well, I didn’t want to end up with Landon, so it was fine. It was all fine.
I was halfway home when I realized I forgot to buy flowers. Again. It was a good thing I was not going to fall for Landon Boyd because he had the ability to make my head fuzzy without even trying.
I spent the rest of my day with Mikayla, helping her with homework. We cooked dinner together and watched a movie on the couch before she got a call from Amber and raced to her room to talk about preteen stuff.
After I cleaned up the kitchen, I checked my phone to see if I’d missed anything. I had a message from Book Boyfriends Wanted and clicked over to see a new match.
His profile was only a few days old. He mentioned skiing and fishing as his two favorite hobbies. No kids, no ex-wife. And no sense of grammar.
He sounded funny, but the complete disregard for typing out full words and using proper grammar made me snarl.
Rational? Maybe not. But I was a writer.
I had a really hard time accepting that people weren’t willing to even try.
Not everyone was as particular as I was, but I couldn’t even read past his first few answers before I was annoyed.
I closed the app and decided I’d deal with that later. I poured myself a glass of wine and grabbed my notes from the meeting with Natalie and Omar to collect my thoughts.
Four hours later, Mikayla’s room was quiet, and I was falling asleep on the couch. My article was almost done, so I packed my things up and went to bed.
Only to remember I was going to book club tomorrow night. Crap.
I had to think of an excuse to get out of it. Not that I didn’t like Melody and her group of friends, but I felt out of place there. The single mom who had to rely on others to live my life. The woman with no dates and no hope for any in the near future.
Unless I counted my fake date with Landon, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Sleep evaded me for far too long, but when it finally came, I had dreams of a sexy florist with a devilish smile and a talent for making me hot.
Sunday was a rush. I was up early and finished my article, sending it to Natalie in case she wanted to change anything.
Then, I had to get to the grocery store so I could get things ready for the week.
Mikayla helped to make lunches and dinners so we didn’t cave and go out to eat on the nights we had a lot going on.
So I didn’t cave. She wouldn’t fight me if I said I wanted to grab a pizza or something.
When I finished, Mikayla had her shoes on and stood by the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Amber said I was going to her house for a little while tonight because you are going out with Ms. Melody,” Mikayla said. Her brows pinched, and confusion lit her features. “Was she wrong?”
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed with a text.
Melody
I hope you’re not backing out of tonight. Ramsey has dinner almost done, and Amber is so excited to have Mikayla over on a school night. I promise we won’t stay too late. Everyone has things to do in the morning.
I swallowed my groan and thumbed a quick reply.
We were just getting ready. Be to you soon.
I looked up at my daughter and nodded. “Let me change my shirt and we will go.”
“Yay! Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”
I smiled and kissed the top of her head as she threw her arms around me. Little victories.
Everyone was fairly casual for book club, but I didn’t want to show up in a stained tee and sweatpants, so I searched for something that made me feel less like a frumpy mom and more like me. Oh, and I needed a bra.
Ten minutes later, with me in yoga pants and an oversized shirt, I pulled into Melody and Ramsey’s driveway. Amber raced out to meet Mikayla before the two of them rushed back into the house and disappeared. Melody came out before I could get to the door.
“Let’s go.”
She said the words like she was running away, and all my instincts lit up. “What’s wrong?”
She chuckled. “Nothing. I promise. Amber’s just been up my butt all day. She’s getting into a needy phase, I guess, and I want to get away before she clings to me again.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling more than a little jealous. Mikayla definitely was not in the same phase.
When we got into the car, Melody sighed. “Amber got her first ever period yesterday.”
“Really? Wow. How did she handle it?”
Melody chuckled. “She was fine. She said she knew all about it between what I’d talked to her about, school, and what she saw online. But it was still a shock and a little bit of a moment for her. Did Mikayla start yet?”
I nodded. “Last year.”
“Amber said a lot of girls had already started. She was anxious about it for a while. Truth be told, I was starting to worry, too. I was going into fifth grade when I got mine. For her to start sixth grade and not have it yet, I was wondering if something else was going on.”
“I think there are more girls who haven’t started than have admitted it. You know how kids are. They all want to fit in. It’s not like they are in the stalls together. Something like this is easy to hide.”
“True. I’m just happy she’s okay. You hear stories about girls who never got their period, and it was some major medical issue that no one knew about until they were much older. One tiny bit of relief for this stressed-out mama.”
I chuckled with her as I parked a few spots from the front of Book Boyfriends Unlimited. “I can only imagine. We have enough to stress about. We don’t need to add something like that on you.”
“Exactly.” Melody climbed out of my SUV and waited for me on the sidewalk. “How are things going with work?”
I groaned.
She laughed. “That good?”
I sighed. “Gretchen wants me to dig up dirt on Natalie and Omar. Natalie gave me permission to share that she was the woman in the picture last year, but I don’t want to trash them. They’re good people, and this is a good town. I don’t love that Gretchen is out for blood.”
“Isn’t she always? You said that was her reputation.”
“Whose reputation?” Finley MacKellar asked as she unlocked the door to let us in. Finley owned Book Boyfriends Unlimited and married Trent MacKellar, the man whose family founded the town we all called home.
“My editor’s,” I told her. “She wants dirt on Natalie and Omar.”
“Natalie’s already here,” Finley whispered, locking the door behind us again.
“She knows. I told her about it. I am not looking to destroy anyone who doesn’t deserve it,” I said.
Finley’s brows shot up. “Who gets to decide if it’s deserved?”
“I get what you’re asking. As a reporter, freedom of speech is important to me, but so is telling the truth.
When former mayor Levine was trying to undermine Omar, I wanted the truth exposed.
The fact that it tanked his chances of getting reelected was his own doing.
He was trying to ruin Omar’s reputation with half-truths and blatant lies.
I’m going to report on that. I didn’t go after him for a vendetta.
I went after whoever was twisting things to take down someone who’d done nothing wrong.
It led to someone who hid behind the reporter he fed information to.
That’s not what I signed up for when I decided to be a reporter.
Just like we don’t have to reveal our sources, we also shouldn’t print things without verifying their truth. My former colleague didn’t do that.”
“No, he didn’t. And he ended up losing his job for it,” Natalie said from the center of the group that had already gathered. “Thanks to you wanting to print the actual truth.”
“There have been a lot of times people have printed things about Trent and his family that just weren’t true. There’s a fine line from his experience, and now mine. I struggle with a lot of it,” Finley said, reclaiming her seat.
“Would you feel more comfortable if I weren’t here?” I asked her. If she was worried about me reporting anything I overheard, she wouldn’t be comfortable in her own shop. That wasn’t fair.
“No,” Finley was quick to say. “I know you’re not going to deceive any of us. That’s never been something I’ve worried about.”
“Okay. Thank you.” It meant more than she knew to hear that.
It gave me the security to take a seat in the circle arranged toward the back of the romance-only bookstore.
Finley said she always wanted to read romance novels and couldn’t find many in town, so she opened her own store to cater to the others who felt the same way.
“Casey is on the right side of things,” Natalie said. “If Omar was dirty, she would expose it. She’s not going to pull punches, but she’s also not going to dig up stuff that doesn’t need to be unearthed. Unlike her boss.”
“That’s what Casey was saying when they walked in. She’s always out for blood,” Finley told the group.
“It’s a newspaper thing,” I said with a sigh.
“It’s the part of the job that gets you ahead when you work in a city.
First to get a scoop. First to find out someone is cheating.
First to expose a scandal. I think it’s important to report on what’s actually happening and to expose people who aren’t doing the things they should be doing, but is it anyone’s business if Omar’s ex-wife ended the marriage or if he did? ”
“She wants to know that?” Natalie breathed.
I nodded. “She asked me about it when we talked the first time. Before I came to you. I don’t see what that has to do with anything, and I told her so.”