Chapter 29
FORGETTING ALL ABOUT IT
RIPLEY
No one’s in the cottage when I wake on Monday morning. Not even my dog.
Where is Hudson? I fling off the covers and pad to the windows overlooking the deck, peering out.
In the distance, I spot Banks walking Hudson around the farm.
When I look down, the dog’s food bowl is empty. Last night I had measured out his kibble for the morning and set it on the counter. Banks already fed my dog and is walking him now. I didn’t even have to ask him to.
A stupid smile tugs at my lips as I get in the shower and savor the hot stream. When I dry off and exit the bathroom, there’s a vase of fresh-cut Melissa on the table across from the couch. Sometimes lavender’s a sex toy with Banks, sometimes a gift.
My smile is even stupider as I get dressed.
It’s summer, but sometimes a girl just has to wear a turtleneck.
Well, a short-sleeve mock turtleneck, but it’s the only summery top I own that’ll cover up the very obvious hickey on my neck.
And I am not going to parade around town and reveal a love bite from my bodyguard to the world, or my sister.
A few minutes later, Grandma lifts a curious brow when I sail into the kitchen in the farmhouse in my cover-up clothes. “It’s going to be hot out today,” she says, giving me a once-over.
I pluck at the blue shirt, trying to make this odd fashion choice seem like no big deal. “It’s laundry day.”
And that’s believable enough, even though it’s a bald-faced lie. I do laundry often enough that I rarely have laundry-day problems.
Her brow knits, but she shrugs, buying my excuse. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re sweating.”
“I won’t curse you when I melt on the streets of Darling Springs today,” I say, but then I gesture to my shorts. “I’ll be fine. Plus, I have a lot of flowers to deliver, so this way my arms won’t get as scratched up.”
Her brows arch higher.
Oops.
The more you say, the more obvious it is you’re hiding something.
Like a short-sleeve shirt will save me from scratches.
“Let me help you with coffee and stuff for the crew,” I say, trying to steer the conversation anywhere else.
But seriously, the hard time she’ll give me for a hickey.
I still remember when Haven was seventeen and came home with a purple splotch on her neck, then tried to finesse her way out of it with a tale about a new moisturizer she’d picked up from The Slippery Dipper, and how eager she’d been to try it out as part of this amazing new skin care routine, but oh my god can you believe it left this purple mark?
We teased her for days about her allegedly amazing skin care routine.
“I made croissants too,” she adds, then taps me on the nose. “Because—”
We both pause, like, wait for it, then say in unison, “Muffins suck.”
“Seriously, muffins should be abolished,” I add, grateful we’ve moved on to baked goods and away from my cover-up-a-silly-punishment-for-my-sass attire.
As I help her in the kitchen, images of last night flicker before my eyes, and my stomach flips. I really need to stop thinking about what he did to me in bed. Since it can’t happen again.
Then, there’s the clearing of a throat, the sound of shoes on hardwood floor, and my body reacts instantly as Banks walks into the kitchen.
“Morning, Lila. Morning, Ripley. Hope you didn’t think you could give me the slip,” he teases.
I don’t even look at him. If I do, the desire will be written on my face for my grandma to see.
She already knows I like him. She already knows I’m wildly attracted to him.
She’ll be able to put two and two together and add it up to you enjoyed hot sex and naughty uses for lavender with your bodyguard last night, didn’t you?
“I didn’t know you were my shadow on the farm too?” I toss out.
“I’m not. You’re safe here. But I’m good at finding you,” Banks says, and something about the confidence in his words makes me nearly swoon.
I grab the coffee bag instead and shake it for no good reason. “Thanks for walking the dog.”
“Anytime,” he says.
Grandma arches a curious brow, like walking the dog is the only proof she needs to know something’s going on between us.
“I’ll make more coffee,” I quickly add.
My grandma gives me the most side-eye of all side-eyes ever, then says playfully and pointedly to Banks, “Yes, thank you so much for walking my granddaughter’s most favorite person.”
“You’re my favorite person,” I counter quickly, speaking to her.
Grandma scoffs. “You can’t fool me. That dog has ranked top since you adopted him.”
“He’s a good dog,” Banks says evenly.
“Ripley is crazy about him,” Grandma says, and that’s true, but I’m not entirely sure she’s talking about Hudson.
Still, I’m the woman wearing a mock turtleneck in eighty-degree weather, so I shut the hell up and focus so hard on making coffee.
After the crew leaves bright and early to shoot at The Slippery Dipper today, I work on my usual tasks around the farm until it’s time to swing by the art museum to pick up the flowers from last night’s event.
Banks helps me collect them and put them in the bed of the truck. “What will you do with them now?”
“Take them back to the farm and turn them into soil compost,” I say.
Under the sun in the museum parking lot, he stares at me for a beat, his lips curving up.
“What?” I ask breathily.
“That’s hot.”
“Composting my flowers?”
“Yeah. Being good to the earth.”
I laugh. “Makes it even harder to resist me, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he says, and he’s intensely serious. He heads over to the passenger door and opens it. The man loves driving.
“You and your control,” I mutter.
But before I can get in, he ropes an arm around my waist and jerks me against him, my back to his front, his hand coming down on the thin, crocheted floral belt I’m wearing since I’m in my vintage ’90s era today, it seems, with my jean shorts too. “And you like it,” he rasps out.
“I do.”
His arm cinches tighter. I melt more. He slides his other hand up my neck and into my hair. “Me too.”
“Is anyone watching?” I whisper, but I know the answer. With the movie shooting in town today, no one’s really following me. The photographers—from the Hollywood trade press to the paparazzi—are all on Main Street, hunting for the real action.
“I looked around. We’re good,” he says huskily, then runs his fingers up and into my hair. “Does your neck hurt today?”
“A little.”
“Want me to rub it?”
I want him to rub everything. “Yes.”
In the parking lot, with his arm locking me in place at the waist, he rubs my neck. It’s a better neck massage than the first one, especially since he sighs, and murmurs, and kisses the shell of my ear.
Eventually, when I’ve turned into a liquid state, I say, “So we’re forgetting last night?”
“Yes, this is forgetting.” He kisses my neck once—no hickey this time—and lets go.
Back at the farm, Haven texts me a few times during the shoot, sending little updates like this one.
Haven: OMG, I am pretending I run The Slippery Dipper!
Ripley: Dreams do come true.
Haven: I know. I’ve always wanted to run a cute shop!
Ripley: It’s not all sunshine and roses.
Haven: It is for me!
Ripley: Glad to hear.
After I hit Send on the last text, my phone’s quiet for a while as I check in with Ramona on the shop’s orders, then with Cyrus on his deliveries for the day. He’s bopping his head to a beat as he pushes a wheelbarrow up to the shed but stops and nods when he sees me. “What’s cooking, boss lady?”
“Do you have the Otto Quast for Prohibition Spirit? Esmeralda has added lavender specials to her menu. Oh, and I need the delivery for the market too.”
He flashes a toothy grin, white teeth sparkling. “Always. I’m on top of it,” he says, but as we head to the barn where we prep the flowers, my phone trills.
That’s the ringtone I gave to Tabitha. I answer it so fast. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Hi, Ripley. Do you have something…purple-y?”
I blink. “Purple-y?”
“Yes. Vega doesn’t like the lavender on the counter here at the shop. It’s dried out lavender,” she says, her voice frayed, and it’s only day one.
A lot of people do like dried lavender. That’s why the store sells it. But now’s not the time to educate her or anyone on the ins and outs of my business. “What would she prefer?” I ask, refraining myself from recommending Provence as a feather tickler.
“It’s too washed out,” Tabitha says. “She wants something brighter for this scene.”
Ah, that’s an easy fix. “I have Impress Purple and Hidcote. Let me send you pics.”
“You’re a goddess,” she says as I find the photos I keep handy and text them.
Seconds later, she’s asking the director who declares that one with something like utter relief.
“The Impress Purple,” Tabitha says to me.
“When do you need it?”
I can hear Tabitha grimace as she answers, “Yesterday.”
“I’m on my way.”
After she tells me how many, I grab the bunches, plus the ones Cyrus has set aside for the market, then let Banks know I’m heading to the set.
It’s a little thrilling to say that—set. I can’t help it. It’s exciting that a movie’s being shot in my hometown and with my sister as the star.
“Let’s deliver this emergency lavender, stat,” Banks says.
That giddy feeling carries over when he opens the door of the truck, casts a furtive glance around the farm, then trails his fingers down my back, whispering, “You’d look good on your knees with your hands tied behind you.”
It’s not my shirt I’m going to need to change soon. It’s my panties.
A security officer lets me past the cordoned-off area of the block on Main Street and ushers me inside with Banks staying outside.
My heart is sprinting with excitement. I get to see my sister in her element, and when I catch the first sight of her behind the counter, her hair in braids, her eyes sparkling as she chats with Tabitha, my heart surges with joy.
There she is. Making the art she’s always wanted.
“It’s my heroine!” Haven calls out when she sees me, then she scurries past the cameras and lights and rushes my way.
“Wow. You look amazing,” I say, my throat tightening as I check out her cute T-shirt and jeans, face all flawless and camera-ready, her heart-shaped sunglasses pushing back her mane of blond hair.
“So do you,” she says.
I laugh it off, then hand the flowers to Tabitha who joins us and says, “Thank you. You’re the goddess of goddesses.”
Off in the corner, Vega is chatting with the lighting guy, but when she sees me, she gives a crisp, businesslike nod, calling out, “Thank you for the lavender save.”
“Anytime,” I say, then turn back to Haven.
“Where’s New Chris?” I whisper.
“He’s not in this scene, but he’ll be in the next one. Want to stay and meet him?”
I check the time. “I’ll see if I can come back. I need to bring Salma her flowers.”
“Haven!” the director calls out, and my sister returns to the counter.
I weave through the crew, a little overwhelmed and starry-eyed, and head back to the street where Banks is waiting for me with the lavender delivery for Salma.
“How was it?” he asks.
“Kind of amazing,” I whisper, then we walk along the familiar block with its Hollywood blockade.
As we leave it, Banks scans left and right, then says, “Press over there. I’ve got you.”
“Thanks,” I say, grateful for his presence as he ushers me past photographers. There are more than last week. So many more. Understandable since, well, the film’s actually shooting today.
“Are they all paparazzi?” I ask, recognizing Silas from last week, and the guy Banks pointed out, Ludwig. But there are others too.
“No. Some are with the entertainment press. They aren’t quite…hunters.”
“Thank god,” I say, relieved for that as he whisks me into Salma’s market.
“I’ll stay here,” he says, nodding to the doorway of the shop. “So you can see your customer by yourself.”
I’m touched he remembered I wanted that. But not surprised. I head down the first aisle to find Salma at the florist counter, but instead I walk right toward the movie star himself.
Chris Carlisle is in the store, and he’s holding a sandwich.