Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Hayden
I really can’t stand this town. I’m on my second lap of the main street, looking for a parking space, and why are there so many cars clogging up the town square right now? Did everybody decide to get a spray tan and manicure on the same day?
It’s a town also sadly lacking in lodging.
It occurred to me over the weekend that the gossipy citizens of Sumac Falls aren’t seeing Cara and I together enough to convince them we’re in love.
While they might buy our inability to spend nights together thanks to the family feud and our mothers loathing each other, if the town had a motel, we could at least give the appearance we can’t stand to be apart.
As far as I know, there’s still only one bed and breakfast in town, and that’s not an option.
It was the second grandest home, after the Gamble house, and it’s not in much better shape now—probably because it never has guests.
Mrs. Barlow just registered it as a B&B after her husband died so she could use it as a tax write-off, or so the story goes.
The lack of places to stay is probably for the best. As much as two lovers hiding away in an inn because they’re desperate to be alone looks good for the tale we’re spinning, being alone with Cara in a room with a bed might actually kill me.
I finally find a parking space and make the short walk to Pampered Pets Grooming. Because Cara told me she might still be working with a dog, I left Penelope at my mother’s house. She mostly ignores other dogs, but I don’t want to upset any of Cara’s four-legged clients.
I peer through the glass door and see that she’s in the process of lifting a fairly large brown dog—some kind of mixed breed, I guess—down from the table. I wait until she’s secured it in a fenced-in area decorated to look like a barn stall before I push the door open.
The dog barks the alarm until Cara snaps her fingers. “Kevin, be quiet.”
“Kevin?”
“Yes, his name is Kevin. I don’t ask.” She brushes some hair from her shirt and walks over to her small counter. After shifting an appointment book out of the way, she hands me a sheaf of papers. “You should give them a quick look and make sure I initialed and signed everywhere I was supposed to.”
I take the prenup and NDA documents and start flipping through them. “And you were okay with everything? Nothing you want to talk through?”
She shrugs one shoulder before turning to clean the grooming table. “I understood everything, and we’d already talked about the basics—we leave with the assets we came with, I keep my mouth shut about the plan, and I can’t have Penny in the divorce.”
I smile and take out my phone. After setting the papers on the counter, I open my scanner app and start scanning each page, one at a time.
Cara was able to print them, but when she asked how best to scan them to return them to Taylor, I told her it would be easier for me to stop by.
My scans go straight to a cloud folder Taylor has access to.
It also gave me an excuse to see her. “Any chance you want to grab something to eat at the diner? It wouldn’t hurt to be seen together around town.”
She laughs. “Trying to get a decent meal into me before our big family dinner tomorrow?”
“I had to promise an entire weekend of babysitting Daisy and AJ so Aaron and Hope can go away somewhere before they’d agree to host the dinner.
But asking either of our mothers to host the other would have been a disaster.
Aaron’s last name might be Reilly, but they’re the closest to neutral ground we have. ”
“Tell me again why we can’t just go to a restaurant?
I’ve asked myself that same question several times, so I give Cara the answer I’ve given myself. “Because there’s a fifty-fifty chance the dinner ends with my mother and your mother throwing glassware at each other, and that gets expensive fast in a restaurant.”
She laughs. “I’m not sure your sister-in-law would consider her home the best food fight backup plan. And I’d say it’s more like a ten percent chance it goes that far. I mean, wrecking a meal over an old family grudge is far-fetched.”
I glance sideways at her. “Whatever is between our mothers is personal—beyond their last names, I mean. I don’t know what, but I think something happened in high school that caused problems of their own.”
“A sub-grudge?” she says, and I snort. “But why? My mother wasn’t even a Gamble until she married my father.”
“Sometimes it has nothing to do with great-great-grandparents or blue-ribbon pickles. It’s just two teenage girls who hate each other.”
Kevin—who’s had his front paws on the top of the gate, blatantly eavesdropping—lets out a deep woofing sound.
“I know, buddy,” Cara says in a soft voice. “Your mama always runs late, so you should be used to it by now. I hope she hurries up, though, because that guy over there is going to buy me a burger and fries tonight, and I’m starving.”
Cara Gamble’s going on a date with me.
No, I remind myself sternly. Not a date. Dating is for real relationships. Our meal will essentially be a business dinner—a strategic performance to further our story.
Since I’m finished scanning the documents, I slide my phone back in my pocket and the papers back into the manilla envelope Cara had kept them in.
I set it on the counter for now, but I’ll take these physical papers with me and give them to Taylor, who’ll send final versions to Cara.
I don’t want stray copies floating around.
I do need to make sure we’re on the same page before we go eat, though. “While we’re at the diner, you know everybody that’ll be there has to believe we’re in love, right? We don’t people out there gossiping about how we look like awkward strangers having a meal together.”
“Awkward strangers?” She raises an eyebrow at me, the corners of her mouth tilting up. “So no stabbing you in the leg with a fork under the table?”
“I prefer that nobody stab me with a fork, but especially not the woman I’m marrying in a few days.” I step closer to her, moving into her personal space to see how she’ll react. “I was talking more about how your cheeks flush when I’m this close to you, as if you’re not used to me being near.”
Cara doesn’t back up. Instead, she tips her head so I can see the mischievous curve of her mouth. When she trails her fingertips up my forearm, I suck in a breath. “How about the way the muscles in your jaw flex when I touch you?”
I’d hoped I was doing a better job of hiding my reaction to her touch, but it appears even my usually considerable control isn’t up to the challenge. My self-discipline is currently being burned through in an effort not to haul her into my arms and kiss her like a real fiancé would.
Cara’s eyes widen. “If you look at me like that in public, you won’t have any trouble selling the story. And I don’t think anybody expects us to be making out in the middle of a family diner or anything.”
I can’t let my mind get sidetracked with savoring the idea of making out with Cara, so I try to get myself back on topic.
Sliding my hand into my pocket, I pull out the small box, and open it to reveal a diamond ring.
It’s not particularly flashy, but the diamond set in platinum is classically elegant.
“I was hoping for a quiet moment to give you this.”
“Oh.” Cara starts to reach for it, but then pauses with her hand in the air, fingers curling. “It’s huge, Hayden. It’s fake, right? Tell me it’s fake.”
“It is not fake.” I take her hand and slide the ring onto her finger. “I’m a little offended you would even ask me that.”
“I can’t be responsible for this,” she hisses, but she hasn’t taken her eyes off the way it catches the light. “The marriage is fake, so the ring should be fake, too.”
“Cara, you need to stop saying that out loud, even when we’re alone because you’ll be more likely to say it when we’re not alone.”
“I know. I just need to…” She sighs, eyes still on the ring. “I know.”
You just need to what? Why does she need to keep reinforcing to herself that our engagement is fake? I don’t ask, though, because the door opens and Kevin loses his mind.