Unruly: How to Fail at Fake Dating (Songbird Ridge: A Year in the Life #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Riley

Never does Daphne from downstairs interrupt my work, so this phone call better be important enough for me to set down my paintbrush.

I hastily wipe the cerulean blue paint off my fingers before tapping the answer and speaker buttons with my knuckle.

“Hey Riley, I’m sorry to bother you, but that Rowdy fella is here again, asking if we have more bird paintings by you. He’s offering a lot of money. A lot.”

Money isn’t going to make me work any faster. That’s the nice thing about living in Songbird Ridge. We artists are allowed to work at our own pace, thanks to a base salary paid to members of the local arts guild.

“You’re not bothering me, Daph,” I lie to my landlord and owner of the gift shop and gallery that regularly stocks my work. “But geez, he must own half of the pieces I’ve painted in the past few years.”

Birds, sunsets, sunrises, mountain landscapes, trees. That’s what I do. It’s slowly becoming a bit of a bore, but it pays the bills. Well, some of the bills.

“What you have in stock is what you have, I don’t know what else to tell him,” I say.

Daphne apologizes and says, “I keep telling him that, but Rowdy gets so excited whenever he sees one of your pieces. He ends up picking out fifteen more things from around the shop. I thought if you have something almost ready to sell, I’d come up and get it, even if it’s not quite dry yet.”

I find myself blushing as I picture Rowdy Fraser, the well-liked 30-year-old bachelor of Songbird Ridge, getting that enthusiastic about what I do.

Even though we’ve never spoken in person, his excitement communicated to me through Daphne is touching.

I remember Rowdy from school. We’re both from here, but he graduated a couple of years ahead of me.

Also, at the time, he was quite a wild kid—too chaotic to run in the same circles as me.

I was a quiet goody-two-shoes, and let’s face it, I still am.

I also find it fascinating that one man could spend so much money every week on paintings, pottery, homemade candles, essential oils, tapestries, and other locally made goods.

Rowdy must have a girlfriend. Or a wife.

Or some significant other with an affinity for locally made art.

How else do you explain this kind of spending?

Over the last few months, since he first noticed one of my sunrises in the shop window, he’s been dropping money like it grows on trees.

“The funny thing is, Daph, I wonder if he would even like the things I really want to paint. You know, besides sunrises and birds.”

I can hear the smirk through the phone. “Girl, he is so into your art, he would order a cocktail napkin with your scribbles on it, sight unseen.”

I chuckle as I wash my hands for real, then flip open my calendar. “I’ll have a new painting for you by Wednesday.”

“Great. I’ll let him know next time he comes in asking about you. It’s usually once a week. You should come down to the store sometime and meet him. He’s such a riot.”

I continue cleaning up as I wrap up this chat with Daphne. A “riot” is not the kind of person I’m looking to have suck my energy out of me right now.

After last year’s bad breakup, I just want a calm, quiet, organized life. I want time to work on something that really excites me.

Next on today’s agenda is my daily walk, then lunch at my brother Pete’s house.

I love my Tuesday lunches with my nephews and nieces, and I haven’t seen them since Christmas Day at their house, so I’ve been looking forward to this.

My stomach rumbles as I head downstairs.

When I get a text message from Pete, my disappointment echoes aloud off the wood.

Pete

Change of plans. Meet me at Bluejay.

“Darn,” I say, feeling disappointed that I won’t see the niblings, my sister-in-law, or get some of their delicious home-cooked food.

The Bluejay Café is great, but I already have my Thursday brunches there with my best friend, Maddie, every week.

The 10-minute walk through the quaint downtown Songbird Ridge is chilly, with the backdrop of Hawk Mountain’s gentle slopes and bare oaks, and evergreen eastern pines.

This area is much busier in the summertime when everything is fully green, or even in April, during the Dogwood Festival.

But there’s something sweetly melancholy about the woods in winter for me.

I wind my way through the hilly downtown with its art galleries, gift shops, funky boutiques, outdoor outfitters, and thrift stores.

Pete waves at me as I approach the Bluejay. He’s a friendly guy, but today he looks oddly serious. My stomach jumps. I wonder what’s going on?

He gives me a one-armed hug. “Hey, Riley. Sorry for the change of plans. But the downtown board of directors needs to speak with you about something really important.”

A thousand thoughts run through my mind.

But the one that sticks out the most is that I look like crap on toast.

I glance down the front of my ratty tee-shirt and my jeans, all smudged with old paint. My family is used to seeing me like this, but the board of directors isn’t.

“Can’t it wait?”

He sees me looking at my clothes and says, “Don’t worry about that, you’ll be fine.”

Inside the restaurant, several familiar faces smile, and some wave hello.

It does nothing to calm my nerves.

“Hey Pete, have you ever had one of those dreams where you find yourself in the middle of a play and you don’t know any of your lines?”

Pete laughs boisterously. A little too much, if you ask me. This is all very weird, because it wasn’t that funny, and it seems like he’s trying to look relaxed and unflappable.

The hostess leads us through the main dining area into the party room at the back. About twelve people are seated around a live-edge oak table, already set with an array of sandwiches and salads, served family-style.

What in the world am I walking into?

I recognize all these people, some from my childhood in Songbird Ridge, others that I’ve met in the last few years.

Some, like Angela, the owner of this very restaurant, I’ve known my whole life.

Others, like Foster, are transplants who have opened newer, trendy shops in the area to cater to the ever-growing number of tourists and backpackers.

Everyone is smiling expectantly as I take a seat.

I get the sense that these are the smiles of people who are about to ask me for a giant, unscheduled, inconvenient favor.

I already know I’m going to say yes, and I’m going to hate it.