Chapter 88
I end the interview right away, but I’m well aware it’s too late. My scar is going to be talked about by the entire town, possibly the state, as soon as Skip’s story is published on the first of July.
And Mama will absolutely have my head when she finds out. Luckily, Ginny’s wedding will have already happened, so if I need to hide from the public eye, I can.
I drift into a fitful sleep filled with lots of strange dreams—about catfish, a giant microphone in my face, and Skip floating face down in the creek.
Then I have a different kind of dream. A sex dream. About Logan and me. And it’s not for kids’ ears.
As soon as I wake up, I go to The Cowherd to give Ben the heads up on Skip coming by later, and then I stop by Ginny’s before she leaves for work. I tell her what’s going on with Skip, and I confess my dream.
“How X-rated was it?” she asks breathlessly.
I rock back and forth where we’re sitting on her porch swing.
“Let’s just say it’s a good thing those jail cell bars are made of steel.
Because I was holding onto them pretty good while Logan…
” The image of Logan naked and driving into me from behind while I gripped the bars with both hands is too much to repeat. I stop talking as my face heats.
“Wow. That sounds like quite a dream.” Ginny looks at me. “Are you gonna tell Logan about it?”
“What? Of course not!” I lightly swat at her knee. “Why would I do that?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Just to clear the air before he…you know…marries somebody else?”
I glare at her. “No. I’m not going to tell him. I have to go, though. Skip’s coming by to complete his blackmailing of me.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this for Logan.” Ginny gives me a hug. “You know it’s not your fault that Skip has all those photos of you two. I don’t know if I agree with your decision to protect Logan like this.”
“Join the crowd. Ben feels the same as you. He thinks Logan dug his own grave, blah, blah, blah.”
“Well, he did.” Ginny walks me to my SUV. “He roped himself into this engagement.”
“Like a steer?” I joke.
“Exactly. Logan went out to West Texas and got confused. He roped a rich girl from the city instead of a bull.”
I laugh.
“No, but seriously, you wouldn’t be selling him out by refusing to give Skip a story.”
I get into my SUV and wave good-bye to her. “I know. But the choice to do this interview was all mine, and I’m going to stand behind it.”
“Vivian’s handwriting is gorgeous.” Skip pores over Vivian’s diary at The Cowherd. “How beautifully she wrote.”
Ben groans. “Skip, you sound like a middle-aged woman. Otherwise known as our mother.”
I lean over the bar and glance at the page. “It is pretty.”
Mr. Bingley sits on the stool to Skip’s right and regards him with suspicious eyes.
Okay, perhaps I’m projecting a bit. But the cat has been here since Skip arrived and hasn’t napped or cleaned himself once. All he’s done is sit and stare at Skip, who unfortunately doesn’t seem to mind the scrutiny.
I’d already shown the torn diary page to Skip privately, and he eagerly took a picture of it with his phone.
Truthfully, I felt relief when I revealed the page to him.
I felt like I could finally come clean and just move on.
The curse is Mama’s thing, not mine, no matter how much she’s tried to burden me with it.
From behind the bar, Riley cleans a beer glass and hands it over to Ben for inspection. “I like working back here with y’all. It’s very relaxing.”
I smile. “As long as you don’t have to look at the bottom line, it’s great.”
I turn to Skip. “Are you almost done here? Because it’s been like three hours.”
The front door dings as Logan, Gigi, and Blake step inside. Jon’s with them, and he has his camera pointed straight at the chosen couple. Logan keeps turning away to avoid the flash, but Gigi has a calm, serene smile on her face.
God, it’s like she’s completely immune.
“Quick,” I whisper to Skip. “Give me Vivian’s diary. Logan won’t understand, and he’ll start asking questions.”
Skip slides the diary over to me, and I hustle to put it back inside the glass just as Mr. Bingley freaks out from the camera lights and darts away.
Blake and Logan takes stools a few down from Skip.
“Hey, bartender.” Logan nods at me. “What’s up?”
I shrug. “Nothing. How are y’all?”
“Delightful.” Gigi shakes her hair loose from an elastic band she’d tied it back with and takes the stool on Logan’s free side.
Riley smiles at Logan. “I work here now, too.”
Logan looks more closely at Riley’s pale face and the dark circles under her eyes. “What are you doing behind the bar?”
“Wink cheated on me. And dumped me.”
Gigi gasps, but Logan’s expression doesn’t change.
“I don’t have to tell you that you deserve better,” he says. “But I will if you want me to.”
“Thanks.” Riley cleans another beer glass. “I guess I forgot.”
Blake shakes his head at her. “Never forget that, Riley. That guy was obviously an ass.”
Gigi pipes up that she’s trying to understand Darcy better. “Since our talk at the creek last night, Macey,” she says pointedly.
I let out a breath. “I didn’t mean anything rude by it, Gigi. I’m sorry if you took it that way.”
“Not at all. But I found out lots of new things about Logan this morning when I talked to his mother. Like how he was born on the ranch at the same moment their oldest bull passed away. So, over to you, Macey. How old were you when you first served a drink at this bar?”
“I guess around fourteen.”
“I was never allowed,” Riley pipes in.
“I tried once when I was twelve,” says Ben.
My mouth drops open. “Twelve? That’s horrible!”
Ben grins. “Mama took the drink away.”
I turn to Skip. “All of this is off the record, by the way. Don’t even think about it.”
He nods. “Of course. Nothing about your family.”
Nobody thinks twice about Skip’s comment. Except for one person.
Logan leans forward and gives Skip a hard look. “What does that mean, nothing about her family? What are you talking about?”
Skip shrinks back from Logan’s intense gaze. “Um…”
“Figure of speech.” I wave my hand casually in the air. “Don’t be so paranoid, Logan.”
But Logan’s not finished. “What are you doing here, anyway? Are you spying on Macey?”
I tap Skip on the shoulder. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? You and Jon?”
Skip mumbles some excuse about low blood sugar, and he hustles Jon and himself out the door.
Once they’re gone, Gigi turns to me again. “Macey, Logan told me you don’t hunt. How come you’re so good with a gun, but you don’t hunt?”
I look at Logan, willing him to answer on my behalf.
He keeps the eye contact with me as he says, “Macey enjoys shooting, not hunting, that’s all.”
“How come?” Gigi asks.
“You should ask Macey herself,” Logan says.
I take a deep breath. Well, it’s really none of her business, and I know I can lie and tell her anything I want, but I haven’t told the story in so long it’s almost like I need to get it off my chest.
“I was nine years old,” I begin.
“Oh, this is the saddest story.” Riley puts her elbows on the bar and leans closer.
I give her a look but keep going. “Daddy’d run off again, and Mama asked me to go get us some dinner.
‘Take the shotgun,’ she said. ‘And remember to keep it locked till you’re ready to shoot.
’ I went out and found a rabbit.” I pause and inhale.
“I’ll always remember its eyes as it froze, cornered, and just stared up at me.
Its eyes looked just like mine. The same color with the same fear in them.
Honestly, it still haunts me. And I knew then I could never hunt.
I didn’t have it in me. So I let the rabbit go and walked into town to beg the clerk at the corner store for an advance on groceries.
” I give Gigi a half-smile. “I’m a hypocrite, of course, because I eat meat like the rest of my family.
So I don’t judge anybody for hunting as long as they eat what they kill and don’t just do it for sport.
Because if it’s just a sport, you should shoot beer cans like I do. ”
Gigi gazes at me with those big wide eyes. “Macey, that is a terrible story. I’m never going to eat rabbit again!”
She excuses herself to go meet her sisters, and then Ben has to deal with an order out in the back.
Riley’s phone beeps, and she looks down at it and laughs.
“What is it?” I ask her.
She glances at Blake, who’s looking down at his own phone.
“Nothing.”
Blake looks up. “You know what I find funny?” he says. “No one’s ever tried to let this supposed ghost out of her cage. Instead, they give tours and point at poor Jane trapped in a cell, but nobody ever opens the door. Why not?”
I gesture behind me to Vivian’s diary. “You’re asking me to decipher Vivian’s mind?
Her diary states that no one can break the spell by opening the door.
People could open and close the thing all day long, and it won’t matter if the spell’s still intact.
And they still believe only one couple is a match to the legend and that couple is out there somewhere. ”
“Let’s open the cell and see if it frees her,” Blake dares me. “If it doesn’t work, you’ll be in the same place you are now. But if it does? The mayor will give your daddy a shot to run the bar again, right?”
“I like this idea,” Riley says with a smile.
“No,” I say. “As in, no, I won’t open the jail cell.”
“You scared?” Riley challenges me.
“No!”
Logan shoots Blake a look. “You’re such a fucking troublemaker. And now you’ve got the younger Henwood on board with you.”
Riley narrows her eyes at me. “So where’s the key?”