by Hope Ramsay
“Uh, no, I guess not.” Pam had a point.
“So we need to convince Danny and Mia to get married privately. Maybe with a justice of the peace. Anyway, you do understand that the last thing the family needs is a televised, Vegas-style wedding?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then you need to talk him out of it. You’re the only member of the family Danny is likely to listen to. You have always had a special relationship with him.”
Amy’s chest swelled at the unexpected praise. When had Pam ever needed her for something important? Like never. This was a big deal.
“So where’s Danny now?” Amy asked.
“He, Mia, and the baby are staying at Charlotte’s Grove. The rest of the cast checked in to the inn last night. We’re having a family dinner tonight so everyone can meet Mia and the baby, and I want you there to talk Danny out of this foolish idea. And remember, the dinner tonight is going to be taped for the television show, so you’ll need to get your hair highlighted.”
Disappointment surged through Amy. Nothing much had changed even though she’d made a stand, slept in her car, and refused to marry Grady. For once, she let her annoyance show. “Well, Aunt Pam, if I have to get my hair professionally styled before I attend dinner, I’ll have to pass on the invitation. Sorry.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you’ll show up appropriately turned out.” Pam wasn’t used to taking crap from Amy.
“No, afraid not. I have to work today, and that means I don’t have time to get my hair highlighted. I also have nothing to wear.”
“Amy, you have a gigantic walk-in closet filled with—”
“Yeah, but Daddy locked me out of the house.”
“What?”
“He changed the locks, took all the money from my checking account, and told me to get out. He gave me, like, fifteen minutes, so I didn’t have time to pack.”
“Well, just tell him to take you back. This is a family emergency.”
“I can’t. According to Ozzie, he’s on vacation. Apparently Lucy’s on vacation too.”
“Good God.” Pam seemed momentarily at a loss for words.
“I know. It’s a bad mental image.”
Pam recovered quickly. “Oh my God. You poor thing. No wonder you took this ridiculous job. Shame on Willow for making you work at such a low occupation. Well, we can just tell her you’ve quit. I’ll get Ozzie to open the house for you.”
“That might be hard. Daddy told him not to let me back in.”
“I don’t care what your father told him. Ozzie will damn well do what I tell him to do.” Pam’s tone had changed to cool fury. She paused a moment, clearly gathering her composure before she continued. “I need you tonight. So I’ll transfer some money to your account. How much do you need? Would a thousand tide you over?”
A thousand dollars hadn’t seemed like a lot of money in the past, but right at this minute, it seemed like a minor fortune. Having access to a thousand dollars would open up so many more choices—like finding a permanent home for Amy and a dog groomer for Muffin.
But if she gave in now, she’d prove nothing. To herself. To Daddy. To Aunt Pam and the rest of the family. So she made another gutsy, emotional choice. “Thank you, but please don’t transfer any money. I don’t want to go back home. I don’t want to be bailed out. I need to prove something to Daddy. In fact, I’m determined to do well at this job, which means I don’t have time to go to the hairdresser.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Grady likes your hair highlighted. You need to—”
“Oh, I forgot to mention that part. I’m not marrying Grady either.”
“What? Of course you are. Grady is—”
“An idiot.” And not very exciting in bed either, but Amy chose not to share that information.
“He is not an idiot. He’s a hedge fund manager who’s made millions.”
“Okay, he’s not an idiot. But I resent the fact that Daddy expected me to go running to Grady when he locked me out.”
“But…Wait a second. If your father locked you out, where are you staying?”
Something snapped inside Amy. She didn’t like David laughing at her or Pam trying to change her or Dusty trying to protect her. She was so done with all of that.
She lifted her chin and met Aunt Pam’s stare. “I’m living in the Z4. I take my showers in the pool house when no one is looking, and I have exactly twenty-one dollars and seventy-three cents that will have to last for the next four days until I’m paid. But you know, that money is the first money I ever earned for myself, and it’s like gold to me.”
“But…Honey, are you crazy?”
“Is it crazy to be independent?”
“You call having twenty-odd dollars independence? Because, darling, that sounds like poverty to me.”
Pam had a point. “Okay, so I’m impoverished, but at least I have a job. There are lots of people who don’t have even that.”
“Amy, stop being ridiculous,” Pam said. “You have better things to do. Besides, right now we have to solve this reality TV show problem. So I need you to stop being a brat and get with the program. You are the only one in the family who could ever talk sense into Danny.”
With that pronouncement, Aunt Pam whipped out her cell phone and connected with Bella Vista Vineyard. It took her less than thirty seconds, once Ozzie came on the line, to have every single one of Daddy’s orders countermanded.
So that was it. Amy could give up her job and go back home. But she didn’t want to.
“Ozzie will have keys waiting for you,” Pam said as she tucked the phone into her Kate Spade purse. “Lose the dog, take a shower, go to the hairdresser, and be at Charlotte’s Grove for cocktails at six thirty on the dot.”
* * *
Willow stared at Dusty as she sat behind the fancy mahogany desk in her office on the third floor of the manor house. With its antique, hand-carved scrollwork, the desk gave her an aura of wealth and power at the same time as it reeked femininity. Willow, a former tomboy who now dressed in girlie-colored business suits and dresses, fit the space perfectly. She had certainly grown up to become a woman in control of herself and her life and everything that happened at Eagle Hill Manor.
Right now Willow’s brow was wrinkled up like a crumpled piece of paper, and her green eyes were focused on Dusty in an uncomfortably narrow gaze. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me Amy was sleeping in her car?” she demanded.
He tried not to squirm in the straight-backed chair that sat in front of Willow’s desk. “She asked me not to. I promised.”
“Some promises are meant to be broken. How could you let her do that?”
“I checked up on her last night. She was fine.”
“If you thought it wise to check on her, then she wasn’t fine. Dammit.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. Got any ideas?”
“She can go home. Pam’s interceded.”
“But she doesn’t want to go home. It’s a matter of pride now.”
Willow leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “Why are you so hot to take her side?”
He didn’t quite know the answer to that question. “She’s got grit.”
“Amy? I don’t think so.”
“Well, you’re wrong about that. I told her I’d find her a place to stay. A place where she can keep the dog.”
“She has a place to stay. She can go home or she can go to Charlotte’s Grove.”
“There are two reasons that ain’t gonna work. First of all, she won’t go. Pam and her daddy are determined to marry her off to some guy named Grady. I don’t hardly blame her. Grady is a wussy name for a guy.”
Willow leaned forward. “Grady Carson is a hedge fund manager worth millions. She’s been dating him for more than a year. She could do a whole lot worse.”
“And you think it’s okay to marry for money?”
“Point taken,” Willow said, her shoulders sagging a little. “What’s your second reason?”
“If Amy goes home, she’ll probably give up her job.”
“So?”
“I think this job is important to her. I think she wants to succeed at it.”
“I find that hard to believe. Neither one of us expected her to last more than a day.”
“I know. But she’s a surprisingly hard worker. She’s a little crazy, but she means well. And even though she ripped up the daffodils and forsythia, it was for a good cause, right?”
Willow’s frown disappeared. “Amy saved the day for the Ganis-McQuade wedding? Really? I thought you had come up with the brilliant idea of using the pool house daffodils.”
“I plant flowers, Willow. I don’t cut and arrange them.”
Willow’s lips twitched. “Okay, Dusty, maybe I could talk Mom into letting her stay at Serenity Farm for a while. Mom has a sweet spot for homeless people, but—”
“I have a better idea,” Dusty interrupted. “What about Jeff’s fishing cabin?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see Princess Amy staying up there. It’s remote and rustic.”
“It’s a whole lot better than a car, and it’s precisely the right kind of place for Amy to learn all those things you told me three days ago that she needed to learn.”
“What things? Did I say anything about her learning from you? I must have been out of my mind at the time. Dusty, I emphatically don’t want you messing around with David’s little cousin. You hear me?”
An image of Amy all pink and naked came immediately to mind. “I am not messing with Amy,” he said, shaking the image of her naked bod out of his brain. “I’m teaching her stuff.”
Willow lowered her chin and gave him her evil eye. “What kind of stuff?”
“You’d be surprised,” he said in a dry tone.
“David told me you sent her snipe hunting.”
“Let’s not talk about that, okay? She hasn’t even figured out the joke yet, which makes it no fun at all.”
Willow cocked her head. “You like her, don’t you?”
Her words prickled along his skin. Did he like Amy Lyndon? Yeah, he kind of did. She was just so adorable and accident prone. “So, you’ll call Jeff about the cabin?”
Willow gave him a long, sober look before she nodded. “Okay.” Then she leaned forward. “But, Dusty, you keep your distance from her, okay? I don’t want to have to explain to Jamie Lyndon how I let my best and oldest friend break his daughter’s heart. She’s not like the show girls you pick up in Charles Town. Speaking of which, it’s all over town that Zoe dumped you.”
He shrugged. “It was inevitable.”
“Yes, it was. But it didn’t have to be that way. I liked Zoe.”
“I liked her too. But I didn’t want to marry her.”
“Dusty, I will always have your back, but when it comes to your love life, you keep disappointing me.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I’m sorry, but I’m just not cut out to be a family man, Willow.”
* * *
Uncle Thomas’s fishing cabin sat high up on the Blue Ridge with a sweeping view of the Shenandoah River Valley. Built in the 1930s by Amy’s great-grandfather, it had two tiny rooms, a wood-burning stove, and not a single closet, walk-in or otherwise.
Amy needed a closet because she’d taken advantage of the fact that Aunt Pam had bullied Ozzie into opening up the house. She’d gone home and packed up a few suitcases, thankful that her days of living with just one pair of underwear were over. With additional bras and panties, she wouldn’t have to run to the coin wash every day.
Now her crap sat in a heap in the middle of the cabin’s front room—the living room, dining room, and kitchen combined, and not in a modern “open concept” way either. The place mostly had a rustic-country, Little House on the Prairie vibe, right down to the threadbare quilts on the iron bed in the back room. Thank God Granddad had added a bathroom forty years ago with actual running water.
She checked the old Mickey Mouse watch that she had to wear because of her nonfunctioning smartphone. She had several hours before Aunt Pam’s mandatory dinner at Charlotte’s Grove—plenty of time to take a shower and do her makeup and tackle Muffin’s beauty problems.
The dog was having the worst hair day ever. Dreadlocks did not become her, and besides, she smelled. Bad.
Just as soon as Amy could sell some of her designer clothes at the consignment shop, she’d schedule Muffin for an appointment with the doggie hairdresser. But that would take days to accomplish, and right now the dog needed a real bath because the quick shower this morning hadn’t done the job.
She had just dumped the dog into the deep farm sink in the kitchen and was working her own Shorea and palm-oil shampoo with built-in silicone detangler into the dog’s matted fur when someone came thumping up onto the porch.
Visitors already? Who had Pam sent to check up on her? “Who is it?” she called.
“It’s me,” a deep male voice said.
Amy turned just as Dusty opened the front screen door. “Amy, this cabin is way off the beaten track, so you should keep your doors locked at all times. No telling who or what might come wandering around. In fact, I’m starting to regret that I suggested this place.”
Amy resisted the urge to challenge his logic. It seemed to her that the potential for break-ins and serial killers was much greater in a city, where there were people all around, not out here in the wilderness.
“I opened all the doors and windows because it was stuffy when I got here,” she said, turning back to Muffin, who decided right then to give herself a body-long shake, flinging soapy water right into Amy’s eyes.
“Ow.” She stepped back from the sink, her eyes burning. “Ow, ow.” The shampoo had momentarily blinded her, and with her hands all soapy, she didn’t dare wipe it away.
Dusty came to the rescue with one of the towels Amy had purloined from her bathroom at home. “Here, let me see,” he said in that deep, soft mountain accent of his. He tilted her head up with one of his fingers, his touch light and warm and erotic as hell.
The lust rushing through her made her dizzy. Wait, what was up with that…besides curiosity? No. Hooking up with her boss was on the do-not-ever-contemplate list for young, upwardly mobile millennials like herself.
But hey, the guy sure had a gentle touch as he wiped away the tears and soap with those long, elegant fingers that didn’t quite belong to his broad hands. She blinked her eyes open and lost her breath at the sight of him, so tall and so close that she could catch the faint scent of something profoundly male coming from his direction.
With all that tanned skin, sun-kissed hair, and craggy goodness, Dusty McNeil had missed his calling. He should have been a male model.
She expected him to pull away, but instead he stood there hovering as the moment unfolded, giving Amy time to contemplate the shadow of ginger stubble on his cleft chin. She wanted to trace the angle of his jaw and stroke the texture of his skin. She might have succumbed to the curiosity and heat percolating through her, but Muffin issued several yips followed by a little, sad whimper.
“Oh my God, she’s probably freezing.” Amy turned away from the eye candy to discover that her soapy dog was, in fact, shivering. She picked up the hand sprayer and finished rinsing with warm water.
Dusty assisted, standing at Amy’s elbow. When the dog was de-soaped, he swooped in and lifted Muffin out of the sink, wrapping her in a towel. “Hey, girl,” he said in a low, sweet voice. “I think you’re a cockapoo.”
“What?”
“A mix between a cocker spaniel and a poodle. She’s got floppy spaniel ears and curly poodle fur. She’s not some stray mutt, Amy. Someone docked her tail, which means she was probably bred special. She probably belonged to someone, but judging by the matted fur, she’s been on her own for a while.”
“Oh.” Amy’s heart wrenched. Did Muffin have an owner looking for her? Or had she been abandoned, like Amy herself? “Poor doggie. I’m sorry you’ve been alone for so long. But you’re with me
now.” She looked up at Dusty. “I’ve got a comb and scissors. If you put her on the kitchen table, I can cut off some of the matted fur and get her dry.”
“You need more than scissors for this,” he said. “Wait right there. I’ve got a few things out in the truck.” He put the dog on the table, and Amy took over the job of giving her a good rubdown with the towel.
Dusty returned a minute later with a cardboard box in hand, which he set down in the middle of the floor, next to her suitcases. “I stopped by the Food Lion and got Muffin some dog food, and then I went to the hardware store, where I found food bowls and a leash and collar. I also got this.” He held up a plastic blister pack containing a small appliance.
“What is that?”
“It’s an electric dog clipper.” Dusty grinned like a schoolboy who’s just discovered the joy of handing out valentines to the girls in the class. Not only did the corners of his eyes crinkle up, but a little dimple showed in his left cheek. A wave of affection squeezed Amy’s heart and filled up a hollow place inside that she hadn’t even realized was there.
He was kind. He did things for people. And that made him so different from the usual self-involved stockbrokers, lawyers, and politicos her family approved of. His kindness made it harder to stand her ground, but she knew she couldn’t accept gifts from him. Not if she wanted to hold fast to her principled position. Not if she wanted to prove that she could make it on her own.
“Thanks so much, Mr. McNeil,” she said, “but I can’t afford to pay—”
“You can pay me back, a little at a time. I bought these things for Muffin, not for you. The dog needs these things right now, and I know you’re not yet on your feet. Please let me help.”
She nodded, justifying her decision to accept the gifts because of the dog. But she also found herself wondering what Grady might have done in this situation. No doubt he would have insisted that she send the dog to the pound and come home to his apartment in DC. Grady was allergic. To everything.
“Here, put the leash and collar on her so you can hold her still.” Dusty passed over an adorably pink collar and leash. The guy got points for going with the girlie color. She could just imagine the studly Dusty McNeil standing in the checkout line at the hardware store with a pink leash and collar in his hand. Wow. She could get into a guy like that.