She had to find Peter before Carla showed up. She needed to tell him the deal was off. No orchard was worth hiding the truth from her friend. She had to confess to him that she didn’t want him to pursue Carla. And she had to come clean with Peter—she had feelings for the man. In twelve days, Peter would be leaving Meadowview for places that probably weren’t even on the map. Neva might never have a chance to tell him how she felt. What she wanted. And right now, she wanted to sleep with Peter so much her body quaked. And she wanted her friend back.
She’d been brave tonight, socializing instead of making friends with the wall, and what disaster had happened? None at all. In fact, she’d opened herself up. Now she needed to be brave and find Peter. Tell him their deal was off. She didn’t need those apples. Not at this cost.
Whipping her head about, she cast her gaze across the entirety of the auditorium, searching for Peter…or Carla. The first sweep of the room showed neither one was in the crowd. Good. She’d be able to intercept Peter before her sister arrived. Suddenly, there he was, dressed in tight fitting jeans and a white button-down shirt that she wanted to rip open, standing near the front entrance, talking to a man Neva didn’t recognize. Adrenaline surged through her system. How’d she miss his entrance?
“Peter…” That she’d whispered his name aloud surprised her.
“You want him, don’t you?” Trudy had suddenly appeared at her side.
“What? No!” Neva exclaimed, taken aback by the woman’s sudden appearance at her side and by the blunt question. She swallowed, struggling to come up with a more polite response. “I mean, no. We were friends before, that’s all.”
“The two of you would be good together.”
Neva gaped at the woman at her side. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Peter. You’d make a cute couple.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Really?” Trudy’s question was posed with a friendly tone, but a hint of a challenge rode on her words.
“Truly,” Neva responded. “Besides, there’d be no room for becoming a ‘couple.’ Peter’s moving away from Meadowview.”
“Running away is more of an accurate description. But that doesn’t mean something won’t stop him. Something…like a good woman.”
Neva rolled her eyes but smiled at the same time. “He’s not running away. Ever since he was a kid he wanted to travel. Go on adventures. Footloose and fancy free, he used to say. He never wanted to be tied down to a house or a woman or a job.”
“Doesn’t sound like the Peter I know. He adores Meadowview.”
“He doesn’t want to be a firefighter,” Neva said blankly, keeping her eye on Peter, who continued to talk to the man next to him. He hadn’t yet caught sight of her, which maybe was a good thing, because the words she wanted to tell him weren’t forming into sentences in her mind. Not yet.
“Not true. I haven’t lived here too long, but to me, it’s pretty clear Peter lives and breathes the job. It’s in his blood.”
Neva jolted, bringing her attention back to Trudy. How could that be true? Peter had always claimed he’d never become a firefighter like his dad.
And yet he had.
“He had to have taken the job out of necessity,” she said slowly, trying to make sense of Peter’s decisions. “His dad was the fire chief in our town. The Peter I knew hated the idea of becoming a firefighter.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. But I do know you’re crazy about the guy.”
Neva tried to deny it. “No way.”
“Yes way. I know lust when I see it, and I know when someone’s in denial. I fought like crazy to keep myself from falling for my fiancé, but look where I ended up.” She held out her hand to show off a ring that sparkled under the twinkling lights. “Once I opened myself up to love—and let’s be honest, to lust, too—the pieces of my life all came together.”
“I…I…”
“It’s like I had all the jigsaw pieces already, but Mac was the key to putting the puzzle together right. I’ve never been happier.”
Wow. How sweet. And how perfect…for Trudy. “It’s different for Peter and me,” Neva tried to explain. “The past keeps interfering with the present and there’s no way to move beyond. People don’t change.”
“You’re scared to take the next step.” Trudy nodded, sympathetic. “I’ve been there. But if you think about it, the past is just a big container we put ourselves in. All that’s needed is to climb out of the damned box.”
“What if the lid is hammered shut?”
“Look,” Trudy said firmly, “Peter’s a great guy—”
“I know.”
“And he’s probably a great kisser—”
“He is.”
Trudy raised an eyebrow. “And I’m sure he’s fantastic in bed.”
“Now that I wouldn’t know, but I believe you’d be right.”
“So what’s stopping you from going over there and telling him you want to pull off his tighty-whiteys?”
“He wears boxer-briefs.”
Trudy laughed. “There’s always a way out of the box,” she said, prodding Neva forward. “Now climb your ass out of it and move forward with your life.”
Easy for her to say.
But Neva’s tummy tingled and excitement crowded out the fear as she took first one, then another tentative step forward. Maybe Trudy was right—all she needed to do was leave the past behind. And embrace her future.
Could it really be that easy?
Nothing was easy, Neva realized two minutes later. She’d made her way around the crowd, and had come up behind Peter. About to tap him on the shoulder, she overheard something that made her pause.
“You should meet her, Jack,” Peter said excitedly. “She’ll be here tonight. In fact…” He swung his gaze around the crowded auditorium. Fortunately for Neva, she was still out of sight. “Damn. I’d have thought she’d be here by now.”
“Haven’t seen you this excited over a woman before,” the man—Jack—noted.
“True. But she’s different from other women. Beautiful, intelligent, funny, and a total kick-ass.”
Neva couldn’t see her prissy twin sister as being a “kick-ass,” whatever that meant. After all these years, Peter clearly still had his blinders on.
“If all goes according to plan tonight, she and I…well…” Peter let his words trail off.
A knot, like a fist, formed in Neva’s chest. Peter was crazy about Carla. What right did she have to ruin her friend’s chances with her sister just because she wanted to sleep with him? It wasn’t as if she wanted him in her life forever, just in her bed for the next two weeks. But Peter had been crazy over Carla for most of his life.
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t tell Peter how she felt. He had so much hope riding on this plan of his to charm her sister.
But her sister hadn’t shown up and time was ticking. Neva pulled out her cell. Eight o’clock. The event would be over in a half hour and her sister still hadn’t arrived. What should she do—go talk to Peter and stall?
A text pinged on her phone.
Carla: Not sure I can make it after all. Apologize to Peter for me?
“Oh, no. Do not do this to him,” Neva said to herself. Quickly, she typed out a response.
Neva: Whatever.
She shoved the phone back in her purse and let the frustration ripple up her back in wave after wave. All throughout high school she’d watched her snob of a sister drawl, “Not interested” every time a boy asked her out. Carla never dated—she always acted as if the boys who asked her out were beneath her.
Neva hadn’t much cared until Carla started rejecting Peter. The poor boy had worn his heart on his sleeve, making public declarations of his desire. Mostly because he had no filter, of course. And each time, Carla would put her nose in the air, sniff as if she’d smelled something rank, then come up with some sort of rejection, usually having something to do with Peter’s status as a geek.
Neva wasn’t goi
ng to let Peter get hurt again.
And she knew exactly how to go about protecting Peter. She’d been Carla before—she could be Carla again. Shouldn’t be that hard to do, especially in a town that didn’t really know who she really was, anyway.
She turned around and headed toward the bathroom. Time for a costume change.
Fortunately, Neva found a tube of lipstick in her purse. After wiping lint off the tip, she applied a thick layer, smacked her lips together, and looked at herself in the mirror. Good, but not great.
She pulled out the ribbon and rubber band holding her ponytail in place and fluffed her hair.
Better. Still not completely Carla yet, though.
An idea struck. She headed into a stall. There, she ripped off her peasant blouse and bra and stuffed them into her purse, then tugged the long tube skirt upward until the waistband clung to her chest, just above her boobs. Nice—now she wore a short strapless cocktail dress instead of a top and long skirt.
With the hair ribbon, she made a tight belt around the waist, accentuating her boobs. Transformation complete, she exited the stall and stood in front of the long mirror that ran the length of the room. She cocked a hip, let her arms hang loose, and smirked at the mirror.
There. Carla now stared back.
The door swung open. Trudy stepped into the multi-stall bathroom and paused, scrutinizing the person standing in front of her.
“Neva?”
“Carla, actually,” Neva said, fighting against her nerves. “My sister took off a few minutes ago.”
“Oh.” Trudy seemed puzzled.
Neva waved a hand in the air. “The identical twin thing can get confusing. Trust me.”
“I’ll say.”
“If you’ll excuse me…”
“Oh. Sure.” Trudy stepped out of the way, still scrutinizing Neva.
Hadn’t Carla gone out to Trudy’s fiancé’s art studio earlier in the day? Maybe as “Carla,” Neva should thank Trudy for the visit. “Thanks for the tour of the art studio earlier today. Mac is quite the artist. The way he handles his…medium…” She stumbled to a stop. Knowing what type of artist Trudy’s fiancé was would have been most helpful before she’d embarked on this particular conversation.
Trudy narrowed her eyes. “Did you like his oils or his pastels better?”
A painter. The man must be a painter. “I’m partial to watercolors myself, but the oil paintings were lovely.”
A half-grin flickered at the corner of Trudy’s mouth. “So…Carla…” she drawled, “you should bring your identical twin back to the studio. Maybe Neva would like to see Mac’s…paintings.”
There was a subtext to Trudy’s invitation, and wasn’t that an emphasis on the word “identical?” But Neva didn’t have time to figure it all out. If Trudy knew she was faking, so be it. She had a friend’s ego to salvage, his well-being to protect. With a bright smile and a quick beauty-queen half-wave, she said goodbye, then did a pivot and headed out the door.
Making her way through the crowd took time, but finally Neva stood in front of Peter. He was no longer in a conversation with the man she’d noticed earlier, and now spoke with an elderly couple.
“Hey,” she said, garnering his attention. When he stared at her quizzically, as if trying to figure out which twin stood in front of him, she gave him a prompt. “Aren’t you going to say ‘hi, Carla?’”
Peter didn’t respond. Nerves skittered up her spine. He didn’t realize she was pretending to be her sister, right? But how could he? She looked the part. A wave of relief washed over her when he broke into a wide smile.
“Carla,” he said loudly. “We must speak.” He turned back to the couple. “I’ll see you later. Right now I need to talk to my neighbor’s identical twin.”
The crowd swallowed up the rather confused couple, leaving Neva to stand stiffly in front of Peter. You can do this, she reassured herself. Give him what he wants. What he needs. Give him Carla. She stuck out a hip and pushed out her boobs. “So, um, Peter, thanks for the ride earlier today. It’s nice to see you. We should…um…talk.”
A goofy grin swept over his face. “Neva said you’d be here tonight. I have something for you.”
“That’s so sweet of you.” She used a saccharine sweet tone, channeling her best Carla. She was a bit rusty with this whole imitate-another-person thing.
Peter dug around in his pocket and pulled out a small jewelry box. He flipped it open to reveal the largest pair of glittering diamond stud earrings Neva had ever seen. Did diamonds even come that big? Neva resisted the temptation to clap a hand over her mouth. Why had Peter bought her twin diamonds? Carla hadn’t even agreed to date him yet. Why would he do such a thing? How literal was he going to take her advice?
“These are for you,” he said, smiling, holding the box out proudly.
Neva reached out and took the box with shaking hands. “You’re giving me diamonds?”
“Cubic zirconia.”
Her hands stopped shaking. She looked up and frowned. “You bought a woman you like fake jewelry?”
“Yep, I like these better. They’re more shiny. Like your teeth.”
“My teeth?” was all Neva could say.
“I’m glad I bought big earrings because you have overly large earlobes.” Peter lifted up a hunk of her hair to stare at her ears.
“I never knew,” she murmured. Neva wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry—Peter was taking her tips seriously, but implementing them with the finesse of a rhino in a doll’s house.
“Oh, and Carla,” he continued, “I didn’t get a chance to tell you I met someone famous once.”
The delivery was a bit awkward, but Neva crossed her fingers he could pull off this attempt. “Really?”
“Yep. The Agricultural Commissioner.”
Oh, no. This was so very wrong. Neva had meant for Peter to say he’d met Bono, or Matt Damon, or even the new prime minister of Canada—the super nice and cute one. This was going from bad to worse.
“Um…the Agricultural Commissioner of the United States of America?” she asked.
“Nope. Of Deloro County. Funny story, really. I met him on the bus, on my way back to Meadowview from a big trip down south.”
“The south?” She tried throwing him a bone. “Were you vacationing in Costa Rica, or maybe Belize?”
“Ol’ Lodi,” Peter said proudly, naming a mid-sized city in the middle of California’s Central Valley. “I was…uh…stuck there again. I guess it was just about a year ago, and I—”
Neva might have been generations away from being a child of the 1960s, but even she recognized the song by Credence Clearwater Revival. No sense in letting Peter paraphrase the entirety of the lyrics. “Wow,” she said, drawing out the word with as much excitement as she could muster. “Nothing like a well traveled man who hangs out with people in power.”
“That’s me. Speaking of power, guess what I am?”
No. This could not go well. If this really had been Carla in front of him, he’d have already crashed and burned with the Lodi comment. Or the big earlobe thing. Or the shiny teeth. Sheesh. This attempted seduction of his couldn’t get any worse, right?
What was she thinking? This was Peter. It could get worse—much worse. She wanted to save him from drowning the way he’d saved her—had it really only been two days earlier when he’d leaped into an irrigation canal to rescue her? Instead, she smiled up at him and said sweetly, “Do tell.”
“I’m the lead ranking Battle Mage in my guild.”
“Your guild?”
“It’s an MMORPG. Shadowy Towers of the Dark…uh…the Dark Hand.”
She was lost. Totally and completely lost. Had Peter gone off script? “I’m sorry, what?”
“You know, it’s a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.”
“Oh, my,” she said faintly. How could the man be messing up every single one of her tips, and so thoroughly?
“Oh, one other thing,” Peter added.
“There’s more?”
Peter reached into a brown paper sack Neva hadn’t noticed him holding and pulled out a bottle. “I heard you like champagne. I got you a bottle of Cold Duck.”
She gulped. Peter was screwing up everything she’d taught him.
Every. Single. Thing.
Peter set the bottle down on a nearby table. He should take pity on poor Neva. She was doing her best to impersonate Carla, even though she wasn’t successful whatsoever. Whatever had possessed her to pretend to be her sister tonight?
And whatever had possessed him to let her carry on with the pretense?
He should have called her bluff when she first came up to him claiming to be Carla, but he’d wanted to see what would happen if Neva believed he believed he was talking to Carla. Would she act differently? How would the evening play out if he kept up his end of the farce?
He jolted. The last time he’d played this kind of game, he’d lost his best friend.
History had a tendency to repeat itself.
Damn. Him and his not-so-bright ideas. He should have told her immediately he knew she was pretending to be her twin. And he never should have come up with this asinine plan to win over Carla.
“Never mind about the champagne,” he said. “Or the entirety of our conversation starting from the moment when you said, ‘It’s me. Carla.’ We need to talk about something else. Something way more important.”
Because this time he wasn’t going to let her run off without telling her he knew who she was. And telling her how he felt about her. Well, how insanely he desired her, actually. Well, he mostly knew. And that was enough for now. He reached out and slid a hand around Neva’s hips. Tugged her forward until they touched. She let out a loud gasp and her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away.
“Neva,” he murmured.
“Wrong sister. I’m Carla.”
“Nope. You’re Neva.”
She huffed, but still didn’t pull away. “How would you know? And you couldn’t prove it, anyway. We’re identical.”
He leaned forward, dropping his head to the crook of her neck, enjoying how she trembled under his touch. He breathed in deep, right at the nape of her neck. The he eased back and gave her a gentle smile.
Charming the One: (Meadowview Heroes # 3) (The Meadowview Series Book 7) Page 13