by Jayne Denker
“You know him?”
“This is Marsden. I know everybody.”
He spun around and walked backward a few steps. “Ooh, and everybody knows you? This could get interesting.”
The color rose in her cheeks, tinting them a perfect pink, like a fairy-tale princess. His stomach gave a little lurch.
“I have nothing to hide,” she stated flatly. “Do your worst.”
“Is that a dare?” She didn’t answer, so he asked, “How do you know Ray?”
“I used to work at his print and copy shop. I was a graphic designer.”
“Ah, another little piece of the Celia puzzle falls into place.”
The door to the house opened, and Celia’s mother poked her head out. “What’s taking you two so long? The hot tea’s getting cold and the iced tea is getting hot. Also, you’re confusing the dog. So—in or out. Let’s go.”
“You don’t even have a suitcase,” Celia hissed in his ear as they followed her mother inside. “You didn’t plan this.”
“I planned it,” he murmured over his shoulder. “You just didn’t know about it. I admit I hadn’t planned on driving up here with so little notice. Hence the lack of luggage,” he said, setting hers down in the kitchen. “But that’s what personal assistants and FedEx are for. I do, however, have my emergency boxers—and you thought it was crazy to carry them around all the time! While I wait for Trent to send the rest of my things, mind if we share a toothbrush?”
“Marsden Apothecary is open till eight o’clock on Saturday nights.”
He tutted. “And we were getting along so well on the drive up here. What’s the problem now?”
Celia didn’t answer, but he knew what was bothering her: He was pushing his way into her life when she hadn’t invited him in. Sharing a few secrets while traveling was one thing; sharing a small town for an indefinite period of time was quite another.
“So, Niall,” Alan Marshall said, stretching his legs halfway across the enclosed back porch. “What line of business are you in?”
“Uh . . .” Niall smiled a little, tickled that Celia’s parents didn’t know who he was. It was so rare these days. He wasn’t sure if he should enlighten them; he was enjoying his anonymity. Plus he got the feeling if he told Celia’s dad he was an actor, he’d be on the receiving end of another one of those powerful, condemning grunts of his. He looked past the older man and watched the sunlight play on the saplings dotting the land behind the house. He fancied he could make out a burn mark where Celia had torched her clothes, even though he knew any hint of her rebellious act was long gone by now. He took a few moments to imagine her as a little girl, playing in the yard, until he felt her father’s flinty glare piercing him. Time to answer his question. He settled on, “I’m in . . . entertainment.”
Even that got a grunt, although less severe than the one that had damned his car knowledge (or lack thereof).
“And you, sir?” Alan Marshall was the kind of guy you felt compelled to call “sir,” he realized.
The older man’s ginger eyebrows, tufty as a pair of caterpillars, crept up his forehead. “Me? I’m retired. But for thirty years, I was the town tax assessor. Kept a bunch of jokers in line better than our police force, I’ll say that much. Hit ’em in the wallet. Works every time.”
It was quite clear Celia took after her mother, both in temperament and in looks. Her father was bullish, stocky, and fair, while her mother was simply an older version of Celia, with dark hair, fine bone structure, and pale skin. But Celia was more grounded than Wendy, who gave off an air of flightiness. Niall just couldn’t tell if it was natural or cultivated.
While Celia’s father was grousing, her mother slipped out of the room. Niall wondered if Wendy was making herself scarce because her husband was gearing up for a rant she’d heard a thousand times, or if she really had something more important to do.
“What brings you here? Besides my daughter, I mean.”
“Dad!” Celia interjected, shocked.
Her father ignored her. “Well?”
“I, uh, I’m going to be working in Marsden for a while. At the arts center.”
“Summer help, eh? Ticket taker and whatnot?”
Before Niall could answer, they were interrupted by a faint call of “Celia? Can you help me, please?”
Celia hesitated, obviously unsure if she should leave Niall alone with her father, but when her mother called again, she reluctantly excused herself and hopped up the single step from the enclosed porch into the house.
“Not a ticket taker, no—”
From another part of the house came the sound of Celia moaning, “Oh, Mom!”
Niall wondered what was going on, but Celia’s father was pinning him with an expectant look, so he answered, “Ray Dubois asked me if I would—”
“Ray, huh?” The older man’s face remained impassive, but his tone clearly communicated his disapproval. “What’s he got you doing?”
“I’m not at liberty to say much, just yet. Sorry.”
Alan barked a laugh. “Top secret, eh? Typical Ray. That guy was a pain in the ass in high school forty-five years ago, pain in the ass now. So good friggin’ luck.”
Niall wasn’t sure how to respond. “I’ll . . . do my best?” There was a bit of silence—uncomfortable silence, as opposed to their uncomfortable conversation—so Niall decided now was the time to say his good-byes. “Well, sir, I’d better get going, find a place to stay.”
Celia and her mother came back into the room, Wendy Marshall tangled up in some colorful knitting, looking for all the world like she’d been mummified with Doctor Who’s scarf. Celia came up behind her, plucking at her mother’s striped bindings as she tried to figure out how to get her out of it.
She glanced up from untangling her mother to explain. “Mom’s taken up yarn bombing. She just hasn’t figured out that yarn bombs go on inanimate objects, not herself.”
“It was a slight mishap,” Wendy said over her shoulder to her daughter. “Just get me out of this in time for me to meet the girls. We’re bombing the cannon outside the town hall tonight.” To Niall, she said, “You should stay here. We’ve got plenty of room. Please. We insist.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alan fidget in his chair, and he suspected the older man wouldn’t really join in on the insisting if anyone asked him. Plus, when he looked back at Celia, she was staring at him, wide-eyed, silently pleading with him to turn her mother down. He thought about accepting the invitation just to mess with her head, but he wasn’t any more interested in staying under her parents’ roof than her father was in having him there.
So instead, he said, “Thanks for the generous offer, but I couldn’t, really. I’d be coming and going at all hours, and it just wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“You know what place you want to try—” Alan started, but Niall pulled his phone from his pocket.
“No worries. I’ve got it covered.”
Niall tapped a few icons to start searching for hotels in the area, but nothing happened. He held it higher, pointed it out the screen toward the yard, but he couldn’t seem to get any reception.
“No signal here. Mountain blocks the cell tower,” Celia’s father grunted. “And a good thing too. Damned blight on the landscape. Just like those damned wind farms.”
“The wind farms on the way into town?”
“Yeah, we lost that battle. Not gonna happen again with cell towers. Keeping those numbers down for sure.”
“But don’t you think cell towers are, you know, essential these days?”
“Not in my backyard.”
“Disguised ones? In California, there are a bunch that look like palm trees—”
“Are you tetched in the head, son? There aren’t any palm trees for thousands of miles.”
“Well, no. I mean, they can make them look like all kinds of trees. Church spires, too.”
“We’ve got enough of those already.”
Apparently Alan Marshall hated wind f
arms, cell towers, and church spires. Maybe he just didn’t like tall things. Which would be bad news for Niall, being over six feet and all.
“How about Casey’s place?” Wendy suggested.
“Mom! No!”
Niall turned to Celia, surprised that she was so adamantly against it, whatever it was. “What are we talking, here? Renting some floor space in the back room of a shack? Some kind of crappy motel? Haunted?”
“None of those things,” Wendy said, oblivious to her daughter’s mortification. “It’s a lovely old home that the owner is turning into an inn.”
“Sounds really nice. But Celia seems a little against the idea.”
Her mother flapped her hand, recently freed from her yarn tangle. “Oh, she’s probably just embarrassed because Casey was her high school boyfr—”
“Mom!”
“What? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You two used to be so cute together—”
“Mom, please.”
“Ex-boyfriend, eh?” Niall couldn’t stop his eyebrow from creeping up toward his hairline as a grin spread across his face. He crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
Celia ducked her head, focusing on getting out the last of the yarn tangles at her mother’s waist. “No. No, it’s not interesting in the least.”
Niall raised an eyebrow to silently ask, Is this the high school boyfriend? Feeling his eyes on her, Celia met his gaze, then blushed and looked away again. Ah. It was the high school boyfriend she’d mentioned in the car. But obviously it wasn’t something to bring up now.
“It’s the perfect place,” Wendy persisted. “It’s very nice, and they need people to practice on before they open up the inn to guests this fall. You’d really be doing them a favor.”
Niall started to come up with an excuse not to stay there, but Celia cut him off. “You know what? Mom’s right. It’s ancient history. Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “It’s no big deal. In fact, I’ll call Casey for you.”
Chapter 9
“I can’t believe you didn’t drive him over yourself,” Celia’s mother admonished her, stuffing her knitting into a large tapestry bag. “What if he gets kidnapped by rabid fans?”
Celia gaped. “You know who he is?”
Her father grunted. “Of course we do. You think we’re a couple of rubes?”
“Then why didn’t you say something?”
“Well. Couldn’t let him get too full of himself now, could we? Gotta keep the boy humble.”
Celia shook her head and gathered up the end of the knitting at her mother’s feet. “Unbelievable.”
Wendy Marshall giggled and took the yarn from her daughter. “We have to find our fun wherever we can. Sorry I can’t make you dinner, dear. I would love to have a nice long sit-down and hear all about your new boyfriend. But I’ve got to get to the yarn bombing.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, Mom.”
“It’s about time you found somebody new.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” her father chimed in. “Although I don’t know about this guy. You can’t trust celebrities. I’d prefer it if you found somebody decent.”
Celia ignored the fact that she pretty much shared her father’s sentiment, which disturbed her greatly. “Niall’s decent,” she protested, even if she wasn’t sure that was true. “And you’ve never liked any of the men in my life.”
“I liked Casey.”
“That was high school. Ages ago.”
“I thought you two were trying to work it out a while back.”
“No, we’re just friends. He and Georgiana Down are perfect together, so let it go, all right?”
Her father grunted again. “City’s getting to you. You’re getting . . . prickly.”
Celia laughed. “I think it’s a good thing.”
“So do I,” her mother agreed, but she whispered it. “Although I think there’s some justice in Casey playing host to your new boyfriend. It’s good for Casey—it might make him start wondering what he missed out on.”
Celia flailed around for a few seconds, trying to figure out which part of that statement to attack. She ended up repeating, “Niall’s not my boyfriend.”
“Casey was happy to hear from you just now, when you called to ask if he could put up Niall, wasn’t he?”
“I talked to George, not Casey,” Celia said smugly. “And she was fine with it.”
Forty-five minutes later, Celia learned that while Niall hadn’t been kidnapped by rabid fans, neither had he made it to Bowen Farms. She heard the growl of a vehicle in the driveway and went out to find the Corvette idling there, Niall stone-faced behind the wheel. She sauntered over to the car and leaned in the open window.
“Back so soon? Did they change their minds when they saw you?”
She watched a muscle working in the corner of his jaw.
“I never got there,” he admitted, not looking at her.
“You don’t say. Did you get lost?”
“Yeah. I got lost,” he mimicked in a sing-song voice. “Took a wrong turn somewhere—how should I know exactly what happened? Then I got stuck behind some beat-up pickup truck going about half a mile an hour—”
“Oh, that’s just Burt Womack.”
“How do you do that?”
“I told you, I grew up here! For future reference, Burt doesn’t go any faster than that. Ever.”
“I’ll make a note of it. Oh, and then I ended up in someplace called Whalen.”
She winced at the name of the dicey neighbor town. “Ooh, what did you do that for?”
“Believe me, it wasn’t intentional. The horror, the horror . . .”
“Okay, that I’ll give you sympathy for. Well, look, you drove in a big circle, but you didn’t get anywhere near Casey’s.”
“I tried to call your cell, but of course it won’t work while you’re on this side of the mountain, or whatever. Tell your NIMBY father thanks for that, m’kay?”
“Don’t judge,” she scolded, although she wasn’t the least bit angry. She usually felt at a disadvantage when she was around Niall, a little unsure of herself in the shadow of his sheer . . . Niall-ness. But being on her home turf was doing wonders for her self-confidence.
“Then some roads started to look familiar, and I followed one I recognized, and . . . here I am. I have no idea what happened. What the heck, have you got your own Bermuda Triangle around here?”
“You’ll get the hang of it. You’ll have to, if you’re actually staying here for a while.”
“How many times do I have to say I actually am? Why don’t you believe me?”
“This is Marsden. Your head is going to explode if you stay here for any length of time.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Well, I’m going to prove you wrong. How’dya like them apples ?”
“Wow, you’re already sounding like a native. Congratulations.”
“Just tell me how to get where I’m supposed to be going.”
“Why are you so bothered by this?”
“I’m not!” he insisted, then took a breath and said, in a calmer tone, “I’m just . . . used to knowing my way around at all times.”
“You’re not just talking about roads, are you?”
After a pause, he muttered, “No.”
“So you’re a control freak. Good to know. First a bunch of secrets, and now this little personality revelation? It’s been quite a day already.”
His eyes slanted toward her, though he still didn’t turn his head. “Would we call this progress?”
“Depends on what goal you think we’re progressing toward.”
“Will you go with me to this Bowen Farms place? Please,” he added belatedly.
She sighed. “Okay. Back up so I can get my mom’s car out of the garage. I’ll lead you there; we just have to make a small detour to drop her off at her yarn bombing.”
; “Does that sort of thing happen often around here?”
Celia stood up straight and stretched, keenly aware of Niall’s observant eyes on her. “Pretty much.”
“Weird place.”
“Absolutely.”
“Holy shit, it’s Gone with the Wind.”
“It is not.”
“It is! It’s friggin’ Tara! Look at this place!”
Celia looked up at the imposing Gothic structure and tried to see it through Niall’s eyes. She knew the Bowens’ house as well as her own; she’d spent enough time there during her teen years. “Well, what did you expect? Schrute Farms?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You’re going to have to get rid of all those preconceived notions—”
“Ashley!” he piped in a cheesy Southern accent. “Oh, Ashley!”
“Get your movie trivia straight. Ashley’s plantation was Twelve Oaks. Scarlett’s was Tara. And Tara was Greek Revival; this is Gothic—”
He wasn’t listening to her; he was having too much fun with his Southern accent. “I do declare, Ashley—wait.” He interrupted himself, switching to his normal voice. “Is that Ashley?”
Casey had come out the back door to greet them, hands on his hips, a broad smile on his handsome face.
“If you mean Casey, owner of Bowen Farms, then yes, that’s him.”
“Well, I’ll be darned. So that’s your Ashley.”
“He’s not my—”
“Hey—does that mean I can be Rhett Butler in this scenario? I would so love that!”
“Oh my God, will you just get inside, please?”
She marched ahead of him, up the steps, before he could start calling her Scarlett, and smiled back at Casey. The dark-haired man, brilliant green eyes glittering merrily, enveloped her in a hug that Celia sank into without a second thought. He was warm, and so familiar, and felt like home.
“Hey, it’s so great to see you!” Casey said.
“Same here!”
“It’s been forever since you’ve been back.”
She laughed. “I was here at Christmas.”
A semi-discreet cough sounded behind her. She pulled away from Casey but kept one arm around his waist. “Casey, this is Niall. Thanks so much for putting him up.”