Jane Austen Girl - A Timbell Creek Contemporary Romance

by Inglath Cooper

  The question surprised Grier and set off another flutter of panic in her chest. “I’m really not sure I’ll have time to.”

  “I know you must have a full schedule, but it would mean a lot to me if you could.”

  She considered sparing her mother’s feelings, and then let truth change her mind. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.

  “I understand how you feel,” her mother said. “I wouldn’t expect you to feel anything else.”

  Resentment swirled through Grier and then settled like bile in her throat. Guilt was not a card her mother had any right to play. “I really have to go,” she said, and hung up.

  Grier sat on the side of the bed, willing her hands to stop shaking. She couldn’t decide whether the cause was anger or sadness, but she had no desire to indulge either one. Grier had spent years getting herself to a place of indifference. A place that gave her the ability to live a life unencumbered with the weight of her past. The last thing in the world she intended to do was give her mother the chance to ignite any of those old feelings. And especially not if she was doing it for her own peace of mind. Wasn’t it true there were some things people just had to live with? Some things that couldn’t ever be forgiven or pushed aside like they’d never happened?

  Grier had to believe it was true. She couldn’t say that she had actually healed in the past nineteen years. But she could say that she had finally reached a place of acceptance for the things she would never be able to go back and change. For the things that had happened to her that had never been her fault. She didn’t want to open any of it back up again. Because despite everything, she knew the wounds were still there, raw and painful beneath the surface. And she just couldn’t let herself feel any of it again, not even to give her mother peace.

  Does real love appear as a choice? Or does it arrive, inevitable, irresistible?

  Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Restless and completely wide-awake, Grier left the room around nine o’clock to take Sebbie for a walk. She’d reached the middle of town when her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket, glanced at the number, and recognizing it as local, answered “Hello?”

  “Hey.” It was Bobby Jack’s voice, and just the sound of it sent a jolt from her midsection straight to her heart.

  “I. . .how did you get my number?”

  “Beaner,” Bobby Jack admitted.

  “They really should fire him,” Grier said.

  “Yeah, they really should,” Bobby Jack agreed. “Where are you?”

  “Walking,” she said. “Actually, near the bakery on Main Street.”

  “Can I pick you up?”

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Bobby Jack.”

  “But can I pick you up?”

  Totally devoid of any energy to fight her own doubts, she said, “Yes.”

  “Be there in less than five minutes,” he said and hung up.

  Grier sat down on the bench outside the bakery, which was now closed. Sebbie hopped up beside her and rested his head on her lap. She rubbed his back and said, “I should’ve said no, shouldn’t I?”

  He whined his agreement.

  Bobby Jack pulled up in less than five minutes, lowered the window on the passenger side, and just looked at her, silent. Grier scooped up Sebbie and got in the truck, as if the whole thing were inevitable. Which, she supposed, based on what had happened last night, it was. “Where are we going?” she said.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know, where do you want to go?”

  “We could go to my house. Andy’s staying at her mama’s tonight.”

  Grier considered this and then said, “I’m thinking that’s probably not such a good idea.”

  “I’m thinking you’re probably right,” he said. “Want to come anyway?”

  “Yes,” she said, and he drove.

  People are almost never what you think.

  Don’t even try to figure them out.

  Something Andy once read in a magazine.

  Turns out it’s true.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  So the plan was that Andy would pick George up at the Inn at seven o’clock.

  Andy felt a little funny at the thought of picking a duke up in a truck, but when she’d told him that’s what she would be driving, all he’d said was, “Cool.”

  He definitely got points for that.

  She spent a good two hours getting dressed, fixing her hair with hot curlers, changing outfits half a dozen times until she finally closed her eyes and just picked one.

  She had left a note for her dad on the refrigerator, telling him she was going out and then spending the night with her mom. She’d felt a little ping of guilt for the hurt she knew this would cause him. But then he hadn’t been exactly sensitive to her feelings lately, so why should she be to his?

  All the way to the Inn, she drove with the radio cranked and the windows rolled down, partly to drown out her conscience and partly to subdue her nervousness over seeing George again. Of all the girls he had met today, she still couldn’t figure out why he’d picked her to hang with.

  He was standing in the parking lot, waiting for her. She’d barely rolled to a stop when he popped the door latch and slid in.

  “Hey,” he said with his megawatt smile.

  “Hey,” she said back. “Don’t you have a bodyguard or something?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “From me? Maybe.” She heard herself flirting with him and wondered at her sudden confidence.

  “I think I’ll take my chances,” he said.

  “You may not like your odds.”

  “Oh, I think I will.”

  Andy pulled out of the parking lot and took a right, her hands shaking on the steering wheel. She felt as if a whole flock of butterflies had taken flight in her stomach. “Where to?”

  “Wherever there’s action.”

  “Not a lot of that around here.”

  “Then we can make our own.”

  She glanced over at him, and his smile made her feel like she had everything in the world going for her. “There’s a place I’d like to show you.”

  “Drive on, then,” he said, reaching over to crank the radio.

  They drove through town, blasting Nickelback, their windows down, hands stretched out into the night air. The county road that led to the lake had little traffic, and Andy kept the speedometer at the edge of the speed limit.

  Fifteen minutes outside town, she slowed the truck and turned onto a narrow paved road, drove a few minutes more until they reached the gravel turnoff that led up the mountain overlooking Clearwater Lake.

  “You game?” she asked him, pointing out the windshield at the rutted path ahead of them.

  “Definitely,” he said.

  Andy hit the accelerator, and off they went up the curving mountain road, bouncing and laughing most of the way. Some of the curves were near right angles, and she glanced at George to see if he’d lost his nerve yet.

  “I take it you’ve done this before,” George shouted over the roar of the engine.

  “Four-wheeling is part of driver’s ed here,” Andy teased.

  “Good to know.”

  She laughed, negotiating the last turn before the road straightened to flow out along the ridge of the mountain. She pulled the truck over, cut the engine and locked the emergency brake. “Come on,” she said, opening the door and sliding out.

  He followed her, moonlight guiding their way. Large rocks dotted the edge of the woods, and Andy used them as stepping-stones until they were far enough in for the view to open up before them. Stretched out below the base of the mountain, Clearwater Lake lay like a jeweled carpet, boat lights winking in the distance, house lights dotting the shoreline.

  “Wow,” George said, standing close behind her, close enough that she could feel his chest against her back. “That’s beautiful.”

  “I
t’s my favorite view in the county.”

  “I can see why.”

  She pointed out a blinking light in the distance. “That’s Arrowhead Point. Great place to eat there. And see that boat? That’s the Lennox Lee. It’s like a Mississippi river boat. They do dinner cruises.”

  George slipped his arm around her waist and eased her back against him. His mouth close to her ear, he said, “Do go on.”

  “If you. . .if I—”

  “If you turn your face a little more to the right, then I am going to kiss you.”

  Andy went completely still, the instant kick of her heart proof of her inability to do anything other than exactly that. She lifted her face to his, her lips parting automatically.

  He slipped both arms around her waist and turned her fully to him. Andy dropped her head back to look into his face. “I really want you to kiss me.”

  “I really want to kiss you.”

  And he did. A soft test of a kiss, at first. His lips wonderfully coaxing and insistent against hers.

  Clearly, this wasn’t his first kiss. Except for the few experimental sessions she and Kyle had undertaken when they were fourteen, Andy would call this her first real kiss. By someone who knew what he was doing. How to whisk her up and make her want to follow him along a path on which he held the only light. She didn’t have to try and see what was ahead. All she had to do was hold onto him, let him take her wherever it led.

  And that was exactly what she did, while an owl hooed somewhere down the mountain, and a boat engine hummed on the distant lake.

  This kind of kissing was like dancing, dip and sway, give and take, seek and find.

  Andy could hear the rasp of her own breathing and with it a ping of reason that made her pull back slightly, look up at him through somewhat dazed eyes. “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah, wow,” he said back.

  “That was really nice.”

  George laughed. “Should I be pleased with that assessment?”

  “You should,” she said.

  He pushed her hair back from her face and added, “You’re incredibly pretty, you know.”

  She shook her head, starting to voice a denial, then pressed her lips together and said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He studied her for a moment, and then added, “I get the feeling you don’t think you are.”

  She shrugged. “Life in the shadow of a drop dead gorgeous mother.”

  “She couldn’t be any more gorgeous than you.”

  Andy couldn’t deny the words were nice to hear, but he hadn’t met her mother. “She’s pretty gorgeous.”

  “Do you like her?”

  Andy smiled. “Does anyone like their mother when they’re sixteen?”

  “I like mine,” he said, smiling back.

  “Yeah, but you’re a boy.”

  “True enough.”

  “I just mean, I don’t know, my situation’s kind of different, I guess.”

  “How so?”

  “She left my dad and me when I was three. She was out of my life completely until a few years ago.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. It did. I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel about her. My dad tries to act like he’s okay with me having a relationship with her, but I can tell it bothers him.”

  “That puts you in an awkward position, huh?”

  “A bit. She kind of pushes me to do things he doesn’t agree with.”

  “Like this contest?”

  She shrugged, looking off at the lake. “I wanted to enter.”

  “Mind if I ask why?”

  “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

  “I already know you well enough to guess that’s not why you would enter.”

  “Why do you think I did?”

  “To prove something, I suspect. But you know what, you don’t need to prove anything. I don’t need to have someone else tell me that you’re a winner.”

  The words flowed over Andy like warm honey, easing into the cracks of uncertainty deep inside her. “That’s really nice,” she said.

  “That’s really true,” he said.

  “And I don’t need anyone to tell me what a catch you are. Aside from the royalty and all.”

  He turned away from her then, facing the lake that lay at the foot of the mountain. “I’m not being honest with you, Andy.”

  Andy heard the now serious note in his voice and wondered what he could mean. “How so?”

  He was quiet for several moments, as if he were having difficulty figuring out how to answer her. “I really have no right to be kissing you.”

  “But I wanted you to.”

  “And I wanted to. Believe me.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  “There is someone I am expected to marry when I turn twenty-one.”

  The answer stunned Andy into silence. She struggled to find a response. “You mean. . .like an arranged marriage?”

  He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “For lack of a more modern term.”

  “But why?” She heard the crack in her own voice.

  “For lack of a better explanation, I believe it might be the only thing that will allow my family’s estate to continue its existence.”

  “Because she has a lot of money?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Andy didn’t know what to say. “That sounds so—”

  “Medieval?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Practical is the term my parents use.”

  “That’s a lot of expectation for you to shoulder at your age.”

  “I guess it’s better than bankruptcy,” he said, a note of bitterness at the edges of the assertion.

  “Is she nice?”

  “Actually, yes, she is. And probably no more thrilled about the match than I am.”

  “What’s in it for her?”

  “Her family’s estate borders ours. When we both inherit, the two will be joined.”

  “And that’s important, why?”

  “It would be hard for me to explain exactly. Ancestral pride, maybe? I don’t know. But her family wants the marriage as much as my own.”

  “Mind if I ask why you’ve been kissing me then?”

  He turned back to her, and even in the shadowed light, she saw the apology on his face. “Sometimes, I just want to be someone totally different from who I am. I’m sorry for pulling you into that.”

  She tried to summon up offense or even anger, but neither one would come. “I wanted you to kiss me. I don’t regret it.”

  “You don’t?”

  She shook her head. “It’s nice to be wanted.”

  “Who wouldn’t want you, Andy?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

  He took her hand, led her over to a very large rock. They climbed to the top and sat looking out at the moon-sparkled water below. “Who is he?”

  She shrugged. “No one important.”

  “Clearly, he is.”

  “Someone I used to be really close to.”

  “What happened?”

  “We grew up?”

  “But you still care about him?”

  She shook her head and then, “I wish I didn’t.”

  “Does he know how you feel?”

  “Kyle’s too busy dating the cheerleading squad.”

  George looked at her, a small smile at his mouth. “Slight exaggeration?”

  “Maybe just slight.”

  “Is he a good guy?”

  “Except for the cheerleader thing.”

  He laughed. “You should tell him how you feel.”

  “I’m not sure it matters anymore.”

  “Love always matters.”

  “I didn’t say it was love.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  She considered this, started to deny it, but realized she wouldn’t be convincing. He’d been honest with her. She would give him the same. “I’m really glad I met you, George. Duke of Iberlorn.”
<
br />   “And I’m really glad I met you, beautiful Andy of Timbell Creek.”

  “It is never easy to tell someone what they don’t want to hear.”

  Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  All the lights were out when they got there. Bobby Jack flicked on a couple of lamps as they stepped into the foyer. “Want a drink?” he asked, turning to look at her.

  “I think I’ll pass on that tonight. Okay if I put Sebbie down?”

  “Sure,” he said, calling out, “Flo?”

  From the back of the house, Bobby Jack’s elegant hound came trotting up to them. She wagged her tail at Grier, and then she and Sebbie sniffed each other for approval. Flo turned around and trotted off again with Sebbie right behind her.

  “She’s probably going to show him the best napping spots,” Bobby Jack said.

  Grier smiled. “His favorite activity.”

  “Why don’t we go outside?” Bobby Jack said.

  Grier followed him through the kitchen to the rock terrace where they’d eaten a couple of nights ago. It seemed as if several lifetimes had happened since then.

  “Too cool out here?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” Grier said, rubbing her arms against the chilly spring evening air. Bobby Jack walked over to the stone pit at the edge of the terrace and fixed a small fire from a nearby woodpile. Once it was blazing, he pulled two chairs over, and they both sat down.

  “Why did you call tonight?” she asked.

  He looked at her then, and didn’t answer right away. “I kind of needed somebody to talk to. And I wanted it to be you.”

  She tried to look surprised, but she wasn’t. She felt this thing between them as clearly as he did. To deny it to him would be an insult to both of them. “So what is it?” she asked.

  He was quiet for a moment before saying, “I think I’ve handled this thing with Andy all wrong.”

  “It’s not the easiest job in the world, and besides, Andy’s lucky to have a daddy who cares about her choices and what happens to her.”

  “I don’t really think she’s seeing it that way right now.”