“Yeah. But when Dana was by my side, she kept them on the other side of the fence, so to speak.”
Krista had no idea where he was going with this. Was he going to introduce Krista to the buckle bunnies as prospective clients?
“Only this year, Dana can’t help. I don’t want to get into her reasons.
“So, I’m kinda short my—uh, pretend girlfriend.”
“But why do you need one? You won’t be competing in this year’s rodeo, right?”
“No, and I probably won’t get as much interest because of that, but I was still planning to do a celebrity ride. It’s a fundraiser for Alyssa’s nephew.”
Alyssa was Laura’s maid of honor, and she’d told Krista about the event herself. Jacob had been in and out of the hospital for leukemia treatments since January. Alyssa and her family’s fear must be constant. Krista would be devastated if either of her nieces, nine and six, got that diagnosis. Will’s ride would raise money for the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, a short two-hour drive away. “Why not ask Alyssa to be your fake girlfriend?”
Will hitched again. “Well, that’s the thing. I get the feeling she’s...more into me than I’m into her.”
Krista sympathized with Alyssa. She knew exactly how it felt to get the big thumbs-down from Will. “And you don’t want to send mixed signals.”
“Right. So... I was thinking...” He looked at her long and hard.
No. He couldn’t possibly—“You want me to be your fake girlfriend?”
“Only for those few days. You and I seem to get along well enough and we both agree we’re not exactly suited.”
“Yes,” Krista said firmly, “definitely. Polar opposites. And opposites attract but then—”
“Blow apart,” Will concluded.
He sounded like his mother. Krista cut to the point. “You want me to be your girlfriend because we mix like cake and cabbage. We both know that we don’t want each other so we don’t have to worry about hurt feelings. I get it. Sure.”
He blinked. “Don’t you want to know what you’ll get out of it first?”
That would’ve been the obvious thing to ask. Instead she’d come off sounding no better than a buckle bunny. She set aside his freshly massaged foot. “You as my A-list client?” she joked.
He smiled, not a suppressed giggly kind, but a wide, open one for her and her alone. “Even better. How about five days of you schmoozing with the entire rodeo crowd from central Alberta, exposure to hundreds. Even if you picked up a half-dozen clients, wouldn’t that be worth it?”
It would be. Every month was still touch-and-go. She couldn’t fail. Not when she was finally where she was meant to be and doing what she was meant to do. “When’s the rodeo?”
“Second weekend in June.”
About six weeks away. “That’ll work.”
“We have a deal?”
“Deal.”
Will leaned back and closed his eyes. Technically, she’d finished her massage but for the first time since entering, he appeared entirely relaxed. She wheeled her stool gently away. A few minutes more of making her latest client happy couldn’t hurt.
CHAPTER THREE
“YOU?” BRIDGET SAID. “Will Claverley’s fake girlfriend?”
“Didn’t I just finish saying that?” Krista tapped her sister’s empty wineglass. “How about I drive you home now?”
“No way. Girls’ night out. The one night of the week I drink, even if it’s a Thursday.”
“Pick-on-Krista-night more like.”
“You have to admit,” said Mara, ever the diplomat, “that you have introduced a remarkable element into the evening.”
The sisters were out on the deck, taking in the last rays of the setting sun from the upper balcony of the townhouse Krista and Mara rented. It was usually one of Krista’s favorite times of the week, but not when she was in the hot seat. She had reasoned that by waiting a few days to casually inform her sisters of her deal with Will, she could pass it off as an incidental tidbit.
Instead, they were turning it into a full meal. “It’s not at all remarkable. We’re together four, five days off and on.”
Bridget filled her wineglass to the brim. “What’s ‘off and on’? How exactly does this arrangement work? Do you pretend to kiss but then don’t?”
Krista wondered herself. She cut herself another slice of lemon meringue pie. Not only was Thursday her weekly dose of sisterhood but also of dessert. “I guess we’ll figure it out when the time comes. He and Dana must’ve come up with a system. I’ll do the same thing. Except I’ll come with business cards.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve you and horses. You’re terrified of them.”
“Will is well aware I’m not a horsey or ranch-y kind of person. That’s the point.”
Mara perked up. “The point? Wouldn’t the point be to have a fake girlfriend that could—well, fake it? Not somebody so obviously unsuited.”
“No.” Krista wrapped her mouth around her forkful of pie and pulled it slowly off. Heaven. “This way, there is zero danger we’ll become a couple for real and complicate things.”
Mara opened her mouth to speak but Bridget interrupted. “The Claverley Rodeo is a huge deal in this town. Jack and I have upped the restaurant’s food orders and plan on three full breakfast sittings from Thursday to Sunday, and we’re opening for dinner service, too. Every year the rodeo gets bigger. People come from Saskatchewan, Montana, you name it. And—” she pointed her finger at Krista “—the media gets bigger, too.”
“But the focus is on the cowboys and the ranch and...those kinds of things. Not me.”
“And did that matter when it came to Phillip?”
The tang of the pie soured in her mouth. The pain of her breakup with her Toronto boyfriend still chafed. In November, she’d flown back to Spirit Lake for her aunt’s funeral, but she’d stayed longer than intended. Phillip had given her an ultimatum: come back to him now or stay put. When her Auntie Penny’s will bequeathed her a commercial unit to launch any business her heart desired, her answer was clear. She’d called him to break things off. He’d barely uttered a dozen words during that conversation, apparently saving up all his fury for the days and weeks ahead.
It started with a post on Instagram showing a picture of her clothes inside a dumpster with the attached lines, “This is what happens when my ex doesn’t heed the move-out date.” His followers and even some of hers whom she’d counted as friends joined in with their own hyena-like nasty comments.
Except it hadn’t stopped there. Next he posted photos of his new girlfriend with innuendoes about how she could be trusted—unlike some. Krista posted a pic of Krista’s Place with its boarded-up windows and crumbling steps before the renovations. She’d wanted to share her own excitement and, yeah, maybe let everyone out there know she was about more than appearances, that she was willing to put in the hard work. She’d prettied up the image with the lettering “The heart wants what the heart wants.”
Her one-time friends had a field day with backhanded comments. “Congratulations! Hope you get everything you deserve.” “This a picture of your heart?” “No, the guy’s after she’s done.” After a few attempts at lighthearted replies which only spurred more snarkiness, she stopped responding altogether.
Meanwhile Phillip and his pack tagged her in photos with the hashtag #becausekristawants. Next a picture of a freakish blonde plucking hundred-dollar bills from a guy’s back pocket. The same blonde stabbing a heart, and then an image of her roundhouse kicking a guy.
Phillip had been able to stage the photos because he freelanced as a set photographer. The hashtag trended for an incredible three weeks. Krista became an Instagram meme for any chick who crushes hearts in pursuit of shallow dreams.
Krista had closed her Instagram account with her seven thousand followers and, because Instagram
was connected to Facebook, she’d shut off her four thousand followers there, too. She didn’t have a profile on Twitter and didn’t dare open one, dead certain she’d be hunted down and trolled. She had retained her website which she could control and had deleted one nasty comment after another from her contact page.
“All that stuff with Phillip has died down,” she said. “I haven’t had any action for the past two weeks or so.”
Bridget scrolled through her phone. “Things are already coming up for the Claverley Rodeo on Facebook and Instagram. It’s going to be hard to avoid.”
Flutters of panic rose up in Krista but her bossy, well-meaning sister was not going to fluster her. “It’s not like that crowd in Toronto is searching up a rodeo, anyway.”
Bridget pulled a face. “No, but they will hunt you up.”
“I’m not on social media, so there’s no linking back to me. Anyway, Will shies away from the media spotlight. That’s the reason he wants me to run interference. So he can sneak away from it all.” He actually hadn’t said that, but it was a safe assumption.
“You might not be on social media, but Laura and Alyssa are,” Bridget reminded her. “Krista, I’m worried that one wrong photo will bust it wide open for you again, except this time your Spirit Lake rodeo friends will be dragged into it.”
“Laura will be on her honeymoon, and Alyssa and I aren’t all that close. I will talk to Will and explain the situation, if I have to. Okay?”
Bridget didn’t seem convinced, but Krista had quieted her for the moment. She enjoyed a breath. “Can I now enjoy the rest of the evening with my two favorite sisters?”
Bridget snuggled down into the patio cushions, but Mara stayed upright. Her eyes were thoughtful and penetrating when she turned them to Krista. Uh-oh.
“Wasn’t Will Claverley the one you once asked out and he refused?”
Bridget shot to full alert. “What’s this?”
Mara gestured to Krista to take the stage, which she grudgingly did. “It was a lifetime ago. I was sixteen. He was twenty.”
Bridget gasped. “You asked out a twenty-year-old when you were only sixteen? Did Mom know?”
And this was exactly why she’d sworn Mara to secrecy. “No! Anyway, considering I was old enough to have a driver’s license, I was old enough to date a guy four years older than me.”
Bridget snorted her disagreement but circled her hand for Krista to continue. “It was over at Laura’s place. I’d had a couple of drinks, and he was older and good-looking, and so I went for it. He said, ‘I appreciate you thinking of me that way, but I don’t see us going anywhere, thank you.’ And that was that.”
“Is that what he said?” Bridget asked.
“Word for word.”
“Ten years later and you remember it verbatim,” Mara remarked, licking her lips after her last bite of pie.
Except her remarks weren’t ever just remarks. They went soul deep. That probably accounted for her small but very dedicated client base. She was like a wise oracle that people pilgrimaged to. It didn’t help that she also dispensed her wisdom to Krista when it wasn’t asked for.
“What can I say? It was classic.”
“And,” Bridget said, “it was probably the only rejection you ever got.”
She was right. Krista had never had to ask for a date. More to the point, she’d never felt as compelled to ask a guy out as much as she had with Will. And that seemed to be the point Mara was driving at.
“Are you saying that I’m doing this so I can finally date the guy who rejected me? Strike him from my bucket list?”
Mara tilted her head, a small gesture that made both sisters suck in their breath. It was her signature “gotcha” move—quiet but deadly.
“It’s not true,” Krista said. “No way. Because we already hashed it out. We both agreed that opposites might attract but never last. And if there were ever two opposites, it’s him and me.”
Bridget turned to Mara. “I do believe our little sister has her head screwed on straight.”
“Yes,” Mara said, “but even Krista knows that the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“All this enterprising little heart wants,” Krista emphasized, “is more clients. That’s it.” She paused. “And for Will to raise a ton of money for the children’s charity.” She gave it more thought. “And the rodeo’s general success because it’ll be good for Penny’s. Right, Bridget?”
She pretended not to notice the exchange of raised eyebrows between her sisters. “See? Everyone’s hearts are perfectly aligned.”
* * *
WILL WOKE TO sunlight busting through the east window of Harry’s House, the name the Claverleys gave to the modified double garage their old hired man had fashioned for himself. When he’d moved into Spirit Lake a few years ago, it had stood idle until Keith had moved in temporarily with his bride. Very temporarily. She’d been pregnant when they married and was gone six months after Austin was born.
Keith and Austin had moved into the main house with their parents. So Harry’s had become Will’s. It would do until he’d reason to expand. He rubbed his bare feet together. Four days since the pedicure and his feet were still as soft as little Austin’s. He didn’t know a grown-up’s feet could feel so good. Figured once a man had calluses you kept them, like lines on your face.
He also didn’t think his feet had ever been touched as much, even by himself. When Krista had squirted hay-smelling lotion on her hands and begun massaging his feet, it was all he could do not to pass out from pleasure. She’d pressed her thumbs down the arches, tugged on his toes, rotated his ankle joints.
I usually go up to the knee, she’d said, but I can stick to your feet if that makes you more comfortable.
What made him uncomfortable was how comfortable her hands on his feet felt.
They would never be the same again.
Dana knocked on the side door. He could tell it was her from the soft, quick pattern. He swung out of bed and his feet hit the laminate. “Get used to it,” he ordered them. He called “Come in” as he headed to the bathroom in his pajama shorts.
“Why aren’t you up and at it?” she barked as he closed the bathroom door. “I’m the one who had to load the posts and drive over. You just had to get dressed, maybe get some eggs in you.”
“Good morning to you, too. I had to pull a calf at two this morning.”
“That’s what you get for late calving. Cuts into time for fencing and seeding.”
Will flushed the toilet in answer. As he stepped out of the bathroom, he smelled coffee. He spotted the red container on his nightstand. “By Tim Hortons already?”
“Up at the crack of dawn.”
“Should’ve slept longer and then you wouldn’t have needed the coffee,” Will said and crossed past her to his chest of drawers. Harry’s, actually, but he’d had no room for it at the seniors’ lodge. Passed from one bachelor to the next. Depressing.
Dana shifted from one booted foot to the other. “I got the coffee because I kinda overreacted about the rodeo gig the other day. I feel bad, I can do it.”
He couldn’t remember the last time Dana had ever felt bad about anything she’d done to him. It always fell into the for-your-own-good category. He dug out a pair of underwear and socks, located his jeans on the back of the lone chair.
Will tossed his clothes on the bed and whirled his finger around to indicate she ought to turn away. She complied with an eye roll.
“Actually, don’t worry about it. I figured something out.” Will noticed his socks had a hole in the right heel and the big toe of his left wouldn’t make it through the day. His pampered skin would rub on the sole of his boot, and he’d have blisters and blood by day’s end. With Krista’s reprimand about his feet deserving care still ringing in his ears, he rooted through his drawer for a brand-new pair he’d been saving for a special occasio
n. “I found someone else.”
“To be your fake girlfriend? Who?”
It wasn’t a secret. Krista had probably told her family already. Will had put off telling his. Krista Montomgery had a way of riling up the Claverleys. Typically, Laura would sing Krista’s praises, his mother would give a dismissive comment, Laura would retaliate, Keith would defend their mother, and all the while he and his dad would keep their heads down. If Dana found out first, he’d never hear the end of it.
Will peeled off the stickers and snapped the new socks apart. “I should probably give my folks the heads up first.” And because Dana would say that he’d shared plenty of things with her before informing his parents, he quickly added, “Anyway it’s not as if I pried into who you are after.”
“That’s different,” Dana said over her shoulder. “This is somebody you’re not wanting to have a relationship with.”
“All the more reason it doesn’t matter who it is.” He put on a sock and reached for the other. The door opened and in walked Keith, Austin riding on his arm. He took a look at the scene and scowled. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” Will said. “Me getting dressed. Do you mind?”
“We’re fencing along our line this morning, and he’s taking all day,” Dana said in a rush. “Are you decent yet?”
Will checked his phone. “Seven twelve is not all day. And I’m putting pants on.”
Dana sidled up to Austin. “Good morning, little man,” she cooed. “You ready to play?”
“He should be,” Keith said. “Caught him climbing the safety gate on the stairs.” He groaned. “It’s like being on suicide watch.”
Austin pitched himself forward into Dana’s waiting hands. She smacked a kiss on his chubby cheeks. He wiggled down and beelined for Will’s hot coffee. Practiced, Will swept it away and replaced it with a small chip bag. Austin plunked down on his bum and set to exploring its crinkliness and potential to still have crumbs.
Harlequin Heartwarming June 2021 Box Set Page 75