Will took in his surroundings. They were like rocks amid a stream of moving people. He edged them off the floor. Krista seemed about to speak when Alyssa appeared.
“You two looked pretty good out there.”
He’d made a point of sidestepping her whenever possible today. He didn’t want to deal with her, not when he was busy with Krista.
“Thanks,” Krista said. “Will made us look good.”
Alyssa gave him the once-over. “I believe it.” She was coming on pretty strong, right in front of Krista, who had wiped her face clear of its earlier liveliness and was now neutral.
“A couple of rough spots for you, Krista,” Alyssa continued.
Now why did she have to bring that up? “Krista did just fine, if you ask me. And I ought to know, seeing as how I was right there with her.”
Both women startled. What did he say so wrong? Krista said in a rush to Alyssa, “I’m glad you came. Have you had a chance to speak to Laura? Other than after the ceremony, I mean?”
Laura was sitting at a table of aunts and uncles. Ryan was doing his hosting duties at another table with his family tribe. Alyssa’s mouth twisted. “She’s got plenty of company, I’d say.”
The DJ struck up a song Will liked. He could teach Krista this one, easy.
But Alyssa moved between them. She wore a dress with giant pink flowers, so it was like a garden had sprung up in front of him. “Still remember the two-step?” Alyssa asked.
“I do,” he said and he had no choice but to dance with Alyssa. Otherwise, his brush-off might lead to a scene he’d promised Krista he’d avoid, and quite honestly didn’t want to create. He watched her wander off to have her own fun while he pretended not to miss her. Odd how he didn’t have to fake having fun with his fake girlfriend.
Fake girlfriend and for-real friend.
* * *
KRISTA TURNED HER back to the dance floor so she didn’t have to watch Alyssa in Will’s arms. That might appear a tad obsessive. She and Will were only friends, after all. Very new, straight-out-of-the-wrapping friends. But—the way he’d hesitated to dance with Alyssa, shy and worried, as if her reaction really mattered—something more was there.
Or she simply wanted there to be more. She forced her gaze to drift among the guests at the tables, lighting on Dana and Keith. A toddler in an adorable dress shirt and pants was standing on Dana’s lap. Austin, Keith’s boy. He started stomping on her lap. Keith didn’t waste a second but swept up his son and calmly began threading his way among the tables to the exit, Austin howling and kicking as if his dad was kidnapping him. Dana watched them uncertainly and then dropped back to her seat.
She looked lost and lonely. Krista found herself going to her, even though they were little more than acquaintances. But hey, misery loves company.
“That cute dude knows his mind,” Krista said.
“More like he’s out of it. It’s a half hour past his bedtime and he refused to nap this afternoon with all the excitement and noise, so now he’s overtired.”
“Keith’s got a handle on it.”
“He refused my help. Told me to take the evening off. Enjoy myself.”
Austin had been perched on Dana’s lap during the ceremony, Krista remembered. “You babysat him the whole day?”
“Not the whole day. Keith helped when he could, but it’s his sister’s wedding, so I wanted him to have a break, too.”
So this was why Dana had declined being Will’s fake girlfriend. She and Keith were a thing. “How long have you two been dating?”
Dana’s eyes widened. “We’re not dating. We’re just...friends.”
Another couple caught in the slick ground of Friendland. “I’m sorry, I misread that. You two seemed...a couple.”
Dana brightened. “You think?”
Ah. “You’d like to be...close to Keith?”
Dana colored. “That obvious, is it?”
“No. You two work well together, is all.”
“He really got burned by his ex. All women are off-limits now.”
It was none of her business but she couldn’t sit on the obvious, either. “You are different,” Krista said quietly. “He trusts his son with you. He’s known you forever.”
“Yes, and that’s the problem. To him, I’m another family member.”
“If you keep acting like one, then that’s what he’ll keep on believing.”
“What do you mean?”
Who was she to give romantic advice, given her bust with Phillip? Except she’d learned the importance of honesty. “Define yourself differently. Like how you refused to be Will’s fake girlfriend this year.”
“He told you about our arrangement?”
That man. Not honest with Alyssa and now he was holding back on his best friend. Dana would find out soon enough. “Yeah. After you turned him down, he asked me.”
Dana’s eyebrows nearly lifted clear off her face. “You?”
“I know. After today, people will say Will’s crazy to take me on as his girlfriend.”
“What? You agreed?”
“Yeah. He sweetened the deal by saying I might pick up a few clients.”
“You two are using each other?”
“Sort of. Are we using each other if we both know we are?”
“I guess it’s fine. Let me warn you that you’re in for an exhausting five days during the rodeo. He used to pay me back with concert tickets, flowers, dinner. It was like we were dating, he was that grateful.”
“The girls come on that bad?”
“As bad as Alyssa with him right now.”
Krista stole a glance. Alyssa was dancing close, despite the looseness of Will’s hand on her spine. She was a good dancer, way better than Krista’s hopping.
Dana leaned close. “Does Alyssa know, by chance?”
“No. Not yet.” Hopefully she wouldn’t, either. Not until after Will had talked with her.
Dana sat back. “That’s a ticking bomb.”
“One Will’s reluctant to be anywhere close to when it goes off.”
Will’s best friend studied Krista. “But you’re saying that we both need to get out of our comfort zones.”
“That’s my experience, Dana. You have to know what you want first.”
“I want four kids by age thirty-five. But I’m already thirty, and not a father for them in sight.”
Krista grinned. “You’ve already got one kid. The father just doesn’t realize it.”
The music ended, and without thinking, Krista searched the dance floor for Will. There he was, scanning the tables. For her? Alyssa was tight against him.
Dana tapped her arm. “Will seems to be looking for you. You’re his new comfort zone.”
That was what he wanted from her. Friendship. A comfort zone. And that’s what she’d accepted. Except somehow it left her wanting more.
* * *
FIVE DAYS LATER, Krista was seated at the deck table on the covered front porch of Bridget’s house. Krista’s sisters had been staring at her all night.
She’d had enough. “What? What?”
“What do you think, Krista?”
“Oh, quit that, Mara. I hate when you psycho-people make us say what you already know.”
“It’s like with Isabella’s math questions,” Bridget said, referencing her oldest daughter. “Show four ways that six plus five makes eleven.”
“Okay then, Krista,” Mara said, nestling into her deck chair. “Show me four ways that you’ve fallen for Will Claverley.”
Krista swirled the red wine in her glass. “I can’t even show you one. It is possible to like a guy but not want to be with him. Dana and Will, for example.”
Mara crossed her legs and swung her foot. “It’s possible. Not entirely convinced in this case.”
“I already explained o
ur situation weeks ago and there’s no point rehashing it.”
An SUV with a logo for Penny’s on the passenger door pulled up. Jack, Bridget’s husband as of four months ago, got out. It had kept Krista believing in true love when her adopted sister and her newfound cousin had taken a second chance on each other.
Bridget and Jack had a routine that even the presence of her and Mara on their weekly Thursday night meetup didn’t alter. First, the kiss. Then the exchange of comments on how good or tired or hungry the other might be. Next asking after their adopted daughters, Sofia and Isabella, who had gone to bed a half hour ago. And only then would they open the conversation up to anyone else in their presence.
Bridget brought Jack up to speed. “Krista was about to tell us four ways she’s fallen for Will Claverley.”
“I know Will,” Jack said, dropping into the last deck chair as he cracked the tab on a beer. “He donated their dance space for a charity event I did with Penny, years ago.” Penny was not only the deceased aunt of the Montgomery sisters but also the biological mother of Jack. “Nice guy but isn’t he big into rodeos, horses, the outdoor life?”
“Exactly,” Krista said. “Nice guy but we’ve got nothing in common.”
“Here, let’s flip it around,” Bridget said. “Show me four ways that Will has fallen for you.”
“Same answer. None, because he hasn’t.”
“I’ll start,” Bridget said. “He submits to one of your pedicures even though he doesn’t like them.”
“I’d like one,” Jack said. “Why haven’t you given me one?”
“I will, when you pay for it. Which Will did.”
“Why would he pay for something he doesn’t want?”
“It was part of a package for his mother. I didn’t want to rip him off, so I persuaded him to give it a try.”
“One,” Bridget repeated.
Krista turned to Jack. “Okay, a man’s perspective here. What do you think?”
He raised his gaze to the porch ceiling. “All you’ll get is my opinion, because every man is as unique as a snowflake and needs to be respected for their individuality.”
“You’re trying to get out of this.”
“Yep.”
“Just be honest.”
“Three words a man absolutely should not believe a woman means.”
“I promise I will not disown you,” Krista said.
“Your first time together and you talked him into putting on pajamas. I’d say you got some pull with him.”
“That’s not—”
“He did an extra one-on-one practice session with Krista to teach her dance moves for the wedding,” Bridget told Jack.
Jack seesawed his head. “Cutting her from the pack. Happens in bars all the time.”
Bridget held up two fingers. “Then on the wedding day, he drives her into town to pick up shoes because she ruined the first pair, even though Krista had told him she could take from Laura’s closet.”
“Using every opportunity to be alone with her.” Jack smiled at Bridget. “Best seven minutes of the day.”
He and Bridget kissed, even as she raised three fingers to Krista.
“And four—” Mara joined the take-down of Krista “—he agrees to break up with a girl he’s not even dating because Krista asked him to.”
Jack broke off his kiss. “That sounds messed up, Krista. How does that work?”
Krista glared at Mara. “For a therapist, you should know better than to twist the facts. I suggested to Will to be honest with someone he doesn’t want to date but who clearly has feelings for him.”
“I get where Mara is coming from,” Bridget said. “Will’s also giving the all-clear signal that he’s open to a relationship.”
“That pretty much wraps it up,” Jack said. “He’s into you.”
“Except he told me he wasn’t. We have an understanding from way back.”
Jack frowned in confusion. “Later,” Bridget said.
“Wait,” Mara said. “Isn’t this the same guy that you accused of not being honest because he hadn’t been clear with Alyssa about his feelings for her?”
Mara was leaning forward. Too much like a detective grilling a prime suspect. “Yes,” Krista said cautiously.
“Then if you agree that he isn’t always honest about the things he doesn’t say, isn’t it also possible that he isn’t being entirely honest about the things he does say?”
Three “gotcha” smiles surrounded Krista. “If you saw me and Will together,” she said desperately, “you’d get how mismatched we are.”
“Invite him to our Canada Day barbecue, then, and we’ll see for ourselves,” Bridget said. “Deidre will be there, too. Time she weighed in.”
Krista had to actually unpack her mother’s suitcase to stop her from flying east to tear a strip off Phillip. “Definitely not. It’ll send the wrong message. She’ll grill him as if we’re dating. And we’re not. We’re just friends, okay?”
They smiled indulgently, like when the kids said something cute and naive.
“Now look,” Jack said, “at who’s not being honest with their feelings.”
CHAPTER SIX
IT BECAME CLEAR to Krista after Laura’s wedding that she needed to get back in the social media game. Three of the six clients she’d booked from the wedding had asked how they and their friends could follow her. Ringing silence on her website suggested that Phillip had grown bored.
Still, when she set up a Facebook page for the spa, she put it under Bridget’s personal profile. She posted artsy shots of the shop with a “hello” discount for a manicure or pedicure to first-time clients. After texting her clients for their permission to post pictures of their finished hands and feet, she watched her follower list grow, her likes uptick and her discounts “loved.”
Then she had a sneaky, buzzing thought. What if she were to check up on her Down East peeps? No, bad idea. She was setting herself up to be hurt, and this time it would be totally her fault. But she couldn’t shake the impulse, even after she closed down her computer and mopped the floor. It was the ice cream cake for the dieter, the whiskey for the alcoholic. The Facebook search for the trolled victim.
She rationalized her craving. She could prove to herself that she was healed. That she could face her greatest fear and move on. In fact, she wouldn’t be able to move on if she didn’t. Mara would agree, if asked.
In case things went sideways, she closed the curtains of the spa, flipped the sign to Closed and moved the tissues closer. She started small, calling up the profile of a friend of a friend. Krista scrolled through pictures of the other woman’s vacation in New York, the Summer Concert Series in Toronto. One photo included a friend who Krista often had drinks with. Krista clicked on the tag and was bounced over to that friend’s page. Nothing much there...same shots of the Summer Concert Series, snaps in clothes the friend had designed until...there, Phillip. He was shown with his arms around a different girl than the one he’d rebounded off Krista with. Another blue-eyed blonde. He clearly had a type. He’d moved on, well on.
Krista checked in with her emotions as Mara had instructed her to do. A few licks of shame, but she felt ready to rip off the bandage. She typed in his name and tapped Search.
There he was. With a new profile pic of himself and his latest cutie-pie, temples touching as he’d done with Krista.
Little emotional waves rose and then crashed, but nothing breached Krista’s peace. Like how she withstood memories of her father who’d passed from a stroke five years ago, and her aunt who’d died in a car accident last fall. It hurt, but time had padded the blow. She’d moved on before and she could again.
For kicks and giggles, she typed in Laura’s name. Wedding pics bloomed all over her timeline, including a big one of her and Ryan for her cover image. Wasn’t she on her honeymoon, too busy to be updating her
profile? Krista settled into scanning through the pics. She’d have to show them to her sisters. The picture of her on Silver, riding barefoot, the dreamy ones of Laura and Ryan caught off guard, so much in love.
And then...one of her and Will.
She’d been trying to dismount from Silver after the photo shoot. Will had guided Silver into place for her time and again during the shoot. She had hoped to at least get off on her own but because of her tight skirt, she ran the risk of flashing everyone.
“Don’t even think of it,” Will had said, striding over. “You can’t hop off like the horse is a fence.”
He’d held up his arms. “Ease yourself off and I’ll take you the rest of the way.”
“No,” she said, and then whispered through her plastered smile, “My skirt will ride up.”
He grinned. “You mean even farther?”
She’d instinctively clamped her knees together which made her appear even sillier.
“C’mon. Hands on my shoulders. If Silver’s like her owner, she’s had enough of today’s nonsense.”
Krista had smiled down at him and that was the moment the camera had captured. Her hands on his shoulders, his hands on her waist, lifting her down and the two of them laughing about what a horse might be thinking.
Except in the image they appeared to be two people madly in love. Which they weren’t.
Only more proof that social media twisted the truth.
On impulse, she searched Will’s name. There were loads of recent pictures, but the text running with them didn’t sound a bit like him. Here I am at my sister’s wedding. Isn’t she beautiful? A good enough photo of Will and Laura smiling together, but no way would Will ask that question. He wouldn’t care what other people thought; he knew his sister was beautiful.
In a separate post was one of Alyssa and Will. He stood, hands on hips, but Alyssa had squeezed herself tight against him. Krista could make out dancing couples behind them—and from the angle, it appeared Alyssa herself had taken the picture. A good friend and I two-stepping to “Nobody but You”. Good times, great company!
“Oh, gag me,” Krista said aloud. Alyssa had posted that. Alyssa, queen of social media and organizer of the Claverley Rodeo, had appointed herself his social media manager. Ten to one, Will hadn’t even seen this post.
Harlequin Heartwarming June 2021 Box Set Page 79