Almost Perfect: A Sweet Small Town Opposites Attract Romance (Back to Silver Ridge Book 1)

by Claire Cain

  The memory and image were burned into my mind, much like all the moments in these hallways, as they’d been here since I could remember. But I kept my eyes pinned there instead of letting them stray to Calla, to the lines of her face or the slope of her neck that slipped into her soft-looking sweater.

  She glanced up and gave me a small smile, but before she could speak, Warrick hollered, “Soup’s on!”

  We made our way back to the kitchen, Calla walking a bit gingerly, if I was reading her right. She had to be sore from the shoveling, stubborn woman. Before we rejoined everyone, I made a pact with myself. However pretty and alluring, this woman wasn’t for me. But I could help her make the most of her time here, even if that meant just being someone nearby. And I could be kind and gentlemanly, starting with not watching as closely as I wanted to as she preceded me down the hall.

  NINE

  Calla

  I sat back, completely full and so satisfied I could’ve cried—or maybe that was my lats and shoulders crying from the insane, unexpected post-shoveling soreness.

  But I’d done enough crying, and nothing about this evening had made me sad. If anything, it’d been so bright and lovely that I wanted to beam at the three Saints around this table. I wanted to Care Bear Stare my joy into them and hope they could feel just how much this all meant to me.

  Warrick’s greeting and continued charm, his mother’s warmth, and Wyatt’s quiet, somber offer had all left me feeling oddly raw. How rare to have a bunch of people giving to me without expectation—I hardly knew them, but I’d interacted enough that at this point, they should be asking for something. Maybe showing their hand about how I could help them if I had connections in the film industry anymore or whatever.

  But now, after thirty minutes of eating together and seeing the way Warrick bounced from subject to subject, his mom following along and Wyatt quietly inserting comments, I felt more than a little warmth for the family.

  It was so beautiful and simple, and yet also an evening I hadn’t had the likes of in memory. Good food, good people, a comfortable home. In a confusing way, it felt like a revelation.

  Not unlike last night’s writing session that’d yielded total junk, but it’d happened. That marked progress. And yes, it’d felt like a new chapter in a book I thought had already come to an end.

  Also… I had other feelings.

  Wyatt’s gentle reassurance that I wasn’t alone had softened a hard place in me, and I didn’t know how to reconcile that sensation with everything. My mind was a tangle of outdated phone-charging cords twisted into an indecipherable knot.

  “Do you cook, Calla?” Jane asked, jolting me back into the moment.

  “Uh, no.” It came out oddly harsh, so I chuckled. “I never learned. Normally, I have someone who helps me with that. I’ve been living off cereal and smoothies while here.”

  Jane’s blue eyes widened, and Warrick audibly gasped before he said, “Unacceptable.”

  Wyatt seemed troubled by the news too. He shifted in his seat, his forehead a stern line of concern.

  “I wish I had. My mom didn’t cook much either, especially after I started modeling. We just… It was an odd life, I guess.” Heat burned in my cheeks without warning, and my pale complexion no doubt broadcasted the color.

  Jane reached out and patted my hand where she sat next to me. “Maybe it was, but plenty of people don’t know how to cook. These boys do pretty well, but only because their grandmother and I forced them to learn.”

  “Wyatt’s the best, by far. Wilder’s decent, or he used to be, but I honestly don’t know anymore.” Warrick settled farther into his seat.

  “And you?” I wondered.

  He flashed a smile. “Oh, I’m excellent.”

  I snickered, and Wyatt outright laughed.

  “Not at all confident, are you War?”

  Warrick gave his brother an imperious look. “Only about certain things,” he replied, winking at me.

  Shaking my head at his antics, my eye caught Wyatt’s, and we smiled at each other. My stomach swooped low, and immediately, an alarm sounded in my mind. I didn’t need that response to tell me I found Wyatt attractive, but all it’d taken was his sincere apology and kind words earlier, and now my body was shouting the information to all systems, apparently.

  “Time to clean up,” Wyatt said, then he took my plate, Jane’s, and Warrick’s. Warrick followed behind, his arms full of serving dishes.

  Jane grinned at me. “We get to sit and watch.”

  I let out the closest thing to a giggle as I’d made in years. If Jenna had been sitting across from me instead of Jane, she would’ve asked who’d snatched my body and replaced it with this bizarro, giggly version of Calla.

  But Jenna wasn’t here, and the evening had worked me over enough to give me freedom to roll with that instead of shrink from it and worry over whether it made me unhinged to be laughing when I’d come here to mourn. I could giggle at this sweet woman’s joke without worrying over my sanity. So, I joined in because the view was certainly excellent. “Works for me.”

  The boys clinked around—one rinsing plates, the other dishing leftovers into containers—and I turned back to Jane. “Thanks so much for including me tonight.”

  She beamed over at me. “Of course. And forgive the awful, completely inappropriate question, but do you have a boyfriend?”

  The water I’d sipped got sucked into the wrong pipe, and I coughed several times before clearing my throat. “No, uh, I don’t.” I glanced toward Wyatt and Warrick, who were thankfully fully engrossed in their clean up and didn’t hear this part of the conversation.

  Did I have a boyfriend? Not after all the news, anyway. We’d called it off, knowing any more connection between us would only hurt Brian. I didn’t want that. Despite his kind offer to stick out the crapstorm, we’d officially ended our public relationship.

  Privately, we’d never actually been together anyway, but that didn’t need to be a part of this conversation.

  The Cheshire cat grin Jane gave me then was almost predatory, but she had such a sweet face, it was hard to see it that way. I needed to squash this little idea while I could.

  “I’m not really in the market, though. I just had a bad breakup.”

  Was it considered a bad breakup when the media declares you’ve cheated on your fake popstar boyfriend who you haven’t actually seen in months and had, in fact, never kissed anywhere but his cheek? One of the headlines had said something like Mayhem Trashes Boyfriend Bri’s Hopes with Clandestine Meetings: Inside the Cheater’s Moves. Thank goodness Brian “Bri” Williamson and I were friends, or I’d feel even worse about the whole thing.

  But the world didn’t have all the details, and the way the papers had reported it was certainly more salacious than a more accurate story like Popstar Meets with Manager, Drinks Decaf, While Fake Boyfriend Lives His Life.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  She pressed her lips together, but the energy in her body reminded me of Warrick’s in that it seemed barely contained and like she still had something to say. Sure enough, then she went on.

  “I’ll just say this once. All three of my boys are the best of men. And assuming not everything I’ve read is true, then you should keep them in mind. Well… these two, anyway.”

  My eyes shifted to Wyatt and Warrick in the kitchen, both occupied with their duties but clearly joking and chatting quietly too. I wished the water from the sink didn’t drown out the low tones of their exchange. It didn’t seem like either of them had put her up to this, nor did I think that was likely. Warrick struck me as a guy who’d just say what he wanted to say, and Wyatt… I didn’t know about Wyatt for sure, but I suspected he didn’t have any trouble finding a date.

  “Thank you. Do you mind if I ask… There’s a third?”

  She smiled.

  “Wilder. He’s…” Her face sobered and her eyes clouded. “He’s been gone a long time. Army. But he won’t be able to avoid us too much longer because he
retires in less than two years, and I know he’s always planned to come back here. So I suppose you may not meet him, though he’s due for a visit sometime soon.”

  Wilder. Wyatt, Warrick, and Wilder. That made three W names, but the first two suited the men so well, so I imagined Wilder was somehow right on too. He sounded intriguing, that was for sure. “He’s retiring from the Army already? Is he the oldest?”

  She smiled again. “No. He’s the middle child, poor thing. Wyatt’s oldest, Warrick’s youngest, and Wilder falls between—two years younger than Wyatt.”

  “You talking about our wayward brother?” Warrick asked from where he leaned against the kitchen island a few feet away. Wyatt still stood at the sink, dutifully scrubbing serving plates.

  “Yes. Don’t start in on him now, though. I’m trying to make sure Calla isn’t scared away by you brutish boys. Talk of Wilder isn’t going to do much for us.”

  Warrick made a pshh sound.

  “Wilder might be a grump most of the time, but I guarantee if she met him, she wouldn’t be scared away.” He tilted his head like he was reconsidering. “Actually, no. She might be scared, but she would also be… intrigued.”

  “Well, you’re definitely selling him to me there. What an odd way to describe someone.”

  He flashed his eyebrows. “Yep. He’s an odd duck, so that fits.”

  Jane chuckled next to me. “Enough of all that. Calla, what are we going to do about your eating situation?”

  “Oh. Uh… I’m doing just fine.”

  She meant it in a kind way, no doubt, but I had no idea what to do about it. Keep eating cereal and try to mix in some bagged salad and pre-cooked grilled chicken? Sounded like a sad existence, but at this point, the goal to lay low still hovered front and center.

  “She’s right, Calla. We’ve got to fix this. I’m thinking maybe you eat breakfast with me and Wyatt. He cooks a hot breakfast every morning, and if he doesn’t, I do. We could also work on taking you with us into town if you need breaks from up here. I hate for you to keep paying for a rideshare.”

  Narrowly avoiding a laugh at his concern for my paying for rides, I couldn’t help the genuine smile on my face. “That’s very kind. It feels like more than you bargained for, though. And I can’t handle being an imposition… please.”

  “I don’t mind,” Wyatt said quietly, but not weakly. He’d turned to engage fully in the conversation, and nothing about his body language or expression spoke of doubt. If anything, he had an air of determination to him.

  “Oh. Thanks. Why don’t you all talk it over after I leave, and you can let me know. I won’t lie and say it doesn’t sound like a good setup for me, but it might not be for you if you think it through.”

  I stood and tucked the cloth napkin back into place atop the matching placemat. These had to be holdovers from their childhood, and like the whole table—the whole night—charmed me. I didn’t have any leftovers from my childhood like this—no old embroidered linens or special pieces of furniture. Not a thing beyond a box full of photo albums from my mom’s mom, and a storage closet full of Gran’s antiques still nestled in a unit somewhere here in Silverton.

  But even the glimpse into town the other day had given me a pull toward that feeling of home I’d missed. New businesses, new people, Silver Ridge Peak in the background, the crisp winter air—it all wrapped around me like an old sweater. I needed to get back there again, and soon.

  I’d had the same nostalgic longing for the small town and sense of home when I’d heard Jamie Morris talking to Julian Grenier at a party about how much he loved using Silverton as his part-time home base. He’d struck the balance between LA, travel, and his true home at the base of Silver Ridge Peak.

  Dreamy.

  “Sure. Sure we will. Wyatt, will you walk her back? I’m actually going to run Mom home, and I might just stay the night in town. Good luck tomorrow.”

  “No, you don’t have to. It’s like a hundred feet. I’m f—”

  “No point in protesting, dear. You’re not going by yourself,” Jane said, then hugged me to her.

  The move surprised me, but I squeezed her back just in time before she pulled away. “Thanks again.”

  The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as Warrick helped Jane bundle against the now-snowy evening and Wyatt wound a scarf around his neck. For some reason, the sight of him with what looked like a hand-knit scarf made my stomach flip. A different kind of plaid than the shirt he’d worn tonight, he wasn’t a man who coordinated his outfit down to his socks. Observation said that what he did had meaning, and I suspected the things he owned had significance, too. An unmatching but special scarf from a relative or girlfriend would trump this man’s need to look any particular way.

  What a stupid thing to find endearing, and yet that scarf might as well have wrapped around my own neck, warm as it made me. Refocusing on the task at hand, I pulled on gloves and my cashmere hat—impractical for snow, but it was so soft and warm.

  “After you,” he said, that deep voice doing nothing to settle the flippy feeling.

  We crunched out onto the path just as Warrick’s headlights lit the long entrance to the property.

  “Did you need a ride tomorrow? I have a, uh, thing in town. I’d be happy to take you and, if you don’t mind hanging around a few hours, bring you back.”

  “Yes. Please. Yes.” I laughed, and his warm, low chuckle sent a shiver through me. “Sorry. Maybe a little overeager. I came here to be alone and hide away, but…”

  He raised a brow as we stepped onto the porch and into the light there.

  “I’m just bored.”

  He smiled—not exactly stingy, but sparing. He wasn’t like Warrick, handing out thousand-watt charmers. His was a flicker of a candle casting shadows on a wall.

  “Then be ready by ten thirty. We’ll head down and I’ll head back up by about one thirty or two.”

  Relief and anticipation shot through me. “Perfect. Yes. I’ll be ready. Thank you.”

  If my voice was too eager, he didn’t show it. He simply nodded, turned, and trudged back to his house.

  As I shucked my boots and hung my jacket, the simmering excitement and belly full of food made me smile to myself. I went to bed without crying, without that desolate, isolated feeling. My mind too muddied with memories from the evening, and a little drowsy after eating the filling meal, I let myself sink into my pillow with an unfamiliar, beautiful lightness. With… hope.

  Lost in the world of Miss Mayhem too long, and more than that, buried under worrying about Candy and too many other things I couldn’t control, I had forgotten what it felt like to simply enjoy being with people. No agendas or networking opportunity hidden in the unwritten expectations of the night. No greasy feeling on my palms and in my chest at the end of a night spent “charming” people by showing up in as much skin as possible and being there purely because I was famous.

  Just nice people and good food in a welcoming, well-loved home.

  But I wasn’t Mayhem anymore. At least not in my heart, in these moments to myself. And Calla, now that I’d returned to her, would have more moments like these. As I drifted off, I promised she’d have many, many more nights just like this.

  TEN

  Wyatt

  Dark-haired women haunted my dreams.

  Well, not women. A woman. Just the one. I couldn’t even say what the dream was, but I woke up feeling off. Hosting dinner at the house last night had been strangely exhausting. I hadn’t had a stranger in my house in ages, and though Calla wasn’t a complete stranger, I didn’t know her. And confusingly, I wanted to.

  I’d tossed out the invitation to give her a ride today and hoped she hadn’t heard the eager, hopeful tone to my voice. If she had, she hadn’t shown it, but she had said yes readily, thankfully.

  It might’ve been weird that I was going to be driving with one woman into town and then meeting another one for lunch, but I had no illusions that Calla was a possibility for me. She was too far out t
here.

  That might sound terrible, but she was literally out there in the world. Her image was on everything from perfume campaigns to magazine covers. I didn’t know her full story, but she’d modeled years ago, plus she got paid to endorse certain products. Her face, her fame, her life was available for public consumption.

  Basically, she was the opposite of the quiet, family-focused life I’d craved to build for myself. She might’ve also been compelling to me in a way I didn’t understand, but that didn’t change things. I’d help her—offer rides to town, feed her, be available when needed like a landlord or acquaintance. Maybe friend.

  Nothing more, obviously. Which suited me just fine.

  At ten o’clock, I’d already done everything I needed to before I went to get Calla. I couldn’t show up a half hour early, though—that just wouldn’t do. So I puttered around the house, folding a few towels that I hadn’t bothered to take out of the dryer earlier. Warrick’s messages interrupted my aimless daydreaming.

  “Did you hold hands with a popstar last night?”

  “Good grief,” I muttered and messaged him back immediately. “You’re a menace.”

  “I’m just curious. And you know you want to.”

  I ignored the tightening in my gut and shot back, “I want no such thing.”

  “Yeah? Who would want a gorgeous, successful woman living right next door?”

  I couldn’t help it, and I couldn’t stand to text him anymore. He knew I hated texting. I dialed him up. “What’s the deal? First, I don’t want her, and second, you warned me away from her the first day we talked about her.”

  He snickered. “Methinks the rancher doth protest too much.”

  I growled at him. He laughed into the phone and it slammed into my ear, taunting me just like he wanted it to.

  “Seriously though, she seems awesome. I couldn’t wholeheartedly endorse her, but she’s got more going for her than anyone you’ve gone out with in years.”