by Cindy Kirk
“I suppose that’s about right, considering the ten bridesmaids, ten groomsmen, the house party, the ring bearer, and seven flower girls.”
“Plus out-of-town family. Do you think this barn of yours will be big enough?”
“This barn of mine, I do believe, will be big enough.”
He rolled down his window and rested a bent arm on the door. Sunlight shimmered against his TAG Heuer watch and made clear the details of his beautifully masculine forearm, wrist, hand. His firm, aristocratic profile could have belonged to an Italian prince.
Try to think of him in a kindly fashion, Holly. Not so much prince-like as pleasant-old-friend-like. “So, you live in Paris now.”
“I do.”
“What brought you to Paris?”
“I lived in New York after college, when my company was a start-up. But I knew I didn’t want to live there long term. I can headquarter just about anywhere.”
“Your company specializes in apps for smartphones and tablets?”
“You know about my company?”
“You knew about my books.”
“True.”
Holly’s knowledge about Josh’s company derived from two sources: Ben and her own thorough study. Over the years, she’d read every article on Josh and his business—both in print and online—that she could get her hands on. He’d been on the cover of Forbes once. Numerous times, he’d been given awards or asked to deliver speeches.
Josh’s mind had always fascinated her. Most of the kids in high school had been far more impressed by athletes who’d excelled at football or basketball. They’d viewed Josh—their very own version of Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting—as somewhat of a mystery. Josh had been so off-the-charts brilliant that even his AP math teachers hadn’t been able to teach him anything he didn’t know. He’d crushed the SAT and ACT, and his GPA had been far enough above a 4.0 that no one, not even very-brainy Jim Wong, had come close to challenging Josh’s status as valedictorian.
Holly had been a relatively smart high school girl in her own right, just open-minded and quirky and mature enough to appreciate intelligence over how a guy’s bottom looked in football pants. Her strengths, however, had centered around subjects like English and history. Like most writers, she was anti-math. Nor was she terribly technological. She couldn’t comprehend the things that went on in Josh’s brain and yet his brain awed her just the same. “Since you can headquarter anywhere, why did you pick Paris?”
He scratched the side of his upper lip with his thumb.
“Because of the crepes?” she asked.
His dark gaze flicked to hers, glinting with humor. “The crepes aren’t bad.”
“No. I imagine the croissants and soufflés and macaroons aren’t terrible either.”
“Have you been to Paris?”
“Never. But I might have to go one day. For the crepes.”
He drove quietly.
“You decided to live in Paris because?” she prompted. He still hadn’t explained why he’d chosen it.
“It interests me. It’s historic and busy and full of art and beauty.”
“You love it there.”
“I like it there but I’m not tied to it. I may move somewhere else in a year or two. Berlin or London or Zurich.”
“But not back to the United States?”
They’d come to a light. He assessed her, his eyes saying a lot of things, all of which were shielded so carefully that she couldn’t decipher a single one. “Not anytime soon.”
For some reason, his answer saddened her. She issued more directions on how to get to the farm.
The outskirts of town ebbed away, replaced by the famous scenery of the Texas Hill Country. Rugged land, populated with cedar and live oaks, punctuated with outcroppings of granite and limestone rolled against a cerulean sky.
“Where are you staying while you’re in town?” Holly asked.
“My assistant rented a house for me in the Hollow.”
The nicest neighborhood in Martinsburg had been nicknamed the Hollow so long ago that no one remembered why. The home Holly had been raised in, which her parents still lived in part of every year, was located there. “What about this car? Also arranged by your assistant?”
“Yes.”
“It must be nice to have an assistant. Do you think I could find one who’d work for me for five dollars a day?”
“No.”
“Which explains my lack of one.”
“If you were willing to pay an assistant more you wouldn’t have to get your own coffee.”
He was referencing the coffee tray she’d been carrying the other morning. She refrained from mentioning that if she didn’t go out for coffee, she’d lose her mid-morning reason to change out of pajamas. “I’m willing to pay more; it’s my puny bank account that isn’t.”
They pulled into the olive farm. Bushy, thin-leaved trees that looked like something straight out of Galilee spread away from the barn and outbuildings in neat rows.
Josh and Holly climbed from the car and made their way toward the barn. Across the property, a middle-aged farmer lifted his head from a piece of machinery he’d been working on. “Hello there! I’ll be right with you.”
“No hurry,” Holly called back.
She and Josh waited by the two huge metal door panels that slid on tracks to open the front-facing side of the barn. A large flagstone patio extended from where they stood, overlooking a view that sloped gently down to Lake Cypress Bend.
Holly peeked up at Josh. He wasn’t admiring the view. Instead, he was watching her.
Warm, discomfiting attraction tugged within her. “What do you think?” She extended an arm to encompass the scenery. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He gave it an obligatory scan. “It is.”
“If the weather’s nice, you could serve drinks or appetizers or dessert out here.” The nearby trees formed canopies over the open ground between rows, like charming tunnels of nature.
He returned to looking at her. “Tell me about your writing.”
She remembered that he’d always been quick to change subjects. He’d never had the patience to chitchat about things that didn’t interest him when he could jump the tracks to things that did. “What would you like to know?”
He asked educated questions about the business of publishing and about her writing process. It touched her that he cared to know about her whimsical and cherished profession.
She relaxed by degrees as they talked, just the two of them surrounded by air that smelled like fresh soil and the lavender growing around the base of the barn. It was a unique spell, this. A hawk rode the faraway wind—
“Hi there, y’all.”
She’d been so engrossed in their conversation that the arrival of the farmer came as a small surprise. A friendly man with a John Deere hat and a sun-worn face, he pushed open one of the sliding metal doors and ushered them inside the barn.
Unlike many of the leaning, ramshackle barns dotting the Texas countryside, this structure had likely been built in the last five years. It had plenty of windows, exposed wood walls, and wonderful cross-timbered beams spanning the peaked ceiling.
“A while back the boss had the idea of renting this place out for parties and such.” The farmer nodded toward the olive pressing machinery. “We put all the equipment on these here rolling platforms so we can move it out when needed.”
“Is it available Friday, November twenty-seventh?” Josh asked.
“Let me go get the book.” He bustled out.
“You like this barn of mine,” Holly stated, because she could see that he did. “You can see its potential.”
“Definitely.”
The farmer returned, holding a big and dog-eared calendar. Computerized calendars had not, it seemed, made their way to the Texas Olive Oil Company. “What date did y’all say?”
“The twenty-seventh.”
“Shoot. It looks as though the barn’s already booked that night.”
&n
bsp; “It is?” She was a Martinsburg insider. As far as she knew, this site had only been used for a few high-end events in the past several months, mostly corporate. She hadn’t once doubted its availability.
“It sure is. I’m real sorry about that.”
Josh appeared unperturbed as he shook the man’s hand. They both thanked him and set off for Josh’s car.
Holly took one last, heavily disappointed look back at the barn. Such an ideal setting! Drat, drat, drat. “I apologize, Josh. I should have asked over the phone whether this place was booked that night and saved us the trip. They just began to hold events here and hardly anyone knows about it. I thought this place was still a secret.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
They drove next to Holly’s second choice, a historic dance hall outside of town still used for the occasional visiting singer or county-western dance night.
Then on to Josh’s very unoriginal first choice, the country club. Thank goodness, the Ladies Golf Association already had it reserved the night in question. Lastly, they visited Josh’s second choice, a luxurious restaurant on the outskirts of town called the Lodge.
At each stop, Josh treated everyone with excellent good manners. He also took very little time to survey his options. Both the dance hall and the Lodge were available on the twenty-seventh, but he remained noncommittal.
“You don’t seem to be feeling the same urgency that I am about booking one of these places,” Holly commented as he steered the Range Rover toward downtown Martinsburg.
“I haven’t found what I want yet. I don’t like to settle.”
“Um, do you realize how particular Amanda can be?” Amanda would have wanted engraved rehearsal dinner invitations in the mail a week ago, minimum.
“I realize.” He smiled slightly, looking ahead at the road.
Holly considered that smile. Self-assured, unintimidated. “Very well then.” She refused to angst over the rehearsal dinner. She had her hands more than full already with wedding details.
It was enough that she’d started to accomplish today what she’d hoped for with Josh: a more upbeat ending to an important relationship that had ended on a huge downbeat the last time.
Their conversation had flowed easily enough and she’d come to feel mostly comfortable in his presence—which was above and beyond what she’d hoped for before he’d arrived in town. If their light interaction this afternoon felt shallow somehow, that was to be expected. Of course it felt shallow: it didn’t come close to addressing the magnetism, tension, and pain that lay between them.
During their last phone call before the breakup, they’d whispered words of love to each other. Now they were two independent adults in the latter half of their twenties, discussing things like whether a room had enough space for ten round-tops.
They drew near the north side of the Hollow. “Would you mind stopping by my parents’ house?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you remember Shadow?”
“The cat?”
“She still lives at the house. She’s the only resident when my parents are out of town.”
He quirked a brow at her.
“I know, it’s weird. When my parents bought the place in Austin we decided that Shadow would move in with me. But she ran away twice—” She had to catch herself from telling Josh where to turn. He turned in the right place without assistance. He remembered the way. “Both times Shadow ran away, I found her back at my parents’ house. So I installed a cat door. I stop by every day to feed her.”
“It seems like you could leave more than a day’s worth of food. Then you wouldn’t have to come by as often.”
“But then, you see, Shadow wouldn’t get enough social interaction.”
He parked in the driveway of her family’s stately 1930s two-story. If Holly did say so herself, the house had been kept up well, its shingles painted a pretty beige, its rock chimney standing proudly straight.
“How come you don’t live here with Shadow?” he asked.
“Because I’m not eighteen anymore. It would seem sort of . . . I don’t know. Sorry? To live here alone at this point. I like my apartment.” She gave him a questioning look. “Would you like to come in? It’ll just take a minute.”
“I’ll stay here. I have some business I need to check.” He motioned toward his phone, sitting in the middle console.
Holly nodded and let herself inside the house.
Josh had no doubt that text messages and business e-mails awaited his attention, but he hadn’t asked to stay outside because of them. For a man who didn’t lie—he preferred blunt, straight-up communication—he’d become quite the liar where Holly was concerned.
Just sitting in the driveway of this house brought up a storm of old memories. He had no intention of going indoors and seeing the places where he’d held hands with Holly, talked with her parents and siblings, picked her up for prom.
In case Holly caught sight of him through a window, he set his phone on his leg and looked down at it.
He was pretty sure he was losing it because he wanted more time with her. She made his mind, body, and senses rush to life in ways they hadn’t in too many months to count. Whenever he met her eyes, attraction snapped like electricity between them. Her smile left him wordless.
He could buy many things in this world, but he couldn’t buy the way she made him feel.
He dealt in math and science and computers. If someone had asked him last week whether magic existed, he would have said emphatically that it didn’t. But Holly was like magic to him. Somehow, she was. She made his cynical heart want the one thing he’d be an idiot to pursue. Her.
When she’d broken up with him, she’d done it over the phone, without warning, in under ten minutes. Kindly cool on her side. Heatedly upset on his side. She’d said the sort of clichés that people always say at breakups. She hadn’t given him any reason that made sense to him, that he could accept. Then, afterward, she’d refused to speak to him or return his e-mails. She’d betrayed his faith in her, and the last thing he wanted was to make the mistake of caring about her or placing his trust in her again.
He turned his phone in slow half-circles on his thigh, frowning, his forehead grooved.
Did anyone in this town have any idea how talented she was? He’d read every one of her novels. He always pre-ordered them, then read them obsessively, not working or sleeping until he’d finished the final page. They were beautifully written, wise, hopeful, filled with adventure and courage. He had no idea how she did it, how she dreamed up worlds and people and plots out of thin air.
He’d been to Martinsburg’s one bookstore. There’d been no big display about their famous local author. They’d had only one copy of her latest release, on the shelf spine out in the YA section. From what he could tell, the people of Martinsburg had overlooked her entirely.
Holly returned, sliding into her seat. “Thanks for bringing me by. You saved me from having to make a trip back later today.”
“How was Shadow?”
“As entitled as usual.” The afternoon rays pouring into the car from behind Holly turned a section of her hair to glowing honey. She was so achingly pretty that his chest squeezed.
“Since we didn’t find a site today”—the level tone of his voice hid his steely determination—“I’m thinking we’ll need to try again soon, if you have the time.” He was not a good person.
“Okay. I . . . have the time.”
The bond between them pulled and the moment grew heavy. He longed to tell her things he had no business telling her. Namely, the truth about how much she’d hurt him and his frustration with himself regarding the resentment he still harbored toward her because of it.
He backed down the driveway, silently calling himself stupid, fool, self-destructive, and much, much worse.
Right about now, the Saturday-at-eleven Zumba class Holly sometimes attended was probably merengue marching and shimmying to their heart’s delight. There wouldn’t be any shimmy
ing for her this morning, thanks to a wedding meeting with Amanda, Amanda’s mom, and their professional wedding coordinator.
Holly crossed her arms and rested her hip against a pew while watching the bride and mother of the bride trail their coordinator around the sanctuary of Trinity Church.
Mitzi, the woman they’d hired to orchestrate the big day, looked every inch as serious as her name was not. In a sleek gray suit, with earrings as big as doorknobs and an auburn hairstyle a First Lady would have envied, she gave off a chic and able impression. Somewhere in her mid-fifties, Mitzi’s body bore the ruthlessly thin, muscled stamp of someone who pounded the asphalt every morning in a pair of Nike Airs.
Mitzi had never before toured the church. Since arriving thirty minutes ago, she’d spent a good deal of time whisking her tape measure in and out and looking vaguely displeased. Which had Holly, here on Trinity’s behalf, fighting back a case of defensiveness.
Trinity Church possessed a tremendous amount of charm, but there was no hiding the fact that the building was old. It had been constructed out of stone in 1890 by Germans who’d brought with them their motherland’s excellent taste in church architecture. The building boasted a soaring steeple and arched front doors crafted of heavy oak. Inside, rectangular stained-glass windows marked the side walls and an understated altar stood on a dais three steps above the level of the pews.
Holly experienced a rush of fondness and respect every time she entered the place. She’d grown up here. God spoke to her here. Even though the median age of the membership at Trinity probably hovered at ninety, it had never occurred to Holly to switch congregations. Where would she go? That big new box of a church with the thumping music and a bustling marriage mart otherwise known as a singles ministry? Oh my, no. Jumping ship at this point would feel like high treason.
A year ago, sweet Violetta Mae Gaskins had retired as Trinity’s longtime wedding coordinator and personally asked Holly to take over her duties. Holly had immediately assured her that she would. The truth? She enjoyed her role. It satisfied something within her, to help arrange other people’s happy endings. It made no difference whether those people were real, here at Trinity, or fictional within the pages of her novels.