by Kat Cantrell
Ember’s brows raised in an instant reaction, as if she had plenty to say about how wrong Aria’s guess was, but suddenly, she didn’t want to hear it. This was her life too and her sisters were home together for the first time since Aria had been a teenager. Why couldn’t they just all get along and stop sniping at each other?
“Tell us about how Caleb proposed,” she blurted out to Havana, desperate to change the subject.
“It was incredibly romantic,” Havana said sunnily. “He told me that Serenity had predicted we’d be together so that probably meant we had to get married.”
Aria blinked as Ember snorted out a laugh and said, “Boy, that guy’s a prize.”
Havana just laughed along with her instead of taking offense. “I appreciated the point. Serenity had given me a prediction too that almost ruined my chances with Caleb because I was so busy trying to circumvent it.”
“Why would you do that?” Ember asked with what appeared to be genuine curiosity. “Her predictions always come true.”
“They do not!” Both sisters turned to stare at Aria askance and she felt her cheeks heat under their scrutiny. Ugh, why had such an innocent question started up this old debate again? “I mean… I know she believes in them but they don’t always come true.”
Of course, Aria didn’t have a lot of experience with Serenity’s predictions personally, since she’d never lobbed one in Aria’s direction before. Until yesterday. And the less she thought about that, the better.
“They do,” Ember insisted, but she’d long been in the believers of the supernatural camp with Serenity, despite not having any extra senses of her own. “Don’t tell me you’ve been living in Superstition Springs your whole life and haven’t gained an appreciation for the mysticism that practically drips from the rocks around here?”
“That’s not what I’m saying…exactly,” Aria mumbled. “How did we get on this subject anyway?”
Havana’s gaze cut to Aria’s face in the mirror. “She gave you a prediction, didn’t she? A good one?”
“Oooh, come on. Tell us,” Ember insisted, scootching forward on the bed until she was at the edge closest to where Aria sat at the dresser. The colors of the patchwork quilt under her sister’s legs swirled together in Aria’s head, creating a dizzying pattern.
She could hardly think around it. Finally, her sisters were paying attention to her, asking her things about her life and that stupid, ridiculous prediction was what they wanted to talk about.
Spice up your wardrobe or create a new style in order to attract the right partner. You’ll feel intimacy all around so no matter where you go, love will follow.
Could the real prediction please stand up? Because there was no way that was happening. No way she’d breathe a word of it to anyone. Havana had been on her case from almost the moment she’d set her suitcase down in Serenity’s foyer: Let me do something with your hair, Aria. A simple cut. Curlers. Something. Maybe we could try a little mascara, Aria. Please. What about lip gloss? Not a lot. Just enough to give you some color.
If Havana found out Serenity had sensed the need for a makeover, there’d be no stopping her. And the last thing Aria wanted to do was attract a man anyway. For what? Only to be abandoned one more time?
“It wasn’t anything,” Aria muttered. “Hardly worth mentioning.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” Havana’s mouth curved upward in the mirror, where of course they could both see the telltale blush staining Aria’s cheeks like a neon sign. “Curse of the Irish. Sorry. I’ve long wished Mom had given us the luck of the Irish instead but no. We get red hair, no ability to play poker and a crappy hair-trigger temper.”
“I don’t have a temper.” That was the only thing Aria could argue with though.
“Just wait,” Ember advised with a sage nod. “The second you get a man sniffing around you like he means to stay, you’ll develop one. They bring it out in you.”
“Uh, huh.” Havana’s hum of agreement came practically before Ember had stopped talking. “That’s no lie.”
Aria almost did a double take. Had Havana just agreed with Ember like…she’d agreed?
Next, unicorns were going to bust out of the closet and invite them all to play ring toss with a few angel’s halos they’d borrowed.
This was what camaraderie looked like. She was pretty sure anyway. Regardless, Havana and Ember were suddenly getting along and dang it if Aria didn’t want to continue that trend. Why did it have to be the prediction that had done it though? It was like the best birthday present on a day when you had a toothache.
Aria weighed out how badly she did not want to talk about a makeover against how much she craved this sense of belonging inside her family. That was something she hadn’t had in a very long time. Not since Havana had bailed for Austin and Ember had fled for wherever she’d gone, leaving Aria at home to take care of Serenity. Yes, it should have been the other way around, but Serenity had a childlike quality that wasn’t well suited to responsibility. When Havana had left, things like paying bills and shopping for groceries had fallen to the lone Nixon sister still in Superstition Springs, which Aria didn’t mind handling. Serenity had given her a place to live after all.
“The prediction is kind of dumb,” she hedged, hoping that might give her room to wiggle. Or segue into something else if she could somehow convince them it wasn’t worth their time to discuss. “Really nebulous.”
“That’s always the case,” Ember said as if that should be common knowledge.
“Tell us,” Havana repeated Ember’s earlier plea as she twisted a hairband around the tip of Aria’s braid to hold it. “You can’t leave us hanging like this. It’s a love prediction, isn’t it? Is that why you’ve developed a sudden obsession with all things Tristan?”
“I do not have an obsession.” Except she did talk about him a lot.
Maybe she had oversold her crush on Tristan, but only because she knew she had no shot with him. It was supposed to be like having a crush on Zak Efron—no one really took that seriously. The prediction had even said she had to do something with her looks in order to get a man to notice her. Which was crap. Why was what she looked like the thing that would tip the scales? It shouldn’t be. And honestly, she was kind of mad about it.
Instead of trying to dance around the whole thing, this was a chance to get her sisters on the same page, namely that the prediction was the worst sort of objectification.
“You know how you said you knew Caleb was the one because you could be yourself?” she asked but didn’t wait for Havana’s nod. “My prediction says I have to get a makeover to find love. How is that a recipe for being myself?”
“Wait.” Havana shook her head and plopped down on the bed next to Ember. “Serenity told you to get a makeover to meet your soul mate? That’s too good. I’ve got some pictures I saved on my phone of hair styles that would—”
“No.” She could not cut off that thinking at the pass fast enough. “You’re not listening. I don’t want a makeover. How will that lead me to true love? It’s false advertising.”
Ember and Havana glanced at each other. The pause got longer and Aria’s gaze got narrower. What was that look for? Because she was silly and naïve about men? So? That was better than putting all your faith in someone who couldn’t be bothered to stick around. She’d had enough of being left behind by her own family. How much worse would it be if she actually fell in love with someone who could rightly be labeled her soul mate—only to be crushed when he took off?
She couldn’t give a man that kind of power. It was unthinkable. And if she couldn’t trust a man in the first place, there was no way a makeover would help that.
“It’s not false advertising,” Havana said, as Ember threw in, “Exactly. It’s a way to give yourself confidence so that you can be the best Aria possible. Then you meet someone who likes your confidence.”
Aria made a face. “Why? Because eyeshadow is the only way to land a man? That cannot be true. I don’t even want a
man on those terms.”
Ember cocked a brow at her. “What terms do you want a man on then?”
The spotlight that had just shifted onto Aria upped the temperature about a thousand degrees. Maybe she yearned to have someone who looked at her like Caleb looked at Havana. It wasn’t a crime. He was really in love with her, you could tell. And he was solid, a keeper, as evidenced by the ring on her sister’s third finger and Caleb’s new job as the mayor of Superstition Springs.
A part of her figured his military buddies were cut from the same cloth, which might be why she’d formed the Tristan Fan Club. Didn’t hurt that the man had a killer smile to match his silver tongue. Sure, he flirted with everyone but he did it so smoothly that you kind of wanted to believe he meant what he said to you. No man had ever flirted with her. It was a bit of a rush. No makeup required.
But that didn’t mean she wanted Tristan, per se. Maybe more like the idea of him.
“I want a man who sees me,” she blurted out. “Not the clothes I’m wearing. I don’t want to have to think about my hair and whether I picked the right color of lipstick to match my outfit. Lipstick fades anyway and then I’m left with just me anyway. Why not start out that way?”
That’s what she wanted. But since that wasn’t going to happen for her, she could moon over Tristan Marchande and never worry about having her heart crushed.
“I hear you.” Havana shrugged. “Then prove the prediction wrong. Get Tristan to take you out on a date without a makeover.”
Ember nodded eagerly. “I can respect a woman who has so much natural confidence that she doesn’t even worry about how she looks. That’s not me, not by a long shot. I’d kind of like to see how that’s done.”
Her sisters’ words unfolded like a lovely little bouquet inside, warming her instantly. They believed in her. Had totally bought what she’d sold. They both thought she could land a man like Tristan, no questions asked.
And best of all, if she was successful, she not only got a beautiful man to pay attention to her as her reward, she’d have done something worthy of her sisters’ belief in her. Then maybe they’d think twice about leaving her behind again.
“What, like a bet?” she ventured cautiously, still weighing out the craziness of the idea in her head versus the lovely thought of actually winning.
“Sure.” Ember shrugged with a glance at Havana. “I’ll take your shift at the diner for the night if you get him to ask you out and if you don’t, you babysit on your off night sometime. Havana will…what’ll you put up?”
They both glanced at their sister as she contemplated. “I’ll get Caleb to loan him the SUV for the date so he can take you anyplace you like. No dice and you have to come work for me for a day on town stuff.”
That was all easy stuff, but the bet part was incidental. It was the principle of the thing. There was no way she could refuse the challenge of proving she could garner a man’s attention without a makeover. But how in the world was she going to get Tristan to notice her like that? She needed help. Not from Mary Kay or Paul Mitchell but from someone who could stack the deck until it would be impossible for her to fail.
She knew exactly who to hit up.
Four
The barn renovation project team had almost finished nailing up the exterior siding. Isaiah stepped back from the area he’d been working on, pleased with his progress. No one could accuse him of slacking when Marchande’s side had nearly the same coverage.
He might have taken advantage of being alone for a few minutes while Marchande went for Powerade, or whatever passed for the least vile thirst quencher Mavis J had in stock at the grocery store in town. Normally he’d have used the down time to practice breathing or walking on his hands, but instead he’d gotten caught up with his appointed task.
Serenity’s rooftop chat had straightened him out pretty good. If he was head down at the barn, sweating through an honest day’s work to get this renovation done ASAP, he couldn’t be scouting around for the future Mrs. West. Which he wouldn’t have been anyway. Not really. Better safe than sorry.
Okay, he could admit a healthy curiosity about who might be the one Serenity thought he’d already met. Not because he planned to do anything about it if he did figure out who the prediction had in mind to heal and nurture his soul. Still.
Out of nowhere, Aria appeared, her red hair swinging in a rush of color as she practically skidded to a halt. She and Cassidy hadn’t been by to help for a couple of days since the exterior work required more brawn than brains. Frankly, the ladies’ absence had been a blessing. Marchande and Cassidy got crossways with each other twice an hour, mostly when she handed him his hat every time he tried to flirt with her. Isaiah had saved them all a lot of trouble by suggesting the ladies take a break from barn renovations.
Maybe his ability to guide people in the right direction wasn’t entirely broken, not when it came to saving his own sanity.
“In a rush?” he asked Aria with a genuine smile. She was an upgrade over Marchande any day and as long as Cassidy wasn’t with her, the fireworks would stay unlit. “This barn isn’t going anywhere.”
“I know,” she said, her voice a tad breathy, which did something nice to it. “But I’m on a break from the diner and I saw Tristan head into Voodoo Grocery from the window and I knew that meant you were probably here alone, so I ran—”
“Okay, easy.” She had his attention now. And she needed to stop talking so she could give her lungs a chance to catch up. He knew a thing or two about not being able to breathe. “You ran all the way from the diner? Impressive. That’s gotta be half a mile.”
She shrugged, matching his smile with one of her own that deepened the blue of her eyes. “Almost three quarters. Practically nothing. I don’t mind the distance. You have to learn to get around in a place like this if you want to do anything besides stay shut up inside.”
His estimation of her went up a notch. Yeah, he’d run his share of miles himself, usually at a ground eating pace with fifty pounds of gear strapped to his back. In the desert. Sometimes under a barrage of bullets. But he’d trained for brutal conditions and had the additional motivating factors of working with his team, plus trying not to die.
“You’re an outdoorsy type?”
“I guess.” She bit her lip, contemplating as if she wanted to be really sure she’d answered his question with as much honesty as she could muster. “I mean, I like to run, which has to be done outdoors around here. I never really thought much about it, but I do like being outside. Especially at the springs. It’s so peaceful.”
No one had mentioned anything about springs, which in retrospect might have just been a miss on his part given the name of the town. But he hadn’t had any reason to care about sorting that out. Until now. Aria’s face had taken on this glow as she’d spoken that might have been left over from running three quarters of a mile in the May heat. But he didn’t think so. And now he had to know more about what had lit her up.
“Springs? As in the Superstition ones?” he asked.
She tilted her head to the left to indicate the direction. “It’s not far from here. A little over a mile. Other end of town though, by the river.”
Springs and a river? He should get out more. His downtime consisted of rooftop stargazing. Alone. Which just sounded…lonely all at once. He had a very odd urge to invite Aria to join him in his makeshift tree fort sometime. They both lived at the hotel, albeit on different floors, so it would be convenient to jet up the stairs. Though she often worked late at the diner. Maybe after her shift? Or was that presumptuous?
He shook his head. Hard. No women. Even unassuming ones who had never so much as tripped his radar that way. Which was a shame because he really liked Aria.
“I’m a fan of peace,” he said instead. “Sounds like a place I might enjoy. Though it seems like there would be a lot of quiet spots around here since there’s not much else?”
“There are a lot of places to be by yourself, that’s for sure,” she ackno
wledged wryly. “Especially when people don’t stick around long.”
“That’s the spiel I keep hearing from Caleb. There isn’t much to anchor folks here. I think the schoolhouse will help, don’t you?” Or at least that was the party line. They had to get some basic infrastructure in place before the town could really function as a tourist draw—police department, fire department, tax office. This barn renovation was step one of about a million designed to get people entrenched in Superstition Springs.
And that reminder sat in his stomach like a stone. Not only was he one of the people without an anchor, Hardy expected Isaiah to be the one handing them out. When he got his mayor face on, there wasn’t a lot you could say to argue with the man, and when he flat out told you he needed help gluing people’s feet to the ground here, things got dicey.
“Sure, that’s why I volunteered to help with the renovations. Well, one of the reasons.” She broke off and he had the distinct impression she’d said something she regretted. “Actually, that was a good segue into what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Talk to me about?” That’s why she’d hightailed it over here from the diner when she’d realized he was alone? His intrigue meter shot into the red.
“Yeah. I need your help.”
The long pause did not seem to fix her hesitation. Surely she wasn’t uncomfortable around him. He’d always worked hard to make sure people felt at ease. Clearly he was falling down on that job too. “I’m a helpful guy. This is the part where you tell me what it is.”
She huffed out a breathy laugh that seemed to release some of her tension. “It’s just kind of silly now that I’m actually contemplating saying this out loud. But here it goes. I need you to promise what I’m about to tell you stays between us. It’s a secret.”
This just got better and better. “Like a pinky swear?”