by Amy Andrews
A small part of Grady wanted to pretend his aunt had been hysterically upset by the news just so Suzanne could feel a little bit of the discomfort and angst this predicament has caused him, but her expression told him she was pretty much feeling every one of the consequences as acutely as he was.
“No. She doesn’t. She likes you. She likes you a lot.” Which meant that Cora was already picking out china patterns. “She understands that you’re trying to help your parents’ marriage, and she won’t rat you out, but she thinks you’ve overcomplicated things.”
Which was the fucking understatement of the year as far as Grady was concerned.
Brittle laughter punctuated the air. “Cora is a wise woman.”
They stood staring at each other for long moments. Suzanne looked miserable, and no matter how much of it was of her own making and how she’d caught him up in this web of lies, Grady felt strangely protective of her. She was a screwup, but right now, whether he wanted it or not, she was his screwup, and the urge to cross the room and pull her into his arms and tell her it’d be okay was almost overwhelming.
Which made him want to run in the other direction. “I’m going to work in the office for a while.” He knew they should probably talk about last night, but dealing with being a fake baby daddy along with a fake boyfriend had been more than enough for one day.
“Oh—” She took a step toward him. “Don’t you want something to eat? I made meatloaf.”
Grady shook his head. “Cora fed me.”
He didn’t wait for her acknowledgment, just headed in the direction of the arch. He only had two days to make plans before the weather came in. Suzanne was a big girl who could entertain herself.
He hadn’t quite reached the arch when her voice—quiet, almost plaintive—asked, “Who’s Bethany?”
The question stopped him in his tracks. A niggle started in his chest as he slowly turned to find her watching him, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. “Who told you about Bethany?”
“Cora mentioned her in passing. I got the impression you and she used to be an item.”
His aunt—of course. He supposed it was better from her than a gossipy member of the Credence community, but he’d rather not go there at all. “Yes.”
She stared at him as if she thought he was going to elaborate, but she was wrong. He didn’t talk about Bethany to anyone, and frankly, he didn’t understand why he hadn’t just kept on walking.
“Were you married to her?”
“No. I’ve never been married.”
“So she was what…a girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“She must have been significant for Cora to have mentioned her?”
“She was.” She’d been his only girlfriend.
“What happened? Did you break up? It must have been bad, because there’s nothing of her here at all. Not a photo or anything even remotely girlie.”
“There’s Zoom.”
Suzanne glanced at the tank to Grady’s right. “Zoom was Bethany’s?”
“No. She gave him to me as a birthday present.”
“For which birthday?”
Grady contemplated not answering. Or lying. But he didn’t lie—not to other people anyway. “My seventeenth.”
She frowned, obviously trying to piece together his sparse information, and he watched as realization dawned. “That’s a…long time ago.”
He sighed. He could stand here slowly bleeding to death while she eked the information out of him one question at a time, or he could just rip off the Band-Aid.
“Bethany was my high school girlfriend. We started going out when we were fifteen. She died in the same accident that killed my parents.”
“Oh god, Joshua…” She pressed a hand to her chest, her blue eyes stricken as she searched his face for Grady didn’t know what. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t… Why didn’t you say something back when you told me about your parents?”
Even from across the room, he could see the shimmer of moisture in her eyes, and it was like a hot fist to his gut. As was the way she said Joshua, all soft and brimming with emotion. He hadn’t said anything because of this. Because he didn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity, especially not almost two decades later. The deaths of Bethany and his parents had been a terrible tragedy, but they were in the past.
He shrugged. “Like you said, it was a long time ago.”
And it was none of her damn business. Sure, maybe it was something a guy confessed to a girlfriend, but Suzanne wasn’t a real girlfriend, and he couldn’t bear the thought that she’d look at him differently now.
“Maybe,” she conceded, her voice soft. “Doesn’t make it any less shitty.”
Grady gave a soft snort. Wasn’t that the truth? But he didn’t have time to discuss ancient history. “I really have to get to my office. Bureau says there’s going to be a blizzard night after next, and there are things I need to do.”
“Okay. Sure.” She nodded. “I…left a painting in there for you. It’s Adam.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”
She shrugged, but a melting pot of emotions brimmed in her expressive blue eyes. It obviously hadn’t been easy. “My penance. For the pregnancy thing.”
Grady blinked. He hadn’t thought to ask for one. He must be getting soft. But the pregnant thing was just another example of the collateral damage caused by her lie, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to knock it back. The painting reminded him what they were doing here was fake, because coming home to her every night was starting to feel a little too real.
The fact it was clearly hard for her to part with would hopefully remind her, too. Even if it did make him feel like a fucking ogre. It was better all around that she think he still wanted to use her paintings as a bargaining chip, that he was still pissed off about her painting him without his permission, even though he wasn’t entirely sure he was anymore.
Better for both of them.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He thought he detected the slightest wobble in her voice, and he felt absurdly like going to her, but he shut that thought down and locked his knees. Christ—this was not his fault. The woman had bribed him into being her fake boyfriend. This was a bed of her making.
“I won’t be around much the next couple of days,” he said, his voice gruff. “Don’t wait up for me, and don’t count on me being here for dinner.”
“Oh…sure. Okay.”
If anything, her voice sounded smaller the more businesslike he became, and Grady hated himself for his abruptness. But this was his life—there was work to be done. She wanted to pretend to be his girlfriend? Well, this was the reality of being with a rancher. He turned away again, heading for his office.
“Joshua,” she called after him, “be careful out there.”
He faltered momentarily before continuing through the archway.
…
At midday the next day, under a dark-gray sky, Suzanne was standing on the wide sidewalk leading to the four steps in front of the municipal offices waiting for the ice-sculpting competition to get underway. So apparently was half the town, all huddled in their scarves and jackets and boots on this below-freezing day, which was good, at least, for the ice.
There were eight large blocks of it all measuring two foot by two foot by two foot, mounted on tables, and a variety of ice-sculpting tools supplied from chisels to power tools such as angle grinders and small hedge trimmers.
“Not sure this is going to do the job, Ray,” Bob said as he started the trimmer and revved the engine, brandishing it like some kind of weapon. “Chain saw’d be better.”
“Put the damn fool thing down, Bob,” Ray grouched, reaching over to switch off the implement. “You’ve never used a chain saw in your life. You’ll have my ear off waving it around like that.”
�
�Van Gogh painted Starry Night with only one ear.”
Suzanne suppressed a smile as the two men bickered good-naturedly like they’d been doing it for decades. They were entering as a team, as were three other local couples Suzanne wasn’t familiar with. At the station next to Ray and Bob, where Suzanne stood, was Winona. She was entering by herself.
On the other side of the octogenarians were Molly and Marley, twin sisters from New York who had come to Credence with the influx of women during the summer. There were also Jenny and Wyatt and a very excited Henry, who was chattering on about the hog they were going to carve from the ice. With them was Wyatt’s mom, Veronica Carter, one of the town councilors.
The last block of ice had been reserved for Simone. Yes, her mother was judging the comp, but everyone agreed they wanted to see what she could do with a frozen medium, and Simone, always happy to play to an audience, graciously agreed. She and Suzanne’s father were currently discussing the block of ice, their conversation animated, their bodies close. Maybe the closest Suzanne had seen them in a long time.
Maybe things were changing for the positive between them?
“I presume you’ll be creating something phallic?”
Suzanne started at the authoritative voice behind her, turning to find Arlo looking all tall and hot-cop imposing as he peered at Winona.
“But of course,” Winona said, plastering a sweet smile on her face. “I’m thinking giant dong. Every ice-sculpture competition needs at least one. What do you think, Suzanne?”
“Oh yes.” Suzanne nodded, trying to keep her laughter in check. “The bigger the better.”
He scowled at Suzanne. “Do not encourage her.” Then, turning to Winona, he said, “Try and keep it PG, huh? Let’s not traumatize the kiddies.”
Winona rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, sighing dramatically. “What are you doing here, Officer Spoilsport? Didn’t picture you as a patron of the arts.”
“Crowd control.”
An inelegant snort slipped from Winona’s mouth. “You expecting the great Credence ice-sculpture riot or something?”
Suzanne tipped her head in the direction of Bob and Ray still fighting over the hedge trimmer. “I’d have thought we’d need paramedics more than the police,” she said.
Someone was going to lose an ear if they kept it up.
Arlo glanced across and shook his head. “Oh for the love of—” He cut off abruptly, shooting a quick “PG” in Winona’s direction before he nodded at them both and said, “You have a nice day now, ladies,” and striding off to intervene in the impeding bloodbath.
“Jackass,” Winona muttered under her breath.
Suzanne laughed, but it was cut off by Don Randall, the mayor, in his full mayoral robes and chain, calling everyone to order and running through the rules of the competition. “Okay then,” he announced finally. “You have two hours to complete your work of art, which will then be judged by our guest judge, world-renowned sculptor Simone St. Michelle.”
The crowd clapped and cheered as her mom took an impressively artistic bow.
“Are we ready?” Don asked, bringing the applause to an end.
“We’ve been ready for ages, you fool,” Bob called. “Get on with it.”
There was general laughter that Don chose to ignore along with Bob’s bellyaching. “On your marks…get set…”
“Good luck,” Suzanne said to Winona as she stepped back from the table to give her friend space to create.
“Go!”
“Yee-haw!” Bob started the hedge trimmer with a mighty roar that caused several looks of alarm among the crowd before he handed it over to long-suffering Ray.
Suzanne spied Cora and Burl through the crowd as chisels went to work and ice shavings flew through the air. Cora gave an enthusiastic wave, which Suzanne returned, but she felt so bad about her deception, she made no move to join them. Grady had told her last night that his aunt had been fine with the situation, but what did Cora really think of her?
Grady wasn’t exactly in touch with such esoteric things as emotions, so maybe he couldn’t read those kind of cues?
Just like she hadn’t been able to read his cues last night about Bethany. Suzanne had lain awake into the wee hours thinking about Grady’s high school sweetheart who had died so tragically. Died too young. Wondering if, had she lived, would she and Grady have still been together today? Wondering if he was still in love with her and that’s why he’d shut himself off to the possibility of another relationship. Why he was happy to settle for nothing and nobody out here in the wilds of far eastern Colorado if he couldn’t have the woman he loved.
Just because there wasn’t a single picture of her, no shrine to her memory, didn’t mean she’d faded from his mind. All he had to do was look at Zoom and be reminded of her, right?
Did he? Did he think of Bethany every time he laid eyes on the turtle?
God…had he been thinking about Bethany that night in her bed?
“You okay, dear?”
Suzanne startled at the intrusion, blinking twice before she realized Cora and Burl had joined her at Winona’s table. “Yes. Thank you.” She smiled at Cora, who returned it as she looped her arm through Suzanne’s.
“We thought you’d be competing as well,” Cora said.
“Figured you’d be a chip off the old block,” Burl added, then laughed at his own pun.
Suzanne laughed, too, but she wasn’t really feeling it. She’d been looking forward to joining in the comp, but giving up her fourth painting yesterday had killed whatever paltry creative urge she still owned that hadn’t been decimated by the arrival of her parents.
It’d been ridiculously hard to hand over Adam, and Suzanne had been acutely aware, as she’d put the painting in his office, that there was only one left. The fact that Grady hadn’t seemed to know or care had only compounded her feelings of loss. Even now, talking to his aunt and uncle, she could feel the tight knot of emotions in her chest.
“It didn’t seem right to compete with my mom judging,” Suzanne said, keeping her voice light.
They nodded like they thoroughly approved of her decision. “Your mom makes it seem effortless,” Burl said. “She’s amazing.”
Glancing over at her mom’s table, Suzanne could already see wings emerging from the block of ice. “She is,” Suzanne agreed.
Her mother was a true artistic genius, and Suzanne was proud of her, but she couldn’t deny the spike of professional jealousy. One day she hoped to be as proficient, as effortless, and as sure of herself as her mother. If her muse ever decided to come out and play again.
They watched in silence for a few more moments, but Suzanne was too acutely aware of Grady’s aunt and uncle to take in much of her mom’s evolving piece.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually, barely hearing the softness of her voice over the thump of her heart as she turned her face toward Cora. “About deceiving you. It’s—”
“Now, now,” Cora cut in, placing her arm around Suzanne’s shoulders and giving her a tight squeeze. “You got yourself into a fix; we understand that. Burl and I don’t condone dishonesty, but your intentions were pure and…well…whether Joshua knows it or not, you’re good for him. And I do think there’s a little zing between the two of you—”
“Oh no,” Suzanne interrupted, panic descending. She could just imagine how annoyed Grady would be if she didn’t at least attempt to put his aunt straight. “There’s no zing,” she lied. “It’s just an act.”
“Hmm. Is it?”
Those old, searching eyes seemed to bore right into Suzanne’s soul, and she swallowed at the shrewdness she found there. “Yes.”
Another “Hmm” as Cora patted Suzanne’s arm in a way that felt very much like she was being humored. “We’ll see. But the point is, there’s no need to worry. We’ll play along with the fake relationship thing.”
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“Thank you.” Suzanne smiled.
“Of course,” Cora said, waving her hand dismissively, but her eyes gleaming with speculation.
By the time two hours was up, there was a surprisingly good array of ice sculpture art for her mom to judge and, despite Bob’s reckless use of a power tool, a zero injury tally. Jenny and Wyatt’s hog—or hog’s head anyway—wouldn’t win a blue ribbon at the state fair, but it was cute with a quirky bend to one of its ears, and Henry was thrilled to bits at how it had turned out. Ray and Bob had sculpted a Christmas tree, and Winona, much to the chagrin of Arlo, had fashioned a gorgeous hothouse flower that bore a striking likeness to female genitalia if one was old enough to understand anatomy.
It definitely had sexual overtones.
The other three sculptures were a fish, a mermaid, and a star.
The quality varied across the pieces but, considering everyone but her mother was an amateur, they were all quite good. Simone exclaimed as much as she went around critiquing the pieces, giving constructive feedback. She praised Ray’s use of the chisel to give the leaves a tactile quality, Henry’s suggestion for the floppy ear, and Winona’s wild imaginative streak. But in the end, she gave the award to the mermaid.
Technically it wasn’t the best piece, that was quite clear to Suzanne’s trained eye, but there was a liveliness to the sculpture that drew the gaze, and Suzanne knew that was a hard quality for a professional to pull off, let alone a corn farmer from Credence whose last work of art had apparently been a scarecrow.
Simone shook Chuck’s and Denise’s hands as she congratulated them. “We’re utterly impressed, aren’t we, darling?” she said, smiling at Albie, who nodded enthusiastically, his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I’d like to send you a little something as a prize, so I’ll grab your address before we leave Credence and get it sent to you in the New Year.”
“Oh…thank you,” Denise said.
The poor woman seemed totally starstruck, and Suzanne swore she was about to curtsy. It was a generous offer from her mom, who would no doubt send one of her smaller pieces she regarded as seconds. In the eyes of Simone St. Michelle, they weren’t good enough—but in the eyes of the art world, they were still exquisite quality and worth a lot of money.