A swift smack of a kiss was her answer. Good enough for him. He pulled her in for another when up popped Alyssa with her camera phone. “Hey there. Just taking some shots to post.”
Krista posed for the shot, but it was clearly that—a pose with none of the curvy softness of moments ago. He hoped there wouldn’t be a scene. Then again, the music might drown them out, and if they had to take it outside, the weather would also drown them out.
Alyssa sidled in closer, as the music stopped and the band announced a set break. “We’ll likely have to cancel the ride.”
No surprise there. Sales would take a hit for tomorrow, but they’d run a profit. After nearly sixty years, the ranch could absorb the occasional hit.
“But I was wondering if you’d consider rescheduling.”
“Of course.” Beside him, Krista stared pointedly at his shoulder. The pain was under control thanks to a full dose of painkillers.
If Alyssa noticed, she didn’t let on. “I lined up the ride for Okotoks.”
“Okotoks? That’s good.”
“Even better than here, actually. It’s closer to Calgary so we could draw interest from there. Get a lot of sponsors and buildup before the event.”
“When is it?” Krista asked.
Alyssa’s lips tightened. He’d better find a way to end this conversation soon, while things were going smoothly. “It always happens the middle of August,” he said. “Plenty of time.”
“Yes,” Alyssa said. “Plenty of time for Krista to make sure your shoulder is in working order.”
“Perfect,” Krista said. “And plenty of time for you to make plans with Will when I’m not around.”
A not-so-subtle jab for Alyssa to move on. Alyssa delivered Krista a vicious glare, immediately masked over with a bright smile. “Just wanted to check with you to make sure that’ll work.”
The lights came on for a short break and Alyssa glided away. But Krista was no longer his happy girlfriend. Or his alone. Because now everybody was taking advantage of the break in the music to mosey over and chat. So much for keeping Krista to himself.
* * *
WILL’S TEXT TO Krista arrived at eight thirty the next morning. We’re officially rained out.
Good, she thought and snuggled deeper under her puffy covers. He could give his shoulder a day of rest. Do you want to meet up?
Maybe later. Full day wrapping up at the corrals.
So much for taking care of his shoulder. She browsed through the internet until she discovered a grisly image of torn shoulder tendons and sent it to him with Have a great day!
I’m so lucky. Now I have both a mother and a girlfriend.
His girlfriend, though she hadn’t gone on a date with him yet. Perhaps she should remind him that Dana got concert tickets and flowers for playing the part of a girlfriend. As his real one, she could negotiate her own fair deal.
Krista heard Mara in their apartment kitchen. Mara moved like a thief, slowly and quietly, afraid of making a mistake. Last month she’d broken a glass. Krista only discovered it when she’d stepped on a tiny shard in her bare feet, and Mara had confessed, deeply apologetic that she had missed it. Krista’s reassurances that it could’ve happened to anybody didn’t fly with Mara.
Did Will know about Mara’s deteriorating blindness? Krista had told Laura, so probably. But it was also probable that she had a thicker file on the Claverleys than he did on her family.
Unable to stop herself, she scrolled through her photo stream of the pics she’d taken of herself and Will at the rodeo. There weren’t many and her thumb hovered over the delete button on a couple that showed her gazing up at him as if he were the sun and the moon. She left them because, well, who knows when they might come in handy?
There were others perfect for promoting Krista’s Place. On her laptop, she created an image of Will and her with catchy text about the monies raised and posted it to Instagram. She’d been posting on Instagram for a couple of weeks now, and gotten nothing but upbeat replies, as well as hearts and thumbs-ups and shares. Life really did carry on.
She shut her laptop, took up her phone and padded barefoot into the kitchen and straight to the coffee machine. Empty.
“Make a full pot,” Mara said over the whirr of the blender. “Mom’s coming over for brunch.”
“When?”
The apartment buzzer let off its foghorn call. “Now.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Because I didn’t hear you come home last night. Besides, you weren’t supposed to be here this morning, and you’ve only just now made an appearance.”
“Sound logic is no excuse,” Krista said. “Did you tell Mom about the fake girlfriend thing with Will?”
“I’m not doing your dirty work,” Mara said.
“I guess I better since there’s an update.”
Mara hit the cancel button on the blender and in the silence asked, “What happened?”
There was a knock on the door. “Later,” Krista said and jumped to answer it.
She was greeted by cheesecake rimmed with fresh strawberries. Krista’s insides went as squishy as the dessert. “Are those strawberries from Aunt Penny’s garden?” The garden technically belonged to Jack and Bridget now, since they owned Aunt Penny’s house, but to everyone it was still Aunt Penny’s even though she’d passed away eight months before.
“Yes, they are,” their mother said, sliding the dessert onto the counter. She enveloped Mara and then Krista in a hug of Bali cotton and incense. “Now tell me quick what you’ve been up to, so we can have a slice.”
Krista balked. How to confess to her family that she was about to launch into a hopeless relationship? “Mostly busy with work.”
“At some convention promoting your spa?”
Mara raised her eyebrow.
“Did I say convention?”
Their mother opened her phone and read, “‘Hey, Mom. Sorry I can’t call. Busy working a convention. Will talk Sunday.’ And here it is. Sunday. What gives?”
“The quiche is ready to take out of the oven,” Mara said. “And I’ve made the salad dressing. How about we wait until we’re seated before we hear her news. Meanwhile, Krista?” Mara pointed to the still-empty coffee maker.
“Right.” Krista hopped to it.
“I’m afraid you inherited the absentminded gene from your maternal side,” her mother said. “Your father eventually shooed me out of the kitchen. This is about the third cheesecake I’ve made in my life that wasn’t burnt or a soup.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I expect to make a profit this month at the shop.”
Their mother’s eyes crinkled with pride. “Good for you, which proves that you’ve inherited another gene from me. The FIUYMI gene which is—”
“Fake it until you make it,” the sisters sang together.
“Now, then, Krista,” Mara said once they were seated, “perhaps you could explain to us how the fake-it gene is expressing itself in your life.”
Krista explained to her mom how in pursuit of obtaining new clients, she had happened upon a gig as a fake girlfriend with Will Claverley.
Krista’s mom emitted a chirp of surprise. “Janet Claverley’s son?”
“Yes. You know his mom?”
“Of course I knew whose house you spent your teenage years at. We went to high school together. She always acted as if she were better than anyone else. And yes, her daughter is more like her father. That’s why I didn’t mind you hanging out with Laura.”
Krista recalled the live pain on Janet’s face as she’d recalled watching Will get hurt in the arena. “I admit she still has an edge to her, but she does care about her family.”
“She does. Whatever belongs to her is the best. Everyone thought it odd when she took up with Dave Claverley, rodeo bad boy.”
“Dave Claverley? Bad boy?” Not the man with
the gentle voice who’d broken from the wedding guests to help with Silver. “He made Will come to me at the spa and buy Janet a gift certificate. Doesn’t seem bad to me.”
“We’ve all mellowed, and full credit to them for making a life together when we were all betting it would be over in a matter of months.”
“That’s what happened to her other son,” Krista admitted, and the three of them cleaned off the quiche as they discussed Keith’s lousy love life and his stupidity with Dana.
“Anyway, Will said he’d talk to him,” Krista said. She wondered if she’d broken some code of confidentiality between Will and her by discussing Keith’s affairs. Then again, she couldn’t imagine muzzling herself around her family.
“Ah, onto the firstborn goes the burden of keeping siblings in line,” their mother said, crunching on lettuce. “Mara, this dressing is amazing. I need the recipe. No, forget it, I’ll never make it. So, how was it, Krista? Pretending to be in love with a Claverley?”
Krista eyed the cheesecake.
“Don’t even think about it,” Mara said from across the table.
“It went pretty well. We mostly hung out, let people take pictures of us, danced, which was pretty much him walking me randomly across the floor.”
“Was his family in on what you two were up to?”
“Oh yeah.” Krista could almost taste the sweet crush of strawberries on her molars. “Though I’m not sure Will has filled them in on what happened yesterday.”
She paused and her mother rolled her wrist in the universal “go on” gesture.
Krista let it fly. “We’ve agreed to date. For real. For two weeks.”
Mara and her mother exchanged glances; Krista made a lunge for the cake. It was Mara—slow, methodical Mara—who slapped her hand away. “Not nearly enough detail.”
“What do you want to hear? We like each other, but I warned him it wouldn’t last because we are so different. We agreed to try each other out until after the Canada Day barbecue and then take it from there.”
“How very...” Their mom trailed off.
“Boring,” Mara finished.
“It’s not boring,” Krista said. “It’s being honest about our chances. And Will agrees. Now can I have my cake?”
Mara set it before Krista. “But you have to serve us first.”
“That boy just wants a foot in the door,” their mom said. “But you are taking caution to an insane level. Of course, you two will end things if it’s not working out, but why put a deadline on it?”
“It’s not a deadline. It’s a renewal date.”
“Different name, same beast. Are you worried about Phillip?”
“That part of my life is over. I’ve received no hate mail on my website and no snarky comments on my social media. See?” Krista opened her phone to show them the post of her and Will on Instagram.
In the space of an hour seven comments had popped up. Probably Laura and other friends.
There was Laura’s, congratulatory and complimentary with an emoji row of hearts, smiley faces, a cowboy hat and a dollar sign.
Alyssa with Thank you for your support! Bland but professional. She had also shared to the Celebrity Ride page with the comment, Will poses with his latest special friend. Okay, accurate but it made Will sound as if he went through women like tissues, and it made her seem...disposable.
Alyssa had shared the image on her personal page and tagged Krista’s Place, making the post available to all her friends. One friend, in particular. Lindee, Phillip’s right-hand warrior in the charge against Krista.
Oh, that poor cowboy! He has no idea who he’s hitched himself to.
“Oh no,” Krista murmured.
“What? What?” her mother and sister pressed. Krista shook her head and continued to follow the trail.
Lindee had shared Alyssa’s post and the comments were coming in fast and furious.
Krista’s back to taking the innocent for a ride!
There’s gold to be dug in them thar hills.
WARNING: Proceed with caution, cowboy. That was accompanied with a poison symbol.
“Krista! Tell us what’s going on,” her mom commanded. “Or, at least, put that phone away and eat your cheesecake.”
“Cheesecake isn’t going to fix this,” Krista murmured. She showed them the feed, stunning Mara and her mom into sympathetic silence.
Mara picked at a strawberry. “What are you going to do?”
Hide. Remove her page, and wait until the storm blew over. Except this time the attack wouldn’t only affect her. Now Will was involved. The Claverley family, the celebrity ride sponsors, the list went on. Such was the power of social media.
Her throat blocked up, her cheeks flamed. Her fingers twitched at the urge to rebut all the comments, to tell her story. But she’d gone down that road before and it would only add fuel to the fire. Then again, if she didn’t take a stand, her past would always hound her. There would always be someone out there ready to grind her into dust for simply existing.
“I will fight them,” she said. “I don’t know how but I will.”
Her cheesecake still sat prettily on her plate. The trolls were a thousand miles away. The cheesecake was right here. Her family was right here. “But first, we eat cheesecake.”
CHAPTER TEN
KRISTA STARTED HER fight with a phone call to Alyssa. The other woman picked up after the fourth ring. There was laughter and loud male talk in the background. Was Will one of them?
“Alyssa, sorry to bother you—”
She gave a mild snort which Krista chose to ignore. “But a social media issue has come up that I wanted to address before it harms your clients.” Appealing to Alyssa’s self-interest had been Mara’s idea. Positioned across the room in support, she’d given her some other pointers, which Krista had written down on a pad she now kept on her jittering knee to bolster her confidence. Their mother had left because she couldn’t promise that she wouldn’t rip the phone from Krista’s hand and tear a strip off Alyssa. Krista suspected her mother swathed herself in hippie gear and incense in an effort to disguise her inner red-eyed monster.
“What is it?”
“I noticed that you shared a picture of Will and me.”
“It’s a good photo.”
“It is, and that for me is not the issue.” Krista strained to keep her voice calm and diplomatic. “Unfortunately, in sharing it on your personal page, my former connections in Toronto have identified it and have posted comments that are...demeaning to me and—”
“Not this again,” Alyssa interrupted. “Did someone accuse you of being a Barbie doll and your feelings got hurt?”
Krista had anticipated this response and referred to Mara’s notepad. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Will and by extension the charity ride.”
There was a pause. “What do you mean?”
“There are some comments about Will now, too, and they’re not flattering. I thought as the promoter of the ride, you might consider damage control.”
“I’ll have to read these comments,” Alyssa said. “What do you want exactly?”
“It might be best if you remove the post.”
There was a second pause. Krista imagined Alyssa’s stony expression. “When I get a moment, I’ll take a look.”
The moment must’ve arisen quickly, because Alyssa called back even before Krista had time to relay all of her conversation to Mara. “I’ve read the comments and they’re not doing Will any favors, so I deleted the post. It usually takes a while for the deletion to affect the shares, but it should disappear in a few hours.”
Relief percolated through Krista like a cool rush of water. “Thank you for understanding, Alyssa.”
“Yeah, well, I did it for the sake of the ride, not you. I should’ve known better than to bring you into the picture. Literally.”
“I thought everything had died down,” Krista said, trying not to sound defensive. “And I wasn’t aware you were friends with Lindee.”
“After what she just pulled off, I wouldn’t exactly call her a friend.”
Krista dug her teeth into her bottom lip to prevent her from screaming that this was the kettle calling the pot black. “Well, lesson learned. I hope this is the end of it.”
Except it wasn’t. Later that day, she spotted a comment with a link to Phillip’s Facebook page. Weird. He usually relied on Instagram to troll her.
There on his page, he’d resurrected the Krista doll with the pink pouty lips and poufy blond hair. He’d dressed it in a cowboy hat and an outfit straight out of the closet of a buckle bunny extraordinaire. The quip: She rides again! There was a hashtag for the celebrity ride and another for buckle bunnies. Great. Phil had portrayed her as exactly the type of woman Will avoided.
Only there wasn’t just one inflatable doll. Beside the Krista doll was one that looked like Sheriff Woody from Toy Story. Will. A comment balloon floated over the Krista-doll. “How do you like me so far?” Will-doll: “Please don’t ruin it by talking.”
Phillip had depicted Will as cruel and shallow. But her ex was clever. Two dolls, two caricatures. No names, so no use complaining to Facebook.
“If he doesn’t reference us by name, there’s no harm, right?” Krista asked Mara.
Even as she spoke, another Instagram post from Phil appeared. It was the one Krista had posted. He’d found her again.
Krista takes a cowboy for a ride. Another one bites the dust.
“Oh, Krista,” Mara sighed. “What a horrible thing to say.”
“I sometimes wonder if I made him that way.”
“No one has that kind of power over someone else. As much as we’d like to think so.”
Krista posed her pen over the notebook. “What should I do? Never mind. You’ll just turn it back to me.”
“You shouldn’t ask me what I want you to do, because it’s highly illegal and is driven by protective rage. Is there a sister’s equivalent to a mother bear?”
“The three little sister bears?” Krista offered up.
Her Rodeo Rancher Page 13