Back to Before

by Tracy Solheim

  Ginger gave her head a little shake. It was no use trying to change her reputation in this town if her best friend wasn’t going to help. Sixty-nine more days.

  “Well, wild or not,” Bernice said, “we appreciate her help with Founders’ Day.” She pulled several sheets of paper out of her purse and laid them on the counter. “We were wondering if when you talk to Savannah”—Ginger opened her mouth to interject, but Bernice put up a hand—“I mean Marissa—you could get her opinion on some of these events we have planned for that weekend.”

  Ginger’s stomach dropped as she looked at the detailed flyers Bernice had made up. One advertised a low-country shrimp boil with a Photoshopped picture of Marissa buttering a piece of corn. Another showed Marissa judging a pie contest while a third depicted her standing atop a parade float dressed in the flowing gown she’d worn to the daytime Emmys a year ago.

  “Um, Bernice,” Ginger said. “I haven’t heard back from Marissa yet. I’m not even sure she can come.”

  “Told you Ginger wouldn’t be able to pull it off,” Cassidy said without looking up from her phone.

  “Hush, Cassidy,” the mayor said.

  “Yes, but if she hasn’t made up her mind yet, you can tell her about all the fun things we’ve got planned for the weekend. That should sway her,” Bernice insisted.

  Ginger doubted Marissa would be swayed by anything but money, and she was pretty sure Chances Inlet wasn’t able to pay the kind of performance fee Marissa would expect. The mayor and Bernice seemed to think that paying the soap opera star’s expenses would be enough, but she knew Marissa better than that. Despite what this town thought of Ginger, she was starting to feel a little uneasy about stringing them along. It was probably better just to let them down now.

  Before she could open her mouth to do so, Diesel jumped in. “Ladies, Marissa has a very complicated schedule. I’m sure she’s doing her best to fit Founders’ Day in, but it may take some juggling.” He picked up the flyers. “I’ll fax these up to her, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. It may take a little more time to get things worked out.”

  Ginger tried not to gape at Diesel. He shot her his I’ve-got-this-covered look and she clamped her mouth closed while Bernice practically beamed.

  “Thank you,” Bernice said. “Both of you. The added money in tourism that having Savannah Rich here would bring to Chances Inlet would be a tremendous boost to getting the summer off to a good start.”

  Another twinge of guilt rolled through Ginger’s stomach but Diesel’s hard look kept her from speaking. Bernice and the mayor left the room giddily planning, Cassidy trailing along in their wake.

  “What was that about?” Ginger whispered.

  Diesel put a finger up, staring after the women before answering. “For some reason, the opinions of the people of this town mean a lot to you, so I’ll take the fall on this one. I’ll give it two more weeks before I let them down. Why Bernice is so fixated on Marissa, I’ll never know, but it won’t be too late to find someone else to step in.”

  “It still doesn’t feel right,” she said.

  “Then you shouldn’t have started it,” he accused. “But don’t worry. I’m going to finish it.”

  The guilt inside of her was more than a twinge now, but she was still grateful for Diesel’s help. “Thank you.”

  Cassidy poked her head in again. “Hey, I’ve got to head over to the school to take a stupid history test. Gavin is still on the phone.” Her gaze landed on Ginger. “He’s making romantic dinner plans in Wilmington. I hope whoever she is that she’s not the jealous type because we just rolled over ten thousand Twitter followers with three more marriage proposals.” With a disingenuous smile, she left for school.

  * * *

  “When can you start?”

  The question nearly made him light-headed. Gavin had been waiting to hear those words for more than a year now. Finally, his life was going to be back to what it was before his father had died, before he’d been saddled with debts and secrets that had derailed him for two long years. Best of all, he was getting the hell out of Chances Inlet.

  “I’m committed to the Historical Restorations show through the end of May, but I don’t see why I can’t start June first. If you want the designs by September, that should give me enough time,” he said into his cell phone as he paced the large music room where he and Ginger had spent the previous day. Heat and excitement lanced through him. This room would always hold many fond memories for him, but the afternoon spent here with Ginger would rank at the very top. That, and learning that he’d just beat out his old firm and landed a major design job for a series of loft apartments in New Jersey would be right up there, too. Gavin wondered whether he might be able to persuade Ginger to celebrate with him up here later tonight. After he got the proposal paperwork signed and the last part of his house of cards was in place, he could stage a nice romantic interlude back in this room. His body was growing hard just thinking about it.

  Cassidy waved at him from the doorway, refocusing Gavin’s attention, reminding him that he needed to wrap this up and get the segment with the chimney sweep filmed so that he could get to Wilmington. He needed to coordinate with the two draftsmen he’d been training this past year because he’d need both of their help getting the New Jersey project off the ground. “We can discuss all the details tonight at dinner, Kerry,” he said, turning his back to Cassidy. “I’m really looking forward to seeing this through.”

  It was a harried ten minutes before Gavin was able to finish his phone calls and make his way to the butler’s pantry to get his makeup on. The room was cozy and quiet and he was surprised to see Midas sound asleep on the floor beneath the counter. Not that he blamed the dog. Dressed in a fitted bright blue T-shirt, skinny jeans and her crazy polka-dotted rain boots, Ginger radiated happiness on the gloomy day. His hands itched to stroke the soft skin along her exposed collarbone, but he kept them clenched to his side. Too many people were wandering the halls of Dresden House and she had this crazy idea that she wanted to keep their relationship a secret. If that was what it would take to have her again, Gavin admitted to himself that the only choice was to honor her wishes, because the alternative wasn’t an option.

  “Hey,” he said quietly, before sliding into the director’s chair.

  She averted her eyes, dragging the makeup sponge through the dense powder. “Hey, yourself. Bucky is about to blow a gasket. He wants to film this segment before the fog lifts.”

  Ginger glanced at him then and he was alarmed to see that her face looked wary. She stepped in closer and began carefully stroking the sponge along his jaw.

  “What’s wrong, Ginger?” he asked softly, wishing they were alone in the big mansion again.

  She shook her head. “It’s just been crazy here this morning already. That’s all.”

  Gavin wasn’t buying her act. He’d heard Bernice and the mayor in the house earlier and Gavin could only imagine that they’d been here to pester Ginger about Founders’ Day again.

  “Then I should probably listen to what this house is telling me to do and kiss you,” he whispered, wanting to do anything it took to erase the wariness from her face.

  She scoffed at him as she brushed bronzer over his nose. “I’m pretty sure this house tells you to kiss every girl who walks in here.”

  He tensed in the chair. It sounded like whatever was eating at Ginger might have something to do with him, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. The problem was he couldn’t very well slam the door shut and kiss her senseless. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around her toned thigh and squeezed. Ginger gasped and Gavin felt himself go a little harder at the sound. She shot him a look, but he refused to let go, allowing his thumb to extend upward, rubbing the fabric of her jeans against the seam between her legs.

  “Stop it, Gavin,” she hissed. He was pleased to see a bright sheen of awareness in her eyes.

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on,” he demanded.

  �
�Don’t you want to get this scene shot so you can get to Wilmington and the intimate dinner you obviously spent all morning arranging?” she snapped.

  Gavin swore. “Cassidy.”

  Ginger’s face was pink. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. We certainly have no claim on one another. Yesterday was just . . .”

  “Yesterday was amazing,” he said, squeezing her thigh again for emphasis. “So amazing that I want to repeat it again tonight, after I get back from dinner with Kerry Dukakis, a married father of three who, a few moments ago, just happened to hire me for my dream job.”

  Her eyes were wide as she glanced toward the door. “Your dream job?”

  Gavin sighed. “Yes. I couldn’t very well go back to my old firm, even if they’d held my job this long; Amanda was my boss’s daughter.”

  He watched her face as that little tidbit sunk in.

  “I already mentioned that I’ve been working in Wilmington this past year, building up a new portfolio and bidding on various projects.” He sighed, reluctant to admit the next part. “Bernice, Cassidy, hell, even my mom, and everyone else in this town constantly jump to the wrong conclusions, but that’s because I haven’t bothered to refute the rumors. I let them think I was seeing someone up there. It was the only way to keep them off my back—on multiple counts.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you were going to blow that ruse by letting everyone know we slept together? The people of this town would burn me at the stake if I came between you and your Wilmington girlfriend, made up or not.”

  Gavin couldn’t help but laugh. As mixed up as her logic was, she had a point. “Fine,” he conceded. “You win. We remain secret lovers. Just as long as we still get to be lovers.”

  Ginger nibbled on her lower lip, glancing again at the open door before tenderly brushing his hair back from his temple, her fingers lingering a bit in his hair. She brushed the bronzer over his forehead and along his jawline. “I’m happy for you, Gavin.”

  “Happy enough to leave your door open at the inn tonight?” he murmured.

  She shot him a shocked look and he traced his thumb along her warm seam again. Her breath caught as her eyes drifted shut.

  “No,” she whispered. “Someone will find out.”

  “My mother will be in the carriage house busy with the sheriff. Cassidy is in the Perth room at the front of the house and Diesel hasn’t slept there since he met Yasmine. No one will find out.” He pressed up on her again and she let out a strangled moan. “Leave the door unlocked tonight, Ginger.”

  Ronnie, the Dresden House project manager, burst into the small room seconds after Gavin yanked his hand free. “Dude, look at these vintage doorknobs I found at a salvage sale in Charleston yesterday.” He held up two ornate alabaster door handles for Gavin to see.

  “No!” Bucky called. “I want you two to have this conversation on camera!”

  The director pushed Ronnie into the vacant director’s chair. “Ginger, work your magic on Ronnie while I take Gavin up on the roof to meet our chimney sweep.”

  “I’ll see you later, Ginger,” Gavin said with a self-assured smile as he left the butler’s pantry. And he had no doubt that he would see her later whether she unlocked her door or not. Gavin tapped his hand against the inn’s master key on the key ring in his pocket.

  FIFTEEN

  “You have the most amazing arms,” one of the mothers of Ginger’s ballerinas said reverently after class that evening.

  Ginger brushed her fingers over the little girl’s curls as the child twirled in place. “Thank you.” Up until now, the dance moms had quietly observed the two previous classes, but today they were full of chatter, presumably relieved that their children weren’t being taught by a renegade soap star acting as a ballet teacher. She felt a little giddy that someone in this town—aside from Gavin and Audra—was talking to her as a real human being and not the character she’d played on television.

  “I know,” another mom said. “I work out with a personal trainer twice a week and I can’t get my arms to look like that. What’s your secret, Ginger?”

  “Um, dance, I guess,” Ginger said. “I don’t work out at a gym.”

  “She doesn’t eat, either,” Cassidy said from a corner of the studio. For some reason the teenager had made herself at home there at the beginning of class and never left. Ginger had detected a brief look of disappointment on her face when Hannah’s mom had come in to retrieve the little girl and not her brother, Kyle. Now it seemed the teen was just saving face by waiting for the room to clear before she herself left.

  “Nonsense, Cassidy,” the first mom said. “You don’t get muscles like that without eating protein and a well-balanced diet.”

  Ginger did her best to contain the cheeky smirk she wanted to give the teenager. “I’m very careful about my diet. Unfortunately, I think I come off like the food weenie that Diesel’s always accusing me of being,” she said with a smile.

  The other mom looked at her, wide-eyed. “Hey, have you thought of teaching a ballet fusion class? Maybe you could talk to the manager of the Ship’s Iron Gym and get on the schedule. I know a lot of us would love to take it.”

  The mother of the curly-headed child was nodding profusely now, her face all aglow. “Oh, my gosh, that would be awesome.”

  Ginger took step back. “I really don’t have time to teach any additional classes. I have a lot of work on the show,” she lied. The truth was she spent thirty minutes a day applying makeup and another hour or so doing paperwork. The rest of her day stretched out like a vast wasteland until she could get to the ballet studio every evening to work out. Still, she wasn’t sure she was ready to teach adults yet.

  “You’re welcome to teach a class when you work out in the evenings.” Audra’s voice echoed through the room.

  A little cheer went up among the moms and just like that, Ginger was steamrolled into teaching ballet to mothers of kindergartners.

  “You wanted to make friends in this town,” Audra said to her after everyone had left. “You’ll draw a crowd for the first few weeks. By the time their interest wanes, you’ll be back in New York working as a choreographer. Besides, it’ll be a nice income boost for both of us. Why should I let those muscle-bound guys at the gym have all that money?”

  “Wow,” Ginger replied. “You really can be a bit mercenary. Are you sure you busted up that leg dancing? Or did some thugs rough you up in an alley?”

  Audra laughed as she piled the props back into a plastic storage bin. “Hey, I’m doing you a favor. By the time you get back to New York, you’ll be in shape and ready to teach anyone. Just make sure you give me credit in your Wikipedia bio.”

  Looking at it through Audra’s eyes, the prospect didn’t seem as daunting as it should have. With a wave, Ginger headed back to the inn, her mind once again spinning with possibilities. She’d made it half a block before she realized Cassidy was shadowing her.

  Ginger hesitated slightly, her brain warning her that conversing with the recalcitrant teen was a little like sticking your hand in shark-infested water: You run the risk of having your fingers snapped off. Her Pollyanna heart was already slowing her steps, however. Cassidy was going through a lot; she was alone and probably worried about her mother. The teenager obviously had something on her mind, or she wouldn’t have spent an hour and a half in the ballet studio.

  “How was the history test?” Ginger ventured in without a shark cage.

  Cassidy scoffed. “Infantile and easy.”

  “I always liked history,” Ginger said. “I wish I’d had the opportunity to take more classes on the subject. I was homeschooled so we mainly stuck to the basics. You’re lucky to get to be in a normal school with so many classes to choose from.”

  “School blows.”

  “Well, then, I guess you’ll be glad to get out of there this year,” Ginger said, refusing to allow the girl to have the last word. They turned off the main road onto the inn’s long drive
way. “What are your plans after graduation?”

  “Well, Gidget, I thought I’d mosey down to Houston and enroll myself into the astronaut training program.”

  “Really? You want to be an astronaut?” Ginger asked, realizing a second too late that the girl was being sarcastic.

  “Why so surprised?” Cassidy asked acerbically. “What’s the matter? Do you think I’m too fat to fit on the space station?”

  Ginger stopped in her tracks. “No, I don’t think you’re too fat. But you won’t ever make it out of this earth’s orbit with that giant chip on your shoulder. Yeah, you’ve had some pretty lousy cards dealt to you, but you’ve obviously got a big fat brain in that head of yours that you can use to get over it. Do you wanna know what I think?” she asked.

  Cassidy slouched defiantly. “Not particularly.”

  “Well, too bad,” Ginger said, taking a step closer. “I think you go around hiding behind your thick makeup, your outrageous clothes and your snarky attitude so people won’t get too close and see that you actually have the potential to be a productive member of society.”

  Cassidy’s shoulders rolled back and her lips began to form a sneer.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Ginger said before the girl had a change to rebut her. “I think you like being the center of attention and pity. But that behavior isn’t going to get you too far in life, Cassidy. At some point, you’re going to have to take the lemons life gives you and make some lemonade. Trust me. It’s not easy. And if you don’t believe me, ask Diesel. We both had big dreams once upon a time until the crap called life messed them up. But you don’t see either of us hiding behind a blanket of belligerent ugliness.” She gulped down a breath, realizing she might have gone too far, but it was too late to take her words back. Stomping past Cassidy, she continued on toward the inn. “And NASA needs smart girls like you. You’d be awesome at anything you want to do, Cassidy. Too bad you don’t recognize it.”

  Ginger walked in silence for a moment, unsure whether Cassidy would follow. Unease squeezed at her stomach. Patricia McAlister and the rest of this town would despise her if the words she’d carelessly thrown at the teen drove Cassidy to do something drastic. Once again, Ginger’s Pollyanna personality may have done more harm than good.