The Inventive Bride: Country Brides & Cowboy Boots

by Maria Hoagland

  Frankie let out a quiet laugh and poked Logan in the ribs. “Not too many people ask to do homework, my friend.”

  The dreaded word. Friend. If he wanted to move forward with someone, time and time again, Frankie reminded him it wasn’t her. She said that, but she hadn’t moved away from his arm or taken away her hand. Why were women so confusing?

  “I know the McAfees don’t have a legal leg to stand on to get custody—there’s no way she can say I’m an unfit parent—but it doesn’t keep me from worrying there might be some way she can, some loophole she can manipulate. What if because she was Harper’s primary caretaker after school for four years as well as being family—”

  This time she squeezed his hand, and his heart flipped in response. “They’d have a devil of a time getting a judge to take Harper away. You are a fantastic dad.” While he appreciated her confidence in him, he wasn’t sure she knew him well enough to make that statement. “I don’t know how you do it. Parenting is so scary. How do you know what is best in every situation? There are so many ways to handle something. What if you mess up?”

  Like he needed a reason to second-guess himself. He did more than enough of that already. “I’ve made my share of mistakes. All you can do is your best and keep moving forward. It all works out.”

  “If only it were that easy.” She sounded so despondent; it didn’t make sense.

  “You’re great with Harper,” he argued. Perhaps there was something behind her concerns, but he couldn’t imagine what. Perfectionism? Perhaps a change of subject again.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Any serious relationships? Paul?” He nodded sagely.

  “Don’t even go there again.” At least she was teasing instead of worrying over parenting. “Relationships.” Frankie worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “There was one. Marc. We met in college, got pretty serious for a while.”

  “And?”

  “And we broke up.”

  Obviously.

  He’d opened up to her. Why wasn’t she opening up to him? He’d let her protect her heart if that’s what she needed.

  “I was so wrapped up in Marc that I let everything else go. It wasn’t healthy.”

  “You said college, right? I think we all make mistakes like that when we’re young—it’s difficult to find the right balance when you don’t want to do anything but be with that one person all the time. First love is all-consuming.”

  “Exactly. I hope I’d do it better this time …”

  It was difficult to tell in the near-darkness, but he thought her face had flushed. She looked into her lap, and he felt the need to make sure she wasn’t embarrassed. She didn’t need to be, not with him. He liked the idea that maybe she was feeling a particle of the attraction he was feeling for her. Gently, he put his fingertips under her chin, lifting until he could see into her eyes, dark in the weak moonlight.

  “I’m sure it will be better the next time.” He enjoyed every second she held his gaze, careful not to move and bring attention to the fact that they were inches apart. If he only leaned …

  “And Brooke said you weren’t even the least bit romantic,” Frankie whispered, her breath warm and sweet.

  “I’ll try not to be offended by that,” he whispered back.

  “That’s what she said.”

  He watched her lips as she formed the words, and he started to lean in to close the gap. He wanted so much to kiss her. Had thought about it dozens of times since they’d met. Her long hair swept across his hand around her shoulder as she leaned toward him as well, but at the last second, Logan pulled back. He was supposedly dating Tess. He couldn’t do this to her. Or to Frankie.

  Their connection broken, Frankie leaned back. “I need to call it a night.” Frankie stared blankly into the fire. “Thanks again for everything.”

  Chapter 14

  Five days since their near kiss, and it was all too obvious that Logan was avoiding Frankie. Sure, Harper still came around every day after school, jabbering on about her teacher and new friends and the bully she’d beat in a sprint during PE. But then every day when closing time hit, instead of making his way over to Frank & Signs to pick Harper up, Logan would text Frankie, asking her to send her over “to save time.”

  “Right. To save time,” Frankie muttered to herself.

  The Cobble Creek Art Festival would start the next day and run Friday and Saturday. It would be a long, busy weekend, and Frankie didn’t have time to worry about what she’d done to chase Logan away, yet she couldn’t not think about it. The Saturday they’d spent together had been perfect. The geocaching, the jam making, even the stargazing that she was sure was going to end with him kissing her. And then something had made him stop, and she had no idea what that was.

  Focus on the task at hand.

  Main Street for the art festival would become a thoroughfare of people. The road would be blocked off to vehicle traffic, filled instead with tables in front of each storefront, augmented with other area business displays, food trucks, and artists of all kinds. The street would be a sea of easels and racks, tables and awnings, crates and open-air grills.

  To make the most of the short early-morning setup time, Frankie needed to choose which of her finished pieces should be hauled out into the street and which to leave inside. The aim was to lure people into her store, but most often, festival participants wanted to remain in the thick of the activity. Frankie’s dad would man the store “where the crowds won’t be,” and she and Harper would work the outside displays. Harper’s table was already decided upon. Since Logan’s optometry clinic wouldn’t have a cash register set up, Harper would join Frank & Signs, the jars of bumbleberry jam lined up in neat rows. That table would also hold a display of hand-crafted jewelry from a designer in Montana. As soon as Frankie had seen Bonnie Dumont’s leather, silver, and turquoise bracelets and necklaces, Frankie knew she needed to offer them for this event. Bonnie had shipped an assortment that would sell well with locals and tourists alike, and even Frankie bought one.

  What else? She would carry around the iPad and Square for taking payments … “Business cards,” she muttered, adding them to her list. The business cards not only had the store name and phone number, but their YouTube channel information where DIYers could watch her tutorials on how to create your own kitchen island, daybed, or one of her simpler projects.

  Instead of being across the street, Brooke planned to set up next to Frankie with Logan on the other side. This way, the women could help cover each other’s booths, but as the awkward silence between Frankie and Logan stretched forward, having Brooke for moral support would be a relief.

  Frankie sighed and surveyed the store with new eyes, or at least she tried to—something she’d learned from geocaching. She’d always been a hiking buff; there wasn’t a trail she and her dad hadn’t taken at some point in her growing-up years, but in going with the objective to find the hidden cache, she’d had to force her mind to see things from a different perspective. No longer was it about the destination—bragging rights in summiting Table Rock, for instance. It wasn’t about what was ahead. It was about taking note of the details. Channeling her geocaching eyes, she sought that perspective. What had been sitting in her shop waiting for this opportunity for discovery?

  After a few more notes, planning prices as she went, contentment enveloped Frankie. Business may not be netting oodles of money, and her relationship with Logan maybe wasn’t what she had hoped it would turn into, but his friendship filled a void she hadn’t known was there. If it led to something—and it certainly felt like it was—she was pretty sure she could be happy about it.

  With the jingle of the over-door bell, Frankie looked up from her iPad to find a scowling Tess striding toward her, smoothing her severe business suit, jaw set and eyes hard. This was not someone here to browse, and it wasn’t a friend coming to say thank you. “Hi, Tessa, how are things?”

  Tess paused for the slightest of moments and then continued until bursting Frankie’s pe
rsonal bubble. “Hello, Francesca.” The emphasis on Frankie’s full name was enough to remind Frankie that Tess hadn’t used that name since elementary school. Oops. “Do you have a moment?”

  Frankie scanned the room for comfortable seating and led Tess to a small couch and Queen Anne chair. They were slightly dusty and certainly stuffy, but they would have to do. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here about Logan.” Tess’s green eyes glittered with challenge, moving back and forth between Frankie’s eyes, daring her to be the first one to look away.

  A lump formed in Frankie’s stomach. This couldn’t be good.

  Unless. Unless Tess wasn’t happy with Logan for some reason. Frankie felt a rush of hope, heady as a spring zephyr.

  “You set us up; now it’s time for you to back off and let us handle things.”

  Hope fell back like a diver over a waterfall. “I’m not sure what you mean, Tess. I’m not keeping you two from dating.” Though I wish I were.

  “Aren’t you? Then what was Saturday night? Logan was supposed to come back from gallivanting around in the woods with that … child of his”—Tess made the word sound much worse and Frankie bristled on Harper’s behalf—“and you, apparently.” She didn’t deserve Harper or Logan. Tess smirked. “We had plans. Plans that you must have talked Logan out of.”

  Plans I didn’t know anything about. “Not my decision.” She swallowed the temptation to say something snarky about the fact that if Tess had gone geocaching as she’d been invited … but Frankie was way too pleased that she hadn’t. “Didn’t I see you two out Monday night? Dinner or something?” After the almost kiss. Timing Frankie couldn’t allow herself to think about.

  It had been to the single-screen old-fashioned movie theater and Frankie knew it.

  “Yes, we’ve been out. And we’re doing well. In fact …” Tess let that dangle in the air like an engagement ring on an extended hand. “Well, anyway, Logan and I are great. I wanted to thank you for setting us up. You know us both so well and neither of us could have chosen better.” She stood, her long legs accentuated by her heels and business skirt, and Frankie felt inferior in her boots and jeans, even paired with a flowy peasant blouse.

  “I’ll tell Logan you said hi,” Tess continued. “He’s taking me out for a fancy dinner in Jackson tonight—oh, but you already know that since you’ll have Harper, right?” Except she wasn’t babysitting, and Tess probably knew that as well. “Thanks for keeping her for us. I wonder what we could be celebrating …”

  Frankie couldn’t shut the door behind Tess quickly enough. Her fake smile was slipping, and she couldn’t hold on to it one more second. She needed to emotionally distance herself from Logan and Harper for everyone’s good. Cobble Creek was too small a town not to have a good relationship with the three in the future, but that didn’t have to come at the expense of her own heart.

  The quiet Tess left behind was torture, and her perfume abusive. Frankie propped open the shop door into the alley and leaned against the door, willing the frustration to blow away in the slight breeze. Hadn’t she told Brooke less than two months ago that she didn’t want to date, anyway?

  Determined to return to work, Frankie went straight to her Bluetooth speaker for a pick-me-up. Country music sung by hot musicians with smoking abs and deep voices could distract her from the likes of Logan Wells.

  How had she gone from being perfectly fine without a man, thank you very much, to pining after someone else’s boyfriend—the boyfriend in a couple she had set up? It was pathetic.

  Perhaps in setting them up, her judgment hadn’t been the best, but it was too late to worry about that. It was time to distance herself from Logan, which, unfortunately, meant doing the same with Harper. Sadness clenched at her chest, but Frankie exhaled slowly, steeling herself for what she must do.

  Pulling her phone from her pocket, Frankie started a text to Logan: Something’s come up. Can’t have Harper today. I’ll drop the labels for jam off with Lucy. Could you help Harper put them on all the jars tonight? Thanks.

  Debating if she should take them over while it was on her mind or wait so she wouldn’t run into Logan, Frankie went to the front of the store to diagram her plan when she heard sounds coming from the back. Whoever it was, wasn’t exactly trying to be quiet.

  “Dad?” He was supposed to be coming by after he finished delivering his latest project out to the Rocking S Ranch outside of town.

  The man she encountered when she turned around was as close to her father as possible without actually being him. They had the same build, the same coloring, and stood the same way, but this man was clearly thirty-some years younger. Frankie squinted.

  “Darren?” Frankie stared so long, her eyes began to water. Her younger brother stood barely inside the door, holding back as if not sure of his welcome. Surprise swallowed the words she should be saying to welcome him home. “Are you … How …”

  “I’m back, Frankie, clean and sober, and I … well, I needed to apologize.” Darren, scruff-faced but looking better than she’d ever seen him, strode closer. In the years he’d been away, he’d grown from a gangly teenager into a man. One who’d put some effort into hard labor—either manual or the gym, but his determination was evident. “I had to come see you.”

  Unexpected anger surged inside her, bitter and surprising like bile. In the years he’d been gone, Frankie’s main feelings were worry about where he was, despair about what kind of trouble he’d gotten into, and guilt for not being able to prevent it. If his parting words, flung like mud at her before he slammed the door that night, were any indication, she—not their father—had been the catalyst in pushing him away. “Quit trying to commandeer my life. It is mine to live however I want. You’re not my mother, Frankie, and as far as that goes, you’re no longer my sister, either.” And she’d known he was right. She had pushed too hard.

  Each of them had dealt with their mother’s passing differently: their father had buried himself in work, and Darren had done pretty much the opposite—skipping class, not turning in assignments, drinking himself into oblivion so he wouldn’t have to feel the hole left in his young teenaged heart. Panicked at the shambles their family was falling into, Frankie had tried to make up for the loss by filling her mother’s role—cooking her recipes, picking up the household chores in addition to her own, staying nearby for college to try to corral Darren into succeeding—and none of it had helped.

  “I have so much to make up to you.” Darren shook his head. “Not that there’s any way to do that.”

  The anger was ebbing away. Frankie touched his forearm. “Thank you for saying that, Darren. You’re here now, and that is enough.” She swallowed a lump forming in her throat. There was no way to explain how much it meant to her. “I’m the one who needs to apologize.” Guilt rushed in like a flash flood.

  “For what exactly? For insisting Dad send me to rehab?” The hardness in Darren’s voice almost made her wonder if he was angry with her, but his words proved he was angrier with himself. “For making me realize that my grief wouldn’t be absolved with stupid, dangerous driving? Can you imagine what would have happened if I’d …” He gulped. “If I’d taken someone’s life because I was missing Mom? I was so dumb!” He raked a hand through his hair.

  “You were a teenager.” It felt okay to excuse his behavior, now that he wasn’t going to do it again—now that he realized the horrible risks he’d taken—but what if it had been Darren who’d taken away Logan’s love, Harper’s mother?

  “And so were you.” His words were soft, his eyes imploring.

  Looking back, her reaction had been as dangerous and unhealthy as the next person’s. More than once, she and her father had wished for a do-over, some way to get what was left of their family back together, and now that opportunity was presenting itself, if she didn’t mess it up. Frankie held her breath, and her hurt, for a second, choosing instead to hug her brother until tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
<
br />   “I should have come back sooner,” Darren whispered into her neck. “I was embarrassed.”

  Darren stepped back, his eyes trained at first on the floor, but then snapping back up to hers as if facing difficult consequences.

  “You don’t need to be anymore,” she assured him.

  The two of them stood there, sizing each other up in the silence.

  “Dad said you’re pretty busy today and that I should probably let you work …” Darren’s voice was hopeful. “But he said you could use some muscle in the morning—what time?”

  “How about seven?” Having Darren around again would take some getting used to, but Frankie couldn’t deny his help tomorrow would be appreciated.

  “Seven it is.” He punctuated it with a quick nod and a half smile.

  There was no way this was Darren. Offering to help instead of finding an excuse to beg off. Not even complaining about the early hour. He started back toward the alley door and she walked with him.

  “After the festival, steaks on the grill at home like old times?”

  She smiled. Yep, back to the good old times. “Dad’s cooking, right?”

  “You know it. Best steaks around.”

  Looking at his face again, Frankie couldn’t believe it. Her brother. She’d despaired of ever seeing him again, especially so stable, so normal, and so … mature. She threw her arms around his neck, unwilling to let go.

  He allowed the hug for several seconds before leaning his cheek on the top of her head. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”