Yes, they looked like the kind of men that would be pretty good at most anything they set their minds to.
“He told me he’s looking for a place to rent.”
“Really? He told you that?”
“Last night. After the jam.”
Meg and Lucia exchanged glances. Then Meg chuckled. “You’re blushing and he’s smiling at you and heading this way. What happened last night?”
“Absolutely nothing.” But her friends didn’t believe her. She could tell by the way they laughed.
CHAPTER NINE
AURORA WAS CLEARLY enjoying herself, he noted. Meg and Lucia stood near her, talking to various people who wandered along the street across from them as the demolition of the building continued. She looked like a Viking queen, tall and silver-haired and regal as she watched her building being taken apart board by board.
“Jake,” Winter begged. “Can we go riding again?”
“If you ask me that again I’ll take you back to Iris’s. She needs help cleaning, she said.”
“That’s totally unfair.”
“Yeah, well, even cowgirls get the blues.”
Her brow furrowed. “Is that a song or a book?”
“Both. Maybe.” He made his way through the crowd toward Aurora. It was only polite to thank her for the use of the bar last night. Besides, he wanted to see if she’d remembered the kiss. He was curious to see if she’d ignore him or smile.
The woman did not smile enough.
“I need to talk to Aurora,” Winter said, striding off ahead of him. Winter had lost that standoffish expression and seemed to be more comfortable around her new family.
He caught up with her as Winter was telling Aurora about her horse and a couple of older men stood by impatiently. Meg and Lucia were occupied with a group of women carrying picket signs.
“Aurora.” One of the old men, built like a tank and wearing an old World Series baseball cap, broke into the women’s conversation to get into Aurora’s face. “Haven’t you done enough?”
“Excuse me,” she said to Winter, before turning to the man with the square head and short blond hair. “What’s your problem, Jim?”
“My problem,” he snapped, “is you getting over your hissy fit and opening that damn bar in time for the show. That’s my problem, sweetheart. And it’s a big one.”
Jake stepped into the conversation, getting into the man’s face. “Show a little respect,” he growled. “There are ladies here.”
“Hey,” the man sputtered. “This isn’t any of your business.”
“I think it is.” Jake angled his body so that Aurora and Winter were behind him. “You don’t talk to Aurora that way.”
“You don’t look like a reporter.” The man sneered. “And you can’t be her boyfriend. So who are you? Get out of the way so I can say what I have to say. Someone’s gotta teach that woman—”
Jake leaned forward and looked the man right in his gray eyes. “Last chance, bud. Shut up.” He kept his voice low, his eyes on Jim, and he curled his hands into fists. He was ready should this rude jerk do or say anything else threatening.
Jim blinked twice, then held up both hands in a gesture of defeat. “Hank doesn’t need this sh—trouble,” he declared. “He’s gettin’ calls day and night, people complaining, everyone mad at him.”
“Hank’s brother,” Aurora whispered from behind Jake’s back. She attempted to move to his side, but he kept himself between her and the irritated man. “Hank’s on the town council, one of the men who blocked the building permit.”
“I don’t care who he is.” Jake watched as Jim took several steps back, well out of range of a pair of swinging fists, and then scurried across the street. “He can keep his mouth shut and he can stay away from—”
“My women,” his daughter said, completing the sentence for him.
Jake turned around and looked down at her. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“In the movies,” she said, her eyes glowing with delight. “In the movies, that’s exactly what the hero would have said. Stay away from my women.” She giggled, for some reason absolutely delighted by what had just happened.
He wasn’t sure Aurora was as amused. She stared at him as if he’d sprouted three heads and a pair of antlers. Lucia’s boys were jumping up and down with balloons, hopefully distracting her from what had taken place, and Sam gave him a thumbs-up. Meg looked pensive and nodded at him before taking a balloon from the littlest Swallow boy, who looked so happy he was glowing.
“That was...interesting,” Aurora said.
“He was bothering you,” Jake tried to explain. “I couldn’t let him do that.”
Those perfect eyebrows rose. Those blue eyes assessed him. “You think I’m upset with you?”
“Well...” he stalled. He assumed that was a trick question.
“I’m not.”
“All right.”
“I deal with rude men a lot,” Aurora said, her gaze not leaving his. “I pretend I’m used to it, but I’m not.” She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you. That was sweet.”
“Sweet?” Why did that word bother him? His cheek burned.
“Uh-oh,” Winter groaned. “Aurora, you’re ruining it.”
“Ruining what?”
His daughter sighed dramatically. “The scene. That’s not how it goes in the movies.”
“And how does it go?” Aurora asked, amused by the girl’s frustration.
“You’re supposed to fall into his arms with gratitude.” She giggled. “He sweeps you off your feet and onto the horse and you ride off.”
Aurora, her beautiful mouth twitching with suppressed laughter, turned back to Jake. “You don’t have a horse,” she said. “And if you try to lift me you’ll fall down.”
He moved closer so he could whisper in her ear, “Sweetheart, you underestimate me. I could sweep you up and carry you out of here in a matter of minutes. Just say the word.”
To his great amusement, she blushed.
* * *
IF SHE’D BEEN offered a million pounds, Winter couldn’t explain why all these people were interested in watching an old building being torn down. She wondered how she would explain it to Robbie.
An old man gave away balloons while the hot dog shop disappeared.
He wouldn’t believe her. Winter pulled out her phone and took a couple of pictures to prove it.
Robbie’s grandmother would like this, Winter thought. She liked to say, “Things are not like they used to be,” in a sad voice. But here, in Willing, things were the way they were, things were the way they used to be. Winter could blink and picture everyone in old Western-movie clothes and it would be the same.
She wanted to stay here. Jake could go be a singer on the road and live in his truck and write his weird songs, but she wanted to stay. The trouble was that there was no room at Lucia’s right now. There would be, though, when the two houses were connected. She’d seen the rooms upstairs in Uncle Sam’s house. He planned to fix them up, but not right away. She didn’t need them to be fancy. And she only needed one room. And a bathroom, too, of course. And wireless internet, which was only natural.
But until then she had few options. She barely knew Meg and Owen, though it would be cool to live out on the ranch. Jake could pay them to take her in. It would be just like boarding a horse, she thought. But somehow she didn’t think Jake would look at it that way.
No, she thought, looking at the tall, elegant woman waving at the men on the roof of the hot dog place. Aurora was her only option right now.
“Save the sign,” Aurora called. “Remember? I said to save the sign! And any usable boards!”
Would she care about Winter’s severe emotional issues? Maybe, maybe not. Jake worried about th
ings like that, but Aurora seemed like the type of person who would flick them away with a wave of her hand. Like the queen, whose smallest gesture was noted and obeyed.
Flick! Problem solved. Flick! No more tears. Flick! You have a home.
“We need to find a place to rent,” her father said, breaking into her fantasy.
“We do?”
“The TV show is going to start soon and Iris is booked up.”
“We’re going to live here?”
Her father misinterpreted her surprise. “For a while,” he said. “It’s no Downton Abbey, but Sam needs help with his house and you can take riding lessons and help Lucia with the boys. It could be a good summer.”
“And then what?” She didn’t want to trust this sudden good news. “What happens after that?”
“We’ll see how it goes,” her father answered. But he was looking at Aurora when he said it, and Winter wondered what he was thinking.
Flick!
If Jake liked Aurora, there was an even better chance Winter would be allowed to stay with her. Or when they broke up, would she be tossed aside, too? Or would Aurora keep her, like a souvenir?
“What’s the matter?”
“I have a headache,” she told her father. “Aurora is cool, isn’t she?”
“Very.”
“I wish I knew her better.” Meaning, I wish you’d take me with you next time you jammed at the Dahl so I could check out her apartment.
“Yeah,” he said, his gaze on Aurora. “Did you know she plays the violin? I saw it last night.”
“Aurora?” Winter couldn’t picture her as a musician. A model maybe. Or a skier. Aurora looked like an athlete, not someone who played a violin.
“The violin was very old,” he said. “The oldest I’ve seen outside a museum.” He turned back to Winter. “You ready for lunch? We can walk over to the café and get burgers. I told Sam we’d meet him there.”
“Sure.” The hot dog store was now just a skeleton. Lucia and Sam had moved the boys over to the Dumpster, which was something little boys would be impressed with. Meg was talking to Aurora, who was still giving orders to the men doing the work.
Did she want to live with someone who played the violin? Winter thought about that for the minutes it took to cross the street and head up to the café two blocks away. She could buy earplugs, of course. And she could pretend she liked the music. It would be the least she could do, when Aurora was her roommate.
* * *
“JERRY.” LORALEE TOOK A seat across from him in the corner booth at the café, even though he tried to ignore her. Was everyone in this town completely oblivious of other people’s feelings and pain?
“Jerry,” she repeated, her floral perfume wafting toward him. Chanel, he thought. Tracy had worn Chanel, then switched to something organic. He didn’t mind either one.
But not on Loralee, of course. He shuddered.
“Jerry, look at me, sweetie,” the woman urged. “We have a show to prepare for. You can’t quit now after all of your hard work, right?”
He lifted his head from where he’d been pretending to study the menu for the past ten minutes. “It doesn’t matter. The show will go on without me.”
“No,” she insisted, “it won’t. People are starting to arrive. Meg’s cabins have been booked for weeks. I’ve had three people this morning ask if this was the town that was going to be on television. We need our mayor to be front and center on this.”
“When did you start talking like a soldier?” He finally looked at the woman. She wore her waitress uniform today, with her wild yellow hair pinned up in a mess on top of her head. The dangly earrings were pink, as was her apron. As was her lipstick and the blush on her cheeks. Blue eyeshadow and dark eyeliner completed what he thought of as the Loralee Look. She would be at home dancing with old cowboys in old bars and being driven home by them in old trucks. He didn’t want to like her, but most of the time she was harmless. And she was Meg’s mother, so she had to be treated carefully. She drove Meg crazy, but Owen didn’t seem to be bothered by having her as a mother-in-law.
“I’m repeating what George said this morning,” she admitted. “Everyone is worried about you. First you let the Dahl close, then you disappear, now you’re moping around town just because that bossy little twit found herself another man.”
“Bossy little twit? That’s not—”
“That’s exactly what she is,” Loralee insisted. “Take the blinders off, Jerry-boy, and smell the roses.”
He moaned and leaned his head against the back of the booth. “Have you been drinking?”
“Very funny.” She rapped him on the knuckles with her order pad. “Mike’s going to vote yes. Owen’s back from the honeymoon and will vote yes. All you need to do is call a meeting, take a vote and get the Dahl opened. We have a welcome party scheduled there for next Saturday night, with a ‘Meet the Willing Men’ theme. The guys will all be there to talk to the press and anyone else who is in town and wants to meet them. And then Sunday afternoon the quilting ladies are hosting a tea for the press. Iris has date maps and T-shirts for sale. Janet Ferguson is in charge of the Welcome to Willing goody bags, and your letter to incoming residents has been printed.”
“I haven’t written a letter.”
“Meg wrote it for you,” she explained. “It’s very, uh, welcoming.”
“Have you read it?”
“No.” She looked up from her pad. “Does it matter?”
“I guess not.”
“The ham dinner’s tomorrow night, at the school. You’re hosting. Les has the PowerPoint presentation set to run on a continuous loop out in the lobby. Meg has the schedule of events laid out. You want people to see their mayor moping over a Californian?”
“No.” He hated to admit that she was right. Even though his heart was broken, he needed to pretend it wasn’t. He was a man of action, an up-and-coming politician with his finger on the pulse of the town. He was a fool with a broken heart who no longer cared if any of the poor saps in this town found someone to marry, because he himself was heartbroken and alone. He was one of the pathetic, lonely bachelors now. His only hope was to find someone as wonderful and beautiful and smart as Tracy in the weeks ahead, as the tourists flocked to a town they’d seen on television.
“Man up,” the waitress ordered. “Grow a pair and get with the program.”
“Eloquently put,” Jerry muttered, then reached for his phone.
* * *
“COME ON,” JAKE SAID, grinning. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun isn’t how I would describe it.” Aurora had intended to avoid him, had planned on sitting with the widowed quilting women to discuss the wisdom of assembling an impromptu quilting exhibit at the community center. Janet Ferguson, president of the quilters association, thought it would show visitors that the women in Willing were a friendly and close-knit group and would welcome outsiders.
Plus, they were raising money to buy fabric for more Quilts of Valor Foundation donations. Through her attorney Aurora had made several anonymous donations already, but she was afraid someone would find out. She liked to keep her private business private.
“I heard you play scales,” Jake pointed out. “If you can play scales you can play country.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
Darn that Lucia. She and her mother had nabbed Aurora the minute they entered the school lobby and wouldn’t let her sit anywhere else but with them, Sam, Winter and Jake. As if they were already a little family.
“You can improvise,” he assured her. “We’ll just do it for fun after dinner.”
“I didn’t know you played the violin,” Lucia said, removing a buttered roll from Tony’s plate. “You can eat that after you finish your ham and broccoli,” she told the boy.
“I don’
t anymore,” Aurora insisted, trying to sound casual about it. “Doesn’t everyone have an instrument they used to play?”
“The flute,” Lucia said. “In fifth and sixth grade. I was awful.”
“I tried Jake’s guitar,” Sam confessed. “But he got mad.”
“You broke a string,” his brother pointed out. “You were hammering away at it with a fork.”
“Because you wouldn’t let me use your picks.”
“I’m gonna play drums,” Davey announced. “Next year I get to be in the band.”
“The world needs more drummers,” Jake said, and Aurora couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He looked at her and smiled. “Come on, we’ll play a few songs for the kids, sit around the living room, drink coffee, eat cookies and make some music.”
“I also made banana cream pie,” Lucia said.
“With my recipe,” her mother added. “You’re gonna love it.”
“I have no doubt,” Aurora said. Cream pies were a weakness of hers, and she wouldn’t put it past Lucia to use that in her obvious attempt to play matchmaker. She was still remembering how he’d defended her, how he’d come to the rescue and told Jim Doughtery to back off.
She didn’t remember anyone ever doing that for her before. She hadn’t been able to resist the urge to kiss his cheek, which seemed excessive now that she’d had time to think about it. The rest of the building had been dismantled, the boards either thrown in the trash or stacked neatly in the space between the Dahl and the now-cleared cement slab that had supported Chili Dawg.
Due to Winter’s excitement about the music planned, Aurora let herself be talked into stopping at her apartment to get her violin before joining the rest of the Swallows, Sam, Winter and Jake in Lucia’s living room, but she had no intention of playing it. Maybe she would have to squeak out a few scales, but she could say something about her strings being old or her bow being dirty. She wasn’t sure how to refuse outright without sounding ridiculous.
Aurora had to take deep breaths as she set her case on top of the dining room table and opened it. No one but Jake had heard her play in four years. No one but Jake had seen her violin, her precious beautiful violin.
The Husband Show Page 15