The Corner of Forever and Always

by Lia Riley

  He took a polite gulp.

  “There, that’s better.” Donna nodded in satisfaction. “I know you don’t know me from Adam, but I like you, Beau Marino. I think you’re a good man.”

  You’re a type A, workaholic bore.

  Jacqueline’s complaints had grown so familiar he had stopped hearing them.

  “I know you’ve asked me here in a professional capacity, but if you ever need to bend an ear, a friendly ear that can understand, I want you to know that I’m here.”

  He managed a nod.

  “Now, if I might overstep myself a mite further, I want you to know Marvin had a saying he was fond of. It gets me out of bed the mornings that it seems impossible. ‘Life is for the living.’ And he’s right. We need to live.”

  “And what do you do?” He took a deep swallow. “To live?”

  “I’m thinking how to rebuild my life. The old version doesn’t fit anymore.” She smiled. “I might get a dog. Or a cat. Or a dog and a cat. Marvin was allergic. He was also a homebody. So maybe I’ll finally go see Europe. I’ve always had a hankering to sip wine and stare at the Eiffel Tower.”

  “You’re a remarkable woman,” he said with complete and utter honesty. She had been dealt a terrible hand and was playing it in a way that left him humbled.

  “What about you, Mr. Mayor?”

  He turned the glass in his hands. “My situation is different. My marriage…well, let’s just say that it wasn’t happy.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. What the hell? Had he just given voice to his greatest secret, coaxed free by an empathetic expression?

  She set down her drink on a side table and touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, son. You can breathe.”

  “I don’t talk about the past.”

  Her look was knowing. “You need to someday. But tonight there’s a ball. It’s a full moon, and love is in the air. Who knows? Maybe some of the magic is dusting off on you.” She nudged him. “Why not ask a pretty woman to dance? That tuxedo isn’t meant to be lurking in corners.”

  Tuesday’s laughter pealed from the dance floor. The room had made a semicircle around her, and she was…tap-dancing? Good Lord, was there anything this woman couldn’t do?

  “There’s a pretty woman right there.”

  Pretty? That was a pale, weak word, and Tuesday was everything red, gold, and vibrant. “I’m not like her.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “I attracted an opposite before. It was a recipe for disaster.”

  “Ah, yes. I think I see what you’re getting at.” She nodded sagely. “But are all the ingredients the same this time around? Is she”—she jutted her chin at Tuesday—“like your wife?”

  He frowned. Tuesday was confident, and so was Jacqueline. They were both funny, entertaining, and flattering. But Jacqueline’s shiny package had hidden pathological lying, self-serving manipulation. It wasn’t until after they were married that he’d noticed her habit of kissing up and kicking down. She was nice to people whose respect she wanted and borderline cruel with those who didn’t matter in her eyes.

  He’d fallen for her young, barely twenty, and she’d pulled the wool over his eyes so hard that he didn’t quite realize things weren’t right until his grandma’s diamond was firmly on her finger.

  Her mother had approached him at the wedding reception with relief in her eyes. “She’s your responsibility now. Good luck.”

  At the time he’d bristled at the notion, thinking Jacqueline had been right; her parents were horrible people. Who referred to their daughter in such a way?

  But Beau didn’t realize he hadn’t fallen in love with the real Jacqueline. He’d fallen in love with her mask.

  And when she started to take it off, she could slip it back on so fast that he almost didn’t notice. But as the years went on, she left it off more and more, until some days he felt like he was going crazy.

  He’d look at her at a party, dazzling the room, and think, Is that the same woman who just spent our grocery money on shoes and then blamed me for not looking after her?

  Did Tuesday wear masks to the world?

  As if she could hear his thoughts, she spun in his direction, her cheeks bright, her hair falling over her shoulders like spun gold. Her lips parted and her eyes glowed.

  For an instant it was as if they weren’t two separate people. They didn’t see each other; it was deeper, more profound. Then she blinked, turning to giggle at a joke someone said, and the moment was gone, but his whole body thrummed with possibility.

  “No, she’s nothing like her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The band struck up a slow, romantic tune. Couples began pairing off and stepping onto the dance floor to sway beneath the soft mood lighting. “May I have this dance, Miss Knight?” The smooth-as-whiskey drawl spread delicious heat through Tuesday’s middle.

  “Mayor Marino.” She fastened on a wry grin before turning to face her unexpected petitioner. “Now, here’s a surprise. I didn’t peg you for a dancer.”

  “What did you peg me for?” His wicked smirk made her breath catch in her throat. Was his tone friendly or flirting? His gaze locked on hers, making it impossible to stare back without turning three shades of red.

  His smile. His magnetic eyes. His powerful, masculine build. The trifecta of secret fantasies. Heat bloomed between her legs.

  “I’m going to let you in on a little-known fact. One that I don’t go sharing with just anyone.”

  “Phew.” She studied a potted fern like it was a wonder of the known world. “Good thing I’m not just anyone.”

  Wow, great comeback, Captain Zing. Good Lord, sometimes her life felt like one long awkward moment broken up by snacks and napping.

  “No.” His face grew more serious than normal. “You’re definitely not just anyone.”

  “Okay, dish.” Could he hear her galloping heart over the orchestra? The music started, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

  “You’ve piqued my interest.” He’d actually piqued quite a few things, mostly in her good bits.

  “In junior high, my mama made me a deal. I got a Red Ryder BB Gun if I attended youth ballroom summer camp.”

  Couples whirled past on the carriage house’s polished dance floor as she frowned, brow knitting. “What’s the big punch line?”

  He grimaced. “That wasn’t a joke. I can waltz, fox-trot, samba, and quickstep.”

  She tried to process this unexpected fact, but her internal hard drive short-circuited. “How did you fail to fess up on the night we watched Dirty Dancing?”

  “It didn’t seem applicable.”

  She honestly didn’t know if he was putting her on or if he was serious. “You went to ballroom dance camp?”

  “For one entire week. I told Rhett that I was going to tennis camp, and he made fun of me enough for that. Mama isn’t one for being stuffy, but she said a real man knows his way around the ballroom floor.”

  “That’s fantastic.” Her laugh was nervous. The prospect of Beau in that perfectly fitting tux knowing how to lead was rather swoon-inducing. Fine, absolutely swoon-inducing.

  “I don’t know about fantastic.” He gathered her close, his hand spanning her shoulder blades as he guided her into an effortless waltz. “But I do always aim to make my mama proud. It’s the Southern-boy way.”

  He kept to the rhythm, never stepping on her toes, and adding small flairs to their turns. He wasn’t just competent. He was good. Really good.

  She had been in the ensemble for The King and I and made sure to add her own panache. “People are staring at you,” she whispered after they rounded the floor a second time.

  “No. They’re watching you.” His gaze traveled her face. “You’re beautiful. A real princess.”

  He wasn’t the first man to ever call her beautiful, but never in all her twenty-five years had someone studied her every last feature with awe.

  “You’re acting unusual tonight,” she said breathlessly. Normally he kept up an indefinable guard, as if
he were surrounded by an invisible wall.

  Tonight was different. He was different. She was different.

  “There’s something magical in the air.” Garlands of gold-painted autumn leaves lined the room. Votive candles flickered from tables between mason jars brimming with hydrangeas, dahlias, orange calla lilies, thistle, and garden roses. Tiny fairy lights twinkled over white-painted pumpkins artfully arranged on hay bales.

  When the music finally ended, she moved to take a step away, not wanting to monopolize him, but he held on. Not with any force, just a supreme reluctance.

  “Go another round?” he rumbled.

  “For luck?” she assented.

  The music started, and he leaned in until his lips were in shiver-inducing proximity to her ear. “I do feel lucky.”

  “Why’s that?” she murmured, subtly tracing a thumb over his arm muscle.

  “Every single guy in this room would trade his front teeth to be in my position.”

  He was transforming their odd friendship into a sort of flirtationship. “I’m not even certain that you like me half the time.”

  “The truth is that I haven’t known what to make of you.”

  “And you like putting people in boxes? Assigning them neat labels?” She couldn’t help baiting him. This is how they always acted. It was their shtick. Now he was changing the rules with his open admiration, and she didn’t know how to play along.

  “I’ve lived compartmentalized for a long time.” He traced the underside of her jaw. It was nothing but a fleeting gesture, but one intoxicating enough to enter her bloodstream as if she’d just chugged a glass of champagne. She was two seconds away from inviting him out onto the balcony for a little uninhibited lip-biting, neck-sucking, ass-grabbing, up-against-the-wall fun.

  She cleared her throat. “How’s that working out for you?”

  He unleashed a low, gravelly laugh. “Sometimes I get so damn bored that I imagine doing wheelies down Main Street in my underwear.”

  “Boxers or briefs?” She was being terrible, but it was too much damn fun to resist.

  He looked so adorably scandalized that she almost couldn’t stand it. He leaned closer, his bottom lip grazing the shell of her outer ear, giving her the most delicious case of the shivers. “Who says I wear either?”

  Oh. Mah. Gravy. She jerked so hard at the frank admission that her necklace swung, the chain heavy over her chest.

  The necklace. She covered the emerald pendant with her hand, snuffing her good mood.

  She’d assumed Madam Magna’s promises of irresistibility were nothing more than a bippity-boppity-boo pep talk, a real-life version of giving Dumbo a feather and encouraging him to fly.

  Except Madam Magna never broke character. Not even peeing. Tuesday had once stumbled upon her in the staff bathroom and the older woman hadn’t given a single sign that her act was anything other than the real deal.

  What if the necklace had been enchanted with some magical power? What if Beau’s captivation was due to the necklace?

  “I have to make a confession,” she murmured as the last chords of Strauss’s “Blue Danube” faded away. How was she going to say this? Hey, yeah, so I’m wearing a necklace that might be enchanted and we should leave it here before it goes any further and you require a sexorcism.

  Hmmm. How exactly does one lead in on that particular conversation?

  “I’m crazy about you.”

  She swallowed a groan, half elated and half guilt stricken. All she needed to do was suggest they get some air. They could remove themselves to somewhere more private, where she could dazzle him with her six-part talking points she’d jotted down from her library books and then let him kiss her until the sun rose.

  But it wouldn’t be fair.

  “It’s not me you’re crazy about,” she whispered. It was this enhanced version of her. The blond princess mask. The woman who entertained a crowd and had competent dancing abilities. Even if the necklace wasn’t magic, it didn’t hide the fact that everything captivating him was the glossy exterior. The best shiny parts of herself. But what would he do when confronted by one of her less-than-stellar parts? The woman who slept in past her alarm? Who was easily distracted. Who could start a conversation about wanting to eat less meat and end up discussing Bob Saget. Nothing about her was linear.

  She and Beau might be attracted to each other, but that wasn’t everything. He also was town mayor and the best friend of her future brother-in-law. That made for terrible fling material. If she gave in now, they’d see each other over and over. At supper club. On the boat. At the house. In the paper. At any and all Everland town events.

  She wanted him more than her next breath. Her whole body inclined toward him like a plant seeking the sun. But she was supposed to have played a professional tonight. People counted on her to be professional. Instead, here she was, royally screwing things up as per usual. This necklace was dangerous. Desire was dangerous. She knew this from hard-won firsthand experience.

  Her life wasn’t a fairy tale of frolicking with happy woodland animals, and she couldn’t ever forget it. And if she screwed this up, she wouldn’t be the only person hurt this time. All of her friends at the park would suffer, too.

  “I have to go.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m leaving.” The music stopped, and they’d ended their dance near to the main entrance.

  She took a step away. And another. Sourness flooded her mouth. She’d gotten so caught up in Beau’s flirting that she hadn’t even lobbied him. And everyone at the park was counting on her.

  She’d blown it. Mixed business and pleasure and—

  “There you are!” A stout woman engulfed her in a rib-cracking hug.

  “Mrs. Boyle?” Tuesday wheezed at the steely-haired woman clinging to her with barnacle intensity.

  “Debbie. Please. Call me Debbie.” The woman beamed. “You’ve no idea how much fun Flick had on the boat ride you took her on. Since that day I’ve heard of nothing else except ‘Tuesday said this, and Tuesday likes that.’ I just want to say thank you.”

  “I’d love to see her again soon,” she told Mrs. Boyle. Her instincts were screaming at her to run out the door. Get away from Beau, who was still close, too close. But she’d screwed up so much tonight that she didn’t want to mess up Flick, too. “We got along great.”

  “Yes, please. The poor thing needs true friends, bless her heart, and a positive young female role model to look up to. I’ve had my hands full with the kids I’ve got under my care at the moment. Flick gets so depressed over the adoptions. Little Rowan found a forever family last week. No one wants to consider someone her age. After she went sailing, I saw her first real smile.”

  “Let’s get her some more,” Tuesday said, taking the woman’s hands in hers, her throat scratchy and tight even as her heart filled close to bursting. “Let’s make sure she has a smile every day.”

  “You’re a good woman.” Mrs. Boyle hugged her again before beaming to Beau. “And you’re a lucky man to have this one, Mr. Mayor.”

  Tuesday couldn’t bear to face him after that comment. She counted in her head as the woman turned and walked toward the appetizer table. One…two…three…

  Run.

  Her feet flew over the polished oak floorboards. She gathered up her skirts and sprinted like she was back on that Moose Bottom Softball team, bottom of the ninth and she had to get home. Yes, this was a stupid, immature reaction, just like the idea that this necklace was responsible for Beau’s seemingly magical interest, but that didn’t mean she needed to escape any less.

  The clock rang out, twelve peals. How was it already midnight?

  Footsteps echoed down the stairs behind her. Beau closed in. And if he spoke he would say something perfect and then all her common sense and planning would fly out the window.

  She flew into the parking lot and hooked a sharp right, turning around. No one.

  Good, she’d lost him.

  Wait, where was her
purse?

  That was bad, because she wouldn’t go back inside. And now she didn’t even have a Pumpkin to take her home.

  Some fairy-tale ending.

  She’d have to go on foot, in these heels. She’d darted up Forever Lane when a realization hit her with enough force to make her stop in her tracks, wide-eyed and gasping. No matter how fast she went, she could never outrun herself.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Beau banged through the banquet hall’s double doors and into the sultry night. He swiveled his gaze left and right, scanning the sidewalk. Nothing. Damn. Tuesday had moved like quicksilver. He clutched her beaded purse, the one she’d forgotten on a cocktail table. It had been unzipped, and as he’d taken the stairs two at a time, the contents had spilled. Precious seconds were wasted chasing scattered coins, a red crayon, four tubes of lip gloss, and a set of car keys with a Grease logo.

  It was too late. She was lost to him, swallowed by the night. His heart twisted in his chest. Maybe this was for the best. After all, they were nothing alike. But he’d been running, too, for a long time, running scared from any chance of ever being hurt. But what if the parts where he and Tuesday differed were what made them fit together, like matching pieces?

  He raked a hand over his head and sucked in a breath.

  He had her car keys. She was traveling by foot, and the most direct way home was up Forever Lane.

  “Mayor!” Councilman Merryfox barreled around the corner, brandishing a cigar. “I stepped out for a smoke. Care to join me? I wanted to hear your thoughts on the proposed vacation rental ordinance and—”

  “Call Karen.” Beau strode to his motorcycle. “We can face-to-face next week.”

  “Next week? But this is urgent.” The older man’s jowls shook with indignation.

  “No.” Beau slung his leg over the seat, dropped the purse in the pannier, and fired the engine. “This is urgent.”

  And he tore into the dark.

  His headlights hit her after six blocks. He pulled to the curb and turned off the ignition. “I’m taking it as a positive that you didn’t dive into those bushes.” He nodded at the hedgerow. No doubt she’d heard him coming. Without the headlights, it was impossible to decipher her expression. No moon tonight, but that only made the stars shine brighter.