by Stacy Finz
He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Darcy had been married when he drifted off to sleep and forgot to set his alarm. By the time he dragged his ass into work the next day, he had less than an hour to load the gear for the rafting trip and meet his group at the river.
“You look like a sack of shit.” TJ passed him in the hallway with his standard greeting. “Darcy made a pot of coffee in the kitchenette. Madison De Wolk called to say she’s sending three of her underlings here this weekend for a tour of the town. I expect you and Darcy to cover that so don’t make any plans. Make sure they love the place before they leave. Deb will load you up with GA swag to give them to take back to FlashTag.”
“Yeah, we’ll woo ’em with baseball caps and water bottles.” He started for the kitchen, needing that coffee. “By the way, where’s Darcy? She wasn’t at the front desk when I walked in.”
“Dunno.” TJ shrugged and disappeared behind his office door.
As Win filled a mug, Delaney, Colt’s wife came in, looking like a fashion model. “Hey, good-looking.” He kissed her on the cheek. “What brings you by the office?” Her design company, Colt and Delaney, was on the outskirts of town in an old John Deere warehouse.
“I’m meeting with Deb about our fall line for the store.”
Fall? It wasn’t even July yet. But Win supposed that that’s what fashion-forward meant. It had been TJ’s brilliant idea—at the time he’d proposed it no one had thought it was that brilliant—to sell adventure wear and gear from an online store on their website. Deb ran the store and Delaney, a world-famous clothing designer, did an exclusive line for GA. Business on the retail end had been slowly picking up.
“Nice.” Win poured her a cup of coffee and handed her the mug. “How’s things going over at Colt and Delaney?”
“Excellent. No complaints at all, though I have a lot of catching up to do.” She and Colt had recently gotten back from a three-week honeymoon. “How about you? I hear you and Darcy are trying to lure a big social media company to sign on with Garner Adventure for corporate team building.”
Win nodded. “FlashTag.” Where did people come up with these names?
“Exciting,” Delaney said.
“We could use the cash.”
Deb joined them and she and Delaney started talking cargo pants and ski jackets. Definitely his cue to leave. He finished his coffee, kissed the ladies good-bye, and headed to the gear room to load up.
As he bent over, gathering up what he needed for the white-water trip, someone cleared her throat behind him. He knew it was a she because of the shoes. Elfin flats attached to a short, albeit shapely, pair of legs. He straightened up to find Darcy hovering.
“What up?” He gave her an efficient once-over and grinned. Maybe it was his imagination but she seemed to have dressed up today. White pants that came to her ankles and a tight short-sleeved sweater that showed off her assets. Instead of her signature ponytail, she’d left her hair loose in bouncy curls around her shoulders. “That your picking-out-our-wedding-centerpieces outfit?”
She responded by giving him the finger. Nice. “TJ says VIPs from FlashTag are coming this weekend and we’re supposed to show them around. I thought I should line up some outings.”
He liked to be more chill about these things, go wherever the mood led them. “Uh, yeah, sure. But save room for spontaneity.”
“What does that mean?”
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and fiddled with Google until he found Merriam-Webster. “‘The condition of being spontaneous; spontaneous behavior or action.’”
She gave him a stony glare. “I know the definition, Win. I’ll go ahead and plan stuff.” She started to walk away and he called her back.
“You want to hang out tonight? Maybe go to Old Glory.”
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Am I like your sponsor now? You know, as long as I’m with you, you won’t fall off the wagon and have sex.”
He chuckled, giving her sweater another look-see. “Works for me. We can walk over after work.” Without giving her a chance to turn him down, he filled his arms with personal floatation devices and made his way to the back door.
She was better company than his boring self, which was all he had these days now that his brothers had shacked up with the loves of their lives. Normally, he would’ve taken off, gone camping or traveling. The surf was good this time of year in the Mentawai Islands. But it was GA’s second busiest season next to winter when the extreme skiers arrived. And with this FlashTag deal looming over them, he had to stick around.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t screw this up. In the past, his follow-through hadn’t been the greatest. TJ liked to say that everything came too easy to Win but that’s not the way he saw it. Sure, superficial opportunities, like women who wanted sex and arm candy, presented themselves more often than they did for a lot of other guys. But that shit wasn’t real life. Real life had actually been harder for Win than most people knew, including his brothers. A learning disability had made the scholastic part of school intolerable so Win had tried to make up for it by being good at sports. And being the “popular kid” had helped get around the embarrassment of barely being able to read.
And then making the Olympic team happened. But the rigorous training schedule didn’t work well with Win’s chill schedule and he dropped out, which he’d never stopped hearing the end of. The truth was he hadn’t felt right about getting the spot after TJ scored too low to make the team. The Olympics had been his brother’s dream, not his. Win had despised the cutthroat competitive nature of being on the circuit. It sucked the joy out of skiing, a pastime that in a lot of ways had saved Win. You didn’t have to read or write to perform a perfect aerial.
*
At seven o’clock he met Darcy at Old Glory. She’d snagged two places at the bar and was still wearing her white pixie pants so he figured she’d stayed at GA late as she often did. He had gone home after rafting to shower the river off him and change into jeans. The place, covered from ceiling to floor in American flags, wasn’t especially crowded since it was a Tuesday night. He filled a basket with peanuts from one of the oak barrels scattered around the restaurant before taking his place next to Darcy.
Boden gave him a head nod, then ambled over to take his drink order. “You want a dinner menu?”
Win slid the menu down to Darcy. “You interested in eating?”
Boden looked between them. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you two were here together.”
“It’s a work thing,” Darcy said.
Win couldn’t tell whether she was embarrassed to be seen with him or if Boden had assumed Win was there alone. Or not with Darcy.
“We’ll share an order of chicken wings and sliders,” Win said. “And a Sierra Nevada for me and whatever Darcy wants.”
She got a Coke and when Boden left to put in their orders she said, “I thought you were starting your diet today.”
“You think I need one?” He ran his hands down his chest in a cheesy porn flick way and she choked on her soda.
“You know you don’t. How does it feel to be a perfect specimen of manhood?”
He huffed out a breath. “The truth, it’s getting tiresome. What do you got there?” He nudged his head at the tablet sitting next to her on the bar.
“I thought we could make a few lists for this weekend.”
He groaned. The last thing he wanted to do after a long day of work was more work. “Don’t you just ever have fun? Come on, I’ll teach you how to make a perfect bank shot.” He hopped off the stool and tugged her arm.
“Our food’s coming. And I’m not good at pool.”
“How do you know if you don’t try?” That’s what the tutor used to tell him when he’d struggled with words and letters moving on the page and didn’t want to learn to read.
“I just know,” she said. “Why all of sudden am I your new playmate? It’s not like we have anything in common, oh, except for the fact
that you’ve sworn off sex and I’m clearly unappealing to you.”
“Stop with that already, would you? If I didn’t know better I’d think you had bad self-esteem.” He snapped a peanut shell in half and popped the nuts in his mouth. “Ever since I told you about Britney, you’ve intrigued me.”
Her eyebrows winged up. “Intrigued?”
“Yeah.” He watched her for a second. “You were nice to talk to, a good sounding board. And I seem to be the only person on earth who doesn’t make you nervous. What’s up with that?”
She thought about it for a while. He could see the wheels spinning in her head, probably looking for a pithy insult.
“Oddly, I feel supremely comfortable with you. Even though you’re Brad Pitt on steroids there’s something about you that puts me at ease. Call it a gift.” Judging by the red rash creeping up her neck, the confession had embarrassed her.
But the words made him feel good. “Thanks. I guess.” He should’ve left it alone but he couldn’t. “What about Lewis? He make you feel comfortable?”
She stared at the bottles on the back bar, getting lost in them for a moment, then said, “Lewis is Lewis.”
Before he could quiz her on what that meant, Boden brought their food. “Bon appétit.” He refilled their glasses. “I hear you all are in the running for a big corporate account.”
It didn’t take long for word to travel in Glory Junction. Some of the old busybodies had never recovered from Ma Bell getting rid of the party line so they’d taken on the chore of spreading news and gossip themselves.
“Maybe we’ll bring them in this weekend for lunch or dinner,” Win said. “We’re supposed to be showing some of the bigwigs the sights.”
Boden leaned across the bar. “There’s this dude in Nugget, a pro bull rider, who gives lessons. Why don’t you take them there?”
Nugget was about thirty minutes up the road. “What’s the guy’s name?”
“Lucky Rodriguez. He used to ride in the PBR. A world champion.”
Win looked at Darcy, who was already typing it into her tablet.
“Thanks. It’s a good idea,” she said.
Plus, Win had always wanted to ride a bull.
Rita Tucker came in the bar. Stevie Nicks’s “Stand Back” came on the jukebox and unfortunately, Rita did anything but. She came right up to Win and breathed ashtray breath all over him.
“Well? Have you made your decision about the calendar?”
“It’s been a day, Rita.” Jeez, the woman was higher strung than a racehorse.
“You’re our biggest draw. If you don’t do it I’ll have to go outside and get some real talent.”
Darcy snorted up her cola. “What about that new guy on search and rescue? He’s hot.”
Win shot her a look. “I’m not out yet. I’m just thinking about it, you know, in case I want to run for office someday. How do you think me standing with my junk on display would look to my constituents?”
Boden threw his head back and laughed. “Politics, huh? Yeah, I don’t see it.”
Why not? Win could shake hands and kiss babies with the best of them.
“Take it from me,” Rita said, “you don’t want to become a public servant. All anyone ever does is bitch. What do you think drove Pond Scum to steal?”
Before Rita, Carter Pond—not-so-affectionately known as Pond Scum—had been the mayor of Glory Junction. Then he was arrested on corruption and embezzlement charges.
“You should hold a contest,” Darcy told Rita. “Get some fresh blood in that calendar. I bet lots of men would compete to be Mr. December.”
“Hey!” Win poked his finger in the air at Darcy. “I haven’t said I won’t do it yet.”
She hitched her shoulders. “You could compete too.” And then her lips curved up in an evil smile. She was taunting him, that’s what she was doing.
Chapter Five
When Darcy got home that night there was a Mercedes-Maybach convertible in Nana’s driveway and that could only mean one thing. She girded herself and walked to the front door as if she were walking the plank.
Inside, the eleven o’clock news played on the television. Nana liked to watch it before going to bed. There were hushed voices and Darcy could smell the remnants of dinner permeating the air.
“Is that you, dear?”
She seriously thought about turning tail, jumping in her Volkswagen, and getting the Fahrvergnügen out of there. But her grandmother’s voice came again.
“Darcy?”
She headed for the staircase, hoping to make it to her bedroom sight unseen. Then she could call down that she was bushed and turning in for the night.
Too late.
Except for the lift and tuck around the lids, a pair of blue eyes so much like her own stared back at her.
“Hello, Mother.”
Geneva gave her a swift examination and went in for a hug. Darcy stiffly returned the embrace.
“You’ve put on a few pounds,” her mother said, and backed up to give her a more thorough appraisal.
“You’re here to visit?” Darcy asked hesitantly. Geneva rarely came to Glory Junction, even if Nana was her mother-in-law and getting on in years. Darcy’s father was no better but at least he called Nana once a week.
“Just for a day. I needed fresh air.” Geneva tried for a smile but it never quite met her eyes. More than likely she and Dad were fighting again and Geneva thought she could manipulate Nana into teaming up with her against Max. It wouldn’t happen but Darcy’s mother had delusions of grandeur. Always had.
“Well then, I’ll see you in the morning.” She climbed the stairs, knowing that her mother was watching and banking flaws to criticize later.
Don’t wear capris, darling, they’re for tall women. Let me get you in to my stylist, Laurent; you could benefit from a good cut and some decent highlights. She’d heard the jibes so often they no longer hurt. Not much, anyway. Not like when Darcy was a kid and Geneva used to buy her clothes a size or two too small in the hopes it would compel her to lose her baby fat. Or when she forced a painfully shy Darcy to perform piano recitals in a crowded auditorium. Or insisted that As were for ordinary students. Extraordinary students got A-pluses. Geneva’s obsession with perfection rivaled that of the worst tiger mother. Darcy had the claw marks to prove it.
Before going to bed, she checked her phone for messages. Ridiculous because the only person who ever contacted her was Lewis. As she suspected there was nothing so she brushed her teeth and applied a night mask to her face so her mother couldn’t find anything wrong with her complexion.
The next morning, she went downstairs to find Nana making coffee.
“Mother’s not awake yet?” If Darcy skipped breakfast she could hopefully avoid her all together.
“Not yet, dear. I’m making French toast.”
“I’ve got to run, Nana. Big day at the office.”
Her grandmother sported a placid smile. But her words were anything but. “Chickenshit.”
Darcy couldn’t help but laugh, then whispered, “What is she doing here?”
“According to her, she’s angry that you didn’t tell her about your engagement.” Nana arched a snowy brow. “So you and Win Garner, huh?” Hilde’s eyes danced with merriment. “I couldn’t be more pleased, though I’ve always wanted the man for myself.” She opened the pantry door to show off her Glory Junction calendar, perpetually pinned to the month of December. Darcy had begged her to take it down so many times she’d lost track.
“It was a joke, Nana. We saw Lewis at the rodeo and Win blurted it out.”
Her parents owned a mortgage brokerage in Reno and did a lot of business with Snyder Real Estate. That’s how she’d met Lewis in the first place.
“And you didn’t try to correct him?” Nana laughed. There was no love lost between Hilde and Lewis. Nana thought he pushed Darcy too hard to do his work for him.
Darcy shrugged. “To be truthful I sort of liked seeing the shock on Lewis’s face.” Not to
mention being engaged to someone as good-looking as Win. In real life, though, he’d be the last person suitable for her. Too pretty, too laid-back, too … Let’s face it, the Darcy Wallaces of the world didn’t wind up with the Win Garners.
Hilde exchanged a conspiratorial glance with Darcy before saying, “What do we tell your mother?”
Darcy sighed and decided to stay for French toast after all. “The truth, of course.” One look at Win and her mother would instantly know their engagement was a farce anyway.
As it turned out Darcy got a stay of execution. By the time she’d finished eating breakfast, Geneva still hadn’t risen from her crypt yet.
“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with her later,” Darcy told Nana on her way out.
“Have a good day at work and kiss your fiancé for me.” Nana waggled her eyebrows, making Darcy laugh.
When she got to GA she immediately brewed coffee. She was the only one in the office who made a decent pot. TJ came by her desk and stood over her while she checked messages.
“Yes?” After a year of working at Garner Adventure she’d finally become accustomed to TJ’s abrupt style. In the beginning, he’d intimidated the heck out of her. Now, she was discovering that she could talk back. In fact, he even liked it when she did. “What can I do for you?”
TJ sat on the edge of her desk, his long denim-encased legs stretched out in front of him. “How are plans coming along for this weekend?” TJ didn’t leave things to chance like his younger brother. If you looked up Type A in the dictionary, you’d find TJ Garner’s name in the definition.
“Good,” she said, even though they didn’t have any concrete plans. Win couldn’t sit long enough to strategize, which would leave Darcy to do it all. Same song, different station. Working for Lewis, she knew exactly how this went. She’d done all the work, Lewis had taken all the glory. She didn’t need, or even want, to be the star of the show. All she’d ever asked for was to be valued and not ignored. Or in her mother’s case, not endlessly criticized.
Off the top of her head she threw out, “There’s a professional bull rider in Nugget who we’re thinking of taking the group to meet. Apparently, he gives lessons.”