The Key to Love
Page 25
“So, you’ve read it?”
Bri’s mouth snapped shut. She hadn’t.
And he’d never offered.
Why hadn’t he ever offered?
Sandra stepped forward, cutting Bri in line, and tossed a smug smile over her shoulder. “I’m guessing that’s a no.”
Dread started a slow descent into Bri’s stomach. The little boy peered around Sandra’s leg at Bri and loudly crunched the remains of his Dum Dum.
Now who was the sucker?
Bri’s excitement over their evening picnic morphed into a paralyzing sense of worry. She alternated between convincing herself there was no way Gerard had played her that way and believing maybe there was some truth to Sandra’s explanation, after all. Then again, Sandra had a bitter streak against Bri as long as Main Street. She had plenty of motivation to lie if she wanted to—especially if she’d been jealous about Gerard.
It was the heavy “what if” she couldn’t shake.
Bri hesitantly climbed the porch steps of the B&B, mini-cooler in hand. She’d insisted on bringing some goodies of her own this time, but her heart hadn’t been in it as she’d packed fresh fruit, flaky croissants, and newly baked oatmeal-raisin cookies.
She shifted the cooler to knock on the door. She’d feel better after she talked to him. Surely it was all one big misunderstanding, and they’d get a good laugh and eat cookies and—
“Over here, Cupcake.” The porch swing creaked, and Bri tightened her grip on the plastic blue handle as she spun to face Gerard.
“You scared me—again.” She forced a laugh that sounded hollow.
“Do you ever look to your right?” He grinned, and unlike their last porch visit, he stood to greet her. Bri couldn’t contain the butterflies taking flight in her stomach as he closed the distance between them.
“When there’s a good reason to.” She tried to smile back, but even her flirting felt awkward, forced. She had to know his side of the story or she’d never be able to relax.
He opened his arms, and she stepped into them on autopilot. His strong grip shut around her, his heartbeat steady in his chest, calming her racing one. She rested in his embrace.
“I’ve been waiting for this all day.” He pressed a kiss against her forehead.
“Me too.” And she had. There was no reason to believe anything had changed. In fact, the longer she stayed in his arms—inhaling his unique scent of evergreen and coffee and earth, feeling his muscles beneath her fingertips—the sillier she felt for having given Sandra’s gossip a second thought.
“I hope you’re hungry.” Gerard broke away from the hug and began opening containers of sliced deli meat for the croissants. “This isn’t as authentic as our last picnic, but I didn’t want to be distracted by details.” He caught her hand as she set the cooler on the table. “I’d much rather focus on other things.”
“So, I’m a thing now, huh?” She shook her head with exaggeration as she began pulling containers from the cooler. “Agnes always warned me, once you let a man kiss you, it’s all downhill from—”
Gerard cut her off with an intentional press of his lips against hers, and suddenly she was having dessert before dinner. She kissed him in return, Sandra’s petty accusations now all but a fleeting memory as his hand warmed her back through her thin sweater. This was Gerard. This was them. This was real.
He drew away slowly, fingers grazing down the length of her arm and tugging at her fingers. “Downhill, you were saying?”
“Like a roller coaster.” She rose on her tiptoes and kissed him once more before forcing herself to step back. Two steps, to be safe. “We do have to eat.”
“Eating is overrated.” But he obediently began assembling sandwiches while she set the fruit on paper plates. “How are the love angels today?”
“Tired,” Bri answered before fully thinking through the ramifications of what that could mean. She pulled in her lower lip. “Probably just from the busy weekend of Casey’s wedding, though. They’re not used to being up that late. I’m sure it takes a few days to recover and get back into their routine.”
“Maybe so.” Gerard nodded, but his tone didn’t sound convinced.
Just like at the bank, a piece of her security separated from the whole and began floating away. Bri hastily plucked grapes from the bunch, one after the other, desperate to prove her own point. “You know, Mabel was dancing for half the reception, and Agnes was flirting with Mr. Hansen most of the night.” Pluck. Pluck. “That’s a lot on tired legs.” Pluck. “Even if they are in compression hose.” Pluck.
Gerard stilled her hand with his, and she released what was about to be her twentieth grape. He laughed and gestured for her to sit at the wicker chair by the table. “Come on. What gives?”
“Sorry, I’m just a little on edge.” Bri released the sigh that had been building all afternoon and rolled her eyes as she popped a grape in her mouth and sat. “It’s stupid.”
Gerard sat in the chair across from her. “Tell me. Let me be the judge.” He took a bite of a meat-laden croissant.
She needed to tell him about Sandra. Get it over with so they could go back to the good part of the evening—like kissing. She really didn’t want to waste her last few hours with Gerard worrying over nothing. Nothing was changing. Not with them, not with Mabel and Agnes. Not with the Puff.
She was probably just riding the tails of the discovery of her mother’s letters. “It’s nothing, really.”
“That’s not what the grapes said.”
Bri stifled a laugh. “Fine. I ran into Sandra at the bank while making deposits.”
“Say no more.” Gerard set his plate on the table and held up both hands. “I totally understand.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“Seriously, though, that woman can ruin anyone’s day in a heartbeat. It’s a gift.” Gerard frowned. “Or maybe a curse. What’d she do—insult your dog?”
“Only my wardrobe. But that’s probably just because I don’t have a dog.”
“You don’t care what Sandra thinks of your clothes.” Gerard leaned to the side and made an exaggerated show of looking her up and down, waggling his dark eyebrows. “I think you look nice. Really nice. In fact, come here, and I’ll show you I mean it.”
She swatted at his outstretched hand. “I’m being serious.”
“How can you? It’s Sandra. Shake her off.” Crumbs from the croissant flaked into his lap, and he brushed them away.
Sort of like he was doing with the conversation. Bri frowned. “You don’t want to know what she said?”
“If it’s that upsetting to you, then yes. Tell me.” He speared a strawberry with a fork and leaned back in his chair.
“She said you and Charles had a deal.”
Gerard choked. He quickly sat upright, pounding his chest as he coughed. “A what?”
“A deal. That you were egging on both sides, so to speak, for the sake of the article.” Bri shook her head. “She even said it was a good thing business at the Puff had picked up, because she knew the feature wasn’t going to be entirely favorable.”
Gerard guzzled half a bottle of water.
“That’s crazy.” She looked down at her hands, then back at Gerard, who dabbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “Right?”
“Isn’t she the town gossip?”
“Unofficially. Used to be officially.”
He scoffed. “Like I said, babe. Shake her off.”
Babe. Not Cupcake. Bri’s frown deepened. “So, there’s no deal with Charles, then.”
“Define deal.” Gerard busied himself with making another sandwich.
The dread that had been ballooning in her stomach all afternoon, and slowly deflating over the last hour, swelled back up to twice its size. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t agree to anything, Bri. Charles is a manipulating scumbag who’s used to getting what he wants.” Gerard shrugged. “I turned the tables on him, is all.”
“You let him believe the
feature was slanted against the Puff?” Bri stood, her hip knocking the table. Gerard’s half-empty bottle of water shook precariously. “But you didn’t really do that, right?”
He opened his mouth, but she didn’t let him finish. “Can I read it? Let me read it.” She looked frantically around for his laptop, which never seemed to be far from him. She headed for the swing and began riffling through the pile of notebooks and books stacked on the end.
Gerard was instantly behind her. “I already turned it in.” He rubbed her arms. “You’ve got to calm down.”
She turned to face him, panic lodged in her throat. “Email it to me, then.”
His brow furrowed, frustration tightening his jaw. “You don’t trust me? Why would I make the Puff sound bad? My job is to make it sound worth coming to!”
The disdain in his voice wasn’t lost on her. Bri slowly stepped out of his grip. The hands that felt so safe and familiar just a few minutes ago now felt like a stranger’s. “Do you think it’s worth coming to?”
He didn’t, did he? He never really had, though she thought the petit fours had finally won him over. All the conversations they’d had about her possibly losing the Puff began to play back like a movie reel.
His pointing out her obsession with the Puff but that she’d had no problem selling her parents’ house—so why the big deal?
His butting into her book club, her friendships, her advice. Always having to be right.
His cocky assuredness that she’d hate Paris—that she was only hanging on to the Puff because it was a safety net.
She shuddered and stepped back, away from him. Away from the obvious. Away from what she’d been refusing to see all day.
He wasn’t for her.
“Bri.” Gerard rubbed his hands briskly down his face, his hands scraping against stubble. “Look, please just sit down. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
He hadn’t answered a single question directly yet. The balloon swelled another size as he turned to sit. There was only one way to know. “Sandra said there was money.”
Gerard froze halfway to his chair.
Bri crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself against the evening breeze. But a deeper chill started from within. “Two hundred dollars.”
He turned, his features pale and pinched. “Bri, I can—”
“You used me, didn’t you? You used me for the story. Entertainment sells, right?”
Sandra was right. She couldn’t believe it. Anxiety stabbed at her chest, begging for freedom, and she stood stoically in place, refusing to give it the release it demanded. “Were you playing devil’s advocate with me and Charles?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Gerard winced. “Okay, maybe a little at first. But not the whole time.”
The balloon burst, filling her to the brim with despair. “So, during which time, exactly? When you were kissing me in the fountain? Or when you were kissing me in the Puff? Or kissing me on the porch?” Her voice cracked and she hated it. She covered her mouth with shaky hands. Everything was changing, after all. And she had no one to blame but herself. She’d trusted him. A complete stranger on a motorcycle. She’d fallen for all of it. Believed they could have a love story to rival her parents’.
But theirs hadn’t been entirely real either, had it? A sob hiccupped free.
“Bri, please. You’re overreacting.” Gerard stepped toward her, anguish in his eyes, but she jerked away before he could touch her.
“And you’re dodging all my questions! Answer me.” Heat flared, warming her chest and neck and bringing a surge of confidence. “Do you or do you not have cash from Charles in your possession at this moment?”
Gerard raked his hands through his hair and groaned. “Technically, yes, but—”
“But nothing. We’re done here.” Tears blurred her vision as she grabbed her cooler and stalked down the stairs. She needed a petit four. Needed the wisdom of her wisest and oldest friends. Needed the Puff.
She needed something that would never change.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
What’s the rush? You were due to come home day after next.” Peter’s pen clicked on and off in the background as he presumably gave half his attention to Gerard’s fit. “What’s one more night?”
A lot. Gerard pressed his lips together in an effort to keep from unleashing on his boss as he paced the B&B’s front porch, cell clenched in his fist. He almost didn’t care who saw him or heard his conversation at this point. Bri was gone—long gone—back to the bakery or wherever she’d stormed off to, and she’d taken all of his good mood with her. He wanted to get out of Story. ASAP.
“I wasn’t asking. I was telling you I’ll be in the office a day sooner than scheduled.” He gritted his teeth. “If that’s a problem, I’ll take a detour on the way home and kill twenty-four hours elsewhere.”
“Calm down. I was just curious.” The pen clicked in double time. “What happened?”
“The blonde happened.” Gerard paced the other direction, eyes sweeping the windows of the house for any signs of Mrs. Beeker or other guests. Maybe he cared a little if he was overheard. That would be just his luck—word getting back to Sandra about his and Bri’s fight.
Sandra. If that busybody had just kept to herself, their fledgling relationship wouldn’t have been ruined. How dare she accuse him of catering to Charles, like he’d accepted that money without the intent of returning it? He’d been bamboozled, which was possibly Charles’s play all along. If he couldn’t have Bri, he’d make sure no one could. Gerard should have seen it coming, should have stayed on guard when it seemed like Charles had laid low in the bakery standoff—but he’d gotten distracted.
By Bri.
“You’re finally admitting your feelings for Bri, huh?” Peter chuckled, half-amused, half-smug. “It’s about time.”
About time? Gerard slowly lowered his phone and looked at it, as if his boss could give him answers to the questions running through his mind.
Peter had given him this assignment. Peter had conveniently demanded he turn the piece into a series and stay longer. And Peter was one of the only humans alive who knew the things Remy had told him.
“Always travel, never land.”
“You know what love does, son? Love prisons you in a Podunk town in mid-America, that’s what it does.”
“You keep moving, boy, you hear me? Chase after the story. Don’t let it catch you.”
Gerard’s hand tightened around the phone as the pieces clicked into place. Peter had been on him for the past ten months about moving on from Kelsey and dating again. He’d seen an opportunity for this assignment with Bri and forced it on him.
His jaw tightened. He’d been played. All this time, he’d been on guard about the love angels’ matchmaking schemes, and all along, it’d been Peter.
He interrupted his boss’s ramble about the assignment and his next bonus and profit margins. “Dude. You sent me here on purpose.”
“I know.” He didn’t even bother denying it.
Gerard ran his hand through his hair, grasping the longer strands in desperate need of a cut. He tugged hard, wishing he could throat punch his obnoxious best friend/boss through the phone. “That would have been good to know a heck of a lot sooner.” The man who never, ever bluffed had just stacked the deck—against him.
His anger flared.
But Peter’s voice remained calm, even. “No, because you’d never have gone if you’d known.”
Gerard narrowed his eyes. “Would my job really have been on the line if I had resisted?” He’d been set up. Played for a fool. By his boss. By Sandra. By Charles. By Bri.
Not Bri. Bri was genuine. That’s what hurt the most. She’d been the realest part of all this. And he’d been the one to screw that up with his secrets. Sandra hadn’t been right to say what she did, but Gerard hadn’t been totally blame-free either. Hadn’t he entertained the idea initially of keeping the feature interesting by playing both sides?
His stomach balled into a knot. It didn’t matter—she hadn’t given him a chance to explain. Just accused him of lying and using her, then stormed off before he could even offer reassurance. Now his pride throbbed. But the anger was a good thing—it’d make the goodbye a heck of a lot easier. He had been getting way too close. Way too vulnerable again.
It was safer this way.
“I never lied to you about any of this.” Peter cleared his throat. “I just—nudged. Hard. I’m a nudger, Gerard.”
“You’re a something, alright.” Gerard pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, you sent me on a blind mission to fall in love in Kansas?”
Peter paused. “It worked, didn’t it?”
His heart thundered with indignation. “This is my life, man. Not a game.” But if it were a game, it would be found on the back of the clearance shelf at the discount store. Hardly worth hiking it to the checkout counter. He groaned.
“Right. Your life, that you’re wasting away. Wasting valuable talent—”
“Then why didn’t you give me lead sooner?” He threw one arm out in frustration.
“To everything there is a season.” Peter clicked his tongue. “A time to rend, a time to sow . . .”
“A time to kill,” Gerard growled.
Peter carried on, unfazed. “A time to keep silent and a time to speak.”
“What are you getting at?”
“It’s your time to speak. I want you to have more of a voice—I always have. But you weren’t ready. You were too . . . chiseled.”
He had a feeling Peter wasn’t referring to his gym regimen. “Quit waxing poetic and get to the point.”
Peter sighed. “You were stony, man. You were hard as rock, and that’s not the voice we need at Traipse Horizon. We need someone passionate but clear-minded. Genuine but open to new ideas and concepts. Someone who knew what it meant to truly live.”
“I said to stop waxing poetic.”
“You don’t even know what you’re living for anymore, do you? Not since Kelsey.” Peter’s tone gentled, and Gerard despised the pity lingering around the edges. “I was hoping you’d get to Story and put that Remy guy’s lousy love advice aside, and maybe find out.”