Chapter Two

“Em, wait up.”

I had almost made it to my Jeep parked down the street from the café when my favorite voice called my name. I turned around to find Sawyer jogging toward me with a takeout bag in his hand. My grin came out.

Sawyer landed in front of me and held out the bag. “You forgot your leftovers . . . again.”

I swiped the bag from him. “Thank you.”

“What would you do without me?”

He probably didn’t realize it, but that was a deeply complex question. Ever since he entered my life, much of it had changed—and not all for the better, except he had become the best of my best friends. Of course, I would never tell that to Jenna, Brad or even Aspen, who was one of my closest friends from junior high and the mom of one of the girls on my soccer team. But Sawyer got me like no one else ever had. Did you see anyone else running after me bringing my take-out box? He knew I would be severely disappointed tomorrow morning when I left for work and had to pack a lunch instead of being able to grab the scrumptious leftovers from the meal we’d shared. And no one had ever shared their meals with me before. They never quite got how I loved options with each meal. Why settle for one dish when you could have a taste of two? Sawyer totally understood that. But as wonderful of a friend as he was, his presence had not only introduced the crap fest that was unrequited love, but he brought along a person who had fundamentally changed my life and still had me reeling. I couldn’t tell him that, though.

“I would eat PB and J tomorrow. Who knows, I may forget this,” I held up the bag, “in my fridge tomorrow.”

“I’ll text you in the morning to remind you to take it.”

See? Best friend ever. I would have preferred best boyfriend of all time, but that dang last name of mine was a killjoy.

“I have to be at the plant at six, so I’ll be leaving my house before you’re even up.”

He pressed his lips together and thought for a second. “Hand me your phone.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to set a reminder for you.”

“I can do that.”

He held out his hand. “But you might forget, so hand it over.”

I reached into my pocket to comply. While I wasn’t making direct eye contact I decided to rub some salt in my wounds. “Did you ask Shelby out?”

“No, no,” he spluttered.

I dared a peek into his eyes when I handed him my phone to see what those gorgeous amber jewels had to tell me. They were darting all over the place, so I couldn’t read them. “Why not? She seems . . . nice.” And determined. She’d made sure to get him alone after we paid and had said our goodbyes.

His hand started doing what I’d been wanting to do for almost a year now. It ran through his dark locks. “I suppose, but . . . I don’t want to get involved with someone I work with.” He hastily took my phone and went to work setting a reminder.

“That makes sense.”

“I’ll probably show her around this weekend, though, since I’m a gentleman.” His lip twitched.

That was true. Dang him for it.

“I recommend skipping the Sawyer King glory days portion of the tour.”

“Hey, you enjoyed it. If I remember correctly, you got to relive a bit of yours on my alma mater’s field.”

“I don’t think Shelby is interested in kicking field goals.”

Sawyer smirked. “Probably not, but Southerners do love football.”

“True.”

“You know,” he fiddled with my phone, “you could come with us.”

That’s just what I needed. A front row seat to my own personal horror show starring the man of my dreams and the nightmarishly perfect woman poised to capture his heart.

“I’m busy this weekend. We have a game on Saturday and Sunday is . . . um . . . you know.”

Sawyer gave me a strained smile. I’d never come right out and said that I hated how we’d come to be stepsiblings, but he wasn’t stupid.

“A barbecue at the Ranch. Should be fun.” He sounded unnaturally cheery.

Fun wasn’t the word I would use.

His smile went from strained to sincere. “I’m still planning on being at the game.”

“My girls will love that.” Sawyer stole the hearts of women of all ages, including eleven and twelve-year-olds who were about to hit puberty. For the girls on my team, he was right up there with their celebrity crushes.

He held out my phone. “All set.”

When I took the phone, our fingers did a little dance together. A rainforest of butterflies took flight in the pit of my stomach, so much so that a high-pitched squeak leaked out of me. I was an idiot.

Sawyer tipped his head to the side. “You okay there?”

“Fine.” My voice was keeping to the high notes. “I better go.” Before I did something really embarrassing like lick his face.

“All right.” Sawyer shoved his hands into the pockets of his these-make-my-butt-look-amazing jeans. “Are you sure? We could go get some ice cream.”

Ice cream did sound good, but I stared at the man who would never be mine and an outstanding sense of loss filled my entire being. “Can I get a rain check?”

He studied me for a moment, I’m sure in shock that I had passed up ice cream. “You can cash it in anytime.”

I gave him a subdued smile. “Okay. Good night.”

Sawyer reached out as if he was going to touch my face, but his hand awkwardly landed on my arm where he patted me a few times. “Good night. Drive safe.”

I nodded. “You too.” I walked toward my Jeep a little dazed and confused. Sawyer waited on the sidewalk until I was in and pulling out. He waved and watched me drive off.

I didn’t feel like going home to be alone. My house was feeling more and more lonely. As if my Jeep knew exactly where I would end up, it sped past the exit to my house in Edenvale and kept straight on to Carrington Cove. On the forty-five-minute drive, I blared mom’s favorite band, REO Speedwagon. “Can’t Fight This Feeling” was my parents’ unofficial song. Mom loved to tell us the story of how she couldn’t fight her feelings for Dad. Sometimes she went a little too far when she mentioned things like Dad’s rippling chest. Not sure how many ripples he had anymore, but I didn’t need a visual or a verbal description.

It wasn’t only Mom who had to fight her feelings. Dad had to as well, because my biological dad had been his best friend. But when the man who gave me life died, Dad stepped in to make sure Mom and I were taken care of. Their friendship blossomed into a whole lot more. Mom always said she was twice blessed to know true love. She always told me I was the luckiest girl in the world to have the two best men God ever created as my fathers. For a long time I believed her, but I didn’t feel so lucky anymore. Now I felt betrayed. I’m sure Mom did too.

I turned my radio down as I wound my way around town. The sun was about to set, but the last rays of light illuminated my hometown. No longer was it the sleepy town I’d grown up in. Now it was a bustling village full of shops and restaurants. A tourist trap, really. I rolled my eyes thinking how my sisters’ new overpriced boutique, M&M on Main, played a part in it all. And how they were selling out $200 shirts. On a positive note it was good they had something better to do than flirt with the Ranch guests and wranglers all summer.

I took the hidden back road to the Ranch to see Mom. I needed her to tell me what to do. My Jeep easily traversed the bumpy dirt road almost obscured by overgrown pine trees. I loved the cool summer nights and the smell of distant campfires with the crickets providing background music. The clearing up ahead told me I was close. I slowed down even more until I reached Mom’s meadow. Shannon’s Meadow, as we called it. It was as lovely as she was, with wildflowers and tall grass as far as the eye could see. It was punctuated with a crystal blue pond in the middle and the small cabin where my life began. My dads served in the military together in the same Army Ranger Regiment. After seeing their fair share of conflict, they both decided to settle here. It was home for my dad Dane, and a new beginning for my biological father Anders, who was already married to the lovely Shannon at the time.

I parked on the dirt drive that looped around the old place. So many memories, both happy and sad, filled me. Mom loved this little one-story log cabin with the pink door. I think Dad shook his head every time he saw it, but I always saw the smile in his eyes as if he was thinking, that’s my girl. Now I didn’t know what the man was thinking. How could he have gone from Mom to her?

I ran my hands across the tall grass as I walked toward the back of the cabin. It didn’t seem right that Mom was here when . . . Josephine—I could hardly think her name—was living with Dad in the main house not that far up the road. In the distance I could hear the night’s festivities. Old Grady’s band was playing country tunes for the Ranch guests. The smoke of the nightly bonfire could be seen in the dusk filled sky. Last year I would have been tempted to drive over and join in on the fun, but the Ranch no longer held the magic for me it once had.

Tonight, I made my way through the white picket fence gate several feet behind the cabin. The creak I expected never came. It must have been oiled since I was out to visit last week. I tiptoed across the sacred ground until I saw her name engraved on her magenta granite headstone. The pink hue in the sky added to the granite’s pinkness. I laughed and cried thinking about how delighted that would have made Mom. I knelt on the cool grass in front of the stone. July of last year, my life irrevocably changed. One slip on a ladder. The ugly words epidural hematoma still rang in my head. Why did she need to climb into the loft of the barn to see how many Christmas lights she had in July? Because that was her.

My eyes were drawn to one of her favorite quotes by Willa Cather inscribed on her headstone, Where there is great love there are always miracles.

I wiped my eyes. She embodied that quote. No mother loved greater than Shannon Carrington. She was my miracle. And honestly, I thought she had left me with one, but nothing was overcoming the curse of my last name. Not even the great love my mother had for me or the love I felt for Sawyer.

I picked the grass around me. “Mom, I know you would tell me you’re not here and not to waste my time mourning you, but too bad. I will mourn you forever.” I sank further into the ground. “I really need your advice. How do I get over Sawyer? Clearly, being in love with him is a lost cause. I have to say, I partially blame you.” She’d made me promise to wear pink at her funeral even though it wasn’t my color. I looked like a chewed-up wad of gum, especially next to the twins, who looked like sparkling pink champagne. I had no idea Sawyer would show up. For a minute there, I thought my mom had sent him. But she finally got her wish. I now believed in love at first sight.

I thought back to our first official meeting. It should have been our first date. Instead, he stood by one of the pine pews in the church after the service carrying a dozen pink roses as if he knew those were Mom’s favorite. But they weren’t for Mom, they were for me. Those dried roses hung in my walk-in closet now. The roses weren’t half as attractive as him. I knew Mom wouldn’t mind me ogling him at her funeral in his dark suit and tie. In fact, I smiled thinking how pleased she must have been by my reaction to him, especially when I clung to him for the world’s longest hug.

“Yep, Mom, I was certain you pulled some weight with the man upstairs and had him hand delivered.” I sighed. What a foolish thought that was. Sure, Sawyer was extremely kind when he had found out about Mom. When I called him to break our date due to the most unfortunate circumstance of my life, he let me cry to him for hours. What did he say? “It would be an honor to listen to you all night. You don’t have to say a word.” Between my fits of crying, I entertained him with silly Mom stories, like how one year for Christmas she made about a hundred nativity sets out of toilet paper rolls all for the sake of recycling. I loved and missed her so much I physically ached.

I smoothed her headstone. “Mom, please tell me what to do. He’s never asked me out again, yet I spend more time with him than anyone, which has only made me fall deeper in love with him. And then there’s her. Who comes to the funeral of a person you don’t know with their son? A money-grubbing tramp, that’s who.”

Oh, yes, I saw right through her though she was playing it cool and acting as if she was only there to pay her respects and offer comfort to our family. A family she didn’t know except that everyone this side of the mountains knows the Carrington name.

I sniffled. “I bet you saw her conniving ways too. Are you dying over her? No pun intended. You really need to shake your husband, or zap him. People survive lightning strikes all the time; I’m just saying, think about it. If Josephine was standing near him when it happened, that wouldn’t hurt.” I would love to see her perfectly coiffed dyed auburn hair frizz and fry.

“I know. I know. I’m being terrible, and you taught me better, but she’s awful. You have to admit that. Look at what she’s done to our house. Have you seen that black mohair furniture that no one is allowed to sit on? Not that I would want to; it’s uncomfortable. Don’t even get me started on her ‘art.’ I’ve seen better paintings from kindergartners. And I had to beg Frankie to stay on as cook at least through the end of the summer. Josephine has done nothing but complain about her food since January when she married Dad. Frankie may hate Josephine more than I do, which is saying something. I can hear you say ‘hate is for the weak and simpleminded’, so maybe I’m both.”

Tears poured down my cheeks.

“I thought he was the one. I had those stupid tingles you talked about. I still get them even though he’s offered me nothing but friendship and his mother is the worst of the worst. Why is Dad so blind to her? Everything about her is fake, from her cheekbones and liposuctioned thighs, to the way she pretends to adore Dad. It’s his money and status in the community she loves. Did you see the fancy sports car she bought herself and told everyone it was a gift from Dad? Dad would never spend that much on a car, and I have it on good authority from Rick at the car dealership that Dad had words with the sales manager when he got the invoice.”

I had to take a minute to catch my breath before I could continue. “Why can I hear you tell me to calm down? You are supposed to be on my side and telling me what to do about Sawyer.”

And why was I arguing with a headstone? I laughed despite how distraught I felt. I lay back on the grass and looked up to the heavens. I could only see Venus in the distance. The hellish environment on the planet second closest to our sun had nothing on my situation. To love someone and know you could never have him was torture. It was like the lady at Baskin Robbins asking you what kind of ice cream you want, only for you to choose your favorite and have her laugh in your face and tell you you’d never in a million years get a taste of it. And it would be dangled in front of you for eternity. And just for the fun of it, let’s make him your stepbrother and best friend so you get an up close and personal view of each woman who wants to land him. And wow, there had been several. Our Southern Belle tonight was only the tip of the iceberg. They all had been as beautiful as Miss Shelby Duchane. Maybe not as sweet, but surely Sawyer would have been interested in at least one of them.

I should probably be a better friend and tell him to lower his standards, or at least get some attainable ones, but the thought of helping him find love made even me lose my appetite.

“Mom,” I whispered into the night air, “should I walk away?” I knew I would have to see him at what were now excruciatingly painful family events. We could become like distant cousins who only caught up when forced to. It would mean me separating our friends and having to make up several atrocious lies about why I was too busy to associate with him. I held my stomach. The thought of severing our connection was like me dumping Betty or cheating on the Doughboy with some no carb diet. What a preposterous thought. But so was pining for my best friend and stepbrother when he obviously wasn’t romantically interested in me. Maybe I should have worn Spanx to the funeral or used waterproof mascara. My hazel raccoon eyes weren’t pretty.

My mind turned to more morbid thoughts as I lay on my mother’s grave. Not sure it got more morbid than that, but I began to imagine my own headstone’s epitaph. Here lies Emma Loveless. Her name says it all. She was a loving daughter and devoted to Poppin’ Fresh, the Doughboy’s proper name. She never met a cookie she didn’t like. Her most notable accomplishment was breaking the world record set for longest living member of the friend zone. I might also add in, Where there is love there is a good chance somewhere else there is a rejected woman eating her feelings.

I needed to write this down and put it in my will.

“Please, Mom, send me a sign. Anything.” I closed my eyes and waited. My phone buzzed in my shorts pocket. Um . . . I sat up a tad unsettled. A text message from heaven? That would be a new one. I carefully took my phone out of my pocket and slowly pulled it up to take a peek. I one-eyed it just in case it was a heavenly message. I let out deep breath when I realized it wasn’t Mom texting from beyond. No, it was the man I was in turmoil over. With both eyes wide open I read what he had to say.

Sawyer: Hey Em, I know that look you get when you are thinking about your mom. I can guess where you are. Tell her hi for me. I’m here if you need to talk. By the way, I left some ice cream in your freezer. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

I lay back down on the grass with my phone weighing heavily on my chest. Was that a sign or an unfortunate coincidence?