Chapter Twelve
Pippa checked in with Twitter while she waited for Matt.
The outpouring of love and support brought tears to her eyes. Tweet after tweet from people telling her how much they missed her, how they’d never believed what they had seen. It provided the salve she needed for the raw place left after all the scorn and hatred.
Matt didn’t waste any time collecting on his promise about his sister’s wedding dress. He called her first thing the next morning and arranged to pick her up in an hour. Nothing from any of her contacts. Who needed them anyway? She would make her comeback through her fans. Three hundred and twenty-eight people loved her, stood behind her.
Matt’s truck swung into the kitchen yard, right on time. He hopped out and strode toward her. She could stand here all day and watch that man move. The smile he gave her made her girl parts tingle. “You ready?”
“Yup.”
“I really appreciate you doing this. Jo almost lost her mind when I told her.”
Pippa stopped. “In a good or bad way.”
“A good way.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. So sweet and familiar, like they’d been doing this for years.
They had, sort of. “Okay.”
He opened the door for her.
Pippa stared up at the cab. Her skirt wasn’t designed for the graceful hopping in and out of pickups. It was much more of a being-handed-out-of-a-limo affair, hugging her curves to the knee.
Matt eyed the skirt, then the running board, and grinned. “Would it be totally screwed up if I told you how much I want to watch you wiggle and struggle to get in there?”
Dork! And how could you get mad at this man and stay that way? “You’re a pig, now give me a hand.”
He went for her ass. Of course he did. Why mess with eating the salad when the steak was on the table? “I don’t think so.” She gripped his hand in hers. “We’ll do this the civilized way.”
He helped her into the truck, grumbling all the way. “Great skirt.” He shut the door and trotted around to the driver’s side. “I’ve always had a thing for your legs.”
As if that was news. Pippa laughed because he always checked out her legs.
“So, Jo’s on board with this?” Her gaze strayed to the pull of denim across his thighs. Who knew a girl could get a bit silly about thighs? And forearms. A girl could lose herself in the play of sinew and muscle between his elbow and his wrist. Not to mention the thick ridges of vein curving beneath his tanned skin.
“Totally.” He turned out of Phi’s drive and onto the highway. Only three cars passed them on their way into town. Matt did the finger-lift hello each time. So different from her LA life where it was wall-to-wall, I-want-to-kill-you traffic all the way. Where, most of the time, nobody really cared if you lived or died. “I owe you for this.”
“What did you have in mind?” Ask me, ask me! Her libido yelled its head off.
“Dinner?” He turned to her with an eyebrow lift. “Like a proper date? Tomorrow night?”
As opposed to a hectic make-out session in his truck or the dusty attic. “Somewhere nice?”
“You got it.” He smiled at her and turned back to the road.
“A place I can wear heels and not feel overdressed.”
His smiled broadened. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
A date. She was in the mood to celebrate. A chance to get all her war paint on, wear something pretty. What girl didn’t love that idea? Not this one, for sure.
“For the record, I like you fine in jeans.” His long fingers tapped the steering wheel. “But seeing you all dressed up, that’s good, too.”
Oh, he was going to get it, no holds barred, all out tomorrow night. Everything from her underwear to her jewelry.
His phone rang, and he gave her an apologetic grimace as he answered. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
Did the woman have psychic powers or something?
“Isaac?” A frown creased Matt’s face. Pippa didn’t want to think it, but he looked hot when he was pissed.
The frown deepened and radiated down to a clenched jaw. Make that very pissed. “What do you mean he didn’t go into work?” He listened for a while, his body still and tense. “No, I can’t come now.”
Cressy’s voice came as a tinny mumble over the phone, but the pitch was an unmistakable whine.
“I’m busy,” Matt said. “Going to meet Jo. At Bella’s.”
The way he parceled out information intrigued her. Matt was keeping secrets from his mother. Then again, if Cressy were her mother, Pippa would have left town and not come back. Not too far from what she had done, actually.
“I don’t know why she didn’t ask you.” Matt switched his phone to the other ear and turned into Main Street. “You’ll have to ask Jo that.”
More whiny tone from the other end of the phone line set Pippa’s teeth on edge.
“Because I’m not going alone,” Matt said. This should be good. Pippa stared out the window, but kept her ears perked.
“Pippa,” he said. “Yes, Turner, but she calls herself St. Amor.”
Cressy squawked on for a bit before Matt cut her off. “Because it’s her stage name. I don’t really care why. If she wants to be called that, we call her that.”
Pippa laughed, on the inside. Deep, deep down on the inside. Good luck to Matt’s future wife, whoever the poor woman might be. She remembered Cressy from the LDS socials held at the big community center attached to the church. Cressy used to have this way of sidling into the social and staring down any girl who dared dance with one of her sons. Strangely, Jo had been pretty much left to run wild.
“Gotta go, Mom.” Matt hung up on Cressy mid-whine. “My mother.”
“I got that. And she’s not happy.”
Matt shrugged and pulled his face into an easy smile, which didn’t quite reach his tawny eyes. “She’s not happy about a lot of things. Isaac is at home, and not going to work.”
“Do you need to go?”
“No.” His body language said the exact opposite. “I needed him on-site this morning. We have a job that might go late if we don’t get our thumbs out our ass. But I promised Jo.”
How many pieces of this man were there? Certainly not enough to go around. “Why don’t you leave me with Jo?” she said. “It will probably be better if you’re not there.”
He shook his head as he turned into Eighth. “Jo needs me.” And Cressy needed him, and it sounded like Isaac needed him too.
“I got this, Matt.” She touched the warm skin of his arm. “This is what I do and I’m good at it. You come in, get Jo and me reacquainted, and then go deal with your brother and the site.”
“Really?” A flicker of hope played around his eyes.
“Really.” Pippa squeezed his arm to reassure him, and also because it was a seriously hot arm and why let an opportunity go to waste?
“Thanks.” He whipped into a parking spot three doors down from Bella’s. “This is what Eric doesn’t get. He thinks I can leave here, but it’s never going to work.”
He could leave here. She opened her mouth to agree with Eric, and snapped it shut. Whatever this thing between them was, it wasn’t about sharing burdens and life stuff.
Matt walked around the truck to open her door. He’d given up seventeen years of his life to take care of his family, a football scholarship, and God knows how many other small parts of what he wanted. It wasn’t right.
And it so wasn’t any of her business. She took his hand to slide off the seat.
Bella bustled over as they opened the door. She saw Pippa and stopped. “Pippa.”
“Hello, Bella.” All the women in the family were named some version of Bella. This one, had been Rosabella in high school. Her mother, Arabella, and her grandmother Clarabella. Now she was Bella, like her shop.
“Hey, Bella.” Matt eased in behind her. “You remember Pippa?”
“Um . . . sure.” Bella put her hand out. “We were in school together.”
“Pippa is going to help Jo with her dress,” Matt said.
Bella dragged her eyes away from Pippa and blinked at him. “But Jo already chose a dress.”
This could get ugly, especially if the dress was paid for. Bella had every right to insist they stick with the dress Jo chose. So, why the hell had Matt brought her here today if the thing was done? He needn’t think he was getting out of dinner, either.
“I tell you, Bella.” Matt dropped his head, and gave it a slow shake. “I’ve been thinking about that dress nonstop.”
Bella frowned at him and threw Pippa a fleeting glance.
News to her, too. Pippa shrugged.
“It’s the one she wanted,” Bella said.
“Yeah, I know.” Matt gave a rueful grimace and rubbed the back of his neck. He could add an “aw shucks” to that performance and get away with it. “I just think she could do better. You know what I mean?”
Bella folded like a cheap deck chair. “Sh . . . sure.”
“She’s such a pretty girl, and I want a dress for her that makes her look like a princess.”
The cocky bastard used the same line on her. Pippa empathized with Bella as the other woman melted into a warm puddle of goo. “Of course you do.”
“I don’t know much about this stuff.” Matt went right on spreading it with a paddle. “Pippa agreed to rescue me.”
Only so she could drown him later. Pippa tossed him a glittering smile.
He winked at her. Matt Evans was such a smug, cocksure, too-charming-for-his-own-good son of a bitch. Someone should take him down a notch or two. She hid her grin, because she was the right girl for the job.
Bella was no help. Fluttering her lashes, and squirming like a Labrador puppy as she asked after his family. Bella went through each member, one by one. Taking a little extra time on their smoking hot sheriff. What woman wouldn’t?
“You leave it with us.” Bella patted his arm. Clearly, the arms fetish was another thing they had in common. “Pippa and I will get Jo into a dress that makes her shine like the diamond she is.”
Matt’s topaz eyes gleamed liquid gold as he gazed at Bella. “Of course, I’m happy to pay for any inconvenience this causes. I mean if you’ve ordered the other—”
“Pffft.” Bella batted her hand at him. “We can talk about that later. The important thing is to get Jo into the right dress.”
“Is Jo late?” Matt glanced around the shop.
Bella shrugged. “She’ll be here.”
“It’s just that I promised to introduce Pippa and Jo and—”
“I’ll do it.” Bella beamed at him.
Matt turned his jelly-knees smile on her. “Only if that’s okay with Pippa.”
“It’s fine. You go on now.” Pippa shook her head. When it came down to it, she was as bad as Bella.
“Thanks, Bella, you’re a sweetheart.” Matt leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “You girls play nice, now.” With a quick hug for Pippa, he disappeared out the door and into his truck.
“You should so charge for the first dress,” Pippa said.
“Yeah, I know.” Bella sighed. “But he’s just so, so . . .”
Pippa sighed. “Yeah, I know.”
“I thought I was going to marry an Evans brother when we were in high school.” Bella gazed out the window as Matt got his sexy ass into his truck.
Not Pippa. In high school, all Pippa wanted to do was get the hell out of Ghost Falls. Maybe if the sperm donor hadn’t left her freshman year she might have felt differently about it. Probably not.
Bella shook her head and turned back to her. “So.” Her pretty face tightened. “How’ve you been?”
The thing is, Pippa could slap on her TV smile and give Bella all the brittle layers of glamour she had in her. Except, Bella was one of those truly nice people. Sweet ran right through the core of her, and Pippa didn’t want to do it. “I suspect we both know how I’ve been.”
Bella’s manic smile flipped upside down and she winced. “I saw.”
“Everyone saw.” The idea of sweet, nice Bella looking at that clip and making the inevitable conclusions made her want to crawl away and hide.
Bella leaned forward on a waft of fresh, sweet perfume. “Matt doesn’t think you said it.”
Good to know. “I explained it to him.”
“No, before then.” Bella waved her hand over her shoulder. “When we were in the shop with Jo before. We showed him the clip and he said straight away that you didn’t say it.”
Huh! That needed some more thought. It made her feel good, though, that Matt had taken her side before she’d explained. “Well, I didn’t say it.” Bella deserved an explanation. “I said it, but I didn’t say it.”
“What did you say then?” Bella cocked her head.
“I can’t even remember the exact words anymore, but Allie asked me how a pair of shoes could make her life different. And I said something like, ‘You’re right, a pair of shoes can’t change your life. Neither can a pretty dress or even new makeup. Nothing you put on can really change you. The answer is inside you. If you believe you’re fat, ugly, unwanted, or not worth loving, a dress is not going to make any difference. The only thing that can change that is you. But for now, put the dress on, wear the pretty shoes, and see if they help you find something you can love about yourself.’”
“But on the clip, you said—”
“They edited out enough of it to make it sound really, really bad.”
Bella’s big blues were even wider. “That’s dreadful! You have to say something. Don’t let them get away with that.” She clenched her fists, a militant light in her eyes. Who knew sweet Bella had teeth?
“I tried that.” And she had, there were rules about doing what Ray did. “But the ratings on the show were off the charts, and a scandal is always more interesting than the truth. Ray has some powerful friends.” Pippa didn’t want to bore Bella with all the other details that played almost constantly through her mind. How Jen was scared for her job, or her conversation with Allie’s husband. “It seemed better to leave LA and live to fight another day.”
“Of course it did.” Bella bubbled back into sugar right before Pippa’s eyes. “You did the right thing.”
Had she? There were girls who would have stayed and fought, manned up and gone toe to toe with Ray and let the mud stick where it fell, but she wasn’t one of them. Being back in Ghost Falls made her feel like taking a swing back. Here she reconnected with that feisty eighteen-year-old who had streaked out of town like a meteor on a straight trajectory to stardom. LA Pippa would never have sent that tweet, and never have discovered how much support she had in the real world.
“Would you like to look around?” Bella flushed. “I made some changes since I took over.”
Pippa really looked at the shop for the first time. It had changed since the days of Bella II, aka this Bella’s mother. The racks of twin sets were banished to a small corner near the back of the store. Her eagle eye homed in on a line of clothes on the front rack. “Bella.” Nothing thrilled Pippa like beautiful styling. Fabric and cut, the two absolute must-haves. “You have some great stuff in here.”
“Really?” Bella’s eyes shone. “You’re not just saying that?”
Pippa strode over to her find and flipped through the hangers. “I am definitely not just saying that, Bella. This is gorgeous.” She tugged a silk sheath out and held it up. “Do you have this in my size?”
Bella did a little happy tap dance on the spot. “Do I ever.”