“A singles auction at the Cherry Festival?” I waggle my eyebrows and do a little shimmy. “I think all my wet, hot American fantasies just came true!”

The few post-lunch customers at the diner’s counter laugh at my uncensored enthusiasm while my twin sister Gwen glances away from The ABCs of Cherry Valley blog on her laptop and lifts an eyebrow at me. It’s like I’m looking in the mirror at the blonde, blue-eyed, more practical, less-talky version of myself, even if Gwen has changed lately. She now has a cute, layered long cut while my hair is still as straight as summer rain. She’s also become relatively peppier, thanks to a very much improved sex life with her steady sweetie Quinn. Even so, we’re still peas in a pod who have different functions. Gwen always says if we were a Jane Austen novel, we’d be Sense and Sensibility — I’d be the flighty sister and she’d be the one who takes care of all the shit that needs taken care of.

I’m totally good with flighty.

Gwen speaks over Creedence Clearwater Revival on the jukebox. “It’s June right now, Gracie. The festival’s in August, and you’re already getting worked up and tingly about a singles auction?”

The customers laugh again. They’re used to how we talk to each other, and I grin over at our tiny audience, which happens to be a mix of cowboys and Full Circle Technologies nerds today.

I wind up and let it go. “Why wouldn’t I be tingly, Gwen? Unlike you, I know how to enjoy a long bout of foreplay.”

“Raw!” says Deepak, one of the FCT geeks.

Gwen and I laugh too. I didn’t really mean what I said about her uptightness — anyone who humps and bumps as much as she does with Quinn cannot in any way be uptight. My sister’s lady parts are probably the most exercised and limber of anyone’s in Cherry Valley. Unfortunately, I do believe “anyone” even includes me, yet it’s not for lack of trying. Hell, maybe someday I’ll be in love like she is, but, in the meantime, I’m good with being all footloose and fancy-free.

Don’t judge.

Gwen is looking at the blog again, and she sighs. “I, myself, am way more excited about all the other stuff the festival has going on. This’ll be fun.”

“Hallelujah, the girl has discovered the meaning of the word!” I lift my hands to the sky.

The boys laugh some more, their eyes on me. I preen just a little before Gwen goes on.

“Just imagine how much business we’re going to get from an even bigger influx of tourists this summer. I’m going to sign us up for the final-stages planning committee, if that’s all right with you.”

“It is.” I wink at Daryl Butler, one of the cute cowboys. “But let’s get back to talking about the singles auction. Even right now, I can just imagine bidding on some of the guys who’ll be up for grabs. Will that include you, Daryl?”

“’Fraid not, Gracie. I met a girl at the Footloose Saloon last week.”

Uh, what? Then what is he doing here hanging on my every word? I turn my shoulder on him, and he leans back in his chair, pushing up the brim of his hat as his best bud, Cal, elbows him.

“Now, Gracie,” Daryl drawls in that long-tall-drink-of-water way he has. “You don’t have to go through no auction to snag a date.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Daryl, I’m ignoring you.” I like to tease him. I like to tease all the boys.

As they needle him, Gwen rolls her eyes and goes to the register to ring up Deepak and his nerd friends as they prepare to leave. I have to say the sound of money is a thrill — Milton’s Diner was just refurbished after a kitchen fire, and every penny goes into the bank accounts that took a hit during the renovation when we had no income. But all’s well that ends well, because I love the changes in here — the bright new blue-and-white booths, the expanded kitchen window, the sunny paint job, the way the antlers and horns from our old décor are now tastefully trimming the planked walls and the long windows …

As I look out one of those windows, I stop being all dreamy and wake up to the nightmare unfolding outside — two black-and-white Sheriff’s Department SUVs have just stopped in the gravel parking lot near the long stretch of country road.

My pulse startles, and I take off through the swinging door into the kitchen.

“Gracie!” Gwen says, and I can tell she’s rolling her eyes again.

The others are hooting, because they know why I’m back here.

Irina, our shy, young cook, looks up from the fashion magazine she’s obviously been reading during the lull. She tosses it to the counter as if I’ve caught her doing something bad. But I don’t mind that she’s taking a break from making the creatively prepared and cooked fried animal parts we’re known for.

“Hey, you,” I say in casual greeting, just as if I’ve come back here especially to visit her.

She merely nods at me. Generally, the men around town say that Irina is “moon faced,” and I guess that means she’s got full cheeks and big, dark eyes that you can’t read. But I think her cheeks have always got a pretty blush, and they’re just begging to be accentuated by a little more makeup that would really bring out her mysterious gaze.

“Is your deputy out there?” she asks in a Russian-tinged accent. That’s where Irina came from a few years ago, but she doesn’t talk much about it.

“My deputy?” I say innocently. “I remember owning a crappy pickup, half of a ranch house, and part of this diner, but I sure never bought me a deputy.”

She gives me the same seriously? look everyone else in town gives me, and it’s all because of one deputy in particular I’d do anything to disown. I just hope he’s not coming into the diner right now.

Jesse Herrera is the worst. And I mean that.

Gwen busts through the swinging door, her hands on her slim, aproned hips. “This is really happening?”

“What?” I ask with my eyes wide.

“Don’t give me a what. Your ‘stupid girl’ act doesn’t work on me, remember?”

Okay, okay. I’ve been doing Stupid Girl for so long, it’s second nature. It’s how I used to fly under my father’s radar when Gwen and I were young, back before he got killed while drunk driving when we were just ten years old and he unforgivably killed another man at the same time. He used to smack us around in those days, especially Mom, mostly in private, although we could hear her screams. As for me and Gwen, my sister took most of his hits because she would stand up to him while I tried to pretend he didn’t exist. But that’s how I operate. I don’t dwell on things. I like to look at life positively. And watching old, fun movies and listening to music with headphones in my room while shutting him out of my life helped me learn those tricks.

Those tricks work with everyone except freakin’ Jesse Herrera.

Gwen shakes her head. “What the everlovin’ hell, Gracie? You’re thirty years old, and you can’t handle coming face-to-face with a charming — and quite frankly, hot —deputy who probably only wants to ask you out again? Do you plan on shedding your drama queen skin anytime soon?”

Irina watches us with interest. Screw the fashion magazine, I guess, because we’re way more colorful.

“Is he out there?” I whisper.

Gwen blows out a breath. “No, Jesse is not out there. He actually hasn’t been in the diner for a few weeks. But Deputies Vanderpatten and Stiles are at table seven for some lunch. Would you mind doing your job and waiting on them?”

Phew! “Okay.”

As I start to breeze past Gwen, she grabs my arm. “Before you escape, you need to tell me once and for all what’s up with all this hiding. Not long ago, you were canoodling with Jesse at Zach and Mandy Hamilton’s wedding reception.”

“I was not canoodling.” I look to Irina as if she can confirm, but she only shrugs. She wasn’t even at the wedding. “Deputy Herrera basically trapped me into dancing with him because he caught me off guard and I couldn’t find an excuse to say no. Really, Gwen — wasn’t the grimace on my face while we were two-stepping enough to convey that?”

Sometimes Stupid Girl won’t go away.

Gwen knows I’m putting her on. “Even if you’re trying to say grimace, the answer is still a big no.” She bites back a grin, and I know she isn’t as mad as she appears. “You know what this sounds like? When Elizabeth Bennet gets asked to dance by Mr. Darcy and she can’t come up with an excuse to get out of it. And look how that turned out.”

There goes my sister again, launching into her Jane Austen fusty bookity-book world. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Actually, I do. I mean, what kind of dummy has never watched Pride and Prejudice? I know most people have read it, but I like the films. Total happy ending, thank you, Miss Austen. It’s just that I don’t want to talk about Jesse and two-stepping anymore. I don’t want to think about how I tried like hell to ward off the shivers of excitement at the feel of my hand on his broad, athletic shoulder or his hand just below my shoulder blade or our hands linked together. Every time I think of that stuff, I’m only reminded of the night early last autumn when we hooked up and …

Oh, God. It’s one night that still makes me flush and squirm, because I don’t think I’ve ever done a worse job at sex. And I think Jesse wants to get me back in the sack to show me that this is not how sex with him usually is. Yes, he’s got that much of an ego.

Gwen gives me one of those looks like What exactly happened between you guys? Why was the sex bad? But even though we share so much, I’ve never been able to tell her the details.

All I say now is, “Jesse’s full of himself, anyway. Even though his glory days as Cherry Valley High’s star quarterback are long gone, he still thinks he’s God’s gift.”

“I think every girl in town besides you would say he is,” Gwen says.

Irina grabs the magazine again and suddenly becomes fascinated with it.

Gwen goes on. “Someday, Gracie, that fast boy’s gonna catch up to you. Maybe he hasn’t been in here for a while, but every time you run from him, he seems to get more interested. You’re not gonna be able to keep hauling ass away from him like you’ve been doing for months.”

Even Irina shrugs at me as if to agree with Gwen.

I shrug right back.

Then I breeze toward the door, but Gwen, who always likes to get in the last word, shouts, “Maybe you can even have all your other admirers run interference for you, Gracie, but that won’t last either!”

Of course, my admirers at the counter hear her, and as I move into the front of the house, they cheer me on.

“Run, Gracie, run!”

I wiggle my hips as I walk and then laugh with them as I head for Deputies Vanderpatten and Stiles at table seven. But, honestly, laughter doesn’t chase away that one crummy night I had with Jesse.

And it doesn’t do anything to erase the embarrassment and regret I feel every time I think of him.