Always and Forever (4 page)

Brody then makes the mistake of showing the boy the rope pull for the horn which the
kid grabs and yanks on several times which startles the people nearby and one little
girl jams her fingers in her ears because it’s very loud. I giggle when I watch as
Brody tries talking the kid down, giving the father a sheepish grin as he attempts
to grab the kid and get him the heck out of there. It’s no easy task, but he finally
succeeds in getting a hold of the boy then places him on the ground in front of his
dad. The kid immediately tries getting right back up in the truck but Brody’s faster
and nabs him before he can make his way inside again. I can tell the boy’s about to
cry but any boohoo’ing is stopped when Brody pulls what looks like a small fire engine
from his jacket pocket and hands it to the kid who’s now in seventh heaven and immediately
drops to his knees to zoom the truck several times over the street.

Father and son finally walk away and I watch as Brody puts his hands on his hips,
his shoulders moving up then down as he sighs in what I assume is relief. Then I get
caught. Before I can move away, he looks over at my store and sees me standing in
the window. He grins his beautiful grin and gives me a small wave. I suck in a quick
breath, wave at him then hastily turn on my heel and head toward the back seriously
baffled by his sudden interest in me.

As I’m retreating, the bell on the front door jingles and I turn to see Elise Powell
who owns the clothing consignment boutique across the street come in. She and I have
gone to a couple antique shows together and she’s as sweet as can be. Now her hair
is half red and half green in honor of the Christmas season (she’d told me this last
month) and she’s wearing it in what I’d call a bird nest bun, messy and teased within
an inch of its life. She has on a long, black leather duster that’s a gothic version
of coat and tails, double-breasted and buttoning high on the left side of her neck.
It’s very Prince
Purple Rain
-y and it looks good on her. Completing her outfit are white leggings and black thigh-high
lace-up stiletto boots and she just looks totally cool.

“Happy Hullabaloo!” she announces, smiling big with her green lips and waggling her
eyebrows over eyes lined in red. A few of my customers check her out, but upon seeing
her infectious smile they smile right back and continue shopping.

I laugh. “Back at you. How’s it going over there?”

“Pretty well, actually. I’ve sold over two grand today! That last batch of Versace
dresses I snatched up from Williamsburg have sold like hotcakes!”

“Awesome!” I reply, genuinely thrilled for her. She’s been in town for going on four
years and we’ve become good friends but it seems some people are just now warming
up to her. It was mostly the older folks who’ve had a tough time accepting her wardrobe
choices but whatever. She owns every look she wears.

I look down and watch as she picks up a cookie, her alternating red and green polished
fingernails making me smile then she takes a bite. “Oh, God, these are even better
than last year’s. What’d you do to them?”

“One tablespoon of almond flavoring,” I reveal with a grin.

“Mmm. These are the best,” she declares around her bites. She finishes her cookie
then pours herself a cup of tea and after taking a sip then snatching another cookie,
looks at me, eyebrow up. “All right, Pipe, I know you’ve always said you don’t want
to know, but this has been bugging the shit outta me for a week now.”

Besides owning a kickass clothing store, Elise is also a self-proclaimed psychic,
another reason the older townspeople have had a tough time with her. I’m sure she’s
been the ridiculously thinly-veiled topic of a few sermons in the community churches
as preachers warned their parishioners about not suffering a witch to live but she’s
always laughed it off saying that God made her the way she is and they can bite her.

But now I sigh not really wanting to hear what she has to say because from what I’ve
heard, she’s usually right and that scares me. Even though I dislike Brody right now
and we’re broken up, I still love him and there’s always a bit of hope that we somehow
might still be able to repair things, right? I mean, what if she tells me Brody’s
supposed to marry someone like Jennifer Lawrence? I can’t compete with her! After
a moment, I finally nod for her to go ahead and tell me since she
has
gone through the trouble of coming over here.

“You and Brody aren’t finished. But I’m seeing two roads. One’s easy and the other’s
hard.” She looks at me seriously. “It just depends on which way you want to go, Piper.”

“Are you saying we’re supposed to be together?” I prompt, crossing my arms over my
chest secretly thanking my lucky stars that JLaw didn’t come up.

She shrugs. “I can only tell you that I see him as a strong presence in your life.
If that means you get back together, well, I guess that’s up to you two.”

“Before that happens, he’s got a lot of explaining to do, Elise.”

She nods. “He does.” She grabs another cookie and finishes her tea, throwing her cup
in the trashcan. “I’ve gotta get back and close up. I left Amber in charge and she
was freaking out a bit since it’s only her first week.” She walks to the door then
turns and inquires, “You’re participating in the bachelorette auction, right?”

I nod then narrow my eyes at her as she smiles huge before mysteriously stating, “Excellent!”
and leaves.

~~~

“Twenty dollar bid, now twenty-five, now twenty-five, will you give me twenty-five?”

Mr. Axelrod, the town’s postmaster, is the auctioneer and he’s been going at it for
a half hour. Um, I guess there are a lot of bachelorettes in Serenity Point. Everyone’s
in the Knights of Columbus hall that’s just up the street from my store and Ryan’s
now on the stage being auctioned off. She’s up to twenty dollars which is actually
pretty high, matching only Brody’s older sister Cassie who went earlier to Jeremy
Pitkin, one of Brody’s fellow firefighters and Cassie’s “kind of” boyfriend. The other
dozen women have pulled in around fifteen bucks each, so I’m impressed that Ryan’s
bid’s this high.

“Twenty-five!” old Gus Batchelder shouts out from where he’s sitting and Ryan shoots
me a look of panic from the stage which makes me snort.

“I’ve got twenty-five! How about thirty? Thirty? Thirty?”

“Thirty!” Mike Heller calls out. Apparently, Ryan’s arm wrestling comment didn’t scare
him too badly. When she whips her head to me giving me a seriously panicked look now,
I crack up then wink and give her a big smile because this is awesome!

“I got thirty, who’ll give thirty-five? Thirty-five? Looking for thirty-five? Sold
for thirty to the dapper, young gentleman in the navy shirt!” Mr. A points at Mike
who’s now grinning. And it’s not like Mr. A doesn’t know everyone in town, he just
likes describing people, I guess.

I look back to see Ryan’s eyes get huge because Mike won and now I chuckle. Good for
her. This could be the start of something for them. She moves off the stage going
behind the curtain, opposite from where I’m now walking onto it, then suddenly turns
and looks at me before doing a happy dance, excited that Mike “won” her which cracks
me up. And then I choke on my laugh because when I look out to the crowd, I see that
Mike’s approached the table to the side of the stage to pay Zelda Matthews, the town’s
treasurer, and he clearly sees Ryan do her jig which makes him raise an eyebrow. When
I look back at her, she’s all kinds of embarrassed, face red, eyes huge and the mortification
of getting caught apparent on her face and I again have to laugh.

So now it’s my turn to be auctioned. I find I’m feeling somewhat confident because
I haven’t seen Brody anywhere which actually makes this easier. I’d thought I kind
of wanted to stick it to him by doing this, but somewhere between yesterday and today,
I decided to be an adult and don’t really want to hurt him anymore. I walk over to
where Mr. A is standing at the podium in the middle of the stage and he winks and
smiles sweetly at me. He and my dad went to school together, so I’ve known him my
whole life.

“Ready to do this, sweetheart?” he inquires off mic, his face now full of concern.
He knows about Brody and my breakup as does everyone else in town, and knows it’s
been rough on me. He’s got a daughter who’s a few years older than I am and he’s probably
dealt with a breakup or two with her so I know he gets it. He’s been
like an uncle to me and it means a lot that he cares. I bite my lips, giving him a
little nod and take a deep breath as I turn to face the crowd.

“Okay, we’ve got pretty, little Piper Knowlton here, folks. She’s been kind enough
to come up here to help out Serenity Point, so let’s start the bidding out at ten
dol…”

Before he can get the whole word out, I hear someone holler out, “Ten!” then another
shouts, “Fifteen!” followed by, “Twenty!”

Mr. A turns and grins at me in approval. If this isn’t good for a girl’s ego, I don’t
know what is.

Until I realize who’s bidding.

My heart zings to my throat because Brody’s standing front and center and puts his
hand up as Mr. A calls out, “Can I get twenty-five?”

Shit. Where’d he come from? God, isn’t there something fireman-y that he needs to
be doing? I look down and frown at him only to get a smirk right back. Jerk.

The bidding continues and someone shouts out for thirty dollars. Brody counters with
thirty-five and back and forth it goes. I have no idea who’s making the other bid
because they’re at the back of the hall and the lighting’s not so good there.

“Forty-five, forty-five! Will you give me fifty?” Mr. A hollers.

“Fifty!”

“Fifty-five! Fifty-five! Who’ll give fifty-five?”

Before I know it, the bid’s up to ninety dollars. Holy cow. The highest anyone’s ever
gotten is eighty and that was when Peyton Capps’ dad went against Dax Baker, our present
mayor, last year. She’d been all smug, prancing around afterward as if she was the
belle of the ball which made us all want to punch her since we knew she’d been having
an affair with Dax while she was married (which probably caused her divorce) and being
bid on just made her look like the hooker that she was.

The bidding continues and now I’m sweating. Gross. But what if Brody wins? I’m not
ready to spend any time with him yet! He needs to stop!

Glancing to my right I see Ryan and Greer who’ve come to the front and both are giving
me a thumbs up. What does that mean? Greer has Addie on her hip and I see her little
almost fourteen-month old self try to put her thumb up too which makes me giggle despite
all the craziness that’s going on right now. Then Greer mouths, “Clay,” jerking her
head toward the back and I realize it’s my brother-in-law who’s back there bidding.
Yes! I grin back at Greer because how cool is he? Then I make the mistake of looking
over at Brody who’s practically glaring at me as he calls out his bid which floors
me when I hear him offer one-hundred dollars. Yikes.

The bidding continues and the murmur from the crowd gets louder with each amount shouted
as do the gasps and the multiple “Oohs!” which blows my mind that Clay’s willing to
do this for me. Well, I’m sure Greer’s put him up to it, probably threatening to withhold
sex or something if he didn’t
, but it’s awesome nonetheless. As the bids continue, everyone’s heads are going back
and forth at each call, from the front of the auditorium to the back as they await
the next offer.

“Three hundred! Can it get three-fifty?”

“Five hundred!” Brody yells and there’s a huge gasp and not a little buzzing throughout
the crowd and I think everyone’s eyes (mine included) are now on the back of the hall
waiting excitedly to see if Clay will beat it.

“Come on…” I mumble waiting for Clay to shout out a higher number, but he doesn’t,
and before I know it, I hear Mr. A shout, “Five hundred it is! Sold to the fine, fetching
fireman at the front!”

I see Mr. A likes alliteration too. Jeez.

The whole place breaks out in applause and I stand there in a semi state of shock,
mouth hanging open. Mr. Axelrod puts a hand to my shoulder and squeezes. “Highest
bid we’ve ever had,” he reports with a wink. “Make him pay, honey.”

Oh, I’ll make him pay all right. I nod somberly then leave the stage, but not after
giving Brody a look who smirks in answer.

Chapter 4

I duck out the back of the hall and stomp down the alley, muttering about how stupid
everything and everyone is. At my store, I unlock the back door and go inside, slamming
the door and once inside my office, plop down in my chair and lean back to stare at
the ceiling.

God, I’m so mad. How the hell did this happen? Better yet, what the hell was Brody
thinking? Like, all of a sudden he’s decided we’re supposed to be together again and
I have no say in it? He practically just made a fool out of me in front of the entire
town… again. An angry tear rolls down the side of my face as I’m still glaring at
the decorative antique ceiling tiles when my phone rings and I sit up to see it’s
Ryan.

“Yeah?” I clip out, not concealing my anger at what’s just happened.

“You okay?”

“Sure. I’m fabulous. Just peachy keen, Ry. Not like Brody didn’t just make me look
like an idiot in front of everyone, embarrassing the shit out of me.”

“Aw, Pipe, it wasn’t that bad…”

“No? Everyone’s gonna think we’re together again now! I heard what people were saying.
‘How cute!’ and ‘Oh, he loves her so much!’” I put my elbow on the desk and my forehead
in my hand.

I hear her take a breath and let it out. “He does love you, Pipe,” she says quietly.

I sit up quickly. “Yeah, he loves me so much that he broke up with me because of a
fucking lame reason! And then he doesn’t talk to me for a year! Yep! That’s true love
for you, right there!”

“I still say something happened that he’s not telling you.”