Change of Heart (27 page)

CHAPTER

T
REVOR SPENT THE NEXT TWO DAYS
avoiding Evelyn. The hearts were all cut out and his collaboration with her was over. So should his feelings be.

If only it were that easy.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on her conversation with Chris. In fact, he wished he’d just gone back to the house, but something in Chris’s eyes wasn’t right, and he couldn’t walk away without making sure she was okay.

“We going to this thing?” Lilian stood in the doorway of the kitchen, interrupting Trevor’s thoughts.

He groaned. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

“Well, you look great.” She grinned. “Picking up Evie?”

He grabbed his truck keys off the counter. “It’s just you and me tonight.”

He felt her eyes on him but walked outside anyway. He didn’t need a lecture about how he should at least offer Evelyn a ride to the Sweetheart Festival dance. They were a team on this wooden heart revamp and they were friends
 
—or had been for a little while, anyway.

He knew all those things. He’d been battling the unwanted thoughts all day long. In the end, he decided he couldn’t offer her a ride because he couldn’t sit next to her in such a confined space. He couldn’t inhale the scent of her or drink in the thought of her. He couldn’t deny these feelings he’d been working so hard to eliminate.

Especially not after Chris had planted the seed that her good friend Trevor might not be so good after all.

Because he wasn’t good. He was lousy. And both he and Chris knew it.

Lilian opened the passenger door of the truck and stared at him.

“You coming?” he asked without looking at her.

“You really aren’t going to go pick up Evelyn?” She was probably glaring at him.

“Let’s pretend you already gave me the lecture and now we’re at the part where you get in the truck and go to this ridiculous dance. Anyway, Evelyn probably left already.”

She didn’t move for several seconds and then finally pulled herself up into the seat.

Trevor focused on the road and not on the huffing and puffing Lilian sitting next to him.

Chris probably couldn’t stand the fact that when he’d seen Evelyn that day at the farmers’ market, she wasn’t the broken woman he no doubt thought she would be. In fact, spending time with her at the market, even Trevor had noticed she seemed to have turned a corner.

Maybe it was the overwhelming triumph of their community dinner, which he had to admit had been a bigger hit than he’d expected. It would be months before they saw any real change in their profits as a result, but they were creating multiple streams of income, which was how he planned to keep the farm profitable into the future.

She had to feel pretty good about that, didn’t she?

But what if that conversation with Chris knocked her back to the sweater-wearing hermit who never left the couch in the guesthouse?

Worse, what if she realized Trevor wasn’t a “Boy Scout”
 
—as Chris pointed out
 
—and she packed her things and moved away? Leaving Loves Park in the rearview mirror once and for all?

Lilian let out a particularly vocal sigh. “This just isn’t right, making her come by herself. I don’t care how uncomfortable you feel.”

The statement pinged Trevor’s conscience. He knew she was right. Saying it out loud didn’t help.

He did his best to ignore his aunt as he drove through town. The Sweetheart Festival had been a weeklong event, though Trevor had barely noticed. Old Town Loves Park had been decked out for the occasion. From a scarecrow-building contest to a caramel apple–dipping station to a small makeshift café serving pulled pork and apple cider donuts, this town looked for any chance to celebrate, and they’d done a good job getting locals and tourists to come out and show their support this year.

Tonight, though, the town would shed their jeans and boots in favor of semiformal attire. Not exactly Trevor’s cup of tea.

Someone had decided Abigail’s store and the outlying land were the perfect location for the dinner and dance that night, and when they pulled into the patch of field designated for parking, Trevor had to admit that someone was right.

He supposed the luminarias leading up to the main entrance were a nice touch. Inside, the white lights hanging on the ceiling also added a certain charm women loved and men tolerated. He knew most of the people milling around in the barn, but he found himself scanning the crowd for one person.

And the thought of her made his palms sweat.

“Oh, Mr. Whitney, thank goodness.” Gigi bustled toward him, her voice loud over the music blaring from speakers near a small stage at one end of the room. “You certainly did take your time getting here. The presentation is in just a few minutes.”

He saw a number of the plain wooden hearts he’d designed decorating the walls. He had to admit, they’d turned out better than he hoped. When he got the idea to stain thin slats of wood with several different finishes and affix them to heart-shaped plywood cutouts, he wasn’t sure if he’d even like them.

As he studied them on the walls of The Paper Heart, he decided he did.

“These hearts you made are a huge hit
 
—and people haven’t even seen the painted ones yet.” Doris had joined them. “You’re quite the artist, Trevor.”

“Did Evelyn come with you?” Gigi asked.

Lilian scoffed.

Gigi frowned. “She brought her painted hearts here earlier, but I haven’t seen her since.”

Trevor shook his head. “She didn’t come with us.”

He hoped Evelyn hadn’t backed out. He certainly didn’t want to stand up there in front of the whole town by himself. Though maybe that would be preferable to standing beside Evelyn. At least if he was alone, he had a better chance of not thinking about the softness of her skin or the smell of her hair.

He should’ve found out how she was doing after their run-in with Chris
 
—after his visit to the farm. What kind of person abandoned a friend when she needed him most?

“Follow me,” Gigi said, looking at Trevor. “Doris, you go find Evelyn.”

But their search ended when they turned around.

Evelyn stood a few yards away, near a side entrance lit only by the dim white lights hanging above. She wore something blue, turquoise, like the color of the ocean in an ad for a cruise. Her eyes were that same color, and for a moment, he said a prayer of thanks it was too dark to see them. He might buckle under their boldness. Her blonde hair was long and loose. He wanted to touch it.

Doris let out a quiet “Oh, my. She’s beautiful.”

Gigi, barely at Trevor’s shoulders, looked up at him, her gaze too intent. He could feel the words she wasn’t saying. He had to give her credit
 
—the woman had a knack for figuring out matters of the heart.

Thankfully, she said nothing. He forced himself to look away.

Evelyn finally caught sight of them. He could see her walking toward him out of the corner of his eye, and when he dared a glance in her direction, he noticed she refused to make eye contact. Just as he thought. Chris had gotten in her head.

It was what he deserved. She might have kept the truth about Maggie from him for a few hours, but he’d been hiding the truth about her husband for years.

When she reached their small circle, he turned away. He couldn’t face her. If she knew the things he’d been thinking
 
—the way her nearness had set something off inside him
 
—he would be the one cowering in embarrassment. Not the other way around.

Gigi reached her hands out to Evelyn, pulling her into a hug. “We’re so glad you’re here. I took a peek at the hearts. They’re absolutely perfect. I knew the two of you would create something wonderful together.”

Trevor glanced at Evelyn
 
—a reflex
 
—and she did the same. They both looked away immediately. His mouth had gone dry and his throat felt raw. He drew in a deep breath. If Gigi had figured out the truth about his feelings, how much longer did he think he could keep it from Evelyn?

Never mind he’d hidden it for years.

His stomach flip-flopped. How could he keep pretending? He’d given her up the day she married Chris. But the day the divorce went through, a new battle had begun. Knowing she was no longer married had knocked over the main barrier to his feelings.

“Going to get a drink,” he said, walking in the other direction, guilt tugging at the corners of his mind. But he hadn’t been secretly wishing for Evelyn’s marriage to fall apart. In fact, he’d even prayed God would bring conviction to Chris so he could be the kind of husband she deserved. So why had Trevor’s love for Evelyn returned?

“Three minutes, Mr. Whitney,” Gigi said.

Three minutes wouldn’t be enough time to calm himself down. He walked to the punch table and, for the first time since high school, wished there was something stronger than sugar in that punch. He took a cup and drank, eyeing the door.

Before he could decide, he heard tapping on the microphone. The music stopped and a little old lady wound her arm through his. “Gigi sent me to get you.” Doris winked. “Thought you might get cold feet.”

He stifled a groan and let himself be led to the front of the room, where Gigi had taken the stage, Evelyn only a few feet away.

“Get up there,” Doris said. “Gigi’s orders.”

Gigi waved Trevor up. Like a child, he did as he was told, telling himself this would all be over in a matter of minutes and he could go home.

He stood next to Evelyn. He scanned the crowd of faces, but none of them seemed to register. The only thing he could think of was how close he was to the woman he loved.

But then he’d always been close, and it had never been enough.

His tie squeezed his neck like a noose, his palms wet. He contemplated making a run for it.

The microphone looked awkward and unbalanced in Gigi’s hand as she addressed the audience. “We’re so happy to see you all here as we close out our Sweetheart Festival, and we’re very excited because we have a surprise for you.”

She glanced at Trevor and Evelyn before continuing. “Now, some of you may have read the little exposé in the
Courier
about my dear friends, Trevor Whitney and Evelyn Brandt.”

Trevor’s heart dropped. What was Gigi doing?

“But I can assure you, there was a misunderstanding. As you probably guessed, these two are not romantically involved. They were simply working together on a project for our fair city at my request.”

Beside her, on a screen, a picture of the Main Street lampposts appeared.

“As you all know, we do love the tradition of our wooden hearts, but being such an artistic community, we thought perhaps we could come up with a bit more creative version this year to celebrate our town’s great love affair with love.”

A smattering of applause worked its way across the room. Trevor shifted. He had no interest in being the poster boy for the Sweetheart Festival, and yet here he stood.

“Enter Mr. Whitney, the woodworker, and our dear Evelyn, the artist.”

More clapping. Was this what it had taken for the town to view them more favorably?

“We’ve asked them to reimagine our tradition, and we think you’re going to love what they’ve come up with. Before I show you, I want to tell you one of my favorite things about being a Valentine Volunteer is that I get drawn in by some of the stories we see come our way.” She smiled. “For example, about ten years ago, we received an anonymous request for a special wooden heart from someone here in this very town.”

Heat rushed to Trevor’s face.

“And what we’ve found is that every year since, this same anonymous request has come in, but every year has been a different line from the same song lyrics. It’s been so many years, we’ve almost got the entire song on hearts. There’s something so intriguing about a mysterious love story,” She paused and glanced at Trevor, but he avoided her eyes.

“I never mentioned this story to Evelyn, but it just so happened to be the one that inspired her artistic reimagining of our age-old tradition.”

Nausea rolled through Trevor’s gut. This
just so happened
to be the story? Was the universe playing some cruel, cosmic joke on him?
God, have you been ignoring all my requests for help on purpose just to humiliate me here in front of the entire town?

“Now, with Trevor’s help, she’s re-created these beautiful hearts in an effort to show you what our new painted hearts campaign is going to look like. Our lampposts are truly going to be works of art.” Gigi spun around. One look at Trevor and she lowered her microphone. “Are you okay, Mr. Whitney?”

He nodded. A lie.

Evelyn stared over the crowd. Probably better. He didn’t need her turning his way. Not right now.

Gigi addressed the audience again. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are thrilled to reveal the masterpieces created by these two local artists. Trevor has provided the wooden cutouts, and Evelyn, the painted words. I think you’ll agree the combination of both is stunning.”

She nodded to Doris, who tugged on the end of a rope, loosening the large canvas backdrop that hung in front of the new hearts. The backdrop fell to the ground, revealing Trevor’s hearts, which looked nothing like they had when he’d turned them over to Evelyn. She’d transformed them with her flawless artwork.