Feels Like Love (5 page)

They
stared at each other for a moment in stunned silence then Wade shrugged.

“Shoulda
used the ice melt.”

She
glared at him and scrambled to her feet. With as much poise as she could
muster, she walked out, leaving the door open. Maybe the freezing air would
give him pneumonia. He deserved it.

April
slammed her way into the kitchen. Scott sat at the table, his computer open before
him and a plate of toast at his elbow. He gave her a long, speculative look.

“What’s
up?”

“Nothing,”
she said shortly.

“Where
have you been?”

“Outside.”
She yanked off her gloves and threw them toward the mudroom, but came up short.
With a growl of frustration, she stomped over to the gloves, snatched them up off
the floor, and hurled them through the doorway. Gloves, she realized, were not
very good for throwing in a fit of temper. They just
flopped
around and
offered no satisfying thud when they landed.

“Why
are you so upset?” Scott asked.

“I’m
just mad,” she stalked back to the kitchen and glared out the window toward the
horse barn. “He’s acting like such a … such a
jerk
! I never thought he
would treat me that way. Ever.”

Scott
gave a long sigh. “And here we are again, back to the ex-boyfriend,” he muttered.

His
words made her pause. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t prepared to see
him again. Old history is coming up and it’s stuff I’d rather forget.”

“There’s
more to it than that,” Scott said. “Ever since we got here you’ve been acting …
different. I can’t decide if it’s Christmas, the farm, the ex-boyfriend, or
maybe all three. But there’s something going on.”

“No,
there’s not. It’s stress,” she bit her thumbnail. She couldn’t let Scott see
how much Wade had bothered her. It would raise questions she was not ready to
deal with. More tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked them back.

“Come
here,” Scott held out his arms.

She
sat on his knee and let him rub her back, but her mind was churning. An entire
week until her parents got home meant and entire week of Wade coming over
morning and night. How would she ever make it that long?

“We
are entering
the gingerbread house contest,” April announced over lunch that day. She needed
a distraction.

“Really?”
Emily squealed. She pestered every year to enter the contest, but no one else
was ever interested in helping her labor over a gingerbread house for hours.

“Sure,”
April smiled at her excitement. “Let’s get the dishes cleared and we can start
planning.”

Trevor
tried to pretend he was too cool for something as silly as a gingerbread house,
but after a while, his interest grew and it wasn’t long before he was hunched
over the kitchen counter with April and Emily, giving input. “We should get
some of those frosted shredded wheat things to make a thatched roof,” he
suggested.

“Good
idea,” April wrote it on her shopping list.

“Gumdrops,”
Emily added. “The good ones, not the yucky spice ones.”

“Who
cares? You’re not supposed to
eat
them,” Trevor pointed out.

“Non-yucky
gumdrops,” April winked at her younger sister before adding it to the list. She
turned to Ben, who was in his wheelchair nearby, busy with a therapy toy. “What
do
you
think Benny? Wanna help?”

He
grinned.

“Hey
Scott, how do you like my plan?” Emily held up her drawing. It was an enormous
castle with a moat, arched windows, turrets, and even a princess leaning out of
a tower. Her grocery list included ice cream cones, sugar cubes, licorice, and
lots and lots of blue m&ms for the moat. There had already been a heated
argument between Emily and Trevor on whether a Barbie could stand in for the
princess or if all the elements had to be edible.

Scott
looked up from his computer and whistled. “Pretty fancy. Will it be big enough
for a Barbie?”

“She
won’t get to use one anyway,” Trevor insisted. “She’ll get disqualified.”

“No,
I won’t,” Emily said stubbornly. “Tell him, April.”

“I’m
really not sure, Em,” April hedged. “Maybe we can call Paisley; she’s in charge
this year.”

“It’s
going to be so cool,” Emily’s eyes sparkled. “Don’t forget the cookies for the drawbridge,”
she told April.

They
went over the list one more time and April tore the paper from the notebook. “Want
to come shopping with me, Scott?” She stood behind him and ran her fingers under
the collar of his shirt.

He
captured her hand and kissed her palm. “I’d better stay; I need to finish this
chapter.”

“Okay.
Can I take your car?”

She
felt him tense. “What’s wrong with the van?”

“It’s
kind of big and …” April faltered. “Never mind. Forget it,” she said quickly.

He
turned back to his work. “Be safe.”

April
moved slowly up and down the aisles at Dove’s, gathering the supplies on the
list and stopping for a few minutes of small talk with people she knew. The
store wasn’t particularly crowded, but even so, she was surprised by all the
strange faces. Once she’d known almost everyone in town. Of course, many of the
shoppers were probably tourists. The thought made her feel better, like she
hadn’t strayed
too
far from home.

The
checkout clerk had bright red hair from a bottle and was wearing too much
makeup. It took April a minute to recognize her.

“Tracie?”

They
were classmates, but not friends. During their senior year, Tracie had made a
play for Wade and her tactics included showing up uninvited to his house, grabbing
the seat next to him at lunch, and flirting with him constantly. April knew
Wade’s heart and wasn’t worried. Still, Tracie quickly became irritating. There
were never any direct confrontations between them, but always an undercurrent
of resentment and annoyance coming from both sides.

“Hey,
April,” Tracie said in a bored and faintly chilly tone. “Home for Christmas, I
guess?”

“Yes,
and Emily talked me into doing a gingerbread house,” April gestured to the full
basket on the conveyer belt.

Tracie
began pulling items out of the basket. “I heard you got engaged,” she said, as
she dragged the groceries across the scanner. “When’s the big day?”

“In
the spring.” April regretted buying so much stuff; this would take forever. She
did not want to stand around making small talk with Tracie Brandenberg. “So,
what have you been up to?” she finally asked.

“The
usual,” Tracie shrugged. “Working a lot.” She paused and then continued with a
small smirk. “Wade and I are going out; I don’t know if you heard.”

April
digested this news. He was seeing Tracie Brandenberg? Well, it didn’t matter. He
could see whoever he wanted.

But
…
Tracie Brandenberg?

“Oh,”
she found her voice. “I didn’t know you two were a couple.”

Tracie
slid a package of rainbow sprinkles slowly over the scanner. “Yep. For a while
now.”

Why
did her chest suddenly feel so tight? April couldn’t think of anything else to
say, so she stood in awkward silence while Tracie finished ringing up her groceries.
It seemed like an eternity before everything was bagged.

“I
guess I’ll see you around,” April said, taking her receipt. Miraculously, her
voice was steady.

“Yep,
see ya,” Tracie turned to her next customer.

April
heaved the bags into the van and stomped around to climb in the driver’s side.
She sat for a while in silence.

Tracie
Brandenberg?

How
did
that
happen?

She
couldn’t imagine a more unlikely pairing. Tracie was moody and immature and …
okay, maybe that was her prejudices talking. Still, despite all of Tracie’s
efforts, Wade had never shown the slightest interest in her. In high school he
had thought her shallow; April couldn’t imagine Tracie had improved much with
age.

“They’ll
make each other miserable,” she muttered.

Good.

They
were forced to revise the grand castle design after April burned two batches of
gingerbread because she’d rolled them too thin. And then they
had to revise again when she ruined a
third
batch because this time she
didn’t roll it thin enough and it wouldn’t dry.

“Forget
this. We’ll use graham crackers,” April snapped as she scraped the third batch
of failed gingerbread off the cookie sheet with a spatula.

“Don’t
throw it away,” Trevor reached over and grabbed a piece. “You want some, Ben?”

“Don’t
give him that,” April said quickly. “He’ll choke.”

Trevor
leaned in close to Ben to whisper loudly, “You’re not missing much, it’s kinda
gross.”

“And
yet you’re still eating it,” April pointed out.

“Isn’t
it a
gingerbread
contest?” Scott popped a gumdrop into his mouth. “Will
graham crackers count? Good job on getting non-yucky gumdrops, by the way,” he
winked.

“I’m
sorry, kiddo,” April said to Emily. “I tried.”

“You
never know. Let’s make it anyway … please?” Emily begged.

They
spent the next three hours painstakingly constructing a graham cracker cottage
on an upside down cookie sheet. April did her best to make it fancy with a slanted
roof covered in the frosted shredded wheat with mini m&ms in the icing
along the edge for Christmas lights. Trevor got bored and took Ben to watch TV
while April painstakingly made frosting icicles and Emily did a mosaic sidewalk
out of Skittles. When they’d finally finished, April’s hand ached from squeezing
the piping bag and she had a headache from eating too much sugar. The kitchen
was a disaster.

But
it was a pretty good effort. True, the walls were a little crooked and the
frosting was rather heavy in places, but Emily was happy and that’s what
mattered.

“Are
you really going to enter it?” Scott asked, eying the final product.

“Yes,
we
are
,” April shot him a warning look. Emily had talked nonstop about
how the judges would love the house, graham crackers and all. There was no way
April would let Scott dampen her enthusiasm.

“I
just wondered if it will qualify,” he said, backpedaling quickly.

“If
they don’t like it, they don’t have to judge it,” April declared. “We worked
hard; it’s going to the contest.”

April
rolled her
eyes as she pulled the van into the parking lot at the elementary school the
next morning. Whoever was on plow duty had pushed the snow into piles at the
head of the parking spaces, forming dirty, knee-high banks they’d have to scale
to reach the sidewalk.

“Wait
until I come help you,” she ordered Emily, who held the graham cracker house on
her lap.

“I
can do it,” Emily said. She threw the door open and slid out of her seat.

“You’re
going to drop it,” April warned. She jumped down from the van and began plowing
through the deep snow.

“I’ve
got it,” Emily insisted. She backed into the car door to close it and started
toward the school, her eyes fixed on the cookie sheet.

Watch
out, Em,” April cried, but it was too late. Emily tripped in the snow and stumbled.
She let out a shriek of dismay as the cookie sheet slipped from her grasp.

“Oops,
hang on there!” Wade came out of nowhere. He grabbed Emily’s arm with one hand
and the cookie sheet with the other, steadying them both.

“Wade!”
Emily’s face lit up. “Thanks, you saved my life.”

He
laughed. “Well, maybe not
quite
, but it does look like I saved a pretty
cool gingerbread house.” He glanced over at April and then turned his attention
back to Emily. “Did you build this?”

“Me
and April,” Emily confirmed. “It’s graham crackers though, not gingerbread. It
was
supposed
to be gingerbread, but April kept messing it up.”

April
blushed as Wade met her eyes. His expression was softer, warmer than yesterday;
he looked more like the Wade she knew. She felt her pulse quicken.

No.
He was a
First Class Idiot
. “Come on, Emily,” she said. “Let’s go
inside.”

Wade
waited until she made it through the snowbank. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly,
his tone indicating he was apologizing for more than just yesterday.

His
eyes were a deep chocolate brown and his lashes were ridiculously long for a
man. April felt her resolve crumbling.

No
way. He did
not
get to do this. He did not get to treat her like dirt
and then stand there with his adorably disheveled hair and his dancing eyes and
his sexy grin and expect her to forgive him on the spot. He could pound sand.

Hang
on … did she just admit Wade had a sexy grin?

Well,
of course he did, but that didn’t matter anymore.

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about,” she marched toward the school.

He
fell in beside her. “Yes, you do.” When she didn’t answer, he continued. “Okay,
I was a jerk. I’m sorry.”

April
opened one of the double glass doors and motioned for Emily to go inside. Wade
stretched one hand above her head and grabbed the door to hold it for her and
when she got a whiff of his cologne, she felt butterflies stretch their wings
in her stomach.

She
glared at him, stepped deliberately to the
other
glass door, pulled it
open, and walked through. She heard him chuckle softly as he followed her
inside.

“You
can leave,” she hissed.

“Yeah,
I could,” he admitted. “But I could also stay.”

A
folding table covered with clipboards and a flowerpot full of pens was set up
in front of the office. Mrs. Leland sat behind it, knitting something and wearing
the air of someone who is
in charge
. The cookie decorating fundraiser would
be held at the same time as the gingerbread house contest and prep noise
drifted down the hall from the gym. The clang of folding tables opening, the
scrape of chairs, the low murmur of voices. Paisley was probably in there
directing things.

“You
have an entry?” Mrs. Leland asked – a bit needlessly since they obviously
had an entry.

“Yep,”
Emily said proudly as she placed the cookie sheet carefully onto the table.

“There’s
a $15 entry fee and you’ll need to fill out this form,” Mrs. Leland extended a
clipboard with a sheet of paper attached.

“I’ll
take it,” April said, extremely conscious of Wade standing beside her. “Em, why
don’t you take that into the teacher’s lounge and find a spot for it?”

Emily
left with the gingerbread house and April took her clipboard to the row of folding
chairs against the wall. She hoped Wade would get the hint and leave, but he
threw himself into the chair by her side.

Stupid
cologne. Why did he have to smell so good? Wasn’t he a farmer? He was supposed
to smell like cows or pigs or … something.

She
did her best to ignore him and began filling out the form, scratching the cheap
ballpoint pen rapidly over the paper.

“We’re
both acting ridiculous,” Wade said quietly.

“Oh
really, Mr.
Shoulda used the Ice Melt
?” she singsonged in a fierce
whisper.

“Okay,
that was low,” he admitted. “But, I said I was sorry. And I am sorry. I was angry.”

“I
thought you said you weren’t angry.”

“I
lied.”

He
wore a faded plaid shirt and jeans so old that the denim had turned buttery
soft. She could see a flash of skin where his knee was starting to poke through
a hole.

Okay,
she should
not
be staring at Wade’s knees, or at the ropy muscles in his
tanned forearm below the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. She yanked her
attention back to the form and saw him grin from the corner of her eye. He knew
the effect he was having on her and enjoyed it immensely.

“What
are you even doing here?” April demanded. “Don’t tell me you’re entering the contest.”

“Paisley
called and asked if I could bring some extra tables from the church over in my
truck,” Wade said. “I was leaving when I saw you drive up.”

She
tried to find something wrong with that and couldn’t, so she stayed quiet and went
back to the clipboard.

Wade’s
chair squeaked as he leaned closer and whispered, “Remember when we had the
marker fight and Mrs. Snow made us sit in the hall?” His breath was warm on her
neck and goose bumps broke out on her arms.

Stupid
goose bumps. She shifted away from him and tried to concentrate on the form.
Why was this dumb thing so long anyway? It was just a dinky contest in a dinky
town in Montana. She vowed to find Paisley and let her have it.

“We
sat right over there,” Wade pointed. “And Mrs. Snow left us for an
hour
.”

April’s
hands were shaking and she gripped the pen tighter.

“But
it was fun because I had gum and you had a Tamagotchi and we spent the whole
time trying to kill it,” Wade continued. “Remember?”

She
remembered. Sitting under the coat rack with Wade, webs of multicolored ink staining
their arms and faces. They chewed Juicyfruit while they traded the Tamagotchi
back and forth and shushed each other when their giggling got too loud.

Wade
was silent, waiting for her to jump into the memory. If she did, would it mean
she forgave him? Did it mean he forgave her?

She
took a deep breath. “And when she’d come to check on us, we’d sit really still
with our heads down, so she thought we were full of remorse,” she said. “But we
were really trying not to laugh.”

Wade
grinned and sat back in his chair. She met his eyes and years of memories hung
in the air between them. Finally, she ducked her head to the form again.

“You’d
think Mrs. Snow would have known better than to sit us in the hall together,”
Wade mused.

“Probably
happy to have us out of her hair,” April replied.

“I
am
glad to see you, you know,” he said quietly after a pause.

She
scribbled her signature on the bottom of the form. “Your girlfriend sure
wasn’t.”

“Girlfriend?”

“I
saw Tracie at the grocery store. Congratulations, she’s a lovely girl,” April
couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Wade
snorted and let his head fall back against the painted cinderblock wall. “You think
I’m dating Tracie Brandenberg?”

“That’s
what she said.”

“I
can’t
believe
you fell for that.”

Her
head snapped up and she stared at him for a minute, comprehending. “That girl
is pure evil,” she said at last.

“I
prefer to think she is so overcome by my charms she simply can’t help herself,”
he smirked.

“Ah
yes,
there’s
the humility,” April rolled her eyes.

He
gave her a crooked smile.

“She
always did have a crush on you,” April pointed out and couldn’t help adding,
“along with most of the girls at school.”

He
turned his head against the wall to look at her. “I only ever cared about one
girl,” he said softly.

The
pen slipped from April’s fingers and clattered to the floor. She dove for it.
“So Tracie’s not your girlfriend,” she said when she came back up.

“No.”

“Well,
is
there a girlfriend? Or a wife?”

“I
think you know the answer to that,” he replied.

She
realized they were sitting a bit too close together and their voices were a bit
too hushed to look like just friends having a casual conversation. Mrs. Leland shot
a disapproving glance their way.

She
stood up. “I need to find Emily.”

“Wait.”
His fingers closed around her wrist and heat raced up her arm. “Come get ice
cream with me … you and Em.”

When
they entered the lobby of Big C’s, April took a deep breath and smiled at the
familiar smell. Grease and hamburgers and onions and … memories.

Big
C’s was a Snow Valley institution. It was a small, square building of gray
brick with a large patio in the front. In the summertime the patio was cluttered
with tables and chairs and people, but now it lay buried under the snow. Inside,
the terracotta tiles were offset with black grout that may or may not have been
a much lighter color at one time, before decades of teenagers had ground it
full of dirt. A plastic Christmas tree was shoved into one corner and multicolored
red, green, and white tinsel draped along the front counter.

Two
teenagers were behind the counter and two more could be seen working the grills.
Mr. C, almost as much of an institution as his restaurant, bustled around
dropping baskets of fries into the vats, scooping up ice cream, and hollering
out order numbers.

It
was strange to be standing in line beside Wade. He was at the same time very
different than what she was used to and yet so overwhelmingly familiar. He was
taller than Scott and the angle she had to tilt her head to look at his face felt
wrong … or was it the other way around and being with Scott was what felt
wrong?

Wade
was also more muscular than Scott and she had been right the other day when she
thought his shoulders and chest seemed broader. Probably from all the farm
work.

Stupid
farm work. And stupid memories. Why did they have to hurt so much?

Finally,
they reached the head of the line. “What do you want, Em?” Wade asked, his eyes
twinkling.

“Peanut
butter,” she replied instantly.

Wade
turned to the girl behind the counter. “One peanut butter shake, one blackberry,
and …” he flashed April a quick grin, “mint chocolate chip and an order of
onion rings?”

She
smiled. “You remembered.”

“I
remember everything,” he said before turning away to pay for their order.

Huge
shakes were a Big C’s tradition, towering several inches above the rim of the
white foam cups. They found a booth and Emily dug in. “Thanks, Wade,” she said.
“I haven’t been here in a long time.”

April
was extremely conscious of the way her knees kept bumping against Wade’s under
the table, not entirely by accident. She took a deep breath and willed herself
to relax as she reached for an onion ring and used it to scoop up a bit of her thick
green shake.

“You
are the only person I know who eats mint ice cream with onions,” Wade teased.

“You
don’t know what you’re missing. Want some?”

He
shook his head, his brown eyes dancing.

Suddenly
they were teenagers again, stopping at Big C’s after a dance or a football
game. Crowding into booths with friends, everyone talking at once and yelling
out requests to whoever had money for the old fashioned jukebox. Only Wade
would have been sitting by her side, his arm around her shoulders. She fought
back the urge to thread her fingers through his, just to see if they still fit
perfectly together.

Emily
launched into a long narrative about the gingerbread-slash-graham cracker
house. Wade listened and asked the right questions at the right time, but his
gaze lingered on April. She wondered if he was having the same rush of
memories.

“Em,
do you want to pick a couple of songs?” he said when Emily stopped for breath.
He dug in his pocket and handed her several quarters.