Her Name Is Trouble: A small-town contemporary romance (The Daimsbury Chronicles Book 2) (2 page)

The rest became history, and she’d been in this small town for the past nine months, being herself—Missy—and not Iris Ann, the paragon of southern belle graces her mother had made her into.

But now the past had caught up. She shook her head at her naïveté. Here she stood in
his
home place; of course she ran the risk of running into him sometime. What had she been thinking to come here?

The pantry door squeaked and a sliver of light fell across her lap. Missy glanced up, encountering the silhouette of a stocky man in the doorway. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the edge of her sleeve.

“I...I’ll be right out,” she said around the lump of dread in her throat.

He didn’t reply her. Instead, he walked in and squatted in front of her. The ray of light now glinted off the shiny pate of his bald head.

“What’s the matter?” he asked in his deep and comforting, raspy voice after long seconds of watching her with patience gleaming in his large dark eyes.

“It’s nothing, Ben—”

“
Beti
...”

Ben hailed from Lebanon, but had adopted the Indian endearment for ‘daughter’ from Jari Saran, his restaurant partner with whom he lived on the restaurant building’s upper floors. To this day, she still had no clue whether they were a gay couple or just good friends.

That one word shattered what remained of her composure, and big sobs wracked her body. He went down onto his knees and pulled her into his arms. Both he and Jari had turned out to be touchy huggy men, and they lavished as many hugs on her as on Jari’s daughter, Megha.

“It’s all a mess,” she said in his shoulder.

Missy blinked back the tears because her mascara and makeup would run—no money for the good, waterproof stuff— and more than making her look like a racoon, that would dirty his white chef’s coat. Oh wait, she’d already done that, what with the yellow soup all over her already. Drat.

He patted her arm. “What happened?”

Her lower lip trembled. She should tell him... But how could she come round to revealing she’d lied to him, to all of them, since she’d come here?

Take a deep breath, Missy. You’re made of sterner stuff!

She’d survived homelessness and sporadic visits to soup kitchens in London; surely, she could do this.

So she took a deep breath. “Luke Morelli,” she said.

“What about him?”

She sniffled. “He...he came in today, with Liam, and I froze and my legs stopped working and I was carrying the mulligatawny bowl and it fell and splashed on him and then I walked on his foot and he fell and—”

“Okay, okay. Slow down. So you’re saying you doused Luke with hot soup?”

She nodded. “What am I going to do?”

He shrugged. “Well, apologize, for firsts.”

Ben didn’t know she’d been talking about her identity; he must think she remained hung up on her faux pas.

Better to let him believe that.

“What if he doesn’t forgive me? He’s a celebrity. The most renowned person to come from this village and even this part of England.”

Ben chuckled. “If there’s one thing Luke Morelli doesn’t have, it’s an inflated ego. He’s just the lad next door, Missy. Nothing to be scared of. He’s the last person to pull a
Zoolander
on you.”

You don’t know the half of it...
If he ever found out about her, she’d be a dead turkey.

What to do, then? She’d built a life here, one she finally loved enough to not need to slice her skin open to shake off the numbness of her existence. She couldn’t throw all this away...

No, she needed to find out how long Luke Morelli would be staying. Models were known to be globe-trotting all the time, so he’d surely leave soon enough. He’d come over exceptionally because Liam’s wife, Honor, had recently given birth to their baby.

She’d just have to lay low until he left.

Chapter Two

“So, what’s the verdict?”

Luke glanced up from where he sat on the bed in one of the village surgery’s examination rooms. A nurse had come in and wrapped his second and third toe together, then she’d mummified his foot under gauze and bandages. He’d almost fainted at the sight of the needle for the painkiller, but had to be glad for the shot now as the toes no longer hurt beyond a soft throbbing in the flesh.

The blonde doctor shuffled in and took a look at his chart. Bells rang in his head—why didn’t she ever look at him square in the face? Celebrity worship? He hadn’t seen her blush. He’d come across all sorts of women in his career, but so far, none had had the reactions of the female folk of Daimsbury. Home sweet home... Maybe he had acquired a big head while abroad. Here, everyone treated him like Luke, the second kid from the Morelli family. Full stop.

She kept perusing the sheet, still evading eye contact. “It appears your middle toe did get broken, Mr. Morelli.”

“Please, call me Luke.”

He hated formality of any kind, and half of the time, the people he met didn’t even know his last name, so he became one of those celebrities with only one moniker. Then, too, models tended to be known by their first names. Giselle, Heidi, Mary Beth; male models got away with full names, like David Gandy, but only just.

Seemed to him the doctor etched a smile. He focused on her full-cheeked face. She must be about five-foot-four, and he’d put her easily into a US size fourteen. Her badge read ‘Dr. E. Wallace.’

“Okay, Luke,” she said in her soft voice.

He’d heard that tone before, the way she’d spoken his name. He frowned and nodded at her badge. “What does the ‘E’ stand for?”

“Uh...Elizabeth. Why?”

Liz.
She struck him as a Liz, and the more he stared at her... “Liz Gusberti, is that you?”

She peered up with startled eyes. Oh yes, that wispy blonde fringe over sparkling blue eyes; it had to be her.

“Come here,” he said as he reached out with one arm and pulled her to him for a hug. When he released her, she blushed. “So you became a doctor, after all. Always said you had the brains for it.”

She gave him a shy smile. “Luke...you remember me?”

He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I? You were my best friend in school.”

“I...I thought you’d forget.”

“Never.” He clasped her hand between both of his.

How could he forget? For years, they’d been through thick and thin together, bearing the brunt of school jokes and pranksters. The frail, sickly lad who looked ten years old despite being a teenager and the chubby girl who didn’t have the good luck of growing tall at puberty to slim down her figure. Luke being the little brother of football sensation Liam got spared the worst of the evil, but not Liz. Then her parents divorced the year she turned sixteen, and she went to live with her mother up North.

Liz smiled at him. “You’ve changed. Guess you were a late bloomer.”

He chuckled. “Nothing of the sort. Remember how I could never keep anything down or put on weight? Turns out it was gluten intolerance. Soon after you left, my mum discovered the Paleo diet and she put us all on it, hoping it’d help me. And it did. I caught up with the growth charts in the next few years—”

“And the rest is history. Someone from a modelling agency scouted you on Oxford Street and then you were in New York, signing your first contract with
Sinners&Saints
.”

“You’ve been following my career?”

“Who hasn’t? I couldn’t believe you’d come this far.”

“Yeah, well, the first one surprised was me. I always felt like the same lad, Liz.”

She watched him under her lashes, like she always did in the past. “I was wrong to doubt you’d have changed.”

Why would she think that? Unless...yes, his fame and career success. Sometimes, he hated that. “You owe me a drink for that.”

Liz laughed. “I do. Though you’re not gonna be down at the pub for a moment.”

She unclasped her hand from between his and patted his foot. “It’s rest and ice packs for the next two-three days. Then we’ll see if you can move around with a crutch.”

“Bloody hell.” He ran a hand in his hair. “My boss is gonna kill me.”

“He can’t when you have a medical waiver,” Liam said from the doorway. “So, Doc, can I haul him home?”

“Sure can. Make sure he takes it easy on that foot.”

Liam handed him a crutch and Luke rolled his eyes. Great. He needed only for the paparazzi to hear about this, then he’d really be toast. Models knew they should never be out of commission or else they’d be signing their career death warrant. No model except maybe Heidi Klum ever made it to a spot where the job was guaranteed to remain theirs.

Not to mention he had damage control to work with the people at
Sinners&Saints
for the upcoming shoot. Or grovelling. Whatever it took.

“Cheer up,” Liam said with a chuckle. “Mum will have even more reason to fret over you now.”

Luke groaned. Exactly what he didn’t need. His mother could grow stifling with her coddling, and she already left him no room to breathe on the rare days he got to come home.

He hopped off the table and grabbed the crutch. Liz helped him with the contraption and he took his first hesitant step.

Pain’s manageable.
Thank goodness for small comforts.

Liz smiled at him and he bent down to press a kiss to her temple. “I’ll call you up on that drink.”

She nodded, and he left, with Liam as his shadow.

“Already scoring a date? I wouldn’t have put Dr. Wallace as your type.”

He shook his head. “She’s not Dr. Wallace to me. That’s Liz Gusberti.”

“Son of a— Your sidekick from school?”

“Yup.”

“Well, I’ll be damned... And you’re sure she won’t be getting ideas?”

“It’s Liz we’re talking about. She was as much a sister to me as Joely.” They’d reached the car. “And more, I’m not in the market for a relationship.”

Liam stopped next to him and helped hold the crutch while he got into the passenger’s seat. “About that,” he started. “How you holding up?”

“About what?” Luke asked from the interior. His brother had totally lost him there.

“You know...” Liam averted his eyes. “Mary Beth got married a couple of weeks ago.”

“Ah.” So his family worried about his ex-girlfriend of five years who’d ditched him with no excuse three years prior now finding love and becoming a wife. Better he cleared the air right away. “Listen... I admit I always saw the two of us going all the way, but now with hindsight, I recognise that we were great together while it lasted. The relationship ran its course and we’ve both moved on.”

True enough, he and Mary Beth had spoken for the first time in three years a few months ago, when he’d caught her in New York as they’d both been passing through Kennedy airport. But they’d talked, aired out whatever grievances still remained between them, and they’d parted that day as strong friends. She’d even introduced him to her then-fiancé, celebrity chef Niall Barry, over dinner one night in the Big Apple, and he’d been on the guest list of their wedding, having to decline because of a shoot in South Africa on the same date.

“You’re sure you’re good?” Liam asked.

He nodded. “Never better.”

His brother let him off the hook and went to the driver’s seat to start the car. As they pulled out, Luke caught a glimpse of a petite woman hiding under bulky clothes, her pulled-back hair like a raven’s wing as her ponytail swung with every step she took along the pavement towards the bakery. Then she seemed to miss a step and trip, her body lurching forward. A man coming out of the shop managed to catch her in time before she slammed face down on the cobblestone.

Missy; he still didn’t know her last name. Looked like she really was a walking calamity.

And that man...? He squinted, then nudged an elbow into Liam’s ribs. “Magnus Trammell deigns come to Daimsbury now?”

The Trammells were the village’s richest and loftiest—stationed mainly in London, they’d make the royal family’s fortune look like peanuts compared to their coffers. Magnus was the second son, and one of the world’s most renowned playboys.

“It’s a long story,” Liam said.

Luke shook his head. Clearly, a lot had been happening in town and he’d gotten out of the loop.

Starting with when this Texas girl came over, and who could she be? He had no degree or formal education in psychology, but being a model had made him a keen observer of people, and he could read most of them like an open book with just a glance. Everything about Missy screamed she hid from something, or someone. The clothes gave her away. At first, he’d thought ‘junkie,’ the long sleeves hiding needle track marks, maybe. He’d seen enough heroin and cocaine users in the fashion world to spot one when he saw one. But that couldn’t be Missy—she had too clear eyes, the pupils not overly dilated from drug use.

So the only other, logical, conclusion would be that she was concealing her identity.

Suddenly, the itch to know who, what, and why burrowed under his skin like a nagging wood splinter that refused to budge.

And worse, he found himself intrigued by a woman, after three years of mourning his lost bond with the only girl he had loved so far in his life. A twinge remarkably like jealousy nipped his heart when they drove by the bakery and he watched Magnus Trammell holding Missy by the waist and the two of them laughing together.

Damn it, he was done for...and he better uncover the mystery around Missy whatever-her-name-could-be before it drove him crazy.

***

Curiosity killed the cat, and right now, she faced a swift death.

Missy ran into Mrs. Murphy, the village busybody—bless her heart—at the bakery, and news of Luke Morelli’s broken toe and forced bed rest already covered the town like those veils of mist that materialized over the area every afternoon just before sundown in winter. Seemed like Janice from the surgery had rung Mrs. Murphy, who’d come into the bakery to tell Sadie Frost, the baker, and Missy had caught the information as it was being imparted to Sadie. The village gossip ring at work; they need only add Luke’s mother, Evelyn Morelli, and Jenny Fortenberry who owned the local sell-everything shop, to the mix and the circle would be complete. Oh yes, and Ben, too, who loved a good drama. Surprising how Jari, who hailed from India, didn’t have any affinity with Bollywood-type shenanigans.

She gulped back her disgust at such shameless tittle-tattle and sent a beaming smile Mrs. Murphy’s way. The old hag hated her with a vengeance, because Missy never let her get to the bottom of her history so the woman had no juicy tidbit on her. If she knew the truth...

A twinge of remorse pinched her heart—Luke stood in that predicament because of her. She really should go apologize.

“He wasn’t hurt too much?” she asked.

“Janice said he had a broken toe, but it broke real good so he’s now on crutches.”

Sadie gasped. “But that’s horrible! How will the poor lad get on with his work? He is supposed to be in New York next week, something to do with a new campaign the owners of
Sinners&Saints
will be starting.”

The mention of her father’s company got her attention. Missy forced her interest down; the minute these two realised her ears had perked up, they’d be over her like sharks smelling blood.

In all her time away from Texas, she hadn’t even once looked up anything about
TnT Industries
. She’d run away from that life and wanted no reminder of what she’d escaped. Her father had been pushing her to marry that idiot, Blake Townsend, whom he’d singled out as his future right-hand man, and Missy—Iris Ann—was supposed to simply be a docile, Southern belle trophy wife on his arm. Why the hell had she worked so hard to acquire an MBA from Harvard at barely twenty-two? She was his heir, and this being the twenty-first century—never mind that she hadn’t wanted to—she
should’ve
been allowed to take over his company.

Her mother had told her to stop throwing tantrums—because asking to be treated as a woman with a brain amounted to a tantrum!—and to trust her father who “knew best.”

Like hell he did... Blake had already been preening like a peacock, thinking his marriage to her a done deal. She’d reached the end of her tether, and had sought out the most notorious bad boy from their circles and told him to take her away. Colton Maxwell had always seen her like a sister, so she’d been safe with him. But even he treated her like an airhead with a pretty face and no substance.

Except for Luke Morelli, no man had given any consideration to her thoughts and feelings...

And he was as much a part of her past as
TnT Industries
. She squirmed as the need to know what brewed in the ranks of the family company tickled her. As long as she’d kept the Texas Taylors out of her thoughts, she’d been able to ignore them and everything happening in their entourage.

But like the bite of a tick, this itch refused to go...and she yearned to find out what that oh-so-important campaign could be.