“Umm…” Lianne bit her bottom lip and glanced at a few threads that had come loose from the armrest of her chair. She tugged on them.
“Lianne! Tell me this instant that you said no.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Jamie’s mouth fell open. After a long moment she snapped it closed again. “Lianne, what have you done? Have you signed anything yet? Is it too late? Oh my god, what on Earth were you thinking?” Jamie jumped off the couch and stomped into the kitchen. Lianne heard a few cabinets being slammed. She heard the faucet, and then Jamie came to stand in the kitchen doorway with a glass of water. She tipped it up and drank the whole glass.
When she finished, she glared at Lianne. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Jamie, don’t you think it’s possible you may be a tad biased in this situation?”
“What?”
“Don’t get mad! I just mean that, as his daughter, you maybe don’t have the best perspective on this.”
“What the hell, Lianne? I thought you were on my side. For god’s sake, you know what he’s done. You know everything he’s said to me about coming to work for him and about living in Savage Valley. You of all people know exactly what he’s like, and you are still considering linking your business to him? You must be so far out of your mind right now. This is just”—her voice hitched up—“so insane I don’t know how to think about it. Please tell me exactly what is going through your head. I imagine it was something that made sense to you at the time, and I know your business is so important to you, but honestly, right now it really feels like you’ve betrayed me.”
“No! No, that’s not it at all. Jamie, it’s the exact opposite of that.” Skyler had asked her not to mention Mr. Norman’s ulterior motives with Jamie, but she didn’t want Jamie thinking she’d gone behind her back or that she was acting on entirely selfish motives. “I promise you, it wasn’t just for my business. I mean, what he’s offered me is really great, and you know that. I don’t have to tell you what this could mean for me, but there other reasons, Jamie. I’ve been asked not to share them, but I promise, the money is just a part of it.”
Jamie rolled her eyes. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I would say you’re full of shit. As it is, I’m still thinking about saying it.” She clanked her glass down on the counter and moved back in to the living room.
She seemed to have calmed down a bit, so Lianne went on. “And there’s another part of this.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I’m not sure…” She bit her lip, unsure of how to phrase it. “I mean, with the way things are…”
“Spit it out.”
Lianne shot her best friend an annoyed look. Jamie shot one right back. “I don’t think working with the twins is such a good idea anymore.”
“Not this again. You are so damn stubborn, Lianne.”
“You don’t get it. I care about them. I have since I was twelve years old. I thought I’d gotten over it, that I’d moved on, matured, become an adult and all that. But being around them, it’s like I’m in high school all over again. I’m awkward, and I stutter, and I feel so unsure of myself. But I’m not that way anymore. With my business, I’ve found so much of myself—my strength and my purpose. They just don’t go together. I see that now, and I think I shouldn’t try to force those parts of myself together. It won’t work.” Lianne knew that answer wasn’t entirely true. She knew that if the twins had returned her interest, she would have continued working with them in an instant, awkwardness and stuttering aside. She didn’t want to admit what had happened on the porch. It was so pathetic, and the more she thought about it, the more pathetic it seemed.
“Or you’re being a big weenie.”
“Don’t be rude, Jamie.”
“Look, I’m sorry I don’t feel sorry for you. If you want the Carson twins, go for it. If you don’t, please don’t whine about it to me. You’re a big girl. You have to make your own choices. As for me, I’m going to take a shower. Then tonight I’m going out and getting laid by two men who love me and don’t try to manipulate me every five seconds.”
“Love you? What do you mean love you? Did they say that?”
Jamie didn’t answer, only glared. Lianne could tell her guard was up. “Jamie, tell me.”
“What if they did?”
“Did you say it back?”
“No wonder the twins don’t want to mess around with you. God, you are so serious about everything. It’s just a word. And yes, I did say it to them, and yes, they said it to me. Because yes, we love each other. Is that so complex an idea for you to wrap your head around? Love isn’t some crazy, complex entity that takes years and years to understand. You either love someone or you don’t and then you either act on that love or you don’t. It’s your choice. And it’s my choice to love Ezra and Cleve, and if you don’t like that, too bad. You’re my best friend, Lianne, but you don’t have the right to judge me about this. I mean, would it kill you to be happy for me?”
“I’m just concerned. I don’t want you—”
“
Oh my god!
” Jamie waved her hands in the air. “I don’t want to hear it, okay? I don’t want to hear another damn word. Just forget it.” She stomped across the living room and into her room, slamming the door behind her. Lianne jumped at the noise. Then she let out a long sigh. She knew that Jamie would have a hard time accepting her decision, but only time would prove that she’d done it more for Jamie than for herself. She’d have to work her ass off to ensure not only that her business was a success, but that Jamie and her father found a way to resolve some of their issues.
She only wanted to help.
* * * *
Another cloud of hairspray blew into Will’s face. He scrunched his nose and held his breath until Mrs. Bird quit spraying the stuff all over his mother’s head of stiff gray curls. Her appointment was only supposed to have lasted forty-five minutes, but of course, the ladies had chitchatted too much and were running behind. He plastered on a smile, though, and waited patiently while Mrs. Bird finished up his mother’s coif.
His mother came to the salon every week to get her hair done, and he and Seb traded off picking her up.
“I’m so sorry, dearest.” His mother met his eyes in the mirror.
“We’ve just about finished,” Mrs. Bird said.
“I saw you and Seb in the Savage Hunger parking lot this morning,” Rita Copely chirped from her chair on the far end of the shop. “I was about to say hello, but you looked like you were having a pretty serious conversation with Miss Lianne. I thought I’d better just mind my own business.”
The other ladies made little noises of interest and shot questioning glances at Will. He wished Mrs. Copely had thought to mind her business at present as well.
“As you know, we’ve recently signed a contract with Miss Seward and will be working closely with her in the near future. You will no doubt see us enmeshed in several serious conversations over the coming months.”
“Oh, is that all it was?” Mrs. Copely asked with a smile. Then she turned her attention to Susan Pope, who was touching up her roots.
“You know,” Mrs. Bird said, “Lianne is hosting a book club tomorrow evening, and both my nieces are attending. My recently engaged nieces, I might add.”
“We remember, Agnes.” Mrs. Pope rolled her eyes.
“You bring it up every five minutes, I swear.” Mrs. Copely handed a hand mirror to his mother, and Mrs. Bird twirled her in the chair.
“I can’t help it if I’m proud.”
“It’s funny how close proud and gloating are.”
Agnes stuck her tongue out at Mrs. Copely but then laughed. “Anyways, they are both enamored with Lianne and her products and have been talking about this book club get-together all week.”
Will watched his mother as the ladies were talking. Her mouth was pinched closed in a tight line. It was very strange. Normally she had the most to say on the subject of his love life, or on any subject, for that matter.
Mrs. Pope said, “Well, it sounds like you two Carsons have made yet another sound investment.”
“In more ways than one, perhaps?” Agnes teased. All the ladies looked at him, hoping he would drop a juicy tidbit that they could share later.
“Thank you,” he said blandly, intentionally ignoring Mrs. Bird’s implications.
Mrs. Bird’s gaze softened, and she turned to his mother. “They sure are making their daddies proud, aren’t they?”
His mother bobbed her head sporadically up and down, seemingly knocked out of her tight-lipped daze. “Oh yes, quite so. Every day.”
Later, after his mother had paid for her hairdo and they were on their way back to the house, he noticed her fidgeting in the passenger seat. She’d look out the window, squirm, fiddle with her seat belt, and then look out the window again.
“What is it?” he finally asked.
“Is true what they were saying in there? About Lianne Seward?”
“Mother, we have gone over this several times. You cannot listen to everything you hear at the salon, and it’s precisely because of instances like this. I know they are your friends. I know they are respectable women, but they like to gossip. More than like, in fact. It’s borderline obsession, and it does no one any good to dwell—”
“Yes,” she said, interrupting him, “but you never told me that you and Seb had invested in her business. I wish you would have.”
He darted his eyes over to her face to gauge her expression.
“Really? Why?” He wondered why she was interested now. Did she know something about her? Was it only curiosity? He didn’t think so. She seemed different, quieter and more subdued. Thoughtful, even. He really didn’t want to discuss Lianne with his mother. He didn’t want her to get her hopes up and then take to questioning him nonstop about how things were going. Anytime the women at the salon mentioned either him or Seb or both of them in tandem with a woman, his mother hounded them for months about her. Things were already tense with Lianne, and he didn’t need to be worrying about constant attack from his mother on that front.
At the same time, it seemed like she might have something important to say. “You never seemed interested in that sort of thing before, Mother.”
“I haven’t been, and I’m not really interested now. It’s only that I wish you would have told me about Lianne. You care for her, don’t you?”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel, disoriented by her soft tone and calm demeanor and by the way she waited patiently for him to answer. He was so used to her plodding on from one topic to the next without needing a response from him. She seemed to be waiting for his reply with an intensity he hadn’t seen in her since before his fathers passed away.
“By your silence, I’m guessing that I’ve hit pretty close to the mark.”
“What is this about, Mother?”
She sighed. “I never told you this, but it was her mother who was responsible for me and your fathers.”
He lifted a brow in question.
“Yes, it was at a football game, a couple years after we had all three graduated. They were my beaus, but I wanted to get a job in Denver or maybe Helena, somewhere that wasn’t Savage Valley. I knew what they were at that point, the family history and all it entailed—mainly that I wouldn’t be able to leave Savage Valley—but had held off on committing myself to them because a part of me couldn’t imagine staying in Savage Valley my whole life.” She suddenly laughed. “And to think, we’re the only ones who remained after our sons had shifted. Life is funny, Will. Life is so funny.”
His mother heaved another sigh and gazed out the window. “You’ll have to excuse my nostalgia. It was a bit of a shock to hear your name connected with Lianne Seward’s. I didn’t really think it possible. I thought she’d gone away.”
“She did for a couple years for school, but please tell me what this is about.”
“Your fathers and I had been arguing. Lianne’s mother, Emeline, was a cheerleader, and I noticed her watching us with a very strange expression the whole night. I didn’t really think much of it. Actually, I remember thinking that she was interested in your fathers and was a little bit annoyed with her.
“But then, as the game ended, your fathers and I just sort of let loose on each other. I had finally pushed them to the point of making an ultimatum—either I choose them or I choose leaving, but they wouldn’t let me put it off any longer. Naturally I was angry that they would force me to make a decision, so I told them I was leaving, that I wouldn’t be stuck with such pigheads for the rest of my life. And much to my surprise, they said okay, stood up, and walked away.
“As they were walking, though, Emeline screamed from the track. She started yelling, ‘No! No! No!’ Everyone around her was baffled because our team had just won. She launched herself at the bleachers, hauling herself over the railing, and then she ran toward me. I was just as shocked as everyone else. But she stood in front of me and clutched my hand and said, ‘Go after them. Please, don’t let them keep walking. They’re yours.’
“She kept saying that over and over. ‘They’re yours. I don’t know who you are, but they’re yours. They’re yours.’ Then she pulled me up and dragged me and kept telling me I had to go after them. I thought she was crazy, but I remember thinking, maybe that’s exactly why I should listen to her. Sometimes crazy people have a point.”
She turned to look at him then. “She wasn’t crazy, Will. She knew exactly what she was talking about. After I agreed to marry your fathers, I became the happiest, most true version of myself. I go to bed every night with a special prayer of thanks for Emeline Seward. I know the rumors people still say about her, that she was a witch. And I must admit that I agree with them, but in my heart, I believe she was the best kind of witch, showing people to love.”
“Why are you telling me this now? What does it have to do with her daughter?”
“Although Emeline lived in Savage Valley her whole life, I only had one other conversation with her. It happened almost thirty years later, two weeks before she died.”
A chill zipped up Will’s spine. If his mother was trying to spook him, it was working a little bit. “Go on.”
“We talked about you, Will.”
“Me?”
She nodded. “And Seb. We also talked about her daughter.”