Page 9 of Just Can't Fall for the Enemy

This would be my best performance yet.

Six

Over the next four hours,I got no less than six texts from Jill, reminding me about the importance of this episode. Like I needed a reminder. Without Guy, my career would be fine. But he was the key to astronomical numbers, and he absolutely knew it. I had seconds to catch his attention with something different, something interesting.

Everything depended on Sophie, and she had no idea.

A little bell rang as I entered the sports shop Sophie recommended. The cashier, a blonde woman who looked fresh out of college, looked up and squinted at me in that you-look-familiarway most of my viewers did. She’d figure it out any second. I ducked under her gaze and made a beeline for the shoe wall, searching for a decent pair of hiking boots. As charming Huckleberry Creek was, it had a limited selection. At least what they featured here was good quality. I took a brown boot right off the rack and checked the size.Too small.

“I figured you’d go for the cleats, not hiking boots,” the cashier said, leaning against the wall in a manner she probably thought nonchalant and casual. The excitement in her round eyes and the grin she couldn’t hide revealed the truth. “I remember how much you love soccer.”

I cringed. She’d definitely seen more than one episode, and likely in my Olivia days. “Not really my thing anymore. Knee problems. I’m going for a hike later. Do you have anything in a bigger size?”

She stepped closer, putting herself between me and the wall, and ignored my question. “Sounds fun! I’m Lucille, and I’m a big fan. Is someone taking you on that hike? I mean, is someone showing you around? Because I’ve lived here for six years.” Her voice dropped meaningfully. “I can show you anything you want to see.”

Wow. I looked around the store for help, but we were alone. Time to leave. “Actually, now that I think about it, my sneakers will do fine. It’s a short hike.”

“Why would you bother with a short hike when you can have a long one?” she asked. “There’s so much forest out there with no one else around for miles.”

Was this girl for real? I swallowed, tossed the boot onto a chair, and made a beeline for the double doors. “I’m good, thanks.” I reached for the handle.

“Olivia was a fool, you know.”

I paused, looking back at her. Not many people knew about Olivia. She’d appeared in a few of my episodes that first year, but people didn’t realize how close we’d been. How I’d put a ring on her finger and a deposit on a house to surprise her. How I’d been hours away from signing away my channel when I took her to see our new house and how instead of being excited, she’d called it off.

Your vision for our future is obviously different from mine,she’d said. That was it. No other explanation, no apology. Not that I was all that surprised. Her soccer career always came first and I didn’t expect that to change. But I secretly hoped she’d sprain an ankle and be out for a game or two. That I could compete with her dreams, or even be a factor in them.

But no. I’d been stuck with an empty house, an expensive diamond ring, and no reason to stay.

Putting down roots meant heartbreak. I knew that from watching my mom waste away in the same house, decade after decade, hoping my dad would come back. My attorney older brother, golden-child-Ben, had finally moved her into his basement so he and his wife could keep her company.

Mom claimed to be happy, but when I looked in her eyes, I still saw only pain. At least Dad could smile. He’d once told me that it was thelackof commitment, not a committed relationship, that brought him freedom and self-fulfillment and happiness—something I hadn’t believed until the moment Olivia walked away.

So this would forever be my life, the flirty cashiers and fans following me around in sports cars with tinted windows, trying to figure out which hotel was mine. Collecting money that sat in a bank account with no end in sight.

Tanner Carmichael was free as a bird and liked it that way—because he already knew what the other path brought.

“Olivia wasn’t the fool,” I told Lucille. “I was.” Then I pushed the doors open and strode back into the sunlight.

Seven

I leftwork early to beat Tanner to the restaurant. Sure enough, when I arrived and slid my jacket over the chair of my usual table, he was nowhere to be seen. I slipped into the back to find Mack bent over a pot of refried beans. The moment he saw me, his face split into a wide smile. “Sofita,” he said in heavily accented English, dropping his spoon onto the counter to pull me into a hug. “You have stayed away too long.”

“Sorry. Work has kept me busy.”

He pulled away and clasped my shoulders. “How busy can you be? You are guarding a forest that’s been there almost as long as the earth. It doesn’t need you.Ineed you. Yourcemitasare magic. Nobody else knows how to make them right.”

“Yours would win any Texas competition in a second. Mine are barely worthy of the word.” I glanced through the door’s window, but Tanner was nowhere in sight. “Look, I need a favor. I’m meeting a guy here.”

Mack stirred the bean mixture again, frowning. “To eat? I hoped you came to help. Daniel is sick tonight.”

“I wish I could, truly. The thing is, there’s a celebrity in town, and I need him to leave before he hurts anyone.”

He whirled, his thick gray eyebrows shooting upward. “Hurts anyone?”

I could practically hear Carmen’s chiding in my ear.Don’t be dramatic.“Not physically hurt but just harming the town in general. He tends to bring the wrong kind of tourists, if you know what I mean.”

“Mmm.” He looked skeptical. “You want me to serve bad meat? Even if I had some, I don’t think is right.”

---