Page 1 of The One With The Secret Crushes

One

Mackenzie

You let reality smack her in the face

The townof Lost Creek was many things but quiet wasn't one of them. Aside from the roar of the river that served as our permanent background noise, there were the whispers of the town busybodies, of which my Aunt Sharon was their fearless leader. Gossip spread across town like wildfire. Everyone knew everything about everybody.

Which was why I'd kept mostly to myself since moving home six months ago. Winter helped keep most of the town from noticing my hermit status but now it was spring and there was nowhere to hide.

I felt several pairs of eyes on me as I dropped into the empty chair at the Green Door Café. My best friend, and new employee, Joanne, had selected one of the sidewalk tables to enjoy the spring air drifting through the mountain gorge. I was exposed and I could already hear the barely hushed words as information spread.

Mackenzie Howard is out in public!

She's wearing a sundress. It's a bit too chilly for sundresses.

How is the poor dear doing? Is she smiling?

"We really don't have to do this." I took a sip of the coffee she had waiting for me.

"Yes. We. Do." Joanne flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder like I exhausted her.

Which, to be fair, I probably did.

I shrugged. "I worked hard, and it paid off." This little celebration breakfast was nice in theory, but Maeve Applebottom was staring at me from her usual perch at the window of the cafe. Without a doubt she was providing a detailed account to her best friend, my aforementioned Aunt Sharon, on the bags under my eyes, the cleanliness of my hair and skin, and my decision to wear a dress and Chucks, when Joanne and I should be at the office.

"You moved home, took over the family business, lost your dad, and turned the company around. We're booked solid for the rest of this month, all of May, and at eighty percent capacity for June and July. Your hard work didn't just pay off, Mack, it fucking exploded." She shoved a stack of pancakes my way. "Now celebrate."

"I think celebrations are supposed to be joyful."

She waved her syrupy fork at me. "And you're joyful...underneath your thick exterior of isolation and sadness. Crack that crust, and I donotmean the toast." She tugged the white plate of slightly browned and buttered bread away.

I owned the fact that I was letting my grief be the excuse I gave everyone for declining their kind invitations. But it wasn'tactuallythe reason I had skipped every girls' night out, every birthday party, every dinner invitation.

Nope, the reality was much more embarrassing.

Lucy, Joanne's younger sister, grabbed a chair from another table and joined us. She was an exact copy of Joanne, just three years younger and with a bigger smile. "Congrats on landing that huge client for the summer." Then she promptly stole Joanne's muffin.

Joanne glared at her but did nothing to stop it.

After my dad's funeral I threw myself into making Lost Creek Cabins a destination people dreamed of visiting for long romantic getaways, weddings, and for summer adventures hiking, horseback riding, and rafting down the river.

The businesses in our tiny Appalachian town had already been working together to create a symbiotic system for bringing different groups of tourists in at different times of year and packaging up our offerings. After a winter of pushing it even further, special things were happening for me, and everyone else.

I was just starting to breathe, to feel like a success, when I received the biggest booking in the history of our business. I knew because I crawled through all of Dad's records for proof.

Someone had rented out the Golden Hour cabin for the entire summer and paid in full from the first of May to the thirty-first of October.

The cash injection from the summer-long rental pushed us over the edge and into the black at an unusually early date in the year. Joanne declared our need for a celebration but all I would agree to was breakfast because it had the lowest probability of me seeing Scott Shaw.

"It means that even if we don't book another day this summer, even if we had a bunch of cancellations—which we won't—the money we sank into renovations and updating the cabins is covered." Joanne held up her coffee for a toast. "Congrats, boss."

I clinked my mug against hers and Lucy's and let a little pride warm my chest. I was damn proud that all that work paid off. Dad had done a great job carving out the business and keeping it running. All I did was take it to the next level and modernize it a little. New website, more social media, new colors. The reservations flooded in.

"You should come to the saloon Friday night and keep the celebration going," Joanne said.

Lucy nodded enthusiastically. "You haven't been out once. I love Friday nights so much. Scottie's done so much to the place. It's clean now. And the music! I mean,come on, live music in Lost Creek?"

I might not have stepped foot inside Still Standing Saloon, but I knew everything that changed when Scott took over the family business from his Uncle Jerry.

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