Page 4 of Fa-La-La-La Faking It
Her stomach tumbled into freefall. What was happening? Was this some sort of cosmic joke, a real life version ofIt’s a Wonderful Lifeor something?
She glared at Jace, and it all came rushing back—the tears, the humiliation, the heartbreak. “It’s you.”
“It’s me,” Jace said. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t have any idea what he was apologizing for, but judging by the way the woman was glaring at him, an apology was definitely in order.
Her pretty blue eyes narrowed. “Sorry for what?”
Jace scrubbed the back of his neck.Busted. He flashed a sheepish grin. “I’m not sure, exactly. It just seemed like the right thing to say at the time.”
Her cheeks went cherry red, either from fury or embarrassment. Jace’s money was on some dangerous combination of both. Then his mind snagged on a detail from just moments before.
“Cherry on Top,” he said as visions of tiny cakes iced with buttercream frosting danced in his head...the tap-tap-tap of sticks of white chalk against a smooth classroom blackboard...a cool spring breeze in his face as he swung upside-down from the monkey bars at recess. Bluebonnets as far as his eyes could see.
No. Memories fought their way to the surface of Jace’s consciousness.It can’t be her. What are the odds?
In a town this small, the odds weren’t too bad.
“Cherry on Top,” Adaline echoed. It was definitely her: Adaline Bishop. Jace could see it now—same pert nose, same bow-shaped lips, same buttery blond hair. Only now, instead of her hair being scraped back from her face and gathered in a high ponytail, a thick fringe of bangs skimmed her eyelashes—all the better to highlight the flash of indignation in her sapphire eyes. “That’s the name of my bakery. I just said so.”
Jace couldn’t help but smile.
Her cheeks darkened to a deeper shade of crimson. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He tilted his head. “How am I looking at you, Adaline?”
Her lips parted ever so slowly at the sound of her name before rearranging themselves into a straight, flat line. “So youdoremember.”
In truth, Jace didn’t remember a whole lot about the time he’d spent in Bluebonnet. Like everything else about that painful year, he’d done his best to push the memories of his time here to the farthest recesses of his mind. Over time, they’d taken on a soft, hazy quality—almost like one of those Impressionist paintings that were meant to be viewed from afar instead of at close range.
But the memory of Adaline stubbornly refused to fade into the background. Everything about her was still awash in crisp, vivid color.
“Yup,” he said, reaching to pet her dog, still nestled in her arms. Fuzzy wrapped his tiny paws around Jace’s pointer finger. “You always said you were going to own your own bakery someday. You talked about it all the time.”
Adaline’s forehead crinkled, and he had the wholly inappropriate urge to smooth it with the pad of his thumb. “That’s what you remember?”
Jace nodded, drew his hand back and tucked it safely away into the pocket of his jeans. Fuzzy immediately cocked his head as if to ask why he was no longer being petted. “I do, so I guess if I’m looking at you any certain way, it’s the look I give a person when she makes her childhood dreams come true.”
This time, when Adaline’s lips parted, they stayed that way, as if the very thought of him saying something nice to her prompted her jaw to drop in disbelief.
“Not many people do, you know.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s impressive.”
She smiled at him for a beat, and then her head gave a disapproving gesture. “No.”
Jace wasn’t following. “No?”
Fuzzy’s ears swiveled back on his head at the sound of every dog’s least favorite word.
“No, as in, you need to stop doing...” she waved at hand him, clearly meant to encompass his entire presence “...whatever it is you’re doing right now.”
They were talking in circles. It should’ve been frustrating, but the electricity skittering over Jace’s skin told him he was having a good time. It certainly beat sitting at his uncle Gus’s bedside.
His gaze darted to room 212. His uncle wasn’t really a bad guy. On the contrary, he’d all but saved Jace’s life back when he’d been a fifth grader at Bluebonnet Elementary School. Jace had been lost, and Uncle Gus had given him a soft place to land when he’d needed it most. All to say, the older man’s bark was a whole lot worse than his bite.
Still, listening to that bark all afternoon could wear anyone down. Even Jace, who’d just packed up his entire life to move back to Bluebonnet to oversee his uncle’s care. He tried not to think about the thousands of seedlings he’d left behind or the farmhouse he’d painstakingly restored with his own two hands. His life was here now, like it or not. He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to go back to the farm or what he might find when he eventually returned.
He directed his attention back to Adaline, who clearly fell into thenotcategory. “What is it, exactly, that you think I’m doing?”
