Page 69 of Opposites (Never) Attract
Very typical stuff.
And there, in the center of the board, wasmypicture. My professional picture from the Berkley and Brothers website.
The caption underneath read:
Wanted: Sunshine Calloway to come up with a plan for saving the Swinging D.
“What?” I cried. I was stunned by so many things, I didn’t know what to be outraged about first. Who? How?
My mother squeezed my waist. “Sorry. I should have maybe warned you. It’s just how the town gossip spreads. Don’t pay any attention to it.”
“You’re saying someone puts up wanted signs on the announcement board to stir up shit?”
“Yeah, it started when Leroy died and your sister and Ethan got engaged.”
“And no one does anything about it?” I cried, my voice climbing to an impossible register. Dogs were going to start howling.
Mom shrugged, like there was nothing to be done. This was taking the quirk factor up into invasion of privacy levels, but… fine. Last Hope Gulch was just that kind of place.
“So, everyone in town knows I’m here to save the Swinging D?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Looks like it.”
“No pressure,” I muttered.
“Let’s go.”
We continued on our way to the Last Meal Café. Amity knew we were coming, and for the first time, I found myself nervous about seeing my younger sisters. Since the disastrous family meeting at the Lodge, when the truth was revealed that I was only half-Calloway, we really hadn’t had a chance to catch up.
Tag was right when he said the reason I wasn’t close with my sisters was because I left Last Hope Gulch so young. Amity and Bliss were close in age, but they were four and five years younger than me. When I left, we really had nothing in common. I’d been in high school, while they’d both been in elementary school. I was applying to advanced mathematics classes, and they were learning TikTok dances.
Then I was gone.
But, we also weren’t close because I didn’t come home. Because I didn’t do more to create a relationship with them. I was close with Harmony because Harmony did all the work.
I was the older sister who sent fat checks on their birthdays. Who paid for the prom dress they had to have, when Mom said it was too expensive.
But, it wasn’t enough. And now, after everything that had gone down, it felt like I was another half step removed from them.
Would they see me differently, now? Would it even matter that I was no longer just an absent sister? But instead, an absent half-sister?
Walking through the square, my mom’s arm around my waist, I was wearing Harmony’s jeans and boots, but with a bright red Sezanne silk blouse I’d brought from home. The shirt that cost more than everything Mom and I were wearing, combined – and Mom had really good boots on.
Still half country girl, half city girl.
Half Sunshine, half Kaitlyn.
Half Calloway. Half McGraw.
One hundred percent confused.
The only thing, and I do mean the only thing, that made sense, was what Tag and I did in the barn last night. That’s how upside down my life was.
“See how it all just stays the same?” Mom said, as I followed my mother across the square, past the statue of the Calloway bootlegger who’d been shot dead by the McGraw Sheriff, and into my sister’s café.
Same kind of weird…yes.
“Sunny!” Amity cried out, as soon as I opened the door to her cafe. She bounced out from behind the counter where she’d been taking orders, oblivious to the customers she’d left behind. That wouldn’t go over well in New York, but here most folks understood the concept of patience.
