Fool Me Twice (21 page)

As I take in the calm, curious expression he’s giving me, I realize he really wants to know.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I mean, it’s just like you said—we never had any classes together. You ran with your own crowd—Trevor and Rick and Nat—” I stop too late, realizing I don’t want to say her name in front of him.

“Natalie,” he says. And hearing the way he says her name, like it means something, sends a stab to my heart. Even as we’re still holding hands, there’s something about her that draws him in, some quality to her I know I’ll never encompass. Somehow she’s both popular and respected, ethereal and a party girl, sweet yet strong. A thousand contradictions all rolled into one amazing person.

“Yeah. She was … she was who I was thinking of earlier. When I was asking you about September and beyond. You guys were so close before this summer. I guess I was worried …”

“That I’d go back to her?” he asks, surprise and confusion evident in his voice. But that doesn’t make sense, because he does go back to her. The idea of reuniting with Little Miss Perfect shouldn’t inspire surprise.

“Uh-huh. I was thinking that life on this ranch feels different than the real world.
I
feel different. And maybe when we left, you’d become someone else. You’d get together with her and leave me behind,” I say, and the honesty is freeing.

“Well, I mean, she’s … a really amazing girl,” he says. I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t, and I’m desperate for him to speak again. He’s supposed to assuage my fears. Supposed to laugh at the idea he’d get back with her.

“What happened?” I ask. “You guys seemed really into each other last spring.”

“We broke up,” he says simply. I believed that, last year. But I saw how quickly they picked right back up when he returned, and I know it’s not quite true, that it’s somewhere in the shades of gray, that all summer long he was harboring feelings for her. Maybe when he was with me, it was really just me, but the moments were fleeting. He’d been with her, in so many ways.

“Why? Did you not love her?”

“Of course I did.”

The silence stretches on and on. I hate that he’s not filling in the blanks. I gaze up at the stars, my mouth dry. My stomach hurts at his admission. He’s supposed to love me, not her.

“So, she dumped you?” I ask, finally, desperate for an answer, confused as to why he doesn’t feel the need to reassure me if he really thinks we’re together. Why would a guy tell his girlfriend stuff like this?

Maybe I’d never really understand Landon, not even after
two
summers.

“Yes. I mean, that wasn’t our problem, exactly. …”

“But that’s how it went. She dumped you.”

He screws his lips up to the side a little, then nods. “It was her idea, yeah. But it was for the best.”

So she broke up with him but he loved her. And at the end of
the summer, when she decided it was a mistake, he was all too happy to take her back. I swallow and stare up at the stars, wishing they gave me the same peace as they had moments ago, but somehow they seem to just be spotlighting the hurt that will no doubt be coming in a week’s time.

“Hey,” he says, and I meet his eyes. “Don’t look so …”

“Hurt?” I ask.

“Yeah. It’s over. I’ve moved on.”

“I’m fine,” I say, knowing I’m not.

“You really are amazing, you know that? So different from her.”

“How so?” I ask, suddenly needing to know.

“She’s just … very sweet. Kind of a pushover. I mean I can’t even convince you that Sean Connery is the ultimate James Bond. …”

I smile and shove his shoulder. I can’t believe that I spent all of last summer letting him win arguments because I thought he wouldn’t like me otherwise. That’s so not me.

“I don’t know. In some ways, it’s almost like she’s too perfect. She didn’t fire me up like you do. There’s sparks with us, you know?”

“I see,” I say, because what else is there to respond with?

“Why do I feel like I’m screwing this up?”

I shrug, but I don’t comment because there are too many thoughts battling for attention in my head. Who she is, who I am. Who she was, who I was then. And whether there’s a difference at all, or if I’m the same naïve girl a second time.

What’s that saying?

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice …

I frown. Beside me, Landon shifts his weight so that he’s lying on his side. He reaches over, touches my face, rubbing soft little circles on my cheek, and I close my eyes, memorizing the feeling.

“Mack, what I’m trying to tell you …” His voice trails off, and I open my eyes again, realizing that for the first time in the years I’ve known him, he looks edgy, nervous. He meets my gaze. “What I’m trying to say is that I loved her. She’s a wonderful person. But I’m
in
love with you.”

Emotions roar to life in my throat, and a boulder lodges itself there until it’s hard to breathe. I want to cry, because I don’t know if I believe him and that’s what hurts most.

I love him back, but I don’t trust him.

He didn’t say “I love you” last year. Because he
didn’t
love me. I fell so hard, but he didn’t love me back. So what have I done so differently this time to change things? Or is it an act, and the rug will be pulled out from under me just like before?

I blink the tears that brim, hoping he can’t see them in the darkness. But I fail, because the thumb tracing circles on my cheek slides over, brushing a tear off my lashes.

Landon might remember the stars most, but me, it’s the heat of his skin and the breathless anticipation as his lips touch mine, soft, gentle, his tongue tracing the edge of my lips.

Any remaining sounds of the night disappear as I slip my arm around him, welcoming the weight against me as he leans across me, deepening our kiss, wanting desperately to forget every complication our relationship has.

The moment seems to stretch on as long as the night sky,
enveloped by the darkness. And then too soon he pulls away, rolling onto his back and staring up at the stars.

“Good night, Mackenzie,” he says, a husky whisper in the moonlight.

“Good night,” I say, knowing tonight will be just like the one last year.

I’m going to spend all of it just listening to him breathe.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I think I might actually like that more than the blue dress,” Bailey says from her position in our tiny bathroom. I can’t see her, but every now and then I hear the hair spray bottle. She must be wearing a whole gallon of it by now.

She did mine first. It’s piled on my head in pretty little ringlets, pinned and tucked. One dangles down in front of my eye, but I’ve sworn to Queen Bailey that I won’t touch it. She even used a half-dozen bobby pins that have pretty little crystals on the end, so that every time I turn one of them catches the light, and a glitter of sunshine dapples the wall inside our cabin.

“Yeah,” I say. “The blue dress just wasn’t punk rock enough.” Bailey snorts and I grin. “I’m kidding.”

I click the heels of my cowboy boots together like I’m Dorothy and I just want to go home. But I’d never go home, not tonight. Not with the hours of fun stretching before us. Not with
knowing how little time I have left with Landon before he finds out what I’ve been up to all summer.

I’m sinking into the old couch in our cabin a little at a time, so I sit up more, smoothing out the multicolored tulle skirt. The layers are super short and they puff out at weird angles, and I was worried I’d end up showing off my underwear, so I found totally cute white lace tights to wear underneath them. I’m in love with the whole outfit, and Bailey whistled when she saw it all put together.

“You really do look hot. Landon is going to fall all over himself when he sees you.”

I frown, staring down at my pink polished nails, another product of the Bailey-driven makeover. I reach over and grab the Sharpie sitting discarded on the table next to me, then add a black star to each nail. “Yeah, about that,” I admit.

She’s quiet for a second, and then she steps into our room. “What about it?”

She’s staring at me like she’s worried. “So, um, I kinda didn’t tell you
everything
about the cattle drive. …” I take a deep breath. “He told me he loved me.”

She looks at me like I just grew a unicorn horn out of my forehead. “You believe him, don’t you? You want happily ever after.”

“I don’t know what to think. He didn’t say it last year. So now I don’t know if he really fell this time, if it all worked out as planned, or if he’s just playing a better game.” I shrink back into the couch.

“Oh my God, you fell in love with him all over again, didn’t you?”

“No,” I say honestly.

“Good,” she says, reaching up to feel how hot her hair is where it’s spun around the curling iron. She steps toward the bathroom just as I speak again.

“Because I never fell out of love with him to begin with.”

She freezes and the silence is heavy, thick with what I’ve said.

“You have to dump him,” she says, almost accusingly. “Promise me you’re still dumping him tonight.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. Not if he’s willing to give us a chance. I want it all, Bailey. I want to tell him the truth and I want him to tell me it’s okay, and I want to go to WSU as a couple. I want to cram for tests and stay up late eating pizza. I want to be with him. Away from this ranch.”

“Oh, Mack,” she says, sighing as she turns around and steps back into the bathroom. “You are so screwed.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

By the time Bailey and I make it to the big dining hall where the dance is held, the music is vibrating the pathways, and the noises of the crowd are almost as loud. Whistling, boot stomping, clapping …

An overwhelming sense of déjà vu sweeps over me, and despite the warmth of the late August night, I get goose bumps. Suddenly it’s me in a pair of tight-fitting jeans with a long, flowing white peasant blouse as I make this same walk, eager to see Landon. Eager to know what would happen next.

Bailey bumps my hip, and I’m brought back to the present.

The dance is my favorite part of the summer. For one night, and one night only, the ranch hands and the guests, the maids and the managers, all get together for one big blowout. We get away with comingling because they talk up the night like crazy, hyping it up how there’s this big, two-hundred-year-old tradition of
the ranch owners throwing a shindig for the ranch hands at the end of a successful cattle drive. A celebration for everyone, no matter how old or young, rich or poor you are. So even the richest of the rich guests don’t mind mingling with the staff. Drinking with the staff. Dancing with the staff.

Bailey and I step up onto the wide porch, and I glance at the couple on an enormous swing at the far end, in the shadows, wondering if they came together or if they’re simply leaving together. Tonight has a way of running away with people.

Back in the day, the rancher would open his pockets and “profit share,” as it were, after such a great season. That’s what the brochures say, anyway. The profits don’t come from the cattle anymore.

The guests are really paying for it anyway. This weekend boasts the second-highest rental fees, after the Fourth of July.

The place is transformed from the big guests-only dining hall—the round tables Bailey and I helped clear giving way to an expansive dance floor. Above them dangle the paper lamps Bailey and I spent hours assembling—they hang from every conceivable spot, giving the room a warm, mellow glow.

“Wow. Our little arts-and-crafts project turned out pretty amazing,” Bailey says, her words coming out breathy. A DJ is set up in the corner, so tucked away one would think the music was playing on its own. A few scattered tables remain, covered in western tablecloths, and they all have big mason jar candles on them.

“Man, I love this stupid hick dance,” Bailey says. “It’s way better than homecoming.”

We grin at each other. I couldn’t agree more. “Is Adam here?”

She shrugs, suddenly looking nervous as her eyes dart around. “I don’t know. He said dances aren’t his thing, but that I should have fun.”

I frown. “There’s no way you got that decked out to sit on the sidelines.”

“But I don’t think he’s coming,” she says.

“He’ll show up.”

Bailey looks down for a second, pretending to scuff away a stain on the floor with the toe of her adorable little ankle boots.

“You’re seriously into him, aren’t you?”

She shrugs but doesn’t deny it.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” I say.

“It’s not
that
crazy,” she says.

“Right. Totally. Not at all surprising that you would get stuck on a boy. A handyman, at that.”

“You say that like I’m a snob or something. And besides, the handyman thing is his summer job. College is expensive,” she says, crossing her arms.

“It’s rather convenient that you’ll both be at UW in another couple of weeks,” I say.

“I know, right? That’s why I have to figure out if he’s into me before then, when he’ll be surrounded by all those smarty-pants sophomores and I’m just a freshman.” She frowns. “I mean, I really,
really
like him. He’s different.” Her eyes roam the crowd, searching for him. I might break his kneecaps later if he doesn’t show, because there’s way too much hope in her eyes. If he breaks her heart, he’s a dead man.

“Different how?”

“He calls me out when I’m trying too hard. I tried to play the Little-Miss-Innocent act and he laughed at me. Laughed! Like it was hilarious.”

“Do I want to know what the Little-Miss-Innocent act is?”

“You know, like after a date, you invite them into your cabin for a movie, but you act like you’re going to spend all night watching
Finding Nemo
and putting tiny little marshmallows in your hot chocolate or some crap. Then the guy inevitably makes a move, and you’re obligated to act surprised before making out with him.”

I snicker. “I feel like this conversation just took a left turn into a really warped Swiss Miss commercial.”