Going Cowboy Crazy (32 page)

It was a toss-up on whose eyes were wider—Faith’s or Slate’s. Clinging to Faith’s hand like a drowning man, he sent her a desperate plea for help. She might’ve done something if her entire body wasn’t frozen with shock.

With the hat off, Faith had an unobstructed view of the woman’s face. And except for the glorious hair that trailed down her back, it was like looking in the mirror. The familiar features held her transfixed as emotions swelled and ebbed.

Hope finally unlocked her lips from Slate’s, and her heels slipped back down to the floor. “What? The cat got your tongue?” She laughed, a deep husky laugh that put a dreamy look on the faces of all the men standing around. “Well, let me tell you, I was pretty tongue-tied myself when I heard about the wedding. Were you planning on inviting me, cowboy, or did you plan on getting married without the bride?”

“Hog…” Slate started, but left the word hanging.

Hope sent him a seductive smile that Faith couldn’t have duplicated if her life depended on it. “No need to explain. I think it’s kinda cute.” Her big blue eyes sparkled up at him. “And the answer is yes. I’ll marry you, Slate Calhoun.”

A cheer went up at the same time Slate’s mouth dropped and all the blood ran out of Faith’s head.

Hope patted his chest. “I guess I should’ve waited for you to ask me, but since you’ve asked me at least a hundred times in the past, I figured I wouldn’t put you through it again.”

A hundred times?

Faith’s fingers slipped from Slate’s.

He reached for her, but she took a step back. “Now, darlin’, it’s not what you think.”

“Who’s that?”

Faith looked away from Slate’s traitorous eyes into duplicates of her own. Hope’s eyes widened as her arms dropped from around his neck. For the last few months, Faith had tried to imagine how she would feel when she looked into her sister’s eyes for the first time. But nothing had prepared her for the deep connection she felt, a connection that went past the physical similarities into the spiritual. It was almost as if she was looking into a piece of her soul. A piece that had split from hers and taken form.

It was wonderful and scary all at the same time.

Hope’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“Now, Hope, honey.” Jenna rushed up. “That’s what me and your daddy was trying to tell you, but as usual, you was too busy talkin’ to listen. This here is your twin sister, Faith.”

“My what?!” She looked at her mother, then back at Faith.

Jenna shot a glance at Burl, who stood there looking scared. “Your twin sister.” She waved a hand. “I know it’s kinda hard to swallow, which is why I think we all need to go back to the house and talk about it.”

If possible, Hope’s expression grew even meaner. “I’m not going anywhere until you explain how I ended up with a twin sister at thirty years old.”

Jenna cleared her throat. “Well, you had one your entire life, honey. You just didn’t know about her.”

“And why the hell was that?!”

“I guess because I didn’t tell you.” Jenna smiled weakly.

“Well, thanks a whole hell of a lot for that, Mama!” Hope jerked up her hat and started through the crowd. It parted like the Red Sea. When she got to the door, she turned back around and looked at Slate.

“Well, are you coming or not?”

Slate started to shake his head when Jenna stopped him.

“Please, Slate. Go on with her. She needs somebody to explain things to her, since I did such a horrible job of it. And you and her were always such good friends. She’ll take it better from you.”

He glanced down at Faith, then back at the door, then back at Faith again. Faith couldn’t speak if she had wanted to, not when she felt like she’d just opened a present she had always wanted, only to discover it wasn’t as great as she thought it would be.

“Please,” Jenna begged.

Slate reached out and took Faith’s chin in his hand.
“I’ll be right back, darlin’. And as soon as I talk with Hope, I’ll explain everything. I know it looks and sounds bad, but you’ve got to trust me, Faith. Please.”

“Calhoun!” Hope called.

He gave Faith one last pleading look before he dropped his hand, picked up his hat, and followed Hope out the door.

When he was gone, the crowd swarmed back around Faith.

“I always knew you weren’t Hope,” Harley said.

“Me too,” Twyla agreed. “The hair is all wrong.”

“Didn’t dance nothing like Hope,” someone else joined in.

“Or sound like her.”

“Of course, you can’t help how your family sounds,” Kenny said. “My second cousin on my mother’s side was born with too much fat in her top lip so she always sounded like she was talkin’ underwater—”

“Good Lord,” Rachel Dean jumped in. “Don’t start talkin’ about your family or we’ll be here all night. Besides, you heard Hope. The weddin’s on. Which means, we still have a lot of work to do.”

“A week! I need to order the silk flowers.” Darla scurried for the door.

“And we need to finish painting the town hall.” Harley followed her.

The bar cleared out. And Faith was left standing there, the ignored victim of a train wreck. Almost ignored. Jenna and Burl stood next to Sheriff Winslow at the bar.

“Well, I guess I’ll have Tyler tow your car out to Burl’s.” The sheriff shook his head as he walked away. “Vole-vo. Don’t know why anyone would name a car after those ornery varmints.”

Jenna walked up and put her arm around Faith’s shoulders, then hugged her close. “Don’t you worry none about Hope, honey. Slate will get this all worked out. If anyone can get Hope to listen, it’s Slate. Those two are as close as two tomatoes on the vine.”

That was exactly what Faith was worried about.

Slate didn’t feel close to Hope at that moment. He felt annoyed. And scared. Annoyed at Hope for acting like a crazy woman and scared that Faith would do something stupid like leave town before he got the opportunity to talk with her.

Damned fool women, letting their emotions get the best of them, he thought as he chased Hope across the parking lot. He didn’t catch up with her until she was in her Chevy truck with the engine started. Jerking open the door, he hopped in the passenger’s seat.

“It took you long enough,” Hope grumbled before she peeled out of the parking lot.

He clung to the dashboard as she took the corner on two wheels. He hadn’t planned on leaving Bootlegger’s. All he wanted to do was calm Hope down long enough to give Faith the reunion with her sister she’d been dreaming about. But it looked like that plan was blown out of the water.

“Slow down, damn it!” Slate yelled. “You want to get us both killed?!”

It didn’t surprise him that her foot only pushed harder on the accelerator. Hope never had listened worth a hoot.

“A twin!” The loud yell almost broke the windshield. “As if my life wasn’t complicated enough! Now I have to worry about some ugly-haired twin!”

“It’s not ugly.” Slate reached down and fastened his seat belt.

“It’s not ugly?” Her eyes stared at him with disbelief. “This coming from the same man who made me swear never to cut my hair.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t realize it would look so cute.”

“Cute?” She rolled her eyes. “Great. Just great. I now have a cute twin sister.”

Slate glanced over at her. “You’re pissed because she’s your twin? Or because she’s cuter than you are?”

“She’s not cuter than me!”

He grinned. After not seeing her for over a year, he’d forgotten how feisty Hope was. But as much as he had missed her, he would rather be back at Bootlegger’s with Faith. Sitting next to Hope, he realized how much he preferred a short, sun-streaked mop of hair to a long brown mane. A hesitant smile to a brazen one. And a sweet disposition to a feisty one.

Although Faith could get pretty feisty when she was mad.

And if he knew Faith like he thought he knew Faith, she would be plenty feisty by the time he got back to Boot’s. He couldn’t blame her. If some guy jumped on her, Slate would be more than feisty. He’d beat the perpetrator to a pulp. Of course, Faith couldn’t beat up her own sister.

Which left him.

He took his hat off and tossed it to the dash. “You want to explain what happened back there?”

Hope shot him another nasty look. “And here I thought that was what you were going to do—explain where the hell I got a twin sister.”

He hadn’t been referring to the twin part as much as the
kiss/marriage part, but he let it pass, figuring she deserved an explanation. It didn’t take him long to get through the story of how she ended up with a twin and how that same twin had come to be in Bramble. Hope remained unusually quiet during the telling, not speaking until he was finished.

“So Mama and Daddy just gave her away?”

“From what I can gather, they didn’t feel like they had much choice.”

He still thought it was a lame excuse to give up a kid, and he waited for Hope’s fiery temper to voice his opinion. Surprisingly, she didn’t say a word as she turned up the road to Sutter Springs.

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Hope.” He clung to the dashboard as the truck bounced over the ruts.

“Why wouldn’t it be? We always talk up here.”

It was true. But back then he didn’t have a girlfriend to worry about. A girlfriend who just happened to be Hope’s sister. “I still think it would be better if we went on back to Jenna’s.”

“I’m not going back there. I’m staying with you.”

If he thought Faith would be upset about Sutter Springs, it would be nothing compared to how upset she’d be if Hope moved into Bubba’s. “No, you’re not.”

She looked over at him. “Why not? You got a girlfriend?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s my cute twin.”

“The same.”

She snorted. “Then why does the entire town think we’re getting married in two weeks?”

“The same reason they’ve believed for the last fifteen years that we’re sweethearts—they’re crazy.”

There was a long pause that made Slate uncomfortable.

“Maybe they’re not so crazy,” Hope said.

He swiveled in his seat and stared at her. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

Hope stared at the road, refusing to look at him, which only made him more uncomfortable. “Just that we’ve been together for a long time, so we might as well be sweethearts.”

Obviously, Hollywood had screwed with her mind. “Please don’t tell me you’ve got a butterfly tattoo on your butt.”

“A what?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. Look, Hope, we’ve been friends for a long time, and I want to continue to be friends with you. But we both know that’s all we are. Friends. So I don’t know where that kiss came from or the acceptance of a marriage proposal I never issued.”

“That’s a lie, Calhoun.” She glared at him. “You used to ask me to marry you at least once a week.”

“When we were kids!” He glared back. “And we both know it was all a joke—something we did to get the townsfolk all riled up. I never meant it, and neither did you.”

“Well, maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

“What?” His voice jogged as the truck hit a big pothole right next to the clearing at Sutter Springs.

“I said I’ve changed my mind.” Hope pulled the truck around in the clearing and parked. Luckily, none of his players were there. At least, not yet. Now all he needed to do was get Hope to stop acting crazy and go back to Jenna’s before someone did show up. Someone that would undoubtedly open their big traps and spill the
beans about Coach being at Sutter Springs with Hope Scroggs.

“Well, you’re not allowed to change your mind.” It sounded pretty stupid, but he didn’t know what else to say. Especially when he didn’t believe her for a minute. Hope didn’t like him in that way. She better not like him in that way. Not when he was crazy about her sister.

She turned off the engine. Once she’d released her seat belt, she leaned her forearms over the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. “I forgot how much I used to love coming up here.”

The way she said it was so forlorn that his anger melted away, and he released a deep sigh as he unhooked his seat belt and slouched down in the seat.

“Yeah, I’ve missed it, too.” He stared out at the moon that was a hair short of being full, bright enough to light the clumps of cedar and mesquite and the slow-nodding pumpjacks. “So what happened?”

There was a long pause, before she answered. “Hollywood wasn’t what I expected.”

He dropped his head back on the headrest. “I know what you mean. I was convinced I would be the best college quarterback in the country. But when you get out of Bramble, things sure look a lot different, don’t they?”

She nodded, but didn’t speak.

“So if it was so bad, why did you stay gone so long?”

Hope shrugged. “I guess I didn’t want to disappoint a town that was convinced I was the next Sandra Bullock.”

She sounded so defeated that he couldn’t bring himself to ask any more questions, although there were a lot running through his head. All these years he’d pictured her in California living the high life while he was here coaching
a team that couldn’t win a state title if their lives depended on it. Instead, her life didn’t sound like it had been all that good. And it turned out his wasn’t all that bad. At least, it hadn’t been bad in the last week. In the last week, it had been pretty close to perfect.