The Hometown Hoax (The Hoax Series) (19 page)

She sipped her coffee hoping the feeling of triumph and satisfaction at having completed her first landscape while in the city would hit her soon.

Traffic whooshed by mere feet from her chair since she was basically sitting at a table on the sidewalk. But that was part of the charm, right? Everyone else didn’t seem to mind the vehicle exhaust that went along with an afternoon coffee break, nor did they mind the heat radiating off the pavement, or the constant white noise of traffic and conversations. If she listened really hard, she could hear a bird chirping in the distance.

A passerby bumped her table and her coffee sloshed out of her cup and onto the corner of her newest sketch.
Well, that one was only for practice anyway
, she thought, carefully dabbing up the liquid. A brown stain remained. This was totally what she wanted—bustling city life where no one paid attention to her. Her heart sank.

If she had everything she wanted, why did she still feel like a part of her was missing? If being in the city was this amazing experience, why did she miss the quiet tree-lined streets of Cutter’s Creek when she’d tried so hard to get out of that town? Why wasn’t she happy?

Chapter Twenty

A
package leaned against the door to Tessa’s apartment. Ignoring it for a minute, she let herself in and went straight to her room, dumping her portfolio onto the bed. She’d dragged that thing around all day while looking for different, inspirational sketching areas to work, but had finally conceded defeat and came back to the apartment.

Retrieving the package, she checked the name to see what bed to put it on this time. Her roommates loved to shop online. There were constantly packages waiting at their door. Either they somehow had endless amounts of disposable income, or they had enormous credit card bills.

To: Ms. Tessa Cutter.

Huh.
She hadn’t ordered anything.

From: Cutter’s Creek.

The return address wasn’t a house or business. It was simply the address of the post office.
Weird.

Placing it gently on her bed, she paced around her tiny room, eyeing it as if it might detonate. What if it was from him? But if it was, why wouldn’t it have his address on it? Was this another trick? What if it wasn’t a trick but a gift? A “we miss you but we’re happy you’re following your dream” gift from the town? It was the kind of thing they’d do.

Perching on the edge of the mattress, she ripped the paper to find a decorative box. It was beautiful with a cream colored background covered in purple irises. Without hesitating, she lifted the lid, suddenly eager to see what was inside.

Her breath caught in her throat as she pulled out a light blue book,
Our Story
written across the cover. Leaning back against her wall, she set the book in her lap and flipped it open.

The first page made her giggle instantly. Two terribly drawn cars were on the side of a winding road. They looked like they’d been drawn by school children, yet somehow she knew they hadn’t been. It was as if she could feel Logan’s presence on the page, specifically crafting each tiny detail, like the way she’d worn her hair that day and the color of the mystery fluid leaking from her car.

She bit her lip to stem off the tears threatening to fall and flipped the page. This one depicted a girl with her naked back visible; a curvy W attached to two stick legs highlighted the girl’s ass. There were bubbles in her hair, and a spider on her back. She laughed and shivered at the same time, reliving the memory. The stick man in the picture had one hand on her butt while the other slapped at the spider. An additional line clearly illustrated his enthusiasm at the predicament he’d found himself in.

Logan hadn’t done himself justice. His real stick was definitely bigger. Girthier.

“I can’t believe he did this for me,” she said to herself. While his artistic talent might only be at a third-grade level, his effort and dedication to the project were clearly over the top. The project must’ve taken him hours to complete. Each page was a like a new gift intended only for her with moments they shared together. By the middle of the book, tears flowed freely down her cheeks and she stopped bothering to wipe them away.

He was an amazing man. And she’d left him. She’d thrown away the best thing in her life because he’d tried to do something nice for her and she’d overreacted. Yet, he’d still gone to the trouble of making her this incredible gift. She didn’t deserve him, but damn it, she loved him.

Everything about him was more than she’d ever hoped to find in a man. He was attractive, kind, and funny. He could make her more annoyed and angry than anyone else, but he also made her happier and more at peace than she ever remembered being before.

He’d been patient, and persistent. She loved him. Every single thing about him. And she’d screwed it up. Was it too late to get him back?

Tessa flipped to the last page of the book and gasped as fresh tears blurred her vision so badly she had to take a moment to wipe them away. There they were, embracing, in what had to be a stick version of Central Park with a message in his handwriting scrawled across the grass—
You followed your dreams and stole my heart along the way. I was wrong. I don’t need the small town life. I only need the small town girl in my life.

He’d put himself and his heart out there for her to see with this book. He’d offered to give up everything he was building in her hometown. But she couldn’t let him do that, not after everything he’d already done for her. She needed to go back to be with him. No, she
wanted
to go back. The difference between obligation and desire suddenly made her future crystal clear.

Now she needed a plan to make her future a reality.

“P
embroke Gallery,” the voice on the other end of the line said in a cheery tone. Tessa hoped the first stage of her plan would be accepted. If it wasn’t, then she’d have to go to plan B, except that she didn’t have one.

“Can I speak with Mr. Pembroke, please? It’s Tessa Cutter.”

“One moment.”

She twirled a strand of her hair as she waited. If he said no, what would she do? Give up her dream if it meant getting Logan back? Yes. She was prepared to do that. But damn, she didn’t want it to come to that.

“Miss. Cutter. Have you made your decision? I hope you’ve decided to work with us. I already have customers in mind for some of your pieces.”

He did? Fantastic!

“I have.” She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “I’d love to work with your gallery.”

“Excellent news. I’ll get you on the schedule for that opening we discussed at our meeting. I assume with the speed you mentioned you’ll have enough pieces done by then?”

“Well, I hope with the right inspiration, I will.”

“Great!”

“But that’s something else I wanted to speak with you about. I’d like to work where my inspiration is, which would mean leaving New York. It would also mean that I wouldn’t be available all the time to meet with customers. Or you. But,” she added quickly before he thought she was brushing him off entirely. “I’d be happy to come back for gallery nights.”

“Every couple of months we host a night where customers are able to chat with the artists. I would also need you to be present at those. No exceptions.”

She smiled and fist-pumped the air, thankful that this was a phone conversation and not in person so he couldn’t see her. “I can do that.”

“Have twenty-five pieces to me in three weeks so I can have them framed.”

She took down the details of how and where to ship her pieces to the gallery, as well as the date and time of her gallery opening and her first Meet the Artists night. By the time she got off the phone call, her brain was swimming in the “I can’t believe this is actually happening” pond, which was vastly different than the last pond she went swimming in. With Logan. Naked.

Logan…

Time to start stage two of her plan for getting him back. First things first, she had to swallow her pride and make a call to the one person who could help her orchestrate everything. She dialed and tapped her fingers on her knee while waiting for the voice she’d been missing more than she wanted to admit. The moment she heard the familiar “hello” a wave of relief and comfort washed over her, erasing the mistakes she’d made lately.

“Mom, I’m moving home and I need your help.”

L
ogan checked his cell phone again for the hundredth time. Tessa still hadn’t called or texted. Nothing since the day she’d left him standing in the parking lot of Randy’s Diner. The day his fresh start had turned sour. The woman he loved was gone. If only he could get her to listen to him long enough to tell her how he felt.

The tracking on his package said it had been delivered a week and a half ago, so she must’ve opened it and looked inside by now, so why hadn’t she reached out to him? Forgiven him? Or hell, talked to him long enough to tell him to take a leap off a bridge.

He couldn’t take the silent treatment anymore. It was slowly killing him. Every day felt like torture. If he wasn’t a teacher, with kids depending on him to be there each day, he’d have already driven back to New York to find her. But he couldn’t run off like that. He had responsibilities to the kids here, and he wasn’t about to let his personal life affect his work.

He would’ve gone back to New York for her. His offer on the last page of the sketchbook he’d created had been true. She had to know that, didn’t she? So that only left one option—she didn’t want him there.

He had no choice but to move on, as sad as his future looked right now.

The gym space he’d looked at a few weeks ago had been sold to one of the locals. Some guy who decided he needed an actual storefront for his architecture business. Apparently some of the tourists who usually came and went with the seasons had decided to stay and his home design business had suddenly grown.

The other place he hoped would come on the market had for a day, or so he was told. He’d never actually gotten to see the listing. Last week someone made the owner an offer they couldn’t refuse. He assumed someone from town had decided to rent the space since the owner hadn’t liked the thought of an “outsider” taking over. He’d already seen construction going on but everyone he’d asked didn’t seem to know any of the details. How they knew what he’d eaten for lunch that day but didn’t know what was going into that space was beyond him.

But he wasn’t getting discouraged. When his teaching gig was over, if he still didn’t have a space to call his own, then he was starting an outdoor gym. Sure, it wouldn’t have any fancy equipment or facilities but he would still offer people a great workout. As an added benefit to not having rent, he’d be able to charge people only a small fee per class. He’d already found a nice park by the lake for a yoga class and another park in the middle of town that had a track where he could run a boot camp style class.

It wasn’t what he originally envisioned, or his dream gym, but it was a start. Maybe the more people who started training with him, the more he’d be accepted in town. At some point maybe someone would even rent him a space.

Logan flopped down on the couch with a pile of mail in his hands. A vanilla colored envelope caught his eye. The writing across the front was informal and cheery, making him think of birthday parties or barbeques.

Sliding out the postcard, it took a minute to realize what he was looking at. It was an invitation all right, to a grand opening of a new business—the business with all the construction last week that no one seemed to know anything about.

Join us for the grand opening of
Body & Mind Studio
for an evening guaranteed to make you hot and dirty. Casual attire recommended.

Well, that was about the weirdest invitation he’d ever received. The party was today, in an hour. The last thing he was in the mood for was a party, but he couldn’t resist the temptation of finding out what business had gotten the property he’d been eyeing. Decision made—he’d go.

T
essa bit her fingernails while she paced in front of the closed doors. A curtain had been draped across the windows and door in an effort to keep people from seeing what was going on inside before the big reveal. Of course, it also meant she couldn’t see if he was out there.

He’d come, wouldn’t he?

Why wouldn’t he? What else was there to do in town tonight? Nothing. She’d made sure of that.

“Stop biting your nails, Tessa-bear,” her mother said, coming to her side. She’d been Tessa’s right hand for the last week, coordinating and scheduling the onsite work as well as the deliveries of needed supplies and equipment.

After a long, long week of working overtime on both this project and her pieces for Pembroke, she was exhausted, nervous, and excited. Mostly, she was anxious to see Logan again. She purposefully hadn’t responded to him after making her decision, but now she feared she’d broken contact with him for too long. What if he’d thought she was over him so he’d gotten over
her
? What if he hated that she went behind his back and created this place? If the tables were turned, she’d probably be pissed.

“I can’t help it,” she said, nibbling on another nail. “I’m so nervous.”

“Don’t be, sis,” James said, coming to her other side. “The place turned out great. I think the town will like it.”

She didn’t care what the town thought. Only one opinion mattered—Logan’s.

“It’s time,” her father said, walking to the front door. James and Travis each gripped one of the curtains, ready to pull them down on her signal.

She took a deep breath, hoped this had been the right way to show Logan how she felt, and gave the signal. All at once, the curtains fell allowing the evening sun to stream in through the windows, lighting the space behind her. Her father opened the door and Tessa walked out to the cheers of her friends and neighbors, people who had always been there to support her, even when she didn’t appreciate it or deserve it. This was why people lived in small towns. She’d been too stupid to realize it earlier.

“Thank you all for coming tonight and to everyone who helped me get this place together in such a short amount of time. I couldn’t have done it without you.” She paused while everyone clapped.

Her eyes scanned the crowd. Near the back and off to one side Logan stood staring at her as if she were a mirage in the desert sun. Tears stung her eyes but she blinked them away. Seeing him again was so much harder than she’d expected. Fear that he’d reject her threatened to overwhelm her.

“Invite them in, dear,” her mother whispered behind her. “Don’t leave them standing around out there all evening.”

Tessa cleared her throat and tried to remember what she wanted to say next. “I invited you here for the grand opening of a new, and hopefully successful business in town. Of course, every business needs an owner so I need to do something. Logan, would you join me up here?”

An expression of complete shock washed over his face as he slowly made his way through the crowd. When he got to where she stood, he looked as if he might hug her, but didn’t. The gesture, if she’d read it right, was encouraging. Maybe he hadn’t changed his mind about her yet.

“Tessa,” he said, reaching out to stroke his fingers along her jaw as if he didn’t believe she was there.