Page 28 of Fake-Off with Fate (Love in Maple Falls #1)
JAMIE
After hanging up with Ashlyn, I hurry into town and buy a bottle of champagne, along with some cheese, crackers, and a couple more boxes of granola. Hibernation cannot come soon enough.
By the time I get home, Ashlyn’s already standing on my porch. “I beat you here,” she calls out.
“You should have waited in your car. It would have been safer.” That’s when I notice all the empty cereal boxes in her arms. She must have gone into the woods to pick them up.
“Have you been feeding the bears?” she asks accusingly.
“Maybe, a little.”
“Jamie,” she says sternly. “That’s not a good idea. You really don’t want to become too familiar with them.”
“Nor do I want to become their dinner.” Before she can tell me that bears don’t eat people, I add, “Or a toy they rip apart for kicks.”
I hurry to open the front door, relieved that the bear family is off somewhere else. I step back so Ashlyn can go in first and then I follow her. “So, tell me about your parents.”
She walks into the living area and sits down on the overstuffed sofa. “There’s not much to say other than they’re okay. They don’t know when they’ll be able to leave, but they have enough food and water.”
I walk into the kitchen and take two glasses out of the cabinet.
Then I pull the bottle of already-chilled champagne out of the bag and open it.
Once our drinks are poured, I carry the glasses into the living room.
After handing one to Ashlyn, I raise mine in the air, and toast, “To your parents’ safe return. ”
She clinks her glass against mine before taking a sip. Then she says, “You were the first person I wanted to tell when I heard the news.”
“That would be a compliment if I wasn’t the only person you could tell.”
Her cheeks flush slightly. “I could have told Marcy.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot about the town’s accountant.” I wink and add, “Then I’m extremely flattered that between the two of us, you wanted to tell me first.”
After taking another sip of her drink, she says, “You’ve been so supportive and encouraging. I’ve really appreciated that.”
I sit down next to her. “It’s been my pleasure. After all, I can’t have my girlfriend eaten up by anxiety.”
She rolls her eyes. “Then you should write me a check for two and a half million so I can get Alexander MacDonald off our backs.”
“If I had that kind of spare cash, I’d do it,” I tell her. Setting my glass down, I stand up and make my way to the fireplace. I put on a couple of fresh logs and kindling before using the lighter on the mantle to get it going.
Once the flame catches, I go back to the couch and tell Ashlyn, “I had a visitor today.”
“Let me guess, seventy bears showed up because they heard you were giving away granola.”
“Uh, no.” Thank goodness. “Allegra was here.”
“In Maple Falls?” Ashlyn sounds as surprised by her audacity as I was.
“Yup. She was outside of Shirley May’s when I came out. ”
“What did she want?” Ashlyn looks displeased, and I can’t help but hope she’s also the tiniest bit jealous.
“She asked me to go back to New York with her and give her another chance.”
The muscles in Ashlyn’s face appear to sag in unison. “Oh.”
“I told her that I lived in Maple Falls now and I wasn’t going back to New York.”
She raises her chin just enough that our eyes connect. “Does that mean she’s moving here?”
“What? No! I’m not getting back together with her. I told her we were through.”
Ashlyn looks relieved. “How did she take that?”
“It obviously wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but she seemed to accept it. I expect she went right to the airport and got on the first plane out of here.”
“Wow. Okay. I mean, I guess I’m glad for you that you got closure.”
“I didn’t need closure,” I remind her.
“Maybe so, but I think it was good for you to see Allegra again. Just so you know for sure.”
“I knew for sure when she called me from Martinique and told me she wasn’t coming home. I didn’t need to see her to know there was no coming back from that.”
Ashlyn kicks off her shoes before putting her feet up on the coffee table. “Did you feel anything when you saw her?”
“I guess I felt a little bit sorry for her,” I say. “But I mainly felt like I didn’t know her anymore. Does that make sense?”
Ashlyn’s head bobs up and down. “I dated a guy for five months once. One night, when we weren’t getting together, I went to a Dodgers game with some girlfriends. Turns out, he was there with two other guys and three women. It looked like they were on a group date.”
“Creep,” I say for lack of anything else coming to mind.
“Yeah, but the thing was, that even though I knew it was him, he didn’t seem like the man I knew. It was like I was watching a total stranger.”
“How so?” I ask, intrigued to hear her answer.
Shrugging, she itemizes, “He laughed differently. He held his head differently. He even parted his hair on the other side.”
“Maybe the guy you were dating had a twin,” I suggest.
She snorts. “I thought the same thing! But I took out my phone and texted him to see what he’d do.”
Taking off my own shoes, I follow her lead and put my feet up. “What happened?”
“As soon as I sent my text, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and read it. Then he ignored it and went back to his date.”
“Ouch.”
“You’d think I would have wanted to go up to him and call him out, but I didn’t. I had this overwhelming sensation that I was receiving a warning, and I should take it to heart. This guy wasn’t the one for me.”
There are so many people who aren’t on the up and up, it makes me sick. Trying to make light of a tough situation, I say, “I bet he wasn’t from Utah.”
Ashlyn’s laugh comes out like a bark. “You got that right.” Then she teases me right back. “He was probably from New York City.”
“He was probably from LA.”
“Maybe so,” she says. “So, anyway, no more Allegra, huh?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been telling you that all along. You just didn’t believe me.”
Ashlyn finishes her glass of champagne in one gulp like she’s trying to gather her courage. “I know what Allegra Johansen looks like, Jamie. She’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just think it would be hard to let a woman like that go. ”
“Who’s the most handsome male movie star you can think of?” I ask her.
“Henry Cavill.” She doesn’t even pause before answering.
“Say you and Henry dated for three years …”
She doesn’t let me finish before interrupting. “Impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because I would never date a guy like that for so long before proposing to him.”
Her candor makes me smile. “You’d propose to him?”
“It’s Henry Cavill, Jamie. Of course I’d propose to him.”
I bet she would, too. “Fine. Say you and Henry had been dating for a year when he went away to make a movie.”
She shakes her head again.
“What now?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t let him go away without me. I’d want to protect my interests.”
“Let me try this again. You and Henry are away on vacation, and you catch him flirting with a waitress. What do you do?”
“I tell him to stop it,” she says.
“And what if he tells you he’s been secretly seeing her and that he won’t stop?”
The outrage on her face is clear. “I’d tell him to take a hike!”
“Even though he’s the most gorgeous man you’ve ever met?” Feeling the need to tease her, I add, “Present company excluded, of course.”
The nodding of her head picks up speed. “Fine, I get it. Looks have nothing to do with the quality of person. But even so, Allegra is a knockout.”
“A knockout who treated me like dirt,” I remind her.
Ashlyn takes a big breath before saying, “I’m glad you’re not going to get back together with her.”
“Really? Because it started to feel like you were trying to talk me into it.”
While staring at her lap, she tells me, “You’re too good for her. You deserve to find a woman who knows what a catch you are.”
“Do you think that woman might be here in Maple Falls?” I’m hoping she’ll say yes.
But instead of giving me the answer I want, she utters, “I suppose it’s possible.” And while that isn’t the definitive response I was looking for, it’s not a no.
Now that we know Ashlyn’s parents are safe, I say a silent prayer they don’t return home before I can win their daughter over.