Page 35 of Fake-Off with Fate (Love in Maple Falls #1)
ASHLYN
I’ve been back in LA for two weeks and I can honestly say, it’s felt strange the entire time. I first chalked this phenomenon up to the fact that I was worried my house was going to burn down, but the feeling didn’t pass once the danger did. Instead, there’s been a continued sense of unease.
According to my dad, things in Maple Falls have been wild.
They found a loophole in some old document that makes it impossible for Alexander MacDonald to touch Main Street.
Jeremy Hunt continues to create such a ruckus in town, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone fitted him for cement boots and threw him in the river.
And no one has seen Alexander MacDonald in person.
All-in-all, everything is still so far up in the air that no one knows how this thing will play out.
Today is my first day working for my new client, famed talk show host, Estelle Rodrigues.
Este, as she’s commonly known, is nothing like I would expect her to be.
As in, she’s not the typical designer-hoarding clothes horse I usually work for.
In fact, when she opened the door, she was wearing some woo woo caftan with outer space printed on it.
That’s when I learned that Este hasn’t engaged me to organize her clothes closet at all.
She’s hired me to catalogue her massive collection of what she calls “alien artifacts and art.” It was quite a shock to learn that she not only believes in beings from other worlds but that she’s convinced they live here among us.
When she introduced me to my task this morning, she said, “I’ve always wondered how anyone could think that God’s greatest creation was human.
Doesn’t it make you shudder to think we’re the best the Divine could concoct?
” She offers a shudder of her own. “We’re just a bunch of war-mongering hate machines worshipping money. Does that sound like the God you know?”
I’d honestly never thought about it before, but after ruminating on it all afternoon, I think Este might be on to something.
I’m nearly done cataloguing her illustrations of some race she calls the Andromedins, when she walks into the room. “How are you doing?” she asks.
“Um, good,” I tell her. “You have quite an interesting collection here.”
“Thank you!” She takes my comment like it’s a compliment. “I’ve been studying this field for decades now.”
I’m really not sure what the proper response is so I keep it vague. “Oh.”
“I have a message for you,” Este tells me.
I stop what I’m doing and look at her. “Really? What?”
She puts her hands into her pants pockets before saying, “I don’t think you’re happy here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not here in my house, but in Los Angeles.”
Is she psychic now, too? Before I can ask, she adds, “I don’t think this is where you’re meant to be.”
“Why do you think that?” I ask nervously, my gaze shifting from side-to-side.
Her brown eyes twinkle as she says, “I’ve heard some things.”
Before I can sensor myself, I blurt out, “From aliens?” I’m not trying to suggest aliens aren’t real, but even if they are, I can’t imagine I’m of any concern to them.
She laughs. “No, dear. I overheard you on the phone earlier talking about how things don’t feel the same since you’ve come back from Washington.”
I exhale loudly in relief. Este is an eavesdropper, not a channel for the other world. “It’s been a strange reentry,” I confess. Then for some reason, I tell her, “I met a guy when I was home. We didn’t date or anything, but we became close.”
“What’s keeping you from finding out if there could be something more?” she asks.
I uncross my legs and push myself up from the floor, leaving a pile of illustrations behind. “I don’t think I should have to change my life for a man,” I tell her bluntly.
She nods her head knowingly. “I hear that. But there’s all kinds of change, and not all of it is bad.
Take me …” She crosses the room and sits down on a loveseat by one of the many bookshelves.
Motioning for me to join her, she says, “I must be thirty years older than you, and I was hellbent on proving myself in a man’s world. ”
Sitting down next to her, I tell her, “You’ve done a heck of a job, too. Seriously, you’re a legend.”
She smiles, but only slightly. “While I appreciate that, and that’s exactly what I set out to become, I didn’t get everything I wanted in life.”
“What didn’t you get?”
“I never got married and I never had children. I would have loved both of those things very much.”
“Why do think that never happened for you?” I feel like I’m intruding into her privacy, but she is the one who brought this up.
“Men have notoriously either felt threatened by me, or they’ve tried to get close to me in order to promote their own careers.
” Noticing the horrified expression on my face, she adds, “It’s just been my path.
But my point in bringing this up to you is to say that if there’s something you want, you need to go for it. ”
“Even if it means changing my whole life?”
“Depends on what means more to you,” she says. “Would you rather be a closet designer in LA or find a man you can build a life with?”
“You don’t think I can have both?”
She shrugs her narrow shoulders. “Maybe. But here you are doing a job you love and all the while pining for a man who doesn’t live here. Maybe you should go home and see what happens with him, and if things work out, you could come back to LA together.”
“There’s a bachelor auction tomorrow night …” I start to say.
“Is your man up for sale?”
“He is. My hometown is trying to raise money to buy some acreage.” I don’t bother to explain the whole sordid story. “Jamie plays for our local NHL team, and his team has agreed to auction off the players to help raise money.”
“You should go home and bid on him,” she says.
I shake my head. “Bidding starts at five thousand dollars. I don’t have that kind of spare cash.” But even as I say that a thought pops into my head. Standing up, I walk across the room to where my purse is. I open it and pull out Zach Hart’s business card.
Waving it in the air, I declare, “But I think I might know how to get it!”
As I am preparing to leave Este’s house, she makes me promise that I’ll stay in Maple Falls for at least a month. She feels this is the minimum amount of time to realistically see if Jamie and I might have a future together. “What about my job here?” I ask.
“I’ll find someone else,” she says before adding, “You’re doing this for both of us, Ashlyn. I’m rooting for you.”
When I get back to my house, I tell Callie about my plan. “You guys can stay here as long as you want,” I tell her. “And if things work out and I wind up staying in Maple Falls for a while, you and Dillion can take over my lease.”
Relief fills my friend’s face. “That would be great. I don’t think I’m prepared to buy here again. At least for now. In fact, I’m not sure I’m cut out for Southern California long-term.”
“It’s been a fun run though, huh?” I ask.
“Yes it has. But we’ve been talking about starting a family. I’d love to be able to take a few years off work to spend with my kids, and I know that isn’t possible here.”
“It’s expensive, for sure.”
Callie wraps her arms around me in a hug and announces, “I love you, Ash. Go find your happy ending.”
I’m suddenly full of optimism that my life is working out exactly as it should. I can’t wait to get home to Maple Falls and tell Jamie that.