Willow Springs: A Destiny Novel Page 8

  “Because I can feel it. You’re just not yourself lately—you want something more, just like I did. And I’m telling you, you have to be bold enough to just go for it.”

  Amy blinked nervously. In honesty, she thought—feared—that Tessa was right; she was at a crossroads. She was suddenly dissatisfied with a life she’d always loved. She felt adrift, lost, abandoned—by something she couldn’t even name—and bored. Yet . . . “What is it I’m supposed to be going for, and how do I go for it?”

  “The thing you’re going for is Logan, of course,” Tessa said. “But the how part is something only you can decide.”

  Amy just gave her a helpless look. “I hate to tell you this since I know you’re trying to come to my aid, but . . . I have no idea what to do with that advice.”

  “All I’m saying is . . . you have to do something. Right now. To change the way this is going. To change your life. You have to at least try. Because if you don’t, well . . . I just have a feeling you’ll always regret it.”

  Those were pretty horrible, serious words and they sank into Amy’s bones. And then a hideous idea—complete with images—entered her head. That the next wedding in Destiny after the two already planned this summer would be Logan and Anna’s. And the whole town would rejoice at how perfect it all was. And Amy would be forced to stand there and watch them take vows that would join them together forever—and heck, knowing her, she’d probably be the one to pin on Logan’s boutonniere and hand out punch at the reception. And that . . . oh Lord, that would be the final nail in the coffin of her happiness. She’d just be done after that, finished—she couldn’t imagine ever feeling hopeful again if Logan married Anna.

  Of course, she was being overly dramatic here, and getting way ahead of herself, but still . . . maybe Tessa was right. Maybe she needed to do something, make some sort of brave and dramatic move. “Okay,” she finally said.

  And Tessa looked happily stunned. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Amy said, trying to get used to the idea.

  “What are you doing to do?” Tessa asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Amy said.

  Only then, seized by just the beginning spark of inspiration, Amy stepped out from behind the counter and walked to the wide window near the easy chairs and looked out. Logan’s Grand Prix still sat parked along the curb outside. And as she leaned to glance farther down the street, she spotted Logan and Anita Garey, owner of the Dew Drop Inn, walking toward Dolly’s Main Street Café together. Logan had obviously found her and was using the opportunity to approach her about the job.

  Then, as the notion in her head started to take more shape, she turned to face Tessa again. “What if . . . what if I wrote him a letter? From . . . a secret admirer.”

  She waited for Tessa to be awed by the idea—only to hear her friend say, “Weak at best. But better than nothing if it’s all you’ve got.”

  Half an hour later, Amy stood at the counter reading over the letter she’d painstakingly written on a sheet of scented blue stationery she kept under the bookstore counter for letters she occasionally wrote to her grandma. Though this was more of a note than a letter. The important part, she figured, was that it would let Logan know that someone else besides just Anna was interested in him. He would at least be curious—and maybe even intrigued. And between the options of this and simply blurting out a proclamation of love for him, this seemed much more manageable until she could figure out a Step 2.

  Dear Logan,

  To me, you are amazing. You are everything a woman could ever want in a man: kind, generous, loyal, loving. I wish I could tell you this in person, but I’m too shy. So for now, please just know that there is someone nearby who thinks you’re incredible and who dreams you might somehow feel the same way about her.

  Your Secret Admirer

  Then, fairly impressed with her work, she passed it across the counter to Tessa. Who sneered slightly. “Sounds kind of typical,” she said. “And you didn’t say anything about how attractive he is. Men want to know that sort of thing. They have huge egos.”

  Amy hadn’t realized that, but . . . “I’m not sure I’m ready to go there, to say something like that. It sounds corny to me.”

  Tessa simply gave her a look that said, Do I have to do everything here? “Corny or not, you have to include something like that. Men also want sex. You want him to think there’s a hot girl on the other end of this note, after all.” She waved the letter in the air as if to emphasize her point.

  “But, um, there’s not,” Amy reminded her.

  Which shifted Tessa’s look from annoyed to more . . . empathetic. “Of course there is,” she said softly.

  Still, Amy knew the truth about herself. And it didn’t even bother her. Or . . . it hadn’t before now anyway. “Tessa, no one has ever thought I was hot in my entire life.”

  “What about Carl?” Tessa countered. “Back when you and he—”

  “No,” Amy cut her off, not wanting to go down that road. “I’m sure he found me . . . attractive enough, but I’ve never ventured anywhere even remotely near hot.”

  At this, Tessa set the note back on the counter between them and pursed her lips, her expression set and determined. “Well, you at least know you’re cute, don’t you?”

  Cute? Hmm. Maybe on her good days. “Okay, I guess I can go with cute.” In fact, it made her feel good to think cute was still worth something in this day and age when hot and sexy were all you ever heard about.

  “Well, cute is good, and it’s a lot to work with. And you could easily go from cute to totally hot if you tried.”

  “I could?” That sounded like a leap to her.

  “And besides,” Tessa went on, “hot is as much a matter of attitude and enthusiasm as anything else. Trust me on this.”

  Says one of my totally hot friends. But Amy held that inside and tried to think of what else she could say in her note to Logan. Something sexual. Yikes. She just didn’t know how to do that. “I’m new at this part of it,” she said to Tessa as she stared back down at the letter. “Oh heck, I’m new at all of it. I don’t know how to do any of this.”

  “Well, if you don’t hurry, Logan will come back to his car and it’ll be too late.” And, of course, Amy knew she’d see Logan’s car sometime again soon, but this suddenly felt urgent, and she’d come too far now, worked up her courage too much—she didn’t want to wait; she wanted to get this over with, in fact.

  But as she looked to the letter in front of her again, her thoughts froze. She just didn’t know how to tell a man she found him insanely perfect and sexy in every way. She felt . . . embarrassingly inept.

  And that was when Tessa yanked both the letter and pen away from her, laid the sheet of stationery back on the counter facing in her direction, and began adding something to the bottom. Oh boy. Apparently, this felt urgent to Tessa now, too.

  A minute later, she finished, saying, “Okay, this is much better now. Where’s the envelope?”

  But Amy only replied by snatching up the piece of paper and looking toward the bottom. Thankfully, Tessa had mimicked her handwriting pretty well. And then she read the new part.

  P.S. You have the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen. And I fall asleep at night dreaming of your kisses.

  Whoa. Had Tessa read her mind? Because if she could have thought of it—and had been brave enough—that might be exactly what she would have written. Because it wasn’t too over-the-top sexual. And it was so, so true.

  Still, though, the idea of giving this to Logan—well, somehow this upped the stakes. Because if the time ever truly came to admit she’d written it, he’d know. That she wanted to . . . do things with him, things like kiss him. And she knew that was normal—she knew it pretty much went hand in hand with the other things the letter said—yet this stuff was just so much more difficult for her than for other people.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Tessa said. “Put it in the envelope and get it out on his car.”

  Okay. You
can do this. Even though it meant there was no turning back.

  Well, okay, technically, she guessed she could turn back afterward—by never letting Logan know it had come from her. Yet even so, taking the step of putting this on his car seemed monumental.

  Under Tessa’s prodding gaze, she folded the blue sheet of stationery and slid it into a matching envelope, then simply wrote Logan’s initials on the outside: LW. And without further ado, they both walked to the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, Amy’s heart beating like a drum.

  One or two people meandered along the opposite side of the square, but no one seemed to be paying attention to Amy and Tessa. “Do it,” Tessa said. “I’m watching Dolly’s front door. Do it now. Before it’s too late.”

  So with her palms as sweaty as any twelve-year-old sending her first love note, Amy walked up to Logan’s car and slipped the envelope under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. Then she gave a panicky look around, thankful to find no eyes upon her, and scurried back inside the bookstore like a mouse.

  A second later, Tessa ducked in behind her, appearing a little alarmed. “That was close,” she said. “He just came out.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Don’t worry—he was still talking to Anita and he didn’t see a thing.” Then she let out a big breath. “But it was close.”

  They stood frozen a few seconds longer, both a little spooked by the timing, until Amy said, “We should try to look normal. He’s going to pass by the window any second now.”

  So Tessa speedily went back to stocking the summer display, and Amy—seeking a little comfort, she supposed—bent down to scoop Austen into her arms from where the tabby had situated herself in one of the easy chairs. Then, with the kitty in her grasp, she eased down into the chair herself, realizing she suddenly felt a little unsteady.

  “This is all gonna turn out great, Ames, you’ll see,” Tessa said from behind her then, perhaps sensing her unease now that the deed was done. And Amy only wished she could be so sure. For the second time already since falling for her old friend, she kind of wanted to throw up.

  And when she saw Logan go striding past the shop’s big window, a shiver rippled through her. He was about to find it, read it. Her words of love. Passion. Things that were so foreign to her. It felt beyond strange to be sharing them. And so soon. And especially like this. Even if he didn’t know they’d come from her.

  When the door opened a few minutes later, the bell jangling, she flinched, and her stomach practically shriveled when she saw who it was. “Logan,” she murmured, her heart in her throat. She sensed Tessa darting her head around from where she stood working behind her.

  “Hey, did you guys see anyone near my car?” he asked, his brow knit.

  “No,” Amy answered quickly.

  “Why?” Tessa asked much more easily. “Something wrong with it?”

  “No,” he said uncertainly. “Just wondering.” But then he stood there looking understandably perplexed and Amy wished she could read his thoughts. Was he intrigued, as she hoped? Or did he think it was juvenile? Or worse, creepy. She hadn’t really taken the time to consider all his possible responses.

  “Did Anita give you a job?” she asked then, feeling the need to take his mind off the letter for at least as long as he was in her presence—since she still felt a little sick.

  It worked—he grinned. “Um, yeah. She did. I start in a couple days.”

  “Well, I still think you belong back in the firehouse—but for now, I’m glad for you.”

  “It has to be this way, Ames. Gotta do something else.” He sounded completely resolute.

  And it hit her then how so many people in her world were suddenly undergoing big transitions: Tessa and Rachel getting married, Mike and Lucky not only getting married but having Anna return home. And Logan, of course. And Anna Romo herself. And . . . her.

  And maybe her own transition seemed like the smallest of the lot, but it was actually the most significant of her entire life.

  She’d never been in love before, after all.

  And so she’d certainly never been in love with one of her lifelong best friends.

  And she’d also never wanted to kiss one of her best friends, or . . . do more than that with one of them, either.

  And if by some truly amazing miracle Logan ever wanted her in the same way . . . well, then the time would come when she’d have to face doing something else she’d never done before. Something she feared deeply. Something she secretly craved with all her heart. And something she’d begun to think she might never get to do.

  And who knew—if Logan ended up with Anna Romo, maybe she never would. She let out a sigh, sad about it in a whole new way now.

  No one knew Amy’s deepest, darkest secret.

  Not even Tessa or Rachel.

  Which meant Tessa didn’t even completely realize all that was at stake here.

  The sad truth was that, at thirty-four, Amy was still a virgin.

  Six

  . . . and communicate all that need be told by letter . . .

  Jane Austen, from Emma

  Amy buzzed around Edna Farris’s yard, just outside the little white farmhouse, like the busy bees currently enjoying the white clover dotting the late springtime grass beneath her feet. Edna had volunteered her place for the joint couples shower Amy was throwing for Rachel and Tessa, and since the weather was nice, the lush orchard was the perfect setting.

  The tables Mike had transported in his pickup truck from town hall filled the space between the house and little red barn, some designated especially for gifts or food, the rest vacant for seating, and all were laden with fresh flowers, some cut from Amy’s mother’s yard, some from Edna’s. Fortunately, both yards possessed such a proliferation that even using so many left plenty to spare.

  “Does everything look pretty?” Amy asked Edna, who stood glancing around, fists planted on her hips.

  “Reckon it does,” Rachel’s grandma said. “You done good, Amy.”

  Amy smiled at the simple praise, feeling almost like her old self for a change. She’d always enjoyed doing things for others and making people happy. Though she still suffered from the recent realization that she also wanted something more. And that she didn’t quite know how to go about getting it.

  “And don’t you worry none. Your day’ll come soon enough, too,” Edna said.

  Amy tried to hold in her sigh. Thanks for reminding me, Edna, that I have Destiny’s worst case of always-a-bridesmaid syndrome. And that people probably feel as sorry for me as I’m feeling for myself lately at having my two best friends get married in the same summer. But she knew Edna meant well, so she only said, “Thanks, Edna. I just hope Rachel and Tessa enjoy the afternoon.”

  They both looked up to see a couple of cars crossing the old stone bridge that spanned Sugar Creek and led into the orchard. A third could be seen turning in next to the Farris-Romo Family Orchard sign out by the road.

  “Looks like the party’s startin’,” Edna said. And over the next twenty minutes, nearly all the guests arrived, which meant most of Destiny’s population. As luck had it, even Mike and Lucky’s parents were still in town, allowing them to come, too.

  And so Amy did what she did best—she continued buzzing about, greeting people, serving up punch, setting out food. The more she buzzed around, after all, the less time she had to think about everything weighing on her. Like her virginity.

  Sometimes she didn’t think about it at all. Sometimes she almost pretended to herself that she was like all the other girls, that she had a sexual past. She knew her friends thought she’d done it with Carl back in the day. At the time, they’d assumed it had happened—and for some reason she’d let them. And as years had begun to pass, she’d been glad she hadn’t dispelled the notion. Because the older she got, the more horrifying her virginity became.

  Yet she just didn’t know how to get rid of it. She supposed some women in her position would go into the city with friends,
go dancing, clubbing, find a man looking for a good time and let him have it. But she wasn’t “some women.” She didn’t go clubbing. And she wouldn’t know how to send those kinds of signals to a man anyway. And as badly as Amy wanted to lose her virginity—as desperately as her body sometimes ached for that—she just couldn’t imagine doing it with someone she didn’t know or care about. Ever. But especially not the first time.

  And so she kept the unpleasant and secret distinction of being Destiny’s oldest virgin, and she felt like a loser every time she thought about it.

  Which had, unfortunately, been a lot lately. And maybe that was what had driven her to make a move, like Tessa had said, to just do something.

  Not that she really thought she had a prayer of ever getting a guy as hot as Logan to fall for her the way she’d officially fallen for him. But the idea of just delivering him, practically gift-wrapped with a bow around his waist, to another woman, made her feel . . . desperate beyond measure. Hence the note. And the plan. To do something else soon. She just didn’t know what yet. Or what, realistically, she expected to come from this. Besides maybe utter humiliation and despair. She didn’t like this business of feeling desperate, yet she wasn’t sure how to get rid of that any more than she knew how to get rid of her virginity.

  She held back the long sigh that wanted to escape her as she passed a cup of punch to Mrs. Sheridan, Tessa’s mother. “You always do such a nice job on things like this, Amy,” the other woman said.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Sheridan.”

  “And I’m sure one day soon we’ll be having a shower for you, too.”

  She simply nodded. One more person who meant well but somehow made her feel more pathetic than she already did.

  “Need help with anything, freckles?”

  When she looked up to see Logan at her side, as handsome and gorgeous as ever in khaki cargo shorts and a bright polo shirt, her chest tightened—along with a few other key body parts. A week ago, the idea of wanting him had been so new that she hadn’t quite been comfortable with even her own thoughts about it, but now . . . well, now it would be far too easy to just melt into his well-muscled arms.