914 Bittersweet Ln.: A Cherry Falls Romance Read online

  "Hey," Abilene says. "You should go to the Tipsy Cow tonight with Holt, go dancing. Don't you love to dance?"

  I snort. "I never dance," I say. "I've never gone line dancing in my life."

  "Perfect, he can teach you."

  Holt smiles. "You want to? That would be fun."

  I shake my head. "No, I don't want to. I mean, I don't not want to. I just can't." I pick up a dish cloth and begin washing that empty table in the center of the diner, making sure I am getting far, far away from Abilene and Holt and their scheming plans for tonight. Besides, it's not even a possibility. I can't go. My life won't allow me.

  "Hey, Ms. Cassidy, can we get our bill?" the older man in the corner asks.

  "Of course." I hand him his tab and he smiles, pressing his hand to mine.

  "Here you go, miss, and you keep that change. I know you've got those young ones at home, sweet songbird that you are. Have you ever thought of coming to the Cherry Falls Festival?"

  I smile. "I haven't been to that festival in years."

  "You ought to come,” he says. "Listen, I'm Hank Heraldine, and I run that festival. We're always looking for performers, and I know you used to sing when you were a little girl."

  I smile. "I haven't sung in a long time, Mr. Hank."

  "Well, if you change your mind, we always got room for you."

  "I appreciate it," I say. "Thanks for coming in."

  "Oh, we always come in here on Friday nights. Joe and I, we've been friends since school. It's our one night off from the missus."

  Joe and Hank leave the diner and I peek at the tip they left, $50. My eyes widen in surprise. It feels much too generous for their pot roast and potatoes. There's always this sense of guilt I feel at the generosity of other people in this town. In the Ranch Lands and Cherry Falls and even Kissme Bay, my name follows me. The things that happened to me follow me, and while I appreciate everyone's kindness to me, it’s still hard to accept their generosity.

  I slip the money in my pocket, and as I close out their tab, I know that extra cash will come in handy when it's helping me pay for Joanne's piano lessons next week. With that done, I think Annie and Carrie Jo are going to be here any moment to relieve me of my shift.

  " I have an idea," Abilene says.

  "What's that?" I ask, refilling Holt's cup of coffee.

  "Well," she says, "I'm going to babysit tonight."

  "Babysit?" I say.

  "Yeah, isn't that great?"

  Holt's eyes fall to his food and he focuses on his hamburger, as if not wanting to touch the truth; my truth, my whole messy history.

  "You don't have to do that, Abilene. You probably have something fun to do tonight. You do not have to babysit my four siblings. No one wants to do that.”

  "I want to do that," she says. "Seriously, you never do anything fun. You deserve a night out. You're 21, take advantage of the opportunity. You probably haven't even been to a bar since you were legal."

  I laugh. "I actually haven't. I thought about getting a beer for my birthday, but then remember Sarah had that fever and it became a whole thing?"

  "I remember," she said. "You canceled plans. Not that I blame you. You had to, it's just," she sighs. "Holt is a great line dancer and you have a babysitter and he's going to pick you up in an hour."

  "You don't have to pick me up," I say. “I'll come to you."

  "No," Holt says. "I'm going to come pick you up. It's a date."

  "A date date?" I say.

  "Yeah, a date date."

  I lick my lips. "I've never…" I swallow.

  "Never what?" he asks.

  I laugh awkwardly. "Um, like, I've never been out on a date," I admit, suddenly feeling like I was being way too blunt. "I'm sorry, I probably shouldn't have said that out loud."

  Abilene laughs. "Oh my God, Paisley, you are such a dork."

  Holt smiles. "Nah, she's not a dork."

  "No?" I say.

  He shakes his head. "No, I think you're pretty damn perfect."

  Holt

  When I get to the house, Ma’s resting. "Just a short nap before dinner," her nurse Luke, tells me.

  "I see," I tell him. "Thanks again."

  "Of course, it's my job," he says, pulling out his paperback science fiction novel and sitting down on the couch.

  I walk back to my bedroom and close the door, wanting to change and shower so I can get to Paisley's house before she does something like call me, changing her mind. I know her friend basically talked her into this date, but now that she agreed to it, I don't want her to have a chance to second guess her decision.

  It's not that I don't want her to have a choice in the matter. It's just damn, I want to take that girl out. There's something about her hauntingly beautiful eyes. It's like she needs to have fun. I can feel it, like there's something bubbling right under the surface just begging to get out.

  I know I've heard plenty of stories about what happened to her, to her family, but I'm going to assume I know nothing until I hear it from her mouth. Not that I'm expecting her to tell me anything.

  That's her business and her own history. It's not like I tell my deep secrets the first thing out of the gate.

  No, I'm not going to assume she's going to either. But I've heard things, enough things to tell me she might not exactly want to open up to me, a stranger. So I'm going to do whatever I can to give her a night of fun, wholesome, good old-fashioned line dancing at the Tipsy Cow. Hell, that's as American as it gets, right?

  Once I’ve cleaned myself up and said goodbye to Luke, I get back in my truck, realizing I have just enough time to swing by the produce stand on my way to Paisley’s house. Sally's working the stand and she's just about closed for the night. I look at my watch. Ten minutes to 8:00. I'm cutting it close.

  "Can I grab a bouquet of those sunflowers?" I ask her.

  She nods. "Sure thing, Holt. Who are you giving these to?" she asked with a smile. "Your mama?"

  "Something like that," I say, handing her some cash. She wraps them up for me in some brown paper and a little blue bow, and I thank her before getting back in my truck and driving off toward Paisley Cassidy's home.

  When I pull into the dirt road, the first thing I see are the kids. Now, I knew she had brothers and sisters, but I've never actually met them or seen them. There's a couple of cars in the drive way and I'm guessing one's Paisley's and one's Abilene's, and on the front porch I see Abilene. She's drinking iced tea out of a mason jar with a couple of girls.

  "Hey there, Holt Stone," she says, waving me over. "These are Paisley's little sisters."

  "I'm Sarah Ann," one of them says. She has a black patch over her eye and long brown hair just like her big sister. "I'm 11 years old and I play the piano real nice."

  "That's great," I say.

  "And I'm Joanne," the other one says. "I'm 10."

  "Pleased to meet you. I'm Holt Stone, and I'm 29." That makes the girls laugh. "There any more of you?" I ask, looking around.

  "No more girls," Joanne says. "Thankfully," she enunciates. Then she stands, turning around. That's when I notice she has lost an arm. I remember reading about that in the paper, her injury from the fire. I swallow, running a hand over my hair, hoping Paisley likes the flowers and it's not stupid, feeling over my head because Paisley, damn, she's a real good woman. She deserves more than a bouquet of flowers from the produce stand. She deserves the whole fucking world.

  Still, Abilene smiles. "You'll probably be lucky if you don't have to meet the boys. They're a little wild." Just as she says this, two little boys run around the corner of the yard in swim trunks with water guns in their hands, screaming like wild banshees.

  "I got you first, Granger!" one of them yells.

  "No, I got you, Roger. That's not fair. You're not playing fair. I'm going to tell Paisley. You're not playing fair, Roger!"

  I can't help but laugh, remembering what it was like with my brother, Colt. I bite my bottom lip. Hell, this is getting pretty damn deep pretty damn fa
st, and I am not ready to go there.

  "So you've met them," Paisley says, her voice drawing me back to the porch. I turn just as the boys spray me with the water guns. Paisley shouts at them, but I just laugh. "Granger, Roger, what are you doing?” Paisley asks them. “This is my guest, my friend. That's not very polite of you. My goodness. I'm sorry, Holt. Those boys are going to be the end of me. Apologize, please."

  The boys lower their guns and walk closer. Granger nods. "Sorry, sir."

  "I'm very sorry, sir," the other one says.

  I hold back a smile. Paisley's eyes meet mine and she's keeping a straight face too. "Thank you for your apologies," she tells them. "Now, you promise you're going to be nice for Miss Abilene? She didn't have to do this, you know."

  "Well, you don't have to go out," Granger says.

  "Hey, don't be so snotty," Paisley says. "When's the last time I ever had any fun?"

  That gets the boys quiet real fast. "Sorry sis," they say. "You're right, and you look real nice too."

  Paisley's face brightens at that. "Yeah, you think?" She twirls around and her little brothers and sisters all look at her with a little bit of awe.

  I notice that the boys have scarring all across their bare chests, burn marks up and down their skin. It's painful just to look at. My heart breaks for them, trying to imagine what they've been through. But they're not covering up their bodies, and for that I'm glad. They're here, breathing, alive, and that's a miracle.

  Paisley must see me staring because she changes her tune real fast. "Hey, so we're going to get going."

  "First, though," I say. "These are for you." I hand her the flowers. "I wasn't sure what you liked, but–"

  Sarah Ann smiles. "Those are her favorite, Holt."

  "Yeah?" I ask.

  "Yeah," Paisley admits. “They are." She thanks me for them before handing them to her sister. "Will you put these in a vase for me?"

  "Of course. I'll put them right by your bed."

  Paisley rolls her eyes. "You don't have to do that."

  "I know," she says, "but I want to. It’s romantic."

  Paisley laughs. "Oh my goodness. She’s living in a fairy tale, I swear. And she’s 11 going on 18."

  "Well," Abilene says, "I think it's time for you two to go. Doesn't the line dancing start soon?"

  Paisley shrugs. "I have no idea. I've never been there before."

  I grin. "Pretty soon, sure."

  "Great," Abilene says. "So I have popcorn, I have a movie, and I have a game. We're basically set until bedtime."

  "Bedtime?" Granger groans. "I'm not going to bed."

  "I know you're not going to bed now," Abilene says, hands on her hips. "But eventually you are, and you'll go to bed sooner if you're not well-behaved. So why don't you skedaddle inside and get into some pajamas and we can get this show on the road?"

  The kids listen. "Bye, Paisley," they call out to their big sister as they head into the house.

  "Love you, Abilene," Paisley says, kissing her friend on the cheek, and then we're off, alone in my truck. Just the two of us with the doors closed and the engine on. I exhale, turning on the music. As we start driving down the dirt road toward the Tipsy Cow, I realize the truck got real quiet real fast.

  "So that was my family," Paisley says. "The whole kit and caboodle."

  I look over at her. The sun is just beginning to set and it's casting the most beautiful glow across her face. Before I thought she looked like sunshine, but now, I'm realizing she's even prettier than the sunset.

  "What?" she asks.

  I shake my head. "I'm just happy you came out with me," I tell her.

  "That's your response to meeting my family?"

  I shrug. "What do you want me to say? You got your hands full?"

  She laughs. "That sounds about right. Can I change the station?"

  "You can do whatever you want."

  She laughs again. "God, are you always so easy going?"

  I nod. "Pretty much. I don't have a reason to be uptight."

  "Oh my goodness, I wish we could trade places just for one day. I have about a hundred off the top of my head."

  "That's a lot of reasons to be stressed out for a girl who's only 21."

  "Yeah. I said Sarah was 11 going on 18. I feel 21 going on 45."

  I swallow. "I don't know what I should say to that. Part of me wants to tell you that's not possible, but–"

  She smirks. "But you've read the newspaper or seen the news, talked to one person in town about that poor girl out in the Ranch Lands with the crazy mom and all those kids?"

  I nod. "Yeah, something like that."

  "Well, you don't have to feel sorry for me," she says, sitting up straight in the car. "I don't feel sorry for me."

  "I never said I felt sorry for you."

  She laughs loudly. "That's funny."

  "Is it?" I say. "I wasn't trying to make you laugh."

  "No, it’s just, everybody always says they feel sorry for me or they pity me or they feel bad or here is an extra bag of groceries or here is an extra-large tip or a free pair of shoes or a free month of ballet lessons, which is all amazing and incredible and I'm so grateful for that, and honestly, we probably couldn't get by without it. But sometimes I just wish we were not the freaks with the mom who burned down our house and almost killed us all because she was drunk out of her mind and high as a kite."

  She groans, dropping her head and rolling down the window, looking for a music station and giving up, clicking off the radio altogether.

  "What?" I say, looking over at her.

  "This is why I don't go on dates. I say too much, too fast."

  "That wasn't too much for me," I tell her.

  "Who are you, Holt Stone?" she laughs. "Because most guys in the sound think I'm way too much. Everything about me is. My opinions, my family, my standards."

  "Hey," I say, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. "Don't change any of that for anyone in this town, for anyone anywhere. You got to stay true to yourself, Paisley Cassidy. Isn't that what makes you you?"

  She smiles, looking over at me. "Yeah, but sometimes–"

  "What? Sometimes what?"

  She swallows as I pull the truck into the Tipsy Cow parking lot. "Sometimes I just wonder what it would be like to be somebody else."

  Paisley

  I have no idea why I said that, that I wish sometimes I could be someone else. It's too honest to tell a stranger that kind of truth, but I did and it's out there, and now we are walking through a parking lot into a bar.

  A bar. I've never even been in a bar, and he has his hand on the small of my back, and I don't want him to move it, not even an inch. I mean, maybe an inch, but not away. I want it to stay right there. I always say I don't need a man, but right now I want one. Him, right here, next to me, because walking into a bar by myself seems altogether terrifying.

  Why would I want to anyways, when I have the opportunity to walk into this bar with this man?

  I definitely overshared on the ride over, but he met my entire family before we even went out for dinner, so I suppose it kind of fits.

  Besides, the moment he read my name tag at the diner I knew he knew who I was, at least enough. Now, he knows it all. Well, not it all, I never tell anybody it all, but enough to know that my life is a tragedy, and I still don't know much about him. Why he's here, why he wanted to go out with me when he could literally go out with anyone, and Cherry Falls has plenty of beautiful women. The Ranch Lands has plenty of lovely ladies. This bar has its fair share of females too.

  The bouncer looks at my ID and I flash it to him proudly, smiling extra wide. "It's my first time," I tell him. He laughs, letting me through after stamping my hand. "Was that another overshare?" I ask Holt.

  He shakes his head, "No, it was cute. Your first time, huh?"

  I roll my eyes, "Yeah, I think you're going to learn all about my first times tonight."

  At that, my own cheeks go pink realizing how that might have sounded, and h
onestly how true it is. I haven't done much of anything at all, and I guess admitting I've never been on a date might have told him that already, but the truth is I've spent my life making sure everything was taken care of, and I've never spent any time making sure I was taken care of.

  Tonight, I'm taking care of me in a way I never have before. I smile. There's music playing and Holt takes my hand. I know we're both not much for drinking, but Holt says, “I think if this is your first night out as a 21-year-old, you've got to order something.”

  I agree. I say, "I feel like it's a right of passage."

  "Agreed, so what do you want? Are you savory or sweet?"

  "I've had enough savory in my life," I laugh.

  He does too. "Okay, okay I see that. How about a lemon drop?"

  "Yes," I say. That sounds like the perfect balance, the bitter with the sweet, right?

  “Okay, you're feeling it.” Holt walks me to the bar, and a bartender who knows him by name asks what he's having. “Two lemon drops, please.”

  "Ooh, fancy," she says.

  He tells me that he usually orders a draft beer. I nod and appreciate him drinking alongside me. When she hands us both a bright yellow drink with a long stem and a sugary rim, we walk to a corner high-top and make a toast. "To what?" I ask.

  "To you," he says. "To your 21st, to your night out on the town, to your many more firsts."

  I smile, clinking our glasses and taking a sip. "Oh my God, this is heaven," I say.

  "And trouble," he laughs. "But not too much trouble."

  I nod in agreement. "Yeah, I don't really want to drink more than one."

  "Good call. Don’t want a hangover," he says. I smile. Maybe a little too brightly, a little forced. "Hey," he says, "you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You don't even have to finish that drink."

  "I know, my mom was a drinker and... "

  "Hey," he says, "I get it."

  "You don't get it," I push back. "My mom was an alcoholic and she kind of went on a bender and that's why I have the kids and we lost our house and she's in jail."