Famous in a Small Town Page 9

  Collin exhaled. “I thought you were an aspiring country music star, not a headshrinker.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m multitalented,” she said, not wanting to get into the therapy sessions they’d attended when she was first adopted, and that Mama Hazel had gotten her into again after the homecoming dance. She could talk the talk, but if Nashville was any indication, the Walterses’ money hadn’t been well spent in regard to her mental health.

  She needed to get out of there before she forgot this was Collin. The guy who disliked her so much he made up a lame excuse about a bro code so he didn’t have to spend time with her. “I’m sure my family has had enough time to empty out the stalls and prep for the trip back out to the ranch. See you around, Collin,” she said, stepping away from the table.

  “Sure, I need to pack things up, too.” He looked at her as if unsure what to say. “I’ll see you around, Savannah,” he said.

  Savannah couldn’t resist watching him walk away.

  She picked up a few foam cups that had been left behind by either vendors or shoppers, and hurried to the trash can near the corner of the building. Mama Hazel was picking up some of her empty boxes. If she hurried, she could take them off her mom’s hands.

  Voices around the corner of the building stopped her in her tracks.

  “Did you see her slinging jams and pies with her mother?” Marcy’s voice cut through the afternoon air, stopping Savannah in her tracks. She giggled a little. “She never would have bothered with that in high school.”

  “Because she was too busy pretending to be just like the rest of us,” Dana, Marcy’s best friend and co–head cheerleader, said. At the Slope a few nights ago, Savannah had been surprised at how much Dana had changed. The tall, thin woman, who had had frizzy red hair and an addiction to Little Debbies in high school, now straightened her hair and looked as if no sugar had passed her lips in the past decade. “When she’s nothing like us,” she added.

  Savannah pressed her back against the brick wall. She told herself to walk away, but couldn’t make her feet move. It was as if she was right back at Slippery Rock high, hiding in a bathroom stall while the other girls talked about her crazy hair or her unusual coloring or, in the very worst of moments, speculated about her life before she landed in Slippery Rock.

  “As true as that is, I meant she wouldn’t have bothered because she was so over-the-moon for Vince Honeycutt. She was too busy skulking after him to do anything productive.”

  “Selling jams and pies is productive? Come on, Marcy, it’s a step down from being a clerk at Mallard’s Grocery.”

  “How is it a step down?”

  “Because the Mallard family has a choice in who they hire. Her family is stuck with her because they saw her as some kind of waif in need of saving. But not even Bennett and Hazel Walters could make her into anything good. I mean, she couldn’t even win a silly talent contest.”

  Walk away, Van, walk away.

  “Come on, you bought her single.”

  “Because she’s from Slippery Rock. What is someone going to think if they click into my music app and the one person from here who has a song on country radio isn’t in my playlist?” Savannah could envision Dana rolling her eyes and shaking her head as she spoke. “I am the daughter of the town mayor. People expect us to be civic-minded.”

  One of them giggled, but she couldn’t tell which one. Maybe both of them because the sound seemed to morph and grow into something much uglier than a simple giggle as Savannah listened. God, and she’d been the one to call them about girls’ night out. How they must have laughed about that. The abandoned and adopted Walters girl calling two of the most popular, former cheerleaders at Slippery Rock high to go out for drinks.

  Savannah fisted her hands and pushed off the wall. She’d pretended to be oblivious to the Marcys and Danas of Slippery Rock high school all those years ago. The truth was, she’d let them feed her fears about the past, and look where that had gotten her. Possibly blackballed from Nashville, sleeping in her childhood bedroom without a clue what she might want to do with her life. She was twenty-seven years old.

  She was too old to sit back and take this kind of...of meanness.

  Savannah pulled a bill from her pocket and stepped around the corner of the building. Marcy saw her first, and her eyes practically bugged out of her head. Dana turned slowly, but where Marcy was now blushing and looking anywhere except at Savannah, Dana simply stared at her, as if daring her to confront them.

  In school, Savannah hadn’t been strong enough for these kinds of girls. Hell, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough now. She knew one thing, though—she was tired of running away from the things that hurt.

  “I think coming in third from a pack of more than three thousand people who tried out and the twenty-five contestants isn’t such a bad placement. It isn’t quite as sad as, say, having daddy call the school when a certain girl wasn’t chosen for head cheerleader.”

  Dana blanched, her body recoiling as if Savannah had slapped her. She kind of wished she had.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was in the principal’s office, talking about college placements, when your father stormed in. He didn’t notice me sitting across from Mr. Tolbert. That’s okay. Most people ignored or didn’t notice me back then. I kind of liked that because being ignored is so much better than being bullied.”

  “I never bullied you—”

  “You never hit me, and you never said anything mean to my face, but can you honestly say this is the first time you’ve talked about me behind my back?” Marcy’s face flamed a bright pink. Dana narrowed her eyes.

  “If we were such bullies to you back then, why did you call us the other night?” she sneered.

  Savannah offered the five-dollar bill to Dana. The other woman folded her arms across her chest. “Calling you when I got back to town was a mistake. Kind of like you wasting a buck fifty buying my song when it came out.” Dana didn’t take the money, so Savannah let it fall to the ground between them. “You can keep the change.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

  Savannah pasted a smile on her face when she entered the farmers’ market, kept her back straight and her shoulders squared. She wanted to slink away and hide, but where could she go?

  What was that saying about people like Dana? Whoever is trying to bring you down is already beneath you. There was another one, too. That the person trying to bring you down is insecure about themselves. That one had been on a poster in the office of one of the family therapists Mama Hazel and Bennett contacted when she was a teen. She’d never believed that saying, but when she’d been standing around the corner from Dana and Marcy, something clicked. Marcy had never been outwardly mean to her, at least not in high school, and she’d seemed embarrassed when she first saw Savannah come around the corner.

  Dana, on the other hand, had been. Too many times to count, she had been leading the gossip while Savannah hid in the bathroom stall or simply pretended she couldn’t hear what was being said two rows behind her in Biology class.

  Calling Marcy had been a gamble.

  Not walking out of the Slope as soon as she saw Dana come in with her was a mistake.

  If she’d left, though, she wouldn’t have that dance with Collin.

  Inside the farmers’ market, Savannah picked up the last of Mama Hazel’s boxes and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

  “Now what was that for?”

  “For being you,” Savannah said. And for the first time in a very long time, she thought she might be on the way to finding herself.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SAVANNAH ROLLED TO her side and blearily picked up her ringing cell phone. She checked the screen. Guy Lambert. Her manager. She blinked. At not even eight in the morning. A shot of adrenaline made her sit up and slide her finger across the screen to an
swer the call.

  “Savannah, listen, I know I said get out of town a few days and this will all blow over. I may have been too optimistic,” he said. “There are rumblings along Music Row that several new artists are being cut from the label, and your name is at the top of the list.”

  Never a man to waste time on formalities. At least he hadn’t dragged it out.

  “Oh, God,” she said and slumped back against the headboard of her bed. “Is it all over town?”

  “All the rumblings are about money. You know, the label is huge in New York, but this is their first dip into Nashville. So far, their gambles on new talent have only paid off with one star—Genevieve.”

  “And we know how she feels about me.” She had every right to hate Savannah. Every right. Still, it hurt. Not the loss of the contract so much as the knowledge that she’d hurt someone besides herself this time.

  “Well, that part of the story is still underground.”

  “When will you know for sure?”

  “I’ve got lunch scheduled for next week. I’ll talk you up, you know the drill. If we can just get them to release your album, there’s a chance. If not, we have to hope when they release your contract, they also release the tracks.”

  Savannah blew out a breath. “Thanks for calling.”

  “Sorry it isn’t better news,” he said. “How’s Mayberry?”

  “It’s Slippery Rock, and it’s okay.”

  Okay was maybe too strong a word, but she doubted Guy would care. He was her manager, not her friend. “Hey, do you know what they’re planning to do with the music program?”

  “You are not coming back here to volunteer with the rug rats, Savannah,” he said. “We need you out of town until Genevieve remembers she isn’t the grieving spouse, she’s just the embarrassed spouse.”

  “No, I know. I just thought if there are money problems it might impact the program. It’s a good program.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  Of course he hadn’t. Guy thought about making and collecting money, not using it for charity.

  “Do you think, if they don’t release me, that I could start something like that on my own?” Savannah wasn’t sure where the idea had come from, but once she spoke it aloud, it was as if the idea had always been in her subconscious. She wasn’t a teacher, but she’d liked volunteering with the music program.

  Fostered and adopted kids like her could use an outlet like music.

  Guy laughed, the sound harsh in her ear. Savannah winced. “Why would you want to waste your money on kids who won’t appreciate what you’re giving up? Listen, Savannah, I’ll call you after the lunch. Stay out of trouble, okay?” he said and ended the call.

  Savannah sat on the bed for a long moment, then swung her legs over the side and pulled her robe across her shoulders.

  The program idea was a good one, despite Guy’s dismissal. She had a little money saved from that first song release and the winnings from the reality show. Maybe she could use it to do something good.

  Stay out of trouble. Guy’s voice echoed in her mind.

  Savannah Walters wasn’t the kind of role model troubled kids needed in their lives.

  She smelled bacon frying and her stomach revolted. She couldn’t eat. Couldn’t face her family over the breakfast table. Savannah closed her bedroom door, threw her pajamas and robe on the unmade bed, and pulled on a pair of faded jeans and a yellow T-shirt.

  She needed to get out of there.

  * * *

  COLLIN DROVE THE orchard four-wheeler through the grove of peach trees, happy with the new growth and the shape of the fruit beginning to come in on the branches.

  If only raising a teenager was as easy as raising fruit trees.

  That wasn’t quite fair. All a tree wanted was rain and sunshine. Teenagers needed a lot more than that, and he’d been so wrapped up in the rain and sunshine part of his life that he had ignored just how much Amanda was being left behind. Not just by their parents, but by the whole family.

  Mara hadn’t been back to Slippery Rock, other than a few one-day trips at Christmas, in several years. She blamed the absence on her job with the cyber-security firm in Tulsa where she worked, but Collin knew there was more to it. He would have to dig deeper with her the next time she called home.

  Just as he was learning to dig deeper with Amanda.

  He had assumed since their parents were always unreliable that it wouldn’t bother Amanda when they came and went, but obviously their most recent disappearance had done some major damage. No surprise since it had followed on the heels of their grandfather’s death a couple of years before, and their grandmother’s decline in health.

  Even though they shared an orchard, a dinner table and a grandmother, Amanda had been virtually abandoned since Granddad died. He’d made a promise, on the day Granddad had brought them to the orchard, that neither Mara nor Amanda would ever feel that kind of abandonment. He’d dropped the ball on that, but he could pick it up. He could keep doing the work that would ensure they had financial stability. Financial stability would lead to emotional stability, too. Collin had made promises to the girls all those years ago that went deeper than money in the bank, and it was time he started to make good on those promises, too.

  With school out for the summer, he’d put Amanda to work with one of his hired hands in the greenhouses this morning. She’d only grumbled a little and he considered that a fill-in-parenting win.

  He came to the edge of the grove, which backed onto Slippery Rock Lake, parked the four-wheeler under a tree and looked out over the blue water.

  Promises he hadn’t kept.

  Oh, he’d made sure the orchard was profitable, he’d worked with Granddad to learn the basics and then learned more in college, but the important things, the never-leave-anyone-behind things, he’d set aside.

  Then he’d gotten all bitchy with Savannah at the farmers’ market last weekend. He’d nearly told her he didn’t want her befriending his sister when, God knew, his sister needed a friend.

  Sunlight glinted off another vehicle closer to the shore. Collin leaned forward, wondering if Levi had come to the lake to cool off, but those curves didn’t belong to his buddy.

  A quick hit of lust fired in his veins as he watched Savannah strip out of her jeans and tee, revealing a tiny bikini that made the smoldering fire combust into a roaring blaze.

  She tossed her clothes over the handlebars of the four-wheeler she drove, ran to the small dock Bennett had built when they were teenagers and dived into the water. She surfaced a moment later, flipped onto her back and stretched her arms and legs out to float over the surface.

  Collin gripped his handlebars tightly, telling himself to start the engine and go back to the orchard. His hands remained tight over the rubberized grips as he watched her float. She disappeared behind a tall oak only to reappear near a poplar. In a few minutes she would completely disappear behind the tall fir trees that dominated the forested area on the south side of the lake.

  He pulled at his collar. Suddenly the light breeze seemed stifling. Maybe the pear and apple trees could wait while he cooled off in the water, too. He glanced down at the cargo shorts he’d pulled on this morning after the local radio host said the temperature would top ninety. They weren’t board shorts, but they were better than the boxer briefs he wore under them. Or the Speedo that Mara sent him as a gag gift on Valentine’s Day. She’d attached a note—“Go show off your stuff and find a woman already”—and a goofy card with speed-dating jokes on it.

  He should continue with his day.

  Collin started back down the path, but at the fork where he told himself to turn right for the return to the trees, the four-wheeler turned left.

  This was a bad idea, he told himself, but he couldn’t get his hands and body to obey the instructions to turn
the four-wheeler around and get back to work. It took only a couple of minutes to get to the dock area.

  It had grown over a bit. When they were kids, he and Levi had kept the area free of weeds. One especially enterprising summer, they’d bought sand to make a beach, but a storm blew through and the sand wound up at the bottom of the man-made lake. After that, they’d stuck with weeding and mowing.

  And since Savannah hadn’t realized he was there yet, he would turn right around.

  “Hey, stranger,” she called, and he wondered how he’d missed her swimming back to the dock. She pulled herself out of the water, muscles beneath her light brown skin bunching and releasing as she did. Water dripped around her, and she lifted a towel to her face.

  His mouth went dry. The bikini bottoms were emerald green, held together on the sides by four thin strings that met in the middle in a tiny triangle several inches below her flat stomach. A matching green jewel winked at him from her belly button, making his toes curl.

  No woman had ever made his toes curl.

  One more reason to turn the four-wheeler around and get away from the lake.

  He didn’t need this right now. He had enough on his plate with the offer from Westfall Foods and his sister. He didn’t need raging hormones pushing him to make a wrong decision.

  She squeezed water from her hair and then bent at the waist to gather the mass of loose curls on top of her head in a ponytail. Savannah started toward him, bare feet leaving a trail of footprints behind her. She slipped her narrow feet into flip-flops at the edge of the dock and neatly tied an oversize beach towel around her waist like a sarong.

  That only served to focus his attention on the green-and-white-striped triangles covering her pert breasts and her nipples making little points beneath the wet fabric.

  “I figured straight-arrow Collin Tyler would be hard at work in the orchard, it being a Monday and all,” she said when she reached the four-wheelers. “What are you doing slumming it on a lakeside beach?”

  “Saw you from the ridge,” he said, pointing dumbly as if she didn’t know there was a ridge behind them where the orchard began. “Wanted to make sure it wasn’t some kid from town trespassing.”