The Reluctant Bachelorette (22 page)

“Show off,” she said.

“Impressed?”

“Maybe.”

“Admit it. I’m the king of the swimming hole.”

“Never!” Taking a few steps back, Taycee rushed forward,
leaped into the air, brought her knees to her chest and yelled, “Cannonball!” before
landing with a whack right beside him.

She surfaced and wiped the water from her eyes. “I just blew
up your kingdom. Now I’m the king of the swimming hole, so there.”

“So there? What are we, in second grade?”

“I was trying to speak on your level.”

“You are so going down for that one.” Luke grabbed her,
twisting her so his arms came around her shoulders from behind. “Any final
words?” he said into her ear, his breath sending chills down her spine.

“You forgot to say Your Majesty.”

With a hand on her head, Luke pushed her under the water, and
then pulled her up seconds later. “Now who’s the king?”

Taycee blinked the water from her eyes. “You forgot to say Your
Majesty again. Honestly, how many times do I have to—“

Down she went again.

When she resurfaced the second time, she laughed. “Fine, you
win, but only because I said mean things to you yesterday.” She wiped her eyes
and pointed a finger at him. “But the day you tell me you’ll call me and don’t,
you become the scum of the earth forever.”

Luke’s smile widened. “Do you want me to call you?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“You need to get your hearing checked.” She broke free and
splashed him in the face. He splashed back, and then lunged for her and pulled
her against him, making her heart pound like crazy. Without meaning to, her eyes
rested on his mouth. A knowing smile tugged on his lips, making her face burn
and her gaze drop to his tan, muscular chest. Her cheeks flushed even hotter.

“My hearing’s fine,” he said, his voice low and teasing, as if
he knew exactly what she was thinking.

Taycee pulled from his grasp and splashed him again. “Man,
you’re cocky.” Then she swam back to her towel where she collapsed on her
stomach and buried her face in the soft terry cloth, hoping he couldn’t tell
how easily he’d gotten to her. A few words, a look, and she was a muddled-up
mess.

Luke trudged from the water and dropped down next to her. She
kept her face buried while her body shivered from the cool breeze. As the water
evaporated from her skin, the warm rays of the sun warmed her, inch by inch. It
was like she was fourteen all over again, hanging out with Luke on a gorgeous spring
day.

If yelling at him produced this kind of day, maybe she should
do it more often.

“What was it that made you start looking back, Luke?” Her
voice was muffled, so she twisted her face to the side and clarified, “To
Shelter, I mean.”

Luke let out a breath and shifted on his towel, squinting up
at the sun. “I don’t know. Do I need a reason? Why didn’t you ever leave?“

Taycee raised her head, tucking her elbows beneath her as she
picked at her towel. “I did leave for a few years. I got an Associate in
business, and then enrolled in a floral design program for another year. But
you’re right. I always planned to come back, and I did.”

She snuck a peak at him. He watched her with an unreadable
expression on his face. Did he think she should’ve moved away? Found a life
outside of Shelter like so many other people had done? Or did he think she
figured it out early on that Shelter was a good place to plant roots?

“And yes,” she said. “You do need a reason. Everyone has a
reason for doing something that doesn’t make sense.”

“Moving back to Shelter doesn’t make sense?”

Taycee shook her head. “Why would it? Your parents don’t live
here any longer, and you didn’t keep in touch with anyone. What prompted you to
even consider it?”

Luke shifted again, tucking his hands under his head and
squinting at the sky. “After high school, I couldn’t wait to get away from this
place. I felt stuck here, as if Shelter would keep me from having experiences
and living my dreams. So I jumped on the college bandwagon and left town.

“Fast forward ten years, and there I was, finishing my
internship and considering a great opportunity to partner with the vet I worked
for. He wanted to ease me into the practice before he retired so I could take
over. The fact that I also happened to be engaged to his daughter made it a
no-brainer.”

Taycee’s eyes flew to his. Luke had been engaged? The news
slammed into her in an uncomfortable way, making her feel so many things. Hurt
that he’d loved someone else. Curiosity about what had happened. Jealousy that
he’d been able to date and fall for another person without the memory of
someone else always getting in the way.         

“Then one day a box arrived in the mail. My mom went through a
de-cluttering phase and sent me a package of some of my old stuff. My high
school yearbooks were in it, along with a bunch of pictures of you, me, and
Caleb. As soon as I opened it, everything changed. I had so many amazing
memories from this place. It made me start thinking about moving back here
instead—to a place I could raise my kids with the kind of lifestyle I once had.
This swimming hole, horseback riding, hiking, camping, fishing, sledding, even
cow-tipping.” He chuckled at that. “I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, so
I got on the internet and found the McCann place.”

“What happened?” Taycee asked, unable to hold the question
back any longer. “To your fiancée, I mean.”

Luke twisted his head, and his gaze rested on Taycee. “She
grew up in Ohio and wanted to stay there, near her family. She wanted me to
take over her father’s practice and keep living the life she’d always wanted to
live.” Luke swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob. “I guess the fact that I
had a hard time deciding between her and Shelter made me realize that maybe I
didn’t love her as much as I thought I did. So we broke up.”

“Just like that?”

“It was tough, but it felt right, you know? So I went with it.
I called the McCanns and asked if they’d consider letting me lease their farm
before I committed to buying,” he said. “It was my way of doing something that
felt right without risking everything.”

Taycee flipped onto her back and shaded the sun with her hand.
“Wow, I don’t even know what to say to that except—wow.”

“I know. I thought I would ease right back into my old life
with no problem. But then I ran into you and quickly discovered that wasn’t
going to happen.”

Taycee gave him a rueful smile. “I guess I didn’t really make
it easy on you, did I?”

“Let’s just say I learned the hard way that I should have kept
in touch.”

“You always were a slow learner.”

Luke laughed.

The rest of the afternoon, she and Luke caught up, laughed,
swam, teased, and applied more sunscreen. It was one of those days that
surpassed all the others before it. By the time they hiked back to their cars,
Taycee realized that even though things could never be the way they once were,
maybe they could be better. Maybe having Luke back as a friend really was
enough.

For now.

T
he interview at the end
of
the second round of dating went almost exactly as it had before. Taycee felt
like a broken record as she answered Jessa’s questions. Great guys, check. Fun
times, check. Looking forward to more, check, check, check.

And now here she was, at her flower shop on Monday morning,
staring at her laptop screen once again and wondering what to write about the
latest winners: Jake, Greg, Miles, and of course—Alec. Evidently there were a
lot of people who thought that what Alec had to say about himself was incredibly
interesting. Either that, or Burt and Megan did too good of an editing job,
which Taycee wouldn’t know since she never clicked “play.”

Maybe it was time to set all the viewers straight. Right here.
Right now. On this blank laptop screen that seemed to mock her with its glowing
brightness.

First off, you should all know that Alec is a self-absorbed
motocross fanatic who also happens to be the world’s worst date! Pick him again
and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .

Taycee sighed, highlighting the words and hitting “delete.”

The viewers have done it again! I couldn’t have picked them
better myself!

Delete.

So sorry to see you go, Sterling, but . . . well, not really.

Delete.

Hey, guess what? I’m secretly in love with Luke Carney, and
as of today, I’m respectfully stepping aside as Shelter’s bachelorette. I’m
going to be that lame girl who makes a fool of herself by chasing after a guy
who only thinks of her as a sister. TTFN!

Delete, delete,
delete
.

Argh.

Jessa’s ringtone sounded, and Taycee gratefully grabbed her
phone—anything to put off writing this post.

“Please tell me you haven’t posted the results yet,” Jessa’s
voice blared in her ear.

Taycee bit her lip as she studied the blank screen that now
seemed to glow brighter than ever before. “Um, not quite yet.”

“Whew.” Jessa let out a breath. “Okay, so Greg left town this
morning.”

“He what?”

“After giving it some serious thought, he decided that you’re
not the one for him,” Jessa said. “So sorry, Tace,” she added dryly, “I know
how much this must devastate you.”

“It
does
devastate me.” Jessa could joke all she wanted
about Greg, but this wasn’t good news at all. The show still had over three
weeks to go, which meant they’d either have to end it early, an option Jessa
would never go for, or—

“Looks like Sterling’s back in the lineup,” Jessa said, as if
it was no big deal that Taycee would be subjected to his spitting and forced
conversation for yet another night. “You don’t mind changing Greg’s name to
his, do you?”

“Yes, I do mind. Why can’t we just end this thing a week
earlier than planned? You did say that we were bringing in more money than you
anticipated, right?” It seemed like a reasonable request to Taycee. More than
reasonable, in fact.

“Yes, but it hasn’t been increasing the way I thought it
would. We’re going to need every voting opportunity we can get. In fact, I’m
wishing we’d gone from ten bachelors to seven, instead of five, so we could
have carried this on for a couple weeks longer.”

It was a lesson in
this-could-always-be-worse-so-be-grateful-you-only-have-one-more-date-with-Sterling.
Taycee sighed and deleted Greg’s name. She forced her fingers to tap out
Sterling’s while trying to tell herself that it could be worse. “Okay, it’s
changed. Anything else?”

“Actually, yes.” Jessa hesitated, which was never a good sign.
It meant something big was coming. Something Taycee probably wouldn’t want to
hear.

“I need you to up the romance.”

“What!”

“Seriously, Tace. People are starting to comment about it a
lot. ‘Why hasn’t he kissed her?’ ‘Does she even like these guys?’ ‘How is she
not falling all over Jake?’” Jessa paused. “Would it kill you to show some
affection?”

“Yes!” How could Jessa even ask such a thing, especially when
she knew full well that Taycee didn’t want to be here in the first place?
Wasn’t it enough that she’d agreed to be the bachelorette? Wasn’t it enough
that she’d gone along with it all, smiled for the camera, and gotten spit on,
told off, and leered at in the process?

“C’mon,” Jessa coaxed. “You’ve done such a good job luring the
voters in so far. But what they want now is some good old-fashioned romance.”

“Well, too bad for them.” No way would Taycee ever kiss
Sterling or Alec. No. Way. As for Miles? That would be like kissing a brother. Jake?
Well, he’d definitely be a step above brother, but it would still feel wrong.

The simple truth was that none of them gave her that tingly,
warm feeling that made her want to wrap her arms around them and hold on tight.
None of them goaded her into wanting to silence them with her mouth over
theirs. And none of them dominated her thoughts.

In other words, none of them were Luke.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” said Taycee. “I just can’t.”

“Yes you can,” Jessa argued. “I’m sure this is the reason
people aren’t voting as much. And if we don’t reach our goal . . . Tace,
please, think of the farmers. My aunt and uncle. They need you to do this.” A
pause. “
I
need you to do this.”

“Fine,” Taycee said, wishing she could fast forward the next
few weeks and leave this stupid show behind.