Best Fake Fiance (Loveless Brothers 2)

“Do I look okay?” Charlie asks under her breath when Rusty’s out of earshot. “I feel kind of weird—”

“You look incredible,” I say, the truth rolling off my tongue before I can think it through.

“Oh,” she says.

“I meant it. You look really nice,” I say, using that awful word nice again.

She looks down at herself, like she’s forgotten what she was wearing, and when she looks up, her cheeks are faintly pink.

“Thanks,” she says. “But you have to promise me that you’ll tell me if I come out of the bathroom with my skirt tucked into my underpants or something.”

It takes a heroic effort, but I don’t visualize Charlie, her skirt tucked up inappropriately, black panties with lace edge on partial display.

Nope. Not at all, and definitely not while my seven-year-old daughter is impatiently waiting for us on Charlie’s steps.

“As long as you tell me if Rusty dumps glitter in my hair again,” I say, and Charlie laughs.

“Deal,” she says, just as Rusty’s face pops back around the door frame.

“Are you coming?” she asks, and I hold the door for Charlie as we leave her apartment.Chapter NineCharlieAccording to town legend, Sprucevale was founded in 1775 by Heath McCoy, a highwayman, brigand, rapscallion, and all-around guy of questionable-yet-rakish character. He’d either stolen several chests of gold coins from the British or absconded with the Governor’s daughter — maybe both — and after being on the run for a few weeks, he found himself holed up in this holler when the first snow fell.

Apparently, Heath was also a strapping Daniel Boone-slash-Johnny Appleseed type, because he made friends with the local natives, built himself and his possible paramour some shelter, found food, and made it through the winter.

Spring came, everything thawed, and in the meantime the British became fairly preoccupied with that whole ‘the colonies are fomenting revolution’ thing, forgot about Heath, and thus, Sprucevale was born.

There’s a statue of him in front of the library, standing heroically in some old-fashioned clothes, looking off at the horizon with a rifle in one hand, its butt resting on the ground.

He’s pretty dashing for a statue. If I were a British governor’s daughter in 1775, I’d probably let him abscond with me.

Anyway, Riverfest celebrates the date of Sprucevale’s supposed founding, on that day in 1776 when McCoy first broke ground on the farmhouse that would grow into his homestead, and later, this town. The whole story of the founding might be apocryphal, but if it is, I don’t want to know that he was actually just some surveyor sent out to map the wilderness who decided to stay and blah blah blah.

Riverfest is your standard small-town carnival. There are stands serving food on sticks. There’s cotton candy. There are not one but two bouncy houses. There are tchotchke booths. There are two stages set up, one at either end of the several-blocks-long festival area, that feature local performances.

It is, fittingly, next to the Chillacouth River that runs through town.

Right now, we’re watching a stage full of pre-teens in leotards, pointe shoes, and long, floaty skirts do some sort of ballet. They all look deadly serious, and, bless their hearts, they’re not that good.

“She doesn’t know the steps,” Rusty mutters critically, her eyes trained on one ballerina in particular. “She keeps messing up.”

“Maybe she’s got stage fright,” Daniel says. “It’s scary to perform in front of people.”

“No it’s not,” says Rusty. “It’s no big deal if you practice.”

“Some people find it really hard,” Daniel says, ruffling her hair slightly and shooting me an amused look over her head.

You can’t say that Rusty’s not confident, that’s for sure. She’s got all the self-assured, cocky swagger of a Loveless in a pint-sized package.

“I get stage fright sometimes,” I tell her.

“You do?” she asks, still watching the dancers.

“Sure,” I say. “When I was in high school, my softball team won the regional championships, and they voted on me to accept the award at this banquet in front of all the other teams. I had this whole speech ready, but when I got up there, I totally froze, so I just said ‘thank you’ and pretty much ran back to my seat.”

“Did you practice?” Rusty asks.

She’s currently in ballet and piano lessons, and I know Daniel’s been emphasizing practice over talent a lot with her. He read it in some parenting book.

“Probably not as much as I should have,” I say, and Rusty just nods.

The dance ends. The dancers flit offstage. Someone gets on the microphone to tell us that in fifteen minutes, the elementary school clogging team will be gracing the stage, so we drift off toward the rest of Riverfest.

It’s a beautiful spring day. It’s sunny and warm, but not too warm. There’s a pleasant breeze and plenty of shade from the trees growing along Sofia Street, where this is taking place.