The Hometown Legend

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Excerpt

Rory Sullivan was boring—historically.

So when she looked up from where she was seated beneath a tall pine tree, in her most sacred spot on Four Corners Ranch, to see a man who might have been conjured straight from the pages of one of her favorite novels—or from the pages of her diary—she blinked twice.

Especially because in her notebook she had just written: Get a Kiss (kiss from a stranger?)

And then he was there.

A man.

A stranger.

She was working on her list.

The Summer of Rory.

The list that she badly needed to get her life in order. Because everything was changing at Sullivan’s Point. Everything was changing with her sisters, and their lives, and she was happy for them. Thrilled. But it had underscored some deep and hard truths about herself that she had been trying to ignore.

She wasn’t living. Not really. She was cocooned in the safe existence of her family home, protecting herself from potentially difficult social situations. Protecting herself from life.

And she had been going over the list of things that she had failed at for all of these years.

Entry one.

Climb the damn mountain.

Get a makeover.

A more shallow entry, but one that resonated nonetheless.

And then she’d written entry three:

Get a kiss.

That was right where she was at when he appeared.

Broad-shouldered, standing a good distance in the thicket of trees. He had on a black cowboy hat, a tight black T-shirt. He had a beard and long shaggy hair, ink running down both of his arms in complex patterns.

She would have said she didn’t find any of those things appealing, but in that moment, he stole her breath.

Golden sunlight filtered through the trees and made everything feel like it was under some kind of magic spell. Like she was.

She had never looked at a man and had a reaction quite like this before. Visceral. Deep. Raw.

Rory was untouched. That was part of the problem. She was leaving Pyrite Falls in just under a month to go start her new job in Boston, and she had never even been on a date.

The stark truth was that she couldn’t go to Boston a virgin. If she went to Boston a virgin she was going to be a virgin until she died. Because how was she going to explain to a guy in the dissolute city that she had never seen a penis?

She had never even kissed a man. You weren’t allowed to be a virgin and a legend unless you were a nun. And even then, you had to do some pretty intense stuff to reach legendary status, and considering she wasn’t selling all worldly possessions and devoting her life to the poor, maybe she was going to have to see a penis.

She wasn’t writing that out on her list. She was going to start small.

Oh. No. She didn’t want to start small with penises.

Her whole face went hot and she looked from her notebook, back to the stranger again.

He was still there. He wasn’t a hallucination.

She’d never felt anything like this before. This intense. This gripping.

She had had a deep and near-fatal crush on her best friend’s older brother when she was in school—which had resulted in the most intense humiliation she had experienced up until that point—but that was all.

There had been greater humiliation in her life following that. But there had never been a more intense attraction to a man.

Until now.

It almost made her giddy.

Because who was this girl, the one sitting there staring at this stranger, suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to cross the space and kiss him?

She stood up.

Was she actually going to do it?

He didn’t say anything, but she knew that he saw her.

He was staring at her the way she was staring at him.

Did he think she was beautiful?

She was dressed in a long floral dress that touched her ankles, it didn’t show a hint of skin. She knew that men like skin.

Normally, she wouldn’t do this. Normally, she would say something, or…apologize for being there, when he was clearly there, and hadn’t meant to run across her. She wouldn’t stand there, staring, taking in every detail of him that she could see from that distance.

And for a moment, she let herself get lost.

She didn’t know him.

He didn’t know her.

They were alone together in the woods, and she was…

She wanted to be brave. Was she that brave?

She took a step toward him, and he just stood there, his expression fixed.

She tried to take in a shuddering breath.

He shifted, and her eyes went to his hands. They were large hands. Masculine and rough.

What would it be like to be held by a man like that.

What would it be like to feel desired by him.

Her mouth went dry.

A few months ago she had decided that she was going to change everything. That was when she had accepted the job offer in Boston. After months of trying to find something, anything that would make the most of the skills she had as a property manager. After Quinn had gotten engaged to Levi, and she had realized that her little sister was doing things that Rory herself was never going to. Not at the rate she was living. Or not living.

Shrouded in fantasy, driven by need, she took another step toward him.

Then two things happened.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, a reminder she had a meeting with her sister. And she saw herself. Really saw herself and what she’d been contemplating.

She was about to walk up to this man—this stranger who could be a serial killer for all she knew—and kiss him.

She’d heard it said before that the character in a book or movie didn’t know what genre they were in. Truth be told, neither did she. If she were in a romance novel, it would be reasonable to go and kiss him.

But what if she was in a horror movie?

Or what if he just doesn’t want you?

So Rory did what she did best. She turned, and she ran.

And she didn’t look back.

*

When she finally got from her spot in the woods to the farm store, she got out of her car and looked into the back of her sister’s truck, which was parked out front. There were baskets full of vegetables in the back, and she knew that Fia must just be stocking up for the day.

She grabbed a basket of zucchini. She pushed open the door to the store and sighed. Her heart was still thundering like a spooked horse.

Nothing happened. You didn’t do anything.

He probably thinks you’re a weirdo, but so does everybody. You’re Rory Sullivan, the Pimento Toothpick. Scrawny, gangly, obsessed with whatever book you’re reading and writer of cringe poetry. So he thinks you’re weird? Big deal.

It felt like a big deal. Because he’d been beautiful.

The single most compelling thing she’d ever seen in her life.

Why had she been such a coward? Maybe kissing him would’ve been stupid, but she could have at least talked to him. Instead, the minute he moved she had scampered off like a frightened deer.

She wanted to do something. She started stacking the zucchinis in their rightful place, which was doing something, but not quite how she meant it.

“Hi, Rory,” came the sound of her sister’s voice.

Rory jumped, still skittish. “Oh. Hi.”

“Yeah, hi.”

She stopped for a moment. “Fia?”

“Yes?”

“Do you ever date?”

She was quite certain her sister didn’t. The great implosion between her and Landry King was the stuff of Four Corners legend, and she seemed to do her best to stay clear of men. Or if not clear of them entirely, then at least she kept it on the down-low. Because after all that, she hadn’t really wanted everybody in on her business anymore. Which, Rory could understand. In theory.

“Why?” Fia asked, her eyes narrow.

“I just feel like I need to shake things up.”

“You’re moving to Boston.”

“I know that. But I… I’m tired of living life through books. And pictures of beautiful places online. It’s not the same.”

“No, it isn’t. But it’s safer.”

“I just… In a romance novel, if you saw a gorgeous man standing in the middle of the woods, you would kiss him,” Rory said.

“Would you?” She sounded skeptical.

“You don’t read romance novels, how would you even know?”

“I don’t read romance novels because I don’t get caught up in all that kind of stuff. I have my own dreams. It’s better not to depend on someone else.”

“In general I agree, but…” She thought of him again.

She didn’t want to live like this anymore. She didn’t want to live with regrets. She wished she would’ve just done the bold thing. Except, that was very impractical, because if you went up kissing dangerous-looking men like that, they were probably going to assume you wanted sex.

That thought sent a sensation up between her legs.

She kind of did want sex. That was the thing. If only she hadn’t had sex because she had some kind of intense commitment to her virtue. But no. It was because she was a coward

She needed to add sex to her list.

“I hope you’re not busy tonight,” Fia said. “With mystery men or otherwise.”

“Oh. Sorry. I have two online dates, and I thought I would try to make it to both of them in a series of increasingly slapstick events.” At least that had happened in a book she’d read recently.

Fia gave her the side-eye. “So you aren’t busy?”

“No I’m not busy,” she said. The idea of her having one date was hilarious, let alone two.

“Well, we have a very last-minute rental request, and since the house up on the ridge got vacated last month, and we haven’t had any other inquiries, I want to accommodate.”

“Okay. Is it clean?” she asked.

“I had it cleaned when Sandra moved out, but it could probably use a once-over.” Their tenant had been clean and quiet, but dust did tend to accumulate.

Rory tried not to ponder all the dust she’d likely accumulated by sitting around doing so little with her life.

“Yeah. Sure. I can do that.”

“Great. Sorry to throw that on you.”

“Oh, no. I’m practicing. For my new job,” she said testing the waters softly with that subject.

“Yeah. Well, then I’m giving you more work experience. Which I would try to avoid doing so that you wouldn’t leave me, but you already secured a new position.”

“I need to leave,” said Rory.

Fia looked at her for a long moment. “I know you do. As much as I need to stay.”

“This place is in your blood. I get that.”

“Yes, it is. And more than that, I feel like… I was made to feel like this place could be mine. Like I wasn’t going to be able to make it work. And I have. I’ll never leave it. No matter what.”

“And I love that for you. This is the best part of my being here. But I’m just going to die a spinster with ten cats if I don’t do something.”

“You don’t have a cat,” Fia pointed out.

“Not yet. But there’s still time.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a spinster.”

Rory cringed. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean you. Besides, you have…”

Fia scowled. “Don’t say Landry.”

“I didn’t.” She had been thinking it, though. The thing about Fia was that she had a legend. The legend of her and Landry King. And why they hated each other so much. What had passed between them all those years ago?

Rory didn’t have a legend. There was nothing about her that was interesting.

She knew Fia hated to be the subject of all those rumors, but Rory knew for certain that it was worse to be uninteresting.

“You know the person moving into the house,” Fia said, making a clear and obvious decision to change the subject now that Landry King’s name had been introduced.

“I do?”

“Yeah. Your friend Lydia’s brother. Gideon.”

Her heart tripped over itself and then she managed to hit the zucchini stack with her elbow and send at least five of the long green veggies rolling to the floor.

“What?”

Gideon. Here. Gideon who had been a distant inspiration in her mind because really thinking of him was too big and too bright.

Gideon, who apparently still made her stomach go tight and took her breath away.

Gideon.

Gideon was staying at Sullivan’s Point? She’d known he was coming back to town sometime in the next week, but she’d assumed he’d be getting his own place, or staying with his mother and sister.

She thought of the man in the woods again. No. That couldn’t have been…

Gideon didn’t look like that. He did not look like an invitation to sin and vice.

The last time she’d seen him he had been clean-shaven with his hair high and tight, as he had gone off into the military.

He had always been muscular, but not like that man. That man looked like he lifted tires in his spare time.

Or maybe whole buildings.

“He needs a place to stay and he called asking about one of our rentals. I told him it was free.” Rory bent down quickly and started picking the zucchini up. “Was that the wrong thing to say?” Fia pressed.

“No…” She leaned out long and grabbed a rolling zucchini, standing and trying to position them on the display. “No. I just assumed that he would be moving back home.”

“It’s a long story. I guess he’s buying back the family ranch that they lost after his dad died. But it isn’t ready yet, and I think that wasn’t part of the plan. The owners have some kind of contingency they added to the sale. Anyway. He can’t move in over there for a while, so he needs a place to stay in the interim. I didn’t get the sense that he especially wanted to stay with his family.”

“Oh. He’s rebuying the family ranch?”

Lydia hadn’t mentioned that. She wondered if Lydia knew. The loss of her father combined with the loss of the ranch shortly after had been so traumatic for her—for her and her mother. And now Gideon was being…Gideon.

Being heroic again. Getting the land back.

It was also very Gideon. Also very fitting with his mystique.

She did her best not to think too deeply about that, or him.

But he had a mystique, whether Rory wanted to ponder it or not. A soldier, now on his way to being a cowboy via restoration of his family’s legacy.

There was going to be a plaque in town for Gideon Payne someday.

And while Rory herself didn’t want to aspire to a plaque—considering she had never gone to war, that would only ever be some kind of sad memorial she wasn’t especially in a hurry to get—she did want something.

When people talked about her, she didn’t want the words in their mouths to be negative. When they talked about her, she didn’t want them to say she was sad or silly. Rory Sullivan, that quiet girl. Rory Sullivan, the quitter. Rory Sullivan, a nerd.

Or worse yet, for them to not even notice she was gone at all.

The truth was that was more than likely the path she was on at the current moment. Rory Sullivan, who? Oh, did she leave? Didn’t notice.

Yeah. That was Rory.

And it was never Gideon.

Gideon Payne was a war hero. Gideon Payne was the best athlete Mapleton High had ever seen.

“I guess he probably doesn’t need a welcome basket and a guide to the area,” she said.

“Everybody likes a welcome basket, Rory. Even if it’s a welcome-back basket.”

“Well. I’ll get on that. And I’ll get the place clean. Do you know when he’s expected?”

“When’s the parade scheduled for?” Fia asked.

She laughed. “I thought that was this weekend.”

“Oh. Well, then he’s coming ahead of the parade. Because I think he said today sometime. But it might be late. I don’t know. I suppose you could text Lydia and ask. Otherwise, I have his contact information somewhere.”

“It’s okay. I’ll just make it my focus for the day.”

She was happy, actually, to have an excuse to work on something as solitary as cleaning.

It would give her time to think about how exactly she was going to accomplish her goals.

And to forget about the mystery man and her moment of temporary insanity.

But maybe being somewhat adjacent to Gideon would be helpful.

After all, being in proximity to a local legend might give her some ideas on how to achieve legend status herself.

People told stories about him down at the diner. There was a hamburger named after him—The Legend.

He had been the football star at the local high school. He had set records in track and field in the state of Oregon—which was unheard of in a school the size of theirs. He had been the golden boy.

The one everyone admired.

There were whispered stories about his looks and his sexual prowess—which Lydia had always gagged and retched about because, after all, he was Lydia’s older brother. Rory had secretly been scandalized, heartbroken and intrigued. Though she could never ever tell Lydia. He was Lydia’s older brother, after all, and everyone liked Gideon most of all. Rory having a crush on him would have been a huge betrayal.

It was the one secret she’d ever kept from her friend, but consequently she also didn’t often ask Lydia about Gideon because she felt like it seemed…obvious.

Anyway, there was a point where everyone had known. After…The Diary Incident. When the mean girls who’d tormented Rory had upped their game and subjected her to the most wounding, deeply humiliating experience of her life.

And Gideon had saved her.

He was a hero. Her hero.

But heroes didn’t stay around. They had to go off and join the military. He’d left town under a cloud of confetti, riding on a white convertible and waving.

Her heart had broken.

Because the one person who’d made her truly brave was leaving.

She’d kept up on his accomplishments through the years via Lydia’s mom’s Christmas letter she sent out, but otherwise…

She hadn’t kept up. She hadn’t felt worthy of it, or of him, really. After all, he’d never mocked her when her love poetry had been made public. Instead he’d walked into the school with his hand on her shoulder and when one of the bullies had approached them, he’d told them to go straight to hell.

Don’t let the bastards get you down, Rory. You’re meant for bigger things than this place.

No one else had ever said anything like that to her. No one else had ever looked at her and seen more. But then she’d gone away to school and she…she’d run. She’d felt like she’d let him down in that way, even though he was off fighting in a war and she was sure he didn’t actually keep tabs on what his little sister’s best friend was up to.

So she’d tried not to think about him.

Until three years ago when he’d gotten injured in Afghanistan.

Rory, Gideon was hurt in an attack today. They’re flying him to Germany.

She could still remember her friend’s desperate, tearful phone call.

And the way she’d sat, hollow and barely able to breathe, waiting for more news.

How could Gideon be injured? He was too strong for that. Too full of life.

He most especially couldn’t die.

She hadn’t breathed again until Lydia had called to say he was stable enough to move to a military hospital in the States.

He had broken ribs, a broken pelvis. Shrapnel wounds. Burns. A concussion but, all in all, it had been minor compared to what you expected when you heard someone was injured in a bomb blast.

Lydia and her mom had gone to stay in Atlanta for a while after that. When Lydia came back, Gideon had been released and was home with his wife. Rory had gone back to following only vague updates.

She knew he’d been honorably discharged after his injury and given an award for his bravery. She knew that he’d split from his wife.

Even now that made her chest feel strange and sore.

The truth was Gideon Payne was iconic, and not just as Rory’s first and fiercest crush. Not just her hero. He was iconic to this town and everyone in it.

Rory had never been iconic of much of anything. Perhaps the emblem of a small troupe of trembling chickens, or the patron saint of lowly burrowing animals, or…beige.

All of which had gotten worse after her father had left the family.

What had begun as a nervous disposition and vague awkwardness had turned into some pretty full-blown anxiety.

The only place she could have adventures was in books.

At least then she could be the fearless ship’s captain.

Or the beautiful interesting girl who got the attention of her best friend’s older brother.

Hypothetically.

Because when you couldn’t count on the one thing you had always felt like you could, what else was out there waiting to betray you? She had never quite been certain of the answer to that question, and it had made things—like rope climbs and team building hikes—seem terrifying.

Likely, it was a contributing factor to why she had only lasted a couple of months away from home.

She was clinging to what was familiar.

Because so little was.

But she was determined to see things from a different perspective. If you wanted a different reputation, you didn’t wait to be at the mercy of the world. You had to decide. You had to take control. Yes, as a child, she had no control over whether or not her father stayed.

But she was a grown woman now, and she had control over whether or not she took charge of her life.

He’d built her up back then and she’d let those guys at college knock her back down.

But Gideon… Well he’d been knocked down, too. And he was still coming back triumphant. That was what she needed. Some of that triumph.

And she knew that Gideon would come with triumph.

Because unlike Rory, he was a local legend.

He had left with the parade, and he would return with one, too.

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