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“Except the mayor and his secretary that put the call through from the sheriff,” Laura nodded.
His nerves cross-fired in a symphony of relief and dread. “Then all the more reason you shouldn’t want me to be anywhere near your niece. I thought you were supposed to be her guardian. How could you not stop her from meeting alone with the worst boy in town back in high school?”
“You were the safest man for her to be alone with. You’ve worked your entire life to prove yourself beyond the Trenton name. You’ve never let a drop of alcohol pass your lips or cast a bet on any horse or dog race. You’re not your father or your uncle or your grandfather. You, Duke Trenton, are your own man.”
“I proved my reputation solid. If you really know what happened, then you know I don’t deserve her. Maybe before that incident, I had a plan to be worthy of her, but that sunk to the bottom of the icy lake along with the principal’s car.” Duke gripped the handle on his truck’s door and yanked the driver’s side door open with a loud squawk. “Besides, I’m just a poor farmer with no real prospects. Scarlet deserves a comfortable and fulfilling life.”
“Maybe this is your chance to prove yourself to the town. Scarlet needs you.” Laura touched his shoulder like a mother to a son. A touch he hadn’t felt since he was six.
“Is this one of your games?” Duke brushed off Laura’s comfort and hopped up into the driver’s seat.
“No. I’m afraid Scarlet’s in real trouble, and if we don’t do something, she’s going to suffer for the rest of her life.”
His muscles tightened. “What’re you talking about?”
“Scarlet’s about to make the biggest mistake of her life, and I think you’re the only one that can stop it.”
His inner voice screamed for him to close the door and drive away, but he couldn’t. No matter how much he tried to stay away from Scarlet, he’d always felt some sort of pull to her. More than anything, he always wanted to protect her. From other boys at school, mean girls, and most of all, himself. “What mistake?”
Laura stomped her foot telling him that hip had healed, but he’d keep her secret. “She’s going to marry the wrong man.”
Instinct nudged him to help, but his experiences told him to drive away. “It’s her life and her decision. You need to learn not to meddle and let her make her own choices.”
“The way your mother made hers, staying with your father despite ending up in an early grave? Do you want that for Scarlet?” Laura’s words sliced and diced his soul.
He swallowed a lump of regrets and gripped the door handle to slam the door shut on Laura’s manipulation, but he couldn’t. Not if there was even an inkling of truth to her words. He clenched his jaw and watched Scarlet disappear into the café. “How bad’s this guy?” he asked in hopes he’d uncover her devious plot and see nothing worth getting excited about.
“The worst, and you and I both know that if Scarlet marries someone, it’s for life. She’ll never run off like her mother did.”
He pushed his shoulders back and clenched his fingers around the door handle. The weathered door cracked with protest. “What makes you think he’s so bad? Rumor says you’ve never met him before.”
“He hasn’t spoken to her or checked on her in two months and then sent a text ultimatum that she returns home to marry him by Christmas or they’re done. It’s like one more business transaction from a heartless, ruthless man.”
He slumped and released the door. Images of being too tiny to help, sitting in his little white rocking chair listening to his father yell at his mother echoed louder than normal in his head. The tension in his neck knotted his muscles and his determination. “You should talk to her.”
“Talk won’t work. Already tried that. Can’t you think of something to remind her of happier times? Make her admit how she feels about you. Show her that life doesn’t have to be all numbers and work, that she can be happy.”
“I let her go for her own good. But you’re asking the impossible. I don’t know if I have the strength to let her go again.” Duke pinched the bridge of his nose and an idea popped into his head, but it would only prolong the inevitable. “Besides, it would take a miracle to get her to stay in Cherry Creek. And I don’t believe in miracles.”
“I’ve got a Christmas miracle up my sleeve in the form of a legendary book.” She lifted her spotted hand and pointed toward the academy Scarlet had attended beyond the creek.
“The book from the academy about how a man and woman will fall in love by Christmas if the book finds them? That’s no more than a folk tale or a legend. It doesn’t exist.” Despite his words, a part of him welcomed the possibility of reconciliation and romance. “You…have it?”
“Not in my hands, but—”
Warning bells chimed louder than Cherry Creek Community Church on Sunday. “That book’s a legend. It doesn’t exist. It’s something some girls from the academy dreamt up to believe in happy endings. This isn’t a story. It’s real life.”
“That book is real. And I’m going to prove it. Because this Christmas you’re going to be in Scarlet’s life story cast as her legendary romantic hero.”
ChapterTwo
The rushof patrons consumed Scarlet’s thoughts until she flipped the café sign to closed. Not that she stopped working after the lunch rush, not with the stack of bills she needed to get through. They weren’t going to pay themselves.
She tried to focus, but the smell of vegetables kept eliciting visions of Duke on the ground with tomato innards on his shirt. The thought of doing that to him tore her up inside, yet why did she care? The man played a disappearing act greater than Houdini with an invisibility cloak.
Light faded in the office, forcing her to look up long enough to notice the clock. As if on cue, Aunt Laura hollered down, “Time to call it a night. I think there are town rules about working too late. This ain’t Atlanta.”
Scarlet stood and stretched the kinks from her neck and back. She grabbed her phone and remembered Henry’s proposal which broke through her vigil to save the café. Exhaustion fogged her brain, so she lumbered up the back stairs to their second-floor apartment where she settled in at the settee next to the front windows to watch the clouds roll in and the moon hover at the edge of the mountain peak.
