He grinned. “Then it’s settled.”
“Fine.” She nodded at him. “Where do you want to meet?”
“I’ll pick you up at your place about seven.”
She laughed a little uneasily. “This is Saturday. Everyone for miles around will be in town. You’re not worried about how many people will see us together?”
He glanced up at the crowd milling around the park before looking back to her. What was the point of hiding now? They were already the center of every conversation in town. No sense trying to fight it. “They’re already talking, remember? Besides, damned if I’m going to sneak around.”
She nodded. “Good point.”
“All right, then. See you at seven.”
Over at the diner, Pam leaned on the counter and tapped her fingernails against it in a sharp staccato. “People have been talking about them all day.”
“You shouldn’t be listening.”
“How can I not?” She shook her head and gave a quick look around at the people sitting at the booths and counters. Peggy, the other waitress on duty, was laughing with her customers and in the kitchen behind her, Pam could hear the cooks talking while they worked. The diner was busy and that was a good thing. The fact that it was all because of Amanda made it harder to appreciate.
“She’s been back home for a couple of weeks and she’s taking over again.”
She looked at the man sitting in front of her. JT McKenna had been her friend since school. He ran his own ranch just outside of town where he raised a small herd of cattle and his pride and joy, quarter horses.
His dark brown hair curled over the collar of his shirt and his tanned face showed a line of white across the top of his forehead where his hat normally rested. He was tall and lean and according to Pam’s friends, gorgeous. She’d never really noticed because JT had always been just her friend.
Now, he cupped his hands around a cup of coffee and shook his head. “Pam, you’re the one who asked her to come home.”
She sighed. Hard to admit, but he was right. Pam had tried to run the diner on her own, but it just hadn’t worked. She’d been overwhelmed with trying to handle the whole place on her own. But she still hated to acknowledge that Amanda had made a difference. Her younger sister had always been the golden one. Her parents’ favorite. Taller, smarter, prettier…Pam’s fingernails sounded out like a jackhammer.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like her sister. But did Amanda have to be so perfect?
“You’re getting wound up over nothing, Pam,” JT said.
His brown eyes were on her and she had to sigh. “You’re probably right, but—”
“No buts,” he teased and gave her a grin that lit up his eyes. “You’re so focused on Amanda and Nathan you can’t see anything else around you.”
“Like what?”
JT blew out a breath and said, “Like I could use some more coffee.”
“Oh, sure.” She turned to reach for the pot and told herself she needed to calm down. But the last few days had made that nearly impossible. Everyone was talking about Nathan and Amanda again. Just as they had all those years ago.
Nathan.
Her heart ached at the thought of him. Without even trying, her little sister had even gotten the man Pam had always wanted. All those years when Amanda was living away from Royal, Pam had done everything she could to capture Nathan’s attention. But it was as if he was completely oblivious to her. Even the couple of times she’d managed to get him out to dinner and to a movie, nothing had come of it.
“Still,” she said thoughtfully, “according to Dora Plant, Nathan and Amanda were arguing at the park today.”
“You’re doing it again,” JT told her flatly. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re thinking on how you can get around your sister to Nathan and it’s not going to get you anywhere. You best watch your step, and move careful, Pam.”
“What?”
“You and Amanda,” he said gently, “you’re family. Always will be.”
“I know that—” she argued.
He cut her off. “Maybe you do, but I’m thinking you tend to forget what you don’t want to think about. My point is, you should open your eyes, Pam. Nathan’s not interested in you that way and probably never will be.”
She flushed, but couldn’t seem to stop it. Pam had hungered after Nathan for so long, it had become a way of life for her. All the time he was with her sister, that knowledge had eaten away at her like acid. But then the two of them broke up and Pam began to hope again. All right, nothing had come of their few dates, but that didn’t mean she should give up.
“You don’t know what it’s like, JT.”
He laughed shortly, shook his head and dug money out of his wallet. Laying the bills on the counter, he said, “You’d be surprised by what I know, Pam.”
She watched him go, then turned back to her customers, still wondering what JT had meant.
A few hours later, Amanda was standing in front of her mirror, trying to figure out how Nathan had maneuvered her into this. She wasn’t even sure why she was going along with…what was it? A date? Her stomach swirled at the thought.
“It’s not a date,” she said, just to hear it said out loud. She dragged a brush through her hair. “It feels like a date. It shouldn’t, but it does. God, I haven’t been on a date in—” She stopped because even if there was no one else there to hear her, admitting out loud that it had been three years since she’d been on a real, live, guy-picks-you-up-and-pays date was too humiliating.
No wonder she was nervous.
Music pumped from the radio in the living room and Amanda smiled at herself in the mirror. Looked more like a grimace, but she’d take it. She had no idea where Nathan was taking her, so she’d changed her outfit three times, finally settling on a pale blue skirt that hit just above her knees, a white, short-sleeved blouse that buttoned up the front and a pair of sandals with a heel that would bring her almost to eye level with Nathan.
And there was the swirl of nerves in the pit of her stomach again.
Notadate…notadate…notadate …
The chant went through her mind but couldn’t seem to find anything to hold on to. Because she’d been off balance ever since she’d returned to Royal. Those first two weeks, waiting to see him again. Then that first meeting in the diner, when he’d been so cold, so remote. Only to have him show up later, right here and, after demanding she leave town, kiss her until her head was spinning.
No wonder she felt as if she were at the center of a madly spinning tornado. She had no sense of direction. Only the instinctive drive to keep her heart intact this time. To become so immune to Nathan and what he could do to her with a glance
