Wendy turns to me. “Fun, right?”
“Consider me entertained.” I turn, laughing, pressed in by the people around me, when suddenly I see Tucker farther up the boardwalk, coming out of what appears to be the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum, another place I’ve never been to even though I’ve considered Jackson my home for more than two years. He’s smiling with his dimples out, his teeth a flash of white against his tanned face. I can hear the faint sound of his laugh, and I can’t help it, it makes me smile to hear it. I love his laugh.
But he’s not alone. Another second and Allison Lowell, the girl from the rodeo, the girl who was one of his dates at prom the year I went with Christian, the girl who’s had a giant crush on him pretty much her whole life, follows Tucker out of the building, and she’s laughing too, her long red hair in a fish-tailed braid over her shoulder, peering up at him exactly the way I know I used to look at him. She puts her hand on his arm, says something else to make him smile. He folds his arm around her hand, like he’s escorting her somewhere, always the perfect gentleman.
Shots ring in the air. The crowd laughs as one of the villains staggers around melodramatically, then dies and lies twitching.
I know how he feels.
I should go. They’re coming this way, and any second he’s going to see me, and there isn’t even a word for how awkward that’s going to be. I should go. Now. But my feet don’t move. I stand like I’ve been frozen, watching them as they walk along together, their talk easy, familiar, Allison glancing over at him from under her lashes, wearing a western-style shirt with those vees on the shoulders, tight jeans, boots. A Wyoming girl. His type of Wyoming girl, specifically.
I can’t stop thinking about how much better she’d be for him than I am.
But I also kind of want to tear her hair out.
They’re close now. I can smell her perfume, light and fruity and feminine.
“Uh-oh,” I hear Wendy say behind me, noticing them at last. “We should—” Get out of here, she’s about to say, but then Tucker glances up.
The smile vanishes from his face. He stops walking.
For all of ten long seconds we stand there, in the middle of the crowd of tourists, staring at each other.
I can’t breathe. Oh man. Please don’t let me start crying, I think.
Then Wendy pulls on my arm, and my feet magically work again, and I turn and run—oh yes, I’m that dignified—and I’m about three blocks away, around the corner, before I slow down. I wait for Wendy to catch up to me.
“Well,” she says breathlessly. “That was exciting.”
She’s not talking about the gunfight.
We take the long way getting back to my car. When we’re both seat-belted in, ready to go, she suddenly reaches and takes the keys out of the ignition.
“So you’re still in love with my brother,” she says, and when I try to grab the keys, she adds, “Oh no, we’re going to talk about this.”
Silence. I fight the humiliating urge to cry again.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Let’s get it all out in the open. You still love him.”
I bite my lip, then release it. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve moved on, and he’s moved on. Clearly he’s with Allison now.”
Wendy snorts. “Tucker is not in love with Allison Lowell. Don’t blow stuff out of proportion.”
“But—”
“It’s you, Clara. You’re the only one, from the first day he saw you. He looks at you exactly the same way my daddy looks at my mom.”
“But I’m not good for him,” I say miserably. “I have to let him go.”
“And how’s that working out for you?”
“We’re not meant to be,” I murmur.
This gets another snort. “That,” she says, “is a matter of opinion.”
“Oh, so it’s your opinion that Tucker and I, that we—”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “But I do know that he loves you. And you love him.”