Penn read me like a book. “It’ll be here by the morning. I promise.”
I smiled at him, blushing and suddenly more flustered than I’d been the entire night.
Penn read that too.
“I’ll let ya go. Have a good night, Anne.” He smiled, and I knew it was 100% genuine. No hard feelings.
Leaving Penn Hardick was a difficult thing to do.
Murphy breathed softly beside me. I watched the peaceful rise and fall of his chest while he slept.
He was so little. So fragile.
And for now... so safe.
After Penn had driven slowly away, I’d attempted to calm my heartbeat before going up the back stairs to Kate’s apartment. Sure enough, they were cuddling on her couch. Kate was watching Friends re-runs, and Murphy was completely passed out.
Kate hadn’t exactly been pleased to learn that her truck was still in Denver, but the fact that Penn had driven me home struck her as incredibly romantic. I tried to tell her it wasn’t. I had literally slept the entire drive.
She insisted it still was.
When I told her he was “sending someone” for her vehicle, confusion flooded her face. It was then that I began to describe the party in all of its grandeur. The lights, the crystal, red freaking carpet...
“Geez, Anne! I thought it was a party for his father?”
“It was.” I was still having a hard time breathing slowly.
“Well who the heck is this Penn anyway? His father’s gotta be some kind of big deal, I’d say!” We were keeping our voices down, but Kate’s octave had still risen considerably.
“Paul Hardick. Lincoln... Hardick. Paul Lincoln Hardick. There. That’s it. He’s some kind of –”
“Writer! Oh my God, Anne! Paul Hardick is a famous writer. Western romance – his books have been turned into movies! I guess I knew he lived somewhere on a ranch in Colorado. His bio says that much. I didn’t know he lived this close.” She was in awe.
“You read his books?” The idea was funny. Kate was incredibly no-nonsense about nearly everything. I couldn’t imagine her purposely sitting down with a romance novel and passing away productive hours of her day.
“I may have read a couple.” She had blushed to a deep red – one I had never witnessed on her face before. “I’m a woman, too, ya know.”
I giggled. “Of course you are. No judgment here. I just felt so stupid. I hadn’t even heard of him before. So. That on top of the fact that I’d just been blindsided by all the razzle-dazzle. I felt like an idiot.”
Kate was the one giggling now. “The only thing you should feel like an idiot about is using the term ‘razzle-dazzle’. Jesus, Anne. You’re like an eighty-five-year-old stuck in a twenty-three-year-old’s body.”
That made us both laugh a little louder, and Murphy stirred in Kate’s arms.
“Gonna take the little guy home. I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early.” I nimbly took Murphy into my arms.
“Countin’ on it.” She winked at me, and I quietly closed her door before carefully making my way down the stairs with a sleepy Murphy in tow.
The streets of Corydon were silent. Clean. Peaceful. The back-alley entrance to my own place was well-kept and utterly devoid of any human activity. It was always like that here.
And now, in bed with little Murph, I realized that I was starting to feel safe for the first time in a very long time.
Why would you want to screw that up?
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly.
Penn was still such an unknown factor in an already very complicated situation. He was handsome, funny, and just good. Penn was a good person.
And even if he hated it, Penn was a good person who was used to having money. Probably a lot of money.
It was possible that his attraction to me was more about giving an eff you to his father. Or maybe he was just bored.
This night’s party had been full of gorgeous girls. It wasn’t like he had to take me or end up with an ogre.
He deserved better, he was used to better, and he could most definitely get better. How long could it really take him to figure that out?
Maybe when his daddy took away the keys to Penn’s inheritance or something. Paul had seemed nice – but people could seem like a lot of things that they weren’t. I knew that better than anyone.
And Paul really hadn’t had any idea who I actually was. Even with my last name, no actual clues as to what I came from were evident.
What would Penn’s father and brothers think when they found out I was just a trailer-trash, dirt-poor, foster kid, running from her abusive ex’s psycho brother?
More importantly, what would Penn think?
Maybe he’d try to be a gentleman about it. Maybe he’d even feel protective for a while.
But eventually, he’d see what his entire family would have surely already told him.
I was the wrong stock. I wasn’t the kind of girl you proudly paraded around the world. Eventually, one of those douchebag camera people were going to dig and dig and figure out who I was. Even if Penn had been able to overlook it in his private life, it would still be entirely too much humiliation for him to bear when the public knew.
He shouldn’t have to bear it.
I never would have agreed to our first date – if you could even really call it a date – if I had known who Penn was and what he came from. And I was confident that had he known the same about me, he never would have asked.
But that kiss...
Tingles spread through my body at the thought. I couldn’t deny how that had felt, but did it really change anything?
A kiss is just a kiss, Anne. It didn’t magically turn you into a princess.
I snuggled closer to Murphy, burying my face in his blond shag.
The evening had ended beautifully.
But for everyone’s sake, it was best to just let that stay “the end”.
“Disagree, disagree, disagree.” Kate shook her head fervently. “If Penn is even half the man you seem to think he is, your background will mean absolutely nothing to him. Now. Now is all there ever is, Anne.”
I swung around on the revolving metal barstool that sat behind the counter, letting my feet fly so I could go faster. Murphy, who was playing nearby with a bin of toys that we kept in the store for him, clapped his little hands together and belly laughed.
Murphy always played behind the counter when Kate had to run errands or needed a lunchbreak. On Sundays I just kept him with me the entire time. We were only open until 2 p.m., and the customer flow was ridiculously non-existent.
But Kate got a lot of inventory work done on Sundays, especially with me watching the front of the store. And it was peaceful.
“Maybe it won’t mean anything to him, but it’ll mean something to his family,” I said, holding my ground as best I knew how.
“He’s a grown man, Anne. He doesn’t have to get his family’s approval to date a girl he likes.” Just the idea of it made Kate’s brow furrow.
“Okay, well I also don’t wanna be the thorn he uses to jab at his dad’s side. This – this is just him finding a girl to date that he knows will really stick it to his father.” That was one of my main theories, and I was sticking with it.
“Does he seem like that type of person, Anne?” Kate gazed at me patiently, a pen behind her ear and another in her hand.