Missy swallowed uncomfortably, remembering the stupid wish she’d made on the loading dock after Lucas left her on Friday night. She’d looked up at the sky and found the brightest star, closing her eyes and hearing the wish in her head before she had a chance to talk herself out of such silliness.
A light gasp interrupted her daydream, and she turned to find her mother behind her. Emma Branson may have been standing behind her daughter for a while, watching her in the mirror, but Missy hadn’t noticed.
“Oh, Missy,” her mother murmured, covering her mouth with her hands. “You look so beautiful.”
Missy smiled, smoothing her pants uncertainly. “You think so?”
“Swear to God, baby girl. You look like you’re goin’ to church…or to a wedding!”
“I’m not, mama. Just out dinner.”
“Oh.” Emma’s face fell, jowls wobbling against the collar of her faded floral housedress. “With a man?”
“Uh-huh. But he asked me proper,” said Missy. “He’s nice.”
Her mother worried the Kleenex in her hands, looking nervous. “You comin’ back here later, Missy?”
“I don’t know,” said Missy. But Jenny Lindstrom’s face flashed before her eyes and she changed her answer. “No, mama. I’m not inviting him back here later. I’ll be coming home alone tonight.”
“Even if the date goes good?”
Missy took another look at herself in the mirror, at her outward transformation from “Easy Missy” to a nice-looking girl.
“Especially if the date goes good,” she answered, just as the doorbell rang.
Jenny Lindstrom would be proud.
Chapter 3
When Missy opened the door, Lucas felt his face break into the most unguarded smile he’d offered anyone in over four years.
Man alive, she looked pretty!
For him.
She’d dressed up like this for him, an ugly ex-con with nothing to offer a pretty girl. His heart started thumping like mad.
“’Night, mama,” Missy called back into the house, closing the door behind her.
She struggled to put on her jacket as he watched, feeling dazed, but finally he snapped out of his trance, reaching out to give her a hand. He took the lapels, holding the jacket open so she could step into it.
The smile she gave him in return? It made his throat dry and his cold cheeks hot.
“You look beautiful,” he said, offering her his arm.
“Thank you,” she said as they stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking toward town.
He’d seen her in little other than her work clothes, except for once or twice when he’d seen her in jeans—too-tight jeans—when she’d come in to pick up food on her day off.
This was a different girl. This was a different woman.
“These are new clothes,” she admitted, a sheepish twinge to her voice. “I haven’t been on many, um, dates. Real dates. And I remembered an old friend of mine who dressed up when she…”
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s silly and I’m not saying it right.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I saw her recently and she’s a ‘nice girl.’ Her name’s Jenny Lindstrom. And, um, anyway, I saw her at the Holiday Stroll last weekend. She was dressed up all special for a date and I thought, well…maybe I could do that too. I could dress like a ‘nice girl,’ too.”
It hurt his heart to hear these words, and yet she offered them without a shred of self-pity, with nothing more than honesty and a hint of wistfulness.
“You are a nice girl,” he insisted.
She pressed on his arm, turning to him, making him stop walking and meet her eyes. “No, Lucas. I’m not.”
“I’m with you right now, and I say you are.”
“Wishing it’s true won’t make it so.”
“Sometimes wishes come true,” he murmured, thinking about his life exactly four months ago today. He’d had four more days left on his sentence. Locked up. Now here he was, taking the prettiest girl in Gardiner out for dinner.
“Haven’t we already had this conversation?” she asked, giving him a small smile. “I don’t wish on stars, remember?”
“Yeah…except you were out there for a few minutes after I went back inside. I wondered if you’d maybe made an exception.”
A slight shrug of her shoulders made him wonder if maybe she had.
“I have an idea,” he said as they started walking again. “Tell me what you wish instead.”
“Okay…let’s see…” She chuckled lightly as her hand squeezed his arm. “Well, I’d wish folks were nicer to me, I guess. I know why they’re not. But I wish they’d give me a chance, you know? There’s more to me than…you know…”
He covered her hand with his, encouraging her to keep going, but she stayed quiet. He asked gently, “What else?”
“What else? Oh, I don’t know. Well…maybe it would be nice to have a friend. You know, a girlfriend. No, two!” She giggled, and the sound was like music to Lucas. “Two girlfriends. And we’d make popcorn and watch ‘The Bachelor’ together. And they’d come in to visit me while I was working, and I’d give them free Cokes. And I wish I had”—her voice was softer now, and Lucas strained to hear her, sensing this part was especially important—“a boyfriend. Someone who liked me. Not for the—the other stuff, but for who I am. Really liked me. Maybe even…”
“Maybe even what?”
“No. Nothing. That’s enough.” She cleared her throat. “Your turn. What do you wish for?”
He glanced over at her face as they walked across the bridge, the Yellowstone River rushing below. Stopping to loosen his arm from her hand, he reached for the railing, and she sidled up next to him, resting one elbow on the metal bar so she could look at him.
“Well,” he started, “I wish I’d never gone to prison. I wish my sister Jody hadn’t ended up marrying the guy who I beat up. I wish that I was still a movie theater manager in Missoula instead of a short-order cook in Gardiner. But, even if I was, I’d wish for this blond-haired, blue-eyed girl I know to be my girlfriend, because I really like her. Because she’s the nicest girl I know.”
He turned to find Missy’s eyes bright with tears. “You have to stop crying every time I’m good to you, Missy. Because I’m only going to treat you good. And I want you to—”
She surged forward, pressing her lips to his.
It was the last thing he expected, but it only took a moment for his arms to close around her, pulling her tight against his chest, tilting his head so their lips fit better together. She whimpered as he pushed his tongue gently between her lips, the smell of her tropical lip gloss driving him wild as her gloved hands slid up his chest to rest on his cheeks. Aside from the fact that he hadn’t kissed a woman in many years, he was smitten with Missy, really into her, and holding her in his arms felt better than he could have imagined.
But he also didn’t want for her to think she needed to be physical with him just because he was taking her to dinner. It seemed like the lines between offering herself to someone out of real affection and offering herself to someone for a thousand other bad reasons were very blurred for her. And frankly, unless she really liked him, unless she only wanted to be with him, he’d just as soon not make out with her, not fall for her, not get his beat-up heart broken.