All-American Princess - Maggie Dallen Page 0,31

He thinks we need to do something more…”

“Tess,” I snapped. “Stop being vague, and tell me what he wants me to do.”

She sighed, and I saw her shoulders sag for a second before she straightened and turned to face me. “Go rest up, Lila. Monday morning, we’re going to the high school.”

I blinked, my stomach sinking, but I’d be damned if I let her see that. “What for?”

She arched her brows. “Congratulations, sis, you’re about to become the newest member of Pinedale High’s senior class.”

Eleven

Jack

For the record, I didn’t want to feel sorry for Delilah Devereaux.

When I showed up for our first day of school, I spotted her walking through the hallways and I was determined to ignore the stab of sympathy that I inevitably felt for any new kids in this tiny, cliquey school. Any newcomer was treated like an alien, for a little while at least, until they managed to fit in.

It didn’t help that Delilah wasn’t just new, she also stuck out like a sore thumb.

A stunningly gorgeous sore thumb.

“What is she doing here?” Amber hissed beside me in homeroom. She was addressing Brandon, who sat in front of us, and we both saw his shoulders lift in a shrug.

Lila was sitting in the corner by herself, acting as though she wasn’t aware of the stares and the whispers.

That only made the people staring and whispering more glaringly rude. Like they actually believed she was some sort of ice sculpture that was incapable of hearing their remarks.

Brandon didn’t seem to care what she was still doing here, but I watched her from across the room. Her head was held high, her gaze aloof as she kept her eyes focused on the blackboard, as if there was something there more interesting than Mrs. Crawford’s name scribbled in chalk.

There could only be one reason why she was still here.

Brandon.

He hadn’t told me exactly what she’d said to him, but he’d said enough. She wanted him to come back to Hollywood with her for that ridiculous show. She wanted him to take on his father’s role.

The very idea brought a surge of anger. I tried hard not to think too much about Brandon’s dad. Not that I hadn’t liked the guy. I had. I’d only been a kid when he’d died, but I’d felt the loss. He’d been like a second father to me and a hero to all of us kids in Pinedale.

But I also liked Brandon’s mom—she and my mother were close, and after my mom died Brandon’s mother had taken on a maternal role in my life.

She’d changed after his father died, but I still cared about her.

I still kept her secrets.

That was why I didn’t like thinking about Frank MacMillan. His life and his death had been pushed aside to the dark recesses of my brain. The less I thought about him, the less I had to grapple with the fact that I’d been keeping secrets from my best friend. The guy who was as close to me as a brother.

I didn’t believe for a second that Brandon didn’t know why Lila was still here—he was why she was here. But I let him feign ignorance with Amber. I didn’t know what was going on between the two of them exactly, but they’d gotten close this summer, and I was rooting for them.

If he didn’t want her to know that Lila was trying to woo him away from Pinedale, that was his business.

My business? That was making sure she didn’t succeed.

It wasn’t like I didn’t want the best for Brandon, and if I honestly thought leaving his home right now would be for the best, then I’d be the one to pack his bags. But I knew better than anyone how much his mother needed him, how much the ranch needed him—and more than all that, I knew how much Brandon needed to steer clear of Hollywood.

We’d all seen what that industry had done to his father, and his father had been a hundred times stronger than Brandon. Frank MacMillan had been a grown man with a family and a business before he’d even stepped foot on a sound stage. Brandon was too good a guy to survive in that world, and he was sheltered in a way his father never had been.

I’d be damned if I watched him go down that road. It would kill his mother, and his father would be rolling over in his grave. He was safe here, where I could protect