All-American Princess - Maggie Dallen Page 0,4

registers. They all stopped talking and turned to face me as I stepped close.

Look away, yokels, I wanted to say. Nothing to see here.

But I couldn’t say that because as much as I hated to admit it, Tess had a point when she’d said I’d have to play nice. This was a small town, and from what I could tell, small towns were the societal equivalent of a Twitter meme. A single hissy fit, and it would go viral. The last thing I needed was for Brandon MacMillan to hear something bad about me before I had a chance to charm him.

So, I pasted on a smile, flashed my pearly white teeth, and politely made my way past the slack-jawed Neanderthals to the counter. An older middle-aged guy stood behind it, with a weathered face and a smattering of gray at his temples and in his beard. “What can I do for you, darlin’?”

“Uh, I’m the new tenant upstairs?” I adopted Tess’s sweet, ingratiating tone. The one that made it sound like she was forever asking a question, too uncertain and fragile to make a comment without an inflection at the end. It was the tone she used with hotel desk clerks and waiters when she was trying to get her way. Tess was a kill-them-with-kindness sort.

I was not.

“Of course!” The older man grinned, and it made his whole face crease into deep-set lines. “The Baker girls.”

Baker was Tess’s mother’s last name—it was the name that she’d taken to keep some distance from my father so she could stand on her own two feet. As far as acts of independence went, it was about as effective as fighting a bear with a flyswatter.

I used my mother’s name when it suited me—like when I was using her credit card to buy myself a birthday present—but I had no problem using my father’s name to open doors.

Unfortunately, my father and Tess had decided that while I was here, I would go by Tess’s mother’s name as well to give me some anonymity until I was ready to reveal my true identity to Brandon.

We don’t want to scare him off, my father had explained. ‘Him’ being Brandon, of course. My mark. My target.

Anyway, all this was to say, I smiled even wider at the Baker girls comment and nodded stupidly. Yup, that’s me. Just your average hick from nowheresville.

“I’m Don Carlton,” the man said. “I own this place.” He looked around the hardware store proudly, an emperor gazing out over his domain. I followed his gaze, wondering idly if there was some magical kingdom here I couldn’t see. All I could detect was a dingy old store filled with nails and tools.

“How’s the apartment working out for you?” he asked.

My smile felt frozen as he and the local Greek chorus waited for my response. “Uh…” Your apartment is a hellhole. It should be boarded up and quarantined.

Somehow I doubted that would go over well.

He cut off any polite lie I might have come up with, the older man’s gaze fixing on someone behind me instead. “Ah, just the guy I was hoping to see. Jack, get over here and meet our new tenant.”

I turned around, and there he was. The guy. The hot guy. The one I’d seen on the street earlier. My smile never faltered, but his expression was far from friendly. His dark eyes met mine, and my polite smile suddenly felt too big, too fake. For a second, I could have sworn he saw right through me.

For one paranoid moment, I had the feeling that he knew exactly who I was, where I was from, and what I was doing here.

“Jack, meet Lila Baker.”

I blinked at the unfamiliar last name, but I stuck a hand out politely. He looked down at it for a moment, as if shaking hands was some bizarre foreign ritual, before taking my hand in his. His hand was warm and rough, and his grip was strong.

“Lila, this is my son, Jack. He’ll be a senior this year, which puts you right about the same age, I’d imagine.”

Jack’s father didn’t wait for either of us to comment. And really, what was there to say? So we were the same age. Neat. Clearly, that was where our similarities ended.

I studied him like he was studying me. Which was to say, thoroughly. He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was scrutinizing me as he dropped my hand.

I realized two things as Don Carlton told me