terms and phrases from hundreds of different popular and well-known essays. Almost plagiarizing but not quite. Honestly, given that it was a computer engineering scholarship, not creative writing or literature, I don’t think that would have been much of an issue for the rest of the committee, so I was just going to bring it up in passing, almost as a positive. But then when I started looking into the guy more, a lot of things about him were fake. There were discrepancies about his family life and with one of his test scores. He’d inflated some of his undergraduate individual class grades as well.
She shook her head. “Nobody else was looking at that stuff, they were too busy being wowed at his spectacular computer abilities. I brought it up when all the discrepancies were finally too much for me to ignore.”
Baby finished his last bite of pizza. “Oh man. So what happened?”
She shrugged. “It was a huge debate. At first, nobody wanted to believe it. Then they said an essay wasn’t really important, but then when they started looking into the applicant further, more stuff came to light. It was sad really because none of that should have affected the decision. The guy was obviously a computer genius overall, and if he’d been honest, even if the other stuff wasn’t perfect, he might’ve still been the best fellowship applicant.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, it was high drama. Word got out that I had been the one to blow the lid on this scammer, although scammer is way too harsh a word, and I never used it. But my linguistics department was more than glad to take the credit for what they’d called a near-disaster averted. So, that was my five minutes of fame.”
“When did all this happen?”
“About ten months ago.”
She could see him do the math in his head, trying to figure out how she’d gone from hero to zero so quickly. It was something she’d tried to figure out herself.
How she wished to God she’d never been part of that scholarship committee. Yeah, she’d been a hero for a few days, but how many times had that situation been thrown back in her face? Saying she’d become an attention-whore. Accusing her of leaking the story so that she could get the recognition. She would have much rather that kid be starting his fellowship at Harvard regardless of his lies than for her to have exposed him and lost everything because of it.
“Well sounds like you were the hero. You figured out what nobody else saw.”
She finished her last bite of pizza. “And it got me a trip to Oak Creek for my trouble.”
“As all heroic deeds should. After all, we’re the ferret capital of the world.”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “Ferret? I thought Wyoming was the Cowboy State.”
He grinned. “Ferret capital of the world is the official slogan of Meeteetse, a tiny town about an hour from here. Most people think of cowboys and rodeos because of Cheyenne, but out here...”
Baby forced her to try Mr. DiMuzio’s world-famous tiramisu the waiter brought over as he gave her what couldn’t possibly be a true history lesson about this part of the state. By the time the dessert was gone, her problems at Harvard seemed far away. She couldn’t remember ever laughing as much as she had here with Baby tonight.
“You need to laugh more, Cupcake,” he said as he signaled the waiter for the bill.
“I’m not really a laugh out loud sort of person.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” he said. “Maybe you’ll find in this new situation that the sort of person you are might be a little different.”
Baby paid the bill and she thanked him for dinner. He placed his hand at the small of her back as they left the restaurant. He waved to Mr. DiMuzio and praised him for the magnificent food as they went.
“We missed the sunset. That was why I was originally picking you up at four o’clock,” he said. “I guess that will have to wait until next time.”
Next time.
Another date. Another date she shouldn’t say yes to but knew she would.
Chapter Sixteen
Baby held the truck door open for Quinn, and she slid inside. This woman was dangerous for him.
The more he knew about her, the more he wanted to know. But he was a little afraid the same might hold true for her. She might not fall into the same trap as everyone else here in Oak Creek. She might see him for who