In Your Dreams by Sarah Adams - 11

68 DAYS UNTIL I FAIL . . .

“That is not what happened,” says Noah.

“Yes it is! Oh my gosh!” Emily practically shouts. “Annie! You were there. Back me up.”

“Well . . . I mean . . .” Annie doesn’t want to get into it.

“This is not the time to be a sweetie pie!”

Is James avoiding me and that’s why it’s been so easy to not see him?

“I’m sorry, I just think that it’s not what you’re making it out to be, Emily,” says Annie.

Noah folds his arms. “Thank you.”

I haven’t seen James—not even a glimpse—in a few days. At first I thought it was because I was doing a really great job of dodging him. But now . . . I’m wondering if he’s the one dodging me ? I guess he could be trying to give me space after what he thinks was an exhaustion-induced panic attack in the kitchen. But what if it’s not? What if it has everything to do with me telling him I was attracted to him in a towel? What if he doesn’t want me to work with him anymore because he assumes I’m going to be salivating over him every second? I should have kept my big mouth shut.

Emily sits back in her seat, rolling her eyes at Annie. “Unbelievable.”

But . . . who can really blame me? James needs to be in the next Marvel movie. Or a Smallville reboot, because he definitely has the body of a farmer who is also secretly Superman. Plus everyone knows I am the frisky one in the family. It’s not a surprise my libido is a ravenous thing. I can’t be expected to see such a great body and just ignore it!

“Preposterous,” I accidentally say out loud.

“Thank you, Madison!” Emily swings her indignant gaze to Noah. “See. She agrees with me.”

I actually have no idea what they are talking about.

We are having a sibling Hearts tournament at the Pie Shop and for the last ten minutes they have been bickering about something not nearly as important as my towel fiasco.

This card game night has been a tradition of ours for forever (we have a lot of traditions, actually) and we used to get together, just the four of us, to play almost every Saturday night. Now, as adults with significant others and careers, we get together when we can. Which is why it’s happening now, on a Wednesday night.

“Yep. I agree with Emily.” I try to as much as possible because being on the opposite end of her viewpoint is like standing down a tornado. I’d rather not.

“Wuss,” says Noah before laying down his five of clubs and then looking up at me. “How’s it going over on the farm?”

“Fine.” My answer pops out quick. “Good.”

“Is James driving you nuts?” Annie asks.

“No, actually. Probably because I never see him.” I pause before laying down my king. “Do you guys think he seems busier than normal?” Aka avoiding me.

“He’s worked hard as long as I’ve known him,” says Noah, coming in hot with the most unhelpful answer in the world.

“Well, yeah. But I mean . . . he seems like he’s really working hard now. Is that new?”

“No.” Emily plays her card, and it comes in lowest so Annie has to take the pile with her ace. I sigh with relief—not because of the hand of cards but because Emily just confirmed James isn’t avoiding me. “He’s been working a lot more over the last two years. I think he’s had several people quit. But also he was sort of pulling double-duty there for a while as he was renovating your cottage.”

My gaze shoots up to Emily, but I realize too late that it was the wrong decision. She’s looking down, but her eyes are on me—waiting to see my reaction, apparently. “You mean when the construction crew was renovating the cottage, right? Because James specifically said they— implying a crew — when he was discussing the renovation.”

“Nope.” Noah is staring down at his cards, unbothered. “It was definitely only James. I swear he worked night and day to get it done. Not sure why.” He shakes his head. “Then again, I never know anything he’s doing anymore. I didn’t even know he was building a restaurant until I heard you’d signed on to be the chef.”

My breath is caught in my lungs. “I didn’t either until he offered me the position. But apparently he’d already had it in the works.”

“Which is so strange,” says Annie while moving one card from the front of her hand to the back. “Because I had been at the farm several days a week for the flower crops and he never mentioned a single thing. There weren’t even any work trucks there until after the week you signed on. It’s almost like . . .” Annie jumps like a squirrel ran across her feet and then looks up, gaze meeting directly with Emily’s. Something transpires.

What the hell? Emily and Annie don’t share a private telepathic language. Only me and Emily have that! I feel like ever since I’ve come back to Rome, everyone has been acting strange. Making weird faces. Blatantly keeping secrets. Like they’re all tiptoeing around me.

I’m scared what they’re all thinking but not saying is that they convinced James to build this restaurant for me because everyone knew I was going to fail out there in the real world. Convinced him to build me a trampoline, so when I fall I won’t break.

It wouldn’t be the first time they anticipated my screwup and prepared for it. There was the speech I was supposed to give at Noah and Amelia’s wedding—Emily knew I’d forget, so she wrote one for me, just in case. (And yes, I had to use it.) Before that, she submitted my college essays for me, fully aware I’d forget to do it myself.

And then there was the brief stint when I was obsessed with poetry. I entered one of my poems in the state fair and won. But later I found out I’d only won because Noah bribed the judges with free pies. Free pies!

There are countless more stories like those too.

So what if this whole thing—the cottage, the restaurant—isn’t an opportunity but a mercy? A concession? If that’s true, then I’m not chasing a dream. I’m being babysat so I don’t screw up again. What really guts me, though, is that it reinforces the one truth I don’t want to believe about myself.

Thing is, I am damn good at cooking, and I love creating a new recipe. But I didn’t love New York, and I didn’t thrive in the cutthroat culinary world out there. Does that have to equal failure?

Because I want answers, I call Annie out directly. “It’s almost like what ? Finish your sentence.”

“Oh. Nothing.” Her cards must be very interesting for how glued her eyes are to them.

I tip forward, hooking my finger over the cards and tugging them lower so she has to look at me. “No, you were definitely going to say something.”

Annie gives an angelic smile and a casual shrug. “I forget. Honestly, the thought just flew out of my head.”

“I don’t think honesty has anything to do with what you just said.”

And then, as if my siblings are completely on Annie’s side, Noah intentionally changes the subject to one we can’t ignore. “I think Amelia is pregnant.”

His words cannonball into the center of the room.

“What!” shouts Emily.

“Why do you think that?” I ask, trying but not entirely succeeding at keeping my gaze from Annie. She looks shocked. Poor thing has never lied well, and that extends to keeping stuff from us now. If I was on the fence about Annie being pregnant before, I’m absolutely sure of it now based on the way she’s looking at Noah.

“Because I caught her googling pregnancy symptoms the other night. And then just to be sure, I looked at her browser history—

”

“Wait, wait, wait. You looked at her browser history?!” I screech.

Noah’s green eyes meet mine. “Oh please. Don’t act appalled. Like you’re not the one who taught me to be nosy and invasive in the first place.”

“Who said anything about being appalled?” I smirk. “I’m proud. Anyway . . . go on. You looked at her browser history . . .”

“And I found that she’d searched ‘when is it safe to tell your family you’re pregnant?’ ” He eyes each of us. “Should I ask her about it?”

“ No, ” Annie says with authority. And then softly adds, “I don’t think you should. It’s her body. Let her come to you with her news when she’s ready. And you shouldn’t have mentioned it to us either.”

“Okay. Yeah,” Noah says, feeling chastised because Annie is not the reprimanding type, so when it happens, it stings.

But then, almost unconsciously, Annie’s hand goes to her stomach. We all notice in our own discreet ways. But the internal conversations are flowing through the table. Annie, however, is not looking at any of us and doesn’t catch it.

Noah looks at Annie’s hand, and then to me in question. I widen my eyes at him: Yes, idiot, she’s the pregnant one and Amelia was searching because we suspect Annie. He makes an ohhhh expression and then I could swear he seems sad. Like maybe he wanted Amelia to be pregnant. Emily gives us both extra-wide shut up eyes.

And then Noah clears his throat. “You’re right, Annie. I think I’ll leave it alone and let her tell me when she’s ready.”

It’s an awkward transition, but we finally finish our round of Hearts and they set up for another, but I can’t stick around. There are too many secrets in this family right now and I want to get answers to at least one that I know directly affects me.