Fool Me Twice (9 page)

I’m standing next to Bailey, staring at a pile of mashed potatoes, my lips screwed up to the side. It looks like … glue. Kinda grayish and goopy and completely unappealing. “ ‘Soylent Green is people!’” I mutter.

“Are you quoting one of your weird movies again?” Bailey asks from beside me.

“It’s not weird.
Soylent Green
is a classic.”

“That doesn’t make it cool,” Bailey says, watching as big glops of mashed potatoes fall off the spoon and back into the vat. “Ew.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” I drop the big metal spoon back into the tray, and it makes a
plop
noise. Super appetizing.

We slide our trays farther along the buffet, to where the fried chicken sits, and Bailey grabs the tongs, putting a piece on each of our paper plates. Next up is the corn on the cob, which
glistens with butter, and then a biscuit. If I didn’t spend every day working so hard, I’d probably gain twenty pounds every summer.

Bailey pokes at a pile of green beans, then snarls her lip up in disgust and tosses the spoon back into the bin. “I still think they serve us last night’s leftovers for lunch,” she says.

“Except it was brisket last night. Chicken was two nights ago.”

“Even worse,” she says. We grab bottled water, then gather up our trays and cross the little lunchroom, the place reserved only for the workers. It’s the original dining room, from when the guests used to dine side by side with the ranch hands.

“Hi, Mr. Ramsey,” Bailey says as we walk past where he’s sitting with the two assistant managers—one specifically assigned to the golf course and the other to hospitality. They’re all dressed in pressed button-down shirts, little gold tags pinned to their chests. I’d be surprised that they’re in the staff lunchroom at all, except they’ve got papers scattered all over the table, so it looks suspiciously like a meeting.

Bailey pauses. “Did Tricia tell you one of the washing machines in the spa is broken?”

He picks up the leather portfolio, snapping it open and scanning down the page. “Repairman will be here between two and four. Be sure the bill is given to Patty in the office.”

“Will do.”

I muster a little wave as I follow Bailey past their table, and we find seats as far away from the managers as possible. I plunk down on an old chair that has probably been around since the days the ranch held biweekly cattle drives.

“I’m starving,” Bailey says.

“Did you fold a thousand towels again? Because
I’m
starving, but I actually mucked stalls.”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t deserve to be hungry,” she says, waving her hand at me as she bites into a biscuit. “I get it, I get it.”

“I’m so not saying that. But you should seriously join me in the stables sometime. I think you’d gain a whole new appreciation for the work I do every day, and maybe even let me take the shower first for once.”

“No way,
you
are supposed to join me in the spa. But your stupid blue hair isn’t washing out,” she says, tipping her head to the side and studying my ponytail.

“I know,” I say, reaching up and tucking it farther underneath my Serenity Ranch ball cap. “I thought it would be more temporary than this. I guess I should have used less dye.” I screw my lips up to the side. “I just got the
best
prank idea.”

Bailey brightens, then claps her hands together. “Oooh, spill!”

“Hey, guys,” a voice interrupts.

Adam’s standing next to our table, wearing dirty jeans and a T-shirt with the Serenity logo on the chest, his floppy brown hair falling into his eyes.

“Oh, hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

“Just grabbing lunch,” he says.

“Come sit with us,” Bailey says. “Plenty of room.”

“Nah, I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“Are you sure? Because the two-day-old chicken is
delicious,’”
Bailey says.

He chuckles. “No, I’m actually on my way out to the green,” he says, glancing at his watch. “One of the big lights is down
and apparently some VIP guys are expecting to do some night golf.”

“Fascinating,” Bailey says, like she actually means it. She turns closer to him, propping her elbow up on the back of the chair and leaning toward him. “Your job must be
super
interesting,” she says.

He glances over at me, like he can’t figure out if she’s being sincere or she’s messing with him. I don’t think the poor guy has any idea that what she’s doing is supposed to be flirtation.

“Fascinating
,” I say, once he’s out of earshot.
“Your job must just be sooooo interesting.”
I twirl my hair around my finger and bat my eyes over and over again.

“Shut up. Flattery usually works,” she says.

“I can see why. It’s so
genuine
.”

“I’m serious! Guys love their egos stroked. I don’t know what his deal is.”

“Maybe you found the one guy in the world immune to your charms.”

“Not happening,” she says with vehemence. “He’ll be eating out of my hand by the end of the summer.”

“Mm-hmm,” I say, nodding my head exaggeratedly.

“Why are we talking about
my
love life? We have serious scheming to do when it comes to
yours
. Tell me about this idea you have.”

I grin. “It requires a little more thought, but … do you think you can get more of this blue dye?” I ask, pointing to my hair.

Her eyes light up. “Are we going to dye his hair while he’s sleeping? Or put it in his shampoo somehow?”

I shake my head. “Nope. Think bigger. Get some red too.”

“I’m
dying
of suspense!” she says. “Just spill already!”

“Sorry, I’m keeping this one close to the chest for a little longer. But it’s genius. Totally genius. He’ll rue the day. Rue it, I tell you.”

“You suck.” Bailey pouts.

I laugh, enjoying that I have the upper hand for the first time in, well, ever. “You’ll find out tonight,” I say. “I’m going to need some help.”

“Okay fine,” she says, watching Adam as he crosses the room. He gives us a little wave, and she waves back before looking at me again.

“All will be revealed. Just be at the cabin by ten and we’ll sneak out together.”

“Yeah, yeah, be all mysterious then.” She downs the rest of her water, then turns and tosses the bottle toward the nearest recycling can. It bounces across the floor, echoing loudly, but she doesn’t move to pick it up. Instead she just turns back to me. “We should actually stay up late tonight and preplan a ton of pranks, you know? How many do you think we’ll need?”

I shrug. “I figure I’ll just prank him until I am sure he’s in love with me.

“The biggest prank of all is that I’m not really dating him. So if he doesn’t get his memory back, we’ll go to the big dance and I can dump him afterward,” I say. “That’s, what, six weeks from now?”

“Yeah. Makes sense,” she says. She looks over her shoulder as a guy walks by, stooping down to pick up her discarded bottle. She waves at the random dude and mouths,
Thank you
. Man, what it must be like to know the world revolves around you. She
turns back to me, smiling. “Okay, so I just got my own genius idea,” she says.

“Oh, great. I love your genius ideas.”

She laughs. “You shut up. You really do love them. Without me your life would be Boringtown, USA.”

“Yeah, yeah. Genius idea. Get to it.”

“We should totally go on a double date. I’ll get a date for the Fourth of July. We can all watch fireworks together.”

“Sure.” I stand, shoving my chair back and gathering what remains of my lunch. “Landon and I are teaching lessons again this afternoon, so I gotta jet. See you at the cabin later?”

“Yep.” She nods, making no move. She has exactly an hour for lunch and she’ll use every last minute.

“ ’K, bye,” I say, walking away, stepping through the door and out into the sunshine.

I shouldn’t be looking forward to seeing him so much.

Chapter Thirteen

“Where are we going, exactly?” Bailey asks, walking beside me on the cement pathways, a paper bag with little twine handles swinging in her hand. I know it contains the promised blue and red dye, and it’s almost impossible to resist snatching up the bag to be sure she has enough.

But Bailey is nothing if not dependable. She’s got what I need.

“The stables,” I say, glancing around to see if anyone is watching us. “And seriously, do your shoes have to be that loud?”

“They’re flip-flops!” she says, sticking her foot out and shaking it around. “There’s no way to walk in them without the flip and the flop!”

I roll my eyes. “I swear if those dumb sparkly things get us caught …”

“If I had known we were going to be sneaking around in
broad view
, I may have planned accordingly. But someone was being all secretive and didn’t tell me what was going on.”

“Sorry,” I say, glancing back at Logan’s cabin one more time. There’s a lamp on but no movement. “I had to do some Googling to be sure this isn’t, like, inhumane.”

“Hair dye?”

“Yeah.” I take in the silent, shadowed stables. “Or, well, fur dye.”

There’s a beat of silence before she reacts. “Oh my God, you’re a
genius!”
Bailey hollers.

“Shhhhh!”

She lowers her voice, leaning in. “We’re totally dying the spots on his horse, aren’t we?”

“Yes. I’m thinking we can dilute it down a little so it won’t last as long, but he’ll have to ride like this in the rodeo.”

“I take back everything I’ve ever said about your lack of scheming skills. I love this.”

I bow, accepting her praise. “Good. Because it’s going to take a while, so I need your help.”

“At your service,” she says, saluting me.

“Mr. Ramsey is going to hate it, but Landon is one of the most exciting guys to watch in the rodeo. No way is he going to boot him.”

Once at the barn, we slide the door open just enough to slip in, and then pause to allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. I flip on just one switch so that the lights at the far side of the stables click on. Lucky for me, Storm’s stall is at that end, near the wash rack.

“So that stall there has an extra door to the paddocks. I figure
you can peek out periodically and see if anyone is coming,” I say, taking the bag from Bailey. “If all is quiet, come down and help me in ten minutes.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

I walk down the aisle and slip into Storm’s stall, then bring him out and clip him into the wash rack. I step back, studying the piebald pattern of his spots. Lots of white to cover. Hopefully it works better than the blue dots on Landon’s face.

I work in silence for a while, enjoying the companionship of Storm and the promise of Landon’s reaction when he sees what I’ve done to his most prized possession. I know a prank like this could drive him away, and ruin my grandiose plan of dumping him, but I don’t know for sure that his memory loss is permanent. These pranks are the only way to ensure that I get
some
form of revenge, even if it’s not the crushing blow I’m hoping for.

Ten minutes later, Bailey joins me, working the red into a spot on Storm’s shoulder.

“Okay, so we should brainstorm what we can do to make sure he falls for you,” Bailey says.

I squeeze some more blue dye into the white spot behind Storm’s withers. “Definitely. Any ideas?”

“Well, I spent a while on his Facebook page today,” Bailey says. “He doesn’t have it set to private.”

“And?”

“I wrote down a few things we can use to make you seem like his perfect girl.”

I crouch down, running some blue dye down Storm’s front leg. “Like what?”

“He’s super into the Seahawks,” she says. Storm sighs deeply,
clearly enjoying the massage-in of this dye. “He likes a few of their fan pages and talks about Wilson Russell—”

“Russell Wilson,” I correct.

Bailey leans over so that she can see me past Storm’s body and eyeballs me. “Since when do you like football?”

I shrug. “My dad talks about that guy all the time. Plus Landon has that Seahawks shirt he wears to school.”

“Oh, so you’ve been paying attention to him all year,” Bailey teases. “So just regurgitate whatever your dad has said about Russell Wilson, and Landon will be all ears.”

“Done. What—” I stop abruptly. “Did you just hear something?”

“No, why?”

“Shhh!” I freeze, leaning toward the aisle. And the unmistakable sound of boots hitting the cement floor.

Bailey’s eyes flare wider.

I take in a few ragged breaths of air, trying to steady my heart, and then lean slowly out of the wash rack to see who is coming.

Marshall is heading straight toward us.

I jerk back into the wash rack and close my eyes for a second to keep from freaking out. I think my heart is trying to climb out of my throat.

“It’s my boss!” I hiss.

“What do we do?” Bailey whispers.

I shrug and mouth,
I don’t know
.

The footsteps grow louder, and then he stops just shy of the rack. A callused, tanned hand reaches around the corner for the light switch that controls the fluorescent fixture above Storm’s head.

The rack goes dark, and his footsteps retreat. I blow out a silent breath.

And then Storm stomps a foot, his steel shoe clacking on the cement.

Marshall’s footsteps return and the light flicks back on, and I’m crouched there, blinking up at him.

Crap. I am so busted
.

His eyes sweep over the horse, taking in the red and blue spots we’ve completed so far. He glances at Bailey first, then his gaze settles on me.

Please do not fire me
. The panic rises. I stand, meeting Marshall’s gaze.

“I take it Landon doesn’t know about this?” Marshall asks, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. He’s nothing like the trio of managers Bailey and I encountered earlier today. His jeans and boots are, like, a million years old, and his button-down lacks any semblance of the crisp shirts worn by Mr. Ramsey and his minions.

Yet the hardened cowboy is no less intimidating.

“Uh, no,” I say. “I thought it could be, uh, you know, a surprise.” I add an arm flourish.