Chapter 3

Tristan Marchande was the most beautiful human Aria had ever laid eyes on. If she had a poster of him, she’d tack it up above her bed like a besotted teenager. The fact that she shared a room with Havana, who was engaged to Caleb, meant nothing at all. They could both stare at him. She’d share.

It was all make-believe anyway.

It wasn’t like he’d give her a second glance or anything. Sure that stung a little, but it was so much safer to dream about a stunning, out-of-reach angel of a man. If she set her sights on someone she had a chance with, then this hypothetical guy would eventually leave. Just like everyone else in her life had done. That was not a recipe for happiness.

No. Much better to have a harmless crush on a former SEAL with a physique that could bring a woman to tears. No one had to know she’d set her sights on him strictly because nothing ever could or would happen. That was the only way to avoid getting hurt.

“How did you know Caleb was the one?” she asked Havana, who stood behind her braiding Aria’s hair in an intricate fish-bone pattern. It would be horrendously difficult to unbraid later, but Aria would never say a word.

Havana had been gone for eight of the longest years of Aria’s life. Now her sister was back in Superstition Springs for good and there was literally nothing important enough to potentially squabble over. She’d much rather hear her sister talk about something fun like her fiancé. Just because love wasn’t in the cards for Aria didn’t mean she hated the concept. On the contrary. It was great to see her sister so happy.

“Because he thinks I’m bossy and loves me anyway,” Havana announced immediately with a happy sigh. “I can be myself twenty-four/seven without censure. What is that, but heaven on earth?”

The middle Nixon sister, Ember, spread her red-gold hair behind her as she settled into a pillow on the king-sized bed that Aria and Havana shared. Ember had taken a tiny room on the second floor where all of Serenity’s ex-SEALs currently lived since there was no extra room on the third floor of the partially renovated hotel their aunt had bought a couple of years ago.

Her sister came upstairs enough that she might as well live there. She’d wandered into the bedroom a few minutes ago, seemingly content to watch Havana’s fingers fly through Aria’s stick straight hair, no mention of the whereabouts of her seven-year-old. Neither Aria nor Havana had asked after Judd since Ember got snippy the moment anyone said a word about her son.

“Really?” Ember’s voice dripped derision as she jumped into the exchange. “That’s what you find attractive in a man? A guy who calls you names, then tries to make up for it with declarations of his feelings. Please.”

Geez. That’s what Ember had taken from Havana’s comment? It had sounded pretty nice to Aria but since she’d never been in love, maybe there was a trick to it that other women learned on the fly.

“What do you think makes a guy attractive then?” Havana shot back over her shoulder. “A tractor?”

Ooh, interesting question almost assuredly designed to get some answers out of Ember about who the father of her son was. The young boy her long-lost sister had showed up with a few weeks ago looked exactly like Ember and their mother so there were no clues there, and her sister had been shockingly closed mouthed about his parentage. Just like she had been at seventeen. The only males of approximately the right age and who were also rumored to have been Ember’s lovers in high school were Farmer Moon’s sons.

Aria glanced at Ember in the mirror, but their sister’s face betrayed nothing. Too bad. Aria wouldn’t ask. If Ember wanted them to know, she’d tell them. And it wasn’t like she’d called a whole bunch over the last eight years that she’d been gone either. Havana had at least tried to maintain her relationship with Aria via phone, which was more than Ember had done.

“I like a guy who knows when to keep his mouth shut,” Ember finally said cryptically. “Silence is sexy.”

No doubt a nod to whichever local boy had gotten her pregnant but hadn’t spilled the secret in all these years. Of course it was possible that she’d never divulged the truth to the father, either. Maybe she didn’t even know. Ember had been rather free with her affections back in high school, yet another source of conflict between Ember and Havana, especially after the positive pregnancy test. Aria had always avoided male attention on purpose, not that her lack of curves and dull red hair had inspired much of that in the first place.

“Figures.” Havana smirked. “You’ve never met a wall you couldn’t have an argument with. Why not pick a guy whose ear you can talk off? I feel kind of sorry for whoever you end up with.”

“Who said I was in the market?” The hard cross of Ember’s arms belied her mild tone.

“I like a guy I can have a conversation with,” Aria threw in before the whole thing devolved into exactly the kind of argument Havana meant. Those two had always clashed and nothing had apparently changed other than the fact that this time, no one had stormed off to another city and stayed for almost a decade. Not yet anyway. “Cheekbones are nice too. You could cut butter with Tristan’s.”

“Because that’s a useful quality in a man.” This from Ember who apparently had appointed herself the naysayer of all Nixon women’s opinions about the opposite gender.

“What do you think is a useful quality?” Havana asked point-blank, pointing the comb in her hand at Ember. “You know, if you were in the market?”

“Why all the interest in my love life?” Ember responded instead of answering, likely to avoid the question. Obviously she didn’t get the concept of conversation between sisters, a deficiency that Aria, for one, would like to change.

“Because you’ve been gone for a long time,” Aria explained before Havana could say something else that would set Ember off. “We want to get to know you again. You’re the one who came back home. Why would you do that if it wasn’t to reforge the bonds with your family?”

Ember’s brows raised in an instant reaction, as if she had plenty to say about how wrong Aria’s guess was, but suddenly, she didn’t want to hear it. This was her life too and her sisters were home together for the first time since Aria had been a teenager. Why couldn’t they just all get along and stop sniping at each other?

“Tell us about how Caleb proposed,” she blurted out to Havana, desperate to change the subject.

“It was incredibly romantic,” Havana said sunnily. “He told me that Serenity had predicted we’d be together so that probably meant we had to get married.”

Aria blinked as Ember snorted out a laugh and said, “Boy, that guy’s a prize.”

Havana just laughed along with her instead of taking offense. “I appreciated the point. Serenity had given me a prediction too that almost ruined my chances with Caleb because I was so busy trying to circumvent it.”

“Why would you do that?” Ember asked with what appeared to be genuine curiosity. “Her predictions always come true.”

“They do not!” Both sisters turned to stare at Aria askance and she felt her cheeks heat under their scrutiny. Ugh, why had such an innocent question started up this old debate again? “I mean… I know she believes in them but they don’t always come true.”

Of course, Aria didn’t have a lot of experience with Serenity’s predictions personally, since she’d never lobbed one in Aria’s direction before. Until yesterday. And the less she thought about that, the better.

“They do,” Ember insisted, but she’d long been in the believers of the supernatural camp with Serenity, despite not having any extra senses of her own. “Don’t tell me you’ve been living in Superstition Springs your whole life and haven’t gained an appreciation for the mysticism that practically drips from the rocks around here?”

“That’s not what I’m saying…exactly,” Aria mumbled. “How did we get on this subject anyway?”

Havana’s gaze cut to Aria’s face in the mirror. “She gave you a prediction, didn’t she? A good one?”

“Oooh, come on. Tell us,” Ember insisted, scootching forward on the bed until she was at the edge closest to where Aria sat at the dresser. The colors of the patchwork quilt under her sister’s legs swirled together in Aria’s head, creating a dizzying pattern.

She could hardly think around it. Finally, her sisters were paying attention to her, asking her things about her life and that stupid, ridiculous prediction was what they wanted to talk about.

Spice up your wardrobe or create a new style in order to attract the right partner. You’ll feel intimacy all around so no matter where you go, love will follow.

Could the real prediction please stand up? Because there was no way that was happening. No way she’d breathe a word of it to anyone. Havana had been on her case from almost the moment she’d set her suitcase down in Serenity’s foyer: Let me do something with your hair, Aria. A simple cut. Curlers. Something. Maybe we could try a little mascara, Aria. Please. What about lip gloss? Not a lot. Just enough to give you some color.

If Havana found out Serenity had sensed the need for a makeover, there’d be no stopping her. And the last thing Aria wanted to do was attract a man anyway. For what? Only to be abandoned one more time?

“It wasn’t anything,” Aria muttered. “Hardly worth mentioning.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” Havana’s mouth curved upward in the mirror, where of course they could both see the telltale blush staining Aria’s cheeks like a neon sign. “Curse of the Irish. Sorry. I’ve long wished Mom had given us the luck of the Irish instead but no. We get red hair, no ability to play poker and a crappy hair-trigger temper.”

“I don’t have a temper.” That was the only thing Aria could argue with though.

“Just wait,” Ember advised with a sage nod. “The second you get a man sniffing around you like he means to stay, you’ll develop one. They bring it out in you.”

“Uh, huh.” Havana’s hum of agreement came practically before Ember had stopped talking. “That’s no lie.”

Aria almost did a double take. Had Havana just agreed with Ember like…she’d agreed?

Next, unicorns were going to bust out of the closet and invite them all to play ring toss with a few angel’s halos they’d borrowed.

This was what camaraderie looked like. She was pretty sure anyway. Regardless, Havana and Ember were suddenly getting along and dang it if Aria didn’t want to continue that trend. Why did it have to be the prediction that had done it though? It was like the best birthday present on a day when you had a toothache.

Aria weighed out how badly she did not want to talk about a makeover against how much she craved this sense of belonging inside her family. That was something she hadn’t had in a very long time. Not since Havana had bailed for Austin and Ember had fled for wherever she’d gone, leaving Aria at home to take care of Serenity. Yes, it should have been the other way around, but Serenity had a childlike quality that wasn’t well suited to responsibility. When Havana had left, things like paying bills and shopping for groceries had fallen to the lone Nixon sister still in Superstition Springs, which Aria didn’t mind handling. Serenity had given her a place to live after all.

“The prediction is kind of dumb,” she hedged, hoping that might give her room to wiggle. Or segue into something else if she could somehow convince them it wasn’t worth their time to discuss. “Really nebulous.”

“That’s always the case,” Ember said as if that should be common knowledge.

“Tell us,” Havana repeated Ember’s earlier plea as she twisted a hairband around the tip of Aria’s braid to hold it. “You can’t leave us hanging like this. It’s a love prediction, isn’t it? Is that why you’ve developed a sudden obsession with all things Tristan?”

“I do not have an obsession.” Except she did talk about him a lot.

Maybe she had oversold her crush on Tristan, but only because she knew she had no shot with him. It was supposed to be like having a crush on Zac Efron—no one really took that seriously. The prediction had even said she had to do something with her looks in order to get a man to notice her. Which was crap. Why was what she looked like the thing that would tip the scales? It shouldn’t be. And honestly, she was kind of mad about it.

Instead of trying to dance around the whole thing, this was a chance to get her sisters on the same page, namely that the prediction was the worst sort of objectification.

“You know how you said you knew Caleb was the one because you could be yourself?” she asked but didn’t wait for Havana’s nod. “My prediction says I have to get a makeover to find love. How is that a recipe for being myself?”

“Wait.” Havana shook her head and plopped down on the bed next to Ember. “Serenity told you to get a makeover to meet your soul mate? That’s too good. I’ve got some pictures I saved on my phone of hair styles that would—”

“No.” She could not cut off that thinking at the pass fast enough. “You’re not listening. I don’t want a makeover. How will that lead me to true love? It’s false advertising.”

Ember and Havana glanced at each other. The pause got longer and Aria’s gaze got narrower. What was that look for? Because she was silly and naïve about men? So? That was better than putting all your faith in someone who couldn’t be bothered to stick around. She’d had enough of being left behind by her own family. How much worse would it be if she actually fell in love with someone who could rightly be labeled her soul mate—only to be crushed when he took off?

She couldn’t give a man that kind of power. It was unthinkable. And if she couldn’t trust a man in the first place, there was no way a makeover would help that.

“It’s not false advertising,” Havana said, as Ember threw in, “Exactly. It’s a way to give yourself confidence so that you can be the best Aria possible. Then you meet someone who likes your confidence.”

Aria made a face. “Why? Because eyeshadow is the only way to land a man? That cannot be true. I don’t even want a man on those terms.”

Ember cocked a brow at her. “What terms do you want a man on then?”

The spotlight that had just shifted onto Aria upped the temperature about a thousand degrees. Maybe she yearned to have someone who looked at her like Caleb looked at Havana. It wasn’t a crime. He was really in love with her, you could tell. And he was solid, a keeper, as evidenced by the ring on her sister’s third finger and Caleb’s new job as the mayor of Superstition Springs.

A part of her figured his military buddies were cut from the same cloth, which might be why she’d formed the Tristan Fan Club. Didn’t hurt that the man had a killer smile to match his silver tongue. Sure, he flirted with everyone but he did it so smoothly that you kind of wanted to believe he meant what he said to you. No man had ever flirted with her. It was a bit of a rush. No makeup required.

But that didn’t mean she wanted Tristan, per se. Maybe more like the idea of him.

“I want a man who sees me,” she blurted out. “Not the clothes I’m wearing. I don’t want to have to think about my hair and whether I picked the right color of lipstick to match my outfit. Lipstick fades anyway and then I’m left with just me anyway. Why not start out that way?”

That’s what she wanted. But since that wasn’t going to happen for her, she could moon over Tristan Marchande and never worry about having her heart crushed.

“I hear you.” Havana shrugged. “Then prove the prediction wrong. Get Tristan to take you out on a date without a makeover.”

Ember nodded eagerly. “I can respect a woman who has so much natural confidence that she doesn’t even worry about how she looks. That’s not me, not by a long shot. I’d kind of like to see how that’s done.”

Her sisters’ words unfolded like a lovely little bouquet inside, warming her instantly. They believed in her. Had totally bought what she’d sold. They both thought she could land a man like Tristan, no questions asked.

And best of all, if she was successful, she not only got a beautiful man to pay attention to her as her reward, she’d have done something worthy of her sisters’ belief in her. Then maybe they’d think twice about leaving her behind again.

“What, like a bet?” she ventured cautiously, still weighing out the craziness of the idea in her head versus the lovely thought of actually winning.

“Sure.” Ember shrugged with a glance at Havana. “I’ll take your shift at the diner for the night if you get him to ask you out and if you don’t, you babysit on your off night sometime. Havana will…what’ll you put up?”

They both glanced at their sister as she contemplated. “I’ll get Caleb to loan him the SUV for the date so he can take you anyplace you like. No dice and you have to come work for me for a day on town stuff.”

That was all easy stuff, but the bet part was incidental. It was the principle of the thing. There was no way she could refuse the challenge of proving she could garner a man’s attention without a makeover. But how in the world was she going to get Tristan to notice her like that? She needed help. Not from Mary Kay or Paul Mitchell but from someone who could stack the deck until it would be impossible for her to fail.

She knew exactly who to hit up.