Page 28 of As Long As You Kiss Me

Chapter 7

After church on Sunday, Maple Creek Baptist held a cookie hour. Sully had been attending the church with her family since she was a little girl. The sermon that day had been about honesty, and Sully couldn’t help but squirm in her seat. She’d been lying to the entire town about her relationship with Jackson. He’d even shown up and sat with her and her family.

That meant she’d had to lie to her parents too. They’d been all too happy to have her dating Jackson. That made her feel the guiltiest. They loved Jackson like their own son. They would be so disappointed when Sully ended up staging a breakup with Jackson.

Their charade was getting messy, and Sully had never intended that to happen. Jackson stayed glued to her side during cookie hour, and the little old ladies of Maple Creek milled about. They were the biggest gossips in town, and soon, it would be common knowledge that Sully and Jackson were an item. They might as well be on the cover of the tabloids in the grocery store checkout aisle at this point.

“Would you like me to get you a cookie?” Jackson offered, acting the part of the ever-attentive boyfriend.

“Thank you. That would be nice.” While he was gone, three different little old ladies had come up to them, hounding her for information on how she and Jackson got together. She’d come up with a story the night before when Aubrey had pounced on her for details.

“Well, Jackson came back into town after being gone, and I couldn’t keep my hands off him. He came into my ice cream shop one day, and I literally fell into his arms.” It wasn’t even that far from the truth. “Ever since then, we’ve been inseparable.” Also true. Because that was when their fake relationship had started. It helped to keep the story as close to the truth as possible. That way, she could keep her story straight. It wouldn’t do for her to give a different version of the story every time someone asked her about it. “I just can’t keep myself from watching him from across the room.” That was also true. Maybe she wasn’t the biggest liar, after all.

“That’s so sweet.” Old Mrs. Miller was getting the biggest doe eyes as she took in Sully’s story. It was too bad she couldn’t really tell the truth to the unsuspecting old woman.

Jackson came across the room with a plate of cookies. “I thought we could share these.”

“Sounds good to me.” She sat in the wooden chair, but it must have been broken because the chair collapsed as soon as she put her full weight on it. She toppled backward, and her skirt flew up as she fell, exposing her ratty granny panties. It was bad enough that it had happened in front of the room full of old ladies, but it was even worse that Jackson was there to witness the entire thing.

Her cheeks burned with humiliation. Would Jackson ever look at her the same now that he knew she wore such ugly underwear? She could have at least worn something pretty under her Sunday dress.

He didn’t laugh at her though. He only looked at her with kindness in his eyes. “Are you hurt?”

She rubbed her leg and took his outstretched hand. He helped her up. “It does hurt a bit. I’ll probably have a nasty bruise on my leg.” But the bruise was nothing compared to the knowledge that Jackson saw her in the ugliest pair of panties she owned. He’d never want her now.

Where had that thought come from? It wasn’t like she wanted anything serious to happen with Jackson, anyway. She wasn’t in the market for a real boyfriend.

Her leg throbbed where she’d landed badly. At least she had cookies available. There wasn’t too much cookies couldn’t fix. She took one from the plate Jackson offered. These cookies were from her friend Alexis’s bakery. She’d recognize them anywhere. Alexis had gotten married and moved away, but she still ran her bakery from a distance, coming back to visit every little bit.

“I think this one is a pink lemonade cookie,” Sully told Jackson.

“They make pink lemonade cookies?”

“Alexis does. She’s known for her unique recipes.”

He bit into one. “Hey, this is pretty good.”

“They’re my favorite, actually.” She chomped down on her cookie and closed her eyes with a moan. “So good. I can never get enough of these.”

“I’ll have to go to cookie time again.” He finished off his cookie and dusted off his hands. “How’s your leg?”

“It still hurts. I can’t believe I fell down like that.” Her face got hot again just thinking about how humiliating it was to fall like that and flash the entire room.

He bent down and picked up the wreckage of a chair that was still littering the floor. “We should get rid of this.” He carried it over to a closet and put it inside. He came back her.

Mrs. Wheaton came up to her. She wore a big floppy hat with some tacky orange flowers. “Are you okay, dear? I saw you take quite the tumble a minute ago.”

Just what she needed. Mrs. Wheaton would probably tell everyone about how she saw Sully flash the entire room at cookie time. “I’m okay. Just a little sore.”

“Were you able to get your surprise over to Mason okay?”

“Yes. We—I mean, I was successful.” At least she hoped he was. She couldn’t be sure that Mason was really scared.

“Oh, good.” Mrs. Wheaton patted her arm. “I’m glad I could be helpful.”

Jackson put his hand on her back as he stood close to her. She could smell his cologne mixed with his own personal scent, and it was doing funny things to her insides.

Mrs. Wheaton must have picked up on his body language right away because her face immediately got animated in excitement. “Well, what do we have here? Are the two of you an item now?”

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