No Place Like Homecoming Read online

  No Place Like Homecoming

  Maggie Dallen

  Copyright © 2021 by Maggie Dallen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Image © Shutterstock - Roman Samborskyi

  Cover Design © Designed with Grace

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Never Have I Ever Land

  About the Author

  One

  Isla

  I stared out my aunt’s car window at the looming mansion on the hill. “You’re kidding, right?” I said. “You don’t actually expect me to crash a wedding.”

  I had a whole lot of firsts going on in my life, including a new school and a new town, but crashing a wedding?

  Officially adding that item to the list.

  My aunt’s laugh grated on my nerves. I’d just met the lady this morning when she’d picked me up at the airport, but I already knew we weren’t going to get along. But that was fine because despite my father’s threats to send me away for my entire senior year, I knew I wouldn’t actually be here that long.

  “You’re not crashing,” my aunt said from the driver’s seat of her old Dodge Intrepid, which looked totally out of place on this street full of McMansions and BMWs. Aunt Lucy’s ride was the sort of crappy grandma car that felt more like a tank. This was fitting in so many ways. Aunt Lucy was old enough to be my grandma since she was technically my great aunt, but mostly, it fit because she had the personality of a wartime military general. “Mrs. Messner is expecting you,” she continued. “Now, get your scrawny butt out of this car before I kick you out.”

  See what I mean? Lovely.

  I turned to face her, this woman who shared no resemblance to me and had absolutely nothing in common with my mother. My mom would never have let those gray strands see the light of day, and leaving the house without even a speck of makeup? There was no way I was actually related to this woman.

  I peered at her now. “Are you sure you’re not just some babysitter my parents hired to look after me?”

  Her lips twitched and her green eyes—the only physical trait we shared—sparkled with laughter for the first time since she’d met me at the terminal. “Trust me, kid. Your parents couldn’t pay me enough to put up with your attitude.”

  I smirked at the A-word. Not one full day into this family visit from hell and I was already being accused of having an attitude. “So you’re not getting paid, huh? That was some terrible negotiating on your part. Relative or not, my dad would have paid top dollar to have me out of his hair.”

  Her expression shifted, and I drew back in response. Oh, no. Not the look. I knew that look. It was the same one my nannies and teachers used to give me when my parents had failed to show for recitals and parent teacher conferences. I hated that look.

  She recovered quickly, I’d give her that. “We’re family.”

  I widened my eyes as I waited for her to expound on that totally meaningless remark. She didn’t. We’re family. That was it. End of explanation.

  “Okay, then,” I drawled when it became obvious she wasn’t going to say more. Jerking my thumb toward the ridiculously gaudy mansion behind me, I tried one last time to get out of this. “I still don’t see why I have to crash a wedding my first day in town.”

  Aunt Lucy gave an exasperated sigh that had her long, dark bangs fluttering. The woman needed a trim and highlights in the worst possible way.

  “I told you, Isla. It’s not crashing. Mrs. Messner knows you’re coming.”

  “Mrs. Messner. Right. My new...boss.” Disgust laced my voice, and misery must have been written all over my face, because Aunt Lucy cackled.

  Like, seriously cackled. Give this woman a broomstick and a black hat, and she’d make the perfect wicked witch.

  “No one’s forcing you, kid,” she reminded me. “You’d rather bag groceries down at the Main Street Market, that’s fine by me.”

  She made it sound like I honestly had a choice. Until my mother talked some sense into my dad and they brought me back home where I belonged, I was entirely at this woman’s mercy. She’d made it clear on the ride from the airport that if I didn’t get a job, she wouldn’t let me borrow her car or lend me so much as a nickel.

  This normally wouldn’t have been a big deal—I had money. I had plenty of money. It was just that all my money was currently being held hostage as part of my parents’ Operation Rehabilitation.

  I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t want to have a job. None of my friends have to work.”

  “None of your friends got caught shoplifting, either.”

  My lips curled up in a sneer. “It was one lipgloss. And it was a dare.”

  How many times did I have to explain that to these people?

  Aunt Lucy shrugged. “Stealing is stealing. And your parents sent you here—”

  “For my own good,” I finished for her. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve only heard them say that about twelve thousand times, but thanks for the reminder.”

  I reached for the door handle. Whatever awkwardness was to come would be better than hearing another lecture on my bad attitude.

  “Good luck,” she called after me as I shoved open the passenger door and stepped onto the manicured lawn leading up to the giant house atop the hill.

  Luck. As if I needed it. The job was all but mine, thanks to Aunt Lucy’s friendship with this Mrs. Messner lady. She owned the Princess Troupe—and yes, that was a completely ridiculous name for a supremely lame company that provided costumed characters for kids birthday parties and other events. Including weddings, apparently.

  I eyed the wedding guests in formal wear, who were sipping champagne and laughing together on the wraparound porch. The town of Lindale, Montana was best known for its proximity to some killer skiing in the winter, but there were plenty of people who had second homes here for country getaways throughout the year.

  This crowd? They were so not townies, not like my great aunt and Mrs. Messner. That much was obvious from their clothes to the way they held themselves.

  They were important, and they knew it.

  The fact that they were sipping champagne in front of a house the size of an airplane hangar only made it that much more obvious that these were the people who had power in this town.

  I should have been one of them, not one of the hired help.

  The mansion was roughly ten times the size of Aunt Lucy’s little split-level ranch house on the other side of town. The sound of classical music drifted from the backyard. My aunt had told me to use the front door and find my way to the rec room. Sounded easy enough. But once inside, I realized just how big this house was.

  I also realized I had no idea where one might find a rec room.

  I mean, our apartment in Manhattan was nice and all, but we didn’t have spare rooms reserved for recreation. This place…? Wow. I mean, it was gaudy, but still...wow.

  There was a surprising number of young people here. Girls who looked to be around my age, maybe a little older. Guys, too. My guess was that the happy couple was young. College sweethearts, no doubt.

  For a second, I stood frozen in this s
ea of pretty people. Rich, pretty people. A grin tugged at my lips as I made a mental note to tell my best friend, Taylor, all about the mansion filled with young, wealthy hotties. She’d be so jealous.

  I laughed at the thought and straightened my shoulders as I headed further into the crowd. If this town was filled with wealthy college guys in tuxedos on the regular, maybe this short trip to hell wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Luckily I was wearing a cute little sundress, so I didn’t stick out horribly in this sea of formalwear. Although, I wasn’t sure anyone would have even noticed if I’d been walking around in my pajamas. The guests were so busy laughing and talking amongst themselves that I slipped through the crowd like a ghost. No one even seemed to see me.

  Well, no one until him.

  Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy in the tux over by the bar was leaning against the wall and eyeing me with a heavy-lidded gaze, like he’d been out all night. Or like he was thinking about staying up all night tonight. With me.

  A rush of heat washed over me and had me lifting my long curls off my neck. Was it hot in here, or was it just me?

  Another glance cleared it up in a heartbeat. Nope. It wasn’t me. It was him.

  It was all him.

  A dark lock of hair fell in his eyes, and the next time my gaze met his, he wore a smirk, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  Not likely. I didn’t even know what I was thinking, because my brain had turned to mush under his watchful gaze. After another heartbeat of weirdly intimate eye contact from across the room, he pushed away from the wall and headed in my direction. “You look lost,” he said when he reached my side.

  The way he’d sidled up beside me would have made it seem, to a casual observer, like we’d arrived together. Like he was my date, or something. He was close enough that I could feel the heat coming from him, and that did nothing to help the raging inferno going on inside me that was no doubt making my cheeks look as pink as my dress.

  “Lost?” I said, turning to eye the crowd. A bunch of strange people in a strange house in a strange town in a strange state. “That’s an understatement.”

  I could feel his low laugh like a shiver racing down my spine. It set every nerve ending on high alert. “You a friend of the bride?”

  I blinked over at him. Mr. Sexy Eyes thought I was a wedding guest. I mean, of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? I was wearing a dress, and I was at a wedding.

  I supposed wedding crashers weren’t even a thing here in Lindale.

  I’d learned ages ago that the best way to sell a lie was to stick as close to the truth as possible. Let people believe what they wanted to believe.

  “I wouldn’t say we’re friends,” I said, making a face that made him laugh again, a soft sound under his breath.

  He probably assumed we were frenemies or cousins who didn’t get on all that well or something. Enough to explain why I didn’t know everyone here, but not so specific that I’d have to create a whole big story to go with it. “What about you?” I asked.

  His lips curved up on one side in this rueful little lopsided smirk that made my belly flip. “Me and the bride? Definitely not friends.”

  There was laughter in his eyes, like he’d just told a joke. Whatever. I didn’t care about his past with the bride. What I cared about was that for the first time in hours—no, days—I wasn’t absolutely horrified by my current situation.

  One day into this little side excursion from my real life and I’d already met a rich hottie who was clearly into me.

  I mean, he was no Logan, but it wasn’t like I was looking for marriage, either. Just a little fun to make this stint in Loserdale less painful. My gaze moved up and down, taking him in from his adorably mussed dark hair to the black Converse sneakers that looked ridiculously out of place with the tux.

  A rebel in a tux? That was so my type.

  I had a flash of Logan—the would-be boyfriend I’d left behind, and the exact opposite of this guy standing before me. Correction. Logan was my type. But this guy was the perfect distraction from my misery.

  Not to mention, he was everything I was supposed to be leaving behind.

  My smile spread as his gaze turned dark. Intimate. Curious.

  He was trying to figure me out, figure out what I was doing here.

  I smothered a laugh. Good luck. I couldn't even figure out what I was doing here. Aside from paying my penance until my dad came to his senses.

  A familiar anger made my smile feel brittle.

  My parents wanted to ruin my life. They wanted to take me away from my friends and my boyfriend—well, Logan would have been my boyfriend by now if they hadn’t sent me away.

  The reminder sent a crash of anger through me, and that rebellious streak my parents so abhorred reared up front and center. They wanted me to fit in here? Fine. But I certainly wasn’t going to fit in with the lame townies. This crowd? They all had second homes here—second mansions.

  This was my crowd.

  I shifted closer to the sexy tux-wearing guest. “Where can a girl get a drink around here?” My gaze shifted to the bar, which was empty. I made a sound of disgust. “Figures.”

  He arched a brow in question, that smirk still in place.

  “Good help,” I said with the sort of world weary tone I’d learned from my mom. “So hard to find.”

  His smile grew. “Right?”

  “So, are you in college or...?” I let my voice trail off. Truth be told, his age was hard to gauge. He wasn’t middle-aged or anything, but he had these sharp features, a cut jawline, and a jaded look in his eyes that made me think he was a few years older than me.

  His heavy-lidded gaze never wavered, but he was giving off a different vibe now. One I couldn’t really decipher. “I’m in school.”

  “Oh yeah? Me too.”

  I waited for him to ask what college I attended. I even had a lie all picked out. But he let out a long exhale like I was boring him and gave me an impatient look. “You want that drink?”

  I gave him my most charming smile. “Champagne, please.”

  He stared at me for a long second before turning away and heading to the bar.

  “There she is,” a girl’s voice said from behind me.

  I turned to see Snow White headed my way. Seriously. Snow White. With a wig that looked like a brown helmet and an ugly smock dress, the short girl with pixie features looked cute and ridiculous all at the same time.

  Also, she had a handful of little ones following in her wake. From toddlers to grade schoolers, a handful of tykes followed, and the only thing they had in common was their beards.

  Yeah, that’s right. Beards.

  Girls and boys alike wore these matching gray beards that fell all the way to the floor.

  “You must be Isla,” Snow White said as she drew close. Her beaming smile was welcoming and...adorable.

  But then again, she was currently dressed as Snow White. Everything about her was adorable. She was cuteness personified.

  “Hi. I, uh…” I trailed off as I backed away from the littlest child who didn’t seem to understand the meaning of personal space. I glanced around at the crowd of well-dressed partygoers around us.

  I wasn’t invisible anymore. Shocker. Everyone was turning to face us, and they all wore matching indulgent smiles as they took in the scene currently playing out in front of me.

  I winced. Please don’t let Hottie College Guy return with my champagne right now. I would never live down the embarrassment.

  “I’m Callie,” Snow White said. “Mrs. Messner asked me to find you when we spotted your aunt’s car pulling up. This place is a freakin’ labyrinth, am I right?”

  “Um, thanks.” I started edging away. Toward a hallway. Toward a bathroom. Toward a rooftop I could fling myself off of. Really, I was ready to flee anywhere to avoid being a part of this spectacle.

  “Is she Dorothy?” the littlest girl asked Callie.

  I stared at the girl. Dorothy?

  “Yup,” Callie sai
d. I blinked in confusion, and then my jaw dropped in horror because…

  Singing.

  The kids were singing. And it was horrible.

  “We represent the lollipop guild, the lollipop guild…”

  The children were singing loudly. And in weird nasally voices. Callie winced, trying to herd them back the way they’d come. “Not here, you guys.”

  But they probably couldn’t hear her over all the laughing going on around us.

  What on earth was happening here?

  Callie caught sight of my horror and rushed to explain. “Mrs. Messner was telling them how she was going to cast you as Dorothy at next week’s Wizard of Oz themed party, and then she promised these guys they could be munchkins and—”

  “It kept them entertained for, like, three seconds,” a rueful Rapunzel finished as she reached my side.

  Or at least I assumed she was Rapunzel based on the crazy long blonde hair and the princess dress she was sporting. “I’m Willow,” the blonde said as she reached for the child closest to me and started to drag her away. “Come on, kids. We need to head back to the rec room.”

  Callie grinned at me. “Mrs. Messner can’t wait to meet you.”

  “Do you think you could start today?” Willow asked, a desperate gleam in her soft brown eyes.

  “Willow,” Callie said with a roll of her eyes. “Give the girl a chance to meet everyone before you throw her to the wolves.”

  “Sorry.” Willow gave a little grimace. “It’s just that we’re short-staffed.”

  “I can’t believe Savannah had to go to her grandmother’s in Utah this weekend. Her parents have to know the end of summer is our biggest season.”

  Callie and Willow kept talking while they herded the bearded little munchkins out of the wedding reception area. I followed close behind them, eager to escape, especially before that guy returned to find me in the midst of this.