Grandma was stupid enough to believe Patrick when he promised he’d bring me home to Two Twigs, but also thrilled with the idea that Patrick could ruin Shipwreck for me if he found proof that Thorny Rock and Walter Bombeck had switched identities when they came inland.
Patrick was weirdly susceptible to my grandmother’s guilt and manipulation.
Except Patrick was slower than Grandma had anticipated he’d be—likely because he wanted to find the treasure first as both a way to destroy Shipwreck for himself, since he’d never been welcomed back since the wedding where I dumped him, but also as a warped kind of grand gesture to win me back—so Grandma sent Nigel to do what Patrick was taking too long to do.
Nigel wasn’t her first choice of men to marry me and drag me back to Two Twigs—she didn’t like that I’d be poor if I married a preacher—but she was willing to settle for me settling for Nigel, and also hoping having competition would make Patrick focus back on the plan to win me back.
Nigel posted bail and flew home to Iowa last weekend too. Same deal—no charges provided he never sets foot in Shipwreck again—though I made sure the Two Twigs paper posted a notice that he’d been arrested for breaking into a woman’s home.
Do I feel bad that he’s likely lost his job?
No.
Pretty sure he sucked at it if the way he treated me was any indication of how he interacts with other people at large.
Patrick has not posted bail and will not be posting bail.
I asked Davis if Levi Wilson had something to do with that, and got a very honestI haven’t asked him because I don’t need to know. But Davis did say it’s likely. Levi wasn’t happy when he heard what Patrick did to his lead security person.
I like Levi.
He and Ingrid stayed with me at Beck’s house one night this past week when I didn’t want to stay at home and Beck and Sarah had returned to the city and Davis was handling something with selling his house in Corieville, closer to the Virginia-North Carolina border where he’s lived for most of the past ten years.
And he was already selling the house before me since he quit his job to move into a trailer while he looked for the treasure.
So everyone has assured me.
And every time they say it, they can’t quite help the wince in their faces or voices.
Which means they’ve all also addedit’s best when Davis has a mission.
And I think I get it now, so I’ve nodded every time.
He could go back to work at the reactor, but he says that part of his life is over. So he’s looking at college classes.
I stayed at Pop and Nana’s house one night too.
Not Monday night.
No risking Tuesday shower sex day.
But I stayed with them Wednesday night, and Pop and I had a long talk about how I won’t be spilling the beans, but he owes it to his grandchildren to tell them what he knows so they can make the most informed decision about what to release to the public.
The rest of the nights, I was either at Davis’s camper with him, or at Beck and Sarah’s pool house with Davis, or staying at Grady and Annika’s house with Davis because I fell asleep on their couch and no one wanted to move me.
Tillie Jean brought me lunch one afternoon and told me she’d heard nothing in my bedroom the night Grandma tried to kidnap me, and that even the threat of having to watch her own grandparents having sex in the shower on a Tuesday wasn’t enough to drag out of her what she didn’t hear.
Davis’s secret is safe with her. She doesn’t know the details, and the details matter.
I worked all week.
Every single patient old enough to talk and comprehend the words asked if I was datingthe lost Bro Code guy. If they weren’t old enough to talk and comprehend the words, their parents asked for them.
And I told every last one of them that yes, he’d taken me to dinner a time or two, and yes, we were seeing where a real relationship should go.
No one in town believed we were actually engaged, but they all were willing to keep up the ruse because they knew I had to have a good reason for it.
And because it was fun.
