For as much as I think I believe him, I also can’t believe anyone would subject themselves to more than one fake wedding. “You’ve fake-married women four times?”
“Legally, I’m not allowed to say anything else.”
Fucker. “How many of them thought fake marrying you was a path to romance and a real forever?”
“Just my sister.”
Speechless.
I’m actually speechless.
In all of the dozens of times I’ve seen this man in Shipwreck, I’ve never once witnessed him crack a joke.
I’m sure he has before. I mean, what human being hasn’t? I’ve even heard Nigel crack jokes.
But Davis’s reply is so dry and straightforward that I believe him.
“That was a joke,” he says.
AndnowI don’t believe him.
I think he did marry his sister once. And I don’t know if I want to hear the full story or not.
I shake my head. “You’d agree to fake-marry me simply because you’re a nice guy?”
“Are you always this suspicious?”
“Around men? Yes.”
His gaze once more lingers on the door to the workroom, then slowly peruses the displays here in Thorny Rock’s wardrobe room.
The door swooshes again, telling us that Tillie Jean is likely back with the sheriff.
“You grew up with that guy?” Davis says, looking toward the front of the museum where Tillie Jean pushed Nigel out a few minutes ago, leaving a trail of glitter that’ll be hell to get rid of.
“Yes.”
“You were friends?”
My history with Nigel is so much more complex than justfriends. “I thought so.”
“He know whatfriendmeans?”
“I was raised to not speak ill of preachers.”
Once again, he looks at me like he’s reading my soul.
Like he knows how much work it’s taken for me to not feel guilty for breathing, to embrace my body as a gift and sex as something that’s not shameful, to sometimes choose myself over the expectations of the people I grew up with and the woman who raised me when no one else would take me and my brother in.
But I have no intention of getting any closer to Davis than I have to in order to finish pulling off this ruse. “Thank you for your help. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, I will.”
While I’d make the offer to anyone, and I mean it, there’s something about the way Davis has been watching me that’s put me at ease.
That’s led me into a false sense of security.
I’m doing itagain.
I’m believing the best in people.
