“You didn’t ask about wedding plans.”
“Tillie Jean’s on it.”
He’s not wrong. Tillie Jean and her other sister-in-law, Annika, got us a room at the winery just outside of Sarcasm, and TJ’s working on picking someone who can be a fake minister with real-looking paperwork.
She has no shortage of options. Because she’s Tillie Jean.
I lean against the countertop and keep watching him mostly ignore me. “You’re very well-informed.”
“Not difficult.”
“I saw Nigel today.”
“Condolences.”
Freaking Nigel. “He’s taken a short-term pastoring gig in Copper Valley because he knew that I’d be stubborn about accepting what’s best for me and that it might take me some time to come to my senses.”
Davis lifts his head and gives me another blank look that’s not quite blank.
This one either meanstruly, you can go,orI’d like to put my boot through Nigel’s head.
“Those were basically his exact words,” I say. “Also, I’m sorry about what I said the other day about you fornicating with sheep. I don’t believe that. My grandmother has lived…a peculiar life…and she’s not entirely in touch with reality. Really, it was funny and cute when I was growing up. But I don’t know if she’s changed or if I have, but it’s not funny anymore.”
“Far from the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Nigel can’t get away again to come up here for a few days, so neither of us needs to worry about him surprising us anywhere.”
Intense brown eyes study me like he’s deciding if I’m stupid for believing that, or if he’s having second thoughts about getting involved and fake marrying me now that he has what he wants.
Truth?
I didn’t bring all of what Davis wanted in the format he wanted it because I was afraid he’d back out of the wedding.
I’m dangling little bits so that he doesn’t have a reason to bolt before I get my fake husband.
“Plus, he’s still super glittery, so you see him coming a mile away,” I add.
“Heard you started that.”
“I’m not always at my brightest when I’m panicking. You areexceptionallywell-informed. Are you sure you’re not a spy?”
After one lingering look that I’m almost positive meansthis conversation is about over, he resumes studying the pictures on his phone.
“Does your phone back up to the cloud?”
“No.”
“Just out of curiosity?—”
“Only people who bring me what I actually asked for get a hint of a real answer to that question.”
I’d ask how he could read my mind, but who wouldn’t be in this situation and desperately want to know why he wants a centuries-old pirate diary that said pirate’s descendant adamantly refused to let us put in the town museum about the pirate?
While living on a curious piece of land near Shipwreck?
And that circles me back to the one obvious answer to my question that I’ve been avoiding acknowledging to myself since Saturday night.
Davis is hunting for Thorny Rock’s treasure, and he thinks there’s a clue in the diary.
