And I didn’t think Cash would mind if I used him to taunt the other woman.
I shrugged again.
“I can always get another man.”
Christabelle must be drunker than I thought, because at this she turned and flung the contents of Earnest’s wine glass at me.
Cash lunged across the table and knocked the glass away so fast I could only gasp in shock as the wine splattered down Christabelle’s white dress instead of me.
The glass rattled noisily across the floor in the pin-drop silence of the pub. Suddenly I felt furious.
“Is this what you want, Frankie? This is what you’ve been secretly yearning for and missing? You’re welcome to her, because this isn’t who I fell in love with. I fell in love with a lie.”
“Jilly, no—” Frankie cried, his voice breaking, but my heart was hardened against him.
“I need some fresh air,” I told Cash, and he put an arm around my waist as I scooted out of the booth.
“Dude, take your weird side piece and go,” Cash said.
“She is not my side piece!” Frankie said through gritted teeth and unfortunately for him in his haste to get to me, he stumbled over the wine glass on the floor and lunged toward Cash with his arms outstretched like some kind of Frankenstein.
Cash put up his forearm to block the charge and Frankie ran headfirst into his fist and went down like a sack of bricks.
There was the sound of someone clapping as the rest of us stood and looked at the Ramshackle Bay mayor sprawled out unconscious on the floor.
“All right, boys, let’s get him out of here,” Tuppy said.
“Sorry, Jillian,” Cash groaned, looked embarrassed. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”
Bonnie and Ronnie had their knitting needles out and were jabbing Christabelle with them and running her out of the bar as she whimpered and begged.
“What do you want us to do with him?” Tuppy asked, and they all looked toward me for direction.
My heart felt full seeing all of them.
“Thank you—for not pitying me,” I said.
“Pitying you?” Ronnie barked out. “We pityhim. For being such an idiot and losing you.”
“Let’s deposit him at Mrs. Greenberg’s,” I suggested, and Cash grabbed Frankie by the ankles, while Tuppy and Augustus (closely supervised by Earnest, who said he did not want to get dirty) grabbed each arm, and I followed as they dragged him back down Main Street.
After ringing the bell, everyone dispersed, and Cash walked me back to my house next door.
“Sorry things took a turn there,” Cash said. “And I know you probably see me only as a friend, so no pressure, Jillian. Just—if you ever want more than friendship, I’m here.”
I wasn’t drunk in the slightest, but there was something sparkly and bubbly inside me.
There was a whole world outside Frankie. My whole life had been wrapped up in him for so long—his surfing competitions, his job as the Mayor, my role as the Mayor’s wife.
“I’m not ready for anything serious,” I said. “But that was hot.”
He laughed, low and rumbly, and put both hands on my face. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”
Then he kissed me.
I was afraid it would feel weird to kiss anyone but Frankie, but itdidn’t. Cash’s mouth was gentle but firm on mine, his stubbly beard a little sensual nip on my face, his big hands surrounding my waist, making me feel tiny.
I opened the door of my house and let him in.
