“No,” Jack said.
His hand brushed against Cora’s, sending a jolt through her. “It wasn’t Cora’s grandfather. The announcement was for Lolly’s engagement to Tobias Worthington.”
The silence that followed was so profound, it was as if the world had stopped. Cora could practically hear dust settling on the shelves, like someone had hit the pause button on the entire café.
But then, chaos erupted. Everyone started talking at once with questions and wild theories.
“Tobias Worthington?” Bea squeaked, her voice hitting a pitch that probably had dogs howling three towns over. “TheTobias Worthington?”
“That can’t be right,” Winston muttered. “There must be some mistake. Maybe it was another Tobias Worthington. Or a misprint.” He looked devastated at the thought.
“So let me get this straight,” Bea said, waving a pickle spear toward Cora like an extension of her finger. “Lolly was engaged to Tobias Worthington, had some sort of thing with Jack’s grandfather, and then married your grandpa? Talk about a love...square? Pentagon?”
Aggie went pale, her recorder dangling from her hand as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Well, I’ll be darned,” she whispered. “I knew Lolly was popular, but I didn’t think she had so many secret lovers. I’m actually impressed.”
“But why?” Bea asked, her excitement replaced with confusion. “Why would Lolly get married to a Worthington?”
“Well, they’ve got really big . . . wallets.” Aggie snorted.
“We couldn’t find a record of them actually getting married, though,” Jack added.
Bea’s brow wrinkled. “So she broke it off? Why didn’t any of us know about it?”
“I have no idea.” Cora swiped a finger sandwich from thetable. “She never mentioned being engaged before my grandpa.”
“I wonder what other secrets she was hiding,” Bea mused.
Winston, ever the voice of reason, adjusted his crooked bowtie. “Let’s not get carried away. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cora said, frustration bubbling up. “What’s the logical explanation for my grandmother being engaged to Tobias Worthington—whose great-nephew, may I remind you, currently holds a lien on this café that might shut us down at any moment—and none of us knowing about it?”
Winston opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again, at a loss. “Well, when you put it that way.”
The room felt like it was spinning. “This is crazy, right?” Cora continued. “We’re talking about Lolly. The woman who once convinced the town council to hold a pie-eating contest instead of a budget meeting because she thought it would get more people to show up.”
“And it worked,” Bea said, a hint of a smile returning to her face. “They had so many people they had to move the meeting to the town square.”
Aggie nodded, misty-eyed. “Lolly wasn’t only a part of Sunrise. She was its heart. If she had secrets, she had good reasons. She always knew what she was doing. So are we going to sit around philosophizing all day, or are we going to figure out what the heck would make her agree to marry a snake?”
And just like that, they were back in action. Theories flew around the room, everything from Lolly being a spy to her having an affair with Elvis, which honestly would have been kind of cool.
“The point is,” Cora said, trying to steer them back on track, “we’ve uncovered this huge mystery about Lolly’s past, and we have no idea what it all means or how it connects to the café.”
The room quieted as they tried to make sense of it.
Then Jack spoke up. “We might be approaching this all wrong. Instead of trying to figure out what Lolly did, maybe we should be asking ourselves what Lolly would do now, to help us figure this out.”
Bea’s face lit up. “She’d start a food fight to cheer us up.”
“You mean...like this?” Before any of them was able to react, Aggie flung a spoonful of mashed potatoes across the room.
Time slowed as the potato missile arced toward the door, which had just opened to reveal Nathaniel Worthington, all polished and suited.
The mashed potatoes splattered across his shiny loafer.
Nathaniel’s face went through surprise, confusion, and finally, anger. “Cora,” he said, his voice icy enough that she wanted to grab a cardigan. “We need to talk.”
Cora stood from her seat and gave him her best attempt at a friendly smile. “Nathaniel, what a surprise. What can we do for you? Can I offer you some coffee? Or a slice of pie?”
