Kit hooked her arm through mine and steered us toward a high-top near the back. Hayes trailed behind us, his sharp eyes assessing the room. He nodded toward the bar and was swallowed by the crowd.
Kit and I squeezed around a sticky table under a framed newspaper clipping of the Lady of the Dunes. Kit jutted her chin toward the faded newspaper clipping over my shoulder. “Of course she had a secret baby. Women like that always have secret babies. It’s practically a requirement.”
Hayes walked up and set the drinks down with a clink—two ciders and something brown in a rocks glass for himself.“No father listed,” Kit said, shaking her head. “That part just ... makes me mad. What if he got to peace out of the story and she had to carry the whole scandal by herself?”
I wrapped my fingers around my glass, icy condensation slick under my palm. “That would have been peak small-town shame,” I said. “Hide the girl. Hide the baby. Slap a ring on her finger and pretend the timeline math checks out. Or...maybe he didn’t know?”
Hayes’s panicked gaze flicked between our faces. “Did I miss something? Who’s got a secret baby?”
Kit grinned like she was going to give him a hard time but chose mercy instead.
“The Lady,” I offered. “All kinds of drama are shaking out. We think her engagement to William was to save face.”
“Or to shut her up,” Kit muttered, picking at the paper coaster. “Feels very on brand for the patriarchy.”
The band slid into a new song, something faster that sent a little ripple through the crowd. I leaned into my brother. “We want to figure out who the father is ... and what happened to the baby.”
A chill walked over my skin that had nothing to do with the cold by the windows. “My money is on the farmhand,” I said quietly.
The one who looks exactly like you.
Hayes patted a hand on the table. “Well, good luck with that.” Our brother was dragged into a conversation with the table next to us, and I sighed in relief.
Kit shuddered theatrically before leaning in to whisper. “Seriously, every time I see that photo, I want to throw salt over my shoulder. Dude is Hayes with a sepia filter.”
“Which means our family is likely tangled up in all this,” I whispered back.
I took a sip of cider, the sweetness sitting heavy on my tongue. “So our brother might be a great-great-grandchild of the Lady’s secret affair or the guy who ruined her life. No big deal.”
Kit snorted. “Explains a lot about his curse, honestly. You’d be pissed, too, if your family tree started with a scandal and a cover-up.”
The curse.
It hung between us even when we dressed it up as a joke. Hayes’s endless streak of bad luck. Weird accidents and annoying inconveniences. The way the Lady’s story spiraled through everything in this town like a thread nobody could quite pull free.
When Hayes turned back, we both straightened and pretended to be talking aboutanythingelse.
I took another sip, letting the cider burn a slow path down my throat, and tried—really tried—to focus on the band, on the chatter, on Kit waving at someone across the room like a human lighthouse.
It worked for about thirty seconds.
A guy in a flannel shirt and decent jeans stepped up to the table, all easy smiles and faint beer breath. I’d seen him around—maybe he worked at the hardware store or ran charters in the summer, but I couldn’t place it. He was pleasantly handsome in a way that did absolutely nothing to my heart rate.
“Hey,” he said, looking at me and then flicking an acknowledging nod at the other two. “I’m Nate.”
Kit’s eyes lit up like someone had just dropped a plot twist in her lap. “Nate, this is Clara,” she said, far too innocently. “She was just saying how she needed to dance or she was going to combust.”
“I literally wasn’t,” I protested.
Nate smiled, unfazed. “We should probably prevent spontaneous combustion, then.” He held out a hand. “You want to?”
Hayes’s brows went up before shaking his head. “I’m getting another drink.” He slid off his stool and sauntered away.
“Go have fun.” Kit laughed. “I’ll guard your drink. And your honor.”
I hesitated for half a breath.
I was here. I was dressed like a person who existed outside of sweatpants. I had spent an entire day trying not to replay a kiss with a man I technically had no business thinking about that way.
