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Oops. Marlowe had just increased the pastor’s worries about her family. Also, she should’ve expected that Grandma’s stint on the roof would lead to some rumors. “Oh, that,” she said. “She’s fine. She was just having problems with the TV and decided to check the satellite.” As one does.

He nodded. His eyebrows were still raised. He didn’t speak for a few seconds, just considered her. “Would you like to come in and talk to me sometime … about your life … and things?”

“No need. I’m fine, really. Making good choices. Keeping out of trouble.”

Grandma chose this moment to return with a fistful of raffle tickets. “Do you think I could make it to Vegas on an e-bike?”

“No,” Marlowe said.

“Well, I’ll never know if I don’t try.” Grandma noticed the pastor standing beside Marlowe and amended her tone. “I only go for the shows,” she told him.

“It’s true,” Marlowe said. “She’s opening at Harrah’s three times a week.”

In retrospect, after the pastor didn’t laugh, Marlowe decided she probably shouldn’t have been trying to lighten the moment. “We’re fine,” she added. “Everything is fine.”

And all in all, it was. Jace was back in her life. He’d saved her from pie infamy. Everything was so much better than fine.

CHAPTER 23

Jace had expected to have more time off at the bazaar. As he went back and forth doing tasks for his mother—checking to make sure the bouncy house was manned with enough adults, bringing change to the face painting booth—he kept searching for Marlowe’s blonde hair bobbing somewhere in the crowd. He didn’t see her, but earlier in the morning, when he’d walked by a booth selling crocheted baby items, he’d thought of her. Specifically of her vision board.

Last night as she talked about wanting children, she’d looked at him so earnestly. He could tell how important family was to her, how it was shaping her career goals and not the other way around.

Jennifer had always said she didn’t know if she wanted children. If she did have any, it wouldn’t be for at least a decade. She needed to concentrate on her career. Her friends said the same thing, and he understood their reasoning. Med school had brutal hours, and residency wasn’t any better. Who spent that many years and racked up that much debt and then took off a lot of time to have children?

Jace had been around people with that mindset for so long, he’d almost forgotten that some women made motherhood a priority. Marlowe ought to know that she could be any version of herself that she chose.

And besides, she had told him that she’d been in the I’ll-have-your-baby camp. That counted for something.

On a whim, or perhaps because his mind had been buzzing since their kiss last night, he bought a pair of baby booties—pink for the girl she wanted. He slipped them into his pocket and decided to give them to her later to put on her vision board. Physical items were better than pictures because every time she saw them, she would know that they were for her future daughter.

As the day wore on, he forgot about the booties sitting in his pocket. Marlowe texted him that she’d come and sent him a very nice message telling him how grateful she was that he was buying her pies. She ended with. I owe you.

That was a debt he would be happy to collect on.

He had just delivered tape and scissors to one of the booths and was about to go off in search of her when his mother called. She told him that she wanted him to come to the stage to help her give the raffle winners their prizes.

“Lucas was doing that,” Jace reminded her.

“Well, I’d asked him to,” his mother said solemnly, “but now I’ve thought better of it. You know how Lucas can be when he gets in front of a crowd with a microphone. He might start singing karaoke halfway through. I want everything to go smoothly and professionally so that the community will want the bazaar to become a yearly tradition here.”

Jace scanned the group for Marlowe and moved away from the stage, not toward it. “You can probably keep Lucas from singing karaoke with enough threats.”

“Or I can just depend on you,” she said, “like I always have.”

This was clearly the downside to being the responsible child. “I’m trying to find Marlowe,” he said.

“You’re in luck,” his mother answered brightly. “She and her grandmother are in the front of the crowd, waiting to hear the raffle winners.”

After that, he headed to the stage and messaged Marlowe to wait for him after the auction. His job was simple and hopefully quick: his mother would announce the winning names, people would come up to collect their prizes, and Jace would hand out whatever had been won.

If the winner wasn’t present, he’d write down their phone number from the raffle ticket so his mother could contact them later.

When he reached the stage, he spotted Marlowe and Mrs. Partridge in the front row of the audience with Pastor Curtis. Marlowe looked good in a bright pink t-shirt and a pair of faded jean shorts. Seeing her always gave him a small jolt of energy, like his cells had all just switched on. Mrs. Partridge and Pastor Curtis were busy chatting about something, but Marlowe’s gaze left that conversation and she smiled at Jace.

That was another jolt of energy.

Mrs. Partridge noticed Jace standing by the prizes and waved her raffle ticket in his direction. “Save the bike for me! I need a new set of wheels.”