Maisie liked to gossip, and she baked a mean pie, but most of all she had a warm, loving heart. She leaned back and reached up to cup his face in her palms.
“Griffen Sawyer! Didn’t you grow up to be a handsome man? Where have you been?”
She gave him a light smack on the cheek as only a woman who’d known him since birth could do. Griffen reached up to take her hands in his, giving her the charming smile I remembered so well. “Maisie Evans. You don’t look a day older than when I left.”
She blushed at the compliment, her eyes twinkling. “You always were a charmer.” Her eyes skipped to me, narrowing in concern as she took in my dark suit and the mud on my low heels. “Let me get you a table.”
She looped her arm through Griffen’s and led him to an empty booth in the back corner of the café. “I forgot today was the funeral.” Her sharp eyes studied me and Griffen. She nodded decisively. “You two need pie. Peach, cherry, apple, or blueberry?”
“Peach,” Griffen answered immediately.
“Just coffee for me, Maisie.”
Maisie shook her head at my order but didn’t comment, gesturing for us to sit. We did and she bustled off. Griffen smiled down at the tabletop. “She really does look exactly the same.”
“Maisie doesn’t seem to age.”
We sat in the booth, the silence a chasm between us. I didn’t know what to say.
I’m sorry you had to marry me.
I was sorry. Still wasn’t anything I could do about it.
I’m sorry your father died?
We’d already covered that. I wouldn’t lie to Griffen. I doubted anyone was sorry Prentice had died.
A cup of coffee slid in front of me accompanied by a slice of blueberry pie topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. My favorite dessert since I was a little girl.
I’d never forget the first time Uncle Edgar brought me here, my hair in two uneven braids, my dress the wrong size but clean and new. He’d sat opposite me in a booth almost identical to this one, his face heavy with a dour expression that should have frightened an eight-year-old. Edgar didn’t frighten me. He’d saved me.
He was abrupt. He wasn’t affectionate. He made it clear I was an annoyance and a burden. But he’d saved me. He’d fed me. Given me clean clothes. He’d braided my hair, albeit badly.
He brought me to Maisie, who wrapped me in hugs and fed me blueberry pie.
I’d cried into that first slice of pie. Cried at the sheer delight of blueberries bursting over my tongue, the sweetness of the house-made ice cream. Mostly I cried because between Maisie’s sugar-scented hug and Uncle Edgar’s obdurate expression, I knew that I was safe. For the first time in my short life, I didn’t have to be afraid.
Edgar didn’t love me, but he understood loyalty and family in a way my own parents never had.
Maisie met my eye as she slid a plate in front of Griffen loaded with a healthy slice of peach pie and its own scoop of vanilla ice cream. She inclined her head towards my own blueberry pie.
“Eat that. No arguments. You’re too skinny.”
It was a frequent complaint from Maisie. Uncle Edgar believed women should look like sticks. I’m an adult and don’t live in his house anymore, but the lessons of childhood are hard to forget.
I spent most of the day working in Edgar’s office, subjected to his comments on everything from my note-taking skills to the way I wore my hair. It was easier just to go along. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d dug into a slice of blueberry pie.
I picked up my fork and sank the tines into the flaky crust. If there was ever a day to forget about calories, it was today. I took a bite of the pie and couldn’t help remembering the eight-year-old girl I’d been.
Twenty-three years later I was still just as well-behaved—and I was still just as safe.
For the first time, I had the uncomfortable thought that maybe safety wasn’t enough. Maybe safety wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“We need to make a list.” Griffen cut into my thoughts, his voice too low for the neighboring tables to eavesdrop.
A list. I could do lists. I was a champion for lists. Setting my fork down, I dug into my bag and pulled out a notebook and a pen. Flipping to a blank page, I wrote To Do at the top in my neat handwriting.
Below, I wrote #1 and looked up at Griffen in expectation.
“We have a shit-ton of things to take care of, but first on the list is arranging for our witness.” He rolled his eyes at the word. I had to agree.
We were adults. We didn’t need a babysitter. Prentice Sawyer was an ass, but he wasn’t a fool. This forced marriage deal would be easy to fake, and for some bizarre reason, Prentice wanted it to be real. Or as real as he could make it, considering I was the last woman Griffen wanted to marry. I was trying not to think about the ramifications of that.