“Cherry? Are you sick?”
“Quinn!” Cherry exclaimed softly, sounding marginally more alive. “Hey, honey. No, I’m great. I—”
A deeper voice rumbled in the background, too low for me to really hear.
“Holy crap! Is that Mrs. Ambrose?” I asked. “She sounds worse than you.”
For a long moment, Aunt Cherry didn’t answer. I heard only the rustle of fabric followed by the thunk of a door shutting. Finally, she said, “That wasn’t Marianne, honey. She stayed behind in Louisiana to visit with family. That was Terrance. You remember me telling you about him last time I called? He owns a bar here in St. Pete, but his son’s mostly taken the place over now. He took me swing dancing last week.”
“Um.” I frowned. “No? I remember you mentioning a guy in Rancho Mirage a while back who liked high-stakes gambling, but I don’t think you mentioned his name.”
“Oh, that guy.” Cherry snorted. “No, not him.”
“The biker in Sturgis with the beard down to his navel?”
“Laws, no. I’m no man’s old lady, Quinn.”
“Right. Is Terrance one of the brothers in Ohio with the cheetah-print carpet on the walls of their bedroom—?”
“Oof. I told you about them, eh?” Cherry’s wince was almost audible.
“Of course you did. You tell me about all your dates. Cautionary tales, you call them.”
“Right.” Cherry cleared her throat. “I guess I have called them that. But honey, Terrance is—”
“Listen, I can’t wait to hear this story,” I told her, “because I’m sure this dude is as ridiculous as all your others have been, and I could use a laugh, but before we get to that, I have to tell you before you hear from one of your friends that…” I took a deep breath. “I’ve been seeing someone.”
Cherry gasped. “What? Oh, Quinn, that’s—”
“I know. You’re disappointed. But I promise, it’s not serious, no matter what you might hear. It’s just sex. I mean, high-quality sex. Really frequent high-quality sex. But that’s all it is, okay?”
Aunt Cherry was silent for a second. “Quinn, you know it’s okay to—” She broke off with a frustrated sound. “You’re on your way to work now, aren’t you? Honey, we need to catch up soon, okay? Thursday night. Or Friday.”
I snorted. “I can’t Thursday.” I explained how Cindy Ann and Ava had finessed me into running the SnoBall… and how I was weirdly looking forward to it.
“Aww,” Cherry said. “They’re adopting you! I’m so glad. You always fit so well in the Thicket.”
Did I? Huh. “I fit with you,” I countered. “In your big-ass house, with all the window seats.”
She chuckled. “Have you been by the old place? I’m curious what the new owners are doing with it. Probably tore it down and rebuilt the whole thing.”
“Probably,” I agreed softly. Which was exactly why I hadn’t been able to make myself drive by, not in all the months I’d lived over the shop. I’d loved that place. As glad as I’d been to take over Cherry’s shop, it was her house I’d really considered a home. I didn’t want to see someone make it their own.
“Everything in life’s temporary, honey,” Cherry reminded me. “Buildings. People. Seasons. If you hold on too tight, you won’t be ready for the next great thing that comes along.”
“Yeah, I know.” I’d taken that lesson on board and lived it my whole life. It was why I’d been only a tiny bit devastated when Scott and I broke up and why I hadn’t fought him about keeping the business.
But looking around the Thicket, a place that was the epitome of “permanent,” with people who remembered me even decades later, I couldn’t help but think maybe Cherry was wrong about this one thing. Not everything had to be temporary.
Maybe there was a time and a place to fight for the things you wanted… once you’d figured out what they were.
As I drove myself out to the Drakeses’ farm, past the big, green silo and down their long, rutted driveway, I decided I’d take the—what had Champ called it?—the tactical consideration of the location and use it as a personal challenge. I would make this wedding so spectacular, so glorious, so fun, and so memorable that next spring’s issue of Bride Beautiful would be all about the hot new Rusty Crusty Pig Farm Wedding trend.
I would get my client married off, she and her parents would be thrilled, and I would not waste another minute feeling anxious about things I couldn’t control, namely—
I came to a sudden stop at the top of the driveway, when the trees opened up to reveal a sprawling, two-story white farmhouse with a wraparound porch… and a familiar pickup truck parked front and center next to Marissa’s Audi.
Delusional McBossypants Champion had crashed my wedding-planning meeting… again.
8
CHAMP
Seeing Quinn so angry shouldn’t have made me hard, but it did. He grabbed his tablet out of the back seat, slammed the door to his little rattletrap, and came striding over to me with smoke coming out of his ears. “What the hell are you doing here?”