“I’m so glad that you’re here,” she said. She put her hands on Violet’s face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just visiting. Clara came to see me, and I decided I wanted to spend the weekend doing Victorian Christmas.”
Alison grabbed her hand and looked at it. “That is a very nice ring.”
“It is,” Violet said, not able to keep herself from flushing with pleasure. “He did a good job.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. He seems very... He doesn’t seem nice, actually. But he seems...”
“Good? Honorable?” Violet suggested.
“He’s good-looking,” Alison said.
“Well. Iknowthat,” Violet said, rolling her eyes. “That’s why I’m in this mess in the first place.”
Alison laughed, and Violet was relieved.
She heard heavy footsteps in the doorway and turned, seeing her dad standing there, his hands shoved in his pockets. Her face got hot. She hoped he hadn’t heard the last thing she’d said. Although, it wasn’t like he didn’t know. “Hi, Dad.”
There was a pause. Only a breath.
“Get over here,” he said.
She wrapped her arms around him, pressed her head to his chest and let him hold her for a second like she was a kid whose every issue could be fixed by a hug from her dad.
“I’m just back for a couple days,” she said, her voice muffled, trying to ignore the tears that had leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She took a breath and tried to steady herself as she moved away from him. “You know how much I love Victorian Christmas.”
Cain cleared his throat. “So everything is fine with... I’m not going to say his name.”
“Dad,”she said. “Everything is fine with Wolf.”
“Great.”
“You don’t sound like you believe that,” she said.
“I do,” he insisted. “I want you to be happy.”
“I know that you’re mad at me...”
“I’m not mad at you, Bo,” he said, holding on to her shoulders and looking down into her eyes. “But I will kill him if he hurts you. And I’m a little on edge about that. Because I don’t exactly want to go to prison for the rest of my life.”
“No need,” Violet said. “He’s actually just really great.”
“Well, I’m pleased to hear it.”
“Clara and I are wanting to go into town today,” she said to Alison. “We were hoping that Sabrina and Lane and you could join us?”
“I can,” Alison said. “I can check with the rest of them.”
They ended up all being able to go, and they met in town, at the end of Main Street. Lane had an employee for her shop, and Sabrina was able to get her shift covered at the winery, and that meant they could all shop freely on the little Main Street, which included antique stores, little boutiques, Lane’s specialty food item store and a new candy store that offered samples on just about everything and smelled like a Clara trap.
They ended up at The Grind, ordering croissant sandwiches and coffees for lunch.
And Violet felt...a little more part of it than she normally did. Not like a kid tagging along. It was just that the dynamics of her family were often so strange, and she was such a weird outlier in the whole thing. Right now she felt... She felt like an adult in the group.
“So when is the wedding?” Lane asked.
“Oh,” Violet said, wrinkling her nose. “We haven’t really talked about that.”