Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I shook my head.
“Do you feel any pain?”
“No. Are you a doctor or something?”
“I’m a police officer. My name is Cole Mitchell, and this is Griffin Dempsey. Can you tell us your name?”
“Blair Beaufort.”
“Where do you live, Ms. Beaufort?”
“I’m currently between addresses.”
“And what brings you to Bellamy Creek?”
I tried to remember. “I think it was the pie.”
“The pie?” James Dean—I mean, Griffin Dempsey—sounded confused. “What pie?”
“Can you help me sit up, please?”
He took my hands and slowly pulled me into a seated position, while Officer Mitchell gently brought my feet down to the cement.
“Thank you.” I closed my eyes and took a couple deep breaths as the last hour pieced itself back together in my mind. “I was on the highway and I saw this sign for the Bellamy Creek Diner advertising the best apple pie in the Midwest since 1957. I happen to adore apple pie, so how could I resist?”
“Oh, that pie.” Officer Mitchell sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, that’s an old sign.”
“You mean, there’s no pie?” I asked incredulously. Was that even legal? Surely you couldn’t keep advertising a pie that no longer existed.
“Well, there’s pie,” he said. “But not thee pie. Not the pie from the sign. We haven’t had that pie since Betty Frankel died and took the recipe to her grave.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.” He shook his head and sighed tragically. “Damn, I miss that pie.”
“Me too,” said Griffin.
Their dark-haired friend who’d gone for the water appeared and handed me a tall Styrofoam cup with a cardboard straw. “Here you go.”
I stared at him for a few seconds, a little in awe of his dark, smoldering eyes and exquisite bone structure. Jeez, what the heck was in the water around here? “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
Grateful, I took a few sips. Then, just in case it was from some mythical Fountain of Beauty, I took a few more.
Griffin pulled his wallet from his pocket. “Hey Moretti, do me one more favor. Can you go settle up my bill? I’ll run over and get the tow truck.”
“Sure.” Moretti took the cash he was offered but stood there a moment longer, looking at me like I might be a ghost.
“What?” I asked, unnerved by the intensity of his stare.
“You’re not Italian, are you?”
“No.”
“Are you even Catholic?”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
Moretti looked relieved. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll go settle up too,” said Officer Mitchell. “Griff, you good here? Soon as I’m done, I’ll stay with her while you go get the tow truck.”
“Okay.”
A tow truck.
Crap.
I was positive that would cost money, although I had no idea how much. The truth was that I’d been raised with every advantage wealth could buy but remained pretty much clueless about what basic things cost.
I had a lot to learn now that I was on my own.
The reality of my situation sank in hard. I sucked down some more water, wishing it was something stronger.
“So, Blair Beaufort. Is someone waiting for you somewhere?” Griffin Dempsey glanced at my dress. “Like . . . at the altar?”
I gave him a funny look. “This isn’t a wedding dress.”
“It’s not?”
“No, it’s my debutante gown.”
He barely hid a smile. “Of course it is.”
“I’m only wearing it now because it didn’t fit in my suitcase.”
“And the crown?”
“It’s a tiara, and it’s my best one. I didn’t want to crush it.”
He adjusted the ball cap on his head and squinted at me, clearly wondering if I was one brick short of a load.
I sighed heavily. “My car is tiny, so my suitcase is small. Not everything fit in it.”
“Why not get a moving van?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have any furniture.”
“You own a ball gown, but not a couch?”
I sat up taller. “This isn’t just a ball gown to me, mister. I wore it on the most special night of my life, okay? I danced in it and felt beautiful. Inspired. Hopeful. Like my life was just beginning. That’s a feeling I need to hold on to, especially now.”
“Why especially now?”
I sniffed and looked away from him. “It’s personal.”
“Okay.”
I fully expected him to press for details and was slightly annoyed when he didn’t. “If you must know, my life circumstances have changed of late, and I no longer possess the resources I once had.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“My family has fallen upon hard times,” I went on, as if he’d asked for more.
“It happens.”
“My father made some . . . creative accounting decisions, which turned out to be called tax evasion, and now he’s awaiting trial. But he’s not a bad person—he just made some bad choices.”
The poor guy clearly didn’t know what to say, but I couldn’t seem to stop talking (this is a recurring problem I have).
“We had to sell pretty much everything we owned, right down to the furniture, just to cover the back taxes and legal fees. My mother moved back in with my grandmother, who said ‘I told you not to marry a Beaufort’ and offered to set me up with some crusty old tycoon at her country club, but I said no thanks. I’d rather be poor than be someone’s trophy wife.”