Page 120 of Say Yes to the Death

“Are you okay?” she asked Sawyer. Her voice was muffled, as if she was underwater. He was still on the ground.

He nodded and clutched his heart.

She took one look at the shattered storefronts and picked up Rosie. The dog burrowed her snoot in Claire’s hair. Her entire body was shaking.

“Come on, we have to see if we can help.” She put out a hand for Sawyer and helped him up.

She jogged across the intersection and down the next block. The explosion must have happened right next to Sanctum. What if Sawyer’s staff had gotten hurt? What if?—

Oh, hell. She stopped in her tracks. Smoke roiled from a burning carcass of a vehicle directly outside Sanctum. The vehicle was in the same spot she had parked her Audi an hour ago.

Sawyer put a hand on her shoulder. He pointed to the sidewalk.

“You’re dead, Claire Hartley,” was scrawled in still-wet spray paint.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

To Do:

- Deep clean gallery

- Double check catering – gluten free apps?

“Who cleaned this window last, a blind man covered in Vaseline? Honestly.” Claire opened a stepladder with a flourish and spritzed Nicole’s storefront window with glass cleaner. The fairy lights strung inside the display stubbornly illuminated every smudge. The gallery was far enough from the blast site that the windows hadn’t shattered, or Claire would have been dealing with a whole new crisis. Small miracles.

Luckily, aside from her main vehicle, Claire had only lost a scarf and a bag of dog treats in the blast. She had taken all her work and client property out of the car before she had left for Sanctum. Her guardian angel must have been looking out for her. She was temporarily driving the Happily Ever Afters company van until her insurance could replace her vehicle. She mourned her little black Audi. ESA was going to pay, but they would have to wait until after Aaron and Jane had the perfect proposal.

A door in the back slammed, and Claire jumped like a gun had fired. Okay, so the car bomb had bothered her a little more than she had admitted to friends and family. The fact that someone out there hated her enough to go to such great lengths to scare her chilled her blood. All this because she had gently rejected a guy from her business class nearly a decade ago? And now his buddies were punishing her for putting him in prison? It was insane.

She sprayed the window again and scrubbed with a new paper towel. Why were they just continuing to threaten her, anyway? Surely her security system and one measly cop who didn’t even watch her full-time weren’t enough of a deterrent to keep them at bay. Why didn’t they just come take her? Were they waiting for something? Jack’s professional opinion was that they were just trying to scare her, but she wasn’t convinced.

There was time to worry about all this later. Aaron needed Business Claire, not Emotional Baggage Claire.

The gallery teemed with Aaron and Jane’s friends and family. The excitement was palpable. Nicole stalked around with her camera, capturing the family members. A couple of uncles were arguing over one of the paintings on the east wall, shaking fistfuls of cash at each other. A notoriously sloppy cousin was dumping something from a flask into her glass of Coke. Claire made a mental note to watch her like a hawk.

A harried-looking server slid through a crowd of Jane’s relatives and ran up to her. “Claire, there’s a problem in the kitchenette. Do we have a fire extinguisher?”

Claire craned her neck toward the back of the gallery. She didn’t see any smoke, at least. “First cabinet on the left toward the door. Do not burn down my friend’s gallery, please.”

The front door opened, and Aaron walked in. A sheen of sweat covered his forehead, and he was paler than the last time she had seen him.

“Aaron! How are you feeling?” She quickly moved to intercept him before the family caught sight of him.

“Great,” he croaked. He was now green as well as pale.

“Let’s get you some air,” Claire said, grabbing his elbow and bringing him back outside. The last thing he needed was an interrogation from Uncle Joe.

The heat of the day had died down into a cool evening. Stars twinkled pleasantly against an inky backdrop.

“Do me a favor. Breathe in for seven counts, okay? One, two…”

As she continued, Aaron breathed deeply until his chest expanded like a barrel.

“Okay, now for the tough part. Out for eleven.” She counted down again. He slowly exhaled. “Let’s do it two more times.”

By the last breathing exercise, he was starting to look less green. He wasn’t her first nervous groom-to-be. Hopefully, he was nervous because he was about to ask a life-altering question and not because he was planning to kidnap her and stuff her in a trunk later. But she had gone back through his criminal background check and skimmed all of his social media a second time. He wasn’t in a fraternity in college. He wasn’t out to get her. He was just a guy who wanted to marry his girlfriend. She needed to learn to trust her gut again.

“I know it’s a lot,” she said. “It’s a big day. But it’s going to be amazing. When the night is done, you’ll have a beautiful, talented fiancée and a new life chapter to start together. Do you want to see what we did with your drawing?”

---