Page 3 of First Comes Marriage

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Aunt Lucy sighed. “Well, never mind. Let’s enjoy our night together before you jet off.”

Sabrina narrowed her eyes. “I just got here a few days ago.”

“Yes, well, when one is trying to start over, it’s best to dive right into the starting,” Aunt Lucy declared, as if she hadn’t spouted some kind of fortune cookie nonsense.

“I have started. Being here is the start.” An uncomfortable thought turned her stomach and she leaned closer to her aunt. “I thought when you offered me the guest room that you understood I’d be staying. Indefinitely. It’s going to take a little while before the studio can open and then probably even longer until it’s turning enough of a profit for me to get a place of my own. I guess if I wait to buy health insurance, I could probably move out sooner, but—”

“Don’t you worry about that, dear heart. You stay as long as you like,” Aunt Lucy said with an exaggerated flutter of her hands.

Sabrina smiled uneasily. “Thanks, Auntie. Now if I could just get my business permits—”

“Oh, did I not tell you?” Aunt Lucy’s eyes went wide in a poor approximation of an innocent expression.

“Tell me what?”

“Ruthie Greene and I have arranged a way for you to get into the good graces of the Merchants’ Association and speed up that pesky permitting. Think of it as a sort of extended play date.”

“Auntie, I’m thirty-one years old. You can’t arrange a play date for a woman in her thirties.”

“I can and I did,” she said smugly. “There’s a charming young woman who owns a lingerie shop in town, helped me figure out my correct bra size—did you know most women arewearing the wrong bra size? You see—oh, how did she explain it—it’s something about bands that are too large and cups that are too small. Or was it the other way around?”

“You want me to have a play date with the woman who sells you bras?”

“Natalia. You’ll love her. But no, dear, that’s not who I’ve arranged this meeting with.”

“I thought it was a play date.”

“Play date, meeting, they’re all the same. Anyway, last week when I was in Natalia’s shop getting fitted for a new bra, she mentioned that the Merchants’ Association was having a doozy of a time finding someone to represent the town at some sort of convention. To help with the tourism, you see. Someone to take notes at all the sessions and share what they’ve learned when they return. And I thought to myself, who do I know who has quite a head for these sorts of things? Who might, oh, I don’t know, have a somewhat risqué pottery studio they’re hoping to open sooner rather than later, who would benefit from making herself indispensable to that very same Association that needs to approve her plan before she can open?”

For all she pretended to be an unassuming old woman, Great Aunt Lucy could plot with the best of them. “Where is this convention?”

Aunt Lucy fluttered about as she gathered up their iced tea glasses. “The Association takes care of everything—your travel and hotel and food. And someone else will be joining you. A nice young man from town, if I’m not mistaken.”

Sabrina’s stomach dropped. “Who?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Natalia was a bit fuzzy on that detail, but I’m sure she said it was one of the young men who plays trivia with Ruthie and her friends every week, and Ruthie confirmed that they are all fine, upstanding gentlemen.”

“Auntie, I thought we talked about this. I don’t care how upstanding he is, I’m not looking to get involved with anyone.”

“Yes, of course, dear heart. All I’m suggesting is that whoever is joining you, the two of you will have a wonderful time in Las Vegas. And if you happen to have a glass of wine together at the end of a long day, and he happens to be single and attractive—” Sabrina arched an eyebrow at her aunt. “Now don’t give me that look. Ruthie tells me the Association is so grateful for your willingness to step in—everyone else has a family or a shop they need to tend, you see—that you’ll have an answer about your studio by the time you return."

Sabrina sighed. “What a fortunate coincidence you just happened to hear that they needed someone to go to this mysterious convention.”

It wouldn't be the worst thing to spend a few days doing a good deed for the town she intended to call home. If it fast-tracked her approval to open Get Clayed, it would be worth it. And it would be nice to get to know another business owner in town, even if this whole thing reeked of a set up. The last thing she needed in her new post-divorce life was a ‘nice young man.’ She’d already had her rebound fling, thank you very much, and now she was ready to settle into spinsterhood.

“Make sure you pack something sparkly. Men like a little sparkle.”

“Auntie, I’m doing a favor for the Association, not looking for men.”

“Who says you can’t do both?” Aunt Lucy laughed. “You know, Aster Bay has quite a few eligible bachelors—and only one of them used to be engaged to your sister.”

***

The knocking on the door resumed, but Baz turned up the volume on his stereo, the music filling his apartment and bouncing off the steel and concrete finishes. He took anothersip of his Scotch and slumped down in his chair, the glass dangling from his fingers as he closed his eyes and tried to sink into the sea of sound.

Maybe if he stayed this way long enough, he’d drown in it, inhale enough of it that he’d no longer see Sabrina when he closed his eyes, the shock and hurt on her face, as though she had anything to be hurt about. She was the one who’d betrayed him, goddamn it. Maybe if he had another Scotch, he’d stop thinking about the way her hair fluttered about her face and the full curve of her hips in pants that looked too expensive to wear while eating fried food sold from a roadside cart.

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