Page 2 of No Longer Safe

Carina

Lunch at Millie’s! Wedding planning! Be there!!

I smiled and tucked my phone away, even as a pang of doubt lingered in the back of my mind. Lunch with Carina would mean hearing about her lavish new life. A new life that I couldn’t envision for myself. A life I’d wanted so desperately before, but it seemed completely out of the plan.

Maybe it was time to make a new plan.

About an hour later,I walked into Millie’s to find Carina surrounded by an explosion of bridal magazines. I expected to see her mom in the red vinyl booth beside her. She should be here to do wedding planning too, right?

“Where’s Mrs. Phipps?”

She sighed delicately as she tucked a black strand of hair behind her ear. “My mom isn’t exactly thrilled so I’ve been spending the last few days trying to ease her into it.”

A frown pulled at the corners of my lips. “What’s there not to be excited about?”

I mean, I would be merely over the moon by the size of the rock but that was just me. When you looked at Ace Cristof, you saw the full package. Straight white teeth, bright blue eyes— a bit darker than Carina’s—a body that spent many hours in the gym and made you wonder if he even sat behind a desk during the day, and perfectly coifed blond hair that never looked out of place. Their children would be stunners. That’s what everyone in this town whispered about them.

But Mrs. Phipps came from nothing. She still worked at the small diner down the road and her little shotgun house was falling apart. Not only had she come from nothing but her husband left her with all his gambling debts at the Den. She didn’t have faith in men, she only had faith in what she could provide for herself. She didn’t want Carina to become a broodmare to some rich bitch. I didn’t blame her and could appreciate how independent she wanted her daughter to be.

Carina worked at the only bank in our two-street town and she did well for herself. She got commission for loans and had decent hours. She was never overworked and underpaid. She liked what she did, even though that wasn’t what she’d gone to school for either. Somehow we’d both ended up back here after college. Somehow we’d both derailed from our teenage dreams, but at least Carina was more on track for hers than I was.

“She’s afraid he’s going to sweep me off of my feet and take me away from here. She said he’s had that look in his eye since he moved here six months ago.”

Uh oh.

“Is he?”

“Would that be so bad?” There was that faraway look in her eye that I had only seen a few times since we were little.

“You’d leave your mom?”

You’d leave me? The second question was all in my mind.

Of course, she would leave me. She didn’t want this bank job forever or this two-lane town. She wanted bright sparkly Christmases in Times Square and elaborate dinners in the Big Apple. I knew all of this because, at one point in time, I’d wanted all of it too. I got that faraway look on my face too.

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her loafered feet at the ankle. “I would bring her with me. The house is falling apart, she can get a better job, with better tips out there and she can live without worrying about payment. Ace has a massive penthouse there that has four floors. We would hardly see her. We would probably live farther apart there than we do here.”

“He didn’t sell his penthouse when he moved here?” I frowned. I’d never even heard he had a penthouse. This was all new. Who did Carina fall in love with? Certainly not a small-town lawyer.

She took another long pull on her beer. “No, why would he do that? He’s not hurting for money.”

That was obvious in the nice sports car he drove and the even nicer watch on his wrist, though I couldn’t tell you what either brand was. I imagined that was just how expensive they were.

“What does he do again?” There was more to Mrs. Phipps not liking Ace, I could feel it now that I realized he had a penthouse in New York still.

Her perfectly manicured brows pinched in the center of her forehead. “He works with Brian.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye so I leaned back in my chair to mimic her pose.

“Yeah, and I’m a stripper after hours.”

She grinned at me. “I would love it if you were.”

I shook my head. “So you’ve been with your mom the last few days trying to get her to approve of your hot, rich fiancé. What else do I need to know? Have you guys picked a date?”

“He doesn’t want to wait to get married.” Which explained the explosion of bridal magazines in front of me. I thumbed through the glossy pages of one of the ones in front of me. “I wanted like a year-long engagement or maybe two. Nothing crazy considering we haven’t moved in together and we haven’t been together for very long. But he doesn’t want to wait, he wants to tie the knot in six months.”

Planning a wedding in six months… Geez.

“I’m sure it’ll be beautiful. Is your mom afraid she’ll have to pay for this wedding?” I would imagine her mom was feeling all of the anxiety from that. An upstate New York wedding in six months. If I was Mrs. Phipps I would have started panicking too. I would have been questioning everything even more than I already was.

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