Page 37 of Four Steps to the Perfect Fake Date

The three dragons sitting with her would gobble up any hint of gossip about the arrangement with Flint being fake. If they were going to survive the next month without anyone finding out—and keeping Daphne’s plan alive to retrieve the Dutch oven—she’d have to lie at least a little.

If she told her family the whole truth, there was no telling how they’d spin the story when they inevitably let it spill. She’d been telling Flint the truth on the phone; the simplest solution was for Daphne to admit that the rumors were true. Denial would only fuel them further. Besides, she really did want an easy out. Being back on the island made her feel twitchy.

“He asked me to go with him to his mother’s vow renewal,” she explained, “but nothing serious is going on between us. We’re, um ... you know. Taking things slow.”

Flint’s words played on a loop in her mind.Banging each other’s brains out. Banging each other’s brains out. Banging each other’s brains out.

Judging by the interested gleam in the three old ladies’ gazes, that same loop was playing in their minds too.

Keeping her cringe contained, Daphne dipped her chin. No going back now.

“So you’ve secretly been dating for weeks?” Greta asked, frowning. Across from her, Harry leaned forward to listen.

Daphne shook her head. “No. When he stopped me on my way back from the party at my parents’ place, we reconnected.”

“I bet you did,” Grandma Mabel cut in, and Daphne shot her a glare.

“Nothing exciting is going on,” Daphne clarified.

“Did you see the way they were looking at each other?” Harry scoffed, looking at Mabel. “There’s a lot of something going on.”

“Amen,” Greta put in.

It was time to get this conversation back on track. “Anyway. I think this vow renewal might give me a chance to get your pot back, Grandma. I haven’t told Flint about it, obviously. But if the pot still exists, it’ll probably be at his mother’s house.”

The words hung between them. Grandma Mabel’s brows furrowed deeply as she studied Daphne.

Certainty settled over Daphne. Her grandmother was going to tell her that she shouldn’t do something so stupid. She would remind Daphne that she was the good, responsible daughter, and she ought to know better than to come up with some harebrained scheme about getting an old cast-iron pot back. It was a silly idea that would almost certainly end in her humiliation.

She wasn’t brash the way Ellie was. She wasn’t the type of person who could pull this off.

A heavy weight sat in the pit of Daphne’s stomach as she waited for her grandmother to speak.

Of course it was a stupid idea. Of course she should know better. She needed to keep her head down, focus on work, and get her life back on track. So what if her engagement had ended in the most mortifying way possible? It didn’t mean she had to change her entire personality. She’d already been punched in the face and tackled, and she’d only just moved back to Fernley. Daphne needed to return to herself. The safe, responsible woman who went to work, meal prepped, and checked her retirement projections on a weekly basis.

That Daphne hadn’t needed to prove herself to anyone.

Then again, that Daphne had been told she was boring and worthless and not wife material. She’d been laid off and kicked out of her home. What did that Daphneactuallyknow, other than the wonders of compound interest?

Something had changed. She’d felt it the moment Calvin Flint had pulled her over the night of her parents’ party. Daphne was sosickof making herself small, of living her life between the lines.

She wanted more.

Was this a silly way of achieving it? Probably. But it felt right. She could do something for her family, prove to them—and herself—that she wasn’t just a boring, studious accountant. She wasn’t just Good Girl Daphne. She was a Davis.

As if Grandma Mabel could hear her thoughts, the older woman gave Daphne a decisive nod. “If we’ve learned one thing from your sister’s escapades,” she proclaimed, “it’s that you need a getaway driver. Greta?”

“I’m in,” the other woman said, lifting her white ceramic mug.

“I guess that means I need to RSVP yes to this vow renewal,” Harry grumbled, then raised her own mug to meet Daphne’s gaze. “You’ll need an inside woman.”

“You’re invited?”

“Archie Yarrow—the happy husband celebrating a decade of married bliss, that is, not the twerp calling himself our mayor—was my late husband’s son-in-law,” Harry explained. “We send each other invitations to events, knowing the other will refuse.”

“Until today,” Grandma Mabel cut in, cackling. “I’ll be your second-in-command.” She nodded to Daphne’s cup; then the four of them clinked their mugs to seal their pact.

“This is going to be fun,” Greta announced. “The accident the other day gave me such a buzz. Wrenching the wheel. The crash of the corner store windows behind us. That turkey running at Daphne and tackling her to the ground.” The old woman shivered, a dreamy smile on her lips. “I haven’t felt that good since my wedding night.”

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