Page 80 of Tessa's Trust

I coughed and turned to the side. I so did not want to talk to my nonna about sex.

Gerty cleared her throat. “Speaking of which.”

“No,” I said.

“Come on, Tessa, tell us what’s going on between you and Nicolo. He promised me you’ll be his date for the New Year’s Eve ball. Is it true?” Gerty’s faded blue eyes glimmered.

I hadn’t exactly said yes, but I also hadn’t said no to anything from Nick this last week. “We haven’t really talked about it,” I admitted. “He did ask me, and I would like to attend the Elks Lodge ball with him for New Year’s.”

Absolute delight lit Gerty’s face.

“But I haven’t told him,” I hastened to say.

“What are you going to wear?” Georgiana asked.

I hadn’t really thought about it.

“You should get a new dress,” Nonna said. “Something pretty and sparkly. Maybe something green that brings out your eyes.”

I probably should get a new dress. It’d been a while since I’d been on a fancy date, yet I was pretty much broke.

“Oh, you’ll make such a handsome couple,” Gerty said, clapping her hands. She looked small and delicate next to my nonna, who I also didn’t consider very tough. They were formidable together, though.

Nonna motioned. “Come on, Tessa, let’s go check out Sadie’s house. We’re going with or without you.”

I wanted to drop my head into my hands, but they were trying to help me. “No more breaking windows,” I pleaded.

“We don’t need to break a window,” Gerty said cheerfully. “I heard one is already broken.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. Gerty, no, you can’t come.” The last thing in the world I wanted to do was get Nick’s grandma in trouble.

“Oh, we’re all going,” Georgiana said.

Bernadette shook her head. “I can’t go. I have a doctor’s appointment, and Larraina is driving me.”

Larraina looked absolutely crestfallen. “It’s true, we can’t go, but will you text us as soon as you find anything?”

“Of course, we will,” Nonna said. “We’re trying to build our business and our reputation. We’ll text you the second we find the sticky notes.”

This was a mistake, and a big one. I knew it, yet I couldn’t think of any way around it. The idea of finding a ledger showing all the locations of Sadie’s properties was intriguing, and I hoped we could actually find her.

I didn’t love the idea of Gerty holding out on me until we got to the cabin, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. The elderly lady seemed delighted as we pulled up to the darkened building. The carpet from Nick’s truck still covered the broken window, so at least one thing was going right. We exited my Rogue since I had driven, and all four of us walked gingerly up the snowy walk to the icy porch.

“Here you go,” Nonna said, pulling out a stack of blue plastic gloves from her pocket.

“What in the world?” I asked.

Her chest puffed out proudly beneath her heavy winter wool coat. “I got them from Dr. Lewinsky. The new dentist in town?”

Lewinsky wasn’t a new dentist. He’d lived in Silverville for twenty years. But to my nonna, that was new. She handed me a pair. I slipped on the gloves, wondering where exactly I’d gone wrong in life.

“Okay.” Gerty clapped her hands together. “I’ll go through first.”

“No.” I put both of my now-blue-covered hands up. “I’ll go through and then unlock the front door, okay? Nobody else is going through that window.”

Without waiting for an argument, I pulled part of the carpet aside and hefted myself up and into the window, falling over just like last time. This time, however, I landed on my shoulder with a muffled, “oof.” Pain ricocheted up to my neck. I rolled over, panting, making sure I wasn’t dead. Okay. That had hurt more than last time.

“You okay?” Gerty called out.

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