Chapter Four
DELANEY
Something absolutely terrible had just happened.
The metal folding chair beneath me iced my skin through the flimsy fabric of my palazzos.
Around me, the Ruby River Town Hall buzzed with post-meeting energy—voices bouncing off the high tin ceiling, the scent of burnt coffee mixed with the sugary waft of the baked goods from The Sweet Spot perfumed the air.
Residents smiled at me as they passed, completely oblivious to the chaos Marc’s Glamma had just lobbed into my life.
So this is what dying felt like.
Death by volunteer obligation.
Voluntold.
They should put that on my tombstone: Here lies Delaney, killed by a well-meaning octogenarian with a wicked fashion sense and no concept of personal boundaries.
Harriet Mackenzie stopped by on her way past my chair and squeezed my shoulder with surprising strength for a woman in her late seventies.
“I’m so excited about the classes, dear.
My granddaughter does hot yoga—you know, the kind where everyone is sweating and barely dressed? So this will be much more appropriate.”
“Great,” I managed.
“And Marc!” She leaned in conspiratorially, close enough that I could smell the strawberry lozenge on her breath. “Such a catch. He’s single, has a stable job, and owns his own home. My daughter Jane, his assistant, has been trying to set him up for years, but he’s very … particular.”
My stiff smile felt like it might crack my face. “Mmm.”
“You know what they say about working closely with someone …” She waggled her eyebrows.
Actual eyebrow waggling.
At me.
About Marc Kingsley.
I was going to die. Right here.
“I should probably—” I gestured vaguely toward nothing.
“Oh, of course! You two will need to coordinate.” She said “coordinate” like it was a euphemism for something R-rated. I just about threw up in my mouth. “I’ll leave you to it.” She winked.
Oh, dear God. This was not happening.
Adele and Cheryl still sat next to me. Adele bit her lip so hard I worried about permanent damage, and Cheryl the jerk was silently shaking with laughter.
I hated both of them.
“Not. One. Word,” I hissed.
“I didn’t say anything,” Adele squeaked, a chuckle slipped through that she tried to turn into a cough. She didn’t succeed.
“Your face is saying plenty,” I grumbled.
I turned my back on them, and instead of stalking out of there with my dignity sort of intact, I had to put on a smile and respond to people stopping by to tell me how excited they were for the upcoming animal yoga classes.
Their enthusiasm pricked like needles under my skin.
Others gave me a polite nod— the kind that seemed to say, we’ll see how well this turns out.
People in Ruby River were friendly and welcoming, but I wasn’t one of their own. Not yet, anyway.
I’d spent my whole childhood in my hometown outside Seattle being the weird kid who disappeared every summer, who talked about a town no one had heard of on the East Coast, who belonged completely nowhere. Ruby River was supposed to be different now that I was living here, and in some ways it was.
Adele and Cheryl stayed by my side and waited for me to speak.
Glamma, the traitor, still hadn’t come by this way.
She’d known I’d never defy her in public. Once she uttered the words “animal yoga,” that was it. It was like she knew my secret desire to feel like a Ruby River resident would stop me from uttering the word “no.”
I lifted a hand to push my hair behind my ear, my fingers trembling like I’d mainlined a hundred espressos on an empty stomach.
I shoved my hand into my pocket before anyone could see, the warmth of my thigh doing nothing to stop the shaking.
Shock spread through me with a thread of anger.
What had Glamma been thinking? Why would she ambush me like that?
And Marc, too. Even if a deep dislike of him simmered just beneath my skin—because that man was the absolute worst human being ever—he didn’t deserve to be thrown under the bus in that way.
I sighed. Okay, maybe he wasn’t the worst, but he wasn’t the best, either. He’d humiliated me in front of everyone tonight. Made it seem like I couldn’t handle this task. A task I’d gotten roped into doing, by the way.
While Marc might not know how badly I wanted to be accepted by this town, his words hadn’t helped.
For once, I wanted to feel like I belonged.
Like I was wanted. Each pushback from him tonight was a swing of a hammer, driving the nail that was me further into where I’d come from and away from where I wanted to be.
The last thing I could or should do was to turn down this opportunity that Glamma had tossed into my lap like a hand grenade into a hole. Now I was just waiting to see what the fallout would be once it exploded.
I gathered my bag from under my chair and stood slowly, similar to a newborn foal testing their legs for the first time. Irrationally, it was as if I moved too fast, something else bad might happen.
No one else seemed to be in distress or nervous about what Glamma had proposed.
Around me, conversation continued as normal.
Of course it did—no one else’s world had been upended.
This time though, as I focused on the fear of screwing up, I forced myself to breathe through it.
Each stuttering breath calmed me slightly.
You wanted this, I reminded myself.
A way to really become a part of this town.
This is how it starts.
A hand brushed my elbow and I flinched before I could stop myself.
“Hey,” Adele’s voice cut through the noise, soft but firm. “You okay?”
I bobbed my head automatically. “Yeah. Fine.”
She didn’t buy it. I could tell by the way her eyes softened and how her voice pitched to that warm therapist-like tone she used when I was overthinking.
Cheryl stood and gave me a very similar look, arms crossed, chin tilted in that stubborn way that meant she wouldn’t let this go.
I shook my head.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Adele reached in for a hug. With her arms wrapped around me she whispered in my ear. “Everything is going to be all right. You’ll see.”
My chin dipped to her shoulder as I stood within her embrace, not sure what to say. Over Adele’s shoulder, I caught Cheryl’s similarly sympathetic gaze.
“Delaney.” Glamma’s voice washed over me. The kindness in it made me want to scream. Why? Why did you do this? What if I fail?
Adele’s arms slid out from around my waist, and I turned to the person who had not just changed the trajectory of my life, but had inadvertently put me on a path of immediate acceptance—or the chance of being forever snubbed from the town I wanted so badly to fit into.
The latter was my biggest fear—not belonging to what was quickly becoming more of a home base than I’d had in a long time.
“Sofia,” I answered, my voice tight.
She tsked softly. “Darlin’, I know this doesn’t feel like a good thing right now, but I promise you this, it will be.”
I shook my head. “But Marc and I—”
She laid a hand on my arm. “You two need this.”
I really didn’t, but no one tells Glamma “no.”
“Besides,” she added, her eyes twinkling with something that looked suspiciously like mischief, “you’ve been circling each other for twenty years. Time to do something about it.”
“We haven’t been—” I started.
“Dancing around it, avoiding it, fighting about it …” She waved her hand. “Potato, potahto.”
“That’s not… we’re not … we hate each other,” I stammered.
“You’ll see. You’ll balance each other out beautifully.” She patted my arm before turning away, already zeroing in on her next victim—I mean, volunteer.
I watched her go, silver hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights, a force of nature in cute orthopedic shoes and a sparkly cardigan that probably cost more than my car payment.
Around her, Glamma’s equally terrifying posse of octogenarian powerhouses clustered like generals planning their next campaign.
Gladys caught my eye and gave me an encouraging smile that somehow seemed more threatening than reassuring. These women had probably orchestrated half the marriages in Ruby River. What was a little forced collaboration between mortal enemies to them?
I let out a breath while the girls grabbed their belongings.
Adele fell into step with me as we moved toward the door, and Cheryl moved to my other side.
“Well,” Adele said, once we were safely out of earshot, her hand finding mine, warm and steady. “Congratulations. You’ve officially volunteered yourself for a public experiment.”
I huffed out a laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“I was going to say ‘social suicide’, but that felt dramatic,” Cheryl shrugged.
“Oh good, because public experiment in humiliation is so much better,” I scoffed.
“I thought so,” Adele piped up, tucking her auburn hair behind her ear. “It has a scientific ring to it.”
Cheryl snorted. “I’m not mad I gave up my study night for this. There was no way I could ever have guessed this was the direction Glamma and the Sparkle Squad were going with all this.”
As awful as I felt, a smirk tilted the corner of my lips at Cheryl’s description of the four women.
But then reality came crashing in again.
We pushed through the double doors into the cool night air of May in Rhode Island—still clinging to the tail end of winter, with spring lurking around the corner.
The scent of damp wood and thawing earth hit me, and I sucked in a breath that didn’t taste like panic and community judgment. My shoulders lowered a fraction.
Adele bumped her arm into mine. “I think you’re building this up in your mind to be more than it is.”
“You don’t get it. You were born here. Everyone accepts you by default. I have to prove myself.” The words came out sharper than I intended, edged with something that tasted like envy and a lot like grief. Adele had roots here. I was still trying to figure out if the ground would even hold me.