Page 96 of Strictly Pretend

I open my mouth to lie to him, but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m so sick of pretending. I promised myself that once the wedding weekend was over I’d put it all behind me. If I tell him a lie it will just come back to haunt me again.

“Brooks and I got kind of fake engaged,” I tell him. And then I give him the briefest of summaries of the weekend. Explaining that Brooks was gallantly supporting me because Will was going to be there. That the cart driver thought we were getting engaged as we stared out at the ranch stretching ahead of us.

That he gave us the ring. And then we couldn’t do much because Cassie’s dad had everybody under surveillance. Maybe.

Granddad listens without judgement. One of the best things about him.

“I’m just glad technology wasn’t so advanced in the sixties,” he says once I finish. “We’d have all ended up in jail. Though there were all those CIA thought experiments…” he trails off and shakes his head. “Anyway, you’re engaged, huh?”

“Not really.” I smile at him. “It’s too soon anyway, isn’t it? We’re just going to see where things go.” Okay that’s a lie, too. But at his heart, Granddad is an old romantic. He’s probably already plotting my wedding vows.

“Of course it isn’t too soon. I married your grandma four days after we met.”

I blink. “You did what?” That can’t be true. She told me it was true love. That they both knew this was it for them.

How could they have known that after four days?

“That’s not what happens anymore,” I point out. “People don’t get married on a whim. It’s too expensive anyway.”

“It doesn’t have to cost anything,” he tells me. “Love is free. We learned that in the sixties.”

I grin, because he really is an old hippie. “Any luck with the books?” I ask him. “Did you find a first edition Dickens? Can we retire at long last?”

“No.” He shakes his head. Our eyes catch and I know he knows what I’m really thinking. Did he find Grandma’s book among those old dusty tomes.

The answer is no. He doesn’t have to say it.

“I think I’m going to stop buying auction stock,” he tells me. “We have enough.”

It’s stupid, but that makes my heart hurt more. “We shouldn’t stop,” I say, my voice thick. “You can’t give up on your quest.”

“We have no more room.” He looks around at the books piled high. “Sometimes you just have to say that’s enough. It’s time to end the foolishness of an old man.”

“Granddad…”

“I’m not getting any younger, Emma. And I know you hate this mess of a shop. You hate not being able to find the books you want. You were right all along, let’s catalogue what we’ve got and make some decisions.”

“What kind of decisions?” I ask him. But then my phone starts to ring.

“Hello?” I say softly, because it’s Brooks.

“I’ve just arrived at my dad’s place,” he tells me. “Did you get back okay?”

“I did.” I smile, because he knows this. “I’m just with my granddad.”

“Tell him I said hi,” Granddad says.

“Did you hear that?” I ask Brooks.

“I did.”

“And tell him I know about the engagement.”

I hear a soft chuckle over the phone line. “You didn’t take the ring off then?” Brooks asks.

“You knew I still had it on?”

“Of course.”

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