Page 51 of I'll Be There
Grace set down her bowl. “I’ll be back.” She headed for the door, stopped. Turned. “Don’t elope while I’m gone.”
Liza grinned, and Mona laughed. “I’ll keep her here.”
“How about the VFW?” Liza leaned back on the lounger.
Silence, and she looked up. Mona wore a look, her lip caught in her teeth.
“What?”
“What about the bingo tent?”
“The...bingo tent?”
“Yeah.” Mona was just finishing her ice cream. “You know, every year during Fisherman’s Picnic, they have that giant bingo tent that the Catholic church sets up next to the VFW. For charity. You could...set up the bingo tent.”
“In the parking lot of the VFW?”
“Okay, maybe not there, but...it’s a venue.”
Liza shrugged. “It’s better than a shelter at the rec park, I suppose.”
A breeze lifted her hair and ran chilly fingers up her skin. She shivered. Oh, super, now she’d catch the cold of the century.
If she were in Cancún on her honeymoon, she wouldn’t be catching a cold.
Her phone vibrated and she pulled it out. Conner.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Just his voice turned her body warm. She walked off the deck and onto the trail toward the lake, with the moon trailing a golden finger across the waves.
“I just wanted to apologize for not being there today.”
He sounded normal. Nothing life threatening, and her chest muscles eased. “Are you okay?”
A pause, however, and it had her slowing.
“Yeah. I’m...I had something come up, and I need to...well...” He let out a breath. “It’s not important—I don’t want you to worry. Pete said something about the venue falling through. Again.”
But she was stuck onI don’t want you to worry.
Which, of course, only made her worry. “Conner, what aren’t you telling me?”
Another pause, as if he might be conjuring up words, not the right ones.
“Conner Young, if you are doing something dangerous two days before we get married—so help me, what has Pete gotten you into?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” He even added a chuckle, which, okay, made her believe him. “It’s just something Micah and I are doing together. Old stories, unfinished business.”
Now he really had her curiosity ignited, but he had a past with Jim Micah that he rarely talked about. Darkness about his military life, and she didn’t want to pry open old wounds. “Be careful.”
“Definitely.”
She walked down to the edge of the dock, sat. “And you’ll be back by tomorrow night?”
“The rehearsal.Yes.”
