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Her tone isn’t accusatory or rude.

“Got stuck at the cabin during the storm.” I roll my eyes, playing the situation off as nothing; most of the people who own cottages and cabins throughout Red Hollows know what a pain storms can be when caught in them. “Worst part, I had dragged poor Mr. Shaw and Mr. Weaver down with me to help decorate. They were, of course, so sweet and understanding, but I felt awful taking up so much of their time.”

I’m careful to pitch my voice just high enough for Dolores Winslow sitting by the window with her flock of Women’s Tea Garden members to hear.

The gossip would already be circulating through their hive. Hiding it would be useless, but I can get enough ahead of them to protect Van and Lachlan.

Maisie grimaces as she drops my pastry into a paper bag. “Oh, shoot, that really is awful, but I’m glad you’re okay.”

I nod. “I’m just so grateful for their kindness, especially after my disagreement with Bron.”

Maisie sets the bag down on the counter, dark eyes fixed on my face with genuine concern. “I heard. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

I take a moment to pick at the corner of the bag. I already have this planned, every word carefully rehearsed before I even got out of my car, but I need their full attention. I need Doloresto absorb every word so she can spread the news to the rest of her congregation.

“I’m trying.” I bite my lip and sigh. “It breaks my heart because we’ve been together two years and I thought we were headed towards marriage and family. The proper order of things. Living in sin is not what my parents would want for me and he just could not understand my need to be a good, God-fearing woman.”

It’s a thick layer of nonsense. If they knew half the things I let Van and Lachlan do to me in one night, they might burn me at the stake.

But my claim — not fabricated in the least — is exactly the outrage Dolores and Co need to gasp simultaneously and clutch their chests.

“Goodness, child,” thin with sharp angles, Dolores exclaims. “What a dreadful man.”

I turn wide, startled eyes in their direction like I had no idea they’d been there this entire time.

“Mrs. Winslow. Ladies,” I address them with a sheepish nod. “I am so sorry you had to overhear such terrible language.”

Dolores waves a long, skeletal hand for me to join them at the round table cluttered with dainty teacups.

“Come. You must,” she insists when I start to shake my head. “You’ve had a dreadful ordeal. You need your friends.”

I nearly scoff.

After Mom died and I turned down her chair at the Tea Garden, Dolores and Co barely acknowledged my existence.Friendsis a gross overexaggeration.

But a story is what I’m selling and they’re my intended audience.

“I’ll get your things ready,” Maisie assures, like that’s my concern.

I offer her a grateful smile and go to join the vultures eyeing me from across the room. I take a seat between Dolores and Mavis Underhill. Across from us, Irene McCafferty sips on her tea and blinks over the rim of her cup at me with eyes ringed in thick, black eyeliner and a broad sweep of blue eyeshadow that touches her heavily penciled eyebrows.

It’s not the entire WTG team. Viola Henderson, Pearl Danvers, and Edith Broome seem to be missing from the morning gossip. But I know they will hear every drop before I even leave the bakery.

Dolores immediately captures my fingers. Her skin has a powdery texture that I have to resist not to dust off. “Tell us.”

I know the importance of order in Jefferson. The year may not be the 1920s, but marriage and family are the very bedrock of our foundation. Couples living together out of wedlock, fornication, is simply a crime worse than murder.

And it’s not a lie what I said. I broached the subject of marriage to Bron. I gauged where we stood in our relationship, ifwe had a future. The very conversation unloaded a rage in him that rivaled anything before or after. Marrying me was as desirable to him as rolling through cow dung in the July heat. I could have requested his dick on a platter for the way he’d leapt off my sofa and stormed out.

Still, sin hadn’t been on his mind either, it seems. Sleeping with me had all but emptied his stomach into my lap.

He only wanted money,I think miserably.

“It’s all right, honey. You can tell us,” Irene coos.

I have to pause and collect my thoughts.

“It’s just so embarrassing,” I explain, “for him to think I’m the kind of woman who would just ... offer myself to a man without God’s blessing. Maybe he’s okay being with someone like that, but I’m not that woman.”