Page 65 of The Matchmaker Club

My aunt and I pored over recipes online to go with her infamous baked macaroni and cheese. If Bill loved her mac and cheese as much as I did, then there was no way she wasn’t winning him over. There was some stuffed pork recipe she was interested in but had never attempted before.

“Want to do some shopping with me? I’d like to practice a bit before Saturday.”

I smiled. “Sure, I have to go to the bank anyway.”

We made out a list, hopped into old Melvin, and headed into town.

“Do you mind if we stop at the Young place on the way? I need to pick up a few things for my woodworking.”

Young’s Hardware and Tractors was Austin’s family business. My chest tightened at the thought of seeing Austin again.

“I’ll stay in the truck,” I said. “Do you need money?”

My aunt used to work part-time for the lumber mill doing some billing work, but they had hired someone full time and only had Lainey come around for two weeks at the end of the month to help with scanning all the old files and paperwork into their computer systems. I had the task of holding us all over until she started getting paid again.

“No, Lucas is paying for all the supplies, since it’s part of the garden.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay. Great.”

We parked in front of the store, and I saw Austin through the large window, talking with his dad behind the counter. “I’m going to the bank. Lucas gave us some money for groceries.”

“Meet you back at the truck.”

I slinked out of the car and power walked along the curb, hoping to avoid Austin. The bank was only a few stores down, and I went inside to deposit the check into my account.

The teller, Carol, squinted her eyes at the check and then back up at me with eyebrows raised.

Great, now even more rumors were going to start flying around.

The youngest Reed, just about Lucas Freeman’s age, came in with a check from him for one thousand dollars.

What could she have possibly done to get that kind of money from him?

Must be running a brothel in there. We should call Hank and Frank.

Carol narrowed her eyes, the squeaky wheels in her head going a mile a minute. “Would you like any cash back or is this a full deposit?”

“Full deposit.”

I didn’t bother offering the explanation she wanted so badly to hear. My grandmother had taught me a long time ago not to defend our actions to people who didn’t need to know our business.

“A lot of money. Doing some work on the house?” she asked.

The other teller, Mary, stopped typing and leaned a little closer to listen in.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Carol frowned and typed on her computer, knowing she wasn’t going to get anything out of me. She handed me a receipt with a fake smile. “Don’t go spending it all in one place.”

I took the paper. “When you tell Mary how much the check was for, tell her also that my family says hello.”

She pursed her lips and went back to her computer. “Good day, Ms. Reed.”

When I had walked out the door, Austin was leaning against the passenger door of the truck.

Exactly what I didn’t want to deal with right now.

“Sorry about the other day,” he said. “If I had your cell number, I would’ve called.”