Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Along with a million other lies.
Not one of them passed her lips.
She couldn’t muster the energy or care to say she would be okay with her best friend and business partner mingling with her ex and his fiancée—at their engagement party, no less. Not when it wasn’t true.
“You don’t even like Sonny,” Gracen pointed out.
Delaney’s nose scrunched up in the same way it always did when a person mention someone she didn’t particularly care for. “It’s not that I don’t like him, really, I just—”
“Don’t like him. Say it.”
Not that Delaney did.
It shouldn’t be an issue. After all, Delaney had no problem doing it all throughout high school, and the year of beauty school that followed. Which the girls also attended together before opening their first small salon right after graduation thanks to the small insurance payout from Gracen’s parents’ untimely accidental deaths just before her thirteenth birthday. In trust, the money had gained interest until it was released to Gracen in portions over a period of a couple of years at a critical point in her life when she needed to make big decisions. The right ones.
Besides paying for school, Gracen fronted the down payment for the first salon with a two-bedroom apartment over top the business where she and Delaney lived for two years. A popular spot for young women and teenagers in their small town, they ended up selling the salon just a stone’s throw from the Valley’s closest bank and only flower shop for the opportunity of a larger location across the bridge.
Everybody thought they were crazy.
One hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the old, abandoned courthouse that had been flooded once during a previous spring thaw when the peninsula saw river levels rise as snow and ice melted from the surrounding forested mountain ranges. All that snow and ice had to go somewhere, so down the hills and into the river it was while the many towns lining said river were left to fight flooding by strategically opening and closing dams for weeks and weeks until the water level went back down to a safe and manageable level.
Nobody could tell the girls anything, though. Not with one successful salon under their belts, a dream of something more, and the means to do it. Not even the building inspector who warned Gracen and Delaney that one more flood would condemn the building could stop them from signing on the dotted line when the bank came through with the loan.
No, they still bought it.
Fifty thousand dollars in renovations later ...
“We were supposed to open the Haus ten minutes ago,” Delaney told Gracen.
“The salon is fine. Margot is always early.”
Their one and only employee, Margot was nothing if not faithful and trustworthy.
“But she doesn’t have a key.”
That wasn’t the point.
Somebody was there.
“It’s more than just an engagement party, isn’t it?” Gracen asked. “There must be some reason why your cousin wants you there.”
It had to be. She couldn’t think of one reason why Delaney would get an invitation that she clearly hadn’t planned on telling Gracen about until she found it unless there was more to the situation that her friend had not yet shared. Her very best friend; her roommate. They spent every day together. Nearly every waking second between the salon and the two-bedroom two-storey house they rented across the river. From the front windows, they could see the salon’s Haus of Hair sign lit up in neon when it was turned on. And yet, Delaney had not told Gracen about the invitation in the mail until she no longer had a choice.
Or better yet, until Gracen stumbled upon it in their mailbox after the two arrived back from their morning run. It was only the name of the senders that made her open it, but Delaney hadn’t wasted time snatching the invitation out of Gracen’s hands in front of their house with a snap about minding her business.
Too little, too late.
Gracen had already noted the name. She didn’t need to read the entire invitation for the engagement party to get the gist from the fancy bit at the top.
“Who around here even has formal engagement announcements?” she asked.
More herself than her friend.
Delaney shrugged, muttering only, “You know how the church is when a girl gets married, well, now it’s one of the pastor’s daughters. Alora is barely out of high school. Her father might as well have handpicked Sonny for her if she wasn’t so head over heels for him, anyway.”
“According to who, exactly?”
Delaney pointedly stared at Gracen. “Who do you think?”
“Let me guess, your cousin is—”
“Bexley’s close to Alora. Best friends, she says. Sonny might not be Pentecostal like Alora’s side, but he’s Baptist, his family owns half of town, and that’s good enough for the Beau family. The church is all for anything that makes them look good.”