Oops, Wrong Bride? Fine. No Wedding. novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: For Liza

My father got out of the Lexus slowly, buttoning his navy jacket.

"Officer," he said, and shook the man's hand. "Thank you for coming all this way. I hate that it came to this."

"Daddy," I said. "You called the police on me?"

"I called them about a theft." He looked sad. He was very good at looking sad. "That book is the property of Sweetgrass, and Sweetgrass belongs to the new owners."

Shelby had climbed out of the car now, phone up, a pink scarf tied in her hair.

"I just want it back," she told the camera in a small, hurt voice. "It's all I have of the place."

Behind me, the boatyard had gone quiet.

The crew had stopped working. Four men in sweat-dark T-shirts stood in the shed door with their arms folded.

Hayes stood beside my trash bags and said nothing at all.

"Ma'am," the officer said to me. "Do you have the book?"

"I do."

I unzipped the side pocket of my suitcase and took it out.

The green cloth was soft as felt in my hands.

"Do you have proof it's yours?"

I opened the front cover and held it out to him.

He leaned in and read it.

Then he turned it so my father could see it too.

For Liza, when it's hers.

"Is this your late wife's handwriting, sir?"

My father's mouth went thin.

"She was sentimental. It doesn't mean anything legally."

"It means it was a gift to your daughter," the officer said. "Signed and dated."

He pointed at the corner. My mother had dated it, the year I turned ten.

"That's a civil matter, sir, at best. I'm not taking a dead woman's gift off her own kid in a boatyard."

He closed his notepad.

Shelby lowered her phone half an inch.

"That's it?" she said. "You're just leaving?"

"Yes, ma'am. Y'all have a good day."

The cruiser crunched off down the shell road.

My father waited until it was gone.

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