Four to One: Outvoted at My Own Wedding novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Paid in Full

Jo goes to the boathouse to cancel and finds Rafe Donnelly running it, six years on; the June 14 date was booked three weeks ago under Dawn's name with Jo's own deposit, and Mom calls to say stay where you are.

I did not cry on the way to the boathouse.

I drove with both hands on the wheel and Brett's text still open on my phone.

The lake was black, and the sign at the gate said Donnelly's Boathouse in white letters that somebody had repainted.

The office light was on.

It was eleven at night, and I had not planned what I would say.

I only knew the hall was the one thing in this wedding with my name on the contract, and I wanted to cancel it before Dawn called.

I knocked on the glass door.

A man came out of the back room drying his hands on a towel.

He was tall, with gray coming in at his temples and a thin white scar through his left eyebrow.

He stopped when he saw me.

I stopped too.

"Jo," he said.

It was Rafe Donnelly.

Six years had put lines around his eyes, and I knew the sound of my name in his mouth before my head caught up.

"You're the owner," I said. It came out stupid.

"My father died last spring," he said. "I came home and took it over."

"The emails were signed R. Donnelly."

"There are a lot of R. Donnellys on this lake."

"There's one that matters to me," I said, and then I wanted to bite my tongue off.

He didn't smile.

He unlocked the door and held it open without looking at my hands, which were shaking.

"You're getting married here," he said.

"I was."

His eyes went to my finger, to the pale line where the ring had been.

"I'm here to cancel," I said. "Tonight. I don't care about the deposit."

He walked behind the counter and woke up the old computer, the one his father kept running with duct tape.

"Brennan," he said, typing. "September sixth. Deposit nine thousand two hundred, paid in January."

"By me. From my savings."

"I remember the payment. I didn't remember the name until the second week."

He didn't say what he'd felt in the second week.

I didn't ask.

"I'll cancel the September date," I said. "Whatever the policy is."

"Okay." He clicked. Then he stopped clicking.

"What?"

"There's a second booking under your deposit," he said. "June fourteenth."

"That's tonight's vote. They only made it an hour ago."

"It was made three weeks ago."

I came around the counter before I could stop myself.

The screen showed a form with a hold date in early April.

The name on it said Mercer.

"That's my foster sister," I said. "Dawn Mercer."

"She called the office on the fourth," Rafe said. "She had your email, your booking number and the code from your confirmation. She said you were moving the date and wanted it handled quietly, because you were embarrassed to ask."

"I never asked."

"She said that too. She said you'd tell me you hadn't."

I stood very still.

Somewhere on the dock a rope knocked against a post.

"Why would she say that?" I asked.

"Why would she know to say it?"

I didn't have an answer, and neither did he.

He turned the screen a little toward me, and I read it again.

Mercer. June fourteenth. A hundred and forty guests. Ceremony at six. Hold converted to a booking on the eleventh.

"I processed that myself," Rafe said. "I thought it was a family thing. A sister handling the paperwork for a bride."

"It was a sister handling it," I said. "She just wasn't handling it for the bride."

I wasn't ready to say the rest out loud yet.

I read the line at the bottom of the screen instead, the payment line.

PAID IN FULL. APPLIED FROM BRENNAN DEPOSIT, $9,200. BALANCE $0.

"She used my deposit," I said.

"She transferred it. Your name was on the card. It went through."

My deposit, the money I saved for two years from shifts at the clinic, sat on Dawn's booking.

Dawn, who owned a sweater Mom bought her last week and a dress she'd had taken in on Tuesday.

"Rafe," I said. "Can you tell me who gets married on that date, if I cancel mine?"

"Whoever's name is on the booking," he said. "Mercer."

He put one hand flat on the counter, and I saw his knuckles go white.

"Jo, are you in some kind of trouble?"

I almost laughed.

Four people I had loved all my life had a group chat with a name and a plan.

I had a key tag in my pocket from a summer I'd never been able to forget.

"I've been outvoted," I said. "Four to one."

He looked at me for a long time.

"Then stay," he said. "The upstairs room has a bed. I'll sleep in the office."

"You haven't asked me anything about the last six years."

"No," Rafe said. "I haven't."

He took a key off the board behind him and put it in my hand.

His fingers did not touch mine.

I went up the narrow stairs, past the framed photo of his father on a dock, and I sat on a bed that smelled like cedar and lake.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It was Mom, calling.

I let it ring four times and then I answered.

"Joanna," she said, perfectly calm. "Dawn tells me you're at the boathouse. Stay there tonight. We'll talk in the morning, and we won't mention any of this."

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