My Tribal Rule Said Marry Or Matchmake novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: The Deal

The church didn't gasp. It hummed.

Eighty people started whispering at once.

The elder didn't even blink.

"Sit down, son. You'll say yes by Thursday."

"I won't," Jeb said.

He stepped out of the pew and walked straight down the aisle and out the double doors.

The doors banged shut behind him.

Granny's hand had gone cold in mine.

I looked at her face, and something in me snapped clean in half.

"Stay here," I told her.

"Torrie, let him go."

I was already in the aisle.

He was halfway down the church steps when I came through the doors.

"Jeb Easterly!"

He stopped.

He turned around slowly.

Behind me, the doors opened again. Half the congregation was leaking out onto the porch to watch.

I didn't care.

"You couldn't have said that in private? To your granddad? Yesterday, in the truck?"

"Didn't know yesterday."

"Well, you knew this morning! My granny is sitting in there with a heart that barely works, and you just told the whole Hollow her granddaughter isn't worth a supper."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what they heard!"

He came back up two steps, so we were nearly eye to eye.

"You want to know why I said no?"

"Yes. I do."

"Because I'm not going to be the consolation prize a dying woman hands her granddaughter after the real one ran off with his assistant."

Somebody on the porch said, "Oh, Lord."

"I'm not a project, Torrie. I'm not a rebound with a truck."

"And you're not staying. You'll sit three suppers, make Imogene happy, and fly back to Chicago before the gravy's cold."

I opened my mouth.

I closed it.

He wasn't wrong about any of it, and I hated him for that.

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