Chapter 15: The Fund Dinner

Greta's POV

On Tuesday at five, the Carl Dunning Memorial Fund held its dinner in the big hall at Tamarack Lodge.

There were fifteen round tables, and a screen on a stand, and a hundred and twenty people in good coats.

I had not been invited.

Birdie had bought three tickets from a woman at the bait counter, in cash, for sixty dollars each.

"It's for a good cause," she said, handing me mine. "Whether Marcy knows it or not."

"You think I should go?"

"I think you should sit in the third row and eat the chicken."

Cal wore a clean shirt and had cut himself shaving.

"Don't say it," he said in the truck.

"I wasn't going to."

"You were looking at it."

"It's a very small cut. It does you credit."

He glanced over, and the corner of his mouth went up.

I looked out the window so that I wouldn't do anything stupid in his truck.

Sunday night had not made either of us shy.

It had made him slow, and at the door of the lodge he laid his hand on my back and left it there.

On Monday evening Rupert had texted me once.

They know. His father wants to watch her take the money. Please don't warn her.

I had not answered.

I had also not warned her.

Marcy was by the stage in a black dress, taking hands and dabbing her eyes.

She saw me come in with Cal on one side and Birdie on the other, and her face did not change at all.

That was the thing about her.

It never did, until she wanted it to.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Said Apologize, I Said the Wedding Is Off from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.