Once in a Lifetime(86)

“No, of course not. We’re discussing your stupidity. Your assness. Your—”

“I got it,” Ben said tightly.

“Yeah? Then do something about it, big guy.”

“For the record,” he said, “I was just getting ready to handle this situation.”

“Well, could you speed things up a little bit?” she asked. “Our girl doesn’t have all damn day. Right now she’s all alone in her shop surrounded by nothing but books and cupcakes that no one’s eating.”

He didn’t like that image. “No one came?”

“Her friends Ali and Leah came,” she said, with an emphasis on friends, as though he should be ashamed of himself for not being one of them. “Her sister showed up, too,” Lucille added. “But no one else. Lucky Harbor thinks it needs to be mad on your behalf.”

Hell. That was not what he wanted. “It’s none of anyone’s business. What happened is between me and her.”

Lucille crossed her arms. “Are you referring to way back, when she got mad at Hannah and told her a lie about the two of you? Are you seriously going to tell me that when you heard why Aubrey did it that it didn’t make a difference to you?”

Ben went still, thoughts spinning in his head so fast he felt whiplashed.

Lucille was staring at him. “You didn’t even ask Aubrey why she told Hannah that lie, did you?”

“I asked,” he said. But she hadn’t answered.

And he hadn’t pushed.

“Oh, for Peter, Joseph, and Mary’s sake!” Lucille said, exasperated. “I need to be paid for this job.”

“What job?”

“Matchmaking. You young people don’t even know how to communicate. Listen to me very carefully. Aubrey caught Hannah in a lie—a big one—that caused someone else a lot of problems. It pissed Aubrey off, because at that time she wasn’t getting away with diddly-squat.”

Ben shook his head. “What lie could Hannah have possibly told that would have upset Aubrey? They weren’t even friends.”

Lucille was clearly over this. “Remember that car accident she was in?”

Ben did remember. Hannah had been in the passenger seat when her best friend had gotten in an accident. Later that friend had been sued by someone in one of the other two cars involved. Thankfully, Hannah had been unhurt, but she was devastated over her friend’s troubles from the fallout. “Yes. I remember.”

Lucille’s expression softened. “Honey, this isn’t easy to say. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. Hannah was driving that night. The two girls switched places before the police came because Hannah had been drinking. She’d had a scholarship to lose and a father she was terrified of. A DUI couldn’t happen for her.”

Ben stared at her. “That’s crazy. Hannah would never have let someone else take the blame.”

“But that’s exactly what she did,” Lucille said quietly. “And Aubrey saw it.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because that someone else is my granddaughter.” Lucille patted him on the arm. “She said that Aubrey confronted Hannah about the accident, and Hannah denied it.” She gave Ben a long look. “Hannah used Aubrey’s bad reputation against her, to discount anything Aubrey might say. And then Aubrey let her mouth run off with her good sense when her temper got the best of her.”

Ben didn’t know what to make of any of this, and he wasn’t at all sure that the details mattered at this point. It was in the past, and it would stay there. It didn’t matter—none of it mattered; he knew that now. Standing, he headed to the door, but then he stopped to go back for the flyers. Lucille plowed into the back of him. Her hands came up, and because she was scarcely five feet tall they ended up on his ass. He craned his neck and looked down at her.

“Sorry,” she said, but didn’t remove her hands. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, she gave him a little squeeze.

“Lucille,” he said ominously.

“I know.” She pulled her hands away—rather reluctantly, he thought—and sighed. “It’s just been a long time since I had my hands on buns that firm.”

Shaking his head, he grabbed the flyers and strode out of his office. He stopped at every person he saw, thrust out a flyer, and demanded that person’s presence at the bookstore. “There’s going to be stuff to eat,” he said, and glanced at Lucille for confirmation.

She nodded. “Goodies from the bakery. And also hotties with buns of steel.”



After Ben got everybody to leave their desks and head down the street, he took a picture of the flyer with his phone and attached it to a text message, which he sent to everyone in his contacts list who lived in Lucky Harbor—and to a few who were close enough to get their asses in a car and drive here. Then he hit up the fire station, not surprised to find that Jack had already sent everyone down to the bookstore.

Then Ben headed that way as well, stopping at every place in between. He even hit up Sam, who was working alone in his harbor warehouse, sanding away on a gorgeous boat.

“You want me to go to a party?” Sam asked in disbelief, straightening. He was covered from head to toe in sawdust.

“Yeah,” Ben said.

Sam stared at him, and then let out a slow smile. “So the rumors are true. You’ve fallen for the bookstore chick.”