“There you are!”another female voice hollered, this one she recognized.
Rachel.The petite redhead who’d helped secure her bags.
“Bethany!”Rachel beamed as she joined them at the table.“It’s so good to see you, sugar.”
Bethany could see the woman meant it and that was enough for her to relax a little.
A few minutes later, Cat and Rachel had pulled up stools to join them.They obviously already knew Lucy from Molly’s Diner where she worked, but they’d also begun filling her in on how they knew each other, too.
So far, she’d learned Cat was married to Cody, who was best friends with Zach Evans, who worked with Benny.She remembered Zach, he was the oldest of the four Evans brothers, the youngest of which: Jonah, she’d gone to school with.Bethany already knew Rachel was married to Hunter who also worked with Benny, but they also mentioned another guy, Luke, who worked with them too, and was part of the same enormous friendship group.As was Luke’s girlfriend Bella, Zach’s wife Libby, Wade: another Evans brother and his girlfriend Riley.
I should probably be writing this down.
Being away so long, it had been easy to forget just how interconnected her small town was.Everyone knew each other, literally, and each other’s business.
“So, how come you ran out on your wedding?”Cat asked, a little too casually.
Bethany had been about to take a sip of her wine when she paused mid tip.
Straight to it, then.
Usually, she wouldn’t take kindly to strangers so openly prying.But there was something about the extremely blunt Cat that stopped her from being offended.Granted, she’d only known her five minutes, but like Rachel, there was something so real and genuine about the woman.It was almost as if she was asking out of concern rather than curiosity.It was for that reason, Bethany opened up.
“Well,” she cleared her throat, placing the wine glass back on the scratched wood table.“I was standing there in my wedding dress, looking in the mirror.Reallylooking.And asked myself one question.One question that I knew would be the difference between me saying I do or getting the hell out of there.”
All the women leaned in, their elbows hitting the wood as their eyes widened in anticipation.
“What was the question?”Cat prodded.
She gave the women surrounding her a sad smile.“I asked myself, if there was no one out there, no packed church, no expectant parents...would I still go through with it?”
Rachel gasped in wonder.Cat nodded in understanding.While Lucy matched her own sad smile.
On that note, it was time for another round.One hour passed and as a second glass of wine made it into her system, Bethany participated in another sharing session.
She spoke about Denver and her residency, and in turn, Rachel told her more about her bakery, Fairy Baked.Cat talked about working as a book editor, while Lucy, as usual, stayed quiet, only perking up once at the mention of the new romance book Cat was reading.
Note to self, remind Lucy how awesome she is and encourage her to share that awesomeness with others.
“What’s it like seeing Benny again?”Rachel innocently batted her eyelashes.“You two dated in high school, didn’t you?”
Bethany’s eyes shot to Lucy who was nervously biting her lip.Then her gaze landed on Cat who all of a sudden was finding her chipped red nail varnish fascinating.
Oh my God.They know.
She didn’t know how they knew, but she felt it immediately.Talk about a giant elephant in the room.
“Okay, come on.Spill it.”Bethany banged both hands down onto the table.“What do you know?”Her eyes flicked between Rachel and Cat as they both sported guilty expressions.
“She’s good,” Cat was quick to point out.
“I know you know something, so let’s just get it all out there,” Bethany continued.
Rachel wasn’t meeting her eyes.Cat went back to looking at her nails.Surprisingly, Lucy was the one to pipe up.
“Come on, ladies.B needs to know what the Woodvalley gossip mill is saying about her.If it was the other way around, you’d want to know, too.”
Bethany mouthed a thank you to her friend and reached over to squeeze her hand.See, Lucy was awesome.
