Page 98 of Lucky Haven

A small, private ache pulses in my chest as I step around her and pretend to look at the cakes on display before I escape into the crowd again.

But after I manage to get a raspberry tart, I find myself looking back at the girl. She’s carefully making notes in her book about each cake. And she looks…lonely.

That’s what made me look back, I tell myself. I recognize myself in her, that’s all.

Except I keep looking at her notebook. It bothers me, and it’s not until she reaches the officials table and tears a sheet from it, handing over her notes, that I realize what I recognize about it.

There’s a leaf on the back cover. I saw it when she clutched it to her chest.

I’ve seen that leaf before.

It’s probably in the corner of the sheet she just handed over. And I’d bet this tart in my hand that it’s neatly perforated along one edge, because the sheet came away smoothly when she ripped it from her book.

On auto pilot, I cross the tent as swiftly as I can, watching and waiting until the person holding the sheet of paper is finished with it and sets it down.

And then I swipe it.

My second criminal act of the week. At this rate, I’ll be getting a tattoo in no time.

I shove it into a secret pocket in my dress. There’s no time to look at it right now, because Kaitlyn is beelining for the exit and I need to follow her.

But I know that I’m going to recognize her handwriting before I even look at it. The paper is exactly the same weight and colour as the notes left for me and Cash.

I resist the urge to call out her name. I don’t want to make a scene.

And I’m still processing what this means.

It makes sense why we wouldn’t have found her handwriting in the church registry I stole from my uncle’s office. Two years ago, she was fourteen, and if she did write something in it, her handwriting would look younger, more juvenile than it does now.

A girl grows up a lot between fourteen and sixteen.

Even in the shelter of an oppressive church, she can get some peculiar ideas, about everything from penmanship to community values to…jealousy.

Could she have a crush on Cash?

Outside the tent, I see her talking to her mother.

Not wanting to confront her in front of someone who might be hostile, I slow down and pull the piece of paper out of my pocket as I take a bite of the raspberry tart. The handwriting on her benignly ranked list of cakes is identical to the vitriolic messages left for Cash and myself.

Oh, Kaitlyn.

The tart goes tasteless in my mouth.

I don’t feel angry. She’s a child, raised by people who have been marinating in contempt for me for years. She absorbed their lies, thinking they were true.

If anything, I’m frightened for her.

Cash’s name rises in my throat, an automatic reflex. But I can’t go to him for help on this.

This requires careful intervention, not ferocious confrontation. His growl, his presence, his protective fury, all of it would crash down on this girl and have rippling consequences I can’t predict.

But I can find grace here.

I slip into the shadows and wait for her to be alone again.

Chapter Thirty-One

Cash