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Grace shot her a worried look.
“The tequila,” she clarified. “Great stuff. Really smooth. Or strong. Strong. That’s what I meant. I couldn’t care less about smooth.”
“I know.”
“Get me one more shot.”
“No. You’ll throw up in my bed.” Grace yanked Merry’s jeans down and then rolled her over onto her side before she pulled up the blankets. At least she hadn’t had sex with Shane today. At least she didn’t need to wash him off her skin.
“Go to sleep,” Grace ordered, trying to sound stern and cool and only sounding worried.
“Okay, but I’m going to wake up in a complete panic at 4:00 a.m., you know.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I will. This is really, really bad.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “And you were right about him. He was using me. He didn’t really want me. You knew he had an ulterior motive and I should’ve listened to you.”
“Hush. I didn’t suspect anything like this.”
“No, but you knew it wasn’t real. I wanted so much for it to be real that I couldn’t see the truth.”
“Oh, Merry.” Grace sighed, her hand stroking over Merry’s hair. “I wish I could kill him for you.”
Merry smiled. “Well, you slapped him. Jeez, did you really do that? You’re so damn awesome, Grace.”
“No, I’m just violent and terrible.”
“Good. I couldn’t have done that. Then again, I’m drunk now. I’ve got liquid courage. Or liquid belligerence. Maybe I should go kick him in the balls.”
“At this point, you’d probably miss and just tilt over.”
“I guess.” She sighed and settled into the pillow, totally content and thankful for her current state. It was beautiful. And quiet. So much better than what she was going to feel tomorrow. “Thanks for the tequila, Grace. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Grace whispered, one of the few times she’d ever said it back.
Merry heard Cole’s voice, speaking softly, and then the bedroom door closed, and she drifted happily through a haze of denial and liquor. She’d take a page from Scarlett O’Hara’s book and think about this another day. Specifically, tomorrow.
Or maybe she’d just stay drunk for twenty-four hours. Or forty-eight! She had options, so maybe things weren’t as hopeless as they seemed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MERRY DIDN’T WAKE up at 4:00 a.m. in a complete panic. She woke up at 5:30, heavy with hopelessness. She wasn’t hungover. She wasn’t even fuzzy about what had happened. Four shots of tequila in the space of fifteen minutes was enough to knock her out, but it was long gone from her system now, and she was left with nothing but reality.
Reality, and the sad, sorry news that the board had approved the press kit and wanted to schedule a time for Merry to meet with the reporter.
That was no longer an option. Merry couldn’t be the face of Providence, because the entire operation would be tainted by the next story. The one where she was profiled for going rogue and spending money without approval and possibly being in cahoots with the man trying to kill the ghost town. She wondere
d if that could be framed as embezzlement of some kind. After all, she’d spent a couple hundred dollars without the board’s approval and she’d meant to funnel another two thousand or so to Shane for a complete overhaul of the saloon. Then there was the fact that she’d been sleeping with him. That was pretty damning.
Of course, the most explosive part of the story would be the tale of how Merry Kade had vandalized a board member’s property and manufactured a false threat to the trust. Oh, boy. That kind of story might even be picked up by one of the big online news sites. Local Museum Curator Vandalizes Precious Historical Site. She’d be accused of trying to pin it on her lover. She’d be painted as some kind of ghost-town black widow with a hunger for hand-forged nails and full-color glossy brochures.
She was going to have to resign. There was no question. That wouldn’t be enough to offset all the damage she’d done, but it would be a good start. And she definitely couldn’t spearhead this press push. She’d need to remove her name from everything. All the contact information and documents she’d put together. She’d wipe it clean, and then she’d turn it all over to the board with her apology and resignation letter.
But before any of that, before she lost any right to it at all, she wanted to spend one last day at Providence. So she dressed as quietly as she could, brushed her teeth and wrote a note for Grace so she wouldn’t worry. Then she tiptoed out the door and raced to her car in the gray dawn light.
The air was icy and a little moist with dew, and it felt good. Refreshing. It made the day feel promising instead of doomed.
But that promise fell away when she got to her car and saw the envelope stuck beneath the wiper. It was sealed, the paper slightly swollen with moisture, but she knew who’d left it as soon as she saw it. She pulled it free and dropped it on the ground before she got into her car and started the engine.
