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“Don’t look at him!” Wanda exclaims. “Look at me! Your partner!”
My thoughts swirl around as I force myself to stare into her deep brown eyes.
“Please, sweetie,” she says in a much more gentle voice. “You can do this! We can do this together. Come on. You have to trust somebody sometime.”
The registrar returns, deliberately turning her back to Ron and pushing the paper toward me again gently with her manicured nails.
“Let’s just sign these papers, okay?” she suggests.
Wanda nods emphatically. “Yes, okay? Let’s?”
With a heavy sigh, I turn toward the registrar and hold out my hand for a pen, which she places in my palm with a subtle smirk toward Ron.
“You did this,” I hear him say as I sign the papers, then write out a check and slide it with Wanda’s matching check to the smiling woman. “You did this… with Clay. Oh, I knew he didn’t need me at Crosswind! That was a fucking wild goose chase. You guys all did this to me. I can’t fucking believe it.”
“Okay! You’re all set!” The woman beams at us. “Good luck with your new business!”
“So I guess you realize that you’re fired. Both of you,” Ron huffs.
But I am barely listening to him. Instead I’m just smiling at Wanda, trying to slog through the emotions that are flooding me at hip height. Relief, fear, joy, excitement, all of it. She feels it too, I can tell.
“It’s going to be great,” she whispers excitedly. “Just as soon as we change the name, okay? Feather Rock is a stupid name, right?”
“You’re fired! You heard me, right?”
I turn toward Ron and hold out my hand to shake his hand. He just stares at it.
“Ron, it is just business,” I shrug. “You can’t win them all. It’s been really great working for you. Thank you.”
“And Clay, too!” he continues, beet red. “I can’t believe you guys!”
“Oh, come on. You don’t have to do that. Everything is gonna be okay. It’s just one small thing.”
As we turn around and walk down the steps, Wanda slides her arm through mine so we can walk arm-in-arm like the opening credits of a TV show.
“Seriously, this is going to be so great!” she says again. “You will see, Penny. This is the right thing to do.”
“I think you’re right,” I agree, half-holding my breath with excitement. “And yeah, we have to change the name. Feather Rock really is pretty dumb.”
Chapter 23
Clay
Elise keeps looking at the door, the oversized cappuccino mug hovering just under her lower lip. She is a good match for Wanda, I think. I don’t know what it is, but they seem to go together. I wouldn’t have automatically assumed that a construction goddess like Wanda would match up so well with a quirky redhead like Elise, but when they are together they just spark. It’s just nature. There’s nothing you can do.
“I’m sure they will be here any second,” she mutters to herself and to her cappuccino.
When the waitress swoops by, I raise a hand to order a tray of sweet things. Cookies, pastries, scones. Carbs. All the carbs. I figure that no matter how she feels about the auction, carbs are definitely required.
I don’t know what just happened, but the air changed. I don’t even have to turn around. I know that they are coming. I know that Penny is looking right at me.
When she sits down, the satisfied smirk on her beautiful, plush lips is the only answer I need.
“So how did it go?” Elise gushes as Wanda settles in next to her with a grin.
“It went amazing,” Wanda confirms.
I lock eyes with Penny, bracing myself for the download of that superhighway of her mental state. All at once I can feel her excitement, her fear, her courage.
