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I shrugged, not sure what to say. "There's not much more to tell. We sent sledding this weekend. He made me dinner at his place last week."
"Are you doing the hippidy-dippity yet?"
"Sophie.You have all the finesse of a toddler with no nap."
She rested her chin in her hands, grin broad. "So? Are you?"
"No," I said, exasperated.
"That sounds like frustration to me."
"Because you'd know?" I asked Sophie, desperately wanting to turn the attention away from me.
I wasn't ready to define my relationship with Brady yet, nor did I want to share too many details. Gwen may have said she was fine keeping my secrets, but I was wary to test those waters so soon.
"Yes. That's why I'm stuck living vicariously through you and Izzy." She waved a negligent hand. "Gwen and Jo are lost causes."
"Gee, thanks," Jo said sarcastically, frowning at our friend.
"What? It's the truth. You've buried yourself at the brewery, and Gwen wouldn't know someone liked her if they sent a sign from heaven."
"If you insult all your single friends, who will you have left to go out with?" Gwen asked pointedly.
Sophie let her head loll back against her chair. "Sorry! Sorry… I just get cranky when I've been pent up too long. I didn't mean to be a brat."
"Sounds like you need to bid on a bachelor," Jo groused, not seeming ready to forgive Sophie quite yet.
"Exactly!" Sophie said, throwing her hands up. "But now I need a bidding proxy."
"I volunteer Davis as tribute," Jo said, in what I considered to be a magnanimous gesture. If you weren't Davis.
Sophie quieted, looking sheepish. "I can't exactly have Davis bid on Davis now, can I?"
"Why would you bid on Davis?" Jo asked, sounding mystified.
"Duh. Kittens."
As if that explained everything. Which, knowing Sophie, it did. Davis was cute, in a beardy kinda way, but his kittens were freaking adorable. Jo had either made a horrible tactical error or a brilliant strategic move, choosing a romp with Davis's kittens as his auction entry. It played to all of his strengths: he got to stay home and show off his adorable little charges to a likely adoptive parent, while avoiding a more public activity. I doubted Jo knew that Sophie snuck off to his rescue barn almost every time we came to the property. I'd only spotted her slipping into the barn once, but the guilty look when I questioned her about it the next day told me everything I needed to know.
Gwen held up her hands to forestall any further arguing. "I'm sorry if I threw a wrench in anyone's plans with the proxy rule. I can help arrange one for each of you, if needed. I'm sure Silvia Nemitz's book club will help."
"You want to engage thebook club?" Jo asked. The way she whispered it, heavy with meaning, raised goosebumps on my arms.
"Is that code for something?" I asked, curious. Brady's earlier suspicions about Mrs. Nemitz making book seemed ludicrous. But the way Jo acted, it sounded like Silvia and her club did more than talk novels.
Gwen waved away my concerns. "Don't worry about it. You've got enough on your plate with the play and the auction. I'll have your proxy contact you."
I gulped. Why did that sound more like a threat than a promise?
Jo looked uneasy, and I took my cue from her. She'd lived in Campfire a lot longer than me and just as long as Gwen. If she was concerned about asking the book club to help, it was probably with good reason.
Only Izzy looked serene at the suggestion, which raised my suspicions further. Silvia was her mother-in-law. She had nothing to fear from the older woman. But what about the rest of us? Had Gwen's silly rule taken us from managing a minor image issue to becoming beholden to the town busybodies? A book club sounded innocuous. But I'd learned that things in Campfire were sometimes more than they seemed. I could only hope that Gwen's ask didn't land me in hot water, owing a favor I couldn’t return. The last thing I wanted to do was get on the wrong side of the behind-the-scenes powers in my new home.
Chapter 15
Brady
OnFriday,stickerspoppedup on my students like an epidemic of acne. Round cartoons of a puffed-up grizzly in school colors decorated everyone. Eve had warned me, but that didn't make the shock of seeing myself, morphed into a grizzly bear any easier. By lunch, almost the entire student body sported a sticker somewhere, with a hulked-out version of me and the phrase, "It's a great day to be a Grizzly" emblazoned in red.
