Page 48 of Must Love Lavender and Little Lies
“We’ll need a short break, friends, then we’ll be back,” the fiddle player called.
The crowd cheered.
My heart beating hard, my cheeks red, I stopped to find myself pressed against Granik’s chest.
Granik grinned at me, then leaned in and set a kiss on my lips. When he pulled back, he winked playfully at me, then asked, “Want a rose lemonade?”
“Yes, please,” I replied with a laugh.
He gestured over his shoulder to the vendor. “I’ll be right back.”
I nodded then stepped aside, trying to catch my breath, my mind reeling.
That was when Tansy found me. “Juniper,” she said, a wide smile on her face. “I sent Kellen after Granik for lemonade.”
“I’m parched,” I replied with a smile, fanning myself.
“I bet,” she replied with a laugh, then elbowed me. “I saw that,” she said in a low tone.
“Saw what?”
“That kiss.”
“That? Oh, that was nothing. That’s just Granik being…silly.”
“Really?”
“For his family, and…”
Tansy gestured across the dance square to the spot where Gree-Gree had been sitting. “They left two songs ago. You didn’t notice?”
“Well, I?—”
“Has Granik ever kissed you before just to be silly?”
I looked at Tansy. “What are you saying?”
“It took a forest to knock me on my arse and steal my memories for me to understand my heart. I hear you’re getting married Saturday.”
“There was some confusion?—”
“Was there? Are you sure?”
I studied Tansy’s face, the meaning of her words coming together.
“It wouldn’t be the worst thing, you know.”
“What wouldn’t be?”
Tansy cocked her brow and gave me a knowing look. “Juniper,” she said, in the same tone she used with me when I was overthinking a recipe, or a garden bed, or an herbal mixture.That“Juniper”always meant one thing—I already knew the answer. I already knew the right thing to do.
I looked back at the lemonade stand where Kellen and Granik stood together talking as the vendor prepared our drinks.
How handsome he looked in the glowing lantern light, his long black hair shimmering blue, his sturdy frame looking so…enticing. I’d spoken up to save him from an arranged marriage because I couldn’t stand the idea of him being married to someone he didn’t love.
At least, that was what I told myself.
What I really couldn’t stand was…
