Page 4 of First Bride to Fall
When she didn’t answer, he shook his head. “You listen to me, girls.” He glanced at each of them in turn. “I won’t have it. Won’t have any of it. We Delaneys have done okay for ourselves for a number of years. Through thick and through thin, we’ve stood by each other, and we’ll find a way to survive this. A house is just a house, and this building”—his gaze swept the room—“is nothing but stucco and stone. Whereas you…” He brought a hand to his heart. “You are my flesh and blood. Mylife’sblood. And not one of my precious daughters is going to marryanyonefor anything other than love.”
Chapter Two
“One of us has to marry Aidan.”
It had taken ten minutes for their father to stop giving the group of them suspicious looks and head back into the kitchen, taking their mom with him. Nell wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall forthatconversation. Instead, she and her sisters hurried into the storeroom—which was actually the large walk-in pantry behind the coffee roaster—for privacy.
Nell gaped at Misty. “We most definitely do not!” she whispered. “A marriage of convenience? Are you serious?”
Charlotte tugged at her crystal. “This is bad.”
“I know.” Nell stepped closer, tightening their circle. Charlotte was the tallest, and Misty the short, petite one. Height-wise, Nell fell somewhere in the middle. “What are we going to do?”
“Whatcanwe do?” Charlotte said. “None of us wants to marry Aidan.”
Misty sighed. “But what about Dad? You saw his face.”
Charlotte frowned. “Do you think this is why Mom’s been working so hard to fix us up?”
That registered with Nell. “Yeah, bet so. She was worried about what might happen to us if Bearberry Brews went under. We’d all be out of work then.”
“We can’t let them lose the business,” Charlotte said.
Nell set her chin. “We can’t let them lose theirhouse.”
The three of them stared at the hardwood floor, the tips of Misty’s and Charlotte’s boots pointing toward the toes of Nell’s red ballerina flats. The seconds ticked by. Really, short of winning the lottery or finding buried treasure somewhere on the beach out back, there was nothing any of them could do to bring in the kind of money the bank would demand.
Charlotte was the first to look up. “Misty’s right. One of us should do it.”
Misty’s mouth dropped open. “I— What?”
Was Charlotte volunteering? “You?”
“Notme. I just meant…someone.”
Misty shook her head. “Not me. Nuh-uh. No way.”
The two sisters looked at her.
Nell squawked. “You’vegotto be kidding me.” Just because she didn’t have a boyfriend or a social life and hadn’t dated in forever, that didn’t meansheshould be stuck with Aidan. She wanted to see if there could be something there with Grant. Sure, she hadn’t mustered up the courage to approach him yet, but she would never get a chance to if she hopped on a plane and moved to England. Even if an arranged marriagecouldhelp her dad and save their family business. Not to mention their family home. All of which made her feel about a billion times worse.
Charlotte shook her head. “Nell couldn’t handle it. All that travel. An international lifestyle.” She appeared dreamy a moment, then snapped herself out of it. “With Aidan. Right,” she said, as if remembering. “In any case, it’s only five years,” she said. “I’m twenty-eight. So.”
“You’d be out by thirty-three,” Misty told her. “Still young. Ish.”
Charlotte smirked. “Since you’re the baby, you’d be the youngest of all.”
And Nell would be the oldest. But even with that, even absolutely hating the idea, she couldn’t ignore the tug on her heartstrings to take care of her sisters. That’s what she’d always done. She kept track of appointments, helped balance their budgets, and had been known to grocery shop for one or the other sister a time or ten.
She’d even made both of them bagged lunches before coming into work today, something she’d done many times as a child because her parents had to get over to their coffee shop early. Neither had noticed the bags in the refrigerator yet, but when they did, they would tell her for the millionth time she didn’t need to still do this—all the while devouring the food. They ran such full schedules they might not otherwise pause to eat during the workday, and Nell knew it.
Still. A girl had to draw the line somewhere.
“I’ve got an idea,” Nell said, wanting to be fair about it. “We’ll draw straws.”
“Too random,” Charlotte told her.
Misty crossed her arms. “That hardly gives anyone a chance.”
