Page 62 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

“I still have the key, so we wouldn’t have to break in,” I said. “I never gave it back to Marcus, but I took it when we left instead of leaving it in the same place the instructions in my grandfather’s letter said to look for it after his passing.”

For just a moment, apprehension shone back at me from Ryan’s eyes, but after considering it for a moment, he nodded. “Yeah okay. We’re not driving another two hours into New York tonight and I need another day or two to finalize vendors anyway.”

My stomach fluttered. “Wedding vendors?”

“Yep. We need to find a caterer, entertainment, security, and someone who’ll rent us a carnival. That’s going to take time.”

I dipped my chin in a nod, but I could feel how wooden it was. Everything he’d said was completely logical. It was just that I’d spent the last couple hours obsessing about that kiss while Ryan was obsessing about planning my wedding to somebody else.

Fantastic.

“Okay,” he said after another beat, turning over the engine and backing out of our parking spot. “Let’s go.”

I turned to the window so he wouldn’t see the unreasonable, illogical, downright inappropriate disappointment on my face. On our way to the cottage, neither of us said much, both of Ryan’s hands on the steering wheel as he navigated stretches of unlit road before we finally rolled into Deerfield.

Not long after, we pulled up to the cottage, but honestly, it also looked like the setting of a horror movie. Broken trees from the other night’s storm and probably one or two more since jutted into the dark. The windows were black and the porch creaked when Ryan unlocked the door.

I stuck close behind him, relieved when he flicked on the lights and a warm, orange glow illuminated the living area. Ryan let out a slow, deep breath too, then glanced at me over his shoulder and flashed a smug smile.

“Let there be light,” he said, striding farther in and flicking on some more lights as he went past the kitchen and the hallway. “Welcome home, Maggie.”

For a second, I flashed on what it might be like to hear him say those words for real. Like, if we ever moved into a place of our own, together, but I crushed the thought with a mental hammer and glanced up at the dark staircase.

“I’m not sleeping in the bedroom. It’s definitely haunted.”

He groaned. “What is it with you and hauntings today? I’m starting to regret showing you that venue.”

“Don’t you dare.” I gave him a serious glare before heading to the narrow linen closet I’d found last time we’d been here.

After pulling out a few blankets and two pillows, I carried them to the couch and kicked off my shoes, getting comfortable. Ryan sat down on the other end. Unfortunately, as always, his laptop wasn’t far away.

He finally pulled off his jacket and undid the top few buttons of his shirt after ditching his tie, but he kept his socks on once he’d kicked off his shoes too. Apparently, that was as far as he was willing to go before getting to work.

As I threw the blanket over both of us, he leaned back on the couch and put his computer on his knees. Then he opened it and got right back to planning. “I want to talk to the caterers Henry suggested first thing tomorrow.”

“Okay.” I lay down on the couch, burrowing my head into my pillow before reaching for one of the books I’d brought downstairs from the attic on our last visit.

I’d been fascinated by them then, and I was definitely more fascinated by them now than I was with the logistics of wedding planning. The coffee table was still covered in them, but Ryan clearly didn’t notice.

“Next up, we need to focus on the rentals,” he said. “If we’re doing a carnival, we have to do it right. So we’ve got to find out what the suppliers can actually provide.”

“Cool.”

“Oh, and the photographer,” he said, clicking into a new tab before searching a couple of names from the list Henry had given us. “We want someone who actually understands what we’re doing rather than turning this into another society wedding, right?”

“Right.” I watched him for a moment, so utterly focused on his laptop that a fire could’ve broken out on my side of the couch and he probably wouldn’t have noticed. “You’re taking this very seriously.”

He didn’t even glance at me. “What’s the point of doing anything if you’re not going to take it seriously? That’s just wasting time.”

“Fair enough.”

I glanced at the book in my hand, the edges softened with age and spiderwebs of tiny cracks running across the leather cover. There was no title, with only a faded symbol pressed into the front to provide any clues about what it was. The symbol didn’t mean anything to me, though.

Gently sliding my fingers under the front cover, I opened it and a photograph slid out, landing face-up on my arm. The woman staring back at me from it was the same one from my grandfather’s wedding picture.

Shit. How did I forget about this?

As determined as I’d been to find out the story when we’d last left here, I hadn’t even really thought about it over the last couple weeks. Too much had been happening and too many other things had demanded my attention, but seeing her again made that strange, prickling feeling return to the back of my mind.