“And coffee for me.” Mrs. Holland smiled innocently.
Shooting them one last look, I went over to Coulter and recited their order, highlighting the no-peanut rule.
“I know Gabriella.” Coulter wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his forearm, flipping bacon strips on the grill. “Don’t worry. No peanuts.”
Hurrying over to a corner of the diner, I pulled out my phone and started writing Cruz a text message.
This was stupid.
Surely, I wasn’t going to give up the best thing to happen to me since Bear (and Spanx) because of a few snotty people, even if some of them were my family. And I did owe him an apology for being difficult and pushing him away.
We needed to clear the air.
Tennessee: Hey. Sorry for what happened at the rehearsal dinner. I’d like to talk. Can you come over at
Coulter banged his fist on the bell, indicating one of the orders was ready.
“Table three.”
My eyes glided back to the text message I was finishing.
“Waitress! Are you going to keep us waiting just so you can mess around on your phone? It’s an ice cream! It melts!” Mrs. Holland hollered loud enough for people in neighboring states to hear.
With a low growl, I shoved my phone into my purse behind the counter, grabbed their order, and stomped my way toward their table.
Mrs. Holland was lounging back on the red vinyl, her daughter nowhere to be seen.
Where’d Gabriella go? To sharpen her fangs before sinking them into my neck?
“There you go.” I set the sundae, coffee, and Diet Coke on their table. “Hope you enjoy.”
“Oh, we will. No peanuts, right?”
“That’s what you asked a trillion times,” I confirmed. “Don’t worry, the only nuts we have around here are you and your daughter.”
“Wouldn’t kill you to be more polite.”
“Wouldn’t kill you to be more gracious,” I deadpanned.
“I cannot wait for Dr. Costello to dump you.” Mrs. Holland’s smile widened.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
“Even if he dumps me, which he very well might, he would never be with your daughter. She is everything you raised her to be—venomous, mean, petty, and perhaps worst of all—boring.”
“I suppose you’re a much better catch?”
She wrinkled her nose.
At least the smile dropped from her lips.
I shrugged. “He chose me, didn’t he?”
With those parting words, I went back to the counter, passing Gabriella on my way. She sneered at me, her shoulder purposely brushing mine as she took her seat.
“They seem like quite the pair.” Trixie untangled herself from her phone to squeeze my forearm. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” I rubbed her arm. “I’m used to it.”
After taking another order, I was about to retrieve my phone and finish the message to Cruz when I heard a loud gasp behind my back, followed by a thud.
Turning around, I found Gabriella on the diner floor, clutching her neck, moaning that she couldn’t breathe.
“My baby! My baby!” Mrs. Holland waved her hands frantically. “Someone call a doctor! I think she is having an allergic reaction! She’s allergic to peanuts!”
People began running around in all directions. Trixie grabbed the phone behind the counter and dialed nine-one-one. Someone said they might have an EpiPen in their purse, flipped their bag over and rummaged through their belongings.
Mrs. Holland was crying and doing the same, going through her daughter’s tote.
And me…I knew I had been set up.
There were no peanuts in that sundae.
I’d made sure of that.
Coulter’d made sure of that.
Mrs. Holland found an EpiPen in her daughter’s tote.
“I got it! I got it! Thank God,” she cried out in relief, running toward her daughter, who was still slithering on the floor, trying to breathe.
She jabbed the syringe into Gabriella’s outer thigh, with an extra flourish of dramatic flare for a parent who was stabbing their child.
“There’s an ambulance on the way.” Jerry rounded the counter, running toward Mrs. Holland. He crouched down on the floor to be eye-level with her, almost knocking me down on his way. “I cannot tell you how sorry I am, Mrs. Holland. I’m beside myself. This has never happened to us before. A terrible human error. Terrible. We all know Gabriella is allergic to peanuts.”
“She did it on purpose!” Mrs. Holland ignored him, pointing in my direction. “She’d do anything to win Dr. Costello. She couldn’t handle the fact he took a liking to my precious Gabriella! I want her to pay! She tried to kill my daughter.”
That was the last thing she said before the ambulance pulled up at the curb in front of the diner.
And right behind it, the cops.
Despite my dubious reputation, I’d never been arrested before.
This was a first for me, and I sure hoped it would be a last, too. Unless, of course, Mrs. Holland and her daughter managed to put me in the can for attempted murder.
Which, I’d been told by Officer Corrigan (who’d interned under my dad when he was a sheriff) was highly unlikely, considering Coulter—who’d actually made the sundae—was crying rivers when he had spoken to the cops at the scene and swore that not only had he made sure that there were no peanuts in the sundae, but he happened to check out my rear as I sauntered to table three to give them the ice cream, so he’d witnessed with his own eyes there was no foul play after he’d made the sundae.
I did not tamper with the dessert.
Who knew squats could save lives?
If I was coming out of this thing in one piece, I was going to sign up at the local gym and work my butt off. All puns intended.
Currently, I was detained in a cell by myself. There were perks to living in a one-traffic-light town. One of them was an obscenely low crime rate. Officer Corrigan told me I was allowed one phone call, preferably to someone who’d bail me out.
“I happen to know your mom and pops.” He pulled his belt up over his spilling belly, caught in its attempted escape from his stretched blue uniform. I was standing behind the bars, gulping down each of his words. This was decidedly not the time to be spacey. “I can help you make the call if you’d like. Or maybe you wanna call your sister? I can arrange for that, too.”
The crazy thing was, I didn’t want to call Mom, Dad, or Trinity.
I wanted to call Cruz.
I didn’t trust any of my family members not to make me feel horrible. I also knew they would absolutely believe whatever Gabriella and her mother had fed them.
Anger washed over me when I thought about how I’d been set up, and how even though I was innocent, my family wouldn’t believe me.
What had I done to earn that treatment from them?
“No.” I curled my fingers over the cold metal bars, my eyes meeting Officer Corrigan’s. “I want to call Cruz Costello.”
“The doctor?” His eyes bulged.
No, the Renaissance painter.
“Yes.”
“Do you know his number?”
My cheeks heated. “I don’t remember it by heart. Could I have the Yellow Pages?”
“Sure, honey. Whatever you need.”