She hid the bottle once more and carried the glasses to the table.
He took an appreciative drink.
She sank back into her seat and watched him. They were silent for a long while until he sighed. “I guess it’s a good thing Ella isn’t staying in Dove Pond. I don’t think anyone could survive the onslaught of gossip she’d have to face. She must hate me now.”
“You didn’t do anything. But the rest of our family? We need to work on a few things.” That should have been hard to say, but it wasn’t. Which was depressing. Angela took a small sip of her whiskey, the soft burn welcome after such an exhausting day.
“This family,” Gray said with disgust. He sank back into his silence, but this time he took the whiskey with him.
She watched him over her glass. What a day. Jules’s broadcasted accusations had shocked the crowd of Ella’s followers. Worse, apparently several people—maybe even hundreds (Angela wasn’t quite sure of the exact number)—had posted Jules’s ugly accusations online.
Tiff had gotten her wind back and had gone into damage control mode, but even Angela could see she was worried it wouldn’t be enough. From what Angela had overheard before she’d left, one of Ella’s sponsors had already signaled their intention to pull their support.
Angela stared into her glass. If only Aunt Jo had kept her mic on a moment longer so everyone could hear Mark’s confession. All the crowd heard were Jules’s horrible accusations. After the winner was announced, from what Angela knew from the texts Jules had sent her, Preacher Thompson had tried to set the record straight by telling the crowd that, yes, there was a missing recipe book, or had been, but that Ella was innocent and the real culprit had confessed. But it was too late. The accusation was out there.
When they’d gotten home, Gray had checked Ella’s social media accounts and had groaned on seeing that #recipethief and #EllaDoveFAKE were trending.
Angela sighed. “I never knew a video could go viral that quickly. Over a million views.”
“And counting,” Gray said grimly. “Tiff said people are already dropping off Ella’s platforms like flies. People are calling her a pretender and a fake. It’s bad, Grandma. So bad.”
Angela nodded sadly.
The sound of a car door slamming came from the driveway. Angela leaned back so she could see out the window. “Your mom is walking as if she’s got stick legs that don’t bend, and Mark looks like he just swallowed a whole lemon.”
Gray’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say a word.
The front door opened and a moment later Jules and Mark came into the kitchen. Mark immediately came to stand near Gray while Jules put the two bags she was carrying on the table.
Angela instantly perked up. “Meatloaf specials?”
“I certainly didn’t feel like cooking. Not now, anyway.” Jules took off her coat and tossed it over a chair, then sat down. She pulled the containers from the bag and handed them out, putting Mark’s in front of his chair. “Sit and eat, all of you.”
Angela could tell from the way Mark was looking at Gray that he was torn between leaving and begging his brother for forgiveness, but after a stiff moment he sank into his chair.
“Is that whiskey?” Jules pointed to Angela’s glass.
“This? Of course n—”
“I’ll have one too, please.”
Oh, wow. Two surprises today. “Sure.” Angela got up and fixed Jules a glass of whiskey. “Mark?”
He shook his head.
Angela set Jules’s glass in front of her and then sat back down. She forced a smile. “Well! Here we all are.”
Gray ignored his food, his hand tightly closed around his glass.
Jules frowned. “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Mark leaned back in his chair, looking exhausted. “Me neither.”
Angela discovered she wasn’t hungry either. What she really wanted was another sip of her whiskey, which she took.
Mark scooted even farther down in his chair. “We might as well get this over with. I need to tell you guys what happened that day.”
Gray didn’t even look at him.
Mark’s hands, which lay in his lap, curled into fists. “Gray, I was an idiot. I know that now—but back then, I felt like I had to do something. Since I was little, I used to love the time we spent in the Hamptons. It was always the best of times for us. For the most part, no one argued, and things felt… I don’t know, right in some way. But then Ella showed up. And after a while, it seemed as if she was destroying us.”
Angela had just taken a sip of her whiskey, but at that, she looked up. “Us?”
“After Ella started visiting, the arguing began. Mom wasn’t happy about her and Gray. And she blamed you for bringing her around, so you two were arguing. And Gray…” Mark gritted his teeth and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he clasped his hands in front of him. “To me, it seemed that Ella was the problem, and I worried that the longer she stayed, the worse things would get.”
“That was all in your head,” Gray said.
“Maybe. But I knew what would happen to you after she left. I just wanted her gone. I didn’t plan on taking the Book of Cakes, but one morning, as I was walking through the kitchen, I saw it on the counter and realized that was my chance. I just had to hide it. I knew Mom would blame Ella and make Grandma send her away.”
Jules sent him a flat look. “Ella would have left on her own, without you doing that.”
“Not as quickly. The longer she stayed, the worse it would be for Gray.”
“Baloney.” Gray’s expression darkened. “If you all had spent more time getting to know Ella instead of plotting against her, none of this would have happened.”
Mark sank deeper into his seat. “It was a stupid thing to do. I admit it. But I felt someone had to do something.”
Jules shook her head, her disappointment obvious. “For the past two years, whenever we talked about our lost recipe book, you just stood there and let me think the worst of her. I can’t believe you did that.”
Gray took a swig of his whiskey. “All of you owe her an apology.”
“I apologized to her,” Jules said. “More than once, in fact. But it doesn’t seem like enough.”
Mark nodded. “I did the same, but—” He lifted his shoulders. “She said it was okay, but it was obvious she was still upset.”
Angela watched how the light sparkled in her whiskey, a thought suddenly occurring. “Mark, where is the Book of Cakes?”
Mark looked at Jules.
She picked up her purse, pulled out the book, and placed it on the table. It was an old, old book, the cover threadbare in places, the binding loose, and the corners rubbed raw. Pages and pages of handwritten recipes on various pieces of paper stuck out at odd angles, scribbled writing visible here and there. “It was in the safe at the Moonlight this whole time, hidden in a box of old tax records.”
Gray raised an eyebrow at his mother. “And you never saw it?”
“I thought it was in Europe with Ella,” Jules said impatiently. “It never dawned on me to look for it at the café.”
“Sheesh.” Gray shot his brother a hard glare. “You’re an idiot.”