Ayla couldn’t remember the last time she ate a croissant.
“Yes, and prepare to have a little party in your mouth.” She set a golden-brown croissant with some red jelly oozing from the sides on the night table, next to a small dish that held the exquisite diamond necklace Ayla’s father had given her at the rehearsal dinner.
Was that before or after Jilly and EJ decided to hook up, she wondered.
Marie also set down a cup of creamy coffee. “And I put sugar in this because coffee without sugar is not worth drinking. Go ahead. Just eat in bed. Some dog will be by to get the crumbs.”
Ayla snorted, thinking about her mother and her bone-deep phobia about being in the same room as actual sugar. Or eating in bed. And forget dogs. Her mother hated them. And they, Ayla happened to know, were not huge fans of her mother.
Ayla pushed up and took the napkin—which, God love the woman, was really a paper towel—and spread it on the bedspread. Glancing down, she read the upside-down words Waterford Farm on the oversized T-shirt Miz Marie had helped her into last night, sometime after the second bottle of wine. Under the shirt, Ayla wore nothing but expensive undies meant for her wedding night with Scumbag Paxton.
“How did you sleep?” Marie asked.
“Surprisingly well.”
“It’s the mountain air out here in Bitter Bark,” she said, walking to the wide-open sash window that looked out over spring grass and oak trees bursting with the new life of late April. The Blue Ridge Mountains rose up from the horizon, glorious and green.
“The merlot helped, too.” Ayla inhaled the coffee aroma before taking a sip. She drank deeply, then set it aside to start on the croissant, which smelled like butter and…rebellion.
And tasted like the trip to France she was supposed to be taking this afternoon.
“I really don’t know how to thank you,” Ayla said as she swallowed the first bite and tried not to moan. There were only so many rules a Hollis could break in one morning. “You rescued me.”
“Rescuing,” the older woman said with a smile that crinkled the thin skin around her eyes, “is what I do.”
“Animals and strays.” Ayla gave a sad sigh. “I guess I qualify?”
“You did when you were rolled up on that shelter floor crying your eyes out.” She came to the bed and perched on the edge. “That whole church was all aflutter with chatter and gossip, and I, the one person who did not belong at a society wedding, was the one who knew exactly where you’d go with your broken heart.”
“Thank you.” She put her hand over Marie’s weathered knuckles, feeling a rush of affection for the woman. If anyone would understand the secret Ayla kept, it would be this woman.
Was it time to share with Miz Marie? They’d been friends for a year, and all Marie ever said was she’d never met anyone who understood animals like Ayla.
If Marie only knew the truth.
“I’m happy to finally see your new place in the daylight,” Ayla said, gazing at the vista out the window.
For almost the hour-and-a-half drive here from Charlotte last night, Marie had chattered on about her new ten-acre ranch, probably to keep Ayla from changing her mind and begging to go back. She’d told Ayla the whole story about how she’d purchased the house and land for a veritable song from her good friend Daniel Kilcannon. He owned Waterford Farm, an adjacent property that he and his family had turned into a canine training center where Marie frequently took dogs she’d rescued.
Of course, Ayla knew that Marie’s lifelong goal was to “retire” from shelter-hopping around the state, and that she loved the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. Marie always said she longed to open up a “a dream home” exclusively for senior dogs and special-case animals, the “unadoptables,” as they got labeled in the shelters. She would take the less-than-perfect animals that simply had nowhere else to go for love and care.
With her recent purchase of the Last Chance Ranch, her name for this property, her dream had come true, even though it had taken her away from Charlotte.
“However,” Ayla said, smiling at the other woman, “I’d planned to visit this new home of yours on my own, fully dressed and bearing a housewarming gift.”
“Pffft.” Marie flicked her hand. “You’re here, and that’s gift enough.” She studied Ayla with the same loving eyes she would a sick puppy, trying to decide if she needed to take it to a vet. “Have you heard from anyone?”
“I don’t have a phone, Marie. I don’t have a purse, a penny, an article of clothing, or a stitch of makeup except what I didn’t cry off while I sat with that dog.” She frowned and wiped some buttery flakes from her lips. “What did you name that little guy?”
“I called him River, as in ‘cry me a,’ and he’s currently sleeping in the kitchen.”
She laughed at the typical Miz Marie handle. The animals she rescued and found homes for were always named after a song running in her head, or the last thing she ate, or a character she’d seen in a show on her TV, which, based on the names, must be permanently tuned to the 1960s.
“Only you would save a runaway bride and the dog she used as a four-legged handkerchief.” Ayla gave a wistful smile. “I’ve never met anyone like you in my life, you know. You’re wonderful, Miz Marie Boswell.”
Marie put a weathered hand on Ayla’s arm. “I’m here for you, kitten.”
She swallowed a lump that formed at the gentle tone and the nickname Marie had given her the day they met. It reminded her of how her grandmother called her “Ayla Jo” when no one else on earth did.
Ayla reached up to scratch her head, making a face as her fingers dug into her teased hair. “How am I going to undo this?”
“Your hair or your life?”
“Both,” Ayla said with a wry smile. “I can’t imagine how upset my family is, or what EJ thinks.”
“Who cares?”
Seriously. She let out a low groan. “I honestly don’t want to even think about going back there and picking up that…life.”
“Then don’t. You were about to go to Europe for a month. Stay in Bitter Bark instead.”
Now that was as tempting as the second croissant she was considering. “How could I do that?”
“Easily,” Marie replied with a shrug. “Call your mother or your sister or your former best friend who can’t keep her legs together and say, ‘I’m fine, and I’m not coming back for a while. I’m taking a few weeks to myself. Return my gifts, and I’ll see you later.’ Would it be that hard?”
For a long moment, Ayla stared at this lady who’d become like a mother to her this past year. And certainly a better one than the distant woman she called Mother. Literally. Not Mom or Mama or Mommy, not since Ayla was three. Mother.
And whoa, she bet Mother was angry right now. Mortified in front of her entire social circle and the white-dress-wearing skank Dad brought as a date. They must all be furious. Usually, it was Trina who refused to be wrestled into submission. Who would have thought that the perennial people-pleasing daughter would be the bride who besmirched the Hollis name?
“Dear God, a runaway bride.”