LITMIR.BIZ

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were freaking out,” he told her, his eyes going wide. “Trevor’s mom looked like she wanted to shank someone.”

      “Definitely me,” Maggie muttered.

      “Jana Stone wasn’t going to shank anyone,” their father said. “Naturally, she’s upset and confused.” He glanced toward Maggie and then away. “We all are.”

      Ben didn’t look convinced. “If someone handed her a rusty knife, she would have gutted Maggie like—”

      “Not helping, Ben.” Jim Spencer leveled a glare at his teenage son.

      Undeterred by the gruesome talk, Vivian moved toward Maggie until they were inches apart. Grammy barely reached Maggie’s chin and she’d proudly been a size-two petite for as long as anyone could remember. Her hair was teased into a silver pouf, and she wore a rose-hued coat and matching crepe dress that made her look like she took fashion advice from the Queen of England.

      Her diminutive stature belied the fierceness of her spirit. Maggie’s grandmother was more than the family matriarch. She was the backbone of the Spencer clan, still with a hand in actively managing most of the family’s business holdings in town and the land they owned throughout the valley.

      The Spencers, along with the Stones, had founded Stonecreek in the mid-1800s. It still grated on the nerves of various relatives, Grammy included, that the town had officially been named Stonecreek instead of the planned Spencerville.

      The Stones claimed that founders Jonathan Spencer and Charles Stone flipped a coin for naming rights. According to Spencer family lore, Charles got Jonathan drunk, then sneaked out to file the town’s name in the early-morning hours while his friend slept off a night of whiskey and women.

      That spark lit the fuse on the Hatfield-and-McCoy-esque rivalry between the two families. The friction had ebbed and flowed over the decades until settling into a civil, if awkward, truce.

      Recently, the animosity had heated up again. The Spencers had been the more successful family for years, owning most of the businesses in town, as well as much of the land in the surrounding area. But Griffin and Trevor’s father took over the struggling family farm when the boys were still in diapers. Dave Stone began growing grapes in the volcanic soil and within a decade had turned the vineyard into one of the leading producers of pinot noir varietals in the lush Willamette Valley.

      Suddenly, power shifted, and the rural farming family began to assert its muscle in ways the Spencers didn’t appreciate. The power play was subtler these days, with deals over dinner and drinks more than fistfights at town meetings. It had been Vivian who’d pushed Maggie to view Trevor as something more than a platonic friend.

      Both of them had gone away to college, then returned to Stonecreek to work with their respective families. It had been easy to ramp up the childhood friendship to a more intimate level.

      They’d dated for three years, and Trevor had been at her side when she’d won her first mayoral election, becoming the youngest person to hold that office in the town’s history.

      If you asked her grandmother, it was the two families’ combined support that had propelled Maggie, relatively inexperienced in politics, to victory in the election. But Trevor had made her feel like she’d won on her own merit, and remained quite possibly the only person in either of their families who believed it.

      He’d proposed last Christmas. Of course, Maggie had said yes. So what if their relationship was more of a comfortable partnership than romantic or exciting? She didn’t need excitement and believed Trevor felt the same. Oh, how wrong she’d been.

      “You embarrassed me today,” her grandmother said, pale blue eyes flaring with temper, “and brought shame to the Spencer name.”

      Maggie swallowed and purposely put weight on her right foot, focusing on the physical pain instead of the emotional sting of her grammy’s words.

      “Mom.” Maggie’s father let out an exasperated sigh. “Let her explain.”

      “Can you explain yourself, Mary Margaret?”

      “I changed my mind,” she whispered, her gaze trained on the corsage pinned just below the collar of her grandmother’s dress. “Trevor and I realized we don’t love each other in the way two people who are getting married should.” She couldn’t look Grammy in the eye as the half-truths spilled from her mouth.

      Not complete lies. She went into the wedding with a bone-deep understanding that her marriage to Trevor had more to do with her family than any kind of grand passion. But she would have gone through with it if she hadn’t walked in on him locked in a furtive embrace with the curvaceous date of one of his groomsmen.

      “What did Trevor do?” Grammy demanded, much like Griffin had earlier. Good thing Maggie wasn’t a gambler because she clearly had no poker face.

      “Nothing.” She lied outright this time. She’d decided at the church that she’d rather be the bad guy in this scenario than the poor, duped and undesired fool. Trevor had agreed. He would have agreed to anything Maggie had asked. “I’m sorry, Grammy. I’ll take back the gifts and write apology notes to each of the guests. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”

      Vivian held up a weathered hand, the manicured tips of her fingers trembling. “This cannot be undone, Mary Margaret.” She turned to Maggie’s father. “Take me home, Jim.”

      He glanced between his mother and older daughter. “Maybe Maggie doesn’t want to be alone right—”

      “She made her choice,” Vivian said through clenched teeth. She waved a hand at both Morgan and Ben. “Let’s go.”

      Morgan stood and placed a hand on her dad’s sleeve. “I can stay with—”

      “We’re all going,” Vivian insisted, walking toward the front door without a backward glance.

      “It’s fine,” Maggie whispered when Morgan’s delicate brows drew together. “I’ll text you later, Mo.”

      Her father took a step toward her, but Maggie shook her head. “It’s okay. Go. I’m fine.”

      He looked like he wanted to argue, but she forced a smile and motioned for him to follow Grammy. Right now she needed time alone.

      “I love you,” her dad whispered, then walked out behind Grammy and Morgan. Ben turned back to her with his hand on the doorknob.

      “I wouldn’t have let Mrs. Stone shank you,” he said gravely.

      Maggie managed a watery smile. “Thanks, buddy.”

      He nodded, shutting the door behind him. As soon as the latch clicked, Maggie’s knees buckled. She collapsed to the hardwood floor with a sob, her life in pieces around her.

       Chapter Two

      Griffin pushed open the church doors and strode through, ignoring the gasps and stares of the small crowd still gathered near the front of the sanctuary.

      His younger brother stood in the center aisle between the pews, talking to a woman Griffin didn’t recognize, although she seemed vaguely familiar.

      Growing up it felt like Griffin had known everyone in the close-knit community, and he’d chafed at both the expectations and scrutiny of being part of one of Stonecreek’s founding families. How could he expect anonymity when the town bore his family’s damn name?

      He hadn’t asked for any of it. Small-town life had been stifling enough to a rambunctious kid without the added pressure of trying to live up to what his parents wanted from him. It had been presumed he’d be groomed to take over the helm of the family vineyard. Everyone in town—except his father—had seen his future like it had already come to pass.

      Griffin knew Dave Stone would never have allowed him to take over the business. Griffin hadn’t been able to please his demanding

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