The revelation doused him like ice water. “Lark discussed me with Stella?” Weakly, he sat back down.
“In great detail, apparently. About what good friends you were. How you’d take her out on Wednesdays and let her order whatever she liked. Were you blind to Lark’s ulterior motives? Baby brother, you’re a master at sticking your head in the sand. Even so, I have trouble believing you’re that myopic.”
The attacks came too fast. “Why would Lark use me as bait?” he demanded, frustrated by his inability to form an adequate defense.
“You are blind.” She planted her hands on his desk. “Dixon’s,” she emphasized, “on Wednesday afternoons.”
Griffin tensed. A dark foreboding crept through him. Whatever critical information he’d missed, he didn’t want to hear it now.
A conviction that held no importance to Sally.
“Rae meets with Yuna at Dixon’s,” she spelled out. “Every Wednesday afternoon like clockwork.” When he looked at her, speechless, her eyes narrowed. “You never bumped into Rae when you took Lark there?”
“No. Never.”
It was sheer, stupid luck. How would he have explained, if he had run into her?
“I’m sure Lark was disappointed. Given all the bragging she was doing to Katherine’s daughter. Apparently, Lark was playing matchmaker.”
“She . . . what?”
“She planned to fix you back up with Rae. Don’t you get it? So the three of you could live happily ever after.” Sally gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Griffin, you are dense. Manipulated by a ninth grader, and you didn’t have a clue. Would you have caught on before she picked out the date for you to marry her mother? Before she ordered a big white cake?”
Stunned, he fell back in his chair. “I didn’t know,” he murmured. Nor could he recall who first mentioned the outings. Had he offered to take Lark to Dixon’s, or had the suggestion been hers?
He didn’t keep tabs on Rae’s schedule. He didn’t keep tabs on Rae. Until her daughter began coming around, he’d studiously barred her from his thoughts.
Lark, however, would’ve known her mother’s schedule.
“Griffin, we’ve always been able to trust each other. Last summer, I encouraged you to ask Katherine out because she’s a dear friend, and you both seemed lonely. You’ve hardly done anything but work since moving back to town, and she’s dated some real duds since her divorce. I was hoping . . . oh, it doesn’t matter. Fixing you up was incredibly dumb. What was I thinking?”
Wheeling from the desk, his sister marched to the bank of windows. Cars came and went from their father’s dealership. The hum of activity was a million miles away. It was utterly detached from the pain leaking into the office.
“Sis, I never asked you to set me up with Katherine.” When she refused to turn around, he scrubbed his palms across his cheeks. “We only dated a few months. We didn’t have enough in common.” Anything in common.
“Your opinion, not hers. From the start, Katherine felt differently. She’s in love with you, Griffin.” From over her shoulder, Sally glanced at him swiftly. Her eyes were dark, accusing. “I don’t like seeing her torn up. We’ve been tight for years. She’s important to me.”
“I never meant to hurt her.”
“Well, you did.”
“I’m sorry. It was never my intention.”
The apology provoked an unexpected reaction. A tremor shuddered down his sister’s back. When she turned to regard him, her eyes were blank slates.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “I’ve loved you all my life, but I’ve never really known you.” She wheeled back to the desk. “Who were you to Lark? The truth, baby brother.”
A thunderous silence overtook the room. It lasted long enough for the shame and the confusion to pull Griffin under, a treacherous undertow dragging him out to sea. He knew the most grievous wounds were inflicted carelessly. How much injury had he caused when Rae shut him out of her life—and he’d reciprocated by shutting her out of his heart?
Lark’s hidden agenda hardly mattered. Given all she’d discovered—his love letters to Rae, the photos—why wouldn’t she devise a plan to put him back in her mother’s path? The dreams Lark had constructed were fragile—spun glass.
He’d abetted her in spinning each one.
In agony, he grasped his grave mistake. He’d taken Lark to Dixon’s to fulfill a secret wish sealed beneath the seabed of his emotions. As Lark slid into the booth across from him and proceeded to enthrall him with giddy laughter and a young girl’s nonstop, effervescent chatter, he’d allowed his thoughts to veer onto the reckless ground of fantasy.