“Donny, no!” Renee wailed. She turned pleadingly to the crowd. “Donny didn’t do that. Lainey did. She even admitted it. She confessed to the police.”
“My parents made her take the fall for me,” Donny yelled. “They told her I’d go to prison if she didn’t say she’d done it. They promised her she wouldn’t have a record, and then they came here and tried to use it against her, because they knew she’d never turn me in. I’m done living a lie, and I’m going back to Philadelphia to clear my sister’s name and take responsibility for my crime.”
“Donny!” Lainey held up her hand in protest, but he shook his head.
“This is what I have to do. This has been eating away at me for years. I owe your boyfriend a debt for helping to convince me to finally make things right.”
“Tate, what did you do?” Lainey asked in astonishment.
“I flew to Philadelphia to get to the bottom of this,” Tate told her. “I know you’re not a thief. Deep in my bones, in my soul, I knew it. I tracked down the district attorney in your case yesterday, and he told me his suspicions, and then I found your brother and told him what your mother told me.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” Renee cried out, her face flushed red with fury. My own children. Everything I did, I did for you. Donny, I kept you out of jail!” She turned to Lainey. “And you! You could have married one of the oldest and most respected names in the country, and finally, I would have been proud to show you off in public.”
“Mother, we’re done here,” Donny said. “It’s time for you go home.”
Renee spun around and stomped out, with a furious-looking Miles trailing sullenly at her heels.
“I hope you’re not mad at me for interfering,” Tate said to Lainey, “But I couldn’t let you go through life with the label of a thief.”
“Mad?” Lainey’s eyes were brimming with tears of happiness. “That was the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Lainey threw her arms around Tate’s neck and kissed him passionately. Her lips melted into his, and she pressed against him as he circled his arms around her waist and crushed her into his broad, solid strength.
After a minute, Donny spoke up. “Hey, I’m your sibling, I’m two feet away from you, and for the record, you’re grossing me out. Get a room.”
Lainey pulled back, smiling.
“By the way, speaking of romantic, that bobcat’s proposal was the most epically lame thing I’ve ever seen,” Tate said. “When I propose to you, and it’s coming soon, I can promise you that it will blow his proposal out of the water.”
“He’s going to marry her!” someone in the crowd yelled, and suddenly the room erupted in cheers, and Lainey was crying.
Through her happy tears, she saw Marigold standing on the edge of the crowd, giving her two thumbs up.
“All I ask is that you don’t hold the wedding until I get out of jail,” Donny said. “I want to be there.”
“Done,” Tate agreed, and he and Donny shook hands.
“Another Alpha wedding!” Marigold shrieked, and the crowd erupted in cheers again.
Lainey swayed, leaning into Tate. She was dizzy with relief. It was over. Her parents no longer had any hold over her. They’d played their last card, and lost. She was free.
“All right, now that we’ve got that settled, there’s one thing I need to do, and it’s really important,” Lainey said.
“What’s that?” Tate’s arm tightened around her shoulders, and she leaned into him, loving the feeling of warmth and strength that rippled through her.
“I need to buy a very dear friend a double stack of flapjacks.”
*
The boarding house was abuzz when Lainey and Tate and Donavan pulled up to the front door. Alma and Emma and Imogen were waiting for her on the front porch. Marigold had arrived before Lainey, because Lainey had stopped to deliver the order of flapjacks to Myrtle.
“Mint juleps for everybody.” Marigold was holding a tray with a pitcher of mint juleps and a half-dozen Mason jar glasses.
“Hear, hear,” Lainey said. “I second the motion. Shall we take a vote? Unanimous? Good.”
“I’m so glad you two worked things out,” Imogen said. Lainey was getting used to Blue Moon Junction; she was no longer surprised that Imogen already knew what had just happened less than half an hour ago. She would have been surprised if Imogen hadn’t known.
“I should probably head into town myself,” Imogen continued. “This is a day full of big news.”
“Why, what else?” Marigold asked. “Did I miss something?”
“Remember that psychic that Aurora Sinclair hired? Rainbow Moonchild? She’s coming to town today, and she’s going to announce where Portia is located.”