hiding her concern because his smile faded into a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
She took another drink, a silly attempt to hide at least a portion of her face. She shook her head. “Nothing. Did you meet someone?” Did that sound nonchalant?
His brow furrowed. “I’m talking about Peggy. The matchmaking.”
Oh, thank God.
“Oh, right,” she said.
He stared at her. “You okay?”
“Just tired.” She rubbed her temples for effect, then slowly closed and opened her eyes.
“I can go?” He started to move. “Come back later?”
“It’s fine,” she said. “You’re here, and now I need to hear about this magic.”
He inched back on the couch and paused, as if for effect. “I found Peggy’s match.”
She lifted her brows to encourage him to continue, aware that his mouth had spread into a slow smile.
“Howie.”
She set her cup down. “My Howie?”
“One and the same.”
And then he launched into a crazy theory about Peggy having loved Howie a million years ago.
“I think he’s the reason she never got married.”
“You think Howie and . . . Peggy?”
“The magic says yes.”
She almost laughed. “What’s gotten into you? Yesterday you thought this was the dumbest thing ever.”
He shrugged, then met her eyes, but only for a moment.
“What is it?”
“Nah, it’s dumb.”
“Hayes.”
Another pause, then finally, he looked at her again. “She said we reminded her of them.”
Pru went perfectly still. Her throat tightened. She managed to squeak out, “Really?”
He nodded. “Said she and whoever this guy was—they were inseparable. Like us. She also thought you and I were dating, by the way, but I set her straight.”
Pru sat, unmoving, the air between them thick and tense. “Well, thank goodness.”
He squinted at her. “You okay?”
“You asked me that already.”
“And it still seems like you’re not okay.”
“I’m fine,” she said, a little too quickly.
“Good, then what do we do about Peggy?” He was on to the next topic while Pru was still basking in the beauty of his hazel eyes.
She forced herself to focus. She thought through the story he’d told her about Peggy and this mystery guy. “Well, you said she was in this guy’s wedding, right? Whoever the love of her life was?”
Hayes took a drink and nodded. “She was the maid of honor.”
“We can look up wedding announcements and see what we find,” Pru said. “The library should have all the old newspapers, and weddings usually get full write-ups around here.”
“See?” He grinned at her. “This is why I knew I had to break Aunt Nellie’s rule and bring you in on this. I wouldn’t have thought of that on my own.”
She pushed a hand through her tangled dark waves and let her head fall back on the sofa. “I feel sorry for Peggy. She couldn’t work up the courage to tell the man she loved how she felt and someone else swooped in and stole him from her.”
“Let that be a lesson to you, Prudence Sutton,” Hayes said with a flirtatious grin.
Pru sat up straighter and looked at him.
“One of these days, some beautiful woman is going to swoop in and steal me away.”
She started to respond, but quickly snapped her jaw shut. What could she say? He was kidding—but it was true. She stayed silent about her real feelings because she didn’t want to lose Hayes. But what did she think, that he was going to be there forever?
Some beautiful woman would surely appear, as if out of thin air, steal his heart, and probably forbid him from ever seeing Prudence again. Because she, like everyone else in the world except for Hayes McGuire, would inevitably realize Pru wanted him to be so much more than her friend.
That this wasn’t a little crush.
She was head over heels, completely in love with her best friend.
And that was the real plight of Prudence Sutton.
Chapter 10
A Loaded Conversation
“Should we head over to the library?” Hayes glanced at his watch. The Nantucket Atheneum probably wasn’t even open yet. Why had he come over so early?
Because he couldn’t sleep, that’s why. And somehow, Pru’s house put him at ease. Or maybe Pru put him at ease.
She settled back on the sofa and kicked her legs out from under her. “No need, we can look at the digital archives.”
“Brilliant!” He should’ve thought of that. The Atheneum might’ve been a historic building, but it wasn’t behind the times. With its solid white finish and grand stately columns, the building looked more like a monument than a library, and while Hayes didn’t advertise this—once upon a time, it had been his escape.
He’d spent hours in the stacks, dreaming