Lorelei’s activated the entire town.
Everyone’s looking for the ring outside the bakery too.
Including Uncle Rob, apparently.
“Are yousureyou were wearing it when you left the cabin?” Kimberly asks Amanda as we all sit together at one of the tables in the dining room.
Amanda won’t make eye contact with me. Her eyes are dull and her lips angled down, and even her hair seems to have lost some of its curl. “I’m absolutely positive I was wearing it in the car.”
I’ve thoroughly searched the car.
It’s not there.
We’ve retraced basically every step she made since getting here, though there were some glances between the women that tell me I’m missing something.
I loop my arm around Amanda, feeling absolutely helpless. “It’ll turn up.”
She meets my gaze for the first time in what feels like an eternity. “I’m so sorry.”
“It will turn up,” I repeat.
It was a hefty chunk of change.
But I wasn’t going to return it. I knew what I was investing in when I bought it, and it wasn’t a fiancée, no matter how much I like Amanda.
Damn thing’s working to soften up Uncle Rob because it’s lost.
And I know she didn’t lose it on purpose. The Amanda I know—the Amanda I believe in—would not have lost it.
But maybe she’s devastated that this was supposed to be my excuse to break up with her because she doesn’t want to do it herself, and I’m not playing along.
That thought, more than anything else today, is what has my heart twisting itself into a knot.
“You don’t need a ring to get married,” Kimberly says. “Dane’s right about that.”
My phone buzzes with an incoming text message.
I check to see if it’s Lorelei with good news, but it’s a number I don’t recognize.
Is this Dane? My name is Winona. I’m the Tinsel town historian. I got a message you wanted to talk about some letters.
Amanda makes a noise next to me. She’s reading it too.
“Did someone find it?” Kimberly asks.
“Cake emergency,” Amanda blurts at the same time as I say, “Tux shop needs me ASAP.”
Kimberly and Vicki stare at us.
I shove my seat back.
Amanda leaps out of hers too.
“What’s going on?” Vicki asks.
“I forgot I stopped at the bridge to make a wish that our entire families would be happy for us on my drive in, and someone just texted that they thought they saw something shiny in the water but they can’t dive in, and I didn’t want to tell you how much it hurts that you’re being an asshole about me marrying Dane, but we’re going to go see if we can find my ring in the creek,” Amanda says. “I’ll be back for your party tonight. Probably.”
She’s operating at half-strength perkiness, but theassholecomment still lands.
