Kimberly either.
She knew a few more safe spots to look.
But the recipe is gone. It’s as missing as the engagement ring.
“Maybe your grandma wants it with her for something tied to her retirement announcement,” I say. “We should still compare the handwriting. You said it was old?”
“Oldold. Definitely as old as the letters Winona showed us.” She has her hands twisted in her lap, and I notice she reaches for the missing ring to fiddle with more than once.
“It does make sense that something like a recipe would’ve been a dowry,” I say slowly, ignoring the voice whisperingand that means the recipe should belong to Lorelei. One step at a time here, and we arenotat that step yet. “My ancestors’ letters said that George said he was tricked about the dowry. Getting something like a recipe when you’re expecting cash or jewels or even a dozen chickens or something would be ... surprising.”
“It would suck,” she says, not dancing around it. “Recipes can’t lay eggs to feed you.”
Despite the heavy atmosphere in the car, I smile. “Exactly. Recipes cost as much money as a bride.”
Thankfully, she laughs a little at that.
But then she sighs one of those heavy sighs that says there’s entirely too much weighing her down when tonight should’ve been so different. For so many reasons. “It would be amazing if someone tonight justknowssomething and flat-out tells us ... wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” I agree.
We pull into the parking lot of the community center fifteen minutes before the party is scheduled to begin, but we’re not the first guests.
Not by a long shot.
Half the town seems to already be here.
“We were all looking for the ring all day, so we just came early,” Mrs. Briggs tells us when we run into her inside.
High-top tables are situated around the room, all of them adorned with baskets of individually wrapped gingerbread men. Brown and pink streamers and balloons line the edges of the room, and there’s a giantstuffed gingerbread man sitting on a chair on the small stage at one end of the room.
“I warned you about this tragedy thing,” Mr. Briggs says to me.
“Mr. Briggs. We arenotbreaking up over a silly ring,” Amanda says.
Is it weird that I can feel her cringing on the inside? That I can practically hear her thinkingWe’re breaking up because this was fake all along but we need one more piece of evidence to fully put this feud between our families to bed before we can?
Possibly I’m projecting.
Because that’s how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking.
Amanda leans into me and gives the older man a cheeky grin. “He’s just learning early how much I’m going to cost him.”
I force an amused smile of my own. “Worth every penny.”
Everyone in town wants to know details of the wedding. No one’s talking about Vicki’s anniversary and the rumor that she’s announcing her retirement, unlike last night, when everyone wanted to talk about how long my grandparents had been married.
Except Uncle Rob.
Who’s walking into Vicki Anderson’s party in suit pants and a button-down shirt, Aunt Teeny and Esme and Jojo beside him.
My jaw unhinges.
And then it snaps shut while irritation chokes me right about the same place my tie is sitting.
“I invited your entire family,” Kimberly says to me as she joins us. “I called your father and told him I was ready to present a united front of support for you two and that he could bring anyone he wanted who was willing to do the same.”
The irritation choking me morphs into something different as Uncle Rob’s gaze meets mine, and he gives me an awkward smile.
