There is no intention,a worried voice in the back of her head reminded her.All of this is pretend.
She begged herself not to blush and give the game away.
Allie felt awful about her lie. But she didn’t feel a bit sorry that she had stopped Ash from resorting to violence, even though it would be hard to blame him.
Her own blood was boiling at that silly man’s insinuation that Maya wasn’tnormal, but it would have beenawful for Ash to do exactly what his daughter had just learned to avoid.
Thank goodness Maya had been playing with Timmy Lanford and hadn’t heard what the man had said.
Or what I said!
Allie felt ashamed of her lie all over again. What if the little girl had happened to overhear?
“We’re going to go look at the raffle items,” Libby announced. “I’m sure we’ll see you around. We took a suite at the Snowy Pines for the holidays.”
For the holidays?
Ash had said they were only here for today’s event. Allie looked to him, but he seemed as surprised as she was.
“That’s good,” Ash said, pulling his expression back together again as the other couple hurried off, looking relieved.
We’re not a couple, Allie reminded herself.
“You were incredible,” Ash murmured, turning to her.
Allie couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t let go of her hand, and his compliment might have gone to her head if she hadn’t remembered that he was basically telling her what a good liar she was.
“I… um… need to run to the ladies’ room,” she heard herself mumble as she untangled her hand from his.
But when she turned to go, she nearly slammed into her brother Tripp’s enormous chest.
“Oh,” Allie gasped.
There were people on either side of him, as if they had formed a semi-circle around her to listen in. Hersister-in-law winked at her, and Willa from Second Hand Rose was smiling widely.
They think I’m actually engaged,she thought to herself frantically.
“Let’s walk and talk,” Tripp said, taking her by the arm like she was still a little girl and he was marching her off to give her a big-brother-talking-to.
“Why did you do that?” Tripp whispered to her a moment later when they had reached a quiet spot in front of the school.
“That was his ex-wife and her new boyfriend,” Allie said, automatically starting to pace. “The boyfriend said something awful about Maya, and I thought Ash was going to punch him. I didn’t really have time to think about it.”
“Maya is Ash’s kid, right?” Tripp asked.
“Yes,” she said, turning to her brother in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Oh,everyoneknows,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “As soon as you three showed up here, the rumors started flying.”
“Typical,” Allie said, trying not to roll her eyes. There were so many things she loved about Sugarville Grove, but good luck having a private life here. “Anyway, Maya just got in trouble in school for shoving. I couldn’t let her dad knock someone out in the middle of the playground. It would ruin everything for them. So I just… did the first thing that came to mind.”
“The first thing that came to your mind was to say you wereengaged?” Tripp asked.
He was clearly trying so hard not to laugh that it might have been better if he’d just let it out.
“I know, I know,” she said, pulling her phone out. “It’s bananas. I’ll come clean in the family chat right now, so no one has to wonder why I didn’t tell them I was engaged.”
“No,”Tripp said, quickly, placing a hand on her arm.
