“They’re engaged!” Mom pronounced, completely oblivious to the distress she caused Diana—and Cliff.
The family applauded and yelled congratulations. Someone said something about a great Christmas surprise.
They chatted happily for a moment before the pastor waved his hand to silence them all. He beamed so big he could light that star on top of a tree. “I was going to wait to announce this after the meal, but in light of this revelation, I’ll go ahead and tell you. Did you know that my great-grandfather married your great-grandfather 100 years agotoday?”
That brought another round of happy chatter.
Diana took the opportunity to offer Cliff an apologetic smile. She hadn’t meant for things to escalate in their fake relationship. In fact, she’d hoped they wouldn’t—because it would make putting this whole thing behind them and moving into something real that much easier. Now … now she had to figure out what to do with a fake engagement sitting between them.
“I still have Great-Grandma’s dress,” Mom announced. “We should get it out.”
Aunt Willow waved her hands excitedly. “I was just thinking …” She rounded the table and came to stand in front of Diana and Cliff.
Cliff shuffled his feet as if he could tell something big was about to happen and he wasn’t sure he wanted to stick around. He reached for Diana’s hand, and she grabbed on, not sure where this was going to go. Knowing her family, she had an idea of what they were about to unleash, but she hoped it wasn’t what Aunt Willow was thinking.
“—it would be so amazing to have another weddingtoday. One hundred years after Great-Grandma and -Grandpa’s. You two are already engaged—what do you say?” Aunt Willow clapped her hands excitedly.
The noise level in the room went up 100 decibels. Even the children noticed and began to try to talk over one another. Diana couldn’t have answered if she wanted to.
“It would mean so much to me!” yelled the pastor toward Diana and Cliff.
“You have to!” added Sadie. Her eyes filled with happy tears. “It would be incredible.”
“Everyone’s already here,” added Tucker.
Cliff broke in: “My family isn’t.” Things quieted down as his words carried over the circle of people around them, and they hushed.
Diana let out the breath she’d been holding. “We can’t have a wedding without Cliff’s family. That wouldn’t be fair to them.”
“Where are they?” demanded Tucker.
“My brother’s a doctor upstate. My parents are in Germany for the holidays.”
“Call them up!” Tucker insisted. “See what they think.”
Diana held tighter to his hand. He glanced down at her, and she smiled, hoping he understood that she was fine with putting a stop to all this. His parents being gone was the perfect excuse to hold off.
“Okay, I’ll see what they say …”
Wait—what?“You don’t have to do that,” she hurried to point out.
“Of course he does.” Mom began shooing her out of the room. Her fingers slipped from Cliffs, and she felt a wave of homesickness for him wash over her. “While you’re working on that, we’ll go find the dress. Men!” She got their attention. “You’re on dishes. Willow, will you take a crew out to make sure the barn is righted from last night?”
The barn? She’d always wanted to be married in the barn. “But I should really talk to Cliff—”
Sadie came up behind her and put her hands on her lower back. “You’ve already seen the groom on your wedding day—no more.”
“But—” If only someone would stop for a moment and let her think!
“Stop lollygagging.” Mom tugged harder on her arm, dragging her to the master suite. “We need all the time we can get.”
Diana glanced over her shoulder. Her last glimpse of Cliff was him staring at his cell phone in shock and dismay. She needed to make a plan, but she needed to talk to Cliff. He might be fine with all this—if the feelings in his kisses were real.
Then again, his family wasn’t here. The whole thing was sudden—like in-your-face sudden. And maybe … maybe he didn’t want to marry her.
She’d have to find a quiet moment with him and soon to talk this out. Or run away together. Which was kind of funny. Usually people ran away to get married, not to avoid it. If it came down to it, they’d hijack a sleigh and head to town.
But if he was game to get married … She’d be happy to sayI do. One of them really should propose to the other, though. So, she had a decision to make: was she proposing planning an escape?
