“Why couldn’t you have just let your sister get engaged without meddling?” Nate poked her shoulder.
“I’m warning you two...” said Vivi.
“I wasn’t meddling. I was helping her have the most romantic proposal of her life.”
“Well, here’s what I think of your helping.” Nate fisted his right hand into a dramatic thumbs-down.
“Yeah? Here’s what I think about you and your pondering.” McKenna reached up and flicked him on the forehead.
“That’s it. Security!”
MCKENNA
“So that’s the whole story. All the facts. You see it now, right? I’m not the crazy one here. Not by a long shot. No, Taylor Swift got it wrong. It’shim.Hi. He’s the problem. Not me. Are you writing that part down? On a side note, I really need to use the bathroom. Any chance you could take off these zip ties?
NATE
“You’re letting us go? Really? I mean, I can see why you’re lettingmego. Just a little surprised you’re letting—nope, you’re right. Not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Thank you. Sorry for all the jabbing earlier. If you could do me a favor and maybe give me a ten-minute head start away from Miss Crazy Pants? Haha, I’m kidding. Of course, I’m kidding. Thing is, I’m not kidding. You’re not going to make me leave here with that woman, are you?”
I’m sorry for your loss. What a terrible loss. So sorry for your loss. Such a loss, such a loss, such a loss...
If McKenna heard it once, she heard it a hundred times surrounding Momma J’s funeral. Standing there in the receiving line, McKenna knew she couldn’t protect her little sister from feeling the pain of that loss. But standing there in the receiving line, McKenna vowed to shield Bobbi as much as possible from any further loss by whatever means possible.
Which is why, twelve years later, after being held in an airport security room for over an hour, McKenna was now pacing back and forth in front of a B&B in Tennessee late on a Tuesday afternoon with chickens waddling around her as she promised her little sister nothing was wrong. “Everything’s fine, Bobbi. Seriously, fine.”
“Then why did Oliver just tell me that you’re on a secret trip across the country? You never go anywhere. Something’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on. Why are you even awake right now? Isn’t it like, one o’clock in the morning your time?”
“Do I need to come home?”
“Stop being silly. Of course not. I just had a sudden yen to visitTennessee and use up some of my vacation time that’s been building for the last, you know, twelve-plus years. I only didn’t tell you that I’d be gone because you’re in Italy and wouldn’t even know I was gone, so why bother telling you that I was gone?”
A long pause, then, “Something’s going on.”
McKenna swatted a mosquito away from her face, then turned to find the source of a faint bleating sound. A trio of goats huddled together inside a small field surrounded by a wooden fence. Cute. Out of habit she reached for her camera, then remembered it was still tucked inside her shoulder bag in the car. “So Oliver’s home from the hospital?” Time to redirect the conversation.
“You can’t redirect this conversation. Tell me what’s going on.”
Ugh.“I’m not. I’m just... taking a little vacation.”
“You’re acting funny.”
“This is how I act when I’m on vacation.”
“You don’t like vacations.”
“Which is why I’m acting funny. Turns out I do like vacations. Isn’t that funny?”
“Do you have a secret lover?”
“What?” McKenna shouted. Then glanced over her shoulder to the B&B before lowering her voice because the same ladies from earlier were still inside griping about some lady named Lottie. “Stop,” McKenna said, lowering her voice. “Why would you even ask that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because of that guy from the river? I had no idea you were even dating anyone and there you two were, having a secret rendezvous on the bridge.”
“That wasn’t a secret rendezvous. That was a...” Ludicrous and annoying encounter with a ludicrous and annoying stranger that McKenna didn’t exactly hate seeing again, which was even more ludicrous and annoying. “Date.”
“With kissing.”
