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Casey slides two beers across the bar without being asked, chirping, "Look what the cat dragged in."

"Don't start."

"Wasn't gonna say a word." She says it with a grin that promises otherwise and moves off to handle a rowdy table near the pool tables. I lean against the bar next to Mason, nursing a beer I don't especially want, half listening to him catch up with Troy about somebody's truck engine.

Shelby Ann finds me within ten minutes, because Shelby Ann's internal radar for a man standing alone has never once failed her. "Jagger Cartwright. Long time no see." She leans in close enough that I catch her perfume, something sweet and heavy that doesn't do a single thing for me the way it used to when I was bored. "Heard congratulations were in order."

I arch my eyebrows. "For what?"

"The engagement." She narrows her eyes. "Ruby's been so excited, telling everybody down at the feed store. Didn't figure you for the settling down type, but I guess Cartwright men surprise you."

I open my mouth to correct her, then close it again. I've had this exact conversation three separate times in the last month and it's never once gone anywhere useful. Somewhere between Alexander's ring and Phoebe accepting it, half this county decided the wrong Cartwright brother got engaged. And correcting Shelby would mean giving her ammo to decide she can get her hopes up about us.

Hurt fills her face. "Can't say I'm not upset."

I sigh and figure I might as well get it over with. "You've got your Cartwrights mixed up."

"Do I?" She looks genuinely confused for a second, glancing over at Mason like he'll settle it, but Mason's deep in engine talk with Troy and not paying either of us any mind.

"You do," I assure her, only to try and squash the rumors.

"Somebody said you bought a huge ring for a girl from California."

"That's my brother."

"Which one?"

"Alexander."

"Huh." She frowns like the math isn't adding up right in her head, then shrugs it off the way people do when a rumor's more interesting than the truth. After a few seconds, she beams at me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "Well. My mistake. Should I come by your apartment later tonight?"

"Not tonight, Shelby Ann."

She takes the rejection better than she used to, which is surprising. There was a stretch a couple years back where I'd have to buy her three rounds and sneak out to avoid her.

She wanders off toward a table of women I don't recognize. I go back to my beer, wondering why everyone in this town seems to think I'm the one engaged.

I'm halfway through my beer when my whole body goes electric before my brain's caught up enough to argue with it.

Red hair.

She's across the room near the dance floor. Her hair catches the string lights the same way Lainey's did, falling loose past her shoulders in easy waves. Friends surround her, and for several seconds, the entire bar disappears except for her.

I set my beer down so fast, it sloshes over the rim. I cut through the crowd, ignoring all the people trying to catch my attention, and my heart slams so hard against my ribs, it actually hurts.

"Lainey." Her name's out of my mouth before I've even reached her, rough and too loud. A couple heads turn near the bar.

The woman spins around, but it's not her, and I realize how stupid I am. This woman's hair is a shade too orange, cut at the shoulders. Even the waves are wrong. Her eyes are blue instead of Lainey's shifting green, and her face is rounder, without a single freckle scattered across the nose.

She's got a friendly, confused smile pointed at me like she's trying to place where she knows me from. And it's nothing, nothing at all like the wary, sharp-eyed look Lainey used to give me right before she said something that'd cut me down two sizes.

"Sorry, I'm not—" She laughs, a little awkward, glancing past me for whoever might've put me up to this. "Do I know you?"

"No." The word comes out rougher than I mean it to, my whole chest caving in on itself. "Sorry. Thought you were somebody else."

"It happens." She holds her hand out. "I'm Tiffany."

"Great. My mistake." I turn and find Mason halfway across the bar, staring at me.