Page 107 of Fix Me Up, Cowboy
Cameron glances at where his mother is now standing with Lucinda. They both look over at us and beam. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.”
“Do you think if we disappear with a bottle of wine anyone would notice? Maybe then you can tell me all about the scandalous affair you were having with a member of the royal family.” I grin at him so he knows that I’m kidding…about the last part.
The escaping-with-a-bottle-of-wine part sounds good to me after the week I’ve had since returning home.
A waiter carrying a tray of champagne flutes approaches us at the same moment as Troy. “Mrs. Snow will be making an announcement shortly. Would you care for some champagne?”
The three of us each accept a glass from him before he walks off to the next group of guests.
“Do you have any idea what this big announcement is?” Troy asks me, then nods his greeting to Cameron.
“I have no idea what it could be,” I tell him. “But it must be pretty big if she’s toasting the news.”
Tiffany is with a group of our friends not far from where Lucinda and Cameron’s mother are standing. The women with Tiffany remind me of a buzzing beehive. Smiling. Giggling. Yapping excitedly. Tiffany’s back is to me, so I can’t see what she’s doing, but the attention seems to be focused on her.
None of this is too surprising.
What is surprising is that I’m only noticing it now, even though, when I think about it, it has been this way ever since my accident. Once upon a time I used to be an active member of the hive, but now I feel like I’ve been discarded, the piece of honeycomb nobody wants.
The opposite of how everyone in Copper Creek treated me.
And not for the first time since leaving the small town, a piece of me aches for what I left behind.
For whom I left behind.
The clinking of metal against glass reaches my ears and I turn my attention to my stepmother. Cameron’s mother is smiling next to her, a spoon in one hand, the champagne flute in the other.
“Thank you, everyone, for joining me today,” Lucinda says through the microphone she’s now holding. “I have a very special announcement to make.” She directs her smile at me and raises her glass slightly, enough to be noticed by me and only by me.
“Is she planning to announce that I’m now nothing more than the face for the real designer on your father’s show?” I say to Troy, voice low so no one else can hear me. I keep my focus trained on Lucinda but I can feel him shift next to me.
“I’m sorry you got blindsided by that,” he says. “I should have told you, but you were so excited when Dad offered you the position, I didn’t have the heart. I couldn’t remember the last time you’d been that excited in the past year…other than when you were in Copper Creek, renovating your great-aunt’s home.”
“One of my dreams for the past few years, ever since I began hosting my annual tea party,” Lucinda says, “is to be able to announce a very special engagement.” She pauses long enough to glance over at Cameron’s mother.
“Fuck,” Cameron says under his breath. “I hope she isn’t about to announce that you and I are engaged.”
My head spins to him so fast that I’m surprised I don’t have whiplash. “What are you talking about?”
“The photographer. She’s recently done engagement photos for several celebrities.”
“And you think that’s why she was taking our photo when you had your arm around me? That’s crazy. We aren’t engaged. Heck, we aren’t even really dating.”
“As everyone knows,” Lucinda says, “Tiffany Cartwright is like a daughter to me. Which is why I’m delighted to announce her engagement to Mathew Underwood.”
A thunder of applause breaks out around me…but all I can think about is how I feel nothing. Not even a smidgeon of regret that it’s not me up there by his side.
It’s also clear from my friends’ expressions, I’m the only one who didn’t know about the engagement.
Mathew joins Tiffany and kisses her. It’s a sweet kiss. Nothing like the kiss Noah gave me after he told me that he loved me, even though I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear.
My knees grow weak just thinking about it.
I love him. Why couldn’t I have just pulled up my big-girl panties and admitted that to him when I had the chance?
Yes, Mathew hurt me, but that doesn’t mean Noah will end up doing the same. Mathew is a jerk. Noah isn’t—he’s an amazing, loving man, something Mathew doesn’t know how to be.
“You still love that douchebag?” Cameron asks, volume low, tone incredulous. “Even after he hurt you, you still love him?”
