A Pretend Proposal: The Fiancée Fiasco / Faking It to Making It / The Wedding Must Go On

She slowly turned the stem of her wineglass. Gaze affixed to the deep red liquid, she asked quietly, “Have you ever had your heart broken?”

“No. Not once, which has been my objective.” It was a curious thing to admit. Before she could question him on it, though, he said, “What about you?”

She thought about the guys she’d dated in the past. She wasn’t as prolific a dater as Thomas apparently was, but she’d enjoyed a couple of long-term relationships, including one that had lasted more than a year. Things had progressed at a normal pace, though they’d never gotten past the point of exchanging keys, much less making promises to spend a lifetime together. Her heart had been dinged up afterward, but broken? She’d thought so at the time, but now …

“No.”

“So, you’ve never been in love, either?”

“I guess not.” That came as a sad revelation. After all, Elizabeth was pushing thirty.

But Thomas looked pleased. “Good. It’s not worth it, you know.”

“How can you say that when you just admitted that you’ve never been in love yourself?”

“Let’s just say I know. I saw firsthand what it can do to people.” He shook his head. “No thanks. I don’t want to be that—”

“Vulnerable?”

“Foolish,” he clarified.

He saw love as foolish? Perhaps she should have expected that since here he was trying to pass off a woman he barely knew as his fiancée. Still, it seemed … sad.

Thinking back on her own relationships now, she said, “I think it would be nice to be deeply in love with someone.”

“In love? Yes. But you can’t stay there.” His tone was matter-of-fact.

“Why not? You don’t think love can last?” She had her parents’ example to prove otherwise. No marriage certificate bound them together, but their commitment was real.

But Thomas wasn’t disagreeing. Not exactly. “It lasts. Unfortunately, it lasts beyond the grave.”

“Should it have a time limit, an expiration date?”

“No. No.” He shook his head, looking both lost and resolute. “It shouldn’t, and it doesn’t end. It lasts forever. It’s a chronic condition, not a terminal one.”

“I’m not sure I understand your objection, then.”

“My dad loved my mother. Deeply.” His tone was barely above a whisper when he added, “Desperately.”

“And that’s bad?”

“Not when she was alive, it wasn’t.” Half of his mouth lifted briefly before his lips thinned into a straight line. “My parents and I were involved in an accident when I was eight. Our car skidded off the road in a rainstorm and wound up upside down in a water-filled ravine.”

His tone was flat, but his expression was haunted. So much so that it made Elizabeth ache for him. Ache for them all.

“Your mother didn’t make it,” Elizabeth guessed. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. She didn’t like the picture that was emerging.

He shook his head slowly. “For my grandmother’s benefit, my father claimed that she died instantly. But I was there.”

Thomas said no more than that. He wasn’t trying to be evasive. He simply wasn’t capable of forcing the words past his lips and giving voice to a truth that had haunted him for more than two decades: Had the choice been left to his father, Hoyt would have saved his wife rather than his son.

But Thomas’s mother hadn’t given her husband the option. As murky water had gushed into the car through the broken windshield, and Hoyt had struggled to unbuckle her jammed seat belt, she’d batted his hands away and screamed, Don’t worry about me! Get Tommy out! Get Tommy out!

“Oh, Thomas. I’m so sorry.”

Elizabeth’s sincere sympathy wasn’t able to banish the hellish memories. Nothing was. He knew that from experience. But he couldn’t deny that he found her concern soothing, settling.

“It’s not something I like talking about it,” he admitted. Even with Nana Jo, he preferred to steer clear of the subject. It was just too damned painful, for her as well, he figured, since she’d lost her only child.

“I understand. Ordinarily, I would consider this none of my business, but, given our unique set of circumstances … how did your grandmother come to raise you if your father is still alive?”

“My father’s an alcoholic.” Another admission he rarely shared. “He was what I’d call a social drinker before the accident. Afterward.” Thomas set the wine he’d barely touched on the coffee table. “He could down a fifth of whiskey in a day and then stumble to the store for more. He tried rehab, more than once. But I don’t think his heart was in it. He was lost without my mother. He still is. And he’s still drinking. Of that much I’m sure, even though I rarely see him.”

Thomas glanced over, fully expecting to see pity in Elizabeth’s eyes. It was there, along with something else, something that made him almost yearn for the comfort he knew she wanted to give him.

“It’s hard when someone you love walks out of your life.”

“I had no choice in the matter,” Thomas heard himself say.

He swallowed thickly afterward. Even so, feelings welled up, helplessness chief among them. He’d had no say in his father’s emotional and physical defection, just as he’d had no say in surviving the accident. Get Tommy out! How ironic that his mother’s unconditional love had made him unlovable in his father’s eyes. At least that was the way Thomas saw it.

Elizabeth said nothing. Instead, she came over and sat next to him on the love seat, angled toward him. Their knees bumped. She laid one of her small hands overtop of his, which were clenched tightly together in front of him. The gesture was one of comfort. Because that was what he knew he would find, he pulled away and stood.

“You know, it’s getting late.”

“Oh. I guess it is.” She wasn’t quite successful in hiding her bafflement.

“Thanks for dinner.”

“You brought the Chinese,” she pointed out.

“The company, then.” He started for the door.

“You’re welcome.” But her smile was uncertain.

She followed him onto the porch. Outside, darkness was falling. Up and down the street, landscape lights were starting to click on. Elizabeth reached back into the house and flipped on the porch light, but it barely illuminated beyond the steps.

“Be careful getting to your car,” she said as he started down her walk.

“I’m good.” He waved and then made a liar of himself by tripping on the buckled pavement.

“Thomas—”

“I’m fine!”

“Good night,” she called.

Rather than echo the sentiment, he halted midstep, turned around and returned to her, stopping one crumbling cement step shy of the porch where she still stood.