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

“I do.”

“And she plays poker, Nana Jo. She and some friends get together regularly.” He sipped his tea. “No cigars but they sometimes talk sports.”

“Really?” Nana Jo’s eyes lit up. “I belong to a bridge club, but I always wanted to try my hand at five-card stud. Maybe you could teach me sometime?”

“Sure.”

“You have to watch her, Elizabeth. My nana is a cardsharp.”

They laughed and the conversation flowed freely until Nana Jo asked, “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your family? I haven’t managed to get much out of Tommy on the subject. But then you know how men are. They’re stingy when it comes to offering details.”

“My family?” Elizabeth took her time sipping her tea. “There’s not much to tell, really. I, um, I had a pretty typical childhood.”

Interesting, Thomas got the feeling she was lying now. But after what she’d told him about tofu shish kebabs, he could see why she might want to shade the truth. Not that his grandmother would care one way or another what her parents’ diet preferences were. He certainly didn’t.

“You’re in Ann Arbor now, I know, but where did you grow up?”

“Oh, here and there in southeast Michigan.” The answer was as vague as the one she’d written on her “resume.”

“It sounds like your family moved around lot,” Nana Jo said. “Your father’s job?”

Elizabeth sipped her tea. “More or less.”

“And you have an older sister.”

“A younger brother,” Thomas and Elizabeth said at the same time.

“My goodness, I am getting old,” Nana Jo said. “Somehow I managed to get that completely backward.”

She sent Elizabeth a bemused smile that took a calculating turn when it reached Thomas. Uh-oh. He knew that look. Nana Jo sensed something was afloat.

“So, how old is your brother?” Nana Jo picked up the plate of cookies and held it out for Elizabeth.

She selected one. “Ross is twenty-six.”

“Is he married or engaged?”

“No. I … We don’t see one another often.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. You must miss him.”

“I do. Terribly.”

Nana Jo made a sympathetic noise and patted the back of Elizabeth’s hand. “Does he live out of state?”

“Yes. He … travels a lot. He hasn’t been back to Michigan in years.”

“Then your wedding will be a reunion as well. Will he be standing up?” Nana Jo asked. Nodding in Thomas’s direction, she complained, “That one there won’t tell me anything about the ceremony preparations. He won’t even give me the date.”

“Because we haven’t decided yet,” Thomas inserted hastily. “With our work schedules and such, it’s not as easy as throwing a dart at a calendar.”

“Well, surely you have some inkling of the number of groomsmen you’re planning.”

He glanced helplessly at Elizabeth. “I could ask Ross to be a groomsman.”

“No!” She looked stricken. “I’m sorry.”

“Or not.”

Elizabeth apologized a second time. Her face was flushed. Her expression miserable. “I haven’t mentioned this before, Thomas, but I don’t know where Ross is.” Her gaze shifted to his grandmother. “My brother left—ran away from home, actually—when I was in college. He quit school and just … left.”

“And you haven’t heard from him since then?” Thomas asked.

“Personally, no.”

“I’m sorry,” Nana Jo said softly.

Thomas was more than sorry. He felt culpable in forcing the admission. He reached for her hand and knitted their fingers together before bringing it to rest against his heart. “Elizabeth, I had no idea.”

She allowed the contact for a moment before pulling her hand free, ostensibly to push her breeze-blown hair back from her face. “I don’t talk about it often.”

“But I’m guessing you think about him and worry every day,” Nana Jo said sympathetically.

“I do.”

“That’s the way Tommy is about his father.”

He blinked in surprise. He hadn’t seen the switch in subjects coming. Caught off guard. he retorted sharply, “I don’t give a damn where he is or what he’s doing as long as he isn’t on my doorstep looking for more money so he can pay off his bar tab.”

“Thomas Jonathon Waverly!”

The use of his full name pulled him up short, just as it always had when he was a child.

“I’m sorry.” He expelled a breath and turned to Elizabeth and repeated his apology.

“It’s forgotten,” she said.

“Nothing is forgotten.”

Their gazes held until a gust of wind sent paper napkins flying off the table. He and Elizabeth both rose to fetch them before they could be carried over the rail.

“I should have brought a headband,” she remarked, shoving her wayward hair back from her face and settling into her seat once more.

“I’m glad you didn’t.” Reminding himself it was expected for him to touch her, he gave in to temptation and brushed a stray tendril off of her forehead. “I like it loose like this and a little disheveled.”

“Why?” She glanced at his grandmother before laughing uncomfortably. “I mean, I look a mess.”

“Hardly, my dear,” Nana Jo said. “You’re too pretty to look anything of the sort.”