Tease (Cloverleigh Farms #8)(35)
Or was it all part of the act?
“I just can’t believe it.” Frannie’s eyes misted up again, even though she’d already cried twice—once when she and my dad had arrived, once during the appetizers on the deck, and now she was tearing up over her tacos. Seated across from me at the kitchen table, she dabbed at her eyes with her napkin.
“Jeez, Mom. Again?” Emmeline, seated at the island with Audrey, Hallie, and Luna, shook her head. “It’s not sad.”
“I know, but . . .” Frannie took a breath and smiled at me, her eyes glassy. “It’s overwhelming, how happy I feel about it.”
“And how sudden it was,” added my dad, who was next to her.
I smiled at them, trying not to feel bad. “It was sudden. I get it.”
“But it’s not like we didn’t all suspect,” gloated Winnie. She was seated next to our dad, with Dex at the end of the table nearest her. “You should have seen them back in high school,” she said to him. “It was obvious this was how it was going to turn out.”
“It’s cool that you were friends for so long,” Dex said.
“So how did you go from just friends to engaged so quickly?” Winnie asked. “Like when did it happen?”
On my left, Hutton grabbed his beer. To my right, at the other end of the table, Millie picked up her wine and took a big swallow. I wasn’t sure which of them was more nervous.
“Well,” I said, launching into the explanation Hutton and I had agreed on as we prepared dinner, “you guys know we’ve been close since we were twelve. And even when we’d go for a while without seeing each other, we were always in touch. In March, when Hutton came home for a visit, we really reconnected. Then when he moved back in May, we started spending more time together.”
“So it really wasn’t sudden at all,” Winnie said with a laugh.
“You realized what you’d been looking for was right there,” Frannie said, blinking back tears again.
“Just like in a song,” Audrey gushed. “Or a movie.”
“Or a storybook,” said Hallie. “Except not a fairy tale, because Felicity wasn’t, like, a servant or a mermaid.”
“Or in a sleep like death,” said Luna. “Or stuck in a tower.”
“Good thing, because she just chopped all her hair off. There wouldn’t have been anything for a prince to climb.” The two girls giggled at Hallie’s joke, and the twins joined in.
“At least you got to be a prince,” Dex said to Hutton. “When they put me in a story, I’m an ogre.”
“Are you going to have a big wedding?” asked Audrey.
“No,” I said firmly. “We’d like something very intimate at Cloverleigh Farms. Millie and I are working together on a date.” I gave my older sister a look, silently begging her to corroborate.
“Yes,” she said. “We’ll work it out.”
“But Cloverleigh must be totally booked for the season,” Frannie said with concern.
“On weekends, the barn is booked up, yes,” Millie said. “But since their event is small, we might be able to accommodate them somewhere else on the property.”
“We could close down the bar and restaurant on a Sunday evening,” Frannie said. “We’ve done that for private events before.”
“Sure,” said my dad.
“We know this is last minute, and we apologize,” I said to them both.
“No need.” My dad’s eyes met mine. He wasn’t an outwardly emotional guy—he was a Marine, after all—but the long, tight, bear hug he’d given me when he arrived told me how he felt. “We’ll make it work. Nothing is more important.”
I swallowed hard.
“Tell us about the proposal,” Winnie pleaded.
“It was very romantic.” I took a sip of my wine for courage. “We were on a walk in the woods here, and he suddenly just dropped to one knee.”
“Had you been planning it?” Frannie asked Hutton.
“It was sort of spontaneous.” That was his big line, and he delivered it well. I gave him a secret smile of triumph.
“Did he have a ring?” Winnie wanted to know.
“No, but we looked at photos online, and chose one together,” I said. “It’s being sized and we’ll pick it up soon.”
“So you’ve never even had it on your finger?” Winnie was excited about this. “It will be like getting engaged all over again when you put it on!”
I laughed. “I guess it will.”
“Which jewelry store?” Frannie asked. “Is it one in town?”
Panic seized my throat—we hadn’t actually decided which store.
“Tiffany.” Hutton surprised me by answering. “It’s at Tiffany in New York. We’re going to fly there this week and pick it up.”
“You are?” Winnie asked.
“We are?” I stared at Hutton.
“Yes.” He met my eyes and gave me a sexy little smile. “Surprise.”
“Oh.” Frannie fanned her face. “Here I go again.”
After dinner, it wasn’t quite dark yet so we decided to go sit down by the fire pit. Hutton mentioned there was a corn hole set in the game room on the walkout level, and my dad and Dex were both eager to demonstrate their superior skills in front of their daughters.
Melanie Harlow's Books
- Taste (Cloverleigh Farms, #7)
- Ignite (Cloverleigh Farms #6)
- Drive Me Wild (Bellamy Creek #1)
- Unbreakable (Cloverleigh Farms, #4)
- Unforgettable (Cloverleigh Farms #5)
- Undeniable (Cloverleigh Farms #2)
- Irresistible (Cloverleigh Farms #1)
- Some Sort of Love (Happy Crazy Love #3)
- Some Sort of Crazy (Happy Crazy Love, #2)