“Whoisthis?” I asked again. “What in the world is going on?”
“Hattie…” He swallowed audibly. “This is…”
“The love of his life,” the other woman finished.
My heart folded once, then twice more—like a note passed too many times in junior high. I absently wondered ifitmight stop beating.
Ned gripped my shoulders, a sad urgency in his troubled gaze. “I never meant for this to happen. I…I didn’t know she’d show up at the funeral.”
Rage and hurt battled for dominance in my mind. I wanted to say a hundred things at once, yet only one thought prevailed. “Just tell her to go away.”
“I…I can’t.” His wide eyes returned briefly to the lady whose heels were completely disrespecting the winter heath. “We…we need to talk.”
You think?“Have you been seeing this woman?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s over now. Right?” I waited a reasonable amount of time for his response in the affirmative. “Right?”
“Hattie, I…” Sweat beaded in disgusting rivulets down his face. “I can’t marry you.”
“Of course you can.” The chapel was booked. The honeymoon prepaid. I had taken dance lessons to prepare for our reception. Did Ned have any idea how handsy Ramone the ballroom instructor got during a foxtrot? “We’re getting married, Ned. We have plans. A future.” I heard my pitiful plea, but this was madness. He wasn’t thinking clearly.
“No,” Ned said. “I can’t go through with it.” He stepped closer, aligning his face with mine. “I…don’t love you.”
My stomach rebelled, my whole body convulsed. Had any words ever carried a sharper point? “Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice broke, because despite it all, Ned Robbins was not a totally heartless man. “I think the world of you, and I wanted this to work—but then I met Britney.”
Britney. I spared her a glance, this curvy, surprisingly average-faced trollop who hovered on the fringes of a butterfly bush and apparently my life. “You’re a really terrible person,Britney…and your eyebrows overpower your face.”Take that, you man stealer and dream destroyer.
“Hattie, I’m sorry.” Ned tossed up his hands, as if to sayoh, well.
“How long has this been going on?” Hot tears raced down my cheeks, and disbelief had a stranglehold on my throat.
Ned shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and rocked back on his heels.
“How long?” I demanded.
“Six months.”
The exact duration of time we’d been engaged. “Did this begin before or after I proposed?” That’s right, I’d proposed. One could argue it was a progressive act. My sisters argued it was proof my relationship with Ned required too much work on my part. “Tell me,Edward.”
“The day after. I met her at my sister’s engagement party.”
What happened next would be a moment for the ages. It would follow me all of my days and haunt me all of my nights.
But I am my grandmother’s kin.
I curled my fingers into a fist, gave a warrior’s cry, and put every bit of my body weight into that punch.
Pain exploded into my hand. But Ned Robbins went down. Britney gave a high-pitched cry.
Clutching my aching hand, I stood over the cheating jerk. “I loved you, Ned, and not only could you not stay faithful, but you cheated on me at afuneral?”
“I’m sorry,” he said again as his whimpering, engagement-breaking girlfriend helped him to his feet.
“You reallyaresorry. My father will send you a bill for the wedding expenses,” I added.
