The Gaines' dinner table was loud and boisterous, as usual. As a teenager, when she had befriended Jaely after the family had moved next door, it had taken Tamsyn a bit of time to adjust to everyone always talking at once when she had joined the family for the occasional dinner. After ten years of being friends with Jaely and fourteen months with her brother Will, three as his fiancée, she couldn't imagine their dining room any other way.
It now felt strange on the few occasions when she shared a meal with her parents, who were often busy and not home. The Wallace family was quiet and well—mannered, ever mindful of the rules of decorum. It boggled her mind to imagine Father and Mother sitting down with the Gaines clan for a meal. They had interacted throughout the years in an aloof way, but the two groups didn't mix socially.
They would have to at the wedding, which reminded her to ask her best friend, "Did you find out if the candles for the centerpieces come in snow?"
Jaely shook her head. "No, the clerk told me the closest they have is white smoke."
Tamsyn couldn't hide a frown. "I really wanted snow. It has to coordinate with the rest of the linen."
"You aren't likely to get snow in July," said Dean with a saucy wink.
"Smoke is a possibility," added Evan. "I hear there are some wildfires still burning in the mountains."
Jaely rolled her eyes. "Could you two please be serious?"
Tamsyn giggled. "I don't think they've been serious from the day they were born." She gave the twins a fond smile. They were five years older than her, but they certainly didn't seem a lot more mature or distant. She had counted them as friends from the day she'd met them, along with the other Gaines children, ten years ago. Back then, she'd been chubby, knock—kneed, and wearing braces. Jaely and Will had been in a similar boat, but the oldest identical Gaines boys had already outgrown that awkward phase.
Her cheeks burned as she suddenly recalled the fierce crush she'd had on the twin boys back then. Feeling guilty for the thought, she turned back to her fiancé, who looked pale. Sweat beaded his lip. With concern, she leaned closer to him to ask softly, "Are you feeling all right, Will?"
He nodded jerkily, but didn't reply.
After looking at him for a moment, puzzled when he wouldn't meet her gaze, she turned back to Jaely with a shrug. "I suppose white smoke will have to do."
"That reminds me, love," said Flora, the matriarch of the Gaines family, "Lacey's dress is finished. The dressmaker has us down for one last fitting a few days before the wedding, to make sure there are no last—minute alterations, but everything is ready."
Tamsyn smiled at the smallest Gaines, and Lacey's nose wrinkled as she grinned in return. "Are you still ready to be my flower girl?"
"Yes, Tamsyn." The four—year—old squirmed in her delight. "Me can't wait."
"I can't wait," corrected Conrad, earning a puzzled look from his tiny daughter.
"How come you's excited too, Daddy? You can't be a flower girl."
Tamsyn joined in with the giggles around the table until she realized Will looked queasy. Touching his arm, she said, "Are you ill? Do you need a doctor?"
"I can't…" He struggled to breathe, tugging at his collar.
"Is it an allergy to something?" asked Flora, the second to pick up on her son's distress. "There aren't any allergies in the family, but I read just the other day that you can develop an allergy to something that never seemed to bother you before. Isn't that fascinating?"
Ignoring her future mother—in—law's babbling, as Flora was apt to do, she asked, "What's wrong?"
"I can't do this." He said it with an explosion of sound, as though the words had burst from him via cannon.
"What?"
Will gulped audibly as the table fell silent. "I just can't, Tamsyn."
She frowned. "Can't what?"
"I can't go through with this. I can't marry you."
She blinked, too stunned to react for a second. "What? Is this a joke?" Will rarely indulged in pranks, and she couldn't imagine he would think this was funny, but that had to be what he was doing. Nothing else made sense.
Will bunched up his napkin and set it on the table. "No joke, I'm afraid." He sighed, looking heartbroken. "I just don't love you the way I'm s'posed to, Tamsyn." Will's copper eyes, so much like his father's and siblings', were moist with suppressed tears. "I thought I did, but then…"
She shook her head, clutching her own napkin like a lifeline. "This…it makes no sense…I… You can't really be calling off the wedding?" And like this, at the family dinner table? She burned with mortification and the first stirrings of anger.
His shoulders sagged, as though he bore the weight of all the heavy glares directed toward him in a physical manner. "I met someone else at my work. She makes me feel things I didn't even know I could." Still looking like the victim, he reached out to pat her hand. "I'm very sorry that I didn't say something sooner, Tamsyn. If I had met her just a week earlier, I wouldn't have proposed—"
She jerked her hand from his, having to fist it to resist the urge to slap him. "You met her a week after we got engaged?" At his sheepish nod, she reeled back in her seat, suddenly desperate to be away from him. He wasn't the man she knew, or thought she had known. "How could you do this? Why didn't you say something sooner?"
"I didn't want to hurt you."
"Fine job you did of that," said Dean, his contempt for his brother obvious in his tone and sparking copper eyes.
"This isn't your business," said Will.
"You made it our business when you chose to humiliate Tamsyn this way, in front of all of us," snarled Evan.
"I can't handle this." Will shoved away from the table, glaring at his brothers before turning awkwardly toward Tamsyn. "We'll talk later, okay?"
"Talk?" She stared down at her clenched fists, shrugging him off when he tried to touch her shoulder. Talking to him held no appeal. Right then, she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.
Her head was whirling as she stood up, and she stumbled, but tried to keep walking. Nausea burned a trail up her throat, and she cringed as she tried to imagine telling her parents what had transpired. They would no doubt be not—so—secretly thrilled, having made no effort to hide their disapproval of Will and his unorthodox family. It hurt her heart to imagine dealing with them, knowing how they would react.
Strong arms caught her as she started to fall, and she looked up into Dean's face, idly wondering how anyone could confuse him with his twin, even though they both wore their overly long russet locks in a similar style. The minute differences in the shape of their eyebrows and his slightly fuller lower lip made them easy to tell apart.
Evan was suddenly there on her other side, providing support with an arm around her waist. Their solid bodies provided protection for her curvy frame and kept her from falling. Tears scalded her eyes and burst free with a hoarse sob.
"Do you want to go home?" asked Evan.
She shook her head, unable to imagine confiding anything to her parents yet. She wished now she had gotten her own place after graduation and starting her new job, but it had seemed silly when she and Will had plans to marry soon, and he already owned his own house.
"Do you want to stay here?" asked Dean, looking uncertainly at his parents and Jaely, who had cornered Will to keep him from leaving.
"Too much…" She whimpered, leaning even more on the two men, as pain coursed through her. It wasn't physical pain, but she felt the emotional sting everywhere.
"Right." Dean and Evan shared a look before he said, "You're coming home with us."
She didn't argue. She couldn't think about anything at that moment except escaping from Will's presence. Tamsyn let the two men lead her from the house of her second family. The family that had almost been hers in an official capacity. Ragged sobs tore from her aching chest, and she collapsed against Evan in the back seat as Dean drove them.
