“Oh, drat,” Jean muttered. “I was hoping you’d let the cat out of the bag.”

“My lips are sealed,” Mary said, recovering. “Have a wonderful Christmas.”

“You, too.” Jean pushed her cart past them.

As soon as the society page editor was out of earshot, Mary gripped her husband’s forearm. “Has Thom spoken to you lately?”

“This morning,” Greg told her. “But he didn’t say anything about getting engaged.”

“Who could it be?” Mary cried, aghast that she was so completely in the dark. As his mother, she should know these things.

“If he was serious about any woman, we’d know.”

Mary wasn’t buying it.

“Let’s not leap to conclusions just because our son happened to walk into a certain jewelry store. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason Thom was in Mendleson’s and I’ll bet it hasn’t got a thing to do with buying an engagement ring.”

“This is all Sarah’s fault,” she murmured.

Her husband looked at her as though she were speaking in a foreign language.

“I mean it, Greg. I’ve been so preoccupied with the whole mess Sarah’s created about these baskets, I haven’t had time to pay attention to my son. Why, just on Friday when we had lunch…” Suddenly disheartened, Mary let her words fade.

“What’s wrong?” Greg asked.

All the combativeness went out of her. “I can’t blame Sarah entirely—I played a role in this, too.”

“What role?”

Once again, she was amazed by her husband’s obliviousness. “This business with Thom. Now that I think about it, I’m convinced he wanted to talk over his engagement with me, only I was so rattled by the Value-X incident I didn’t give him a chance. Oh, Greg, how could I have been so self-absorbed?”

“What makes you think he was going to tell you he was getting engaged? Why don’t we call and ask him when we get home?” Greg suggested.

“And let him think we’re interfering in his life? We can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“We’d ruin his surprise, if indeed there is one.”

Greg merely sighed as they wheeled the cart to the checkout counter.

Ten minutes later, once everything was safely inside the trunk, Mary turned to him. “I just don’t know what I’ll do if she’s the one he’s interested in. I couldn’t stand it if he married into that family.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about it,” he told her as they started back to the house. “There’s no evidence whatsoever.”

“He danced with Noelle McDowell!”

“He danced with lots of girls.”

The engine made a coughing sound as they approached the first intersection. “What’s that?” Mary asked.

“It’s time for an oil change,” her husband said. “I’ll have the car looked at after the holidays.”