Back The Christmas Wedding Guest
Chapters (36)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Booklist
  36. Excerpt

She thought about how he’d been back then. So good-looking, with an irresistible swagger. All the girls had wanted to go out with him, but he hadn’t been the type to date much. Still, when she’d caught him watching her, she’d decided to pursue things.

“You were irresistible,” she admitted. “You had to know that.”

“I was pretty hot,” he said with a grin.

He still was, not that she would be mentioning that.

“We were both young,” she said instead. “Funny how things turn out. I never would have thought you’d come back.”

“Judy’s getting on in years. I couldn’t ask her to move somewhere else. She’s lived here her whole life.”

Which spoke well of him, she thought.

He checked on Harrison and Belle, then turned back to her. “Jake? Really? My nemesis?”

“Oh, please. You were rivals on the football team. You both wanted to be captain. That hardly makes him your nemesis. So don’t put that on me.”

“Fair enough. So, Jake?”

She laughed. “You’re not going to let it go, are you?”

“You never had a thing for him in high school. You were into bad boys.”

“No, I was into you. And you’re right. I barely noticed him back then.” Once she’d given her heart to Toby, she hadn’t been interested in anyone else. “Our relationship was unexpected. He’d moved here to be assistant manager up at the resort. I was home, visiting my folks. We ran into each other. Literally. I was coming out of Jingle Coffee and he was going in. My drink and Danish went flying, and we started talking, and then we went out.”

“You were going to marry him.”

She wasn’t surprised he’d heard about that. It had happened about the time Toby had moved back, so there would have been chatter.

“He proposed on a Friday, we had a party to celebrate on Saturday and he dumped me on Sunday,” she said, careful to keep her tone light. It had been nearly a year and—She paused. “Oh, wow. It was a year ago this weekend.”

“He proposed the Friday after Thanksgiving?”

“He did. At the Lighting of the Trees.”

“Way to make it memorable.”

“I don’t think the day really mattered after the other stuff.”

He looked at her. “Are you over him?”

“Yes, and that happened more quickly than it should have. It makes me think I didn’t love him as much as I thought I did. Sad, but true. I wish him well, wherever he is.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“It seems kind of crappy to propose and then break up all in the same weekend.”