Page 40 of Mistletoe and Mayday
My grandmother’s diamond. My mother’s before her wedding. The ring that’s sealed Lockhart mergers—I mean marriages—since 1897. The same ring I requested from the family vault three months ago, enduring Mother’s knowing smiles and Father’s approving nods.
My breath forms clouds that match my stride’s rhythm. One, two, three, four... Like counting board votes or quarterly profits. Simple. Measurable. Controllable. Unlike Bailey, who exists in perpetual motion, all chaos and questions and connections I can’t map with even my most sophisticated spreadsheets.
A branch snaps under my weight. The crack echoes through skeletal trees, startling a raven into flight. Its wings beat against the winter silence. No more endless chatter about snow globe glitter density. No more theories about which cookie flavors correspond to personality types. No more Bailey.
But I catch myself tracking the raven’s path, wondering what she’d say about it. She’d have some elaborate backstory ready.
How it’s delivering messages to other birds, complete with wing-flapping impressions and a detailed explanation of corvid intelligence that she’d somehow connect to airplane engineering.
And I’d roll my eyes. I’d sigh. But I’d listen to every word.
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth might crack.
What humiliates me more, that Rebecca betrayed me, or that Bailey witnessed the aftermath? The answer sits like ice in my stomach.
Damn it.
This is exactly what I’m trying to escape. The way she gets into my head and makes me notice things I’d rather ignore. Makes me question things that should be simple.
I shove my hands deeper into my pockets. The wind slices through my coat like it’s cotton, carrying ice crystals that sting my face. I should turn back. The temperature’s dropping. Nightfall approaches. Every survival instinct says return before I die out here.
But returning means facing those eyes that see too much. That mouth that asks too many questions. That mind that makes too many connections, all of them ones I’m not prepared to acknowledge.
The proposal speech sits in my memory, each word meticulously chosen. The restaurant secured eight weeks in advance.The imported champagne. The string quartet rehearsed and ready. Everything planned with Lockhart precision.
Now Bailey knows. Bailey, who approaches life with all the subtlety of a fireworks display. She witnessed the ring. The ring that has never—not once in five generations—been refused.
Until now. Until me. The first Lockhart failure.
The snow deepens, but I push forward. Physical discomfort is preferable to explaining how I missed every sign. How Sebastian Lockhart, who built a reputation on attention to detail, who prides himself on controlling every variable, failed to notice his girlfriend was sleeping with another man.
A laugh escapes me, brittle as ice. She’d say something absurd like, “Look at the bright side—at least you found out before the proposal. Imagine her face if you’d gotten down on one knee and she had to decide between you and What’s-His-Name right there in the restaurant. Talk about awkward appetizers.”
And she’d be right. As usual. That’s what makes her observations so infuriating—their unerring accuracy. The way she cuts through pretense.
I sink onto a fallen log.
I should care about the cold. Instead, I’m thinking about my mother’s voice, honeyed manipulation wrapped in Chanel No. 5. Mom has probably called every wedding planner in the city by now. The Lockhart Christmas engagement is the social event of the season.
“The Wards are family already, darling. And Rebecca is exactly what this family needs. Polished, poised, perfect!”
Perfect. The word echoes through the forest. Perfect grades. Perfect university. Perfect career trajectory. Perfect girlfriend from the perfect family with the perfectconnections. The perfect proposal on the perfect night with the perfect ring. Just like Bailey called me.
I pull the ring from my pocket and open the box. The heirloom diamond catches what little sunlight penetrates the forest canopy, throwing fractured rainbows across the snow. Great-great-grandmother’s original setting. Grandmother’s diamonds added to the band.
Mother’s voice intrudes again, discussing venue availability with the wedding planner while Rebecca is wrapped around another man, whispering the same promises she made to me.
I should feel devastated. Heartbroken. Destroyed. Something appropriately catastrophic. But when I examine my feelings about Rebecca’s betrayal, all I find is...irritation. Inconvenience. Disruption. But hardly earth-shattering.
Yet Bailey finding that ring? That image replays in high definition. The way her rambling skidded to a stop mid-sentence. How her fingers trembled against the velvet. The soft “oh” that escaped her lips. Perhaps the only time I’ve heard her speechless.
The wind cuts between trees with knife-edge precision, but the cold seeping into my bones comes from within. Why does Bailey’s opinion matter? She’s a cargo pilot with boundary issues and an extensive collection of tourist trinkets. A temporary inconvenience. A blip in my otherwise ordered existence.
Yet it matters. It matters enough to crack foundations that I thought unbreakable.
A perfect pinecone catches my eye. Symmetrical, intact, precise in its spiral pattern. Without thinking, I pick it up. Bailey would name it. Something ridiculous like “Sir Cone-a-lot” or “Pinecone Pattinson.” She’d give it a personality, a hometown, maybe a complex relationship with neighboring acorns.
I tuck it into my pocket.
