Chapter 26 Amanda

Chapter 26

Amanda

The ring.

The ring is gone.

I had it when I left the house this morning, and it’s no longer on my finger, and I don’t know where it is.

I don’t know where it is.

Was it on my hand when Grandma chastised me to put on gloves?

Oh my god.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

Was I wearing it when I got here? Was it on my hand during the gingerbread candle ceremony? Did I have it on when I left the cabin?

Yes.

Yes, I had it on when I left the cabin. I smiled at it glinting in the light when I was driving into town.

But I stopped to thank Mrs. Briggs for her gift the other day. And then I got distracted when I saw Pia walking down the street, and I popped into her bakery to get cookies for Dane.

I decided today and tomorrow require my soon-to-be-former-fake-fiancé to have a stash of his favorite cookies.

And I don’t remember if my ring was on my finger when I was talking to Mrs. Briggs and Pia.

I’m already off-kilter from telling Grandma that I don’t want the bakery, but now, I’m gaping at Dane. I need to say something. Anything. Apologize. Make this better.

For him.

He paid thousands of dollars for that ring and I lost it .

I’m completely and totally frozen.

This is it.

This is when he’s going to break up with me—for real and for pretend—and it’s all over.

We’re done.

He’s going to yell at me and dump me and our grandparents still hate each other and his uncle is still not convinced and all of this is over and I just told my grandma that I don’t want the bakery and we didn’t get done what we wanted to get done.

We’ll leave the town worse off now than it was before we agreed to our plan.

I still can’t speak, but suddenly I’m being crushed against his chest, both of his arms around me. “It’s okay. We’ll find it. And if we don’t, it’s just a ring.”

It’s just a ring.

But it’s not.

Not to me.

It’s every kind thing he’s done for me this past week. It’s how he’s gone so far above what I expected. It’s his patience and understanding and quiet acceptance of me no matter what I do, big or small, from blurting out that I was engaged to him to now, losing the engagement ring.

And I’m supposed to let him go.

“I didn’t take it off,” I whisper.

“So it’s probably here in the kitchen somewhere.”

If the situation were reversed, if he’d lost the engagement ring I’d given him, my family would take the first opportunity to say he’d never deserved it.

“I stopped a few places on my way here. I don’t—I don’t remember when I last knew I had it on my hand.”

“I don’t remember either,” Mom says quietly next to us. “I don’t remember looking at your ring today. Vicki, did you look at Amanda’s hand? Was she wearing her ring when she got here?”

“I ... did not,” my grandmother replies.

She’s not gloating.

She doesn’t sound happy.

But why would she be happy after what I just told her?

“Why don’t we start looking here—” Lorelei starts, but that’s apparently too much for my grandmother, who snorts loudly.

“You can go look in Amanda’s car,” she says. “I won’t have strangers snooping around my bakery.”

“ Vicki ,” Mom says again.

“I’d say that about anyone who doesn’t work here coming into my kitchen,” Grandma says. “And it’s still my kitchen until I actually retire. With a family member taking over.”

Mom sighs.

Dane sighs too. He still hasn’t let me go, and he’s stroking my back like a comforting pat can somehow make this all better.

I appreciate that he’s patient.

But I lost my engagement ring. My fake engagement ring.

The one that he deserves to have back.

Every time I think I’m doing something good, I mess it up.

“Can you check my car?” I say to Lorelei. “And I saw Pia. And Mrs. Briggs. It could—it could’ve fallen off anywhere between their shops.”

I can do this much.

I can ask my hometown best friend and my fake fiancé to check the other places I’ve been today while Mom and Grandma and I search the kitchen.

“I’m on it,” Lorelei says. “And I’ll text and give them a heads-up to look for it too.”

I look up at Dane. “I’m so sorry.”

He quirks a brow at me, and then the best-worst thing ever happens.

He smiles.

He freaking smiles .

“We’ll find it,” he says. “And if we don’t, it can be the next great Tinsel mystery for all of the tourists to look for it. People love a good treasure hunt. And as you so wisely pointed out earlier this week, you don’t need a ring to get married.”

It’s the best and the worst thing he could possibly say.

He spent thousands— thousands —of dollars on a fake engagement ring, and I lost it, and he’s already on the bright side.

“I don’t deserve you,” I blurt.

It’s the absolute truth.

But he doesn’t take advantage of my statement to break up with me.

Instead, he pulls me closer again and squeezes tightly, like he never wants to let me go.

“You deserve so much more than you know,” he murmurs quietly.

It’s been years since I actively wanted a man in my life.

And I don’t know how I’ll ever let Dane go.