My Fiance Kissed My Best Friend on Our Fourth Anniversary novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A New Ring in Front of Everyone

Brett kneels at Rim Village with a new ring; June refuses in front of the tourists while the ranger watches, then he says her name like he already knew it.

I slept in my car for four hours with the heater off to save gas.

A knock on the window woke me.

It was the ranger from the gate, bent down in the afternoon light, his breath fogging the glass.

"Your plates are Klamath County," he said when I rolled it down. "That's two hours, not twelve. You've been here since dawn."

"Is sitting in a parking lot against park rules?"

"Sleeping in a car below freezing is. You'll get hypothermia."

"I have a cardigan."

"You have a thin dress and wet shoes."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Staff cabin four is empty," he said. "It has a stove and a bed. Nobody's used it in years."

"Why not?"

"The program that housed people there got cut down to one seat. Nobody applied."

"Are you offering me a room?"

"I'm offering you a key."

He held it out on a loop of green cord.

I should have asked what he wanted.

I was too tired and too proud to cry, so I took the key.

"I'll pay you back."

"You'll wash your own dishes, and that's the rent."

"Why would you do that for a stranger?"

His jaw tightened a fraction.

"Because it's thirty degrees and you're in a cotton dress, Miss."

He walked to a green truck and drove off without another word.

Cabin four sat in the pines behind the old ranger quarters, a plain wooden box with a tin roof.

Inside it held a bed with a wool blanket, a table, a woodstove and a shelf of paperback books.

On the wall hung a framed photograph of the lake at twilight, sun going down red behind the rim.

Someone had hung it very straight.

I lit the stove on my third try.

At three o'clock my phone showed a message from Brett.

"Baby, please. I'm at Rim Village. I came all this way. Just come out and talk to me."

I looked at the screen for a long time.

He had tracked my phone.

Four years of saying I could not get lost because he always knew where I was, and I had thought it was love.

I did not answer.

I put my coat on and walked to Rim Village anyway, because I wanted to see his face once with clear eyes.

The village was nearly empty.

A few tourists in puffy jackets stood at the railing with cameras pointed at the water.

A tour bus idled in the lot, full of retirees in matching hats.

Brett stood in the middle of the stone terrace in his good navy suit with a bouquet of white roses.

His mother stood ten feet behind him in a pastel coat, with her arms folded.

Brett saw me and his whole face lit up.

He dropped to one knee on the wet stone.

"June Sundquist," he said, loud enough for the bus. "I made the biggest mistake of my life."

A woman in a purple hat lifted her phone.

Then a man beside her, then a whole row of them.

Brett pulled a ring box out of his coat.

"I got you a new one. A bigger one. I'm asking you again, in front of the lake, in front of the whole world."

I looked at his hands.

They were shaking, and I knew why.

His mother had written this.

I could hear it in the sentences, in the way he said "in front of the whole world."

"Get up, Brett," I said.

"Not until you say yes."

"Get up."

"June." He lowered his voice, but not enough. "Kendra means nothing. It was one night. It was a mistake."

"You told her you'd tell me after my birthday," I said.

The tourists went silent.

Brett's face went the color of paper.

"That was four years ago," I said. "You and your girlfriend have been kissing in coat closets since I was eighteen."

"Who told you that?"

"You did, when you didn't know I was listening."

A man on the bus said, "Oh, boy."

Sheila stepped forward fast.

"June, honey, don't make a scene in front of strangers. This is a private matter."

"You came to a national park with a camera crew of retirees, Sheila."

She pressed her lips together.

I turned back to Brett.

"Here is my answer," I said. "No."

I said it one more time to make sure the people in the back could hear.

"No, Brett. I'm not coming home."

He stood up slowly with the roses still in his hand.

"You're going to regret this."

"I regret four years," I said.

I turned away and left him standing in front of the lake with the white roses wilting in the cold.

I walked back across the lot with my face burning and my knees shaking.

A green truck sat at the edge of the pavement with its engine running.

The ranger sat behind the wheel with the window down.

He had watched the whole thing.

I stopped beside him because my legs would not go on.

He looked at me with no kindness at all.

"You're June Sundquist," he said.

It was not a question.

Then he put the truck in gear and drove away.

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