Chapter 12: The Yellow Cap

The engagement party was at the yacht club on the second Saturday.

I went in a navy dress, with a life vest folded in my purse.

The vest was the new one. It folded flat, and it said V.H. SPARE on the bag, in Knox's handwriting.

I told myself I had brought it for the water, since the club sat out over the harbor on pilings.

Gran came in on my arm, in her good pearls.

Knox did not come.

I had looked for him at the pier that morning, and the office was dark.

"It's all right," I said to myself, on the steps. "He said he wouldn't."

I wanted very much to have been told that by him.

The ballroom had an ice sculpture of two swans.

Over the bar hung a banner that said CONGRATULATIONS AUSTIN & THE GIRL WHO SAVED HIM.

I read it twice.

"She doesn't have a name on the banner," I said.

"She doesn't have one on the guest list either," Gran said. "I checked."

Austin saw us and came across the room with both arms out.

"You came!" he said. "I'm so happy you came. Mom, this is Vin."

"The one I was supposed to marry, and then didn't," he said. "She was so good about it."

His mother was a small woman in lilac, with a plastic storage box held to her chest in both arms.

"Oh, I've heard," she said, kindly. "You poor thing."

"I'm very well," I said.

The woman in the yellow dress glided over, with the same bright smile as Monday.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Replacing Four Grooms in One Day from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.