Chapter 12: The Kneeling Man

The table went off.

My aunt gasped.

My uncle said, "Good Lord."

The pastor bowed his head.

Dustin did not look surprised.

I saw that, and I put it away to think about later.

Kent was the one who moved.

He pushed back his chair and went down on one knee on the dining room carpet, right there between the roast and the rolls.

He took Victoria's hand in both of his.

"I'm sorry, June," he said, without looking at me. "I should have told you sooner. But I won't hide it now."

He turned to Victoria.

"Will you marry me?"

The room fell silent.

Victoria's face went soft and radiant.

"Oh, Kent," she said. "Yes."

My aunt began to cry.

My uncle began to clap, and the Sunday school women joined him, uncertain, and then everybody was clapping.

I stood in the doorway with my folder in my hand and watched my father's dining room applaud my fiancé proposing to my sister.

The ring was my ring.

It was the same two carats, back on a finger, and he had pulled it from his pocket.

I had given it to her in a parking lot, and this was the part I hadn't expected.

I had not expected her to wear it.

"Congratulations," Dustin said, and shook Kent's hand.

He said it to the room.

He said it in his trustee voice.

Then he looked at me down the length of the table.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé and Brothers Left Me at the Altar for My Adopted Sister from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.