A Ring For Christmas: A Bride by Christmas / Christmas Lullaby / Mistletoe Manoeuvres

The color drained from Luke’s face and he dropped his hands from Maggie’s shoulders.

“If you can have that kind of courage,” Maggie said, an errant tear sliding down her cheek, “then I should be brave, too, not hide behind my fears, my belief in the Jenkins Jinx.”

“Maggie, listen to me. Okay?” Luke said, his voice raspy. “I have to tell you something. But as you’re hearing what I have to say, remember that we love each other. We do. We have a wonderful future together just waiting for us to step up and start living it as husband and wife. Will you do that? Remember that?”

“Yes, all right, but you’re suddenly so…What is this thing you have to tell me?”

Luke got to his feet, walked around the small room, then sat back down, taking Maggie’s hands in his.

“Maggie, my darling Maggie,” he said, looking directly into her eyes, “I never…I never believed in any of those superstitions.”

“Pardon…me?”

“I’d never even heard of most of them, had my secretary find them for me on the Internet.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“I was desperate, don’t you see?” he said, giving her hands a little shake. “I didn’t know how to get you to demolish that wall protecting you from the Jenkins Jinx. I thought if you continually witnessed me dumping superstitions that I had supposedly believed in all of my life, you’d come to realize that you could do that with the jinx.”

“You didn’t believe that having goldfish in the house is bad luck?” Maggie said, her voice rising.

“Ah, Maggie, I had a whole aquarium full of goldfish in my bedroom when I was a kid.”

“You—you lied to me? About the superstitions? All this time you’ve been telling me lie after lie, reciting one superstition after another?”

“They weren’t lies, exactly. It was part of a master plan I had to win your love, your heart, to blow the Jenkins Jinx into oblivion so we could be together forever. My father helped me a bit. You know, that night in the pizza place with the acorn and—”

“I don’t believe this,” Maggie said, yanking her hands free. “What else, Luke? What else did you lie about?”

“I wish you wouldn’t use that word,” he said, grimacing. “It was a plan. The Plan—in capital letters.”

“What else, Luke St. John,” she said, her voice ringing with fury.

Luke took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, puffing his cheeks.

“The wedding,” he said quietly.

“What wedding?” she said, totally confused.

“Precious and Clyde’s.”

“What about it? What kind of lies could you possibly tell me about their wedding?”

Luke cringed. “There is no…no Precious and Clyde, Maggie. I made them up. I needed a way to stay close to you after you knocked me over, captured my heart, at Ginger and Robert’s wedding. The Plan—I bet you’re getting tired of hearing those words—The Plan was for you to coordinate your own dream wedding with me next to you every step of the way.

“Then hopefully you’d fall in love with me, just as I already loved you, and everything would be ready for us to get married just the way you’d always dreamed of.”

“That’s why you kept hedging about the invitations to Precious and Clyde’s wedding,” Maggie said, nearly shrieking. “You couldn’t ask them about the wording they wanted because they don’t exist. And…and…we weren’t picking out a honeymoon suite for them it was—”

“For us, don’t you see? I wanted our wedding to be perfect for you, exactly what you yearned for. And it will be because you’ve seen to every detail just the way you want it. I did it for you. Us. You.” Luke dragged a restless hand through his hair. “Ah, Maggie, please tell me that you understand that what I did was out of love for you.”

“What I understand,” she said, getting to her feet and wrapping her hands around her elbows, “is that you are a liar. You are despicable. You made a fool of me. Must have laughed yourself silly when you reported back to your father about the great progress you were making with your ever-famous plan.”