*   *   *

The putting green at the club was deserted this early on a weekday morning, which was good, because he was in no mood for company. He had a lot to think about. Mason heard the muted toot on his cell phone, letting him know he had an incoming text message. He laid his putter down on the green, took the phone from the pocket of his golf slacks, glanced down at the readout panel, and saw that the text was from Celia.

WE NEED TO TALK. NOW!!!

He felt his gut twist with dread. So she’d heard already. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He looked down at the cell, knowing that modern etiquette, not to mention common decency, decried the idea of breaking an engagement with a text, but secretly wishing the deed could be done with just a few taps of the keyboard on his BlackBerry. He knew better, of course.

He removed his golf glove and tapped his reply.

I’LL BE HOME IN AN HOUR.

*   *   *

Mason let himself in the kitchen door, warily peering around the corner to see if the coast was clear. His heart sank at the sight of Celia, seated at the kitchen island. Her face was pale and tear-streaked, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Hi,” he said, setting his golf bag down in a corner. He was looking for a neutral opener, an icebreaker. What he came up with was admittedly lame. “How’s your aunt feeling?”

“My aunt?” She raised one eyebrow. “You’re telling me you care how my aunt is feeling? How about me? How do you think I’m feeling?” Her voice rose to something approaching a shriek, or the closest he’d ever heard Celia come to a shriek.

“Celia, look … I’m sorry…”

“Do you realize that you have humiliated me in front of this entire town?” she asked, her voice just barely above a whisper now. “I showed up at the club this morning for my doubles match with Bonnie Kelsey, and I’d hardly gotten my racket out of my bag before she pulled me aside, and with this look of pity on her face, which I will never forget, actually suggested that, considering the emotional pain I must be in, we might want to forfeit the match.”

So, Mason thought dully, it had been Bonnie. He might have guessed the delight she would have taken in sharing the news with Celia.

“I don’t know what to say…”

She opened her eyes wide. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you were not with Annajane last night. In a cornfield. Tell me it’s all just a hideous lie.” Her lower lip trembled and her huge eyes filled with tears. “Please tell me that, Mason. Please?”

“Christ,” he swore quietly. “It’s not true. Well, not exactly.”

She held out her hand, like a school traffic-crossing guard. “Stop!” she cried. “Whatever is going on between you and Annajane, if you love me, you’ll stop seeing her. For God’s sake, Mason, last night was supposed to be our wedding night. What were you thinking?”

He said the first thing that came to mind. The truth. “I guess I wasn’t thinking at all. After you left, I went out for a drive in the Chevelle, and things just kind of happened.”

“Happened?” She was weeping again, with her head down on the counter, her petite body jerking with every sob. She raised her head. “You just happened to find yourself in a car in a cornfield with your ex-wife, naked? How does that just happen?”

“Nobody was naked!” he said. The thing of it was, he really couldn’t explain how any of the previous night had happened. In fact, this morning, when he’d thought about it, he couldn’t say with any certainty that it hadn’t all been just a whiskey dream. One thing he did know was, he had to find a way to make things right. With Celia, and with Annajane.

“I still care about Annajane,” he said finally. “I’m sorry. I guess I just never really got over her.”

There. He’d done it. Said it out loud. He felt better. For about five seconds.

Celia’s shoulders slumped and she dropped her chin to her chest, as though somebody had knocked the wind out of her body. “Why did you ask me to marry you in the first place?” she asked, her lower lip starting that trembly thing all over again. “If you still had a crush on her? Didn’t you ever love me? Even a little?”

“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “It just kind of happened. I mean, you and I were spending a lot of time together, business lunches turned into dinners, and we had some fun, and the next thing I know, you’re moving in with me, and then, all of a sudden, we’re engaged.”

“What?” she cried. “Are you saying I railroaded you? That the engagement was all my idea?”

Yes, actually, now that he thought about it, the engagement was definitely her idea.

“No,” he lied. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“Then what are you saying?”

He sighed. This was not going well. He’d turned the whole situation over in his mind on the way back to the house, and he’d mapped out a compassionate, logical discussion with Celia. He would tell her about Annajane, and she would be hurt at first, but then, being the practical, logical girl she was, she would shed a few tears and then allow him a graceful exit from this whole marriage thing. But so far, Celia wasn’t playing fair. She’d turned on the tear tap, full throttle. It was brutal, is what it was.

“I’m just saying,” he started. “Somehow, things spun out of control. I thought I was in love with you. I mean, probably I was. Kind of. At some point, I knew I should man up and tell you how I felt, but then, once you started planning the wedding, it kept getting bigger and more elaborate. And then, there was the country club, and the harpist from Atlanta, and that enormous damned cake, and your aunt was flying in … I just couldn’t … I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Celia looked like she’d been slapped across the face. “So this is all my fault? Because I wanted a nice wedding day? A day I would have been able to remember my whole life?”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” Mason said wearily. “It just is. Look, I never, ever meant to hurt you, but knowing how I feel about Annajane, how conflicted I am, well, I can understand that you’d want to call off the wedding for good now. Nobody could blame you after the heel I’ve been.”

“Call it off?” Her face crumpled. “For good?”

“It might be for the best,” he said, feeling like more of a heel than ever. “We’re just too different. We want different things. I mean, you hate my car, and you don’t really like living in a small town like Passcoe, and you hate my sister, well, okay, I guess she’s the one who hates you, but you know you never really warmed up to Pokey…”

He was babbling, and he wasn’t normally a babbler. But then he’d never been in a situation like this before, so really, who could blame him?

Mason laid a tender, caring hand on Celia’s arm. “Celia, I know this is pretty rotten right now, but believe me, eventually, you’ll agree it’s all for the best that we didn’t go through with the wedding. It never would have worked out.”

*   *   *

Celia pushed his hand away and ran from the room. She threw herself onto the sofa in the den, burying her face in the cushions.

Things were happening too fast. She had to step back and regroup. Call off the wedding? Just because she and Mason had a little tiff and he’d gotten sloppy drunk and sentimental and ended up giving his pathetic ex-wife a pity fuck? Oh, no. This was not happening. She would not allow this to happen. Mason was hers, and she would not give him up without a fight. She had a plan, a whole new life plotted for herself, and she’d be damned if she’d give it up now and end up like her wretched, welfare-cheating, coupon-clipping, snot-dripping coven of sisters back in Nebraska. But how to win Mason back, when he was convinced he still carried a torch for somebody else?

She knew Mason, better than he knew himself. Knew what mattered to him. Honor. Loyalty. Fidelity. Family. Doing the right thing. It was what he lived for.