Immediately.
My, but she’s confident.
“Sorry to drop in unannounced,” she says. “Very rude, I realize, but I just had to see you. In person.”
Apparently, this means we’re seeing Rosalind in person, too.
“Why?” he asks. “Not to be rude.”
“You aren’t rude.” She waves his comment away. “I justfeel like too much information gets lost in the translation between your mother and my father. They’re unreliable narrators.” She shoots me a look. “That’s an English thing, right?”
“You got it.”
Smart too.
Slivers of jealousy prick my insides. Not because I doubt Bridger’s feelings for me, but because this is the woman his mother wanted for him. I’m quite literally nothing like Margaret’s vision of his ideal.
Okay. We do have the smile thing in common. And I’m smart.
Great.
“Well, come in, then,” Bridger says, leading her through the house and into the parlor, where we take seats across from each other. I’ve lived here for weeks and never been in this room.
Rosalind’s a parlor girl.
Bridger clears his throat. “So, what brings you here?” he asks. “Unfiltered, in person?”
“Margaret reached out to my dad last night to say a marriage between us is back on the table, and I thought you should know. He called to tell me this morning. Obviously he’s in favor.”
I blink. “And you flew all the way here to tell Bridger you don’t want to go through with it?”
A girl can hope.
“No, I was already in Asheville. I’m the keynote speaker at the Blue Ridge Heritage Foundation’s annual gala. Happy accident, huh?”
Duh.
Of course.
“I figured an hour’s drive in a rental car was better than more back and forth and dilution of the facts.”
“Ah. You drove here.” I bob my head. “Makes sense.”
Stop talking, mouth.
“I also wanted to apologize,” she says to Bridger. “Margaret and Lyle can both come on strong when they have an agenda.”
He chuckles. “True story.”
“But there’s one thing theydidget right, so I feel like I need to clear the air with you.” She swings her attention to me. “Especially since I found out you’re already Bridger’s wife.”
My throat goes dry. “Okay.”
“Iwasmore than willing to go along with the marriage,” she admits. “For the same basic reason that’s always driven him, I imagine.”
“Oh.” My stomach flips, and my throat’s an official desert now. Whatbasic reasondoes she imagine would drive these two gorgeous people together, exactly?
“I think we both wished for a while now that we could steer our families in a new direction. One that’s slightly more … ummm … how to put this delicately?”