by Amberlee Day
“That’s good, though I do miss those marks on your forehead.”
“Attractive, huh?”
“Very.”
“That reminds me, I need to file the receipt with Vanna.”
“That’s working out well, then? Having her do the bookkeeping?”
“Yeah, pretty much. She’s thorough, and since she can do it during lulls running the front desk, it’s good for her, too. A little extra cash without me having to find someone full time.”
“Perfect. I guess it’s good she’s here, then.”
They exchanged raised eyebrows as they walked together out through the breakfast room and into the lobby. Vanna, seated behind the desk as usual, immediately gave them the look, but before Freddie could talk to her, something else made Freddie and Kate freeze.
“What in the world ...?” Freddie asked.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, and so on went the revolving door. Pumpkin, who had apparently completely left behind her fear of the thing, pranced at a quick pace round and round, all by herself. She looked like a hamster running on a wheel, her tongue hanging out and a wide smile stretching her furry face.
“She’s been doing that for the last few minutes,” Vanna said, her eyes more bugged out than normal. “Maybe somebody should stop her.”
But they just watched, until finally Freddie shook his head and went to talk to Vanna. Kate, on the other hand, worried that somehow the dog would push the old revolving door too far. It wasn’t used to so many go-arounds at once. Kate moved closer to lure the dog out. “Hey, Pumpkin. Come here, girl. Come on.”
Behind her, she heard Freddie tell Vanna, “I have a receipt for you. Hold on, it’s here in my pocket ... oh, shoot. I got marinade on my hands.”
Kate turned back in time to see Freddie pull a receipt from his pocket, smudges of dark orange marinade on his fingers. When he did so, something shiny dropped from his pocket to the floor, also tinged with marinade. Kate’s heart flip-flopped. “Is that a—”
Suddenly, Pumpkin shot out of the doorway and into the lobby. Like a flash, she’d reached what Freddie had dropped, licked it up, and swallowed with a loud gulp. Nothing remained on the floor but a slobber spot.
“—ring?” Kate finished, her heart dropping to her toes. Freddie stared at the floor, his mouth hanging open. Kate moved closer and took his hand, the one without sauce on it. “Freddie? Are you okay?”
Vanna’s voice sounded, monotonous but loud. “Oh, my sweet Clementine. That dog ate your engagement ring, didn’t she?”
“I think she did,” Kate said, a little worried that Freddie had gone into shock. “You okay?”
He nodded, still staring at the carpet and Pumpkin, who had taken to giving herself a tongue bath. Finally, he gave her a sheepish smile. “Don’t worry, Kate,” he promised. “We might have to wait a day or two longer to get engaged, but it’ll work out.”
“I love you,” Kate whispered to him.
“I love you more,” Freddie whispered back, and from the floor, Pumpkin rolled over to rest on their feet and groaned.
Epilogue
Monday Night
Mirabelle Mason stood in the setting autumn sun as the tall, dark, and handsome man knelt down, holding out a massive canary-yellow diamond. The last rays of the day set it off perfectly in a soft glow.
“Yes. Of course, yes, my love.”
Mirabelle clapped along with the several others who’d been chosen to observe this carefully curated yet “spontaneous” proposal.
When the future bride, Bethany—a social media influencer with a few million followers—had reached out to Mirabelle’s small stable for an event, Mirabelle had been thrilled and terrified all at once. It turned out she should’ve leaned more toward terrified, but the night would be over soon.
Bethany’s photographer, a Frenchman named Adrien who’d helped coordinate the day, stepped up and took a series of photos of the couple and the ring. They stood on the edge of a ridge overlooking a meadow ablaze in reds and oranges with the sun setting behind the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains.
Mirabelle allowed herself to relax for a full second. The weather had held out, the mountain views didn’t disappoint, and the bride seemed happy. The proposal was part of a horseback ride she hosted a few times a week that was geared toward couples. Numbers weren’t where she’d hoped they’d be, and with all her debt, she was sinking underwater fast. The weight was enough to drag anyone down, but this night could be the life preserver she so desperately needed.
All she had to do was get through the catered dinner, and the night would be over. Tomorrow, Bethany would blast her social media with the big news, tagging the stable and its romantic sunset rides. Maybe next season she’d have more sold spots than empty saddles.
“Mirabelle, darling, can you bring the horses over?” Adrien asked.
She led the horses along the ridge’s edge: a white mare for the bride and a black gelding for the groom. She’d had to borrow the white one to acquiesce the future bride’s request—or had it been the groom’s? Bethany had first reached out about featuring the ride in a post, and then the groom had contacted her about converting the night into a surprise proposal. Though the plan had come from him, Mirabelle suspected that Bethany pulled the strings.
“Thank you ever so much,” Bethany said. “It’s all just so perfect. My followers are going to love you.” Bethany’s long dark eyelashes fluttered against her blonde hair dancing in the strong breeze.
“No, thank you.” Mirabelle’s face hurt from smiling so much. One more hour, she promised herself.
“Mirabelle,” Bethany said. “You’re still in the shot.”
“Oh, sorry.” She stepped back a few feet, waiting to grab the horses. While many of the pre-proposal shots had included the other couples on the ride, Mirabelle suspected she wouldn’t be in them, at least not close-up. She wasn’t bad-looking—even she knew that—she just wasn’t influencer pretty. Her skin was more washed-out white than creamy, her freckles more chaotic than flattering, and her figure more sturdy than sexy.
While the couple finished the shoot, Mirabelle led the other couples along for the ride off the ridge and down the trail to the Dutch oven dinner prepared by the best chef in town—her uncle Jameson. He greeted all the guests while looking like an estate owner, tall with gray hair and impeccably ironed Wranglers topped with a crisp white shirt. The two other couples were friends of Mirabelle’s, bribed by the promise of a free dinner, to stand in Bethany’s photos and look beautiful and thrilled.
The newly engaged couple eventually sauntered into firelight about twenty minutes later to a smattering of applause. They sat on a nearby log with arms linked together, her head on his shoulder.
From where she brushed the unsaddled horses in the shadows, Mirabelle couldn’t help but stare at the happy couples. How did people fall in love and stay together? From the outside, it seemed so effortless—not accounting for Bethany’s engineered proposal. But from Mirabelle’s experience, it seemed so impossible. She’d been engaged once—for all of two days, and that had been two days too many.
Mirabelle counted the minutes until the night was over and success could be declared. Only twenty more.
A scream echoed through the night, piercing her quiet reverie and causing her heart rate to spike. The horses jerked back on their leads, sending the trailer rocking. She leapt away to avoid their swinging rear ends.
“Where’s my ring, you backwoods hillbillies? Where is it?” Bethany’s accusations echoed across the mountains. She spewed several curse words—some Mirabelle had never heard.
Mirabelle rushed to the campfire, ready to take control and manage the ever-changing mood of the self-proclaimed star. “What’s going on?”
“My half-million-dollar ring is missing.” Bethany turned on Mirabelle, shoving her finger in her face and backing her up against her own Dodge truck. “Do you have any idea how much money that is? Of course you don’t,” she replied before Mirabelle could even open
her mouth. “I wear more money on a single finger than you will see in your entire nothing life.”
“I don’t understand how it went missing.” Mirabelle wouldn’t let a ring like that out of her sight—not that she dated the kind of guys who had half-million-dollar rings in their pockets. Heck, the men who asked her out were lucky to have a twenty in their wallet.
“I left it with Adrien to take photos of it, and someone stole it.”
Mirabelle looked to Adrien for help, but his blue eyes didn’t offer a reprieve. “I had a black cloth set up to take some close-ups. I came down the hill to switch lenses. I did not know Bethany had left the—”
“I didn’t leave the ring,” Bethany shot back. “You left it, and someone stole it.”
“We’ll find it,” Mirabelle said, and she repeated it several more times before Bethany’s voice came down from shrill to terse. “Where did you see it last? I know this trail better than I know my own kitchen.” She would never forgive herself for how her voice trembled in that moment.
“You’d better. That ring was an heirloom from my fiancé’s great-great-grandmother.”
Mirabelle glanced past Bethany to the fiancé, who looked wholly unperturbed by the missing ring and his betrothed’s reaction. Maybe her response was something he’d weathered before. He took her hand. “Babe, I’m sure someone will find it.”
Apparently, that someone had to be Mirabelle. She organized the guests into a search party and handed out headlamps and flashlights. They spent the next few hours hiking up and down the trail between the fire and the ridgeline where the proposal had happened, but to no avail. The strong winds of the morning returned, adding blowing leaves and dirt to the darkness.
By midnight, Mirabelle walked the still-snarling Bethany to her rented Escalade. “I’ll do everything I—”
“No.” Bethany held up her finger and wagged it in Mirabelle’s face. “You will find it, because if you don’t, I will grind your company to dust. I will spread the word to all my fans that you are a thief who steals from her clients. Our engagement party is one week from tomorrow, and that ring will be on my finger.”
Mirabelle tried to find the words to explain that Bethany had signed a release protecting her company against lost or stolen items. She tried to find the words that it wasn’t her fault the ring was lost, but she couldn’t. The words didn’t exist, because they didn’t matter. She would never be able to afford a lawyer to fight even a baseless court case, and her tiny company could never survive the onslaught of the hate social media could bring.
“I’ll find it; I promise.” An infuriatingly meek voice was all she could manage. She hated herself for not being able to knock that woman to the ground.
Don’t leave Harvest Ranch just yet!
Click here to grab the next Pumpkins & Proposals romance!
Mirabelle brings love alive every Harvest Festival for her guests, but she is bent on staying single. Will her heart be stolen before the last leaf falls?
After breaking up with a jerk of a fiancé, Mirabelle Mason used her life savings and then some to follow her dream hosting horseback rides in the mountains. When a social media influencer chooses her stable as a backdrop for a “surprise” marriage proposal, she’s destined to go viral.
All is likes and love until the half-million-dollar engagement ring goes missing. If Mirabelle doesn’t find the diamond in a week, the influencer will destroy her reputation, and she’ll go viral for all the wrong reasons.
After being fired from the FBI for going after the wrong billionaire, Danny Cabrera is biding his time as a small-time, small-town security guard. He needs to focus on getting his career back in New York, not on helping the chaotic woman covered in horse manure find a trinket in the wilderness. Except he’s got a knack for getting to the truth and he still likes saving the day.
Determined not to make the same mistake twice, Mirabelle has sworn off men. Only the clock is ticking, and she finds herself needing Danny—and even more worrisome, wanting him. Can she find the ring and love without losing herself?
Also by Amberlee Day
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The Billionaire’s Mermaid by Amberlee Day
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He’s a billionaire widower with three misbehaving kids; she’s a Seattle chef struggling to keep her business open. Can she turn his mansion into a home, and will he give his heart to a new kind of beauty?
When Jetton Bolt’s supermodel wife died two years ago, his kids handled it surprisingly well. After all, she was hardly ever home. Now that they’ve moved back to Jetton’s hometown of Seattle, however, problems arise, and the counselor he’s hired recommends he spend more time with his children. First thing on the list: eat dinners together, and cook them together, too. Jetton doesn’t cook, but that’s what money’s for, right?
Julie Kiyama has earned a name in Seattle and beyond as a talented chef, but when it comes to running a business in a saturated restaurant market, she struggles. Hoping that the third time will be the charm, she opens a “restaurant” where diners actually help cook their own dinners. She never dreamed that this odd foodie niche would land her a job helping a billionaire and his kids learn to cook together, or that she’d be driving daily to the luxurious private neighborhood known as The Cove to make it happen.
When sparks begin to fly in the Bolt kitchen between Jetton and Julie, both will have to redefine their ideas of success if they have any hope of believing what their hearts are telling them.
About the Author →
About the Author
Amberlee Day
~Words to Love By~
Amberlee Day writes from her home deep in a Pacific Northwest forest. Unless she’s at the beach, then she writes there. Also in her minivan while waiting on children’s activities, or at the library when the
house is too noisy, and occasionally in random corners during family reunions.
If you love sweet, funny romance novels, you’ll love books by Amberlee Day!
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