“I’ll vouch for that.” Aiming her camera at the two men, Dominique crouched in front of the table and took a shot. “Nick is very sneaky. I found this taped to my lens cap an hour ago.” She waggled the ring finger of her left hand, where a diamond caught the sunlight.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Gabe left his seat and came around the table. “Could we have a short delay in the proceedings? My brother Nick just had the good sense to propose to Dominique.”
“And I had the good sense to accept,” Dominique said.
Gabe hugged her. “Welcome to the family. Nick’s a lucky guy.”
Nick joined them on the other side of the table and put an arm around his fiancée. “Grandpa Archie used to say that Chance men are lucky when it counts.”
“Nice going, Nick.” Gabe shook Nick’s hand as the rest of the people at the table and in the surrounding crowd came up to offer their congratulations.
Morgan joined in as naturally as if she’d lived in Shoshone for years. Gabe liked seeing her relax back into her normal upbeat personality. Best of all, he didn’t detect any envy or wistfulness on her part. No engagement fever going on, there. She probably wanted to keep focused on her career, and that was a good thing.
At last Edgar Perkins rang the school bell again. “This is all very exciting, but we’re falling behind schedule. I need the contestants to be seated so we can bring out the watermelon.”
Gabe watched Morgan to make sure she didn’t use this interruption to sneak out, but she hurried back to her chair beside him.
Once Nick sat down, Gabe leaned toward him. “Does Mom know about this?”
“Yeah, and Jack and Emmett and Mary Lou. You would’ve, too, but you were over dealing with the Appaloosa.”
“Must’ve been a pretty quiet announcement. I didn’t hear any commotion over there.”
“It was a quietly emotional announcement, not a wild and crazy one. Mom’s feeling kind of teary today, anyway, and this started up the waterworks again. You know how Jack gets when she cries.”
Gabe’s gut tightened. “Speaking of Jack, I—”
“Here are your watermelon wedges, ladies and gents.” Edgar came over with two plates and Madge followed with two more. On each plate sat a quarter of a melon sliced lengthwise. The process was repeated until all ten contestants had watermelon.
“We’ll talk,” Nick said. “But not now.”
“Nope, not now.” Gabe tucked his Stetson under his chair before giving Nick and then Morgan the evil eye. “I hope you both know you’re going down.”
Excitement sparkled in Morgan’s blue-green gaze. “We’ll just see about that, Gabe Chance.” Pulling a scrunchie out of her pocket, she tied back her hair. “I intend to chomp my way to victory.”
Now that was the Morgan he liked to see—full of piss and vinegar. He thought again about that Italian mother of hers. This could be a very interesting day, and quite possibly a more interesting night.
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