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Over a half dozen customers sat at various tables: two older women whose perms looked like they might be municipal landmarks, a trio of teens half-buried behind their iced lattes and phones, and a couple of men in contractor vests hunched over a chessboard near the window.

Behind the counter, the owner, Ginger’s platinum-blonde head popped up from the espresso machine like a gopher with a sixth sense for drama.

Everyone’s eyes were on us, and I had a feeling the cat was now out of the bag. Our relationship news had spread like wildfire.

We’d barely crossed the bakery threshold—me blinking in the sudden rush of cinnamon-sugar air, Damon looming just behind—before Ginger flung down her towel, powdered sugar blooming theatrically from her apron, and materialized in front of us. Her gaze zipped from Damon’s half-concealed smile to my face and then to our hands, which were definitely not touching, but might as well have been, given the way she beamed at the negative space between us.

“Is this what I think it is?” she trilled.

Ginger at Be Mine Bakery wanted details.

I could feel the heat crawl up my cheeks. I’d faced tough, unsmiling venture capitalists and survived being publicly insulted by chairmen on three different continents, but nothing could have prepared me for the full-contact scrutiny of small-town matchmakers. Ginger was practically vibrating with anticipation, and she was close enough that I could see a stray sprinkle of cocoa stuck in her eyelashes.

Damon shrugged. “Depends on what you think it is,” he said, his tone so casual he may as well have been ordering a sandwich.

“Oh, don’t play coy.” She pointed an accusing, cherry-red fingernail at us both. “I want the whole story. How long have you been keeping this secret?”

A murmur ran through the bakery, as if the walls themselves were eager to eavesdrop. One of the chess-playing contractors nudged his opponent, who nodded sagely and said, “Called it.”

Unsure of how to proceed, I looked at Damon, who was already looking at me, and for a second he actually winked—as if we were conspirators in a heist instead of actors in a play we’d both forgotten to rehearse.

My mouth moved before my brain caught up. “It’s still new,” I said, voice weaker than I’d meant.

Ginger squealed. I mean, actually squealed, then rounded the counter and embraced me with a force that threatened to squeeze the truth right out of my lungs.

I stared up at Damon, who did not seem remotely fazed by the attention. I supposed years of being the town’s most eligible bachelor—ugh, gag—had inoculated him against small-town gossip, but for me the gaze felt suffocating, like being wrapped in wool in a sauna.

By the time I’d finished finalizing the order for the groom’s cake, which I’d only been told the night before he wanted, Ginger handed Damon a box of cookies that she said were “on the house for lovebirds!”

We stepped back onto Main Street, and I muttered, “That was…intense.”

Damon grinned. “Better than a root canal, though.”

I rolled my eyes, but the tension in my chest loosened a fraction. Damon had a way of taking everything in stride. I wasn’t sure anything had ever caused him anxiety.

Our next stop was the general store, where the woman behind the checkout stand congratulated Damon and insisted on knowing how we met.

Someone had apparently already posted about us in the town’s Facebook group.

Damon appeared cool as a cucumber. I was starting to realize just how big of a lie it was we were telling.

And for what?

I had no issue being single. I’m not even sure why I’d felt the need to lie to my cousin in the first place, much less double down when Kenny overheard me.

Each time we confirmed the “rumor” that we were together, the more uncomfortable I felt about the lie.

We were headed back to the ranch when Damon asked, “You okay?”

I was going to tell him the second, third, and fourth thoughts I was having about keeping this rouse up for the rest of the weekend when my phone rang. It was Julissa.

I answered and listened to her complain about our Auntie Reba, trying to insist on her wearing the same veil that she had. She asked me to speak to her. I told her I would, not that it would matter. Auntie Reba and my mom were two peas in a pod. Neither of them had ever let a little thing like being wrong stop them from being right.

“Everything okay?” Damon asked as I hung up the phone.

“Yeah, just family stuff.”

He nodded, and I could see that he understood.