Who around here can afford to attend a party that costs two hundred dollars?”

Taylor breathed in, and out, her pleasant smile never once faltering. She’d been a shy little girl, and a quiet, polite, and accommodating teenager. She’d never given her parents any difficulty, and it’d been a shock to all when Doug began having issues in middle school. Her parents didn’t know how to cope with a troubled son. They must have made a pact not to deal with it…or him. Their failure to take action had made a lasting impression on Taylor.

“I don’t believe that’s true, Maureen,” she said now. “Yes, big donors and underwriters have been given tickets in exchange for sponsoring the ball, but the committee has sold the majority of the tickets, and it’s not two hundred per person, it’s two hundred per couple, and that covers dinner, dancing, wine at dinner, and pictures.”

Maureen grimaced and stood up, loudly scraping her chair against the hardwood floor. “You’d have to pay me to attend a black-tie ball that’s being held to launch a wedding contest. Only a Californian would come up with an idea as ridiculous as that.”

Taylor opened her mouth to protest, wanting to remind them that the wedding contest was the 100 year anniversary of Marietta’s 1914 Great Wedding Giveaway, but the group was rising, and gathering their things, and Taylor realized she’d lost that battle. Better to just let them all go.

As the room cleared, Taylor stashed her notepad and book in her leather satchel before checking her phone. A missed call from Jane. Nothing from Doug. Good.

She then went around the room, pushing in chairs, picking up scraps of paper left behind before turning off the lights, locking the door and heading downstairs to the main floor, taking the stairs quickly.

“Off to the wedding committee meeting?” Louise, the children’s librarian, asked, passing the foot of the stairs with three children in tow. One of the little girls was Paige Joffee’s daughter and the black haired little boy had to be McKenna’s son, TJ.

“On my way now,” Taylor answered, smiling as TJ chased two little girls around the plant in the lobby corner.

“Apparently Troy Sheenan will be at the meeting, too,” Louise said. “Don’t know if you’ve met him, but he’s quite something. Marietta’s most eligible bachelor and all that.”

Taylor arched her eyebrows and pushed her glasses up higher on her nose. Did everyone have a thing for him? “Hadn’t heard,” she said, trying very hard not to remember her dream last night… and the almost-kiss.

“Jane sent me a text saying she hadn’t been able to reach you, but she wanted me to know, which is why I’ve been hovering a bit in the lobby. I was hoping to give him a hug. I like the Sheenan boys. They’ve done well for themselves. Very successful young men. Well, all but Trey. Trey’s in and out of trouble, but he’s not a bad person. He’s a sweetheart, he is. He was always my favorite Sheenan.” She nodded at the boy who was still chasing the little girls around the potted plant. “See that little guy there? TJ is Trey’s boy, and the spitting image of him, too.”

Taylor caught a glimpse of TJ’s laughing blue eyes and dimples before he chased the little girls in the opposite direction, towards the children’s reading room. “No. TJ is McKenna’s son.”

“And Trey’s son.”

Taylor frowned. “Trey and McKenna?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No.”

“They were quite the item. For years.” Louise wiggled her fingers, saying goodbye as she raced after the laughing children.

Dillon found Troy in the big Sheenan barn feeding the horses.