Must-Have Husband by Ginny Baird

“Who else could it have been?”
    She blinked.
    “Do you know something about this, daughter?” Junior asked sternly.
    Linda’s face got all pink and puffy, like she was about to burst out crying.
    “Linda?” her mother pressed.
    “We never thought it would come to this!” she said with a wail.
    “What do you mean?” her grandpa asked.
    “He’s not even her real fiancé!” Linda’s voice cracked in despair. “He’s a fake!” She spilled the whole sordid story as the others gaped, and Elizabeth rapidly fanned her face with her hands.
    Beau peered out the window. “Look! They’re on the patio!”
    Ollie gritted his teeth and raced from the room. “I’m gonna get that guy!”
    “I’m coming too!” Junior said, tearing after him.
    Wendell wheeled himself toward the elevator as fast as he could, his nurses trailing. “Get me downstairs—quickly,” he commanded.
    Beau rushed forward just in time to catch Elizabeth, who fainted from shock.

    Ollie stormed onto the patio and socked Mac in the face before he could defend himself.
    “Wait! Stop!” Connie yelped. “What are you doing?”
    “Do you have any idea what he’s done?”
    Connie gasped. “But he said it was an accident!”
    “An accident?” Ollie rubbed his knuckles while Mac massaged his struck jaw. “Is that what he calls his little game of pretend ?”
    Her knees felt weak. “What?”
    “The jig is up,” her dad said. “This man is a liar and a cheat, and he’s destroyed the one thing this family holds dear.”
    “The dress?” Connie asked in stunned disbelief. “Is it really ruined?”
    “It’s not just the dress he’s destroyed,” Grandpa Oliver said, wheeling onto the patio. “It’s this family. He’s broken our trust.”
    Mac began his apology, his face red from the neck up. “Sir, I’m so sorry. I’ll offer to pay, anyth—”
    “Can it,” Junior said flatly. “We’ll thank you to pack your bags and get out of here. You can call a cab from your room.”
    Mac looked around the patio at all of them. Even Linda and Beau were there, with Elizabeth leaning weakly against Beau’s arm. “But if you’d just let me explain—”
    Wendell Senior stared at him, indignant. “What? That you agreed to accept twenty thousand dollars in cash for your participation in this little ploy?” He wheeled toward Mac with a scowl. “Let me tell you something, mister. My granddaughter might make mistakes, but she deserves better than that.”
    “Connie?” Mac asked, his face etched with pain. “Is that what you want? For me to go?”
    She couldn’t see how his staying would make things any better. This whole thing had exploded like an enormous atom bomb, and now pieces of shrapnel were everywhere. She wanted to find her voice but felt muted by the hurt welling within her. She couldn’t get a damn thing right. Not even in make-believe with Mac. How could she have been foolish enough to dream things would work out, when everything had started with such a big lie?
    She dropped her face in her hands and wept with humiliation as he turned and walked away. “You didn’t have to be so hard on him,” she said. “I had a part in this as well.”
    “Yes,” her mom said, “a very big part, it seems. We’ll need to talk that over.”
    “Not now. Please, not now,” Connie said, her heart breaking. For the first time in her life, she’d thought she’d begun to feel something authentic for a man, but now she guessed that had been a lie too.

Chapter Nine

    Six weeks later, Hank sunned himself on a rock while Mac stared stoically ahead.
    “I really appreciate you inviting me on this little excursion. It’s been just like camping with a corpse.”
    “You don’t know what it’s been like, losing her.” He appeared wistful a moment. “It’s just like Chance.”
    Hank lifted his head to look at him. “You mean like fate?”
    “No, my yellow lab. I lost him in the woods when I was nine and never saw him again.”
    “Man,