The whispers behind me had swelled into something with a shape to it now, a low rolling wave of a hundred wedding guests deciding, all at once, what they thought of the woman in the silk dress.

Chapter 10 — Judge Vance

It was Rachel’s father who ended it.

Judge Vance had paid for that entire beautiful evening for his daughter, and he was a big man with a voice built for courtrooms, and he crossed the patio from the edge of the crowd with an expression like weather coming in off the lake.

“Tiffany.” His voice went out over the lawn and flattened every other sound beneath it.

“You will leave my daughter’s wedding.