Awol Bride. Victoria Pade

little—only two inches taller than Maicy’s own five feet four inches and slight enough that if she’d been wearing Gary’s sweatsuit now it would have fit her perfectly.

      Then she went on. “He’d just moved away from Northbridge after Candace Jackson turned down his proposal.”

      Okay, there might have been a touch of snideness to that last part, but if Conor had heard it he didn’t say anything. He only said, “Candace Jackson... She started out my year, got thrown from a horse and had to be held back into your class because she missed so much school.”

      “Right. But she’s perfectly healthy now...” Maicy said sardonically.

      “And she turned down Stern’s proposal and he moved to Denver, where you met up with him again and...what? Hit it off?”

      Commiserated as two people dumped by high school sweethearts, was more like it.

      But that wasn’t how Maicy framed it. “At first we were only old friends meeting again after a long time. But then yes, we hit it off, started to date—”

      “You and Stern...” he mused, glancing at her in disbelief. “I can’t see it.”

      “We were good together,” she said, defensively again. “At least I thought we were. Gary’s transition from small town to big city was a little rough, though. He worked as an account manager at a brokerage house but six months in, the company let him go.”

      “That’s not good. How come?”

      “They said he just didn’t fit in—it was kind of a high-profile firm and it seemed like Gary just didn’t have the... I don’t know...the panache for their big clients. Anyway, about that time his apartment lease expired and his rent almost doubled from the move-in rate—”

      “And being newly unemployed, he couldn’t afford it,” Conor said for her.