The stranger wore a charcoal suit with no flashy details, yet everyone seemed to recognize that he belonged wherever he chose to sit. Silver touched his temples as he faced the altar.
Without looking at me, he said, “Keep your eyes forward, Mari. Don’t shrink. Just act like you came with me.”
My breath caught.
Nobody had called me Mari in fifty years.
I turned slightly, but he placed one warm hand over mine — steady rather than possessive.
“Not yet,” he murmured. “Let them wonder.”
The whispers changed at once.
“Who is that?”
“Why is he sitting back there?”
“Does the groom know he came?”
A woman in the second row lifted her phone beneath her program. Across the aisle, Darlene’s husband read something on his screen, then looked toward us so quickly his chair shifted. Up front, Blaire followed his gaze. Her polished smile tightened. Darlene went completely still.
Evan looked again.