I Do! I Do! (Silhouette Special Edition #1855)

"You're better off without him, Sis," Emily said in a firm voice. "Dax Traub is an idiot if he doesn't know what he's losing. He's not worth another minute of your time."Even though Liz was still reeling from the shock of her broken engagement, her sister's words made her feel slightly better."I think you're biased," Liz protested in a shaky voice.She'd called Emily as soon as she'd gotten home from meeting Dax at The Rib Shack, DJ's latest addition to his successful restaurant chain. Apparently Dax had figured she wouldn't make a scene if he gave her the bad news in a public place.At first Liz had been too stunned to speak, too busy trying to absorb words that seemed to have no meaning. Holding back the threat of tears as he'd sat across from her looking uncomfortable. He'd looked anywhere but at her as he'd squirmed in his chair.When she'd asked him why in a ragged whisper, he had merely shrugged. "It's not you." His face showed more discomfort than regret or sympathy. "I'm sorry."Still speechless, Liz had gotten to her feet, legs wobbly, and left the restaurant with as much dignity as she could manage. All the way home from town, tears running down her face, she had asked herself why. Why? Dax was handsome and sexy, his bad-boy image not hurt in the least by the motorcycle shop he owned. Apparently Liz just wasn't pretty enough or hot enough to hang on to someone like him. "He wasn't right for you, honey," Emily continued. "Why on earth did you get engaged to him in the first place? You hadn't dated long, had you? Did you even really know him?"Liz leaned against the kitchen counter of the tiny cabin where she lived, a cabin owned by Emily and her husband. "No, obviously not," she moaned, "but he was so insistent. When he proposed, he wouldn't take no for an answer and I hated to hurt his feelings.""Oh, honey," Emily said, "now he's hurt yours, the bum. Maybe it's time to start putting yourself first. Getting married isn't your only option, you know."Good point, Liz thought as she straightened and walked over to the window above the sink. The view of the trees never failed to calm her."I guess it's mainly my pride that's hurt," she admitted, realizing that what she said was true. How many men had she dated because it was hard to turn them down, even when she had no real romantic interest in them?"Did you love him?" Emily asked. "Could you really picture yourself spending the rest of your life with him?"Liz tried to picture herself with gray hair and bifocals, seated on a Harley with a shawl draped around her shoulders. "Maybe I was more in love with the idea of getting married than I ever was with Dax." After all, hadn't she been planning her wedding since she was a little girl?At least she hadn't slept with him. She had wanted to wait and he'd been okay with that. Perhaps too okay."Truth be told, I don't think he's over his first wife, Allaire," Liz admitted aloud the niggling suspicion she'd refused to acknowledge before, even in her thoughts. As her fingers tightened on her phone, she watched a woodpecker drilling a nearby tree trunk in a quest for insects. "It probably wasn't a coincidence that we got engaged at about the same time she and DJ made their announcement," she admitted.Emily groaned again. &Toth, Pamela is the author of 'I Do! I Do! (Silhouette Special Edition #1855)', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373248551 and ISBN 0373248555.