Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch

by Victoria Pade

  “Have I missed my guess, or have you blacked out everything that happened between us last night?” she asked him.

  He cocked his head and threw her a look full of anxiety. “Last night? I guess I was...um...not quite all there.”

  He kept studying her as if she were an amoeba and he were wearing a lab coat, not a tux. Meanwhile, she stared back, admiring the view. The man was in such good shape he could look rugged even in dress clothes. She could almost imagine doing something impetuous with him, like standing on tiptoe and planting a kiss on those expressive lips of his.

  She blinked in surprise at her own bizarre thoughts. Maybe that devilish Grant had planted a dangerous seed in her mind when he’d told her she should loosen up. Because, when she’d been thinking about it last night, she’d decided that he’d made a tiny shred of sense. Since she believed love wasn’t in the cards for her, what harm would it be to cut loose for once in her life, as long as she was careful? By the time the sun came up this morning, she’d halfway decided she should have that fling, if and when an attractive, available man crossed her path. But she’d never thought for an instant that man would be Grant!

  She couldn’t believe it now, either. He was toying with her, hiding the crass misogynist until she let down her guard. What had he said yesterday? Tell her I don’t bite. Then what had happened? She got in the man’s truck, his lair, and he’d bitten her.

  She needed to get away from him!

  Mitzi plastered a big grin on her face and began backing away. “I haven’t congratulated Kay yet. Will you excuse me?”

  Not giving him time to answer, she turned and fled from Grant and those eyes and that drawl before she completely lost her grip. She plowed into the mob scene of the wedding party and milling guests, hoping to lose Grant in the hubbub. Naturally, Kay would shun anything so formal as a receiving line in favor of this jumble of humanity. The atmosphere was a joyous mess, like a school yard on the last recess of the year.

  Kay spotted Mitzi and ran up to her, enveloping her in a hug. “Have you and Grant kissed and made up, or did you chase him away?”

  “He offered to kiss me, but I turned him down.”

  “I wish you’d give him another chance.” Kay clearly heard wedding bells in everyone’s future.

  “And I wish you’d have let me be your official photographer,” Mitzi said, attempting to change the subject.

  Kay frowned. “If I’d done that, you’d turn my bathroom into a darkroom and spend the whole week in there. I want you to have fun, get out and see Austin. Call up Grant...”

  Mitzi darted an anxious look at her.

  Kay laughed. “Okay, okay. I won’t push anymore.”

  Mitzi crossed her arms and glanced over her shoulder. Through the crowd she could see Grant’s gaze zeroed in on her. “You might not, but now Grant, for some mysterious reason, has decided to pester me. I don’t want to have any more scenes...”

  Kay’s eyes widened in horror at the very idea. “Don’t worry, Mitz, I promise I’ll get Marty and some of the other guys to make sure Grant leaves you alone. We don’t want you two turning a rented ballroom into Madison Square Garden.”

  GRANT HAD TO TALK to Mitzi again.

  Unfortunately, getting to her during the reception was proving to be no easy task. Every time she had an empty seat beside her, it would magically become occupied before Grant could make his way over. Every time he headed in her direction for a dance, she would suddenly be on the floor with another partner. The woman was completely unapproachable.

  At least to him. And yet she kept watching him. At times, when he was talking and laughing with someone else, he would feel those green eyes on him, studying him.

  Even his old buddy Brewster Mewborn was having better luck with Mitzi than he was, and Brewster wasn’t exactly considered a lady-killer, unless one counted slaying them with boredom. Brewster was thirty, balding, wore brown horn-rimmed glasses and managed to look square and plump at the same time, even in an expensive tailored suit. And you could bet that his clothes were expensive. Brewster was one of the richest bachelors in Austin and, because of his devotion to one love—bass flshing—he was one of the least sought-after bachelors, as well.

  Grant couldn’t talk to Mitzi, but he did at last finally get a word with Brewster, who was hanging out by the groom’s cake, grazing. “What have you two been talking about?” Grant said by way of greeting. He and Brewster were friends from college, and so he knew Brewster didn’t hold with formalities.

  Brewster mopped his forehead with a kerchief and then reached for a plate. “Who? Me and Mitz?”

  Mitz, already! Grant nodded, and couldn’t say why he felt so jealous.

  Brewster hacked off a generous slice of cake and sighed in exhaustion. “We haven’t been saying much of anything, really. Tell you the truth, Grant, I haven’t danced this much since the day last summer I reeled in that nineteen-pounder.”

  “Did she say anything about me?”

  “Who, Mitz?”

  “I didn’t mean the nineteen-pounder,” Grant replied.

  Brewster frowned in thought. “No, I don’t believe she did.” His thick eyebrows rose. “Oh, except to ask if I knew you.”

  Grant’s heart, stiff from years of neglect, made an almost painful leap. “And what did you say?”

  “I said yes, of course.”

  Elaboration was never Brewster’s strong suit. “I don’t suppose you thought to add what a wonderful character I possess.”

  Beady brown eyes squinted in thought again before Brewster shook his head. “No.” He took a bite of cake and let out what was, for Brewster, an ecstatic sound. “Mmm, try some?”

  “No, thanks.” How was he going to talk to Mitzi when there was a small army of men poised between them?

  Brewster leaned in and said in a low voice, “If you’re that interested in her, you should talk to Kay. The bride seems to be engineering romantic interference.”

  Grant patted his old friend on the back and smiled broadly. “Thanks, Brewster. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had an opportunity to dance with the bride yet.”

  Moments later, he and Kay took to the floor during “Unforgettable.” “I’ve seen you watching Mitzi,” Kay observed right away. “You seem almost smitten with her.”

  Smitten! Grant chortled at the ridiculous idea. He’d just met her. He’d hardly talked to her. He couldn’t be smitten. He was just...

  Smitten. “Am I that transparent?”

  Kay couldn’t have looked more delighted by his confession. “I knew it! I knew it the moment she punched you in the jaw that there was something going on between you two.”

  “Oh, well...” He shrugged, unable to confess what a fink he’d been, sending Ted in his place. Kay would never forgive him for almost skipping her big day. “I know this sounds strange, but I honestly don’t remember what I did to make her so mad.”

  “Mitzi said you accused her of being a pathetic husband-hunter. Then you told her she was prickly and uptight.”

  That would do it.

  “Honestly, Grant, what got into you? I’d expect better behavior from that nutty brother of yours.”

  If he ever got his hands on Ted.... “I’d had a lot to drink,” he mumbled, knowing it was a feeble excuse.

  Kay’s expression suddenly turned somber. “I’m sorry, Grant. This has been difficult for you, hasn’t it? I should have remembered that you’ve tried to avoid weddings since—” Thankfully, she cut her words off. “Well, I can only tell you that Marty and I really appreciate your being here. In fact, we couldn’t imagine getting married without you.”

  Grant felt like a worm. Trying to weasel out of the wedding just because of what had happened to him a year ago seemed silly now. And so unlike him. In fact, for someone who claimed not to have a dishonest bone in his body, it was unspeakable.

  Kay laughed. “Anyway, I was just telling Marty, lashing out last night was probably good for you. Proves you aren’t the passionless, overly responsib
le type you pretend to be.”

  Ouch! “Passionless? Me?”

  Kay raised her eyebrows. “You have to admit, giving your wife a ROTH IRA for your first anniversary isn’t typical Casanova conduct.”

  “Why should a woman want a Casanova for a husband?”

  Kay laughed. “For that matter, why should she want a tall dark handsome hunk who would sweep her away to the mysterious desert sands?”

  Grant frowned at the reference to Janice’s prince. “I was very romantic on our second anniversary. We went on vacation.”

  “To a buyer’s convention in Dubuque, if I recall,”

  “Dubuque’s a very nice city,” he countered.

  “But romantic?” Kay asked. “I don’t think so. Especially, if Janice is to be believed, when you spent the whole night hugging your cell phone in bed because you were afraid Ted would screw up in your absence.”

  “Well, he does that sometimes.” More than Kay would ever know! He looked into her eyes, unable to defend himself anymore. “Okay, so I’m not the kind to fall loopy in love.”

  “Yet,” Kay added, smiling.

  He had his doubts about that, but rather than argue the point, he returned to the problem at hand. “I’ve wanted to apologize to Mitzi, but she’s been occupied all afternoon.”

  Kay tilted her head as if to gauge his sincerity. “I’m so glad, Grant. I would love it if you two became friends...or something.”

  “Me, too.” He was especially intrigued by that “or something.”

  Mitzi was dancing with Marty, and the two of them were laughing as if they were the best of buddies. Kay shot Grant a sideways glance. “This should be fairly easy to remedy. Ready?”

  Knowing exactly what she intended without having to be told, Grant fox-trotted them over to the other couple.

  “Well, look who it is,” Kay exclaimed, stopping in midtrot and surprising Marty and Mitzi. “Hey, Mitz, you don’t mind if I cut in on your man, do you?”

  Mitzi graciously stepped back, then glanced around frantically for an escape route. Before she could dart away through the dancing couples, Grant grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. He’d expected resistance, but in response to his firm tug, her lithe body slammed right into his chest. A bolt of awareness struck him. He smiled.

  “Can’t let good music go to waste, can we?”

  She reluctantly followed his shuffling steps. He hadn’t danced like this since Ballroom 101 in college, but with Mitzi in his arms he suddenly felt like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and John Travolta all wrapped up in one slightly wrinkled tuxedo.

  As Grant glided her across the floor, Mitzi couldn’t help comparing this graceful dance to the previous night’s frantic mauling. Last night she’d been so appalled by what he was saying to her, she hadn’t been able to concentrate on how well their bodies fit together. Or how fresh and woodsy her partner smelled. Or how tempted she was to lay her head against Grant’s shoulder and sigh like a bobby-soxer of old. How had she overlooked these things? Grant was a dreamboat, just as Kay had said.

  Apparently, he was also a dreamboat with a split personality. But right this moment, looking into his blue, blue eyes, and feeling her heart do pirouettes in her chest, she couldn’t say she really cared. “Unforgettable” was right! The man was drop-dead gorgeous, and the way he held her and twinkled at her with those baby blues made her want to have that fling he’d suggested.

  The realization had been nagging at her throughout the entire reception as she’d been dancing with Marty, and that odd fellow named Brewster, and any number of men that Kay had thrown her way as a safeguard against the one man in the room who made her heart pound like a stampede of rhinos. But all the while, her eyes had kept searching out the man she was trying to avoid, and whenever their gazes met and held, it felt as if a wild electric current were racing through her.

  Maybe that same electric current was doing wild things to her brain. She couldn’t believe she was going to say what she was about to say. And she sure didn’t know how to say it.

  Ever since she was a teenager, she’d always aimed for long-term relationships. The idea of having a naughty weekend had never really appealed to her. Now, when she’d about made up her mind that a string of short-term dalliances might be more wise a pursuit than one long-term entanglement that was bound to blow up in her face eventually, she barely knew where to start.

  Grant wondered why Mitzi was so silent. She’d seemed a regular chatterbox with every other partner she’d had that evening. “You’re a wonderful dancer,” he told her.

  As conversation starters went, it was lame, not to mention a lie. Actually, Mitzi dragged her feet and wore an expression that said she’d rather be toiling on a chain gang. But there was the undeniable fact that their bodies fit perfectly together. He could have spent the next fifty years just yanking her around this small dance floor.

  One of her dark eyebrows arched up and she peered at him. “You sound surprised.”

  Had they danced together before? “Look, about last night—”

  She shook her head frantically, cutting off his apology before he could even spit it out. “I know, you’re going to apologize. Kay probably told you to. She has a habit of treating her friends like recalcitrant fifth-graders.”

  He laughed, but attempted to refute the idea that Kay had put him up to this. “No, I—”

  She interrupted again. “We both spoke fairly bluntly last night.”

  Grant remembered his brother’s muttering about being a lout, and decided that Mitzi must have really let him have it. Good.

  “But what I’ve come to realize,” Mitzi continued, “is that I got so angry because I didn’t want to admit you were correct”

  The last thing he wanted was for Mitzi to accept his Neanderthal brother’s assessment of her personality. “Listen, Mitzi, you were right to call me a lout.”

  “Maybe so, but there’s something I didn’t speak truthfully about.”

  “What was that?”

  She took a deep breath. “You were right. I am too prickly. Too careful.”

  She didn’t feel prickly in his arms right now. She felt soft and delicate and she smelled like some wonderful flower dreamed up by a love-mad Parisian chemist.

  “Listen, Mitzi,” he began gingerly, wanting to clear the air.

  “No, no, I have to say this now or I never will.” She looked up at him, her face twisted with emotion. Her eyebrows knit together adorably.

  Something about her earnestness made him smile. He chuckled under his breath. “Okay, shoot. What is it you want me to know?”

  “Just that, if your offer still stands, I want to take you up on it.”

  He cocked his head, uncomprehending. “My offer?”

  She swallowed. “I want us to have that fling.”

  3

  FIRST HIS BLUE EYES bugged out in surprise. Then, his feet stopped moving. Finally, his hands let go of her and his arms dropped to his sides. He looked like the victim of a zombie curse.

  Mitzi’s cheeks blazed. They were standing still in the middle of a dance floor teeming with people, with Grant gawking at her as if she were something out of his worst nightmare. So far, her first attempt at a sexy, spur-of-the-moment proposition didn’t seem to be going over so well.

  “I...” His voice trailed off in a low broken rasp. “You want to have a fling with me?”

  She crossed her arms. “No, I meant with the invisible six-foot kangaroo standing right in front of you.”

  Her sarcasm barely fazed him. “A fling,” he repeated.

  And just last night he had practically propositioned her! Now he was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “I believe that’s the correct word. At least, it was the one you used”

  He blinked again. “You mean I...I asked you to...?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Oh, but you see, I don’t remember.”

  He remembered her calling him a lout, but not hitting on her? “Well, you did.”r />
  A bronzed eyebrow shot up speculatively. “And now you want to...?”

  What could she say now that wouldn’t make her look like a fool? “Only because you suggested it.”

  He nodded. “I see. You would have never thought of it on your own?”

  “Well, of course I would have thought it,” she snapped. When her statement reached her own ears, she felt more of an idiot than ever. “I mean...”

  He grinned. “I know what you mean.”

  Heat prickled across her skin, making her want to take a step backward, or better yet, run, but her lime-green pumps remained firmly rooted to the floor. Awkwardness and embarrassment began to turn into steamy anger. How could he proposition her one night and then the very next day treat her as if she was about as desirable as a wart?

  Thankfully, “Unforgettable” ended, the band took a break and people started milling around, making Mitzi and Grant’s standoff a tad less obvious.

  “Okay, forget it,” she said.

  He tilted his head, eyes gleaming. “I’m not sure I want to. It’s not every day a virtual stranger propositions me.”

  “That’s what I thought...yesterday.” She lifted her chin in an attempt to feign nonchalance. “Besides, I assumed our altercation last night made us closer than strangers. I don’t just go around walloping every man I meet, I’ll have you know.”

  He chuckled. “I was wondering about that.” Then his smile died. “I’m assuming that you don’t ask every man you meet to sleep with you, either.”

  She scowled, looking for exits out of the corner of her eye. Only great effort kept her from skittering out of the room like a cockroach when the lights came on. “No, and considering the fact that my one attempt at seduction has gone over like a fly in a punch bowl, you might just be the only man I ever ask.”

  “Good,” he said, still grinning. “I mean, I didn’t mind being asked for a fling one bit.”

  She pursed her lips skeptically. “Is that why you looked at me like I had galloping leprosy?”