“You just startled me.”
“Horrified you, you mean.”
He looked alarmed. “Not at all.”
“Are you saying that you want to have a fling now?” She almost was salivating in anticipation of his answer. Because if it was yes, she was going to have the greatest pleasure telling him to go climb a rope. There was something so unbearably smug about this man, maybe because she still, in spite of everything, found him too sexy for her own good.
He looked as if he was about to pick his way through a verbal minefield. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her jaw dropped, and he quickly said, “Not that I don’t feel honored. ”
She would feel honored to punch his lights out. Again. Her jaw clenched tight enough to crack walnuts. What was it about this man that made her—an usually peace-loving person—want to resort to physical violence?
Of course, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he bothered her. Remembering that she was supposed to be a member of a wedding party, not a potential brawler, she glanced around at the tables decorated with graceful white swags and filled with generous trays of finger food. Sanctuary.
“Excuse me,” she said in a frosty voice. Then she pivoted on her heels and marched quickly toward a pickle tray.
Grant watched in amazement as she flounced proudly away, her head high. Had what just happened really happened, he wondered, or was it some sort of subconscious wish fulfillment?
It was too amazing. He hadn’t even thought she liked him.
And maybe she didn’t. After all, the woman had to think that she was propositioning Ted. That in itself was disturbing, although he comforted himself with the fact that when Ted had suggested he and Mitzi sleep together, she’d belted him. It wasn’t until she’d met Grant that she’d changed her mind. And no one need ever know that she’d propositioned the wrong—or, in his opinion, right—man. Especially Ted.
A fling... He couldn’t remember the last time he’d contemplated such a thing. That short-term love-‘em-and-leave-’ em approach was always more his brother’s style. Grant valued permanence, responsible behavior, marriage.
On the other hand, he’d married Janice, and look where that had gotten him.
A fling...the idea had definite appeal. And Kay had just been telling him that he was passionless. Maybe this was his cue to cast off the bonds of responsibility and go wild.
A ringing sounded from the general direction of his chest, and it was a few moments before he realized the sound wasn’t his heart sounding off, but the cell phone inside his jacket. He turned his back to Mitzi and answered.
It was Ted. “Are you still in one piece?”
“Yes, although you’re lucky you are!” Grant whispered into the phone. “Do you realize that you behaved like a complete ass last night?”
“Me?” Ted asked, his tone all innocence. “What did I do?”
“I can’t go into details here, but let’s just say you should be glad you got away with a poke in the jaw. Where are you?”
“work.”
Dread pierced Grant’s heart. Ted, at work? On a Saturday? Hungover? “For heaven’s sake, get out of there!” He spoke with the urgency of someone instructing a friend to exit a burning building. “What are you doing there to begin with?”
“The boat was making me seasick, and I couldn’t find my house keys, so I came here for my spare set. But the minute I walked through the door, I was inundated with work.”
“Imagine,” Grant quipped. “Work at work.”
“There are three phone messages here from Horace Moreland. He’s apparently been calling every hour on the dot, trying to set up a dinner on Wednesday. What should I say?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Grant answered. “Every dinner we have with the man is one less opportunity for him to get to Mona and Truman.”
“Good thinking,” Ted agreed.
“What else?”
There was a moment of silent confusion on the line. “Nothing. That’s all.”
Only Ted would label three phone messages an inundation. “Okay, Ted, you’ve done great. Now, listen closely. Slowly and carefully lock up your office and go home,” Grant said, talking him through the process. He was uncomfortable with the idea of Ted wandering around Whiting’s unchaperoned. In fact, after last night, he was wondering whether his brother didn’t need a permanent keeper. “Don’t worry about minding the store, that’s what we hire a manager for.”
Grant hung up the phone, feeling unnerved. He hated being away from work. What if Ted had agreed to dinner with Moreland? That retail tyrant, an ex-marine, could eat his brother alive, business-wise.
And to think he’d been toying with the idea of having a fling, this of all weeks! He wasn’t exactly on vacation here. He had pressing business that screamed for his attention. If he didn’t devote this week to the store, his entire future could be in jeopardy. And it wasn’t only himself he had to keep in line. He had to ensure that Ted was on his toes, and watch out for Mona and Truman. Just thinking about all that responsibility made sweat break out on his forehead.
A fling? He didn’t have time for that kind of nonsense when so much was at stake.
As he stuffed his phone back into his tux pocket, Mitzi turned and darted a glance back at him. Once again Grant felt the powerful allure of those green eyes. Even in a fleeting instant, he read their meaning. She was half checking to make certain he wouldn’t join her, and half wondering if he would. When she saw that he was watching her, two splotches of bright red colored her cheeks and she whipped her head back around, focusing her gaze intently on a cauliflower floret
Of course he couldn’t have a fling. He didn’t have time, and couldn’t spare the emotional energy it would cost him, in any case. He was just getting over Janice. He didn’t know what kind of person Mitzi was, or if he could trust her....
But his feet didn’t seem to understand any of these arguments. They carried him right over to her. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.
Mitzi felt her pulse leap, then frowned. She didn’t want him here, she reminded herself. She looked around, hoping to spot Marty or Brewster, anyone who could be a buffer between her and Grant. “Unfortunately, being maid of honor doesn’t give me the privilege of chasing you away from the finger food.”
He smiled as if he hadn’t heard her caustic tone. “You know, Mitzi, it seems to me that we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m really not that bad, you know. I don’t bite.”
She gaped at him.
“What?” he asked innocently.
Was he kidding?
He stepped back. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Do you really have that short a memory?” she asked.
A look of pure anguish crossed his face as he riveted his eyes on the bandage covering her hand. “Oh, my Lord! Don’t tell me I bit you!”
She laughed. “No, you told Kay to tell me that you don’t bite. Outside the church? Remember?”
Apparently, he didn’t. She stared at him, bewildered. He had either been hitting the bottle earlier than she’d suspected, or he had the memory of a gnat. And either way, she trusted him less and less. Not that she trusted him much to begin with.
He lifted his shoulders and smiled. “I know it seems strange...”
“Uh-huh.”
“But really,” he said, “I’d like to make up for all my blunders. Say, maybe, coffee sometime?”
This had to be a joke.
She eyed him steadily. He wasn’t kidding. “And maybe coffee could lead to...?
His expression was a blank. “Maybe a movie?”
“Right,” she said skeptically.
“Good,” he said, popping a sweet gherkin into his mouth. “I’ll give you a call.”
She rolled her eyes. Now she knew he was playing games. “I didn’t mean ‘right’ as in ‘sure,’ I meant ‘right’ as in ‘forget about it.”’
“Oh.” He looked thunderstruck. “May I ask why?”
He edged c
loser to her, giving her little elbow room as she tried to pile her plate with raw veggies and little crustless sandwiches. She couldn’t wait to get back to a table and talk to someone else, anyone else, besides Grant The man could curl her toes with just a look, and he made her say outrageous things. A fling, for God’s sake! What had she been thinking? She felt so flustered, her shaking hand flipped a paper-thin cucumber slice onto the floor. It hit the high-glossed wood with a muted wet splat.
Mitzi sighed. “I don’t know if I can put this clearly enough, but I really don’t relish the idea of furthering our relationship, which, in case you haven’t noticed, hasn’t worked out so well so far.”
“That’s what I’m trying to remedy.” His tone was dead earnest.
She tilted her head. “Right.”
He raised a cautionary finger. “There you go using that word again. It’s very confusing.”
She took a breath for patience. Yesterday the man had wanted nothing to do with her, but today he was as clingy as tumble-dry polyester. Of course, five minutes ago she herself had propositioned him. Now she wished she could retract her words and, while she was dabbling in wishful thinking, she also wouldn’t have minded if she could have been magically transported back to New York City.
“Look, for all I know, you might be a perfectly charming person,” she told him. “Kay certainly thinks you are. But at this point, I don’t want to have coffee with you, or go to a movie with you, and I certainly don’t want to sleep with you.”
He raised his eyebrows and sent her what had to be the world’s sexiest grin. “You’re really stuck on that fling thing, aren’t you?”
Mitzi felt a shriek building in her throat and just managed to stifle it. Don’t make a scene. You promised Kay.
She turned, hunting for an empty spot at a table. As luck would have it, there was an open chair near the bride. She let out a frustrated breath, gripped her overloaded plate and headed toward her friend. She had a bone to pick with Kay, who had, after all, thrown her together with Grant Whiting to begin with.
The bone, however, would go forever unpicked. In the next moment, as Mitzi thrust one leg purposefully forward, the ball of her foot, encased in its green satin pump with a new slick sole, hit the thin, nearly translucent slice of cucumber she had so nervously flung to the floor moments before. The foot flew out from under her, and before she knew what was happening, Mitzi was airborne.
She felt Grant’s hand grab her arm firmly, but the gesture was too late to pull her back. Worse, as Grant stepped toward her, he stepped in the residue of oil and spices in which that tasty, pesky cucumber slice had been marinated, and skated after her, wobbling and thrusting his hand out in huge crazy loops to regain his equilibrium.
But it was too late for him, too. Any efforts they made to right themselves were doomed. In fact, doom might be a good word to sum up her first twenty-four hours in Austin, Mitzi thought the split second before she and Grant hit the floor in a spectacular crash of well-dressed bodies, broken china and finger food.
“I TOLD YOU she was bad news,” Ted lectured.
Grant limped to the other side of the pool table in order to get a better shot. His leg was still stiff from his fall that afternoon. “But you didn’t tell me she was gorgeous.” He sent Ted’s four ball scudding into the corner pocket.
Ted frowned. He had only one ball left, and it was smack in the middle of the table. The eight ball was miles away. He was hosed. Losing didn’t make him feel any more kindly toward that Mitzi person. “You call her gorgeous?” he asked in disbelief. “That beast?”
Grant rolled his eyes. Twins they were, but thank heavens their taste in women wasn’t identical. To put it kindly, Ted didn’t exactly go for the brainy type. To Ted, Susan B. Anthony was right up there with the infamous villains of history.
“She’s not a beast, she’s a babe, to coin one of your expressions.” Grant remembered flowing dark hair, a body to die for and those eyes, and felt a sigh building. It had been a long time since a woman had affected him that way. Mitzi talked so brash and cynical, but her eyes seemed like windows to a sweet, deep soul. And her body...she moved with an intriguing combination of lilting grace and girlish awkwardness that made her seem blithely unaware of her appeal. Boys had probably teased her about her height. But all Grant could think about was how it might feel to be entwined in those arms and legs, looking into those soulful green eyes...
“Earth to Grant!” Ted barked.
Grant shook his head, shook away thoughts of Mitzi. For a moment, at least.
“Good grief! This woman hasn’t gotten under your skin, has she?” Ted looked aghast.
Grant wasn’t pleased himself. “No,” he said, scratching his nose subtly to make sure it wasn’t growing. “For heaven’s sake, I’ve only seen her once.”
“Once is too much with her.”
“She just caught me off guard, is all.”
His brother laughed. “Tripped you up, you might say.”
Grant grimaced and happily sank Ted’s last ball. “You didn’t help things,” he said. “I thought I could trust you with a simple task of behaving normally at a wedding rehearsal.”
“It put an end to the matchmaking, didn’t it?”
“Of course! No one wants to be matched with a man who would make Ivan the Terrible seem like a knight-errant.”
Ted looked almost proud. “So there. Mission accomplished.”
“Did you have to torment the poor woman?”
Ted’s breath caught in defense. “Poor woman?” he squeaked, gesturing with his cue to the bruise on his jaw. “Look at this! Look at you,” he ranted, pointing to Grant’s leg. “We’re the victims here.”
Though Grant had assured Ted that his own accident hadn’t been caused by Mitzi but rather by a marinated cucumber slice, his brother refused to believe him. “You think all women are Eve in disguise.”
Ted’s eyebrows knit together. “Eve who?”
Grant rolled his eyes. “Eve from Adam and Eve, you dumb cluck.”
His brother puffed up in mock offense. “Hey, don’t ride me. That’s a long book. I never got that far into it.”
The trouble was, a year ago, when his marriage had blown up in his face like a trick cigar, Grant wondered whether Ted wasn’t right to remain ever-vigilant. Janice had deceived him so thoroughly, he wasn’t sure that all women weren’t like her. Funny how the minute he’d looked into Mitzi’s eyes, his brother’s training had flown out the window.
The long-suppressed sigh finally issued from his lips.
“Grant, snap out of it,” Ted said, putting away their cues. “It’s over. Poor Mitzi will be fine, and at the end of the week she’ll fly back to where she belongs and the whole incident will be forgotten.”
“It’s not the incident I’m worried about.”
It was Mitzi. She was going to be at Kay’s all alone for a week, in a strange city. Would she call him if she was in trouble? They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. Not that he hadn’t tried to smooth things over, but after she’d been extracted from the buffet debris, she didn’t look eager for his company.
“I forgot to tell her to ask me if she needed anything,” he said aloud, taking up the Good Samaritan pose with gusto.
Ted groaned. “You’re not going to call her, are you?”
Grant thought about it, then shook his head. She’d probably slam the phone back down the minute she heard his voice.
“Put it behind you,” Ted counseled. “You’ve got enough on your plate with the buyout bid, remember?” He looked worried, as if he didn’t feel comfortable having his brother distracted from business, which was understandable. That might mean he would actually have to do some work.
Grant himself was startled that he had forgotten about the store for even a day. Then again, maybe that’s why he’d been so taken with Mitzi. He had been so obsessed with staving off Moreland, naturally his brain wanted a rest. She was just a diversion from his troubles. She was just...
&nb
sp; Adorable.
He glanced unseeingly at his watch. It could be eight o’clock or one in the morning for all he knew. “I’d better head home,” he said quickly. “It’s been a long day, what with the wedding and reception and everything.”
Surprisingly, Ted followed him out to the parking lot. Usually he would linger at Tom’s, one of his favorite haunts, to nurse a beer. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, looking genuinely concerned.
Grant stopped at his car. “Sure. Fine.” As if to reassure him, he forced a smile and said, “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
Ted appeared more alarmed than ever. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. Don’t you remember? You were going to have brunch with Mona and Truman tomorrow. To talk to them about the buyout.”
“Of course, of course,” Grant said. “I’ll probably go into work tomorrow, too.”
Maybe he should go there right now. Get his thoughts together.
But when he pulled his car out of the parking lot, he knew he wasn’t headed for the store, or even home. Without making a conscious decision to, he was driving to Kay’s house, where Mitzi was staying. Just to check up on her, he told himself.
He felt strange, out of control. Maybe this was what spontaneity felt like.
A short while later, Grant reached Kay’s street. Hers was a corner house, nestled on a dark, quiet street. Grant parked one house down and strolled up the walkway, wondering what the hell he was doing.
But then he came upon the house, so thoroughly and brightly lit that it practically glowed. And when he looked inside the large picture window and saw her, every self-protective reflex he’d developed since Janice left him vanished.
Watching Mitzi, he had to take a deep breath, so deep he nearly became dizzy from the thick night air. She was wearing a slouchy T-shirt and jeans, but somehow he’d never appreciated just what a pair of faded dungarees hugging just the right derriere could do to a man. Her legs looked even longer and more amazing than they had appeared in his imagination. A clip held her hair back loosely, but a strand or two spilled out of its confines, making his fingers fairly twitch to reach across the yard, through the windowpane and across Kay’s living room to put them to rights again.
Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch Page 21