Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch

by Victoria Pade

  Wasn’t it?

  He sank a little lower. “Well, okay, not in so many words, but I think it was implied.”

  Ted clucked his tongue. “Grant, Grant. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know anything about women? They have to have these things spelled out. You can’t just imply love.”

  He couldn’t believe he was to the point where his brother was giving him romance tips. “I know how to conduct my own affairs, thank you.”

  “Is that what you want from Mitzi? An affair?”

  “No!” Why was he having such a hard time making himself clear?

  “Then what do you want?”

  Grant rolled his eyes, fearing he might explode. “I want to get married!” he screeched at his brother. But when he heard the words come out of his mouth, he was amazed.

  Maybe his experience with Janice had made him reticent to say the words that needed to be said. Maybe he had been just the tiniest bit hesitant to make that commitment. But now that the proverbial cat was out of the bag, everything became crystal clear in his mind. “I want to get married again. To Mitzi. I want Mitzi to be my wife.”

  It was so clear to him now. Why hadn’t he told her last night? Or, for that matter, the first time he’d ever clapped eyes on her?

  Maybe because it had taken what he felt for Mitzi to make him understand spontaneity, and romance. And letting loose. Kay had been right. He had fallen loopy in love. At last!

  As Grant had his revelation, Ted beamed him a satisfied grin. “You know, I sometimes think I am Mr. Love.”

  Grant jumped up and began pacing. “How am I going to get Mitzi back and deal with Mr. Moreland, though?”

  Ted stood up and reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said, tossing a small metal object to Grant.

  Grant caught the key and frowned. “What’s this for?”

  “My boat.”

  Grant took the key slowly, as understanding dawned. “But Moreland...”

  Ted grinned. “Is my headache now. Don’t worry, bro. Joy and I will convince the man to lay off Whiting’s. Joy’s got a lot of pull with her dad, and she knows how much the store means to all of us.”

  Grant stood, tossing the key in his palm. Maybe it was crazy to trust Ted to handle things, but sometime in the past week he’d become comfortable with crazy. It was the idea of going back to his old plodding life that frightened him. He wasn’t just riding off to rescue his relationship, but also the person he’d become with Mitzi. “Thanks, bro—I owe you one.”

  Ted shrugged casually. “Just chalk it up as another freebie from Mr. Love.”

  Grant dashed toward the door but was stopped by his brother hitching his throat. He turned.

  Ted grinned as he nodded toward Grant’s pink terry bathrobe. “I know you’re eager, but shouldn’t you wait for some clothes?”

  MITZI BURROWED DOWN in the tubful of bubbles and polished off her third glass of champagne. No sense letting the stuff go to waste. “You were completely wrong about Grant,” she announced to Kay, who was standing in the doorway, tanned and disgustingly happy-looking, despite the worried frown on her face. A true friend, Kay had pulled herself away from her new hubby and her new home at Mitzi’s hysterical call. “He’s completely wrong for me. A total workaholic.”

  “Except that you’re in love with him,” Kay guessed.

  “So? I was in love with the others, too.” She sighed. But when Tim had become a monk, she hadn’t felt this heartsick. Nor when Mike had married his model. When Jeff had eloped with a jockey, she hadn’t experienced the same sense of betrayal as when Grant announced his intention to run after Mr. Moreland.

  She was in love with Grant.

  “Maybe he was so stunned by Ted’s getting married that he wasn’t thinking straight,” Kay said. “Heaven knows, I’m stunned.”

  Mitzi frowned, trying not to give the plausible argument any credence. But Grant had been perfectly attentive before Ted and Joy’s disappearance came up. She shook her head. “This time, I’m not going to be the dumpee. For the first time in my life, I’ll be the dumper, thank you.”

  “What difference does that make?” Kay asked.

  “None, really, except that I won’t have egg on my face. That’s got to be some consolation.” Unfortunately, she didn’t think the pain she would suffer from the breakup would be any less for her taking the initiative in its demise. And the end result was the same. It was back to needlework and parrots for her.

  “Grant wouldn’t lead you on, Mitzi. I don’t know what’s come between you.”

  “A department store,” she said.

  Her friend raised a golden eyebrow curiously. “Are you sure it was Whiting’s, and not Jeff and Mike and Tim?”

  As the question sank in, a flush of understanding heated Mitzi’s cheeks. It was true. The moment Grant’s mind had turned to business, a switch had flipped in her brain. Grant had been wrong, but she’d been overly defensive. All she could see was that he was putting something ahead of her, and their plans, like all the others. All she’d been able to feel was her own disappointment, and anger, and heartache. And instead of telling Grant her concerns, she’d tossed him into a pool.

  “Oh, no!” she groaned, suddenly flooded with regret. What had she done? How differently the evening might have ended had she kept her temper and tried to understand the family turmoil he was going through, and not jumped to the conclusion that Grant would always put her second.

  The doorbell rang, and Kay smiled. “Hold that thought, Mitz.” She disappeared through the bedroom and to the living room, probably to open the door for Marty, who was no doubt wondering what had become of his bride.

  ‘“The thought’ is that I’m such a dope!” Mitzi moaned to herself. In frustration, she slapped the now-lukewarm water next to her, sending a spray of bubbles into the air, some of which landed splat on her face. She attempted to wipe them off, resulting in more suds on her face, and worse, in her eyes. She blinked several times to clear the stinging.

  Footsteps approached via the bedroom, and she asked Kay, her voice in despair both from her soapy eyes and her soap opera life, “How on earth am I ever going to apologize to him now?”

  A deep chuckle—not Kay’s—rumbled from the doorway. Mitzi froze.

  “I don’t expect an apology.”

  She blinked double time to try to focus on Grant, who stood in the doorway in a dark suit and tie, looking devilishly handsome. Her heart did handsprings, though her tongue remained firmly tied.

  Grant grinned, then from behind his back brought out a glass. “May I join you?”

  “Oh, I...” She stammered, then finally came up with, “Sure.”

  He perched on the side of the tub. Even though he’d already seen all of her there was to see, Mitzi felt self-conscious being covered only by jasmine-scented foam.

  “I’m sorry, Mitzi. I shouldn’t have run off half-cocked like that.”

  “I was the one who ran off,” she protested, sitting up, nearly throwing modesty to the wind. She hoped those bubbles held up for a few more minutes.

  “But you were right.”

  “I was wrong.”

  They laughed. “Maybe we were both wrong,” Mitzi admitted.

  “You would be wrong if you thought I would put anything ahead of you and me again,” he said, leaning close to her. “I love you, Mitzi.”

  She gasped. “Say that again?”

  “I love you,” he repeated happily. “I want you to many me.”

  “I love you, too,” she said, but the words caught in her throat. Had she heard him correctly?

  He came so close their lips were almost touching. “Will you marry me, Mitzi?”

  Would she? “Yes!” she cried, not stopping to think that just five minutes before she’d been espousing a dump-or-be-dumped philosophy. The rocky road of singlehood and her years as the Typhoid Mary of romance were far behind her already.

  She looked into Grant’s eyes and felt waves of emotion connecting them. People could fall
in love in a week. She had. There were men who wanted the same things out of life that she did. Out of the millions and millions of people on the planet, she had found one. The unlikely odds, and the luck she’d found, brought tears of gratitude to her eyes. She’d never been so happy as she was right this moment.

  “I love you, Grant,” she said, realizing suddenly that this was the first time she’d ever told him the words she had so yearned to hear herself. “Will you forgive me for being such a dope?”

  He chuckled, then bent down and brushed his lips against hers. “Forgive me,” he said. The moment they kissed again, they were lost. Heat swirled through Mitzi’s body, and building desire, as they thoroughly indulged in what would surely become one of their favorite pastimes for the next few decades.

  Grant pulled away reluctantly, barely noticing that the front of his suit was soaked with suds. He did notice that Mitzi’s soapy cover was quickly disappearing. With effort, he drew his gaze away from her flawless breasts. “I’ve got news. For the second time in one week, Ted’s offered to step in as best man for me.”

  Mitzi grinned. “You’d better take him up on it.”

  Grant brought out a key. “And even more remarkably, he’s offered us the use of his boat. We could go down to the coast and celebrate our engagement in the water,” he suggested.

  Mitzi tilted her head and stared at him with green eyes warm with desire. She twined her fingers around the nape of his neck. “Then again, I know a way we could get plenty wet right here.”

  With only the slightest of tugs, Grant joined her in the soapy water in a tidal wave of arms, legs, bubbles, laughter and long, lingering kisses.

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  THE STRING QUARTET had played the most beautiful rendition of the wedding march Mitzi had ever heard, and now the bespectacled minister was halfway through the incredibly moving ceremony. Mitzi and Grant stood facing him, flanked by Ted on his side and Kay on hers, in the bower set up at the bottom of the sloping backyard behind Kay’s house, which Mitzi had been renting for the past two months.

  She had moved to Texas almost immediately after their engagement, and for the past months, she had wasted no time plunging into her new life. She and Grant had bought a house, one with plenty of room to start that family they’d both always wanted. She had taken over the advertising for Whiting’s, and the first print-ad campaigns had been a rousing success. Meanwhile, she was pursuing her dream of becoming a portrait photographer by setting up her own studio in Kay’s spare room.

  When Grant had driven up with the boat at the airport two months ago, she’d never been so happy. But she’d repeated that phrase to herself every morning since then. There were no limits, she’d discovered, to how happy a person could be. Her own happiness meter had gone off the charts.

  And now, on this day for which she’d waited so long, she seemed to be in nirvana. The words of the wedding ceremony rushed by her too fast. She wanted to capture each one and savor it. To love and to cherish, till death us do part.

  Grant’s husky “I do” was like a caress. And then it was her turn.

  She listened to the same vow, smiling. It was hard to take her eyes off Grant, but when it came time for her answer, she forced herself. Mitzi turned, looking toward Kay’s house where Brewster stood guarding the back door, and gave him a nod.

  Brewster fumbled with a latch, opening the back door, and out shot Chester, a liver-colored bullet snapping and snarling his way down the grassy aisle created between the two groups of folding chairs. People gasped at the sight of the little dog run amok.

  Both Ted and Grant had turned to see the little brown tornado that Brewster had loosed on the crowd, but only the best man’s eyes widened in horror, then turned to scope out the nearest tree. He made a mad dash for a low limb. Within seconds, all of Ted that was visible to the gathered guests was a pair of tuxedo pants, socks and black shoes dangling from the foliage, taunting poor Chester as he jumped and yipped and snarled.

  Grant turned to Mitzi, eyebrows raised in understanding. “Afraid that we might have been pulling another switch on you?”

  Mitzi laughed. “I just wanted to make sure before I said ‘I do.”’ She turned to the minister and added, “Oh, and by the way, I do.”

  Grant barely waited for the minister to pronounce them husband and wife to take his new bride into his arms. He had never expected to feel so happy, so complete. “There was another way to tell us apart, remember?”

  She nodded eagerly, and he gave her very vivid proof with a soul-searching kiss that went on minutes longer than necessary.

  “I love you, Grant.” She’d discovered she could never say it enough.

  She couldn’t hear it enough, either.

  “I love you, too.” Her husband touched her lips again, then grinned as Chester’s barks rose in frantic intensity. He pulled away reluctantly. “But now I think we’d better rescue my best man from that tree.”

  HARLEGIUIN DUETS

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-5048-2

  DOWNHOME DARLIN’

  Copyright © 1999 by Victoria Pade

  THE BEST MAN SWITCH

  Copyright © 1999 by Elizabeth Bass

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