Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch (37 page)

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Authors: Victoria Pade

BOOK: Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch
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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
 
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
 
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
 
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
 
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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