Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch

by Victoria Pade

  And if he could save the business, how much trouble could saving a romance be?

  He pocketed the little box and headed out the door.

  MITZI DIDN’T START calming down until she got home. And the flowers arrived.

  See you tonight! was the perky message attached to the gorgeous arrangement of pink roses. Her favorite color.

  But did the man really think she would still go out to dinner with him tonight?

  Would she?

  She felt tears building in her eyes and dashed them away. “No!” She wasn’t going to be an idiot about this. She wasn’t going to weep over a man she’d known for barely five full days. It was too ridiculous.

  So he’d lied to her. Worse things had happened. She tried to concentrate on something really unpleasant, like Tim running off to the Himalayas. That had been mortifying. A true disaster. In a few weeks, this would barely register as a bleep on the romance Richter scale.

  But somehow, she’d never felt as devastated as she did at just this moment. She’d trusted Grant, even when all the evidence pointed toward him being about as trustworthy as a rattlesnake. Why?

  What really hurt was that he hadn’t offered her any explanation. He’d just stood there.

  Of course, a niggling voice reminded her, you didn’t let him speak.

  But he’d let her run away, making no attempt to follow.

  In the backyard, Chester started barking up a storm. At first, the sound barely registered. Then, in the next moment, the doorbell rang. Working on raw nerves, Mitzi ran over and threw the door open. On the other side stood Grant, in a dark brown suit, holding a huge bouquet of roses—red ones, this time.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. His arms jutted forward, holding the bouquet out to her stiffly. Mitzi felt her glacierlike heart begin to melt. Just a little.

  But when she looked into his eyes, she didn’t see even as much remorse as she’d seen in his office. In fact, there was a steeliness in his eyes that sobered her immediately. She took the flowers gingerly, as if they might be booby-trapped.

  “I suppose you’re going to say that there’s a logical explanation,” she said.

  “Well, there’s an explanation,” he agreed. “I don’t know how logical it is.”

  She pursed her lips. “I’d like to hear it anyway.”

  “Then come to dinner with me tonight,” he said. Apparently he’d managed to change clothes but not work up an alibi. “Once we’ve cooled off, everything will seem less dramatic.”

  She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to be an idiot. And she wasn’t. But could it hurt to hear what the man had to say for himself?

  “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said. Rather presumptuously, she thought.

  She lifted her chin. “I’ll meet you at seven.”

  7

  HORACE MORELAND MARCHED into the Sunset Grill ahead of four of his subordinates and Grant, carrying himself like a four-star general. Patton came to mind He was stocky and leathery, with a helmet of spiky white hair, and looked as if he’d spent half his life in a sweaty foxhole somewhere. Probably he had. And now, even though he was in Austin, Texas, and wearing a dark-blue suit instead of fatigues, it was obvious he intended to conduct dinner like a basic-training maneuver.

  “Table for six!” he bellowed as the hostess greeted them.

  Grant stepped up to the startled woman and clarified, “We have a reservation under the name of Whiting.”

  Behind him, Horace harrumphed disgustedly. Apparently, he didn’t believe in mollycoddling food workers.

  “Ah, yes. Whiting for six,” she said as if the place were simply teeming with Whiting parties. “Right this way, sir.”

  Horace grumbled. “You sure the service at this place is all right? Seems a little lax to me.”

  “Tip-top, sir.” Grant suppressed the urge to click his heels.

  The Sunset Grill occupied the first floor of a Victorian house in the oldest section of downtown Austin. As the hostess led them through the hallway connecting the maze of intimate dining rooms done in rustic decor, Grant absently peeked into each, trying to train his mind off the cheerless evening ahead. Much as he willed himself to concentrate, however, his head just wasn’t in business right now.

  How different this evening should have been. He and Mitzi, all alone at a cozy corner table, the whole evening stretching ahead of them like a promise.

  So absorbed was his mind in the picture that for a moment he actually could see them—himself and Mitzi—at a table. She was decked out in a plum-colored dress cut low in back, and all her gorgeous hair was gathered at her nape, revealing tantalizing creamy skin covering her delicate spine. Across the table, Grant was looking at a menu.

  The vision was so real Grant thought he might be going a little batty. Then it hit him. This wasn’t his imagination. Ted was sitting at a table with Mitzi!

  He stopped in the open door, gaping at the couple. What the hell did Ted think he was doing? He was on the verge of confronting his brother when a machine-gun bark fired in his ears.

  “Whiting!”

  At the sound of their shared name, Ted glanced up. He saw Grant, smiled and sent him a wave. Then Mitzi glanced up at Ted, and just before she could follow his gaze to the door, Grant ducked out of sight, breathing hard.

  What was he going to do?

  Suddenly, Moreland’s Sam the Eagle beak was in his face. “Is something wrong with you, son?”

  Grant peeled himself away from the wall. “No, sir.”

  His body moved in a trance toward the business dinner, while his mind lollygagged back at that cozy table for two. What was Ted up to? Damage control? Girlfriend snatching? It didn’t seem likely that Ted would suddenly view the maid of horrors as good dating material. But why else on earth would Ted have brought her out, and here of all places?

  “Whiting!” Horace shouted from the head of the table. “Good Lord, man, are you with us?”

  Grant tried to clear his head and focus on Mr. Moreland. At least he’d managed to sit down at the right table without thinking. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  The man puffed up impatiently. “I said it was time we got down to brass tacks, son. We need to hammer out a few things about that business of yours. First off, there’s the matter of your employee situation.”

  Grant squinted in confusion at his menu, then looked around and noted that none of his blue-suited companions had opened theirs. “Excuse me, but shouldn’t we order our food first?”

  “I always order the same thing,” Horace replied gruffly. “Steak, rare. Same as all my employees! No sense wasting valuable time fussing with our food.”

  Grant swallowed and pushed his menu away. “How efficient,” he muttered. As Moreland burst into song again about employees wearing shorts, Grant struggled to focus his mind on his dinner companion.

  But What had Mitzi ordered? was the unbidden thought that jumped to his mind. And what was she saying to Ted? More important still, what was Ted saying to her?

  Unexpectedly, even to himself, Grant rocketed out of his chair. “I’ll be right back.”

  Without explaining further, he whipped out of the room and sprinted the short distance down the hallway. Halting in the door of Mitzi and Ted’s dining room, he waved his arms until he finally captured his brother’s attention. For the first time really appreciating that interminable evening he’d spent with Janice watching Marcel Marceau, he gesticulated for Ted to join him by the phones.

  Ted was all cocky grins when he met him in the little hallway, where a five-prong deer head was mounted above the pay phone. “Am I handling it or am I?”

  “Handling what?” Grant asked, furious.

  “I asked Mitzi here so you could talk to her and you two could patch things up.”

  Grant rolled his eyes. “And how are we supposed to do that when I’m stuck two rooms away?”

  “Will you calm down?” Ted began fiddling with his tie to take it off. “Remember when I asked you what you were we
aring tonight? This is why. We’ve both got on blue suits and white shirts. Now all we have to do is switch ties.”

  Grant frowned skeptically.

  “Just do it, Grant,” his brother said. “Believe me, after tonight, you’ll see I’m right.”

  “I think you’re touched in the head. This isn’t even remotely like a stunt you’d pull.” Normally, Ted’s m.o. was to extricate Grant from relationships.

  “I’m a changed man, Grant. Really. In fact, once this night’s over, I predict you’ll be calling me Mr. Love.”

  Mr. Love? “Mr. Chowderhead, maybe.”

  “It’s for your own good,” Ted said. “I’ve already done the initial apologies. Now you just have to explain the truth.”

  There was a slim chance they could get away with it. Harebrained as Ted’s plan was, this did give him a chance to try to come clean and smooth things over with Mitzi.

  “All right,” he agreed, ripping off his own tasteful striped tie and exchanging it for Ted’s, which was done in a loud floral pattern, “I wish Mr. Love had better fashion sense.”

  “That tie’s very GQ.”

  “Which doesn’t necessarily correlate with IQ,” Grant noted.

  Ted’s lips thinned and his expression turned funereal as he contemplated his role in this charade. “Okay, where’s Herr Moreland?”

  Grant poked him in the right direction and, taking a deep breath, went to meet Mitzi, his heart hammering as nervously as if he were about to step onto a Broadway stage.

  He sat down at the candlelit table where everything was just as he had hoped it would be before his world had kissed the dust this afternoon. The lights were low, Mitzi’s green eyes looked sultry across the table. Sultry and solemn. Apparently, Ted hadn’t done a stellar job making those initial apologies.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you sitting at the table alone for so long,” he told her, watching for signs that she was on to the switch. So far so good.

  “That’s all right.” She cleared her throat. “You can go ahead now.”

  Grant tried not to look befuddled. Ted had omitted something. “Go ahead with what?”

  Her eyes had an almost gleefully skeptical glint. “You were about to explain why you were talking to Veronique when you were supposed to be making a phone call.”

  “Oh.” He swallowed. This was a hell of a place to pick up a conversation. “The truth is, Mitzi...”

  She smiled patiently. “Don’t sweat it, Grant. Remember, I was born with a heart-shaped rain cloud over my head.”

  “The truth is...” Larry and Barry loomed large in his mind. What if she guessed that it was his brother, not himself, who had instigated this reunion tonight. What would she think of him then?

  She sighed and put down her napkin as if she was about to get up and leave. “I knew this dinner was a bad idea.”

  “No, wait,” he said, reaching across the table to take her hand in his. She sank into her seat again like a patient waiting to hear an unpleasant diagnosis. “Mitzi, listen. That woman, she’s just a model who was doing some print ads for the store. I saw her through the window and didn’t want you to think I was trying to ditch you. It was stupid of me, juvenile, but the truth is really that she means zip to me. I don’t know why I behaved so foolishly. I’m sorry.”

  Her cheeks reddened as she stared at their hands intertwined against the starched white tablecloth. “Honestly, I don’t know why I flew off the handle like I did,” she admitted. “By this afternoon, I felt a little silly. I guess it just seemed we were so close at the lake, and after last night, watching movies and cuddling on the couch....”

  He nodded, feeling his groin stiffen at the very thought of cuddling. He wanted her so fiercely he could hardly wait for dinner to end.

  She smiled, blissfully unaware of his physical agony. “It didn’t really occur to me until after I had stormed out of your office that at the time that picture was taken, we barely knew each other. And there I was behaving as if I had some exclusive rights to you even then.”

  He frowned. The thing was, he wanted her to have exclusive rights to him. How could he explain it? She was the first woman he’d ever felt he truly wanted to belong to. Even after being married once, the feeling was a shocker. For the first time, he understood the reasoning behind all those ultra-PC New Age guys—the Alan Alda types who took their wives’ names after marriage and wore matching T-shirts and insisted on being the ones to wash the dirty diapers. That was how he felt about Mitzi.

  Okay, maybe he wouldn’t change his name, but...

  She frowned at him. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No,” he exclaimed. “Everything’s perfect.”

  “Oh, good, the food,” she said, looking up as a waiter brought along a tray laden with their feast. Grant watched in approval as grilled chicken smelling of rosemary sizzled on a plate in front of Mitzi. His stomach rumbled. Then, the waiter placed Grant’s plate down.

  “Your venison, sir.” Grant’s stomach rumbled again, this time unhappily, as the waiter handed him a note. “A man down the hall asked me to give you this.”

  “Something wrong?” Mitzi asked.

  She meant the note, but Grant focused his gaze on the plate as his hands unwrapped the message. “Eating venison never has been the same since I saw Bambi.”

  She frowned. “Then why did you order it?”

  Good question. Grant frowned as he looked down at Ted’s note. Help! What is this guy talking about? Could you please meet me by the deer head? T.

  Grant’s stomach sank in dread. No telling what Ted was doing in there. He’d thought his brother was catching on to the business, but what if he fouled up at this late date? Then the store would be lost.

  Beads of sweat popped out on his temples. Grant folded the note and stood. “Will you excuse me again? Something’s come up at the store.”

  “I hope it’s nothing serious,” Mitzi said, her forehead puckering in concern.

  This time when Grant met Ted by the phones, his brother was agitated, and his tie was already off. “You’ve got to go back in there. He’s talking about five-year inventory and position statements and all sorts of stuff I have no idea about.”

  Grant reluctantly removed his own tie. “Couldn’t you have changed the subject? I was just smoothing things over.”

  Ted looked frazzled. “I’m drowning, man!”

  It seemed strange to Ted that Grant wasn’t just a teensy bit more grateful, considering all he’d done for him. But as he strode back to Mitzi’s table, he tried to be bighearted and not let it bother him. Even having to deal with nutso Mitzi was better than being baffled by a totalitarian businessman like Moreland.

  “Is everything all right?” Mitzi asked.

  Ted nodded. “Oh, sure.” At least the food was better here. He couldn’t believe Grant had left all this beautiful deer meat untouched.

  Mitzi blinked as she watched him scarfing down his dinner. “What was the emergency at the store?”

  “Emergency?” he asked, then gulped down a piece of meat. Grant must have told her there was something wrong at Whiting’s. He shrugged casually as his mind scrambled for an excuse. “Oh...it was just a...a fire.”

  “Fire!” She gasped. “Goodness! Shouldn’t you—”

  “It’s out now,” Ted assured her. That taken care of, he dug into his venison with more gusto.

  Mitzi was watching him like an anthropologist who had just been teleported back to Cro-Magnon days. In fact, she wore a vaguely disgusted look, as if he were eating Bambi. City people!

  He wished she would say something. Anything. They just kept chewing and avoiding each other’s eyes. Didn’t she and Grant ever talk?

  Something had to be done to break the ice. Feeling inspired, Ted finally remembered—the little jewelry box. He’d forgotten to hand it to Grant when they exchanged ties. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, though. Grant seemed a bit slow at getting the job done here, whereas Ted, the old football hero, could take
the ball and run with it.

  He finished swallowing a piece of meat, took a slug of wine and winked at Mitzi. “I got you something, dollface.”

  She frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  Smiling big, he took the ring box out of his jacket pocket and shoved it across the table toward her. At least this would give them something to do. “For you.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  He laughed impatiently. “Well, don’t just sit there gawking. Pop the thing open!”

  Tentatively, she reached across and cradled the small velvet box. “You shouldn’t have,” she told him. “If this gift is just because of what happened this afternoon....”

  Ted rolled his eyes. “Nah, I’d already shelled out the bucks by the time you broke into your Joan Crawford-shrew routine.”

  She flinched, then slammed the box down. “Look, you don’t seem to believe I’m sorry for what I said this afternoon.”

  God, how annoying. Didn’t the woman have a sense of humor? “I believe you, I believe you. Go ahead and open it.”

  She pursed her lips and took up the box again, touching it gingerly as if it might be rigged with an explosive device. Ted rolled his eyes.

  Then, just as she was opening the thing, panic set in. He hadn’t looked in the box. He’d assumed it contained some kind of pin or something. But what if it was something else?

  Like an engagement ring!

  “Wait,” he shouted, waving his hands frantically. “Don’t open that!”

  Startled, Mitzi looked up at him. “What’s wrong?”

  If it was an engagement ring, what should he do? He couldn’t ask the woman to marry him just because the conversation was lagging. But if Grant had bought the engagement ring, surely he wouldn’t mind. Of course, some people liked to handle things like that for themselves.

  But he couldn’t take the little box back from her now, after the big buildup. He sighed. “Oh, never mind. Go ahead.”