The Best Man's Plan (Special Edition)

by Gina Wilkins

  Raising her voice over the sound of the band, she replied, “It can be, when things really get going. You want a table or are you going to sit at the bar?”

  “Actually I’m looking for someone. Grace Pennington. Do you know her?”

  The woman frowned a bit and shook her head. “I don’t think so. Maybe she isn’t here yet?”

  According to the employee who had called him, Grace had entered this establishment just over half an hour ago. Bryan shook his head. “I’ll just look around for her, if you don’t mind.”

  The woman shrugged. “Help yourself. You can order at the bar, and if you decide you want a table, just give me a sign. There’s pool and pinball in the back room if you’re in the mood for a game.”

  “Thanks. I’ll check it out.”

  She nodded and moved away in response to a summons from a table crowded with three thirty-something couples who looked ready to place their orders. Not wanting to look more conspicuous than he already did in his pressed khakis and neat polo shirt, Bryan moved to the bar, where he ordered a beer from an almost stereotypically jolly bartender and perched on a stool to survey the crowded room. He didn’t usually drink domestic beer, but that seemed to be the beverage of choice here. Had he been warned what the place was like, he’d have changed into jeans and boots before coming.

  He didn’t spot Grace among the diners or the few dancers crowding a postage-stamp-sized dance floor. He couldn’t see into the other room from this angle; was it possible that Grace hustled pool in her spare time? At this point, nothing would surprise him.

  Carrying his barely touched beer, he made his way across the room to the archway, exchanging a few polite nods on the way. A few women blatantly checked him out, sending him inviting smiles that he pretended not to see. Some of them were old enough to be his mother, others damn near young enough to be his daughter.

  Where the hell was Grace?

  He spotted her the minute he paused in the game room doorway. She was bent over a pool table, her short skirt just this side of decent as she expertly lined up a difficult shot with her pool cue. Half a dozen men stood around watching her—no surprise, he thought with a scowl. She seemed to be pitting her skills against a man who was roughly the size of a redwood tree—he was even dressed in a foliage-print shirt.

  With a sharp crack, her cue ball hit its target, and her audience cheered, sloshing beer and slapping each other on the backs.

  “Damn,” her oversized opponent growled, shaking his head. And then he grinned and pulled Grace into an enthusiastic one-armed hug that must surely have left a few bruises on her tender skin. “You are one hell of a pool player, Sassy.”

  Sassy? Wasn’t that the name her father had called her when she’d rebelled as a child? Bryan stared at her as she grinned up at the big man who held her. “Thanks, Stump,” she said. “But then, you taught me nearly everything I know.”

  “That I did, kid,” he agreed, planting a smacking kiss on her nose before he set her back on her feet.

  A man in a black-and-red Western shirt, so thin he almost rattled when he moved, stepped out of the group of watchers. “Play me next, Sassy. I’m tired of getting beat by Stump. It’d be nice to be beat by someone prettier this time.”

  “Give me a minute to finish my beer, Paul,” she replied, reaching for a half-filled mug sitting on a convenient ledge behind her. “Playing Stump always makes me thirsty, for some reason.”

  Bryan moved swiftly, the mug in his free hand before her fingers closed around it. She turned in question, and her face went pale as her eyes widened almost comically.

  “I believe this is yours?” he asked silkily, holding her mug out to her.

  “What are you—how did you—you followed me here, didn’t you?” she sputtered, her face suddenly flooding with vivid color.

  “Well, to be accurate, I had you followed. Interesting place. Come here often?”

  “Go away,” she ordered him, more desperation than anger in her voice now.

  The huge man who’d hugged her moved close behind her, looking mean enough to intimidate a tank. “Is this the guy, Sassy? The one who broke your heart?”

  Bryan figured there was a very good chance that he was about to die. But he found some solace in the other man’s words. “She told you I broke her heart?”

  “What makes you think I was talking about you?” Grace asked, with a toss of her curled hair.

  He smiled. “Darling, I know you were.”

  Stump moved another step closer, and Bryan could have almost sworn he felt the floor tremble just a little beneath his feet. “Me and the guys here don’t like it when people hurt our friends, do we, boys?”

  “No, we don’t.” Skinny Paul stood with his feet spread and his arms akimbo on his nonexistent hips, trying to look as fearsome as his large buddy. “What did he do to you, Sassy?”

  “He asked me to marry him,” she snapped, still glaring at Bryan.

  That was obviously not the response they’d been expecting. The men looked at each other and then at Grace. “Um…?”

  “He asked my sister first.”

  Half a dozen heads nodded in sudden understanding. “That was just stupid,” someone said.

  Bryan sighed. “Yes, I know. I made a mistake, okay? I was looking for the sort of woman who would have been completely and totally wrong for me. I know that now.”

  “Anybody would be a moron not to want to marry Sassy,” an older man with a grizzled beard and a kindly smile offered from the other side of the room. “I’ve asked her myself about a half dozen times, but she always said no.”

  “Maybe ’cause you already got a wife, Ernie?” Paul inquired.

  The bearded man sighed. “I like to think that’s the only reason she turned me down,” he acknowledged.

  “You don’t want to marry me,” Grace told Bryan fiercely, her hazel eyes unnaturally bright. “I’m all wrong for you. I don’t fit in with your fancy friends and your elegant parties. This is where I’m happiest.”

  “Then we’ll spend a lot of time here and avoid as many of those fancy parties as we can,” he assured her, loving her more every minute. “Personally I think you fit in quite nicely wherever you are. I, on the other hand, might have some adjustments to make. Stump, do you know where I can get one of those camo T-shirts?”

  “I got mine at Wal-Mart,” the big man volunteered.

  Paul sighed in disgust. “It was a rhetorical question, Stump. Be quiet and let the man finish begging.”

  “I will beg, you know,” Bryan said softly, still holding Grace’s gaze with his own. “I’ve never begged anyone for anything—I’ve never had to, nor wanted to—but I will this time. Nothing else has ever mattered this much to me.”

  “I dunno, Grace. I think he’s serious,” Stump said in a stage whisper. “Did he beg your sister, you think?”

  “She knows I didn’t,” Bryan said flatly, setting both beer mugs on the ledge. “She knows full well that it never got that far between her sister and me—and that it never would have. Chloe and I knew we were wrong for each other even before we finally put it into words. She was in love with my best friend. And I was in love with Grace.”

  The men looked confused again. Grace nearly choked. “You weren’t in love with me!”

  “I think I’ve been in love with you for months,” Bryan countered. “But, as both you and my friend Jason pointed out, I was too stupid and arrogant to realize it. And, besides, you said you hated me when we first met, remember?”

  “I did hate you—I still do,” she added recklessly.

  Stump shook his head and patted her on the shoulder, the friendly gesture nearly knocking her off balance. “Now, Sassy, you know you don’t mean that. He couldn’t have broke your heart if you hated him.”

  “He has a point there,” Bryan suggested hopefully. “Obviously a very intelligent and insightful man.”

  Stump nodded amenably.

  “I love you, Grace,” Bryan repeated, moving so close to her tha
t the others would have had to strain to hear his words above the background noises—and most of them seemed to be trying.

  He watched her swallow, watched her eyes flood with tears. “I—”

  “Sassy, come sing for us,” the waitress who’d told Bryan she’d never heard of anyone named Grace Pennington called out from the doorway. “The band’s all ready for you.”

  Grace looked dismayed. “Oh, no, I can’t—”

  From the other room a chorus of voices called out, “Sassy! Sassy!”

  She looked helplessly at Bryan. “I—”

  He leaned over to kiss her softly, then drew back. “Sing for us, ‘Sassy.’ We all want to hear you.”

  She moistened her lips, then turned and fled.

  Grace wondered if there was any chance that she was dreaming. Things like this just didn’t happen in her real life.

  Had Bryan really followed her here? Had he really just told her he loved her in front of a game room full of men? Had he really said he was willing to beg, if necessary? The thought of Bryan Falcon begging for anything was enough in itself to boggle her mind.

  She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sing a note, but she was almost dragged onto the stage before she could pull herself together enough to protest. She was welcomed warmly by the band—the same ones who had performed at her sister’s wedding. Their old school friend, Jack, the lead singer for the increasingly popular band, smiled at her and handed her the microphone. “What do you want to sing, Grace?” he asked, the only one there other than the band members and Bryan who even knew her real name.

  “I, uh—” Her mind was blank.

  “How about ‘Down at the Twist and Shout?’”

  “Yes, that will be fine.” She cleared her throat and somehow found the mental resources to launch into the rollicking number made famous by country singer Mary Chapin Carpenter.

  Bryan was sitting at a table with Stump and Paul now, looking like one of their lifelong pals, which only added to the air of unreality that accompanied her performance. He was grinning and lounging with the ease of a man in his natural environment. Even here, all he had to do was walk in and he had a dozen new best friends, she thought in resignation.

  Thundering applause followed the last note of her song, and while she enjoyed the ovation, she was well aware that generous mugs of beer fueled the enthusiasm for her singing. Bryan was on his feet, clapping and whistling and generally making a fool of himself. She sent him a repressive frown and automatically followed along when the band began the next number, Tanya Tucker’s “It’s a Little Too Late.”

  This was the music she truly enjoyed singing. Hard rocking, foot tapping contemporary country. She loved bopping with the band, holding the microphone, hearing the audience cheering and clapping along. This was when she flew, free of the restraints of her everyday life. Jack sang backup for her; they leaned toward each other as they harmonized the lyrics about being up all night wondering what to do—and then acknowledging that it was “a little too late” to do the right thing and walk away.

  A little too late to turn her heart around, she sang—and realized that the words were absolutely true. It was entirely too late for her to stop loving Bryan. Entirely too late to do the right thing and forget about him.

  She’d given him his chance. Now he was stuck with her. And he had better not change his mind this time, she thought as she finished the song and watched him cheer again with his newfound buddies. She couldn’t help smiling as Stump slapped him on the back so hard Bryan nearly tumbled flat on his face.

  She turned to her friend and whispered into his ear. And then, while he talked to the band, she spoke into the microphone. “I would like to dedicate my final number to someone who’s waiting for an answer from me,” she said, looking straight at Bryan. “I hope you find it in this song.”

  The band played the opening notes to a blatantly romantic song made famous by an incongruously violent movie. First recorded by Trisha Yearwood, it was entitled “How Do I Live.” The lyrics asked how she could live if the man she loved left her life, taking with him everything that mattered to her. Without him there would be no joy, no sunshine—no love, she crooned.

  She had previously considered the song a bit too syrupy, too dramatic. She sang it occasionally only because it had been so often requested by audiences, and because the band liked playing it for her. Now she sang it because she meant it. Maybe she could live without Bryan—but she had discovered during the past few days that she really didn’t want to.

  The applause was a bit more muted when she finished that number—or maybe she had just tuned out everyone but Bryan, who was standing across the room, watching her without taking his eyes from her face. She handed the microphone to Jack and stepped off the stage, murmuring incoherent responses to the compliments she received as she crossed the room.

  She stopped in front of Bryan and gazed up at him fiercely. “Well?”

  “I can’t live without you, either,” he said simply. “I love you, Grace.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. “And if you change your mind, I swear I’ll…I’ll…”

  “I’ll take care of him for you if that happens,” Stump offered, shamelessly eavesdropping.

  “There you go,” Bryan told her with a grin. “I have no choice but to love you for the rest of my life.”

  “No,” she said, grabbing his shirt and pulling him toward her. “You don’t.”

  She kissed him right there in front of the entire room full of people, sealing the deal.

  “Whee-eww,” Stump shouted, waving an arm in the air. “Sassy’s done got herself engaged. Drinks all around to celebrate—and the rich guy’s paying,” he added, thumping Bryan on the back.

  Bryan seemed delighted to oblige—or maybe he was just scared not to, Grace thought with a happy laugh. She couldn’t really blame him.

  “Grace?”

  Arching into Bryan’s lazily stroking hand on her bare, damp back, Grace responded without opening her eyes. She didn’t have the energy to do so. “Mmm?”

  “How did you find that place, anyway?”

  She smiled against his bare chest, her own hand making a leisurely foray down his lean hip. “I used to go there with Kirk—my ex-fiancé. When we broke up, I got custody of the hangout and our friends there. Kirk quit showing up there when Stump threatened to use him for a pool cue.”

  Bryan chuckled. “Remind me never to get on Stump’s bad side.”

  “No problem. By the time we left tonight, he was ready to marry you, himself.”

  Laughing, Bryan pulled her more snugly into his arms, nuzzling her temple. “Why didn’t you ever take me there before?”

  She opened her eyes to look somberly at him. “I didn’t think you would be interested. And I didn’t want to face memories of you at the last place in my life you hadn’t touched. I thought it would hurt too much when you were gone.”

  He shook his head. “You had so little faith in me.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “No,” he said with a sigh. “Jason helped me understand why you found it hard to trust me at first. You do believe me now that I never loved Chloe, don’t you? I only kissed her a couple of times, and I always had the unsettling feeling that I was kissing a cousin or a sister. It never would have gone any further, no matter what I thought at the time.”

  “I know. I can’t blame you for wanting to love her, though. Chloe is very special.”

  “Chloe is no more special than you are,” he said firmly. “I don’t know where you got a different idea, but it’s wrong.”

  She smiled and kissed him. “Thank you. And I do believe you, by the way. I’m not jealous of you and Chloe. I know you never cared about her this way. You never pretended to love her. And you aren’t pretending to love me. You really do, heaven help you.”

  He grinned and settled her comfortably on top of him. “I really do.”

  She was already making some experimental moves—maybe she had a little energy left,
after all—when he spoke again. “Grace?”

  Looking up from the nipple she’d been circling with her tongue, she asked distractedly, “Mmm?”

  “Do you want to sing? Professionally, I mean, with a recording contract and everything. Because, if you do…”

  “You would arrange it for me,” she finished, shaking her head. “I don’t want to sing professionally, Bryan. I’m a shopkeeper who likes to sing as an occasional sideline. Maybe I’ll sing more now that you’ve unmasked me, as it were, but I have no desire to tour or spend hours in a recording studio or anything like that—even if I were good enough to make it in that cutthroat business, which I doubt.”

  He looked as though he would have argued that point, but she didn’t give him the chance.

  “We’ll make our adventures together,” she assured him. “I think you’re going to find it as challenging to be married to me as I will to be Bryan Falcon’s wife. Because I’m not going to change who I am—I couldn’t change even if I wanted to. But I think we’re up to the test, don’t you?”

  His hands moved eagerly on her, drawing her back down to him. “I am definitely up to it,” he assured her.

  She smiled against his lips. Somehow, she thought that old familiar trapped feeling was gone for good now. Bryan’s love had freed her. Just as she had freed him from the baggage he had carried from his own past, the fears and insecurities he hadn’t realized he had when it came to love.

  It was going to be a very interesting ride, she decided happily. And it was going to last a lifetime.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-4043-8

  THE BEST MAN’S PLAN

  Copyright © 2002 by Gina Wilkins

  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 editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.