Before she knew what was happening, he twirled her in a spin that sent her reeling toward the largest wood table. Kay, catching her eye, gave her a thumbs-up and a wink. Mitzi shook her head frantically, but soon found herself spinning back into Grant's arms.
“If women like you weren't so focused on marriage all the time, life would be a lot more enjoyable,” he finished saying.
She had to give him credit for not missing a beat. “I am not looking to marry anyone, especially you.”
He laughed. “You're one of those women always looking for âserious relationships.'”
“What do you look forâfurtive gropes in elevators?”
“Fun.”
She rolled her eyes. “How could I doubt it? You're a million laughs.”
He tilted his head and fixed her with a philosophical gaze. “Really, I feel sorry for you. You've probably chased away a lot of men with all your scheming and plotting and worrying about how things will come out.”
She grew hot with fury. He'd come too close to the truth for her to laugh. Especially about all those elaborate relationships she'd engineered that had come crashing around her.
The dance ended and she pushed away from Grant, glaring. “The only man I've ever wanted to chase away is
you.”
She pivoted, heading straight for the pitcher at the waiter's table.
Grant was right on her heels, like old chewing gum. “Have you ever had a successful relationship?”
“Yes.” She grabbed a cup and filled it. Then, under his steady, arrogant stare, she amended, “Well, nothing long-term. But I would say definitely successful in the short term.”
“They left you,” he guessed flatly. “They ran off with women who weren't so serious, that's why.”
Then why did they marry them? she wanted to ask. Then she remembered who she was talking to. Grant Whiting wasn't her idea of a couples' counselor. “Not all of them.”
Brother Tim, for instance.
He sidled closer to her. She felt a chill run up and down her spine. “You've got that lonely, hungry look about you.”
She didn't know how much more she could take. Murdering the best man at her best friend's rehearsal dinner, however, might not be good politics.
“You know what you need, hon?”
She steeled herself for the answer.
“A flung.”
She looked into his eyes. How could a man be so good-looking and so infuriating? And why, if he despised her “type” so much, couldn't he leave her alone?
“Maybe a fling with me,” he said in a low voice that made her skin crawl. Nothing like being hit on by a misogynist. “What the hell, sugar, we've got a week. Loosen up.”
Slowly, she groped her way out of her beer-induced fog enough to focus on his smirking grin. Either he was weaving or she was. Her stomach lurched. But more than that, her temper peaked.
Loosen up? Suddenly, she knew she had to put an end to his insolence once and for all, and she knew just how to do it. As if of its own volition, her arm began to wind, and as it wound, it seemed to gain strength, like Popeye's in those old cartoons.
Grant, oblivious, continued to smile down at her, that shiny white-toothed grin of his giving her a perfect target. “What do you say, sweetie?”
“I say you're an ignorant, egotistical lout!”
And then her arm flew. Suddenly, she felt as if she were half Wonder Woman, half Rocky I, II, III, IV and V. Her hand had enough blood running to it to make her feel as if she were holding a ten-pound weight. She had never thrown a punch in her life, but this felt right. And when her fist made contact with Grant's jawbone, the result was a satisfying
smack!
Just like in the movies.
A stunned Grant grunted and then flew backward. From the tables nearby, a surge of cries went up.
“My God, he's out cold!”
Blushing with the glow of triumph, Mitzi reached down to the keg of beer and pumped the top. “I'll wake him up.” She grabbed the spigot, pointed it at Grant's face and sprayed.
For womankind's sake.
2
“B
ROTHER, did I save you from a fate worse than death!”
As Grant stared at his brother, who he'd hunted down and finally discovered in a semicomatose state on the tiny bed in the cabin of his boat, he was less concerned with Ted's bruised jaw and bad temper than with the bigger problem at hand: Marty's wedding was in thirty minutes, and the best man was hungover!
Ted grunted, then slurred, “That Missstsi packs a bigger punch than George Foreman.”
Grant squinted at his brother's jaw with new amazement. “Mitzi hit you? What did you say to her?”
“Nothing,” Ted protested. “I was just talking to her and then, pow!, she belted me. She's a psycho.”
Starting to panic, Grant glanced at his watch. “Look, Marty's called me three times already. The wedding's half an hour from now. Do you think you can be ready?”
As he stared into his brother's bloodshot eyes, he knew it was like Bob Barker asking Miss America if she was ready to do some quantum physics.
Ted groaned, and Grant wasn't sure if the source of the groan was Ted's jaw or his battered male ego. “She's no Mitzi Gaynor, I can tell you that much. Those parents of hers should have named her after something else, like Big Bertha the Amazon.”
“Ted, don't you understand that you have to be at that wedding in thirty minutes?”
Ted weaved along with the motion of the boat for a moment, then collapsed back onto the cushions, one arm flung over his eyes. “Can't. Better stay home today.”
Grant stood with his hands on his hips, calculating. Apparently, he had no choice but to serve as best man himself. The idea was even more unappealing now that he knew he had a psychotic bridesmaid to contend with.
“Look, Ted, just tell me quick where in your house the tux is. I have to haul butt.”
Ted shook his head. “Not in the house.”
Oh, no, he thought with dread. Ted didn't forget to pick up the tux from the cleaners!
Then he noticed that his brother wasn't just shaking his head, he was gesturing with his crooked elbow to the floor. Grant looked down and discovered a rumpled bunch of cleaners' plastic heaped on the blue carpet. Oh, great! Now he would have to appear in public looking as if he'd slept in his clothes. The bowery-bum best man!
“You didn't think I'd forget to bring my tux, did you? You must think I'm really irreâ” Ted belched loudly “âirresponsible.”
Grant didn't waste time ticking off the many descriptors that would accurately portray his brother's personality. He immediately stripped out of his T-shirt and khaki shorts and threw on the wrinkled tuxedo. He looked like a rumpled penguin.
He never should have sent his brother in his place. What had he been thinking? Ted was notorious for fouling things up. Then again, the task had seemed so simple, all he'd had to do was show up to two social functions. Behaving civilly was nothing Ted couldn't handle under normal circumstances.
That Mitzi woman must really be a number. He glanced at the bruise on Ted's cheek and an idea occurred to him. He rifled through the cupboard in the boat's cabin. “Hey, Ted, where's the first-aid kit?”
“Good thinking, bro, you'll need it if you're heading for round two with that woman.”
Grant found the box and got out an adhesive bandage, which he slapped on his cheek approximately where Ted's bruise was.
“Maid of honor,” Ted grumbled. “They should have called her the maid of horrors!”
As an heir to a department store, Grant had grown up in a habitat where females ruled the jungle. Anyone who had ever done a behavioral study on a seventy-percent-off handbag sale, or witnessed a lady trying to return a dress which had obviously been worn, knew that all women were not shrinking violets. But weddings were supposed to be where they acted civilizedâthe watering holes on the savanna of female behavior. What kind of woman started fistfights with men at wedding-rehearsal dinners?
He shoved his feet into Ted's shoes, not even bothering to take off his white tube socks. Naturally, his brother, the Philistine, hadn't thought to bring clean black socks.
Ted, scratching his stubbly cheek, squinted up as Grant was headed out the door. “Hey. Would you say that I'm an ignorant, egotistical lout?”
Grant drew back in mock surprise. “You?”
Satisfied, Ted flopped back against the pillows, shaking his head. “See? I told you she was crazy.”
Grant sped back up the dock to where his car was parked, jumped in and raced toward the church, praying that he wasn't too late. Praying Kay and Marty would forgive him for whatever Ted had done at that dinner last night. Praying he could stay out of Mitzi's swinging range.
“OH, THANK GOODNESSâhere he comes!”
Mitzi had a much different reaction than Kay as she peeked out the vestry doors and saw Grant Whiting sprinting toward the church. Namely, irritation. “Look at the size of that bandage!” she exclaimed. The tiny adhesive strip on Grant's cheek seemed preposterously inconsequential considering the fact that her entire hand was encased mummy-style in an Ace bandage.
Kay, decked out in her wedding attire, was already jittery as they waited for the wedding march to begin; now she looked positively panic-stricken. “Mitzi, you're not going to pick any more fights, are you?”
Would she ever live this incident down? Last night, after Grant had been propped back on his feet, he and everyone else had looked at her as if she were some kind of monster. She kept having to protest that she had never hit anyone in her entire life, not even a swat or a slap. She'd always been a mild-mannered, almost meek person.
Until she'd met Grant Whiting.
“Don't worry, it's not going to be a Rambo wedding,” she assured Kay. “I don't think I could pull it off in lime-green taffeta anyway.”
Kay laughed. “I knew there had to be a reason other than bridal insanity that made me choose that color.”
Soon after the best man arrived, the processional began, and Mitzi brought up the rear of the Day-Glo bridesmaids as they marched down the aisle in front of Kay and her father. The church, under Kay's mother's guiding hand, had been turned into a floral extravaganza the likes of which she'd never seen. Lilies of every color and variety poured out of sconces, appeared accented with white velvet bows at the end of pews and were arranged in magnificent arrangements near the altar. The effect was stunning. The guests, standing at attention in their bright summer best, seemed like living additions to the decorations. At the front of the church stood a completely besotted and extremely nervous Marty.
But Mitzi's gaze was drawn to the rumpled best man standing to Marty's left, staring at her. The intensity in Grant's blue eyes was nearly blinding, it was as if he couldn't take his eyes off her. Probably scoping her out for damage. She forced herself to keep smiling and flicked glances at the congregation.
Inevitably, however, she had to check out Grant again. He was still scrutinizing her, up and down from head to toe, almost as if he couldn't figure out who she was. As if he'd forgotten the rehearsal dinner altogether. She only wished she could. Just as last night, as she'd lain in bed, she'd wished she could shake Grant's words from her mind. All the things he'd said about her wanting to get married....
Well, hadn't she? For yearsâbefore she'd decided that love was a delusionâthat had been her goal. But when her old boyfriends did finally choose to get married, it was always with women they'd known for such a short timeâa breezy model, or the jockey. Never to her, who had been waiting around for months and months. Like the Old Dog Tray.
No wonder those men tired of her. She needed to loosen up.
Which meantâmuch as it agonized her to admit itâGrant was right. The odious macho heathen had hit the nail precisely on the head. Yet how could that be? How could a lout like Grant Whiting teach her more in a few insults than she'd learned from years of reading personal-growth bestsellers?
She felt like crying. In fact, she did cry.
Of course, she chalked up the tears to the wedding ceremony. Of their own volition, her feet seemed to have parked her in the right position, and now Kay was standing in front of the altar, her hand locked in Marty's. Kay was so in love, so full of hope, so happy. She and Marty radiated sunbeams, which even managed to poke through the black cloud of eternal singlehood that lurked over Mitzi's head.
A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye, and she tried as discreetly as she could to flick it away. Then, just as her hand began to move, she glanced up and saw Grant, who was still examining her in that weird way. And to make matters worse, his eyes focused directly on that tear making its way down her cheek, hopefully not taking her mascara with it. She stiffened; that lout would probably sneer at her wedding tears of happiness for Marty and Kay.
But instead, a smile came to his lips. A big lumpy grin like one he had given Kay yesterday, a fond, kind smile, with just a hint of teasing in it.
Mitzi felt her lips turning up instinctively; then she blinked, dismayed. Remember, this was Grant! The walking irritant.
Across the aisle, as Kay and Marty began their vows, Grant made his own vowâhe was going to clobber that brother of his. Mitzi Campion, a.k.a. the psychotic bridesmaid and Big Bertha the Amazonâwas nothing like Ted had described her. Come to find out, she was a willowy creature with dark green soulful eyes. He'd never seen eyes that color. Below them, her wide, expressive lips kept drawing his gaze, too. Her skin was creamy and soft-looking, as fine and flawless as porcelain. She didn't look as if she would swat a fly, much less punch Ted. Of course, the bandage on her hand attested to some sort of set-to, but he couldn't imagine that the scuffle had been unprovoked.
Mitzi. She wasn't at all what Grant had expected. She was intelligent-looking. Maybe it was her eyes, or the way her mouth seemed perpetually turned up at the corners in a knowing smile. She had great lips, wide and full. Very kiss-worthy.
Ever since his divorceâheck, even beforeâhe'd shunned that part of himself that responded to the opposite sex in favor of less complicated worries like work, survival. His libido had been put on the back burner. But now, long-dormant neurons were suddenly firing again. All systems were go. He was intrigued.
So intrigued that his wedding anxieties were forgotten. Likewise, his stress over the store fell away from him as he concentrated on a whole new problemâwhat he could do to make up for whatever his knuckleheaded brother had done to Mitzi.
Part of it was his fault, of course. “Sic 'em, tiger,” he'd told Ted. But he hadn't meant it literally.
Miraculously, Grant managed to fumble through his pockets and produce the bride's ring at the appropriate moment. Then his heart began to start pumping, because he knew, as best man, his next job was to escort the maid of honor down the aisle.
Mitzi didn't seem to be in a hurry for that part. As the strains of Mendelssohn rang out, Mitzi sidled over to where Grant stood, his elbow proffered eagerly. Those green eyes peered out at him with suspicion, as if she half expected a joy button to be hidden in his sleeve, or water to squirt out of his boutonniere. She gingerly rested her hand against his arm and then surprised him by blasting off down the aisle. Grant jogged along beside her. They would have overtaken Kay and Marty, had not the bride and groom been so eager to get outdoors themselves for a second lingering kiss as husband and wife.
In the sunshine of the June late morning, Grant took a deep breath of clean air and exhaled. Then he looked into Mitzi's eyes. Those green eyes. Why hadn't Ted warned him about those? They were as lethal as any punch she might swing.
Especially now, when they were shooting daggers at him. But he assumed the reason for her hostile glance was that he had a firm grip on her hand that was looped around his elbow.
He grinned at her. “I wasn't expecting to do the hundred-yard dash this morning. I would have brought my sneakers.”
“Well, they would have matched your socks.” Her lush pink lips turned down in a thin line. “Do you mind?” she asked, tugging at her hand.
Her voice had a low, smoky quality to it that made him melt. Why hadn't Ted warned him about
that?
When he just stood there grinning like a love-struck dope, she cleared her throat. “I wouldn't argue, normally, but as you can see, it's the only good hand I have left.” She held up her bandaged hand as evidence.
Grant's grin disappeared. “I'm sorry,” he said, releasing her. “I hope you found someone to take good care of that. If not, I'd be willing to kiss it and make it feel better.”
At that moment, Mitzi looked up at Grant Whiting's eyes and felt her stomach flip suddenly as if she were on the world's loopiest roller coaster. Good heavens, he was sexy! And not just in the superficial way she'd noticed yesterday.