The Best Man's Plan

“Bryan?” Grace called from the other room.

He stepped to the doorway. She was sitting on the couch, her bare feet propped on the coffee table, her hair disheveled around her face. Apparently she had pulled the pins out, giving her a rumpled, just-out-of-bed look that made him have to clear his throat before he asked, “What is it?”

She frowned as though trying to remember. And then she nodded. “I just wanted to tell you there’s a plate of brownies on the counter if you’re hungry. They’re covered with aluminum foil. I made them myself—with pecans.”

“Sounds good. I’ll bring us both some.”

“Okay. You want me to make some coffee?”

He grinned. “I’ve got it covered. You just sit tight.”

“Okay.” She sighed and wiggled her bare toes.

Torn between laughing and groaning, Bryan turned back to the kitchen, and reminded himself that a true gentleman would never take advantage of a woman who’d had too much champagne.

He knew Grace drank her coffee black. He balanced two filled mugs and the plate of brownies when he rejoined her in the other room.

“You’re pretty good at that. Don’t tell me you ever worked as a waiter,” she said, reaching out to help him set the things on the coffee table.

“Actually I did. The summer I was sixteen, I took a job at a pizza parlor because a girl I had a crush on worked there—and because it ticked my father off that a Falcon was schlepping pizza. He made me quit after a few weeks. To be honest, I was relieved. I hated the job and I had discovered that the girl had the most annoying giggle I’d ever heard. Drove me nuts.”

Grace laughed, and he thought of how different it was with her. He loved hearing her laugh. He would like to hear it more often.

Sitting on the couch beside her, he placed a coffee mug in her hands. “Drink,” he ordered. “But be careful, it’s hot.”

“I’m not really intoxicated, you know,” she murmured into the mug. “Just a little buzzy.”

“I know. But drink the coffee, anyway.” He bit into a brownie. “This is great. You’re a good cook.”

Leaning close to him, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I used a mix. All I did extra was throw in a handful of chopped pecans.”

“They’re still good.” He finished the brownie and washed it down with a couple of sips of coffee. And then he set the cup on the table and leaned back, draping an arm casually across the back of the couch. “Long day, wasn’t it? That best man gig was more exhausting than I expected.”

She gave him a companionable pat on the knee. “You did it very we

ll. And your toast was great. I’m particularly pleased—for my sake and for Chloe’s—that you were able to announce that Wallace Childers was captured in Texas and will be brought to justice for his part in Chloe’s kidnapping.”

Apparently the coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. She was still entirely too friendly to him. While he enjoyed it, he’d like to believe her affability was generated by more than champagne. Maybe food would help.

He reached for another brownie, broke off a corner and held it to her lips. “I thought you would like that. It definitely means we can ease off on the security a little. Not entirely, of course, since some crackpot could still try to emulate his scheme, but that’s unlikely. Here,” he added before she could attempt to argue that she no longer needed any sort of security. “Try some. It really is good. And you didn’t eat anything at the reception.”

“I was too nervous,” she admitted before taking the tidbit he offered her.

As a result of the feel of her lips against his fingertips, he had to clear his throat again before he asked, “Why were you nervous?”

She swallowed, then replied, “Lots of reasons. I was afraid I would trip over this stupid long skirt and fall flat on my face. I worried about saying something stupid and embarrassing Chloe on her wedding day. I knew she wanted me to sing, and I was a little concerned about forgetting the words, since I didn’t know the songs very well.”

“You never told me you had such a beautiful voice.”

She arched an eyebrow over the rim of her coffee mug. “The subject never came up.”

“I loved hearing you sing. You were wonderful.”

“Thanks. But, um, how much champagne did you have?”

He smiled. “The champagne had nothing to do with my appreciation of your voice. Have you ever performed professionally?”

“Thinking of signing me as the second client for your music production company?”