she was infatuated with her best friend’s fiancé. No, she wasn’t okay. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just landed pretty hard on the floor.”
She laughed. “Didn’t even feel it.” She rubbed a hand over her rounded hip. “I have lots of padding.”
Josh’s gaze slid, like a caress, over her curves. She nearly stopped breathing as he leaned close and murmured, “You’re just right.”
If he thought she was just right, he must think every other woman in the world was anorexic. No, he was probably lying. The man was a plastic surgeon. How could he look at anyone—and most especially her—and not imagine what he might nip, tuck and lipo if he had the chance?
She lowered her voice even more, so that they couldn’t be heard above the other conversations taking place in the limo. “The real question is, are you okay?”
“Sure,” he said, as if dismissing his own feelings.
She reached out and slid her fingers over the back of his hand, offering reassurance and understanding. But her fingers tingled, so she pulled them back and clenched her hand in her lap. To dispel the intimacy between them, she raised her voice as she asked, “Are you sure you want to do this—the limo, the reception?”
“We’re not calling it a reception anymore,” Josh reminded her. He hadn’t gotten married, so he shouldn’t feel so guilty about his attraction to her. “It’s an open house for the town.”
“We don’t live here,” Nick pointed out. “We don’t need to go.”
“We don’t live here yet.” But as he’d told the boys, Josh had bought a house here. He hadn’t had time to share that news with his best friend, though. Since he wouldn’t take possession of the house until he got back from his honeymoon, he’d planned on telling Nick then. Like Josh, Nick had only ever lived in cities, and he’d been against starting their private practice in this small town. He certainly wouldn’t understand Josh’s wanting to move there, too.
“But we’re opening our office in Cloverville,” Josh said, ignoring his best friend’s grimace. “We need to meet our potential patients.”
Nick nodded his begrudging agreement.
Rory, bored with the conversation, prodded his older brother. “So, can we open the champagne now?”
Clayton shook his head. “No. And even if we did, you wouldn’t get any.”
“Come on,” Rory whined, sounding a lot like the twins.
The oldest McClintock’s voice was gruff with impatience as he began, “Rory…”
The teenager whirled toward Josh. “You’re lucky you didn’t marry into this family. We never have any fun!”
Buzz and TJ’s eyes widened at Rory’s belligerent tone. “We had fun last night, Daddy,” TJ said.
“At Pop and Mama Kelly’s house,” Buzz completed his twin’s thought.
A grin stole over Josh’s mouth. He couldn’t help it. Pop and Mama Kelly. They were warm and funny and talked with their hands and insisted everyone call them Pop and Mama. The boys had immediately taken to them, more at ease with them than they were Josh’s younger but more reserved parents.
“Why can’t we marry the Kellys?” TJ asked.
Next to him, Brenna, as if surprised by the child’s question held her breath and tried again to ease away. Josh merely slid closer, unwilling to let her slip away from him as easily as every other woman in his life had done.
Why can’t we marry into the Kelly family? he asked himself. With the way in which she’d taken on the responsibility of planning and managing the wedding, he doubted Brenna would accept a man’s proposal and then leave him at the altar. And because of that mantle of responsibility that she wore just as easily as the lily in her hair, he doubted she would desert her husband and kids.
Still, the one thing Josh had learned from his brief first marriage and even briefer second engagement was that he really had to stop rushing into relationships.
“DR.AND MRS. TOWERS.” The words rang in Brenna’s ears. Clayton hadn’t been able to stop the DJ from introducing the wedding party. No one had been lined up as she’d arranged them at the church, and so almost everyone had been called by the wrong name. But nothing had been quite as wrong as Brenna’s walking in next to Josh and being called Mrs. Towers.
Even though she’d had nothing to do with the mistake, embarrassment warmed Brenna’s face. It didn’t matter that Molly hadn’t married Josh today. He still belonged to her. And Brenna’s best friend was too smart not to come back eventually and claim her fiancé.
Small, sticky fingers tugged at her hands as the twins sought her attention. “Does this mean you’re going to be our new mommy?”
Brenna stared down at their identical faces, their eyes bright with hope. The haircuts were the only way to tell them apart. “Buzz…”
“That man called you Mrs. Towers,” TJ said, his voice high with excitement. “Grandma isn’t here. She’s with Grandpa on a big boat.”
Josh had explained that his parents had planned for years to take a cruise on their thirty-fifth anniversary. He hadn’t allowed them to cancel the trip, not even for his wedding. He was probably pretty happy now that he hadn’t.
“So, then, you’re Mrs. Towers,” Buzz said.
They were so smart for four. But then they’d had to grow up fast since they’d grown up without a mother.
“I’m not really Mrs. Towers,” she insisted. “The DJ made a mistake.”
“Grandma is the only Mrs. Towers,” their father said, leaning down to speak eye-to-eye, man-to-man to his boys. He settled a hand on top of each head, ruffling TJ’s moussed-up spikes and smoothing Buzz’s fuzz. “But that’s okay. We’re used to it being just us guys.”
Just as when she’d overheard his conversation on the church steps with his sons, sympathy filled Brenna. How had Josh managed to raise these young boys on his own? Molly had told her how their mother, Josh’s first wife, had abandoned him and the boys when the twins were babies. And now Molly had deserted them, too.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, offering an apology for her friend.
Josh, still hunkered down by his sons, lifted his gaze to hers. “I owe you the apology,” he said. “You worked so hard on this wedding, and it never happened.”
She gestured around at the American Legion Hall, which was decorated with red and white fairy lights and balloons and populated by every single townsperson but Molly. And their friend Eric. “It looks like it’s happening now. Well, a party is happening now.”
“It’s not fair this party is for a dumb girl,” TJ muttered.
“It was supposed to be our party,” Buzz chimed in.
Back in the bride’s dressing room at the church, everyone had decided to turn the reception into an open
