Melissa Mcclone - Win, Lose...Or Wed!

“I don’t see any of the other teams,” Millie said, sitting next to him.

Jace heard the worry in her voice and put the money into the clue pouch. He felt the need to reassure Millie. So far she’d done everything right. Keeping up with him, finding the car and navigating their trip to the airport. Her abilities surprised him. He hadn’t expected her to be so decisive. So far she’d been the better teammate.

The realization made him angry. With himself.

“They’re here somewhere,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

He could do that himself.

This race meant everything, yet he wasn’t thinking fast enough. He’d made mistakes. Hell, that cab had nearly taken him out when he stepped off the curb. He wouldn’t be doing his part for the team if he wound up in some hospital emergency room. Time to get his act together before they got eliminated.

“But where?” she asked.

As Millie stood, Jace watched her. After they’d purchased tickets for the flight to LAX, she’d disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes and reappeared with her ponytail redone, her lips glossed and no windbreaker. Her T-shirt stretched across her chest. He couldn’t help but appreciate the view.

Lines creased her forehead. “The black team should be at this gate.”

“They might be getting lunch.”

Even with her weight loss, she didn’t look weak or soft. Not with her defined arm muscles and flat abs. He looked away, not wanting the camera to catch him ogling her. She was his teammate, not his plaything.

“Something’s wrong.” She sat, curling the edge of the clue card. “The flight boards in less than ten minutes. The black team should be here as well as whatever team was ahead of them. The next bank of LAX flights don’t leave until one o’clock.”

This was the woman he remembered, the quiet and cautious Millie who had won the hearts of the American television audience with her sweetness and innocence, but if she wasn’t careful she would psyche herself out of the race. He couldn’t afford to let that happen. At least not until he was on top of his game.

“Don’t worry about the other teams,” he said. “We’ve got our boarding passes. That’s all that matters. If they don’t make it to the gate on time, we’ll have almost an hour and a half lead on them.”

“Unless they are in the air.” She tapped her foot against the carpet. “A Frontier flight departed at 10:20 and a United flight took off at 10:56.”

He ran the times in his head. “No one could have gotten here that fast. The black team was only a few minutes ahead of us. Maybe they got stuck in the traffic jam or had car trouble.”

“Maybe.”

He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Probably.”

She looked down at their hands. Jace expected her to pull away from him, but she didn’t so he kept his hand on hers. The bustle, the noise, everything around them seemed to fade. Touching Millie felt so…good. He didn’t want to let go of her.

And then the camera guy moved.

She slipped her hand away.

Regret seeped through him. Not wanting to think about the strange emotions messing with his insides, he opened the guidebook.

“Any ideas where we should go?” Millie asked.

“Not yet.”

“Well, I don’t care if we have to ask every single passenger, we have to know where we are going before we land.”

He stared at her in amazement.

“What?” she asked.

“You look the same. Freckles, green eyes, hair pulled back in a ponytail—”

“Same boring Millie?”

“Not boring. But not the same, either,” he said. “You’ve changed.”

“I’m the same as I’ve always been.”

He shook his head. “There’s a different intensity. A competitiveness I’ve never seen before.”

“You just didn’t look hard enough.”

“Hey, I looked plenty.”

But maybe not hard enough.

Not that it mattered. Choosing Desiree had been the safest choice at the time. For all of them.

Jace reached for the clue card, and Millie let him have it. “Let’s figure this out so we can nap on the flight. Cherry blossoms, irises and apples.”

Millie pursed her full lips. The perfect pucker for kissing. Not that he cared. Or wanted to kiss her. Much.

“What do those three things have in common?” she asked.

“They’re plants.” Good. He needed a task to keep from thinking about Millie. He flipped to the guidebook’s index in the back. “Maybe they want us to go to a farm or nursery.”

“In Los Angeles?”

“Probably not. Flowers and fruit. What about the farmer’s market? That’s a big tourist attraction in L.A.”

Her eyes darkened. “Didn’t you go there on one of your dates with Desiree?”

“Not Desiree, Charlotte.”

He didn’t want to talk about it. Don’t look back. Hadn’t that meant Millie wanted to leave the past behind? Still a secret part of him was flattered she remembered. That she had cared enough to keep track of what he’d done.

“Oh, yeah.” Millie’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “I remember Charlotte.”

Jace knew exactly what Millie remembered. Charlotte was a stereotypical ditzy blonde from Kalamazoo, Michigan, who preferred kissing to conversation because she could barely string two sentences together.

“You sent her home after that date.”

“I did.” Jace recalled the blonde’s collagen-enhanced pout when he sent her packing. “I should have done it sooner.”

“We were all surprised,” Millie admitted. “She was beautiful.”

“You were all beautiful.”

But he’d had certain specifics he’d needed in a spouse. Charlotte had the looks, but not the brain. Desiree had the looks and brain, but not the heart. Only Millie…

Not going there. Think race. Think million dollars.

He read the travel guide. “The Farmer’s Market is on the corner of Third and Fairfax.”

“That’s a good one.” Millie reread the clue. “Do you know what we need?”

“What?”

She studied the gate area and pointed to an auburn-haired woman in her early twenties, working on a laptop. The attractive woman wore a long brown skirt with slouched boots and a turquoise blouse. Her modified bob haircut looked trendy, not dated. “Her.”

“Why her?”

“She typifies The Groom’s target audience,” Millie explained. “And chances are she’s connected to the Internet.”

Okay, they could use the Internet, but if the woman had watched the show, Jace didn’t want another viewer telling him how stupid his bride choice had been. That’s all he’d been hearing since the finale aired.

When Desiree broke up with him to pursue an acting career, the number of fans telling him via letter, e-mail and blogs he should have picked Millie increased. What people didn’t realize was he knew picking Desiree had been a mistake, but picking Millie would have been worse. “I don’t know, Freckles.”

“Trust me on this.” Anticipation filled her eyes, and he felt torn. “Please.”

“Sure.” He owed her this for her earlier efforts.

Millie’s smile lit up her face. “Come on.”

She approached the woman as if she walked up to strangers to beg a favor every day of her life. Jace’s respect inched upward.

“Excuse me,” she said, in a nonthreatening parent-teacher conference voice. “My name is Millie. You wouldn’t happen to have a wireless connection to the Internet, do you?”

The woman glanced up from her laptop. Her mouth gaped. She snapped it closed. “Millie! Jace. I don’t believe this. I never missed an episode of The Groom. It’s my favorite show.”

Yes. Target audience was dead-on. He owed Millie a hug. Scratch that, a drink.

“That’s great,” Millie said. “Isn’t that great, Jace?”