SUSAN MEIER - Mothers In A Million - A Father for Her Triplets / First Comes Baby...

The bride and groom followed suit. On the sunny, beautiful May day, no one went any farther than the patio.

“One of two things has to happen here,” Missy said as she looked out the window onto the guests who were a floor below them. “Either we need to get people in here or we need to get the cake out there.”

He headed for the door. “ I’ll go talk to somebody.”

She put her hand on his forearm to stop him. “I ’ll go talk to somebody.”

She walked through the echoing room and onto the equally empty deck, down the stairs to the covered patio. Wyatt watched her look through the crowd and finally catch the attention of a tuxedo-clad guy.

She smiled at him and began talking. Even from a distance Wyatt saw the sparkle in her eyes, and his gaze narrowed in on the guy she was talking to. Tall, broadshouldered, with dark curly hair, he wasn’t bad looking… Oh, all right, he was good-looking, and was wearing a tux. Wyatt knew how women were about men in tuxes. He’d taken advantage of that a time or two himself. And Missy was a normal woman. A woman he’d rejected. She had every right to be attracted to this guy.

Even if it did make Wyatt want to punch something.

As she and the man in the tux walked up the stairs to the deck, he scrambled away from the window. She opened the door and motioned around the empty room.

“See? No one’s even come in here.”

The man in the tux glanced around, his gaze finally alighting on her creation. “Is that the cake?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

Tux man strolled over. He examined the icing-covered Eiffel Tower, then looked over his shoulder at Missy, who had followed him. “You’re remarkable.”

Her cheeks pinkened prettily. Wyatt’s eyes narrowed again.

“I wouldn’t say remarkable.” She grinned at him. “But I am good at what I do.”

“And beautiful, too.”

Unable to stop himself, Wyatt headed for the cake table.

Missy’s already pink cheeks reddened. “Thanks. But as you can see, the cake—”

“I don’t suppose you’d give a beleaguered best man your phone number?”

Her eyes widened. Wyatt’s did, too. Beleaguered best man? Did he think he was in a Rodgers and Hammerstein play?

“I—”

He slid his hand into his pocket. “I have a pen.”

Wyatt finally reached them. “She’s got a pen, too, bud. If she wanted to give you her phone number, she could. But it seems she doesn’t want to.”

Missy shot Wyatt a stay-out-of-this look, then smiled politely at the best man. “What my assistant is trying to say is that I’m a very busy person. I keep a pen and paper for brides-to-be, who see my cakes and want to talk about me baking for them.”

The best man stiffened. “So you wanting to get the cake downstairs, into the crowd, is all about PR for you?”

“Heavens, no.” She laughed airily. “I want the bride to see the cake she designed.”

But the best man snorted as if he didn’t believe her. He shoved his hands into his pockets, casually, as if he held all the cards and knew it. “I guess you’ll just have to figure out a way to get the bride up here yourself, then.”

But Missy didn’t bite. She smiled professionally and said, “Okay.” Not missing a beat, she walked over to the French doors leading to the deck and went in search of the bride.

His threat ignored, the best man deflated and headed for the door, too.

Wyatt chuckled to himself. She certainly was focused. The best man might have temporarily knocked her off her game, but she’d quickly rebounded.

A few minutes later, Missy returned to the room in the clubhouse, the bride and groom on her heels.

“As you can see, nobody’s here.”

The bride stopped dead in her tracks. “That’s my cake?”

Missy pressed her hand to her throat. “You said you wanted the Eiffel tower.”

The bride slowly walked over. She ambled around the table, examining the cake. Wyatt stifled the urge to pull his collar away from his neck. In the quiet, empty room, the click of the bride’s heels as she rounded the table was the only sound. Her face red, Missy watched helplessly.

Finally the bride said, “It’s beautiful. So real. Isn’t it, Tony?”

Tony said, “Yeah. It’s cool. I like it.”

“I think I’ll have the band announce that we’re cutting the cake up here, and ask everyone to join us.”

Missy sighed with relief. “Sounds good.”

Tony caught the bride’s hand and they went back to the patio.

As soon as they were gone, Missy turned on Wyatt. “And you.”

“Me?” This time he did run his fingers under his shirt collar to release the strangled feeling. “What did I do?”

She stalked over to him. In her pretty orange-and-whiteflowered dress and her tall white sandals, with her hair all done up, she looked like a Southern belle on the warpath.

“I fight my own battles. He was a jerk, but I handled him. Professionally. Politely.”

“He was a letch.”

She tossed her hands in the air. “I’ve handled letches before. Sheesh! Do you think he’s the first best man to come on to me?”

Wyatt’s blood froze, then heated to boiling and roared through his veins. “Best men come on to you?”

“And ushers and fathers of the bride—or groom.” She stepped into his personal space. “But I’m a big girl. I can handle myself with bad boys.”

He snorted. “Oh, really?”

“You think I can’t?”

His hands slipped around the back of her neck, pulling her face to his as he lowered his head. His lips met hers in a flurry of passion and desire. He expected her to back off, to be stunned—at the very least surprised. Instead, she met him need for need. When his tongue slipped into her mouth, she responded like someone as starved for this as he was.

Heat exploded in his middle, along with a feeling so foreign he couldn’t have described it to save his life. Part need, part entitlement, part something dark and wonderful, it fueled the fire in his soul and nudged him to go further, take what he wanted, salve this crazy ache that dogged him every time he was around her.

The door opened and sounds from the wedding below billowed inside. Missy jerked away, her eyes filled with fire. From passion or from anger, Wyatt couldn’t tell.

She pulled a tissue from her pocket, quickly dabbed her lips, turned and faced the bride, groom and photographer with a smile.

“Come in. We’re all set up.”

What the hell was that?

Missy smiled at the bride and groom, leading them and the wedding party to the Eiffel Tower cake. As the crowd gushed, complimenting the detail, retelling the story of how the groom had proposed, her thoughts spun away again.

Had Wyatt kissed her out of jealousy?

Her stomach knotted. He’d absolutely been jealous. But she’d bet her bottom dollar the kiss hadn’t been out of jealousy, but was meant to teach her a lesson. She’d responded to prove she was able to take care of herself. And instead…

Well, she’d knocked them both for a loop.

The question was—

How did they deal with it?

The bride and groom posed for pictures with the cake, along with their parents and the bridal party. They served each other a bite of the cake as the photographer snapped more pictures. Almost as quickly as they’d come, they left, taking the bridal party with them.

And the room went silent.

Missy sighed, calmly walking to the cake table, though inside she was scrambling for something to say. Anything to get both their minds off that kiss.

“My best cake ever and I won’t be getting any referrals from it.”

He didn’t even glance at her. “How do you know?”

Either he wasn’t happy about being jealous or he wasn’t happy that this kiss had been better than their first. “Only the wedding party and the bride and groom saw it.”