Page 65 of The Honorable Texan
Blake noticed her distracted expression.“Cheer up,” he whispered.“People will think it’s a wake instead of a wedding!”
She moved, and smiled up at him, clutching her small cup of punch.“Sorry.I was thinking about Mrs.Collins.”
He moved closer, tilting her chin up to his blue gray eyes.“Let me worry about it,” he said softly.“I promise you, she’s not going to get away with it.”
She sighed.“Okay, boss man,” she said.She stood on tiptoe and touched her lips to his hard mouth.“Whatever you say.”
He smiled, pulling her close to kiss her back, very emphatically.When he drew away he was aware of a faint silence around them.
He looked around and discovered that everyone was watching them instead of the newlyweds.
“Better get a ring on her finger by sundown,” Cash Grier whispered as he walked by.“Or you may be the next tabloid centerpiece.”
Blake grinned at him.“The wedding’s next week,” he told the police chief.“You’re invited.”
“I’ll bring my whole department,” Cash promised.
Blake’s eyebrows arched.“All of it?”
Cash nodded thoughtfully.“And I’ll have something very nice planned for your wedding day,” he added.
Marc Brannon overheard him and drew his very pregnant wife, Josie, closer.“Run for the border,” he advised Blake and Violet.“He was waiting for us at my ranch after our wedding, with half the county law enforcement personnel, and I had to threaten him with a shotgun to get rid of him!”
Grier glared at him.“I did not have half of them.”He shifted.“Some people I called refused to come.They didn’t want to impose on newlyweds.Can you believe that?”
“We’re leaving town right after our wedding,” Blake promised Violet at once.
Grier really glared then, at Blake and the Brannons.“Hmmmph!”he muttered.“Some people have no sense of humor.”
“Some people have no sense of privacy,” Marc shot right back.
Grier glanced at Josie and grinned.“Didn’t I warn you about him?”He pointed at Marc.“And you didn’t listen!”
Josie leaned closer to her husband’s tall frame.“Oh, he’s not so bad,” she said complacently.“In fact, neither are you,” she added to Cash, “despite your far-reaching reputation.”
“What reputation?”Tippy Moore asked with a soft laugh as she walked to Cash and was gathered against him gently.“He’s as pure as the driven snow,” she drawled with a mischievous flash of green eyes.
Cash bent and kissed the tip of her nose.“Pest.”
She smiled back at him and it was like fireworks.“And I planned to make you beef Stroganoff tonight,” she said.“But here you are calling me names…”
“Nice pest,” Cash qualified.
She shrugged.“Okay.I guess I can live with that.Good to see you,” she added to the others as she let Cash lead her away to the punch.She still had plenty of cuts on her pretty face, and some bruises, and she was a little shaky.But what she’d lived through in New York had gained her a lot of sympathy around Jacobsville.It was pretty much an open secret how Cash felt about her, and vice versa.
“There goes a prospective bride and groom, or I miss my guess,” Marc Brannon mused.
“Same here,” Blake replied.He curled Violet’s fingers into his.“I suppose it’s contagious,” he added, looking warmly into her eyes.
“What about your cat harem?”Marc asked.
“They take bribes,” Violet said before Blake could speak.“Fresh salmon.”
“Way to go, Violet,” Josie chuckled.“Leave it to a woman to find a way around a difficult situation.”
“She’d know,” Marc replied, smiling at his wife.“She’s just joined the local D.A.’s office as a prosecutor.After the baby comes, that is.”
“What do you want?”Blake asked curiously.
