Page 72 of Seaside Cowboy's Fairy Tale

His eyes widened, and he stumbled back. “R–right.”

Then Marina intercepted her. “You’ve got to be there for the bouquet toss.”

Saylor groaned. “Come on. Didn’t I just say—”

“Humor me. Please?”

Once her cousin joined in, they practically dragged her to the lineup.

“Okay, okay, I’m going.” She readjusted her long olive-green dress with spaghetti straps.

“Wait for me! Wait for me!” The groom’s assistant rushed out of the house and dashed to them. She leaped over a chair in a jump a kangaroo might find impressive.

Some women really wanted the bouquet. She shrugged. She’d be glad to let Jennifer have it, and anyway, with Jennifer’s basketball skills, it was clear who’d get it.

Huh. Even Darius’s mother joined the lineup, though not as enthusiastically as during the previous wedding—Austin and Kennedy’s—when she’d been dating Kennedy’s uncle.

Rachel raised the bouquet. “One, two...”

“Tim, stop!” Austin’s shout registered in the back of her mind, and Tex and Rachel’s adopted dog, Tiny Tim, dashed forward. Austin was taking care of him for the wedding.

Saylor wasn’t sure what had happened, but some kind of reflex reacted in her when Rachel called out, “Three!” Then Saylor jumped into the air without thinking about it.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one with those kinds of instincts. And she didn’t mean the women in the lineup.

When she and the bouquet had gone in the air, so did Tiny Tim. Maybe wordsthreeandfetchwere somehow the same in the dog’s mind.

As the canine intercepted the bouquet, he knocked Saylor back with his paws, and she lost her balance. Her heart dropped into the grass as she toppled backward.

“Saylor!” Was that Darius’s voice? “No!”

Her bouquet-free hands flailed with her attempt to prevent her fall, but it was too late. She was about to land on her behind.

Seconds later, she reassessed her damages as people gathered around.

Nothing hurt besides her pride.

“Saylor, I’m so sorry,” Austin muttered.

Well, well, well. She ended up on the grass in a sandwich between a dog and a man, who turned out to be Darius. And she didn’t even get the bridal bouquet because Tiny Tim had caught it in his teeth.

––––––––

THE END

---