Daring Dylan (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 2) (33 page)

“We truly
are. Yesterday, yes. Today, yes. But tomorrow? Who knows? I think we will be,
but things happen.”

“How can
you stand not knowing?”

“Because
we’ve pledged our lives to one another and to our children and that’s enough
for me.” She held her hand out to him. “When it comes to a commitment,
sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump. Are you sure there isn’t
someone out there who would be worth the risk for you?”

Memories of
russet curls and dark brown eyes seared his brain. Involuntarily, he pictured
Gracie with a baby in her arms, looking all content and maternal. Again, he had
no difficulty picturing her as a wife or a mother. He just couldn’t see her as
his wife or the mother of his children.

Like hell,
he couldn’t. Suddenly, he couldn’t see anything else.

“Maybe
there is.” He stood up and kissed his sister and her new baby. “Just maybe. If
I haven’t blown it completely.”

“Don’t wait
too long to find out, okay?”

How long
was too long? How long was long enough? If he went to Gracie now, what would
she say? What would she do? The uncertainty gnawed at him, but his hunger for
Gracie grew.

“Victoria
will be here next week, you know.”

“Who?”

“Linc’s
cousin, remember?”

“I do, Natalie,
but I’m sorry. She sounded perfect for me, and I wanted to give her a chance,
for your sake, but introduce her to someone else, will you? Maybe she’d like to
meet Ryan Eastland. With any luck, I’ve already met my fate.”

The next
morning, Dylan flew the Gulfstream back to East Langden. Back to Gracie.

He doubted
if either he or Gracie were the most trusting people in the world these days.
Trust was something they’d have to relearn together. He hoped he hadn’t left it
until too late to convince her to give him a try. He’d do his best.

His sister
and brother-in-law thought that would be enough.

Wyatt
thought that would be enough.

Ryan
thought he was nuts to be considering marriage, but whatever. Ryan had been a
little down lately.

Dylan hoped
his best effort would be enough for Gracie. And he hoped to God she’d booted
that pretentious snob Delacort’s butt all the way back to Hartford. If she
hadn’t, Dylan just might do the job himself.

At Liberty
House, Clay and Tanya stepped out the back door with a little boy just as Dylan
emerged from the rental car. It would probably take some time before Clayton
felt truly at ease with him, but most of the obvious animosity had disappeared.
They eyed each other carefully.

“How’s David?”
he asked.

“Improving
slowly.” Clay shuffled his feet and hoisted the little boy into his arms. “He
and Gracie told me about what happened with David your dad. Thanks for not
pressing charges.”

“What good
would it do? Wrongs have been committed on all sides. I hope we can put the
past behind us.”

“That’s
very generous of you.” Clay extended his hand in friendship. “Here’s to the
future.”

Tanya
caressed the child’s head. “I don’t think you’ve met my son. Dylan, this is
Aidan.”

“Hi, Aidan.
How old are you?”

“I’m free.”
Aidan held up three fingers. “How old are you?.”

“Aidan!”
Tanya exclaimed, but Clay and Dylan laughed.

“It’s a
fair question. I asked him first, after all. I’m thirty-two, but I have a
nephew who’s three, so I’m familiar with the age.” He took Tanya’s left hand in
his and fingered the diamond ring there. “But what’s this? New jewelry?”

“You can
give me a hug,” Tanya said to Dylan, beaming. “I’m an engaged woman.”

“Congratulations!”
He obeyed her command. “To you, too,” he said to Clay. “We’re not brothers, but
we are cousins. That makes us family, and I don’t have much to spare these
days. Maybe we can put our differences behind us.”

Clay
narrowed his eyes. “That depends on whether or not you plan to do right by
Gracie.”

“That’s why
I’m here. Think I have a shot?”

“Good as
any,” his cousin prophesied. “And you just caught her. She’s going back to
Hartford this afternoon.”

“She’s in
the carriage house packing,” Tanya revealed. “Good luck.”

Dylan
rushed up the stairs with his heart beating in his throat. MacDuff woofed a
welcome before he knocked.

Gracie
opened the door holding a wedding bouquet in her hands. A spark of hope flared
in her beautiful brown eyes that widened in disbelief. “What?”

All his
carefully planned speeches flew out of his head. “What’s with the flowers?
You’re not going to marry Baxter, are you?” Logically, he knew there was no
way. Emotionally, he worried.

A hint of a
smile tilted the corners of her mouth. “Would that be a problem?”

“Hell, yes,
that would be a problem.” He pushed past her and into the apartment. “I know
him, Gracie. I know him and his kind too well. I used to be his kind! A
self-centered, two-timing player. He won’t care about making you happy. He just
wants you to make him happy. If you’re willing to marry someone like him, marry
me instead.” Well, crap. That hadn’t come out right.

She
laughed. He hadn’t expected that, but he had bungled the proposal pretty badly.
Laughter and Gracie were an irresistible combination.

“I caught
the bouquet at my cousin Marley’s wedding yesterday.” She stuck the flowers
into a vase on the counter. “I was considering whether to take it with me or
leave it here.” She turned to him and placed her hands on her hips. “I’m not
marrying Baxter, but thank you very much for the moving proposal. Maybe you
should try again. This time expand on the part about how you won’t be a good
husband. I want to hear all about that before I make my decision.”

Encouraged
despite his ineptness, he shook his head. “I’ll try to be a good husband,
Gracie. I’ll try to be all the things you want and deserve. But you should know
up front, I might not live up to your expectations. Or mine. But I love you.
And I’ll try every day of our lives to make the good side of the scale outweigh
the bad. Will you trust me to do that?”

She wrapped
her fingers around his out-stretched hand. “I love you and I’ll trust you to do
that.” She looked happier but still wary and uncertain. “But that wasn’t the
only obstacle standing between us.”

“What
else?” he asked, eager to dispose of all her worries.

“I have a
career I love,” she said. “I won’t be a decorative fluff-ball of a wife, you
know, ordered up on a whim for photo opportunities, social activities, and
mindless sex then set aside to arrange flowers in the parlor till you’re ready
for me again. Maybe for the mindless sex, but the rest of it, no.”

He took a
step closer because this one was easy. “I’d never stand in the way of your
career. It’s one of the things I love about you most. And the round of partying
grew old a long time ago. Now, most of my social activities are charity events,
and except for the Bradford Foundation activities, we can attend those or
not—your choice.”

He swept
her into his arms, thinking he’d shown admirable restraint not to kiss her the
second he saw her, but she held him at arm’s length. “Hang on.”

“What
else?”

“Your job
is in New York. Mine is in Hartford. Where would we live?”

He frowned,
because this one was a little more difficult. “With the Internet and conference
calls, I can work from anywhere most of the time. My brother-in-law has decided
he’d like a job with more regular hours. He’s joining Grandfather Steadman’s
firm, which will allow me more time away from the office.

“We can
live in my house in Hartford if you want, so that’s a non-problem. Sometimes
I’ll need to be in New York, so I’ll keep my apartment there. But I’ll arrange
those visits around your schedule whenever possible. If you’d rather live
somewhere other than New York or Hartford, we can. Like Paris. Or London. Or
here.”

“Here? In
East Langden?”

“Don’t tell
me you don’t know the whole town would like for you to open a practice here.
And I’ve been thinking about things we could do with the Old Maine building.
Like start a co-op for the local carpenters and craftsmen. Maybe other vendors
would like to participate, too.”

“You’d do
that?”

“It makes
sense. It wouldn’t be like giving them their old jobs back, but it might help
supplement their incomes or their retirements. Boost the local economy.”

“You’re too
good to be true.” She began kissing
him
then with such delicious enthusiasm that their clothes disappeared somehow.
They were both naked within minutes.

“How’d that
happen?” Bending his head to her neck, he breathed in her scent, her essence,
her Gracie-ness.

“One of the
miracles of love.” She slipped her arms around his neck.

“I think
I’m going to like this love business.”

“Oh, you
are.” She rubbed herself against him. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Speaking
of miracles of love...” Now it was his turn to take a step back. “Do you know
yet if we made a baby or not?”

Her smile
grew wary. “Does the answer to that question have any bearing on your
proposal?”

“Nope,” he
assured her, rubbing his palm against her tummy. “The only difference will be
in timing. If you’re knocked up, I want to get married next week. If you’re
not, we can wait until next month.”

She bit her
bottom lip. “What if I still don’t know?”

“You want
to have kids sooner or later, right?”

“Right.”

“I vote for
sooner. Let’s get busy and increase our chances.” When she laughed, he scooped
her up in his arms. Heading toward the bedroom, he tripped over her luggage.
“Oh, yeah,” he said after he’d regained his balance. “Tanya and Clay told me
you were going back to Hartford.”

“Not right
this minute.” She cuddled closer.

“But when
you go back, how are you going to get there?” He sat down on the bed, keeping
her in his lap.

“I bought
the Fleming’s Blazer. I’m going to drive.”

“No, you’re
not,” he contradicted.

“I’m not?”

“I want to
take you in the Gulfstream. Will you trust me to take you up?”

He thought
she’d refuse straight out.

She drew
back to look him in the eye. “It’s irrational, but you know I’m afraid to fly.”

“Hey,” he
said, letting her have some space to think about it, “I’m afraid of commitment.
You won’t be taking a bigger leap of faith than I am.”

Her tongue
peeked out of the corner of her mouth while she considered. Damn, but he’d
missed that tongue.

“Is
this
a condition of the marriage?” she
asked. “Fly or be damned?”

“There are
no conditions. I love you and want to marry you, no matter what. I have a ring
in my pocket and everything.”

He looked
around for his pants, but they were in the other room. No way was he letting go
of her now. The ring had been in his family for two hundred years, it would
keep for a little while longer.

“There will
be times in the future,” he said, returning to his original point, “when our
schedules won’t sync. Sometimes, we’ll have to decide to do something together
or separately, based on logistics. I’d like to think we’ll travel together as
much as we can. Sometimes that might mean flying. But the choice is yours.
Which will it be? On the ground or in the air? Together or separately?”

She smiled
the smile he loved the best, the one he hoped their children would inherit, and
she gave him the answer that filled him with optimism and certainty about their
future.

“I think,”
she said, covering his face with kisses, “the sky’s the limit.”

Four months later…

“Hold
still, Dylan!” Natalie accidently pricked him with the hatpin. “The
photographer’s trying to get a picture. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to
make sure your boutonniere looked just right. You can give me five seconds to
get it pinned to your lapel so it doesn’t fall off during the ceremony.”

“I can give
you all the time you need.” He smiled down at her, unable to contain his joy at
having her with him today. “Thanks for helping. It’s almost like having Mom
here.”

“She’s here
in spirit.” Natalie tapped a finger on her heart and then on one of his cuff
links. “Dad, too.”

“Maybe they
are.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze.

From the
bridal suite at Liberty House he looked out at the activity below. It had taken
three months longer than he wanted it to, but today it was finally happening. A
stunning sun beamed down on everything. Tents covered the dance floor and the
dinner tables. Wedding planners, florists, caterers, valets, and who knew who
else bustled about. The railing from Gracie’s apartment over the carriage house
and every stationary object he could see were festooned with ribbons and lace.
Her grandfather and Reverend Peterman waited for her at the bottom of the
steps.

When he and
Gracie had talked about what kind of wedding they wanted, he said she should
have whatever she wanted. He only cared about two things. He wanted to kiss the
bride at the end of the ceremony. And he wanted the bride to be Gracie.

She wanted
a wedding that was small, intimate, fun, and casually elegant. And somehow they
had ended up with all this.

Once
Gracie’s grandmother, the wedding planner Natalie recommended, and Dylan’s
assistant had gotten involved, Dylan had bowed out of the planning unless his
input was requested. Gracie had spent most of her weeks in Hartford working, and
weekends in East Langden overseeing the wedding decisions. His only
contributions were fitting in as much time with Gracie as possible, ordering a
new tux, securing Wyatt and Ryan as best men, buying a ring, and planning the
honeymoon. Which would be at a location that was remote, luxurious, private,
and impossible for anyone but them to find.

Wyatt and
Kara were guests at Liberty House for the weekend and had arrived the day
before. Ryan had been delayed, but Dylan figured the Maserati roaring up the
drive signaled his arrival. Both best men were now present and accounted for.

“You look
fabulous.” Natalie smoothed out a non-existent crease in his jacket. “Now I
have to make sure my family looks presentable before I check in on the bride.
Josh and Maggie are apt to go from fashion plates to throw-up machines at a
moment’s notice. If this thing doesn’t start on time, all bets are off.”

“I don’t
care who spits up on whom, just make sure you’re all there. I’m not doing this
thing without you.” He kissed her cheek. “Take the photographer with you when
you go. He should be taking pictures of Gracie not me.”

“She’s got
her own team, recording her every move.” When Natalie opened the door, Wyatt,
Kara, and Ryan entered. His sister greeted them with a wink. “Stunning. All
three of you. You, too, Kara. No wonder the tabloids go crazy when you attend
black-tie events together. Let the photographer stay and get a picture of The
Brotherhood. Gracie will thank me later.”

“No
kidding.” Kara went over to give Dylan a hug. “People trip over me to get to
them. But the groom is looking especially handsome today. I may be having
second thoughts about my choice.”

“Too late,”
Wyatt said, gripping her arm. “Dylan’s taken now, you know. And so are you.”

Dylan shook
hands with both men. “I’ll always think of Kara as the one who got away.” He
slipped his arm around her waist. “If Wyatt hadn’t shown up to stake his claim
when he did, I might have made a play for you myself.”

Wyatt
tugged her back to his side. “You
did
make a play for her, several times, and she always turned you down.”

“I hadn’t
turned the full force of my charm on her yet. But once I knew you were
interested, I backed off. In honor of The Brotherhood.”

“Speaking
of which.” At the bar in the corner of the room, Ryan popped the cork on a
bottle of champagne and then filled glasses. He brought the drinks over and
passed them around. “To The Brotherhood.”

“Take a
picture,” Dylan instructed the photographer, “then wait for us in the foyer.”
They all clinked and drank while the photographer snapped away.

After he
departed, Kara distributed kisses and hugs for all three men. “Happy day for
all of you. I’ll go see if Gracie or her grandmother need help so you guys can
talk about manly things.”

Dylan
stopped her for a lingering kiss at the door. “Don’t go too far.”

“It’s just
you now, buddy,” Dylan said to Ryan. “The last bachelor in the Brotherhood.
You’ll have to party-on without us.”

“I always
expected Ryan to be the first one of us to get married,” Wyatt said. “And Dylan
to be the last.”

“Maybe now
that you two are off the market, I’ll have a fighting chance with the ladies.”
Ryan refilled their glasses.

“Yeah, that
was the problem,” Dylan agreed, returning to the window. “We were too much
competition for you.”

“What are
you waiting for anyway?” Wyatt asked. “I highly recommend it.”

Ryan joined
Dylan at the window. “You and Kara didn’t get married for almost four years
after you met. I guess I can take my time.”

“Of course,
you can,” Dylan agreed. “Take all the time you need, but when it’s right,
you’ll know it. And if you need any help meeting someone, my brother-in-law
Linc has a cousin you might like.”

“I’ll do my
own hunting.” Ryan turned from the window. “It looks like your Aunt and Uncle
have arrived. I’m surprised you invited them.”

Wyatt
lifted his eyebrows. “I’m surprised they showed up.”

“There was
a lot of debate about it.” Dylan fingered the cuff links on his French cuffs.
“They’re family. That’s the only way I can explain it.”

“Good
enough.” Ryan clapped him on the back in support of the decision.

There was a
tap on the door, and Marissa, the wedding planner, stepped inside, “Oh, my.”
She put her hand to her chest as she looked the three men up and down and
sighed. “I’ve been doing this job for twenty years, but you’re the best looking
wedding trio I’ve ever seen. You ready?”

“Let’s go.”
Dylan headed for the door, but hesitated and stopped to shake hands with his
best friends. “Thanks for being here today. Which one of you jokers wants to
handle the ring?”

“Better be Wyatt,”
Ryan said. “He’s used to keeping tracking of one.”

Wyatt
grunted and dropped Gracie’s ring into his pocket. “Huh, you’ve got all those
Super Bowl rings. Where are they?”

He
shrugged. “They’re in storage somewhere.”

Dylan
picked up his step, eager to take his place, and greet his bride.

Gracie
slipped into her sparkly shoes and accepted her bouquet. She shouldn’t be
nervous, but butterflies were keeping her stomach aflutter. So much had
happened in such a short time, she could hardly catch her breath.

And she was
marrying Dylan Bradford. She would have never seen that coming.

They’d had
a whirlwind four months and still had many details to work out. Most of the
issues were little things though. Like money, family, and careers.

They were
building a house on the Bradford property that had brought Dylan to Maine.
Together, they were repairing an old building to open as a children’s clinic in
East Langden where Gracie would see patients. Dylan was rehabbing the Old Maine
Furniture Factory to run as a co-op for the town vendors and craftsmen. And for
Gracie’s sake, he and Clay maintained a cautious friendship.

And the
pre-nup! He wouldn’t let her sign one, even though she knew someone with wealth
like his should have insisted.

“Are you
afraid I’ll someday leave you and take all your money?” he asked her when she
brought up the subject. When she laughed and said no, he said, “And I’m not
afraid you’ll do that either. You won’t even take the things I want to give
you.”

But he
wanted to give her so much! He wanted to pay off her school loans. Buy her a
new car. Remodel the carriage house at the B&B. Take her shopping. Take her
travelling. Buy her stuff on a level she couldn’t even grasp.

But his
heart was in the right place, and her negotiating skills were strong. She knew
they’d work out a compromise eventually.

For now,
she had a wedding to get to and a honeymoon to enjoy. She’d chosen Clay and
Tanya to stand up with her as bridesmaid and bridesman. Clay had been her best
friend for so long, she wouldn’t have excluded him on the most important day of
her life. Gran had already taken MacDuff in his basket and gone down to be
seated. The wedding planner had gone to get the groom in place. Clay waited to
escort her down the stairs and deliver her to her grandfather. She had asked
David to walk her down the aisle, but his health was still uncertain and he
didn’t enjoy being the center of attention. She hugged Clay and Tanya tightly.
“I wish you both all the happiness in the world,” she told them.

“You, too,”
Tanya said, dabbing at tears.

“I didn’t
think this would work out for you,” Clay said, tugging on his ear. “I’ve never
seen you happier. But if he hurts you, I’ll break his face, again.”

“No more of
that!” Gracie patted his cheek. “You’re friends now.”

“Yeah,
right,” he grumbled, but he smiled when he said it, so Gracie hoped the idea
would grow on him.

The garden
looked like a wonderland. She’d been taking peeks at the preparations from her
window. And the ever-efficient Marissa had been reporting on the completion of
each task. No major mishaps yet.

As her
something old, Gracie wrapped the chain with her dad’s dog tag and her mom’s
charm around the stem of her bouquet, to have something of them with her on
this special day. Her something blue was the sapphire necklace Dylan’s gave her
the night before. After a final tug on her veil, she gave Tanya and Clay one
last hug and set off to meet her groom.

As she came
around the corner of the carriage house with Granddad, MacDuff jumped out of
his basket and trotted over to accompany Gracie down the aisle.

Dylan
waited for her on the steps of the gazebo, heart-thumpingly gorgeous.
Naturally, a circle of sunlight beamed down on him highlighting the gold in his
hair, defining the planes of his face, and brightening the excitement in his
eyes. He laughed at MacDuff, but his smile softened as Gracie approached. He
stepped forward and met her halfway down the aisle, leaning in to give her a
kiss.

Granddad
cleared his throat. “It’s not time for that yet.”

“Sorry,”
Dylan said, cradling her hand in his. “She looked so beautiful, I couldn’t wait
for the rest of my life to begin.”