The Best Man in Texas (15 page)

“I’m not so worried about that anymore,” she told him as she raised her face to his. “You make me brave.”

And you make me happier than I ever thought possible.
He didn’t say the words aloud now, too busy kissing her, but he’d tell her later. And often.

The high-pitched squeals coming through the cell phone were so loud that Brooke held it away from her ear.

Jake, who was on the balcony proofreading a humorous piece she’d drafted about honeymoons, winced in sympathy.

“You eloped?” Meg demanded at an ear-splitting decibel.
“You?”

“Some moms pass on their wedding dress to their daughters, I guess our mother just passed on this quaint tradition.” She grinned. “It was
very
passionate and romantic.”

This got a thumbs-up from Brooke’s husband of the past forty-eight hours. They really should have started calling their loved ones yesterday with the news, but they’d been…otherwise occupied. His parents—two charming people she’d come to adore—had not been surprised by the announcement and had welcomed her warmly to the family.

“We’ll have a huge party to celebrate when we get back,” Brooke said. “Wanna help with that?”

Meg, whose latest venture was a party-planning
business, laughed in delight. “If it turns out well, you have to let me use you as a testimonial. And now that your last name’s McBride, people won’t even know we’re related.”

Brooke McBride. She grinned stupidly, thrilled with her new name. During the past six weeks of dating Jake, she’d decided without a doubt that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, but she’d been having trouble getting excited about looking for another dress and sending out invitations. Again. And even though Giff was being a veritable saint about their relationship, neither she nor Jake could imagine asking
him
to be the best man at
their
wedding. It seemed unbelievably tacky.

So when Jake had half-jokingly pointed out that they could elope during their trip to the islands, Brooke had decided it was perfect, in an ironic, fate-getting-the-last-laugh kind of way.

“Do you have pictures? Did you tell Mom and Dad yet?”

“Yes and yes. I’ll give you all the details when I get home,” Brooke promised. “But we’ve got other calls to make.” Eventually.

“All right. Give your gorgeous new hubby a hug from me!”

“Will do.” Brooke hung up and went to join Jake in the tropical breeze, bracing an arm on either side of his chair. “In case I haven’t told you in the last five minutes, I love you.”

“Back at you.” He kissed her deeply, then rose, scooping her up and carrying her toward the bed.

Brooke giggled. “You do realize you have over twenty states left to go. You may have set the bar too high—it’ll be impossible to top this trip.”

Waggling his eyebrows at her, he said, “I have some ideas. Wanna hear about them?”

She shook her head. “Surprise me.”