The Brides of Holly Springs. Cathy Gillen Thacker
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or was she hearing him undress? “Do you have your seat belt on?” she asked with a frown, telling herself what she was imagining could not be so.
Dylan chuckled and continued to move around behind her on the vinyl seat, much more freely than he should have. “Ah—not at the moment, no.”
He sounded distracted.
So was she.
Aware her heartbeat was accelerating and her imagination was soaring even more wildly out of control, Hannah gripped the steering wheel even tighter. She tried not to think about the way her skin had tingled when he had accidentally brushed her face. Hannah reminded primly, “We’re on the highway, Dylan!”
Safety, however, seemed the least of his concerns. Dylan moved around all the more. Out of her peripheral vision, Hannah saw the shirt he had been wearing whip past the back of her head and the starched white tuxedo shirt come off its hanger.
“I trust your driving—you having a chauffeur’s license and all,” Dylan replied lazily, the hard muscles of his chest flexing as he worked his way into the required shirt in the confined space.
Oh, my. Was it getting hot in here or what?
Hannah reached for the AC controls and turned it to maximum cool as beads of perspiration gathered between her breasts. “Even so…” Hannah reprimanded. She heard another, even more telling zip and whoosh of cloth moving over skin.
“I can’t exactly get my pants off with my lap belt fastened,” Dylan drawled.
He had to be teasing her. He would not actually be stripping down all the way in her vehicle. Right…?
Hannah glanced over her shoulder, sure she would find she had been imagining things. Instead, her eyes widened at the sinewy chest, visible through the unbuttoned halves of his crisp white shirt, and the sexy lines of his broad, muscular shoulders. At six foot, Dylan Hart might be the shortest of the five Hart brothers, but there was nothing small about him.
Hurriedly Hannah turned her gaze back to the road. Her palms were trembling. Her emotions ran riot. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a strangled voice, trying without success to forget the rest of what she had seen. Long muscular legs. Black silk bikini briefs clinging to…
Never mind what the fabric was molding!
She had a job to do here and that was to get them both to Janey and Thad’s wedding!
“SOMEONE NEEDS TO ASK Hannah Reid to dance,” Mac Hart said.
Dylan looked at his oldest sibling. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised Mac would be the one to bring this up. Mac had always been the law-and-order member of his family, even before becoming sheriff of Holly Springs some five years prior.
“Yeah,” Fletcher chimed in. Having recently discovered romance himself, with florist Lily Madsen, the vet in the family was now into chivalry, big-time. “The reception is almost over and no one has asked Hannah to dance.”
“No surprise there,” Dylan muttered, looking around for the town’s premier mechanic, relieved to find her nowhere in sight. Although Hannah was often reserved in what she had to say—to him, anyway—she had a way of looking at him that made him think she always expected more from him.
“Hannah’s like a—” Dylan had been about to say “sister,” but that notion had gone out the window the moment he had seen Hannah dolled up in the sexy black-and-white dress, black stockings and heels that his sister Janey had chosen for her bridesmaids.
“—like one of the guys,” Dylan finished. Although he’d always thought of her as a “plain Jane,” today she had transformed herself into an auburn-haired goddess. How come he’d never noticed her creamy skin and vibrant green eyes before? And it wasn’t that Hannah hadn’t always had a very remarkable set of curves on her. Just that they were usually hidden beneath a pair of grimy coveralls, or equally shapeless and masculine attire. On the job or off. “The way she is always talking sports and hanging out to drink beer and watch NASCAR and swap stories with the guys and stuff.”
“She doesn’t really watch NASCAR anymore,” Mac interrupted.
“Yeah,” the very married Joe Hart chimed in.
Dylan turned to Joe, amazed at the changes in his baby brother. Three months ago, all Joe had cared about was the sport he played. Then he had joined lives with his boss’s daughter, Emma Donovan. And now—much to Dylan’s aggravation—the pro hockey player considered himself the authority on wedded bliss. When, unbeknownst to all of them, it was really Dylan who had the “score” on that.
“Not since Hannah and Rupert Wallace broke it off,” Joe pointed out casually, helping himself to a last slice of wedding cake.
That had been two years ago, Dylan recalled. He glanced around, wondering where his brother Cal was. Since Cal’s wife, Ashley, had called to say she wouldn’t be coming to the wedding after all—the pretty doctor was stuck in Honolulu, working on her OB/GYN fellowship—Cal had been in a funk and kept mostly to himself.
“And it doesn’t matter how much she’s one of the guys,” Fletcher continued sternly. “She’s a bridesmaid. She ought to get at least one dance. And since you’re the groomsman who escorted her down the aisle at the church, it’s your responsibility.”
Dylan tried not to think what it would feel like to hold Hannah Reid’s surprisingly soft and feminine-looking body in his arms. Or see that knowing look in her eyes once again. Too much one-on-one time with her and he might do something really foolish—like kiss her.
“All right, all right,” he muttered in exasperation, giving in at last, telling himself he could manage to keep his secret desire for her at bay during one brief dance. “Where is she?” He was determined to get this over with as soon as possible.
“Last I saw she was headed upstairs,” Mac said.
“To help Janey change into her going-away outfit?” Dylan asked, aware that the groom—Thad—had just come back down to rejoin the two hundred or so guests left in the Wedding Inn ballroom.
His brother shrugged as one song ended and another began. Aware he’d never hear the end of it if he didn’t ask the bridesmaid he had been paired with to dance, Dylan headed out into the marble-floored hallway and up the sweeping staircase that led to the second floor.
The door to the bride’s changing suite was closed. He could hear laughing female voices emanating from behind it. The groom’s changing suite, on the other side of the staircase, was empty. Thrusting his hands in the pockets of his black tuxedo pants, Dylan strolled that way, killing time, as he waited for the women to come out. And that was when he heard it, the voices a little farther down the hall. Coming from the dressing suite usually reserved for the groom’s parents.
“Got any tips on dealing with—what’s his name again?” Dylan heard Hannah ask.
Curious, and wondering just who she was with, he strolled soundlessly closer.
“R. G. Yarborough,” Dylan was stunned to hear his brother Cal reply in a crisp, matter-of-fact voice. “And it’s important to start out on the right foot with him,” Cal added somewhat impatiently. “So wear a skirt.”
Dylan frowned. Did she even have one? Aside from the bridesmaid dress she had worn tonight, and the gowns from the various other weddings she had been in? What was it women said about that? Always a bridesmaid never a bride?
Hannah’s beleaguered sigh whispered out into the hall. “What else?” Hannah asked Cal reluctantly.
Trying not to think why his brother—whose own decade-long marriage to his college sweetheart seemed to be having trouble—would be advising one of the most beautiful tomboys in the area who to see or what to wear, Dylan leaned against the wall.
“He’s probably going to be difficult,” Cal continued advising, as if he was a coach before a game, and Hannah was one of his players. “But if you use all your