In Shining Whatever (Three Magic Words Trilogy #2)(70)

"Grab an apron. I'll give you my tips if you'll work," Kate said.

She carried Slim and Bobby's order out and nodded at Hart, who motioned her over to the table.

"Busy day?" he asked.

She nodded.

He stood up and held the chair. "Sit a minute and catch your breath."

"I can't. There's..



The whole cafe went so silent, Kate was afraid to look behind her.

"Would you please sit down?" Hart's eyes were twinkling. She half-expected him to pull a Snickers bar from his windbreaker and offer it to her. If he did, she'd have a mountain of explaining to do.

She sat down, because in the deadly quiet she couldn't think of a single reason why she shouldn't. Hart peeled off his jacket and handed it to his mother. He dropped down on one knee and opened a red velvet box to reveal a square-cut diamond engagement ring. "Mary Katherine Miller, will you marry me?" he asked.

She stared at him as if he had three eyes and a dozen ears, then leaned back to see what in the hell was glittering on his T-shirt.

"I looked for a white horse and a suit of armor, but all I could find was my white truck. I did wash the mud off it, though." He leaned back so she could see the shirt. "I am your knight in shining whatever, so please say you will marry me."

Right there in glowing, glittery silver, written across the front of his T-shirt, was the word "Whatever."

He dropped back down on one knee again. "So I'm asking a third time and hoping this is the charm. Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she whispered.

He slipped the ring on her finger, kissed her long and hard, picked her up, and carried her out the front door to the applause of everyone in the restaurant.





The sun set in an array of pinks, yellows, and oranges that matched the colors in Sophie's and Fancy's dresses perfectly. A white carriage pulled by six horses carried all three of them from the house where they'd gotten dressed to the barn where the wedding and reception were being held. Kate's mother, Mary, and Hart's mother, Elisa, had worked together overseeing the transformation from a barn into something medieval. Twelvefoot drapes of chiffon in the same colors as the sunset hung on the walls. Kate's three magic words were about to become reality.

"Nervous?" Sophie asked Kate.

"Yes, ma'am," Kate said. "I still can't believe y'all fixed up that engagement with Hart and didn't even tell me about it."

Fancy laughed. "He called me from the motel y'all stayed at on the way home and made me talk about your three magic words. He said he wanted to be your whatever and didn't know how. After we talked a few minutes, he laughed and declared that he'd figured it out. We were as surprised as you when he came in with that written on a T-shirt. He must've stayed up half the night gluing glitter to that shirt. What'd you do with it?"

"It's in my keepsake box"

She didn't tell them that it had joined a handful of Snickers wrappers and newspaper clippings of every time that Hart's name had been mentioned in the Breckenridge paper.

Fancy laughed. "Well, he's your whatever, and you look like a medieval bride who could knock a knight's armor off him with Ninja kicks."

Kate smiled. She wore an ivory silk gown styled with an em pire waist and slim-fitting skirt. Her dark hair had been styled high on her head and was held with the pearl comb that Maw Maw had worn in her hair when she married. It was the white cowboy boots that didn't fit the rest of the look, but Kate had declared she was about to be a rancher's wife, so she would have cowboy boots.

"You are absolutely stunning. If you'd lived back in castle days, there'd be dead knights all over the land," Sophie said.

Kate cocked her head to one side quizzically.

"Hart would have killed every one of them that came for your hand," Sophie explained.

"I still can't believe I let you two and the mothers talk me into this. I didn't even want a reception," Kate said.

"This is not your wedding. It's your mother's. That's what Theron told me. When our daughters get married, then it's our turn. So grin and bear it," Fancy said.

"Hart is the knight. You are the lady. Here we are. Take a deep breath and be grateful the style wasn't corsets and eighteeninch waists in that day," Sophie said.

"It might have been. Who knows? Momma just thought this was the perfect dress when we went shopping. She said it looked like the lady on the cover of a castle romance she read a few years ago. It's probably something from a different era altogether," Kate grumbled.

"How do you feel?" Fancy asked.

"Beautiful, and like the luckiest woman alive," Kate said honestly.

"Then go marry that man. You've waited almost sixteen years for this day. It's yours. Enjoy it," Fancy said.

Sophie adjusted the comb in Kate's upswept black hair and kissed her on the cheek. "Let's do this thing, girls. Let's go make the mommas proud"

"And the grandmas. Don't forget Maw Maw," Fancy said.

Theron waited by the carriage and took Fancy's arm, leading her into the barn. Patrick Ducaine escorted Sophie and served as his son's best man. Hart waited under a cast-iron arch, woven with roses of every color the mothers could find in a three-county area.