Meg's Best Man: A Montana Weekend Novella by Cynthia Bruner Page A

but before she could get up again, he reappeared to drape a paper napkin across her lap. Another paper napkin was over his left arm, and he was holding a small bottle of citrus soda over the towel like a fine wine. “Will the green do, or would you like the brown vintage?”
    “Green, please.”
    Gage opened it and handed her the cap. “Would you like to sniff the cork?”
    She gave him the stink eye and Leah giggled. As he went to pour out the soda he realized she didn’t have a cup. It took him three more trips to assemble a cup and fork and to get his own plate. Then Gage pulled a chair closer to her and sat down, knocking her elbow and dropping some potato salad into her lap. He didn’t even notice. Luckily the napkin was there to catch it.
    Joshua and Caleb were now loudly playing some sort of game that involved flicking each other with a finger. It looked painful. Leah gestured to them and asked Meg, “Are they always like this?”
    Meg nodded. “Don’t ask me why.”
    “Maybe their love language is flicking,” Gage said.
    Leah’s eyebrows raised. “Love language? Are you reading marriage books?”
    “Nope. Parenting books.” He let that comment hang in the air for a while. Leah and Meg were both silent, waiting for another shoe to drop.
    “My sister made me read a couple parts of a book,” Gage continued. “She was trying to figure out which love language my nephew had. I said he was five and the only love language she needed to know about was the hold-him-down-and-tickle-him language. It’s a pretty good sign if, when you stop, the kid starts screaming for more. I figure when he gets a little older he’ll speak the driving-too-fast-on-the-four-wheeler language. I’m fluent in that one, too.”
    “Boys,” someone said firmly, and years of experience brought Meg to attention. It worked on Joshua and Caleb, too, and the flicking stopped. Catherine sat down at the table with them, glowered at her sons, and then smiled sweetly at Leah. “How are you holding up?”
    “I’m excited,” she said, and she looked that way, Meg thought.
    “We’re taking a lot of people down to the house tonight, just to let you know. Hopefully the rest of them won’t keep you up all night.”
    “Sonya’s dance lesson should tire them out!”
    So Sonya was in charge of today’s mysterious dance lesson. That didn’t reveal anything at all, since Sonya liked all kinds of social dancing. Meg asked for more details, but Catherine and Leah weren’t talking. “They don’t want us to know so we don’t make a break for it,” Joshua said. “And don’t ask me, I’m sworn to secrecy.”
    “It had better not be clogging,” Caleb offered. “Aunt Sonya just about made me crazy the Christmas she took up clogging.”
    Meg gave Catherine a pleading look. “Please tell me it isn’t,” she said.
    Catherine smiled. “I’m not telling.”
    All the men at the table moaned. “That would be the worst thing ever,” Caleb said.
    “No,” Gage said. “Line dancing would be worse.” That brought an even louder moan.
    “I like line dancing,” Leah said. “What’s wrong with that?”
    “Line dancing is for girls,” Caleb informed her. “Men don’t line dance.”
    “I’ve seen cowboys line dance.”
    “Then it must have been in Texas, because no self-respecting Montana cowboy would ever be caught line dancing.”
    “Hey, now.” Gage held his palm up in an attempt to stop Caleb.
    Caleb was undaunted, and he gave Gage a scrutinizing look. “Well, have you ever line danced?”
    There was a brief, deep silence at the table, until Meg and Leah started laughing. Caleb waved an accusing fork at Gage, and Joshua smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I can’t believe you’re my best man.”
    “That’s where all the women were.” As soon as the words were out of Gage’s mouth, he turned to Meg and insisted, “That was a long time ago.” She could have sworn his face was turning red. Was it over the