Three Southern Beaches: A Summer Beach Read Box Set by Kathleen Brooks, Robyn Peterman, Christie Craig Page A

wife, Katelyn, made their way up the steps.
    “I heard that!” Gemma laughed.
    “Mr. Everett, can I be a flower girl?” eight-year-old Sydney asked. Marshall and Katelyn’s six-year-old son, Wyatt, already had run off to join his cousin Jackson.
    “I want to be one too!” seven-year-old Layne and Piper called as they ran over.
    “Pleeeeeeease?” they all begged.
    Trey laughed as Miles and Morgan whispered to Layne that it wasn’t polite to request to be in someone else’s wedding. Similarly, Tammy and Pierce informed Piper of that fact as their four-year-old son, Dylan, struggled to get down so he could play with his friends.
    “It’s okay,” Trey smiled at the three pairs of matching hazel eyes. The cousins looked nothing alike except for those eyes. “I’ll talk to the boss about it after she agrees to marry me and see what I can do.”
    The girls’ faces lit with excitement as they headed off to practice being flower girls and Trey got updates on how everyone was doing. Miles’s farming company was expanding. Morgan’s consulting firm was growing to include public relations, including helping Taylor out with promotion for her movie. Katelyn was getting ready to hire a new vet at the animal hospital. Tammy was happily running Rooney & Rooney since Kenna had left to become the county's prosecutor.
    “Thank goodness when Kenna left, Neely Grace was there to fill the void. I don’t know how I’ve kept from shooting Henry and those horrible pick-up lines. I think he feels he has to use them all on me since Neely gets mad when he uses them on her,” Tammy told him. He could believe it, but Henry wouldn’t be Henry unless he acted just a little sleazy.
    “And how’s the Cropbot doing?” Trey asked Pierce about his farming invention.
    “Doing great. We sell out every year and are upping production. Soon we’re going to outgrow the facility we’re in and will have to find a new one,” Pierce told him. It was hard to imagine that these two dressed in jeans and cowboy boots were millionaires or that Dani and Mo were royalty of the small Middle Eastern nation of Rahmi. It was one of the wonderful things about Keeneston—everyone could be themselves and be treated as such.
    Soon the Rose sisters, along with Marcy Davies and Betsy Ashton, started setting out food. Almost naturally, the men, women, and children separated into their respective corners. The women sat on the porch telling stories while the kids sat on the lawn under a large maple tree. The men moved to the stairs as they balanced plates of food on their knees.
    “Have you thought of a special way to propose?” Mo asked as he took a bite of fried chicken.
    “Not yet. It has to be super romantic, though. Taylor deserves a perfect proposal.”
    “I think you’ll find that as long as it comes from you, it will be perfect,” Miles informed him in such a serious way it seemed the complete opposite of the romantic words he said.
    “So says the man who painted a water tower to ask his wife to marry him,” Cy teased.
    “Oh, and riding into town on a horse was what? Just convenient?” Marshall teased his brother Cy. “Why don’t you just ask her? I asked Katelyn at home. It was private and completely ours.”
    “And completely boring,” Cade laughed before turning to Trey. “You know how I proposed to Annie—on the field after the championship game. You could do something like that at the Vultures field. You could do it two ways: at the first game in front of everyone or have a romantic night out and end up on the field all alone.”
    “No woman can resist a man on a horse. I’m just sayin’,” Cy put in as the debate of best marriage proposal raged on.
     
    *     *     *
     
    Taylor gripped her coffee mug tightly and took a deep breath. It was two in the morning and they’d been filming since ten the previous morning. If Melanie didn’t hit her mark, then Taylor was going to kill her. This was the twenty-eighth take and it