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Gosh, she hated the word perfect, but it was basically Jenna’s middle name.
“Becca’s right. Wife material right there.” Simone nodded, a huge smile turning up on her beautiful, freckled face.
At the risk of having her glowering mood show, Lacey took another serving of apple crumble pie and hoped it would be enough to sweeten the sour expression on her face.
“All jokes aside, I honestly do think you’re about the only one who could actually fill the spot, Jenna. You have everything it takes. Beauty. Brains. And if I may say so, butt.” That comment made everyone else around Lacey laugh rather heartily.
“You tick every single box and then some,” Andrea continued, drawing imaginary ticks in the air to prove her point. “How are you not married to one of them yet?”
“I don’t know, ladies,” Mike said with a full grin on his face as he stretched out a hand and rubbed it over his wife Becca’s shoulder. “I mean, have you met these three guys?”
Dough chimed in, “Yeah, being married to any one of them will be a hell of a lot of work.”
“Don’t be fooled by that Kennedy charm, and what do you call it? Sex appeal? We’ve known them our whole lives, and they can be real grumpy bears when they want to be,” Phil teased.
First of all, what charm? Second of all, what sex appeal?
“Oh, don’t let them scare you away, Jenna. Come on guys, one of you pop the question right now and right here,” Andrea said, clapping her hands, her blond curls bouncing up and down as she directed the statement to the three other men seated around the table.
“Wait a minute, my dear cousins,” Jenna began leaning forward and tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Are you saying I’m not up for the task of marrying a cowboy Kennedy? I’ll have you know that there’s nothing I put my mind to that I don’t get. I swam in the most treacherous water known to mankind. I climbed Mount Everest. I save lives every day of my life, sometimes in snake-infested jungles in Africa. And I can make a flawless soufflé, plus my skin is still as soft as a baby’s bottom.”
All the ladies cheered Jenna on for her potent response to their significant others' challenging statements. And everything annoyed Lacey all the wrong way.
“Seriously, how hard can it be to be the wife of a cowboy? Anyone can do it. I can do it in my sleep.” Lacey realized instantly she hadn’t meant to voice that statement out loud to the public at hand when laughter so raucous broke out around her that she worried the chandelier above their heads would come crashing down on them.
What was so funny, anyway? That she thought it was easy to be a cowboy’s wife or that she thought she could do it herself.
But it was out there now, and she had to go with it. But seriously, did their future wife really need to have done all that, plus wrestle alligators, jump from planes, walk through fire, and keep her skin soft? She was also sure Jenna could claim all three of the above as things she had already done.
“You think it would be easy to be married to one of us?” Joshua asked in that deep, husky voice of his, and the room quieted immediately.
Lacey raised her gaze directly to his.
“Yes,” Lacey said. It didn’t matter that her heart had started to drum in her chest for some weird reason.
“Is that so,” Tyler goaded.
“Yes,” she said, with the same degree of confidence.
“Are you sure about that?” Case asked softly.
“Very sure,” she replied.
“Oh,” Jenna said, between a few demure bouts of giggles. “Don’t mind my little cousin. But as flattered as I am that you think I’m Kennedy wife material, I fly to Papua New Guinea in a week or so on a humanitarian effort and then to Brazil. But who knows, maybe when I get back?” Jenna lowered her voice. It was so ducking clear she was flirting with all three Kennedy brothers.
And Lacey’s mouth would not stop getting her into trouble.
“In fact, I think it’ll be a walk in the park being married to all three of you at the same time. Now that would be a challenge worth my time.”
She didn’t take her gaze off the three cowboys as they stared her down, the atmosphere between them thick and heavy. Silence ensued between them for maybe half a minute before, yet again, she was startled by the explosion of laughter that followed her rather bold statement.
“Silly Lacey. You were always the funny one,” Jenna said, then gave Lacey a condescending side hug. “You don’t have to prove anything. Just like med school, sweetie,” she said then rubbed Lacey’s back like she was consoling a two-year-old. “This isn’t a competition, honey, but bless you for thinking it was. You’re special the way you are, sweetie. And you’re good at other things, like selling baskets and stuff. I think the Kennedys are looking for something a little more traditional in a wife though. But like I said, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone, sweetie.”
Watch me.
Maybe she shouldn’t have made that mental promise to herself, but now she was damned if she didn’t do a practice wife run with the Kennedy brothers, whether they liked it or not, just to prove to Jenna she could do anything she wanted and yes, it was very much a damn competition.
Chapter Four
