"And which one would that be?" she asked.

He reached around her, into the box, and withdrew the condom he'd asked for specifically.

"Oh, my," Rissi said, as he held up the unique item, designed to look like a man in a tuxedo.

"Squeeze his top hat," Trent instructed, a bit of pride in his tone that he he was actually teaching was actually teaching her her a thing or two about a s.e.x toy. a thing or two about a s.e.x toy.

Laughing, Rissi squeezed the hat, and the condom promptly belted out the Wedding March. She stopped laughing, tilted her head to look at him. Okay, this wasn't the traditional way he had envisioned proposing to a woman, especially on an afternoon following a public dismissal on morning television and radio. A condom shaped like a groom that played the Wedding March? But then again, this was no traditional woman. This was Rissi Kincaid, e-zine owner, cheating-guy-basher, noncooker, belly laugher . . . sensual, s.e.xual, maddening . . . the woman he loved.

"Are you-or, well, does this mean what I think it means?" she stammered.

Trent got down on one knee. "I haven't got a ring yet, darling, since I was rather tied up this week, living in an apartment with a woman who professed to hate me, but I'm hoping we can shop for one soon, because I don't want to wait any longer than necessary to be your husband. And, for now, that that was the most unique way to show you what I want. I want you, forever." was the most unique way to show you what I want. I want you, forever."

She pressed the hat again and laughed. "I can't believe it. He's playing the Wedding March!"

"Well, he's not just whistling Dixie," Trent said with a grin. "And you still haven't answered me, darling."

"Just a second," she said, and barreled through the other bizarre items in the box.

Trent waited. And waited. And waited. "You realize I don't plan to stay on my knees forever."

"I'm looking to see if Amy has what I need."

"What you need?"

She nodded, then shrugged. "I guess I'll have to let Landon know there's a condom that would be very useful, particularly for occasions like this."

"Care to describe it?" he asked.

"It'd be in the shape of a bride, and when you squeezed her veil, she'd scream, Yes, Yes, Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes!"

Trent grabbed her and they tumbled to the floor. Then he kissed her thoroughly, lovingly, the way he planned to kiss her every day, from this day on. "You realize, since they don't have one like that yet, we'll have to improvise."

"Improvise?"

"I'll let that groom play the Wedding March," he said slyly, "and you scream Yes, Yes, Yes! Yes, Yes, Yes!"

The top three things in a man's priority list-a sharp car, a close game, and a hot woman . . . not in that order.

-KEITH P PARKER

Chapter 26.

Swing, batter, batter, batter. Sha-wing!" Candi Moody chanted from her position on third base. Then she turned, looked at Keith in the opposing dugout, merely feet away from her, and blew him a kiss. "We're going to beat ya, big boy," she said.

Keith merely shook his head and laughed, then he turned to Trent, grabbing a batting helmet in preparation to face the fierce pitcher on the girls' team, and a woman who would be his mother-in-law in two days.

"Daniel's having a rough time at the plate today," Keith said.

Trent watched as Daniel Kincaid took a swing and missed. He'd struck out every time he'd been at bat.

Amy, decked out in full catcher gear behind the plate, screamed, "Stu-rike one!"

Landon, currently on second base and ready to run, heckled his wife. "You call that a strike?"

"Hey, buster," she warned. "Keep that up, and I'll throw you out of this park!"

"You better be nice, Daddy!" Bo yelled from the girls' dugout, where he and Lettie's daughter, Ginny, were playing in the dirt.

Landon smiled, then geared his yell toward the man at the plate. "Come on, Daniel. Don't let her strike you out again!"

Mona did some kind of little dance on the mound-the same dance she'd done with every strike she'd achieved throughout the "rehearsal game"-and Trent laughed so hard he snorted.

It'd actually been Mona's idea that Trent and Marissa should have something unique for their wedding reception, and then Amy's idea that a baseball game would do the trick. Naturally, they wanted to play a "rehearsal game" before the fact, just so they'd have the whole shebang down pat. And because they had so much fun playing. And flirting. Right now, Mona was getting in her share of flirting with her husband, doing his best at the plate, but failing miserably. Bill, Lettie's husband, was also getting in a bit of flirting. He was on first base, and should have been prepared to run when Daniel hit the ball, but he was kissing the first baseman (first basewoman?), his wife.

"I could hit the ball if your shirt wasn't so tight," Daniel complained from the plate, and Mona, totally thrilled that he'd noticed her snug T-shirt, stuck her chest out.

Marissa giggled from her spot at second base, and Mona gave her the thumbs-up sign.

"I've still got it, don't I, baby?" Mona called to Daniel. "Go on, admit it. I do."

He straightened his batter's helmet, then laughed. "I doubt you'll ever lose it, dear."

Keith, thoroughly enjoying having all of their friends playing his favorite sport, turned to Trent and grinned. "Mona's got a pretty good arm."

"I'm not so sure it's that her arm is so good, or that his swing is so bad."

"Show 'em what we've got, girls! Work it, now," Mona instructed, and all of the women on the field mimicked her celebration jig. Marissa put a bit more wiggle in her hips, though, and consequently, Trent's pants became extremely tight along the crotch.

She'd decided that the two of them should abstain from making love for the final month before the wedding. So far, they'd made it twenty-seven days, ten hours, and twenty-two minutes.

Trent had counted every second.

Candi, with her blond ponytail pulled through the back of her baseball cap and dangling down her back, added a shimmy move to her celebration dance that was totally geared toward Keith in the dugout.

"You're killin' me," he told her. Then he looked at Trent and said, "d.a.m.n, she's cute."

"Yeah," Trent said, "she's definitely cute," though he was looking at the woman who'd marry him in merely two days, on the one-year anniversary of their first day in Coleman and Speedy's apartment.

"So tell me something," Keith said, still eyeing Candi, while Daniel fouled another ball, and Lettie stopped kissing her husband long enough to chase after it.

"Tell you what?" Trent asked.

"How'd we get so d.a.m.n lucky?"

Trent grinned. "I think it all started when you were trying to help me move DieHardAtlanta into print format, and then you found my name in a cheating database, or something like that."

Keith smiled, obviously recalling that day a year ago when he'd shown Trent the cheater site. "And the whole time, I was just doing my job as your financial advisor. h.e.l.l, I was simply trying to see if we could get your name out there for the world to see." He put on his batting gloves, then grabbed an aluminum bat. "Coleman and Speedy sure took care of getting your name out there, didn't they?"

"I'll say they did." Trent had even invited the duo of DJs to the wedding, and had even given them permission to post the highlights on their website. It was the least he could do, given they'd done so much to help all of his dreams come true with Rissi Kincaid.

He watched her take her cap off, blow her rogue curl off her forehead, then put the cap back on. Then he laughed when that adorable curl snuck back down to tickle the edge of her brow. She shrugged, and left it alone this time.

"Think about it. Because of everything that happened back then, I found Candi," Keith said. "h.e.l.l, I'd nearly given up on finding a woman I wanted."

"I know." Trent felt the same way about finding Rissi again.

Trent and Keith were the only two in the dugout, since Landon and Bill were on first and second, respectively. During the entire engagement period, Keith hadn't said much about the whole wedding thing, or the fact that he was serving as Trent's best man, since Trent's father had pa.s.sed on, or the fact that he and Candi were also coming up on their one-year anniversary of dating each other. But evidently, he now decided that the confine of a baseball dugout was the perfect place to get all sentimental.

"You know what's even better about it, about everything happening the way it did?" Keith asked.

"No, but I have a feeling you'll probably tell me."

"Basically, I helped you find the woman you're going to marry."

"That's true," Trent said. "And I'll always owe you big-time for that, won't I?"

"Not really, because I'd say we can call it even."

"How's that?" Trent asked.

"You helped me find the woman I'm going to marry, too, and you even paid me while you were doing it. I did charge you my regular fee for all of that insight back then, you know. And my fee's pretty d.a.m.n high."

"You're pathetic," Trent said, laughing.

But Candi had vacated her spot on third base, even though Daniel had finally managed to hit the ball, and Amy's husband, Landon, was now rounding second and heading directly toward where Candi should have been.

"What did you say?" she asked, apparently listening in on this bit of male bonding occurring in the dugout. Guys never really got a handle on the fact that those chain-link fences weren't exactly soundproof. Typically, they were only caught cussing in the dugout, but this time, that wasn't what Candi had overheard.

"Busted," Trent said, while Keith shrugged.

"What do you mean?" he asked, playing dumb, and doing a pretty pitiful job of it, as she entered the dugout and poked a finger at his chest.

"You know what I mean, Keith Parker. Did you say what I thought you said, just now, and in the dugout, to Trent, instead of to me?"

"Heard that, did ya?"

Daniel Kincaid was huffing and puffing as though he wished someone would tag him out, but that wasn't happening, since the ball was currently boogying down the third-base line, and the third baseman (basewoman?) was currently interrogating her man in the guys' dugout. Nevertheless, Daniel continued to run, and his wife actually cheered for him from the pitcher's mound.

"Yes, I heard," Candi said, not caring one iota that Daniel was about to score a home run. "And I'm wondering . . . exactly when were you going to say something, well, similar, to me?" she asked.

"Similar to what?" Keith asked, and now both teams began to converge by the guys' dugout, with Mona helping her husband make the walk. He was breathing way too hard to handle it on his own.

"You said Trent helped you find the woman you're going to marry," Candi said, and she eased closer to him. "Is that true?"

"I also said that he paid me at the time," Keith said, "though that doesn't seem to be the part that you're interested in, huh?"

"I've never been interested in your money, though it does make life easier," she answered with a grin. "But I am interested in that other part."

"Which part was that again?" he asked, and she grabbed his chest-more specifically, from the look of things, his nipple-and pinched it hard.

"d.a.m.n!" he exclaimed, then grabbed her wrist, and held it.

"I'm waiting," she whispered, their faces merely inches apart.

"We all are," Rissi said, as she moved closer to Trent and grinned at Candi and Keith.

"You really want me to ask you here?" he asked.

"Unless you want me to grab the other one," she said, moving her other hand toward the opposite nipple.

"You got a feisty one there," Daniel said, finally catching his breath. Then, when Mona elbowed him, he added, "And feisty ones are the best kind."

Trent wrapped an arm around Marissa and squeezed her tightly. His future father-in-law was right; feisty ones were were the best kind. She responded by snuggling against him. the best kind. She responded by snuggling against him.

"What's happ'nin'?" Bo asked, edging his way into the dugout with his cousin Ginny beside him. They'd obviously noticed there were more interesting things happening over here than in the girls' dugout.

"Yeah, what's happ'nin'?" Ginny echoed.

"Keith needs to ask Candi a question," Amy told her son, while Landon moved next to her, then scooped Bo up as they watched Keith grow nervous.

"Well, you gonna ask her?" Bo asked, and they all laughed.

"Yeah, are you?" Trent joined in.

Keith grinned. "Candi, will you-" he started, then stopped when Candi held up her palm.

"Uh-uh," she said. "I've waited a long time for this, and if you're going to do it, you'd better do it right."

"The ring is at home," Keith said, obviously baffled.

She smiled. "That's not what I mean by doing it right. On your knees, mister."

Keith's dark brows inched up a notch, then he nodded, and lowered to his knees in the dugout, which was getting pretty crowded now.

"Will this do, my dear?" Keith asked, and though everyone probably wanted to comment, or laugh, or applaud, no one said a word. Everyone was merely watching their special moment take place.

"Yes, it's perfect now," Candi said, smiling through the tears currently slipping down her cheeks. "This is the way I've always pictured it, the man I love proposing to me on one knee."