LITMIR.BIZ

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flute inverted. One perfect drop of champagne splashed on the tip of my nose and slowly seeped inside. All good-sported sentiments drained away as I hung upside down and tears of frustration began trickling up, or rather down, my forehead, the rush of blood and humiliation burning my cheeks.

      In another flash, I was restored to vertical and hauled off flailing in a different direction. Okay, that’s it. Rag-doll helpless was not my style and I…had…had…enough. A cold, clear fury crackled down my still throbbing spine. I hesitated just a moment, debating whether to turn and bite the hair-filled ear attached to the side of my head—blech!—or to stick out my dainty orange shoe and trip him violently, mid-stride. But before I could maneuver my foot into position, Groom Daddy tangoed us—wham!—into a guy who’d materialized on the dance floor directly in our flight path.

      The impact jostled us around and we bounced off each other a few times until this guy steadied me with a firm grasp on my elbow and eased me off to one side. I shot a quick glance at Groom Daddy and then couldn’t look away as he burst into a snarling rage. Thwarted? his look said. You think you can stop me? You. Stop me? N-e-v-e-r. Apparently you don’t get a house on your very own hill by letting things slide.

      Oh, God, this was gonna be ugly. I just had the time to wonder, as I slammed my eyes shut, how my high-strung friend—the “everything has to be perfect” bride—was going to handle this little digression from the program. I turned away, held my breath and braced for the blast.

      And then…nothing.

      Risking a quick one-eyed peek, I saw Groom Daddy’s scowl had been arrested midsquint and amazement was washing back over his face. The guy bowed to him, low from the waist. And then I, along with everyone else under that tent, watched as he straightened into an elegant long-necked pose, miming a tango embrace with his arms. His voice was low but it rang out in the silence as he politely inquired of Groom Daddy, “Shall we dance?”

      No one breathed. But he was too perfect—serious, gracious and so very ballroom proper. In one giant gust, the crowd exhaled a collective breath of relief and puffs of delighted laughter floated through the saffron dusk.

      Even Groom Daddy, sniffing the odds, half chuckled with them. “Aww, let’s get a drink,” he barked, grabbing the guy’s neck with one arm. He raised his other arm to the bartender, hollering for a glass, and dragged the guy with him toward the bar. As he was towed off the floor, taking my place in the prison grip of Groom Daddy’s soggy embrace, my rescuer turned to look at me and winked.

      Whoa. Just like a movie! I pictured a gorgeous actress lifting her chin, flashing the spectators her dazzling smile and then turning to float imperiously away. I pictured her, however, wearing a stunningly simple column of a dress and not the offensive orange pouf. I reapplied my good-sport face, thrust out my vacuum-packed marshmallows and glided off the floor, daintily twirling the delicate and apparently indestructible stem of the crystal flute.

      As I cleared the dispersing crowd, my date rushed to my side. Except he wasn’t really a date. Matt was the discarded ex-fiancé of my best friend, Eva. Wounded and hurting, he’d started working on me, trying to convince me that he and I could be more than friends. I didn’t buy it. But I did—at the risk of sounding somewhat mercenary—need a date for the wedding. So there we were, not buddies, not dates. Matt took my arm and leaned to whisper in my ear. Solicitous murmurings? Embarrassed apologies?

      “Dylan,” he said, “you could see everything!” I cut my eyes at him and gave him my look.

      “Your thong!” he groaned and peered anxiously around him to see who was watching us. Everybody.

      Thong? My little peach lace thong? A hollow spot began to grow in my stomach. Oh, God! It must have been when I was hanging upside down and my leg flew up in the air. What did a thong look like from that angle? I winced. No wonder everyone was staring. The hollow place turned into a knot. I widened my eyes, trying to blink away the sting of tears. Because I never cried anymore. Ever.

      I took a big breath, and…There was the guy, looking right at me, all the way across the dance floor, held captive at the bar, paying too steep a price for his gallantry. A humid hug. Another toast. And Groom Daddy roared, “To the tango, to beautiful girls, to cham-pagne!”

      I looked at my rescuer. Who was this guy? He seemed fairly standard-issue. Maybe late-twenties or thirty. Hard to tell. Really tall but otherwise pretty ordinary. Definitely not a hunk, but not bad, either. Right then he had hug-rumpled brown hair. It’s too long. Or maybe not…Yeah, no, it’s too long. And long legs. Not too long, though, just long. And a dark tan. In October? Probably looks better wearing jeans and a T-shirt than that dark suit. Then I looked at his eyes, his midnight-black eyes and it was as if he was standing a foot away. I felt a zap, a physical jolt. The skin all over my body shrank up and I could feel him, feel the change in the ions between us. I stood there gawking. I just hoped my mouth wasn’t hanging open.

      Then he grinned.

      I forgot all about the upside-down thong, turned and handed my champagne flute to my erstwhile date, gave him a tiny smile and walked straight back into Groom Daddy hell to meet the guy.

      2

      WHAT WAS IT about an honest-to-God rescue? I swear I would have swooned if I’d been the type. I saw myself—in the movie star’s sleek column of a dress—weaving my way across the crowded floor. In my head, no one leered. People smiled and moved aside.

      It wasn’t just me. We all wanted that perfect someone to waltz—or, even better, tango!—in and deliver us from our dreary, boring, ordinary lives. Someone to save us from ourselves. We’ve watched Pretty Woman, seen the tender young thing being saved by a handsome, rich, charming, intelligent man—in a limo, no less—and we’ve said, “Right there! That’s exactly what we want.”

      I don’t think we were brainwashed by the perfect Hollywood story, though. I think we inherited the want from the cave ladies, as with our good eye for color and great gathering skills. I figure the only cave women who survived long enough to produce offspring were the ones who got rescued on a regular basis, it being tricky to run from a saber-tooth while pregnant. We’ve got a genetically patterned appreciation of the whole rescue business.

      If you thought about it, though, it wasn’t enough to be rescued. There was that part about the rescuer being handsome, rich, charming and intelligent. We wanted that, too, please. Liberation be damned, we’d like the whole hunky package.

      Actually, that’s not quite right, not for all of us. Not for the Diamond Girls. Their definition of happiness had that overriding mathematical bias: perfect someone = rich guy. It seemed the rich part of the fantasy was an adequate substitution for the handsome, charming and intelligent parts. Or maybe more accurately: rich = handsome, charming and intelligent. Automatically.

      Not me. I was looking for someone to capture my imagination, to ignite me, to complete me in every way. Mind. Body. Soul. For me perfect guy = soul mate. Tragically, the soul mate had proven to be a lot tougher to find than a diamond.

      But now I’d been rescued. In real life. My heart lurched up in my throat and I could feel a silky dampness in my thong. Dylan! Do not think about the thong!

      The guy met me halfway across the dance floor, having taken advantage of the momentary distraction of a passing hors d’oeuvre tray to deliver a good-old-boy whack to Groom Daddy’s back, bark a fond farewell and then half sprint away. It had worked. I could see Groom Daddy leaving the bar, storming up the hill toward the luncheon tent, hunting for less agile prey.

      The guy walked me through the dancers to an empty corner at the dance floor’s edge.

      “Thanks doesn’t quite cover it,” I purred as I tried to arrange myself back into bridesmaid propriety. I made a swipe at my forehead, repositioning wanton curls, brushing sweat salt from my hairline—probably Groom Daddy’s…Yuck—and wiping away any mascara tracks running up my forehead. All with—I hoped—one casually elegant stroke.

      “Yeah, you looked like you could use a break out there,”

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