The Bachelor's Christmas Bride

Again she thanked him.

“I’ll see you back at Chase and Logan’s place,” she said then.

“Right behind you,” he answered, closing her door with that same big hand pressed to the panel that had been wrapped around hers a few minutes earlier.

That same big hand that her eyes stuck to when he waved it at her and even as it dropped to his jean pocket to dig out his keys.

It had felt so good….

Shannon yanked her thoughts back in line and started her engine, putting her car into gear and heading for the road that led away from the house just ahead of Dag.

Dag, who did stay right behind her all the way home, making it difficult for her to keep from watching him in her rearview mirror.

Dag, who she was thinking about seeing again tonight during the rehearsal dinner.

Dag, who she knew she shouldn’t let cloud her thinking at all.

And yet somehow he seemed to be anyway.

Chapter Four

After the wedding rehearsal Friday evening, the dinner was in the poolroom section of a local restaurant and pub called Adz. The pool table had been removed and replaced by dining tables to accommodate what was a large wedding party. The lighting was dim and provided mainly by the candles on each table and there was a roaring fire in a corner fireplace made of rustic stone. The entire place reminded Shannon of an English pub she’d visited on a recent trip to London.

Shannon knew very few people there, and those she did know—Chase and Hadley, Logan and Meg—were busy mingling. Dag was the only other person she knew and he ended up being a godsend because while he was not her formal date to the event, he stayed by her side as if he were, as if he recognized that she was an outsider and had taken it upon himself to make sure she didn’t feel that way.

Not that Shannon hadn’t become accustomed to being in rooms full of strangers during the past three years. Dating a politician made that a common occurrence and she’d frequently been either expected to stand beside Wes, smile and say nothing, or had been left alone among strangers while Wes glad-handed and networked and basically scoured the crowd for votes or endorsements or funds. But still she appreciated that Dag kept her company. It was a nice change.

And it came in particularly handy when Dag’s other brother and sisters headed their way.

“Oh, I’m not going to remember which of your sisters is which,” she said quietly to Dag as they approached the spot in front of the fire where Dag and Shannon stood.

“We just wanted to tell you how happy we are that Chase found family,” Tucker said as he and his sisters joined them.

Tucker was easy—he was the only other McKendrick male. But even though Shannon had been introduced to the sisters earlier, she’d been introduced to so many people tonight that she couldn’t remember which was which.

“I’m happy about it, too,” Shannon answered the third McKendrick brother.

“I was just telling Shannon about our names,” Dag lied then. “About how with me and the girls, Mom filled in the birth certificates and chose the names when Dad wasn’t at the hospital so he wouldn’t have a say. How Dad knew the game by the time Tucker was born and made sure he got to pick Tucker’s name. But the rest of us—” Dag pointed to each sister as he explained “—Isadora, Theodora and Zeli—those were all Mom.”

Shannon was so grateful to him for making that easy for her that she could have hugged him. Instead she just cast him a smile and went along with the ruse that they’d been discussing the names before. “I like unique names, and they give you all something to talk about right off the bat.”

“That’s true,” Zeli agreed with a wry laugh that insinuated that she never got away without talking about her name the minute it was mentioned.

“We all saw you on the news, Shannon,” Issa said then. “You looked so shocked—you must not have had any idea that you were going to be proposed to.”

“It was a surprise,” Shannon agreed, hating that Wes hadn’t yet taken her off this hot seat.

“What about a ring, though? You don’t have one,” Tessa contributed.

“I noticed that, too,” Dag commented.

“I’m not a big jewelry person,” Shannon said as if the lack of an engagement ring were nothing. Then, desperate not to talk about this, she said, “Speaking of jewelry, Tucker, you did get your cuff links for tomorrow, right? I don’t know how they got mixed in with my wedding things, but Chase said he’d get them to you.”

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