Love's Gamble. Theodora Taylor

animal over to the suite’s large walk-in closet.

      “You should ask whoever pulled this for you to come up and get it,” she said as she disappeared into the closet. “Make sure it gets properly cleaned and put back wherever you found it...”

      She suddenly popped her head out of the closet and asked, “Where exactly did you find it?”

      Max didn’t reply, knowing she probably wouldn’t like the answer.

      But his refusal must have been clue enough, because she groaned. “Tell me—please tell me—you did not pull a costume from Nora Benton’s special collection.”

      “My grandmother loves weddings, and if she’d been here to ask, she would have been happy to loan it to you.”

      That was true. His Irish grandmother had been a Benton Revue girl herself. She would have been thrilled to see one of her costumes make an appearance at her grandson’s wedding—crazy but true, she was that kind of grandmother.

      However, it was also true that he’d have hell to pay from his redheaded grandmother when she got back from her European vacation at the end of the summer. It was one thing to get married without inviting her or Cole. It was another to do so with this particular bride. A girl she liked so much, that she’d actually cheered when Pru turned him down at his brother’s wedding, with a “Thatta girl, Pru” before telling her own grandson, “She’s too good for the likes of you.”