Mitchell drove up the long driveway to his parents’ house the next weekend, curving his BMW around the languid curves.
“Hey,” he said to Arielle, who was sitting in the passenger seat and gazing at the trees turning to fiery scarlet and gold. “Take off your ring for a while.”
She glanced at him and tapped her engagement ring on her left hand. “They don’t know?”
“My parents were watching Golf Central that night, but I asked them not to tell Emily yet.”
Arielle rolled her eyes, but she was laughing. “Okay, snookie-beanie-baby-rumblebutt. You aren’t going to be mean to her, are you?”
Mitchell shot her a look. “Emily has been my sister for over two decades. I am never mean to my sister.”
“Okay, then. I’m probably projecting what would happen in my family.”
Mitchell flipped his hand over on the gear shift between the seats, palm up. “Have you talked to them yet?”
Arielle slipped her fingers in his and shook her head. “They aren’t answering my calls.”
Lunch went fine, though his father was still eating nothing but vegetables. That certainly wasn’t a bad thing in itself, but Mitchell worried about why he’d made the change.
The air crackled with secrets, and Peregrine kept glancing at Arielle’s bare left hand and raising his eyebrows.
Mitchell ignored him.
After lunch, they strolled down one of the house’s long hallways to the music room for coffee.
Mitchell hung back, walking slowly, looking around as if he were suddenly interested in the oil paintings that had rotated over the walls since he was a kid.
Arielle and Emily were chatting as they walked, and they also slowed when Mitchell seemed to be falling behind.
An open door to a library was his chance, and Mitchell snagged the girls’ elbows and dragged them inside.
“Hey!” Emily protested.
Arielle was already fishing in her pocket and surreptitiously slipping her engagement ring on her finger.
Mitchell smiled fondly at his sister. “Hey, Em, I wanted to tell you in person. You talked me into it.”
Emily’s grin lit up the library all the way to the vaulted ceiling. “You’re getting me another horse?”
Whoops. “Oh, uh, no. I meant that you talked me into telling Arielle how I felt about her, and I asked her to marry me. She said yes.”
Arielle held out her hand with the engagement ring on it for Emily to see.
Emily’s excited gasp went on longer than Mitchell thought anyone could inhale.
Mitchell said, “You were right, honey-bunny-bear. Love always wins.”
Emily hugged them both, sobbing and laughing.
Mitchell tried damn hard to just laugh, but sometimes laughing too hard brought tears to his eyes.
Arielle wiped her cheeks, too.
Emily yelled, “You’re going to need a flower girl! And bridesmaids! And if you get me a white horse, Emily can ride it to the wedding, too!”
Two weeks later, Golfers Digest published Monica Matthews’ article titled, “Love on the Links: Match Play Is an Ace for Golfers and its CEO.”
Pictures of Arielle and Mitchell filled the pages, as well as photos of the couples kissing on the stage at the Javits Center.
In one small corner of the spread, there was a photo of the reporter herself, wearing a red golf shirt and smiling while standing next to a gorgeous man with the firm jaw, steely eyes, and Esquire after his name of a litigating attorney.
The frame around the photo read, I met my Match on Match Play.