Back Where I Belong
Virginia Gray
This is a work of fiction. With express permission, the names and identifying characteristics of some specific characters herein have been used. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Back Where I Belong, formerly titled The Golden Handcuffs
Copyright © 2017 by Virginia Gray
ISBN: 978-0-9905236-5-9
eISBN: 978-0-9905236-6-6
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferrable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, whatsoever without written express written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact www.virginiagray.com
First Edition June 2017
Library of Congress Cataloging data is available upon request.
For Carolyn
Contents
Other Books by Virginia Gray
1. Twenty-one Redneck Salute
2. Prehistoric Poop
3. I Said Goodbye
4. Lighthouse
5. The Flamingo
6. Mona in Wonderland
7. Future Felony
8. Star of Wonder
9. The Holy Bible of Sex
10. Bridezilla Strikes!
11. Saved by the Scratch
12. Mao Tse-tung of Fashion
13. Stroke of Midnight
14. Male Escort Service
15. The Best Worst Bachelorette Party Ever
16. The Best of Us All
17. Cremation
18. The Devil’s Curse
19. Peace, Love, and Spider Monkeys
20. Pink is the New Black
21. A Toast or Twenty
22. Slurry Serenade
23. Missing Luggage
24. Social Media Disaster
25. Unexpected Turbulence
26. The Price to Pee
27. Let the Pins Fall Where They May
28. Barbaragate
29. Ham Sandwich of Death
30. Retched Honeymoon
31. Typhoid Mary
32. The Beginning of the End
33. Second Opinion
34. Quarterlies from Hell
35. WTF?
36. So, a Girl Walks into a Bar
37. Modesty
38. Peace Summit
39. Tattoos and Six Packs
40. The Devil Came Down to Havelock
41. To the Gallows
42. The “C” Word
43. Bubble Wrap
44. A Good Talkin’ To
45. New Year’s Revolution
46. On Bended Knees
47. The Extent of Love
48. Parents Anonymous
49. Airport Bombing
50. Shakedown
51. The Reaper Wears Ralph Lauren
52. Under Lock and Key
53. Bat Shit Crazy
54. Manipulative Men
55. Epilogue
56. Addendum
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Books by Virginia Gray
Suddenly Susan
Caught Up In Me
Next Time
1
Twenty-one Redneck Salute
The diamond cut into my palm as I gripped the bouquet. He stood only yards away, wearing an expression so sweet I almost didn’t hate him. I narrowed my eyes, and his grin turned devious. No one noticed our exchange as they rose to the pomp and swell of the organ, gasping in unison at the explosion of light and joy behind me.
I didn’t need to turn to see the expression she wore; it had been the same for days, though now tears surely glazed her cheeks. The groom’s face, the very picture of terror some twenty minutes prior, now basked in that same singular light. I sagged in relief. In moments, she would be his forever: his dream, though he’d been too bashful—or stupid—to realize it.
When father and daughter reached the foot of the altar, I knelt and straightened her train, fanning it out like a silken wave on a carpeted shore. Glancing up, I was taken by the handsome, graying gentleman’s expression. His eyes were both appropriately sad and slightly threatening. The groom nodded solemnly in the silent exchange and shook Mr. Taylor’s hand. Once the minister’s question had been answered, he kissed his daughter’s cheek and whispered, “I love ya, punkin’.”
A wistful sigh escaped my lips; my father’s chance to give me away had been stolen by the common habit that had claimed his life. I forced a smile and took my place as leader of the coral brigade.
The Southern Baptist ceremony lasted all of five minutes, flute solo inclusive. The best man produced one ring, and I the other. As I placed the simple band in Mona’s quivering hand, my diamond flashed, and she gasped, her eyes turning to saucers. I winced and then glared at Pete before quickly turning away to reclaim the bouquets. After vows were pledged, Jimbo stumbling only once—“until death shall separate us” does not roll off the Southern tongue well—he kissed Mona in a perfectly chaste fashion to the sound of unanimous sniffles. I shoved the bouquet back in her hand, and they tore down the aisle.
Pete stepped forward and offered his elbow. “They were gonna find out soon enough,” he murmured through his thousand-watt smile.
“It just didn’t need to be today,” I hissed back, grinning joyfully. I gripped his arm firmly, and he escorted me down the steps.
After post-game pictures, we descended to the refectory, where Mona and Jimbo were instantly enveloped. Pete swam toward the punch bowl, and about twenty minutes later, after pretty much every woman in the building had loved on him, returned.
“Forget something?” I asked, glancing at his empty hands.
He smirked ruefully. “Be right back.”
I rolled my eyes. “No, you won’t.”
As soon as the rice was thrown, we hopped into Pete’s Jeep and raced to the real reception. “I didn’t need to wear this thing today,” I snapped.
“You’re not taking that damn ring off. I know how ya like losin’ jewelry.”
“This was her wedding—her moment,” I huffed. “I’ll have mine later.”
He turned to me with a beatific expression. “I can’t wait. One day soon, you’re gonna be my beautiful bride. But in the meantime, keep that ring on your finger. Your left one,” he said, rubbing the bare digit.
The rutted soybean field jostled us as Pete drove towards the reception area. Forming a long runway, pickup trucks, their headlights blazing, had positioned themselves in two rows opposite one another; it was like a twenty-one redneck salute. Pete parked at the head of the line nearest the large plank-board stage festooned with a million twinkling lights. Taking my hand, he led me up the steps, and we sped off in opposite directions.
Like a grossly oversized fairy, I flitted from table to table, lighting tea candles and liberally sprinkling silver glitter and strips of curled ribbon. After fulfilling my decorating committee duties, I sank into a folding chair; a giant pink blossom of satin and scratchy crinoline.
Jimbo and Mona appeared a short ti
me later. Though the locals knew the area so well they couldn’t get lost blindfolded, I feared for Mona’s parents and the out of town guests. Of course, they couldn’t have missed Anita’s five-hundred glowing, neon pink signs, the last few reading, CLOSE, CLOSER,HERE.
♥
“Ugh. I don’t think I’ll eat again for a week,” I said as Pete twirled me under the illumined canopy, the Christmas lights operated by a somewhat noisy generator. The generous dance floor had been built on site from a mountain of two-by-fours Mike Herring’s Hatteras Construction minions had delivered the week before; Pete had suffered only minor injuries during its construction.
“Your toast was beautiful by the way,” I said, nuzzling his cheek. “Even I teared up.” Since my future husband couldn’t be more romantic if he tried, I had fully expected to be outdone, but he completely smoked me, and I felt sorry for Mona.
As if my very thoughts had summoned Cinderella herself, a filmy white cumulous cloud skirted the crowd of revelers and grabbed my arm with a terse “’scuse me”. She then dragged me down the path leading to a small dock by the river and began jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin in a wedding dress. “When exactly were y’all gonna tell me?!”
“Not during the ceremony! That’s for sure. This is your special day.”
“Well, this is pretty special, too! I mean, don’t ya think ya ought to have at least told your best friend?”
“Mona, Pete and I are engaged. Surprise!” I snarked, waving my hands in the air.
Huffing loudly, she looked me over from top to bottom, all angry kitten, and then flung her arms around me. “I’m so happy!” Her eyes glowed with a warmth only Mona could produce. “Y’all are a match made in heaven—or someplace like that,” she said, giggling. “When did this happen?”
“Wednesday. I never saw it coming.” I smiled hugely as my heart burst into song.
“Knowin’ Pete, I bet it was a perfect moment.”
“Unforgettable and rather, um…wet.” I snorted, remembering how we’d almost drowned in Bogue Sound, fighting off an army of feisty crabs to rescue my engagement ring. I’d scrubbed that sucker for an hour to remove all the green goo from the crevices.
Her eyes lit with newfound purpose. “Soon as I get back from my honeymoon, we’re gonna start plannin’ your wedding.”
I glanced back at the stage. “If it’s half as wonderful as this, it will be a dream.” Our first quiet moment since the pre-wedding huddle, I looked at this Southern vision before me. “You have no idea how happy I am for you.”
“Me, too.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I ripped off my sash and dabbed at her eyes. “You are not messing up your makeup.” The distant music morphed into a sappy love song. “Let’s get you back to Jimbo before he calls out a search party.”
Once securely in Pete’s arms again, I stomped on his foot. “That’s for that,” I said, nodding towards the back of Mona’s button-cinched bodice.
He pulled me tightly to his chest. “You can take out all your frustrations on me when we get home.” His smoldering gaze made my heart skip.
“Oh, I will.” He bent down to kiss me, and I caught his lower lip between my teeth in warning.
♥
Pete wore a dreamy expression as we made our way back to Atlantic Beach. Never letting go of my hand, his thumb rubbed circles over mine as he hummed off-key to the radio. Flying past the narrow highway’s solid wall of pines, the warm breeze swirled through the windows, brushing my skin in the most seductive of ways and drying Pete’s sweat-dampened hair in unkempt waves that I found utterly irresistible.
“The wedding was beautiful,” I said.
“Near perfect.”
“I loved the sendoff.” I pressed my nose into the now wilted bouquet Mona had launched directly at me with the force and surprising accuracy of a professional baseball pitcher.
He chuckled. “She’s got a good arm.”
“Well, I certainly didn’t need it,” I said, smiling at him. “My fate is sealed.”
His grin grew as enormous as the rising moon. “Yeah, it is.”
“I hope our wedding goes as well.”
He brought my fingers to his lips and murmured, “It’ll be even better.”
I thought about Mona and Jimbo. Right now, they were surely making passionate love in the bedroom Pete and I had once shared. I missed that house. It held our memories: the good and the not so good.
I knew Jimbo hadn’t been with many women since his long-ago divorce, and though Mona had had at least one somewhat long-term relationship, she swore it hadn’t been particularly serious. I’d never asked if she was a virgin, but I had a sneaking suspicion she was. This left me feeling very tender. She had waited so patiently for Jimbo, longed for him for years, and when he hadn’t gotten up the nerve to reach out to her, even with Pete’s and my meddling, she’d finally stepped in front of him one night and dared him not to love her.
I sighed contently.
As if reading my mind, Pete said, “I can’t wait for our wedding night.”
“I doubt it’ll top the first time we made love.” That epic night of passion, the likes of which I had never known, flooded my thoughts, swelling my heart and warming dark places. A private smile spread across my face.
His lips turned up. “I think it will. Back then, you were a free agent. Once we’re married, you’ll be mine forever. That kind of special only comes once in a lifetime.” Meeting my eyes, he kissed each of my fingers.
A warmth as thick and sweet as pure molasses filled me. “You’ll be mine forever,” I whispered back. And that was far more important.
When he parked in front of his—one day to be our lovely house, he helped me from the car and then scooped me into his arms. His keys dropped into my lap when he reached the door. “Do the honors, if ya please.”
“Carrying me over the threshold before we’re married doesn’t count.”
“We’re just practicin’ tonight,” he said.
As he lugged me up two more flights of soon-to-be-carpeted stairs, his steps echoed off the unpainted drywall.
Once in the substantial master bedroom, I loosened his bow tie and carelessly tossed it on the floor. Then, peeling his tuxedo shirt over his shoulders, I momentarily trapped his arms in its sleeves and took the opportunity to run my tongue up his sternum and neck, grazing his Adam’s apple with my teeth as if it were truly forbidden fruit. He softly moaned and then wriggled from his cufflinks.
By command of a set of fingers made for the task of undressing women, my ugly bridesmaid’s dress obediently slid to the floor, and I vowed to dump it into the sound at my earliest convenience.
Delicate devotion swaddled us, the desire to touch slowly, to love with a gentle passion. Nuzzling my hair, he slowly planted feathery kisses from my temple to the fragile shell of my ear, and then his parted lips traced my cheek until they reached my mouth. He was giving me a taste of our wedding night to come: the precious and love-filled rediscovery of bodies with which we were already so familiar.
My hands shook with the power of this raw intimacy. Its sweetness overwhelmed me, and I suddenly realized that I wasn’t ready for this: the intensity of it. On some level, the pureness of his intentions frightened me, and rebellion shouldered its way to the surface. I leaned into his chest, and without preamble, bit his nipple hard enough to make him yelp. Then I lunged for his neck and bit him there as well, destroying the innocence, chasing it away with unfounded lunacy.
“Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be, is it? Not very fittin’ for a night of wedding bliss.”
“You were looking for bliss? You put a ring on the wrong finger, buddy,” I said, before latching onto his earlobe and tugging it mercilessly. “Besides, you promised I could take my frustrations out on you when we got home. Prepare thyself!”
I jerked off his belt in one swift move, and he let out a growl that was more animal than human. Dropping to my knees, I smiled up at him. “Guess what I�
��m going to bite next.”
He lifted me up by my elbows and tossed me onto the bed. “Me, first. And you can leave those heels on.”
I squealed and slapped at his shoulders as he muscled himself between my clinched knees, wiggling and squirming until his mouth was on me. Finally giving up the fight, I sank into a different kind of bliss.
“I’m glad we don’t have neighbors,” Pete panted, his heart thundering in time with mine.
Staring down at him, I snorted. “The cops would already be on the doorstep.” Just then, a siren sounded in the distance, and we burst out laughing.
He pulled my face to his and kissed me solidly. “I do love you, Susie-Q.”
“Back at ya.”
After a long moment of sated silence, Pete whispered, “I left that piece of weddin’ cake in the car. Want me to go get it?”
“You know, at the rate you’re going, when you hit forty, that washboard stomach I love so much is going to turn to mush.”
“Not with the calories we burn,” he said, winking.
♥
Spread-eagle, I lay in bed, watching the random and ever-changing patterns dance about the ceiling. The sound was turbulent tonight, batting the moon’s reflection about like a piñata.
Back Where I Belong: A Wonderfully Witty and Completely Absorbing Love Story (Susan Wade Series Book 3) Page 1