by Tracy Wolff
“Well now, they aren’t as pretty as I am or as decisive, but they can lift really heavy things, and they all have cute hair.” Who didn’t love a man with big muscles and good hair? His PR team said he polled high in both areas, thank God. After all, a winning smile wasn’t the only thing that mattered.
Gregor looked like he was trying to figure out how either of those qualities were useful in planning a wedding.
On second thought, he was keeping Gregor. Messing with him was going to make all of the wedding tasks so much more fun.
“Okay, good. It’s settled.” Livinia fished around in her purse and pulled out her smartphone. She tapped the screen and then her face fell. “That would be June 9, and it falls on a Tuesday. I think we should pick a different day.”
“A different day for what?” Lyric walked into the room carrying a Starbucks cardboard cupholder in one hand and several brown Starbucks bags in the other. She shook the bags. “I brought chocolate muffins.”
“A different day for your wedding. Heath wants it on Tuesday, June 9. I say the weekend is better.” Her mother took the cupholder and set the drinks on the rolling tray next to her father’s bed.
“I don’t know. A good, solid Tuesday sounds about right for our wedding.” Lyric handed the bags around. “I got everyone caramel macchiatos. I didn’t know what y’all like to drink.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want.” Livinia’s tone suggested that she’d rather roll around in garbage or pole dance at the local VFW, but she’d do whatever her daughter wanted. She grabbed the muffin Lyric was about to eat right out of her hand. “You need to get into your wedding dress.”
Lyric rolled her eyes, grabbed Heath’s muffin out of his hand, and took a huge bite. She winked at Heath as she handed it back to him. She said around the food in her mouth, “I have a year and a month to get into my wedding dress.”
“Dear, don’t talk with your mouth full.” Her mother turned to Heath and handed him the extra muffin.
“That’s not fair. He gets two muffins. He’s in the wedding too. Why does he get two muffins?” Lyric continued to talk with her mouth full. Rebellion looked good on her.
“He’s too skinny.” Livinia looked down her nose at Lyric, who immediately closed her mouth and chewed. “Besides, the wedding isn’t a year away, it’s a month away.”
Lyric’s jaw fell open, and Heath was afraid some muffin might fall out, so he reached over and gently closed it for her.
“Our love is real … why wait?” He pulled her into a hug.
Lyric plastered on her bright fake smile and managed to whisper, “I’m going to kill you,” without moving her lips. If the whole astrophysicist thing fell through, it was good to know she had a future in ventriloquism.
“We need to go dress shopping and pick out flowers and caterers … what about the menu? And the venue? So much to do.” Livinia looked at Gregor. “Where should we begin?”
Lyric raised her hand. “I um … have a special project at work I need to get done. I don’t know how I’ll be able to plan things and finish it.” She was pleased with herself for coming up with something she thought would delay the wedding.
“Nonsense darlin’. I ‘ve got this whole wedding thing down. You go do your special project. I got this.” He almost felt bad. She looked so hopeful.
“I … well … okay.” She stabbed him with a glare that was sharp enough to hack off an arm or at least put an eye out. “If you insist.”
“My Lyric has a PhD. She’s an astrophysicist. She has a very popular podcast with quite a following.” Heath used his my-fiancée’s-way-more-important-than-you-are tone. There was only room for one pompous windbag in this town, and it damn sure was Heath.
“I am seeing.” Now Gregor sounded Russian.
“My little love-muffin,” Heath dropped a quick kiss on her nose, “has new planets to discover and black holes to study. Her time is better spent learning about the universe.”
Lyric looked up at him like she couldn’t figure out what game he was playing.
“Then it’s settled.” Bowman laced his fingers through his wife’s. “Heath and Vinny will plan the wedding.” He inched over to the side of the bed. “I’ve got to get up and around so I can walk my baby girl down that aisle.”
“Yes, let me help you.” Heath offered his future father-in-law a hand.
Lyric looked absolutely stunned. Heath had never really given much thought to getting married, but he was sure that he’d never imagined a fiancée who wanted to kill him before she married him.
* * *
Chapter 20
* * *
Two hours later Heath pulled in front of Harmony’s bakery, The Wright Way, and parked Cherry Cherry in the space closest to the door. It was probably a fool’s errand for him to come here. Her parents were all for his marrying Lyric, but Harmony hated him more than any other person on the face of the earth, including Rod Marinelli, the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator who’d instructed his players to kill Heath in the last few seconds of last season’s game after he found out that Heath had hit on his granddaughter.
All things considered, he’d rather face down Dallas’s defensive line than have to spend time with Harmony, but if he had his way, they were about to become family. Which meant he had to take the first step in healing the breach that had been between them for more than a decade.
Since it was Monday, Harmony’s day off, he walked around to the back alley and took the staircase that lead to the second floor. Harmony lived above her bakery, and if he was in luck, she’d be in a good and forgiving mood.
More nervous than he liked to admit, Heath used his most recent Super Bowl ring to tap on the front-door window. He’d gotten her a peace offering in the form of a Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino. If he could survive the embarrassment of ordering a Frappuccino in public, he figured he could take whatever Harm was willing to dish out. Then again … He took one last sip of his own Americano with a triple shot and then leaned down and set it next to the door. Meeting Harmony with a hot beverage she could throw at him was a very bad idea. He had a feeling she’d be amused by the idea of giving him third-degree burns.
She was bitchy that way.
How could Lyric be so sweet and Harmony be so angry all the time? They might be identical on the outside, but under their skin they were as different as night and day.
He gave it another few seconds, then tapped with his ring some more. Her car was here, damn it, and he wasn’t leaving without talking to her.
The curtain covering the window flipped to the side and Harmony peeked out. When their eyes met, she rolled hers, snarled, and opened the front door just wide enough to smack him in the forehead with the edge of it.
“Go away. I have a gun and I’d love to use it on you.” She was about to close the door in his face when he shoved his boot in the crack between the door and the jam.
“We need to talk.” He waggled the Frappuccino olive branch at her.
“There’s nothing you can say that would make me less likely to shoot you.” Harmony kicked at his foot. “Get your huge boot out of my house.”
“I’m not leaving until we talk.” Heath wasn’t giving up; this was too important. Plus, he was fifty percent sure Harmony wouldn’t shoot him. Well … maybe forty percent. Definitely thirty-five.
Her eyebrows drew together as she weighed her options. After what seemed like an hour, she finally opened the door.
He stepped inside and came up short. Harmony had changed. From the neck up she was the same—all big blue eyes and perfectly coiffed blonde hair—but the colorful tattoos covering her shoulders and possibly lower were definitely new. As was the nipple ring he could plainly see the outline of beneath her simple white tank top. The shirt looked like a sterile bandage against the vivid ink, and the double shoulder holster she wore under both arms holding two large-caliber handguns made her look like an enforcer for a Mexican drug cartel.
Which begged the question … what exactly was she
enforcing? She owned a bakery. Was there a rival bakery in town, and she was afraid of a drive-by? Was her éclair recipe so delicious she had needed guns—plural—to protect it? Was she often robbed at gunpoint for her donut money?
He almost asked, but there were more pressing questions.
Like, did she have tattoos covering her entire torso? If so, was it called being torso-ed? If she’d had tatts covering her arms they would be called sleeves.
Now probably wasn’t the best time to ask for clarification.
Harmony was supposed to be the “good” one. The ladylike one. But here she was all Kat Von D goes gangbanger.
It was comforting to know that after all this time, all he felt for her was sisterly love. And a healthy dose of fear.
“That’s a lot of firepower just to answer the door.” He held the cold coffee milkshake out to her. Had something happened in her past that made her feel unsafe? Just the idea pissed him off, and there was a part of him that wanted nothing more than to hug her and ask what he could do to make things better. He knew better than to try, though. He had a highly developed sense of self-preservation, and she had some really big guns.
She closed the door and leaned against it, crossing her arms. “What do you want?”
“No small talk … I can appreciate that.” How had he ever thought he was in love with this surly, gun-toting, tattoo-covered, cookie-baking debutante? He could see things so clearly now … it had always been Lyric.
When he didn’t say anything else, Harmony checked her watch. “I do have things to do today.”
“I need your help.” He wasn’t sure exactly how to make peace with Harmony, so in the end he just blurted it out. “I need your help picking out Lyric’s engagement ring.”
She shot him an oh really look. “You don’t need to pretend in front of me, asshole. I know your engagement is crap.”
Had Harmony always been this hard?
“It’s not crap. I’m serious. I’m in love with your sister, and I want to do this ring thing right.” He didn’t have a backup plan if she threw him out.
“Why don’t you get her one made out of volcanic ash? Or better yet, use some of that Boy Scout’s melted wheelchair. I bet that would make a nice wedding ring.” Harmony had snarky down to a science.
So she hadn’t bought the Kilauea story? It was one of the tallest tales he’d ever blessed the world with. It was amazing anyone had bought it.
Harmony studied him like she was looking for his poker tell. “Why now?”
“Because I finally figured my shit out. In high school I was too stupid to know that it was Lyric. I thought I was in love with you, especially after we … you know. But, no offense, it was never you. It was always Lyric who made me laugh. Lyric who listened to my problems. Lyric who always made me feel better, no matter how down I was.” Right up until she wrote him out of her life.
He didn’t know what else to say. He loved Lyric, it was that simple.
“Hmmm. Seems a little convenient to me.” Harmony was a tough sell.
“Convenient?” He shook his head. “There’s nothing convenient about my feelings for Lyric. Earth-shattering? Yes. Painful? Absolutely. Desperate? No doubt. But convenient? Not even close.”
His whole life had changed with one single realization. If Harmony wouldn’t believe him, how in the hell was he going to convince Lyric?
Her head tilted to the left, and she continued to watch him like she was convinced he was here to steal her TV.
“You really want to go ring shopping? Does Lyric know she’s getting an engagement ring?” Harmony wasn’t warming to him so much as thawing ever so slightly.
“Nope. Total surprise.” He grinned and tried handing her the Frappuccino again. She took it and stared at it like she was trying to use X-ray vision to figure out if the whipped cream was flavored with Rohypnol. Finally, she took a long pull from the green straw.
“If you hurt my sister in any way, they will never find your body … got it?” She was so matter-of-fact.
“Got it.” He swallowed convulsively. He routinely stared down ten three-hundred-pound men whose single goal was to crush him into a million pieces. That didn’t bother him. But Harmony? She scared the shit out of him.
She continued to stare at him without blinking—it was creepy. “Good, now you know where we stand. Because I am not picking up the pieces when you fuck up again.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant. Why had Lyric fallen to pieces before? The thought niggled at the back of his brain again, had him thinking that he was missing something really important.
She set the Starbucks cup down and headed toward the back of the apartment. “Give me ten minutes to get dressed.”
“Take as long as you want,” he told her magnanimously. Now that he’d gotten what he wanted, he could afford to be patient.
As he waited, he looked around at the loft-style apartment. It had a huge skylight, lots of colorful pillows on the blood-red leather sectional, and framed movie posters of avant-garde films that probably had subtitles.
What was it about tattoos and subtitles that so often went together? “I’ll just make myself at home here—”
“No you won’t.” She cocked her thumb and pointed her index finger at him. “You’ll stay right there, and you won’t touch anything.”
Then she stomped out of the room.
As soon as she was gone, he shuffled all of the pillows on the sofa, sat, and propped his feet up on the chrome-and-glass coffee table just to piss her off. He might fear for his life, but he took orders from no one.
His cell buzzed with a new call, and hoping it was Lyric, he pulled it out of his back jeans pocket. But it was Barry again. He knew he couldn’t keep dodging the team owner’s calls, but he wasn’t ready to talk about the future. He needed to settle things with Lyric—only one major life change at a time.
He shoved the phone back in his pocket. And that was when he realized that right next to his left foot sat Harmony’s phone. He couldn’t help himself. He picked it up.
Curious, he pulled up her music playlists. He couldn’t quite make out the artist so he zoomed in on an album cover. Cannibal Corpse? Who the hell was Cannibal Corpse? And why the hell were they on Harmony’s phone?
Intrigued now, he pulled up her web browser and typed in the name. According to Wikipedia, they were an American death metal band from Buffalo, New York.
Death metal?
“What the hell are you doing?” Harmony walked in wearing a pink soccer-mom sweater set, black slacks, and a pearl choker. “Give me that.”
She snatched the phone right out of his hands.
“You dress like a Sunday school teacher but listen to death metal?” Was she suffering from schizophrenia? Was there some way he could help her? The last thing he wanted was for Lyric to suffer if her sister lost her mind. “I thought death metal was just something people bragged about listening to but didn’t actually listen to.”
“My life is none of your business.” She deposited the phone in the front pocket of a very classy but sedate black leather purse.
Had he imagined all of that ink? “Were your tatts temporaries?”
“Did they look like temporaries?” It was a wonder she could stand upright with that huge chip on her shoulder.
Would the real Harmony please stand up? At this point he didn’t have a clue. Was she a gun-toting badass or the PTA president? Or both?
“Why cover them up then?” The answer dawned on him. “Oh my God, your parents don’t know.” He grinned. This was leverage, no bones about it.
“Are we leaving or what?” Harmony held the door open.
“Okay, okay … I’m going.” He stood. “I’m gonna tell your parents,” he sing-songed.
“Careful, I’m still armed.” Her voice was even.
“Where?” Her clothes weren’t tight, but they certainly weren’t loose enough to hide a gun … or guns.
She slapped him on the back of the head. “Stop undressing me w
ith your eyes.”
“Yuck.” He swallowed hard. “I just threw up a little in my mouth.” He swallowed some more. “Do you have a Tic Tac or something? Coffee is terrible the second time around.”
It really was amazing what twelve years could change.
“No.” She shoved her arm through the strap on her purse and hooked it around her shoulder.
“So,” he said as they headed down to Cherry Cherry, “now that I’m about to be your big brother, do you have any boyfriends you need me to beat up?” There was no denying that he had a lot of free time now.
“No, I’d hate for you to get hurt. They’re so much tougher than you.” Harm grinned. “God knows, we don’t want another crying episode.”
“I was ten years old and you kicked me in the balls.” Knowing Harmony as he did, he really should have worn a cup.
“You mess with the bull, you get kicked in the balls. Way of the world.” She didn’t sound the least bit sorry.
“Now you’re just being mean.”
“Stop whining. I know kindergarteners that are tougher than you. Since when does the NFL let in a bunch of whiny little girls?” She shook her head. “I remember you being tougher.”
“I remember you being less homicidal.”
She shrugged. “How about we start at Legend Jewelry on Concho?”
He led her around the front to Cherry Cherry.
She froze.
“I’m not riding in that.” Harmony put her hands on her hips. “What exactly is that?”
He clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sssh. Cherry Cherry’s sensitive. If you make her mad, she’ll do her level best to kill me on the ride home.”
“Well then, why didn’t you say so?” Harmony’s foot shot out and kicked Cherry Cherry’s right front tire. “Is he really afraid of you?” she yelled to the hood. “Personally, I think you should kill him because he’s a pain in the ass, but if you need a better reason …” She hocked up a loogie and let her fly. It landed between Cherry Cherry’s hood and windshield.