Full Throttle & Wrong Bride, Right Groom

by Merline Lovelace

  When they pulled up in front of a mellow brick-fronted apartment complex, the sight of Abby’s brown van kicked his pulse into overdrive. His heart slamming against his ribs, Pete paid off the cabbie, wished him luck, then leaned on the doorbell of 1016.

  He’d anticipated surprise.

  He’d hoped for at least a cool welcome.

  What he hadn’t counted on was that the woman who opened the door would take one astonished look at him, turn deathly pale and crumple in a faint.

  “Christ!”

  Pete caught her before she hit the tiled floor of the foyer. Scooping her into his arms, he kicked the door shut and carried her into an apartment that in ordinary circumstances might have been spacious and airy. Right now, it looked as though a Scud missile had zeroed in on it.

  Boxes were scattered everywhere, some empty, some sealed, others half packed. Pete couldn’t find a chair or sofa that didn’t have books or linens or knick-knacks stacked on it. He stood in the middle of the room, his burden a dead weight in his arms, and tried to find someplace to lay her. Finally he lifted a boot and nudged a stack of linens off a plush Victorian armchair.

  She gave a little groan when he eased her into the chair. Pete stared down at her for a moment, then carved a path into the kitchen and rummaged through more boxes until he found a saucepan. Deciding it would have to do, he half filled it with water and returned to the living room.

  “Beth! Beth, wake up!”

  He loosened the dark blue tie of her airline uniform, slid a hand under her neck to raise her head and held the pot to her lips.

  “Here, take some water.”

  When the liquid trickled into her mouth, Beth sputtered and choked and came awake. Before Pete could remove the pot, she lunged up and knocked it aside. Cold water hit him squarely in the face. He jerked back, only to have Beth grab his lapels and follow him.

  “It’s Jordy, isn’t it? Oh, God, I know it’s Jordy.”

  “No…”

  “Tell me!” She clung to him like a burr, sobbing. “Tell me, Pete! Is he dead?”

  He closed his hands over hers, trying to ease her frantic grip. “No, he’s not dead!”

  She moaned. “He’s wounded. Isn’t he? He’s wounded and calling for me.” Tears poured down her cheeks. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t run out on him…”

  “Beth…”

  “Where is he, Pete? Tell me. I’ll go to him. I can—”

  “Beth, calm down! Jordy’s not injured. Or he wasn’t when I called back to the unit a few hours ago.”

  His words finally penetrated her hiccuping sobs.

  “He’s okay? Really?”

  Pete’s voice gentled. “Really.”

  She sagged against him in relief.

  Pete patted her awkwardly on the back, waiting for her sobs to cease. His patience ran out before her sniffles.

  Easing her away, he looked down into the face that he, like Jordy, had once thought perfect. Her features were finer than her sister’s, and her hair was a paler, silkier blond. But she didn’t have Abby’s firm chin or her wide, full mouth. Nor, Pete remembered belatedly, did she have her incisive intelligence.

  “Why are you wearing all your ribbons and stuff?” she asked through watery sniffs. At his blank look, she waved a hand distractedly. “That’s…that’s what frightened me so much.”

  Pete couldn’t help himself. He had to ask. “My ribbons scared you?”

  “I thought—” She gulped. “You know, like in the movies. Men in full dress uniform show up at the front door to…to notify the next of kin.”

  Pete was forced to point out the obvious. “Beth, you’re not Jordy’s next of kin.”

  It was a mistake. Her eyes teared up again.

  “I know. But I want to be. I think.”

  Pete let that one pass. He had more important things on his mind than Beth’s mercurial relationship with her almost-groom. Tugging her hands free of his lapels, he did a quick scan of the cluttered room. “Where’s Abby?”

  “Abby?”

  “Your sister?”

  She sniffed. “Why do you want to see Abby?”

  “I need to talk to her about a personal matter. Where is she?”

  Her tears drying, she looked up at Pete in surprise. “A personal matter? With Abby?”

  “Beth…”

  The low, strangled snarl sent her back a pace. “She’s…she’s at the Pines.”

  “The Pines?”

  “She went to a wedding. Another wedding.”

  Her chin wobbled for a moment, and Pete braced himself for more tears. Bravely Beth fought them back.

  “She left the strangest note. It’s in the kitchen. Evidently her dentist is getting married to a woman named…Peaches, I think it was.”

  It took Pete only a second or two to connect the dentist with Irv, and Irv with Peaches, a.k.a. Cherry. Evidently the periodontist had finally decided to claim his woman. Good for him!

  Beth’s flawless face clouded with confusion. “I don’t know why Abby didn’t mention going to this wedding when I called her earlier.”

  Pete didn’t know, either, and didn’t particularly care. He didn’t intend to wait any longer to stake his own claim.

  “Did you drive here?” he asked Beth.

  “No, I took a cab from the airport.”

  “Do you know where Abby keeps the keys to the van?”

  His curt question triggered another confused frown.

  “That’s something else I don’t understand. The Antiquemobile got a complete face-lift while I was gone, and Abby never said a word about it. Although I suppose she had to get it in good working order before she goes on this trip.”

  “What trip?”

  “Her note said she was going on a trip tomorrow. To Stone Keep.” Beth’s brow knit. “Maybe she meant Stone Mountain. That’s only a few miles from here, though why she’d have the van—”

  She gave a startled squeak as Pete gripped her arms.

  “Stonecross Keep? Did Abby say she was going to Stonecross Keep?”

  “That…that might have been it. I’ll have to check the note.”

  Pete felt as though a flare had just been set off inside him. A burst of white-hot fire spiraled through his chest, then burned with a searing heat. He stood rock-still for several moments, waiting for the flame to subside. Seconds later, he realized this was one conflagration that wasn’t going to burn itself out.

  The fact that Abby had decided to go to England told him that she might be feeling the same steady flame.

  While Pete tried to steady his rocketing emotions, Beth worried her lower lip with perfect white teeth and put her own interpretation on her sister’s cryptic note.

  “It isn’t like Abby to just take off like this. I hope she’s not sick or something.”

  “She’s something,” Pete said under his breath. “I sure hope she’s something.”

  Abby tried not to grin as she matched her step to the recorded sounds of the wedding march and glided down the aisle formed by rows of chairs. Despite her best efforts, the astounded expressions on the faces of the handful of guests who’d hastily assembled for the wedding had her mouth curving. Quickly she buried her nose in her lavish bouquet to hide her laughter.

  With her face bathed in the heady scent of long-stemmed red roses, she traveled the length of the banquet room toward the small party waiting in front of the massive stone fireplace. Cherry followed, on Orlie Taggert’s arm. If Irv saw anything amiss in his bride’s attire, Abby couldn’t tell it from his beaming face. Mayor Calvin, on the other hand, gaped when she caught her first sight of the bridal party.

  True to her word, Cherry had chosen to wear red. Bright, traffic-light red. Eye-popping red, accented with thousands of sequins. They shimmered on the bride’s formfitting dress and shaped her magnificent bosom. More sequins dotted the short veil pinned to her upswept flaming red hair. Even the streamers trailing from her huge bouquet of crimson roses glittered with spangles. The only nonred
article on her person was the antique sterling-silver pin studded with blue topaz that she’d borrowed from Abby.

  Abby herself was dressed more like a bride than the bride. Following Cherry’s instructions, she’d worn off-white, an ankle-length skirt in a creamy ivory wool and a matching hand-knit tunic studded with tiny drop pearls. Thank goodness she had. Any other color would have clashed horribly with the Cherry’s dazzling fire-engine-red dress.

  Still fighting a grin, she nodded to Irv and the mayor, then stepped to the side. The bride placed a kiss on Orlie’s leathery cheek, released his arm, then moved into position. Cherry stood a good six inches taller than her groom, and anyone who saw the look they exchanged at that moment knew height didn’t make a whisker of difference to either one of them. Gripping hands, they faced each other.

  The mayor cleared her throat. Her weathered face creasing, she looked from Cherry to Abby. Then she winked at Irv.

  “You sure you’ve got the right bride this time?”

  He grinned. “I’m sure.”

  “Well, let’s get you two—”

  She broke off as the doors at the back of the banquet room rattled. Irv threw a look over his shoulder, then gave Cherry a quick grin.

  “Hey, my office manager must have finally tracked Pete down. He made it!”

  Abby swung around, her nails digging into the stems of her rose bouquet. Disbelieving, she watched a tall, broad-shouldered figure stand aside while Beth rushed into the banquet room. For probably the first time in her adult life, Abby didn’t spare a thought for her sister. She barely gave her a glance. Her entire being was focused on the man who followed Beth in.

  Seeing him in uniform for the first time, Abby knew that the agonizing decision she’d made an hour ago was the right one. He wore his uniform easily, but she saw the pride that went into its tailored fit, the boots polished to a mirror gloss, and the precise alignment of his silver wings above his ribbons. He belonged in air force blue.

  And she belonged with him.

  He closed the doors behind him and leaned against them, his mouth curving in the crooked grin that made Abby’s lungs forget to pump. Across the length of the banquet room, their eyes locked.

  At that moment, her last doubts vanished. Wherever they went, they’d go together. Whatever bed they slept in, they’d sleep together. Tears prickled her lids, and she had to bury her nose in her bouquet once more to keep from crying during Cherry’s and Irv’s exchange of vows.

  Any hope she might have harbored that she’d get Pete alone after the brief ceremony vanished as soon as a laughing, radiant Cherry released Irv from a passionate embrace. Hooking one arm through Irv’s, she used the other to signal to Pete to join the small group milling around the wedding party.

  When he approached, Irv thumped him on the back in a hearty greeting. “I’m glad you got my message. Thanks for coming, buddy.”

  “I didn’t get your message, but you’re welcome.” Smiling, Pete bent and gave Cherry a kiss on one cheek. “You make a stunning bride.”

  She laughed up at him. “I do, don’t I?”

  Over Irv’s shining bald crown, Pete caught Abby’s smile. She looked so vibrant, so joyous, so…welcoming, that everything he’d planned to say to her got lost in the need to hold her.

  He’d taken exactly half a step toward her when the mayor’s sturdy form planted itself in front of him.

  “Nice to see you in these parts again, O’Brian.” She shook his hand, her shrewd gaze assessing his rows of ribbons. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’re thinking ’bout staying. I wasn’t just pushing air around when I said we could use a man like you.”

  Pete flashed Abby another look.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said slowly, “I have been thinking about staying. Permanently.”

  Abby’s eyes rounded in surprise. Edging around the mayor and Irv, Pete moved swiftly to her side.

  “I didn’t plan to tell you like this.”

  She swallowed. “Tell me what?”

  Before he could answer, Beth wedged her way through the crowd and joined them.

  “Abby, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Tell me what, Pete?”

  “Are you sure?” The younger woman peered into her sister’s face anxiously. “You look a little pale.”

  Abby ignored her sister. “Tell me what, Pete?”

  He glanced at the faces surrounding them. Their avid interest told Pete his chances of getting Abby alone right now were nonexistent. Resigning himself to saying what he had to say before the curious audience, he reached for her hand.

  “I’ve put in my papers, sweetheart. I called my commander this morning to let him know. I’m getting out of the service as soon as I get back to England and process the retirement.”

  Dismay flooded her brown eyes. “Oh, Pete, why?”

  His stomach lurched at her stricken expression. Dismay wasn’t quite the reaction he’d been hoping for.

  “Because I gave the air force my future once,” he said quietly, his fingers gripping hers. “It was all I wanted then, all I thought I needed. Now I know I need more. I need you.”

  “But you didn’t have to give it up. I—”

  He cut her off, his hold on her hand tight and hard.

  “I don’t want any more goodbyes between us, Abby. I want to stay with you always. I want to curl up with you in Mrs. Clement’s bed, and help you turn the house on Peabody Street into a home.”

  Her dismay gave way to an almost comical chagrin. Pete didn’t care for that reaction much more than he had the last.

  “If you’ll let me, Abby, I want to share your dreams.”

  His gut twisting, he waited for her reply. To his profound relief, her mouth lifted in a tremulous smile.

  “You can curl up with me anywhere. For as long as you want.”

  He loosened his death grip on her hand and reached for her.

  “But…”

  The small caveat froze him in place. “But?”

  “But I think you should know, I withdrew my offer on the house on Peabody Street.”

  “What?”

  His exclamation got lost in Beth’s startled gasp.

  “Abby! You gave up your house?”

  The stunned expressions on the faces of the two people she loved most in the world made Abby take a deep breath. She’d sort out Beth’s feelings later. Right now, all that mattered to her was Pete’s.

  “The appraisal came in too low, which gave me a legal out. So I called the Realtor and told her I didn’t want the house.” Her tentative smile widened, then spilled into a grin. “I also mentioned that I was leaving for an extended stay in England.”

  “England!” Beth squeaked.

  Cherry gave a low, throaty chuckle and gripped Irv’s arm with red-polished nails. “Good for you, sweetie! Go for it!”

  Even Mayor Calvin got into the act. Her face folding into crags and valleys, she glanced from Abby to Pete.

  “Well, well… Looks like we’ve got another bride, and the right groom, this time.”

  Abby ignored them all. Her whole being was centered on the man standing before her.

  Her heart gave a painful thump of joy as Pete’s blue eyes lit with laughter…and with a love that warmed her all the way to her toes.

  “So you gave up your house, and I gave up the air force.” He opened his arms to her. “I sure glad we’ve still got George III.”

  “George IV.”

  With a strangled sound that hovered somewhere between a sob and a laugh, she fell into his welcoming arms. His mouth was warm and hard and demanding. Hers asked for more, much more.

  When he scooped her up in his arms, her stomach tightened in joyous anticipation. Whatever she asked for, he would give her.

  “We’ll call you as soon as we get the license and the blood tests,” Pete told the grinning mayor. “It may be a few days.”

  “Anytime, O’Brian.”

  They were halfway to the back of the banquet room whe
n Abby realized she was still clutching her bouquet.

  “Pete! Wait a moment!”

  Twisting in his arms, she tossed the roses in a long arc. Beth caught them, her face a study in confusion and doubtful happiness for her sister.

  “Hold these for me, Sissy. And call Gulliver’s Travels, would you? Tell them I need to change my reservation to London. I want to go on flight…?” She arched an inquiry at Pete.

  “You don’t have to go all that way with me,” he told her softly. “I’ll be back within a few weeks. I promise.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, no, my darling. No more goodbyes, remember? Whither thou goest, I’m going, too. When we get back from England, we’ll figure out whither we go next.”

  “Where we’re going next,” he murmured, “is to the closest available cottage.”

  It wasn’t the honeymoon suite.

  There was no freestanding glass-and-brass shower stall in the loft bathroom. The stone fireplace wasn’t quite as massive as the one that had warmed them before.

  But the Pines’ management had provided a bottle of champagne with a dusty label that made Pete’s brows arch, and the bed was as wide and as sinfully inviting as the one they’d shared.

  Abby lay awake long after the fire had dimmed to a glow and the little bit of champagne in the green bottle had gone flat. Pete’s head was heavy on her breasts, and his breath was warm against her skin.

  She smiled, knowing she was home.

  Epilogue

  Distracted by the excited chatter in the outer office, Lucy Falco glanced away from her busy computer screen.

  She caught a glimpse of Tiffany’s silver curls, nodding emphatically, and the flutter of a gray reservation form in her hand. Tucking a stray strand of her dark brown hair behind her ear, she rose and joined the travel agents clustered around the older woman.

  “And I have them booked into a medieval manor house for an entire week,” Tiffany told the assembled group, lifting a finely penciled brow. “It’s only open to a select clientele. Veddy veddy posh, you know.”