by J. R. Ward
It made him want to see it on his pillow, fanned out in a tangle because he’d been running his fingers through it.
Her eyes dropped down and she opened her car door. “Come on, you’ve got a speech to make, and I have to push food around a plate. It’s a busy agenda.”
Inside the restaurant, they were shown over to a long lineup of tables that ran down the center of the open seating area. The place had been closed for the party, and as he and Anne were the first ones there, he knew what his immediate goal was.
“Let’s sit here.” Thank God Deandra hadn’t done place cards. “It’s close to the exit.”
“Good call.”
As others arrived, his old fraternity brothers got rowdier and rowdier until their voices rang in his ears and his temper got short. The other firefighters and SWAT guys seemed to agree with him, the crew becoming quieter and quieter.
And then Deandra and Moose came in.
The bride’s eyes went directly to Danny, and then narrowed on Anne.
Don’t you dare, Deandra, he thought.
Turning to Anne, he said, “So . . .”
She took a sip from her glass of wine. “So?”
When their eyes met, the other people disappeared. The waiters filling water glasses dematerialized. The restaurant became as fog, something vague and indistinct.
Her stare was all that he saw.
As she shook her head, he told himself it didn’t mean anything. He knew better, though. She was closing the door on what had been started the night before in her living room—but he didn’t think it was going to be so easy to set that electricity aside.
Genies out of bottles, and all that.
Except then he thought about his reputation. Anne was not the kind of woman who’d let herself get used—not that that was his intent with her.
Far from it.
Food came in waves, great platters of pastas and meats set in the center of the table. From time to time, Danny looked down the way at the bride and groom. First they were arguing, then Deandra gave the guy the silent treatment.
But just before dessert came out, Moose started to talk at the woman urgently.
Next thing anyone knew, she was stroking his face and kissing him like she was checking the structural integrity of his molars with her tongue. After that? The bride held the groom’s hand and sparkled like she was a disco ball. All apparently was well . . . for the next foreseeable ten minutes.
“Dannyboy?” Moose called out from across the table. “You ready for your speech?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Danny stood up and clanked his dessert spoon on the side of his water glass. As people kept talking, he shouted, “Shut up.”
Pin. Drop.
As all eyes swung in his direction, he cleared his throat. But then his mind went utterly blank—which made sense, he guessed, given that Anne was in his peripheral vision, and the only person he truly saw.
Picturing her eyes as they stared up at him the night before, he started to speak, the words not coming from his brain, but somewhere behind his sternum.
“Many of you know that I lost my twin brother, John Thomas, in a fire three years ago.” All of the firefighters around the table twitched in their seats—and Anne jerked to attention. “I don’t talk a lot about it. But he’s with me every day and night—or the fact that he’s not here with me is more like it. For those of us in this dangerous profession, we live with the possibility of loss every time we go out on an alarm. We know we can walk into a building or a home and not come out. It gives you a lot of perspective on how short life is, and that means good times and good people—and a good woman . . . is a rare thing that should not be wasted. I never believed in love. For the longest time, I thought it was just a word, a title people gave to daydreams and misconceptions about destiny, a lie folks told to themselves to make them feel solid in this imperfect, unreliable, and mean-ass world.”
He took a deep breath and focused properly on Anne. Then he looked away so people wouldn’t catch on. “Now, though, I know it can happen between two people. And it doesn’t have to make sense because it’s not about logic. And it doesn’t have to have good timing because forever is like infinity, without beginning or end. And it doesn’t have to be defined because truth is like faith—it just is.”
Abruptly, Danny realized he was talking to Anne instead of the intendeds, so he got himself back on track and raised his glass. “So, let’s toast to Moose and Deandra. I can’t think of a better guy to have my back, and I wish the both of you the best of luck.” Because they were going to need it. “And happiness, too.”
“To Moose and Deandra,” a number of others chimed in lackadaisically.
“To a wedding night on all fours,” one of the frat boys shouted.
“Is that Moose or Deandra you’re talkin’ ’bout!” another of the drunks added.
As Danny sat back down, he was aware of the bride shooting daggers in the direction of the Barstool Sports peanut gallery—and he was willing to bet Moose was going to catch another round of pissed off from her.
But that wasn’t his problem. All he cared about was Anne.
Tonight was the night. He was going to tell her how he felt. One way or another . . . he was going to lay his cards on the table and pray she felt the same.
Or at least didn’t slam the proverbial door in his face.
chapter
7
Saturday, October 31
T minus 2 hours ’til blastoff
St. Mary’s Cathedral, Old New Brunswick
While Anne drove to the church the next afternoon, she reflected that she’d never had veil envy, as they called it. As a young girl, she had never pictured herself walking down an aisle in a white dress, ready to be rescued by a knight-in-shining-armor groom who was going to take charge and take care of her for the rest of her life.
Nope. Anne had wanted to fight fires like her father and then her brother. Even though she no longer respected the former, and had a strained relationship with the latter, she’d wanted to pull on turnouts and strap an air tank to her back and breathe canned air as she ran into open flames dragging hundreds of pounds of charged line with her. She’d wanted to rescue grandmothers, and children, and people who had succumbed to smoke inhalation. She’d been ready to cut open crumpled cars and drag broken bodies out of wreckage at the sides of highways. She’d been determined that the extremes of cold winter nights, hot summer days, physical exhaustion, and mental fatigue would never keep her from doing her job.
So, yup, the old-fashioned Mrs. degree had never held any fascination for her. There was no way in hell she was going to be like her mother, living a derivative, nineteen-fifties version of life, nothing but a pretty blow-up doll that was expected to cook, clean, and cut the yapping.
On that note, as she pulled into St. Mary’s parking lot and looked up at the great cathedral’s stained glass windows and lofty spires, she decided it made sense that not only was she not the bride, she wasn’t even a bridesmaid.
And she was thinking groomsmen was a role she might as well get used to. Not that Duff, Emilio, Deshaun, or any of the other crew were settling down anytime soon.
Especially not Danny.
Right on cue, a Ford truck entered the parking lot, the late-afternoon sun flashing across its windshield.
As Anne’s heart kicked in her chest, she was tempted to hustle in the side door of the church—but she had never been one to run from a challenge.
Danny was more than just a challenge, though.
And okay, fine. So maybe she had already run out of his way at least once. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, she’d positively bolted after he’d made that speech of his.
I never believed in love . . . I thought it was just a word, a title people gave to daydreams and misconceptions about destiny, a lie folks told to themselves to make them feel solid in this imperfect, unreliable, and mean-ass world.
Now, though, I know it can happen between two people. An
d it doesn’t have to make sense because it’s not about logic. And it doesn’t have to have good timing because forever is like infinity, without beginning or end. And it doesn’t have to be defined because truth is like faith—it just is.
So, let’s toast to love.
He’d looked at her while he’d spoken. He had been talking . . . to her . . . in that slow, deep voice.
Everybody else had toasted Moose and Deandra. But Anne had known it hadn’t been about them. Danny, ever the ladies man, king of the one-night stand, he who shalt never be tied down . . . seemed to be suggesting not just that he’d had a change of heart.
But that he might have given his own to Anne.
Unless she was misreading everything? Then again, they had kissed the night before that. In her living room. While riding an adrenaline high after they’d saved a life in an alleyway.
And the lips-to-lips had been better than good, the rare circumstance when reality had improved on a fantasy. After two years of attraction and sizzle and unacknowledged heat, that which had been pushed under the rug was exposed now. And there was no going back.
Especially since she felt the same way.
So hell yeah she had bolted out of that restaurant. The second she had been able to get up from her chair, she had hit the exit and left Danny without a ride home.
He’d called two hours later. He’d been in a bar, probably Timeout, where the crew always went, the noise in the background loud and raucous.
She had not answered. He had left a short message, but not called again.
Anne just wasn’t sure what to do. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There were plenty of things she wanted to do to him, with him, on him—all of which were naked and erotic and not necessarily only horizontal.
Refocusing, she watched Danny’s truck pass by. From behind the wheel, he looked over at her.
She waited for him to find a space and get out, and as he walked across to her, she tried—tried—not to go sixteen-year-old girl at the sight of him in a tuxedo.
#epicfail
He was very tall, and she couldn’t help noticing yet again that he was built hard and muscular, his shoulders so wide, his chest so broad, his waist the point of the inverted triangle of his torso. His jet-black hair was still damp, and what sunlight there was in the mostly cloudy sky flashed blue in its depths. He was freshly shaven—his cologne reaching her nose even before he stopped in front of her—and his eyes were that brilliant blue that had always arrested her.
Irish eyes.
But they were not smiling.
For a man who was rarely serious, he looked positively grim, and she frowned.
“You okay?” Stupid question. “I mean—”
“Yeah, no. I’m fine.”
Standard answer for firefighters when they were in pain. And she wondered if it had to do with that speech of his, and what she could have sworn he had been telling her.
His eyes shifted off to the side and then his mouth got thinner. “And here’s the blushing bride.”
A stretch limo entered the parking area and made a fat turn toward the back door of the cathedral. When it stopped, its driver got out and went to the rear door.
Seven all-in-pink, spray-tanned, body-glittered, and blond-streaked women got out one by one, a clown car of bridesmaids who were such carbon copies of each other, it was like they had been ordered out of a catalogue.
And then the white dress emerged.
Deandra had her blond-streaked hair—natch—piled up on her head in an organized, sculpted waterfall of curls. Her veil was a gossamer fall over her tiny waist and her big skirt, and the shimmer of crystals across the bodice and down the front and sides of the gown made her look like a princess.
Provided you didn’t catch her expression.
She was sour as an old woman with gout and shingles. In spite of the fact that she was supposedly marrying her true love, she looked downright nasty as she snapped at the driver, glared at her maid of honor, and yanked her skirting up to march into the back of the church.
“Wow,” Anne muttered. “That’s a happy bride.”
“Whatever. They’re on their own with this dumbass idea.”
“Did you happen talk to Moose last night?” she blurted. “As in out of this? Or would that be considered tacky given it was less than twenty-four hours before the priest hit the altar with them.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “He’s bound and determined to ball-and-chain himself. Personally, I’d be running in the opposite direction.”
And then there was silence between them. Tension coiled up quick, and as Anne’s temples started to pound, she decided it was going to be a long night, just not for the reasons she’d assumed at the beginning of the weekend.
* * *
Danny Maguire knew all about making bad choices. In fact, up until recently, his love life—or sex life, as it had been—had revolved around all kinds of stoopid decisions made when he’d been drunk.
Deandra, however, had proven to be one of his worst and most enduring. He’d never expected her to have any permanency, and look where they all were this afternoon.
But even all this nonsense paled in comparison to what was really on Danny’s mind. Somewhere along the line, he had managed to fall in love with Anne Ashburn, and, for reasons he didn’t want to look at too closely, he was determined to give her this newsflash—not that she was giving him much of a chance to, and who could blame her in that. She had bolted out of that rehearsal dinner as if she had a four-alarm to respond to.
And he had ended up with the bride breaking and entering into his apartment and propositioning him for sex.
Not how Danny had intended the night to end.
“You want to go inside?” he asked Anne.
“Not if I have to go hang with those women.”
“You’re in a tux, remember. You’re one of us groomsmen.”
At any other time, he would have thrown a casual arm around her shoulders, but not today. Not after he’d kissed her. Not after that speech he’d made to her and not to the couple.
“Yup,” she said, “I’m just one of the guys.”
Not even close, he thought as they started walking together.
They had been instructed at the rehearsal the night before to enter the cathedral at the side door and head down into the basement, as the women would be gathering and getting their pictures done in the rear. Danny held the way open for Anne, and as she went by him, he looked down at her.
Her tuxedo had been cobbled together at the rental store, the jacket, shirt, and cummerbund a boys’ version of the ones the men were wearing, her slacks a small men’s size to accommodate her long legs.
She looked way better than any of those pink-clad girls with their spray tans and crimped hair.
Man, there was something sexy as hell about a woman in a tuxedo. It made him want to take off all those clothes and find the female underneath.
With his hands. His mouth. Parts of his own body.
Falling in behind her, he tracked the way she moved, her hips a subtle sway, her sun-streaked hair swinging loose, the jacket over her arm.
He wanted her naked. Now.
He wanted in her. Now.
He wanted . . . everything from her.
Now.
But this was not the time or the place, and he was getting worried there would never be either. It was rare to get four days off for R&R, and Danny had a feeling that if he didn’t come out with how he was feeling during this time away from work, they were going to go back to the station on Monday and return to the grind of alarms and rescues and recoveries . . . and this cusp would turn into a closed door. A lost opportunity.
A road never taken.
And he wasn’t sure he could live with that.
The stairwell was right in front of them, and the red-carpeted steps creaked as they descended into the cool, damp lower level. Stone walls and a low ceiling made him think they were in the cellar of a medieval castle, and as they headed for
the voices coming out of an open room, they passed by brass plaques donated by families with Irish last names.
He had been down this hall all his life, it seemed. For Sunday school. Catechism class. Before First Communion. Youth group.
His mother’s funeral. His father’s.
His twin, John Thomas’s, who had died on fire service three years before.
Guess that made him an orphan, assuming someone who was almost thirty could be classed as such.
The corridor opened into an area that seemed to take up half the cathedral’s footprint. With more of that blood red carpeting, and a lot of carved oak furniture, and shelves crammed with leather-bound books, the place smelled like beeswax candles, incense, and old stuff.
The other groomsmen were there, Jack and Mick, and then Emilio, Deshaun, and Duff, all talking and laughing.
Moose was off to the side, and as Danny entered with Anne, the guy looked up.
For once, he wasn’t jovial. Joking. Jocular.
He was subdued in his tuxedo, a pink rose on his lapel, his beard newly trimmed, his eyes bloodshot and baggy’d.
Danny’s first thought was what had happened the night before in the dark. When Deandra had dropped her dress to the floor and made him an offer that had been very, very easy to decline.
Shit. The cat was out of the bag.
chapter
8
As time passed slowly in the cellar of the cathedral, Danny kept an eye on Moose. The guy continued to stay on the periphery, pacing in circles and keeping his eyes on the floor. And in response to his mood, everyone else went equally quiet, the tension growing.
Taking a seat on a settee that had all kinds of velvet cushions, Danny rubbed his face and felt like he was making a mess out of everything. The wedding. Moose. Anne.
He’d never had many regrets. But this Deandra shit was turning into a problem. They’d had a casual hookup that she’d tried to turn into more six months ago. When it hadn’t gone any further, she’d jumped ship to someone who would fall in line.