Saying I Do (Stewart Island Series Book 8)

by Tracey Alvarez

  Both men, after their initial surprise, met her gaze squarely without their gazes lowering to her…assets. Now if she could just figure out how to make a graceful exit…

  Joe solved the issue by hauling the gold-and-purple bed runner off the comforter and crossing the room in double time to wrap it around her, using the bulk of his body to block his brothers’ view.

  “Flippin’ hell, Mac,” he muttered, tucking the tail of fabric between her breasts.

  His voice was gruff, but not with the chastisement she’d assumed. His face told her he was caught between laughter, annoyance, and possessive arousal. Suddenly, she wanted the Whelan brothers gone. Suddenly, she didn’t need a nap, she just needed Joe.

  He tucked her against his side, probably to help prevent the slippery length of fabric from causing another wardrobe malfunction.

  “You’ll catch your death, baby,” he said. “The air-conditioning’s freezing in here.”

  MacKenna slipped her hand behind him to not-so-subtly pinch his butt. “Then you’d better warm me up.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Get out, you lot,” he said without dragging his gaze from Mac’s face. “We’ll see you at dinner. We’ve jet lag to sleep off.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” Luke uncoiled from his spot on the sofa and crossed to smack his younger brother’s crossed ankles. “C’mon, let’s head down to the casino for a flutter.”

  Kyle rolled off the bed. “Sure you don’t want to leave the old fella to his grandda nap, and come with us? Luke and I will show ya a good time. Promise.”

  Kyle’s eyes, so much like both his older brothers’, creased in the corners with teasing but no trace of lustful intentions. He was baiting Joe, but even as an only child, Mac recognized it for what it was. Sibling one-upmanship.

  She grinned back at him. “Sorry, but I think the old fella can deliver a better time than you can by staying right here.”

  “Precisely,” Joe growled, but the corner of his mouth kicked up. “Now, piss off.”

  Luke sauntered past her, giving her a wink. “Maybe later then?”

  “You’re on,” she said. “I play a mean game of blackjack.”

  Kyle filed past next, ducking down to drop a quick peck on her cheek. “Lovely to meet ya, Mac,” he said. “Bloody brilliant first impression.”

  Joe reached out and cuffed his younger brother’s head. Kyle laughed, and the two men slammed out of the room. From the bathroom came the soulful sound of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” Mac hooked a hand around Joe’s neck, using the other to loosen the bed runner so it slithered to her feet.

  “The perfect soundtrack for a grandda nap.” He pulled her in close and stroked a hand down her spine to cup her bottom. “How ’bout it?”

  “Bloody brilliant,” she said.

  The Strip’s lights were blazing against the deepening blue sky as Mac stopped to check out her little black dress one more time in the mirror before she and Joe left their room. Luke had sent a text to Joe ten minutes ago, saying they were waiting in the main lobby and would he and Mac hurry the hell up? Ma was getting itchy feet to explore Fremont Street.

  “You’re breathtaking,” Joe said to Mac.

  A variation of the five other compliments he’d paid her during the past five minutes to try to reassure her and keep her from having a last-minute panic attack at meeting the whole Whelan clan.

  “And as long as Kyle doesn’t make a comment about you looking good with clothes on, you’ll be fine,” he added.

  “Oh, that’s grand,” she said.

  She stood, tapping the toe of her high-heeled strappy sandal with the black bow thingy at the back, which could cause a man to develop a foot fetish, and glared at him.

  “Your mother will think I’m trying too hard.” She twisted at the waist, skimming a hand over the curve of her arse and tugging down the skirt for the umpteenth time. “You sure I don’t look trashy? Like the kind of girl three of her sons have seen naked?”

  “Just count yourself lucky Da didn’t come with the lads, otherwise the news of it would’ve spread across Dublin and into the countryside.” He kissed her cheek then slid his mouth down to her lips to capture them in a kiss he hoped would distract her from the upcoming ordeal.

  Mac sighed into his mouth then abruptly pulled back.

  “Lipstick!” she said with a palm to his mouth before he could reel her in for another kiss. “I can’t show up to meet my man’s parents with smudged lipstick.”

  Joe grinned down at her, a bubble of warmth rising in his chest at her simple declaration that he was her man. “I checked your make up bag. It’s the non-kiss-off-able kind.”

  “Aren’t you devious?” She ran a thumb along his lower lip.

  Whether she had transferred some of the pretty plum shade coating her mouth to his, he didn’t care. He would’ve been happy to spend the evening just trying to kiss her non-kiss-off-able lipstick off. But duty called.

  “It’ll be fine, Mac. This is Aaron and Kerry’s circus, not ours. That’s where Mam and Da’s focus will be.”

  Until Mam got a chance to get Mac alone. Then all bets were off. That he’d brought a woman with him on this trip spoke silent volumes about his feelings toward her—and while Aaron would be first in line for interrogation, she’d have plenty of energy left for Mac in second place.

  “Let’s get this over with.” She sighed.

  The Whelans and Aaron were clustered by the lobby’s ornate fountain, nattering among themselves. Kerry spotted them first and rushed over, hugging Mac as if she hadn’t seen her for months. His sister gave him the cold shoulder, dragging Mac forward to meet the rest of Joe’s family. She was passed from one to another and hugged, kissed, and patted on the back, his parents and brothers all talking to her at the same time. And Mac handled it like a champ.

  His mam, putting on her maternal boxing gloves, waited for a conversational lull.

  “Joe, you’ll take Aaron and the boys in your car. Rick and I will take the girls. We’ll meet at the base of that Fremont Street thrill ride I read about online.”

  She gave Joe a meaningful stare, which meant she’d have his bollocks if he dared disagree or considered throwing her future son-in-law off the according-to-Google, twelve-story-high zip line.

  “Right, then.” Joe sent Aaron a guy eyebrow lift, his first acknowledgement of the man’s hulking presence toward the back of the group. “Let’s paint the town red.”

  Kyle clapped a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Hopefully not with your blood, eh, mate? Stuck in the car with the three of us.”

  A smile split Aaron’s face. The kind of relaxed smile a man got from knowing he could take care of himself in any situation. “You can’t be worse than a busload of teenage boys hopped up on testosterone.”

  “Behave,” his mam warned and looped her arm through Mac’s. “Now, off with you.”

  As if part of a conspiracy, Kyle and Luke angled in and took the Lincoln’s back seat, leaving Aaron to ride shotgun. They headed away from the casino, his brothers making smartarse comments about the car’s size and Joe “over-compensating” for something.

  Aaron sat at ease beside him, an elbow resting on the door frame, his head tilted back to stare at the craziness of the Strip, as if he were just on a Sunday cruise with a bunch of mates. How could he be so damned casual? He was marrying Kerry the day after tomorrow.

  Maybe.

  Joe’s gaze narrowed on the slow-moving truck towing yet another movie billboard trailer in front of them.

  “The ’67 Continental has a four-hundred-and-sixty-two-cubic-inch V8, doesn’t it?” Aaron said from beside him.

  The admiration in his tone was unmistakable.

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “It’s a bit more grunty than my Honda.”

  “She purrs. Love the sound of the V8 growl. How was she on gas from LA? Eleven miles to the gallon?”

  “Ten. Couldn’t afford to run her for long back home with petrol costing two buck
s a liter.”

  Aaron snorted out a laugh. “Ain’t that the truth? The Chevy Camaro used to cost me a small fortune when I filled her up. But she was mint, a real sweetheart, so I didn’t mind.”

  “You’ve got a Camaro?”

  “Nah. Sold it.” A muscle bunched in his jaw then flattened. “Some things are more important than cars, right?”

  “Right.” Joe dragged his gaze away from Aaron and concentrated on the traffic flow.

  “Besides,” Aaron continued, “my brother-in-law’s restoring a ’72 Buick Rivera. I give him a hand mucking around with it in his garage sometimes.” He shrugged. “If you like classic Americans, you and Mac should come up for a weekend. Jay’s got a ’67 Chevy Impala in storage. He thinks his wife—my sister, Claudia—doesn’t know about the ’69 Corvette Stingray he bought as his next fixer-up. Fool.”

  Aaron inviting him to do guy things? Even though Joe had made it more than obvious that Aaron was public enemy number one. Joe blinked and refocused on the other scrap of information he’d been given.

  “You’ve got a sister?”

  “Two,” Aaron said as the Lincoln cruised into downtown Las Vegas. “One older, one younger. Claudia’s two years older and married to Jay for five years. They’ve got two kids, Marlin who’s four—he’s a petrolhead in training—and Tammy. She’s nearly three and tells me she’s going to be an astronaut. She will, too, because she’s just like her mum.” He shot Joe a loaded glance. “And her Auntie Kerry. Tammy’ll grow into a strong woman, like them.”

  Joe schooled his features into what he hoped projected bland neutrality. “And your younger sister? Is she married?”

  “Dating. And talking about moving in with him. Abbi’s the youngest of the six of us. I have three brothers, two of us like her boyfriend; two of us think he’ll break her heart.”

  “And which camp do you fall into?”

  Aaron’s dark eyes met his across the car. “The one who knows Abbi’s twenty-four and smart enough and strong enough to know her own mind without it mattering what her big brothers think.”

  “So you think he’s a wanker, then?”

  A flash of white teeth and Aaron chuckled. “A complete douche canoe. And if Abbi wouldn’t make my life a living hell for the next thirty years for butting into her business, me and Si would kick his ass into the middle of next week.”

  Kyle leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the back of Aaron’s seat. “The Whelan boys are always available if you need assistance for an arse-kicking, right, Joe?”

  Joe grunted. “If his Abbi is anything like our Kerry, we’d be the ones getting our arses handed to us.”

  “Amen to that,” Aaron said as they pulled into a covered parking lot.

  Five minutes later, they left the massive parking lot and entered the insanity that was Fremont Street. Crowds of people mixed with scantily clad showgirls who posed for tips with a flamingo-long leg raised high above their heads. Music pumped, cooling mist sprayed, street hawkers hawked, and more women shook their bikini-covered arses on top of the outdoor bars selling overpriced drinks. Overhead, psychedelic images burst to life under the massive canopy that ran part of the length of the pedestrian walk between casinos. People stopped to gawp upward at the ever-changing colors while pop music grew louder.

  The four of them, engrossed in a friendly argument about the merits of New Zealand hiking trails compared to the US counterparts, dodged around the non moving crowd and crossed the street to where the unmistakable Slotzilla structure rose above the surrounding lower buildings. As Joe strolled, the conflicting scents of cigarette smoke and fried food filled his nose, and four shrieking riders flew over their heads on the zip line, swooping beneath the canopy.

  “Grand Canyon, Grandview Trail. Makes Ben Lomond Track in Queenstown look like a six-year-old’s trip to the playground,” Luke said.

  “Mate,” said Aaron. “Don’t you have donkeys or something carrying all your shit down into the canyon for you? Man up, and carry your own pack. You’ve been away from home too long.”

  Maybe he’d been a little bit wrong about Aaron. Even though the guy didn’t like beer—he was a whiskey man, apparently—and he had crappy taste in movies and liked golf, Joe conceded maybe, just maybe, under different circumstances, he and Aaron could’ve been friends. Mates, even.

  “You’re all a bunch of pussies,” Joe said. “You’re not a real man until you’ve hiked the Rakiura in winter, fighting through a southerly gale with mud up to your eyeballs.”

  Uproar ensued, Joe’s brothers shoulder-checking each other and even Aaron getting in on it. By the time Kerry, Mac, and Joe’s parents came toward them, the ribbing was over, and he and Aaron were giving each other the mock evil eye as Aaron refused to concede the Rakiura Track was more a test of stamina than the Ben Lomond.

  Joe was about to radically blow up his intentions to keep Aaron at a distance with a challenge to walk the Rakiura with him come summer when Kerry was right in Joe’s face. Eyes red, mouth in a furious line, she smacked his arm hard enough to sting.

  “Hey, watch it,” he said.

  “You leave him alone, Joseph Michael Whelan!” Kerry smacked him again. “I’ve tried to make you see reason, you big eejit, I really have, but now I wish I’d never let Aaron talk me into inviting you if this is the way you’re going to bloody behave. For feck’s sake, man.” She sucked in a huge breath, her eyes going suspiciously shiny. “You’ll not break up my engagement like MacKenna broke up yours. I’m getting married in two days’ time, whether you like it or not.”

  If “A Little Less Conversation” hadn’t been blasting overhead, he could’ve heard a pin drop as every Whelan family member’s stare locked on Mac. Joe’s gaze slid to her, too. Her eyes were still open wide, and her plum-slicked lips were parted in surprise. His stomach flipped down to the soles of his shoes as her mouth snapped shut. She took a step away from his mam and da, whom she’d been standing next to, as if she expected them to recoil in horror.

  “Babe.” Aaron stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Kerry’s waist, hauling her close against him. “It’s not like that. We were talking about hiking, and Joe wasn’t trying to break up anything.”

  “Oh,” Kerry said in a small voice. “Oops.”

  Yeah, oops.

  Mac looked as if she wanted to bolt into the crowd and disappear. He crossed to her before she could and linked his fingers through hers. He squeezed, and she glanced up at him, drawn lines either side of her mouth. He bent and brushed his lips against hers.

  “I need a drink,” she whispered.

  “Chin up,” he whispered back. “It could be worse. Vegas could’ve run out of booze.”

  Chapter 15

  Mac had dealt with many, many mothers of the bride, but none scared her as much as Bess Whelan. Stern but sweet, delightful but with a dangerous smile you did not want aimed in your direction, tactful but spoke her mind. Mac was on tenterhooks, waiting for the axe to fall, since it hadn’t at the most awkward family dinner ever last night.

  At dinner, Bess had steered the conversation toward Luke’s promotion and Kyle’s emergency appendectomy when he was twelve that Joe, still in high school, had diagnosed before he’d even arrived at the hospital. Mac kept a low profile during the meal, and seated next to Aaron, she felt a kindred spirit with the big guy as he, too, was overshadowed by the Whelans’ dynamic and different personalities. At one point during the evening he’d patted her clenched fist and murmured, “It’ll be okay.”

  She’d begun to believe him, until just before she and Joe made excuses to return to the hotel. Bess invited-slash-ordered Mac to accompany her and Kerry to a spa day and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Spa day, execution day, it was all the same to Mac.

  She sat in the sleek black limo that had pulled up in front of their hotel, holding a glass of bubbly and making excruciating small talk with Joe’s mother and sister. Death by a thousand pinpricks was too good for Joe, who’d escaped this mornin
g’s torture by the sheer biological fluke of being born with a penis.

  Joe, his brothers, his father, and Aaron were hitting the Strip’s casinos, with dares already in place for Kyle and Aaron to compare the size of their balls by leaping off the Stratosphere Tower on its SkyJump. She envied the men—throwing herself off a tower sounded preferable to death by the Irish inquisition.

  Somehow, she’d found herself sandwiched between Kerry and Bess. As they turned off Las Vegas Boulevard, Kerry glanced out the limo’s window toward the Stratosphere Tower that dominated the line of casinos with its breathtaking height. Bess reached across Mac and patted her daughter’s hand.

  “He’ll be fine, my love. Your da will make sure the boys don’t lay a hand on him.”

  Kerry’s nose crinkled. “It’s not Luke and Kyle I’m worried about. They like him.” She glanced over at Mac. “Do you think Joe’s warmed up to Aaron at all since you arrived?”

  Mac thought about the expression on Joe’s face she’d spotted moments before Kerry had caught sight of him the evening before. He’d been laughing, horsing around with his brothers and grinning at Aaron before his expression had dissolved into a mock glare at the man from whatever they were ribbing each other about. That was the look Kerry saw—and after she’d already been getting teary-eyed about Joe on the ride to Fremont Street—she’d overreacted.

  “Yeah, I think he’s mellowing,” Mac said, aware of the ticking time bomb of maternal protectiveness next to her. “And after today, doing guy stuff with your dad and brothers, I think he’ll come around even more.” Fingers crossed.

  “Well, I should certainly hope so,” said Bess. “Accusing Aaron of being after Kerry’s money when he’d already signed a pre-nup and what he did to pay for the sparkle on Kerry’s finger.”

  “Mam!” Kerry said.

  “What did he do?” Mac asked at the same time.

  Kerry huffed out a sigh and took another swallow of bubbles. “Aaron didn’t want anyone thinking what Joe accused him of, so we’d already been to a lawyer the week before we met you and Joe for lunch. Against my wishes.”