“We could alter one of our dresses,” Sarah chimed in. “Or even make a new one. Between Max’s mother, Genna, and Leandra’s mother-in-law, Jolie, they could whip together something remarkable in no time at all. They’re both whizzes with a needle. And Braden has a wonderful fabric shop.”
“What do you think, dear?”
Tara realized that all eyes seemed to have fallen on her. “I think I’m a little overwhelmed,” she said faintly.
“Of course you are,” Emily said comfortably. “Honestly. Men can be in such a rush, sometimes, and my son is no different. But don’t worry. It’ll all come together because Axel isn’t all that wrong. When we put our minds to it, we can accomplish amazing things.”
And several hours later when the celebratory mob started its exodus, Emily had proven herself right.
The church was confirmed. So was the florist. And the photographer. Even the menu had been hammered out for the reception, which would be held in the new barn Matthew had just built at the Double-C.
“The only thing you need to do is take care of the rings, and decide about your dress,” Emily said. She and her husband were on the tail end of the departing mass. “I know Axel has a decent suit in his closet already from Ryan’s service last year, though he might not want to wear it for a wedding.”
“Mom.” Axel closed his hands over his mother’s shoulders and steered her toward the door where Jefferson was waiting. “I promise not to embarrass you by showing up in jeans and a dirty sweatshirt. Take her home, Dad, before she needs a horse tranquilizer to dial down.”
“I can’t help it.” Emily hugged her son once more, then Tara. “I’m just more delighted than I could say. You’re a perfect couple.”
“Well, there’s one thing more you oughta know,” Axel said.
Tara opened her mouth to stop him, but it was too late. His arm had already slid around her waist again, totally proprietary as his hand flattened against her belly. “Tara’s pregnant.”
Emily’s eyes widened slightly and Jefferson’s narrowed.
“We’d be getting married immediately anyway,” Axel added, and Tara quailed at the absolute lie.
“Of course you would,” Emily said, pressing her hand to her heart. She hugged her son again. “You are going to be a wonderful father. And you,” she said as she cupped her hands around Tara’s face, “are going to be a wonderful mother. And daughter.” She practically sailed out the door, while Jefferson shook his son’s hand and clapped him on the back.
Then the man’s vivid gaze turned on Tara. His smile was slow and gentle and so much like Axel’s that it made her heart ache. “It might not be official for another twelve days,” he said, “but welcome to the family.”
And then the door closed behind them all, leaving Tara alone with Axel. “Don’t even start,” he warned, before she could open her mouth.
She winced. “You can’t force me to marry you, Axel.” Not even if she’d been weak enough to have signed the marriage license.
“No. I can’t.” He looked utterly weary. “But you’re going to marry me, anyway. Because that family—” he said pointing toward the front door “—is going to provide this child with exactly what you can’t seem to get over never having had yourself. You want roots? Well, sweetheart, the roots my family set into this earth are real and lasting. That’s my baby you’re carrying, and like it or not, you’re part of them now, so I suggest you start getting used to the idea and stop pushing away the very things you claim to want.”
“I don’t do that,” she defended herself shakily.
“Yeah.” His voice was flat. “You do.” Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into his bedroom only to return a moment later with a pillow that he tossed on the wide, leather couch.
“Take the bed,” he said.
She hesitated. “But—”
“Fine. Stay out here, then. But we’re going to do one of two things if you do. Argue. Or make love.” He ripped his T-shirt over his head, balled it up and threw it aside. “More likely, we’ll do both.”
She shuddered, dragging her traitorous gaze from that wealth of sculpted flesh and sinew, and fled.
Chapter Sixteen
The slam of the bedroom door echoed through the cabin. Axel sank down on the couch and raked his fingers through his hair, then looked at his hands.
They were shaking, God help him.
He pushed off the couch and paced around the room that showed only remnants of the celebration that had just been there.
How could she have kept it to herself? It was his child she was carrying!
He realized he’d stopped in front of the pictures they’d hung. Ryan’s grinning mug stared back at him. Axel’s jaw tightened and before he knew what he was doing, he slammed his fist square into the glass.
It shattered.
The surrounding frames shook. One fell off its nail and shattered when it landed.
He stared down at the explosion of shards littered around his boots.
“What did you do?” Tara’s voice was soft. Shocked. When he didn’t respond—couldn’t seem to find his voice anywhere in the emotion yanking his guts to pieces—she crossed the room toward him.
The sight of her stocking feet approaching finally loosened his tongue. “Don’t. You’ll cut yourself.”
She kept right on walking toward him, though.
Proving that he couldn’t even protect her from some broken glass.
“You’ve cut yourself,” she countered. But she stopped shy of the circle of glass. “I knew it would have been better to use proper hangers than just those nails.”
The nails had been working fine until he’d decided to use one of the pictures as a punching bag. “Go back to bed, Tara,” he said wearily. “I’ll clean this up.”
“Do you have a broom?”
“In the mudroom off the kitchen. I’ll get—”
But she was already heading out of the room.
He stared at the crooked pictures. Slowly righted the one of his parents in the center.
Tara returned with the broom and dustpan and silently began sweeping up the debris.
“I said I’d do it.”
She ignored him, merely kneeling down to wield the dustpan. Then she straightened and carried everything back into his kitchen.
He eyed his parents’ image.
All of his life he’d been trying to live up to the Clay name. To do what was right.
And now he was forcing a woman toward the altar who clearly didn’t want to go there, and was maintaining the worst lie he could possibly think of when it came to his family.
He looked away from the picture only to spot Tara returning. This time she had a dish towel in her hand.
Her dark gaze avoided his when she stopped next to him. “Here.” She reached for his hand and pressed the towel gently against his knuckles. “You’re bleeding.”
Maybe it was his own shock. Or the soft scent of her. Maybe it was just the weight of his own secrets that he couldn’t bear. “Ryan’s alive,” he said baldly.
She froze. Slowly looked up at him, confusion knitting her eyebrows together over her fine nose. She cast a quick glance at the ruined photograph that was still, oddly enough, hanging by a nail. “Your cousin?”
His jaw was so tight it ached. “Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I spent the past year tracking him down. Because that’s where I went when I left you in Braden. I’d gotten a lead on him.”
If anything, she looked even more confused. “Sit down,” she said, and somehow he found himself nudged down onto the couch. She sat beside him, keeping his towel-wrapped hand tucked in her lap. “Now, start from the beginning.”
There was no condemnation looking at him. No anger. No hurt. Nothing but those wide brown eyes that he’d lost himself in that night in the Suds-n-Grill when she’d blurted out that it was her birthday.
So he went to the beginning.
From the time when Ryan had f
irst gone missing, ostensibly while on a naval assignment. To the months, then the years that had passed until Ryan’s parents had finally, grievously, accepted the fact that their son was never coming home again.
“Everyone who knew anyone used their contacts to try to find Ryan.” His lips twisted. “To bring his body home. Sawyer went back to his cronies from his navy days. My father. Tristan. They turned over every damn rock.”
“Tristan,” she repeated faintly. He saw the realization dawn on her. “He’s the not-so-distant uncle, isn’t he? Good Lord, Axel. How many people in your family are involved with Hollins-Winword?”
“Nobody as deeply as he is. Not anymore, at least.”
She seemed to absorb that. “Then how did you find Ryan when nobody else had been able to?”
“It wasn’t because I’m better at what I do than they were,” he said flatly. “But Ryan and I were best friends. I had some idea of the assignment he’d been on and I never could swallow the official line that he’d been killed in the line of duty. So about the time everyone here was recovering from his memorial service, I was putting tails on his old contacts. And four months ago—” his fist tightened beneath the dish towel “—make that about eighteen weeks ago, I got a text message on my phone that I’d gotten a hit.”
“That’s why you were gone before I woke up that morning.” Her voice was nearly soundless.
“I traced Ryan to Bangkok. He’s living there—if that’s what you want to call it—under an assumed name. I spent four months trying to convince him to come home. He swore he’d go even deeper to ground if I even considered telling the family that he was alive. God only knows what’s driving him—but it’s got to be something terrible. He wouldn’t say.” He didn’t have to close his eyes to remember the cold hollowness in Ryan’s eyes. “It was dumb luck that I found him in the first place. I didn’t want to take that chance again, so I promised I’d stay quiet and he promised he’d check in through an e-mail service that’s so bloody generic, he can disappear among the rest of the world that uses it.”
“This is what you think you failed at?”
“Think?” He shook his head. “I know. I should have been able to talk him back to us.”
“Oh, Axel.” She pressed her forehead to the towel around his hand for a moment. When she straightened, her eyes were moist. “I know you. You’ll keep trying. But you can’t force your cousin to care any more than I can make Sloan care.”
“Ryan cares,” he assured her gruffly. “He cares too much. That’s the only thing that makes a man turn away from what matters most. Same thing with Sloan.”
But she shook her head and her silky hair swayed against her jaw. “If Sloan cared, he would have been at the Suds-n-Grill that night. ‘We’ll celebrate our birthday together,’ he’d said. ‘Like old times.’ But he didn’t care.” Faint color bloomed on her high cheekbones. “The only celebrating I did was with you.”
“He cared,” Axel countered. “He just realized that I was the contact that Tristan had sent to meet him, and blew us both off as a result.”
Her eyes widened. “You said you’d been stood up!”
“Yeah. By your brother. I was supposed to play courier for some information between Tristan and Sloan. A total of five minutes, tops, but I warned Tristan that your brother would turn the other direction the second he saw me. And that’s exactly what he did.”
She looked dazed. “I’m not sure I want to ask this…but why?”
He exhaled roughly. But what was the point in keeping the truth from her now? She already knew the worst about Ryan. She might as well know the worst about the rest.
“Nearly two years ago when Sloan came in from the gang, he brought a woman with him. Maria Delgado. She was a cocktail waitress at one of the Deuces’ hangouts. They’d gotten involved and he didn’t want to take any chances that the Deuces would retaliate against her because of him.”
She let go of his hand and pushed to her feet. “What happened?”
“Sloan went to Tristan to ensure her protection and I got the detail. And she might have been just as crazy about Sloan at first, but the luster wore off pretty damn quick when she was in protective custody. I managed to keep her under rein for months before she succeeded in getting away from me. Unfortunately, she went straight back to the bar to try salvaging her damn job.” His jaw tightened. “And I couldn’t get there fast enough.”
Her hand pressed against her rounded mouth.
“Her body was found a few days later. Your brother held me responsible. Rightfully enough. Tristan suspended me. I didn’t care. My heart wasn’t in it anymore. I was ready to resign by the time I went to the Suds-n-Grill that night in Braden. But I didn’t, because—”
“—you received that text message about Ryan,” she finished. She dropped her hand. Looked toward the ceiling. “I wish to God Sloan had never heard of Deuce’s Cross.” She let out a deep breath. Looked back at him. She was so pale, the faint freckles on her nose stood out like beacons. “Your hand is still bleeding.” She knelt and folded the towel against his knuckles again.
He looked at the gleam of light catching in her deep brown hair. “Something good did happen.”
“Like what?”
“I spent that weekend with you.”
Her lashes lowered. “And look what happened.” Her voice was soft. “We’re lying even more to your family.”
“Not all of it’s a lie,” he said gruffly. “You’re having my baby.”
She finally lifted her gaze again and tears sparkled on her lashes. “You were furious.”
“Terrified,” he countered roughly. “Not only do I need to keep you safe, I need to keep our child safe. And look how well I’ve done at keeping people safe!”
She dropped her cheek to his knee. “Oh, Axel. Not even you can protect everyone.” Her voice was snowflake soft. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to get married. We’re going to raise our child. Together.”
She didn’t look at him. “What if it doesn’t work?”
He couldn’t help himself. He slid his fingers through the silky strands of her hair. “It will if we want it to.”
She finally lifted her head, her eyes searching his. “Do you really believe that?”
He had to. “Yes.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Yes, you do.” He closed his hands around her shoulders and drew her up toward him. “We start here. The same place we started before.” He touched his lips to hers. She didn’t resist. Didn’t pull away. Just inhaled and slowly, slowly, lifted her cool fingertips to his face.
“A marriage isn’t based on just sex,” she whispered against him.
“This isn’t just sex.” He pulled her up even further until she was nearly in his lap. He tilted her face, looking straight into her eyes. “It’s need.”
She opened her mouth. But if she’d intended to protest, she never voiced it.
Instead, she leaned into him and pressed those soft lips, those soft breasts, that soft soul, against him. “Take me to bed, Axel.”
And just that easily, everything inside him centered.
Holding her in his arms, he rose off the couch, lifting her right along with him. She clung, tucking her head into his neck, wrapping her legs around his waist.
He settled her on the side of the wide bed, then leaned over, pulling off her socks and tossing them aside. His fingers crept beneath the hem of her purple shirt, finding the waist of her jeans and realized that the button there was unfastened.
Instead of pulling down her zipper, he slowly lifted the shirt upward. She silently raised her arms and he tugged it away, his eyes taking in the lush swell of her breasts jutting tautly against her silky camisole.
Then his gaze dropped to the slight, but very distinct swell of her abdomen.
“How could I not realize?” He brushed his hand against her breasts; fuller than they’d been that night in Braden.
Her eyes were lock
ed onto his face as if she were incapable of looking away. “You didn’t know.”
“I should have.” Suddenly, he wanted—needed—to see more. Touch more.
He tugged the camisole over her head and color rose in her cheeks, rushed down her throat, bloomed across her breasts toward the rigid peaks that pouted up at him. When she went to shyly cross her arms over herself, he shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t hide from me. Not now.”
Her arms subsided and he pulled the zipper of her jeans down and slowly, almost fearfully, settled his palms over that swell just below her navel. “When did you find out?”
“Not until nearly Christmas.”
“Some Christmas present, huh?” he said gruffly.
“I don’t regret it, Axel.” Her fingers slid through his hair. “Not the baby. Not ever.”
There was a burning deep inside his head. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” Her hands covered his, pressing them more firmly against her. “Feel that?”
What he felt was her velvety flesh and it was more than any mortal man could bear.
“The baby’s moving.”
He went still all over again as she guided his hand, seeming to follow in the trail of a wish he couldn’t touch.
And then suddenly, he did feel it. Like a hummingbird’s wings brushing against the palm of his hand.
He stared at her abdomen. “Amazing.”
Her lips curved. Her eyes looked slumberous. “Yes.”
She was female incarnate and the need raging inside him suddenly boiled over. He leaned over, tasting the fluttering pulse that throbbed at the base of her slender neck—oddly reminiscent of the flutter of the baby that he’d felt, only stronger. Headier.
He dragged his lips slowly along the path of that blushing color until he reached one nipple that beaded even more tightly beneath his lips.
She exhaled shakily and her fingers tightened spasmodically where they’d sunk into his hair. She nearly bowed off the bed beneath him.
Impatience reared and he tugged off her jeans. He felt sweat break out as he struggled not to fall on her like some starving beast. He was in danger of losing the battle altogether when her trembling fingers drifted down his chest, his stomach, finally stopping at his strained button fly.
A Weaver Wedding Page 17