“I’m coming, hold yer knickers on!” I shouted as I walked down the stairs. Expecting to see Keela, I was shocked when Dalton was waiting instead.
It had to be a cruel test from the saints to have the man looking right fine in a black suit with a blue tie that matched me dress. His hair was neatly combed and his face was clean-shaven, and his cologne tickled me nose as I slowly walked toward him. His eyes looked me down from top to bottom and when I reached him, he leaned in like he was going to kiss me. Me eyes widened in shock and I took a small step back. As he realized what he had almost done, he straightened and cleared his throat.
Matt and Rachel joined us and Matt gave me a thumbs up as he grinned. I don’t remember much about the next few minutes. It was hard to concentrate as I plastered a smile on me lips and wound me arm through Dalton’s, and then we walked past me parents, some of their friends, and the mutt Alison had saved, until we parted and stood across from one another while Reece and Synclair, and Sara and Lucas exchanged vows.
I looked at the beauiful gazebo, adorned with over five hundred spring flowers, and smiled at how happy both couples looked as they joined their lives together. Dalton was staring, too, but I wasn’t sure at what. He was looking at his brothers with a strange look on his face. I was concerned when I saw him start to tremble, then he broke out into a sweat and his eyes began darting about like a crazy person's. As soon as the man told the men to kiss their brides, everyone cheered, but Dalton just stared after his brothers as they walked their wives down the aisle, laughing and crying as they went. It was Dalton and I’s turn to walk back down the aisle to the dinner tent where food, champagne, and dancing were waiting, but as soon as I approached Dalton and touched his arm, I knew something was off.
“You okay?” I whispered as we began to make our way down the aisle. He walked so quickly that I almost tripped twice.
“Yeah, yeah, weddings, you know, kind of whacky, right? Dresses, kissing, wedding cake toppers,” he babbled as he looked around for what I guess was an escape route.
“Yeah, not like ours!” I blurted out in frustration before I could stop meself.
Dalton froze and terror-filled eyes turned toward me
“I mean, not like ours will be someday, when we meet and marry people… people that aren’t each other,” I stammered and, as soon as we hit the tent, I broke away, looking for a glass of champagne. I turned to see where Dalton was and caught a glimpse of him as he rushed inside. The man couldn’t even wait two seconds to get away from me.
The wedding dinner went off without a hitch and the happy couples couldn’t stop telling me what a grand wedding I had put together. They especially liked The Walking Dead, cake and the wedding toppers fashioned after each of them.
I was about to announce that it was time for the wedding dance when Synclair suddenly bent forward gripping her belly, her face contorted in pain.
You’ve got to be shittin’ me! I was about to suggest it was gas when a loud popping noise happened, followed by a rush of water down Synclair’s legs. Her green, lacy wedding dress with the empire waist was dripping with liquid and Reece turned frantic eyes to me and said, “Baby time,” in a voice I had never heard him use.
In a whirl of shouts and shuffling of feet, Matt ran inside and got Dalton. Reece ran to get the car and, when Synclair bent over again to grasp her belly, Dalton lifted her up into his arms and strode toward the drive like she weighed nothing.
“I’m still mad, Dalton,” she whimpered against him.
“And I still love you,” he whispered into her ear as he placed her in the car with Da and Reece. With a kiss on her forehead, he shut the door and slapped the top of the car twice to let Reece know all was secure.
The rest of us piled into the remaining cars and raced to the hospital, as I tried not to be jealous of how easily Dalton said those words of love to Synclair, and how much I wished he would say them to me.
3 Months Later
Dalton
I cuddled my perfect nephew in the crook my arm as I grabbed the bottle that Synclair had prepared, and laughed as the little guy gulped it greedily. The kid was adorable; he had Hudson-black hair, and right now his eyes were a light hazel, almost green, but the doctor said that could change.
Little Cord Jackson Hudson had screamed his way into this world barely two hours after Reece and Synclair had gotten married. Apparently, my new sister had been in labor all day, but didn’t want to ruin the wedding, so she held off until her water broke, and ten minutes after she got to the hosital, my nephew was born.
The hospital was full of hugs, congratulations, tears, and more hugs. My brother Reece had never looked so happy, nor so proud, and Synclair beamed even as she admitted she was exhausted. I wanted to hug Camille, I wanted to wipe her happy tears as she held Cord for the first time in her arms. I didn’t, though, I didn’t move. I watched the woman I loved hold that child and I couldn’t stop imagining her holding mine. Yeah, it happened. Remember the rules of taking a woman to a wedding? I thought I was safe because Camille wasn’t my date. It didn’t matter, however; when I looked up at Reece and Synclair, standing in the beautiful gazebo that Camille and I had built together, I was fucked. I saw Camille throwing her arms around me as she kissed me, I saw the conversations we’d had sitting on the very steps I was standing on, I remembered how her lips felt when she had kissed me in front of Keela and Michael and how her laugh made me smile when I held her to my side. I looked up and, instead of Reece and Synclair standing there, I saw Camille in a beautifully fitted lace dress, and her eyes were shining while we pledged our love together. That’s when it hit me, it hit me so hard I almost threw up. Everywhere I looked, I saw Camille and I, every place I turned, I smelled her lilac scent or remembered how it felt to dance with her up close. I was in love, I was absolutely and complely head-over-heels in love and I had no clue what to do about it.
So, I ran. Yep, I really was a coward, but I needed to sort out my feelings, I needed to be sure. After everything I’d said to Camille about not wanting love, only wanting friendship or casual sex, how was I going to convince her I was in love with her and not just caught up in the wedding buzz?
While everyone else stayed another two weeks, Matt, Alison, and I caught a flight out the next afternoon. Camille didn’t come downstairs to say good-bye when I left, but she did hug Alison and Matt when they knocked on her door before leaving. Matt didn’t talk about Camille and, for that, I was thankful. Then again, I think Matt had his own problems. Since, Alison had insisted on bringing the dog from the bar back to the states and seemed bent on not giving my brother the time of day!
Although, I think Matt must have pulled a fast one because the mutt, now known as Chompers, ended up on our flight to Reno, where we drove home to Carson City and not on Alison’s flight to Las Vegas.
Not knowing what else to do, I threw myself into work. I spent night and day on Synclair and Sara’s remodel and, while I made a special effort to spend time with my nephew, I avoided everyone else. Synclair hadn’t spoken to me since I had carried her to the car that day and it was killing me. Apparently, it was bothering her too, because about two weeks after I got home, she stormed into my apartment, which I had built above the garage, and flung a pair of jeans at me.
“These got mixed up in our stuff, I washed them for you,” she grumbled.
“Thanks, Syn, seriously, you didn’t have to. I know you hate me right now,” I told her as I dramatically flopped back on my couch and sighed, eyes shut in torment. I turned my head and opened one eyeball at her. Her angry face melted and she laughed.
"Okay, I give, even I can’t resist Dalton Hudson’s charm,” she said and sighed as she shoved me over.
“You know, I thought you were smarter than this, Dalton,” she told me as I placed my jeans on the coffee table. She didn’t have to explain for me to know what she was talking about.
“So did I,” I replied, sighing.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” she as
ked in frustrated tone that told me that I wasn’t getting whatever message I was supposed to.
“Nothing. She’s there, I’m here! What can I do?” I complained and then yelped when Synclair smacked me in the back of the head. Shoving me off the couch, she put her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know, Dalton, this isn’t something you can charm your way out of; you hurt her. She loves you and you hurt her! You need to go big, way big, and you only have two months!”
“What the hell are you talking about, Synclair? She doesn’t love me, she doesn’t want to be in love any more than I do, and what’s with the timeline?” I stood up, rubbing the back of my head as I faced off with her.
“She’s coming for the reception, the celebration for the opening of mine and Sara's restuarant that you just finished remodeling for us! Geez, why are you Hudsons so thick? Of course she loves you, or she would have had the -” she slapped her hand over her mouth and stepped back, her hazel eyes wide with shock.
No, no way. She was going to say something and she wasn’t getting out of here until she spilled.
“Um, bye,” she said as she bolted for the door.
I was faster and leapt over the couch, throwing myself against the door and blocking it with my body. “Spill,” I ordered and she shook her head. “Spill, or I will tell Reece that you’re watching Netflix instead of napping in the afternoon like you promised!” I threatened. I knew it was low, but I also knew that the baby kept both her and Reece up at night, and he made it a point to have one of us watch Cord for at least an hour so she could nap.
“You wouldn’t!” she shouted, clearly upset that I would rat her out.
“Try me!” I was going balls-out on this; she knew something, and she wanted to to tell me, I knew she did.
“Fine! Camille loves you because if she didn’t she would have moved for an annulment, but she didn’t because, no matter what she says, she is in love with you!”
I stumbled back and tripped over the carpet and then ass-planted on the floor in shock.
“We’re... What? How?” I demanded, my mind racing with trying to remember.
"It was the night you guys went to the club next to the church. Apparently, Camille had the marriage petition in her pocket, a wedding band set for a ring bearer we never used, and a whole lot of whiskey shots. You both stumbled into the church, convinced Father Simmons you were in love, and he married you! She was going to tell you when she came upon you telling Reece and the guys how you felt sorry for her, how you didn’t love her, and how sleeping with her was a drunken mistake! So, I ask you again, Dalton Hudson, what are you going to do about it?” she shouted as I just stared at her from the floor.
After a moment, she turned to the door, and just as I thought she was leaving, she turned and threw something at me. It bounced off my chest and onto the floor near my hand; it was the wedding band we had picked up at the jewelers. I picked it up and found it only fit on my pinky. Suddenly, I had a flash of Camille trying to put it on my ring finger before finally giving up and shoving it on my pinky as we both laughed.
“I took it out of your jeans before I washed them, and this was there, too,” she told me as she handed me some folded-up papers. They looked liked they had been torn from a sketch-pad. Camille’s dream home design?
“I know you can be an asshole, I know you can be a charmer, we both know you’re a man, but she needs you to be a Hudson, Dalton, and everything that goes with that.”
With that, Synclair left and quietly shut my door, and I fell back and tried to figure out how to fix my clusterfuck.
That was a little over two months ago, and today was the day that Camille and her parents were arriving. Reece had gone to get them at the airport, and I was watching Cord while Synclair was taking a shower. Everything was set up outside with an enormous amount of food, cake, a band, lot’s of friends, and even some of our cousins had shown up. Oh and the dog, the big fat, drooling dog that had come all the way from Ireland, was running all over the yard chasing butterflies!
“Hey, Dalt, you gonna hog the kid all day or can his cousin, Ghost, get a chance?” My cousin John Hudson was my father’s brother’s son, and we had been pretty close growing up, and even though they lived in Northern California, we saw them regularly. In fact, we have both served in the military; the only difference was that, when I was done, I came home and started a business, and John, or "Ghost" as everyone called him, joined a security company that gets contracted to do special ops. Basically, if you see someone get rescued from some hell hole in the Middle East, it’s probably Ghost and his team doing the saving. He never talks about his missions, but I know he’s damn good at what he does.
“Fine, fine, you can hold him for a minute,” I told him as I finished burping Cord and laid him in John’s arms. It was kind of comical to see this tank of a man, sleeved in tattoos and sporting that severe military haircut, look so nervous with a tiny baby in his arms.
“Hey,” John whispered and informed me proudly, “the kid has the Hudson dimples.”
“Yeah, and the hair, although I think he has more if it then you do,” I said, laughing as John flipped me off.
“It was cool that Reece named him after Uncle Cord,” John said in a sad voice. I knew John and my dad had been close, and he’d taken it hard when my parents died.
“Yeah, Cord for dad and then Jackson for her uncle Jack. He is great, though,” I said as I grabbed his little foot.
I was about to take him from John, since I felt he had enough time with my nephew and I was a little greedy about spending time with him, when Synclair swept into the room in a pretty, long-sleeved sweater dress and boots.
“Hey, Ghost, kill anyone lately?” she smirked and John paled. “Kidding, just kidding,” she teased. She took Cord from John and kissed the baby affectionately.
“Can you guys mingle with the guests? Reece and everyone should be here from the airport in a few, but I don’t want everyone to feel neglected."
John leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, then wandered outside to make sure everyone was having a good time. Camille would be here any minute; it was do or die time. I was Hudson, hear me roar.
About thirty minutes later, I saw Jack and Kathryn come through the back door, followed by Camille. She looked beautiful. She’d cut her hair to just below her shoulders, and it felt in waves around her face. She was wearing a navy blue skirt with a white blouse and spiked boots. My mouth watered as I stared at her. How could I not love this woman? I had learned quickly that being apart from her was far more painful than letting myself love her and something happening to her. I hadn’t slept well or eaten well, and all I did was work. Everything over the past few months had led up to this moment, sink or swim, do or die.
I waited while Sara and Rachel greeted Camille and chatted her up for a bit. When I saw her finally move away to grab one of the bottles of water on the table, I made my move.
“Hi,” I said as she opened the lid to the water. Her blue eyes met mine and I could almost hear her heart thumping. She still wanted me, I knew, because her lips slightly parted and her breathing quickened. I wanted to pump my fist in the air with relief when I saw how her body reacted to mine.
“Hello, Dalton, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find me nephew.” She dismissed me and moved quickly away.
I grinned. I loved the chase, and where she went I would follow.
After a few minutes she turned to me, her hands waving in frustration. “What is it you need to say? I don’t want to talk to you,” she hissed and, when I didn’t say anything, she shoved past me.
I waited until she was about twenty feet away and then shouted, “Camille Patrick Hudson, don’t walk away when your husband is talking to you, woman.”
Camille froze, all talking stopped, and everyone turned to watch what was happening. I glanced towards my brothers, who were grinning. Matt was petting Chompers and giving me his thumbs-up sign, Synclair and Sara were watching it all with great interest, and Camil
le’s parents didn’t look surprised at all.
Camille slowly turned around, her face beet red, and she quickly walked back to where I was standing, hand in my jeans, grinning like a loon.
“What did you call me?” she asked, and her voice shook with emotion.
I leaned forward, kissed her lips, and whispered, “Camille Patrick Hudson, my wife.” I leaned in again and kissed her. She gasped and took a step back.
“How did you...?” She turned and glared at Synclair, who waved innocently from the table, little Cord resting on her shoulder.
“You bloody lip flapper!” Camille shouted as she visibily began to shake. Then she turned to me. “I can explain what happened, we can even get it fixed… Well, I think we can… that is…” I didn’t let her finish; I tugged her to me so she fell against my chest and, when she squeaked with the impact, I took full possession of the mouth that had haunted me for two months. I felt her stiffen and her hands came up to my chest to push me away, but I refused to budge as I tasted her tongue, her lips, even running my tongue across her teeth - there wasn’t any part of her mouth I didn’t taste, and when she finally melted and met my tongue thrust for thrust, I almost lost it.
“Wait, wait, what is this, Dalton?” she asked when we finally broke apart. She tried to move out of my arms, but I wouldn’t let her.
“This is me saying 'I love you',” I told her, watching her face to see her reaction.
“No, you don’t,” she answered. Odd, not the response I was looking for.
“I do. I was scared before, scared to love someone and then lose them, then I was scared to lose the best friend I'd ever had. I was a coward and it took me a while for my head to catch up to my heart,” I explained.
She shook her head and pushed herself out of my arms. I have to admit, I had expected tears, kissing, tongue… definitely more tongue… but her look of hurt and anger was completely unexpected.
“So, let me get this straight: after all this time, you found out that we got married one drunken night. I lose my virginity to you and now, all this time later… now, you suddenly love me?" She shouted.
Lucky Charms: A Hudson Family Series- Book 3- Dalton and Cami Page 29