Sydney set the wine and glasses on an etched brass table and flopped down on the bed of red and gold. “Isn’t this delish? And look.” She rolled over onto her stomach to open a chest by the bed, revealing every sex toy known to mankind. “Our own naughty box. The girls gave me this X-rated shower and well, I designed the room around the box. I found it at an antique store.”
They’d played with some pretty spicy stuff in the past, but some of the things in the box looked like they’d come from a medieval torture chamber. He stepped back with a slight cringe. “Cute friends.”
“I thought so.” She opened the bottle, poured a glass of wine and held it out to him with a giggle.
Her laughter stopped.
The champagne bubbles fizzed and popped in the silence that followed.
“This is the only bedroom?”
Sydney nodded. “I already told you that.”
“What about a guest bedroom, a place for my office?”
“You already have an office.” She put the glasses on the table and walked out of the bedroom into the main part of the loft with a lot of attitude. “It’s suddenly gotten a bit cold in here.”
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A simple touch of the remote control on the glass table by the lime green couch set a blaze burning in the concrete monstrosity. Sydney paced on the expensive wool area rug in front of the fire. None of the bright colors or the blaze could take the chill off the concrete and stainless steel in the room.
That didn’t matter. If the hot flags of color on Sydney’s face were anything to go by, she would scorch him with a Sydney Stanford Snit.
He didn’t care. “Where do you propose I put my stuff?”
“Your stuff?
“Yes, Sydney, my belongings. The things that come with me as part of the whole Alex King package. Big screen TV, my books, my furniture. My life?”
Sydney pouted. “You don’t need any of those things. I thought it would be fun to start fresh for both of us. I guess I was wrong.” She did her most dramatic whirl and faced him. “I did all this for you, and you don’t like it.”
“Well, to be honest, no.” God it felt good to have his balls back. “I hate this. You should’ve discussed this with me first. A home is something you purchase together not just spring it on the other person.” He looked over the loft. “I see a lot of your things around here already.”
“But those are mine.”
“Exactly. You get to keep your belongings, but I have to leave mine in storage? I don’t think so. It,”
he pointed to the room at large, “doesn’t work that way. Or were you planning on leading your life as usual, except for those parts where I become a convenience?”
The pout turned to a snarl of anger. “If that’s the way you feel, maybe it might be better to call off the wedding.”
Sydney didn’t realize she’d handed him a gift 76
A Perfect Bride for Christmas from heaven. If this were to be the full-blown Sydney extravaganza, he might as well let her have it with both barrels. He had to tell her about the girls sometime. Damn the salads and stupid loft—full speed ahead. “Sydney, there’s something you should know.”
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Chapter Nine
Alex guided his Hummer through the snow-packed streets and out to the highway where it didn’t get any better. The snow kept falling, veiling the world in the purest white. Heavy flakes danced in the gray light of the overcast day, fell against the heat of his windshield to melt and die with a sigh.
Lucky snowflake. If he could end all his troubles that easily.
He needed to talk to his mother, let her know about his crazy, spur of the moment invitation to Keeley Jacobs. And tell her about his children, for no one could look at them and not see the resemblance.
Sydney hadn’t taken to the news any better than he expected. She screamed like he’d killed her best friend or set fire to the naughty box. Damn it.
Part of him hoped she’d give him his walking papers.
Instead, she’d forgiven him.
He didn’t want to be forgiven, he wanted her to tell him to get the hell out of Dodge, never darken her doorstep again, in her typical melodramatic Sydney style. When Zoe had said the words, they were cold and final. Sydney started in with her usual, exhausting drama, until she remembered all the hoopla surrounding the big day. If she called off the wedding, it would spoil being the center of attention, the wedding of the year, honeymooning in Paris. It was all about Sydney.
Alex rubbed the bump on his nose. Maybe he hadn’t done such a good job in his journey to redeem himself. He’d been so busy patting himself on the 78
A Perfect Bride for Christmas back, celebrating his personal progress, to realize he was still the asshole Zoe’d called him five years ago.
A week ago, he couldn’t wait to marry Sydney. Now, less than a couple of weeks away, a one-way ticket to a tropical island sounded like the perfect escape.
He mourned the loss of his newfound balls. They were shriveling by the second, but he couldn’t chalk it up to the cold and snow either.
Women—six to be exact.
Sydney, Zoe, his mother and three precious girls. No make that seven, he’d forgotten about Keeley Jacobs. He might as well take up a position as a professional eunuch. That only brought on images of the Arabian Nights horror in the loft.
Alex pulled into the snow-packed drive and frowned. Why hadn’t Mom called someone to plow the snow? He got out of the Hummer and slogged through the shin-high mess onto the porch. He stamped the wet snow from his leather boots and rang the doorbell. Somewhere Over The Rainbow rang out in the cold air that froze the hairs in his nose. He waited a little longer before he rang again.
Nothing.
The house gave off a strange, vacant, vaguely menacing vibe. Mom should be opening the door by now, even if she were upstairs or at the back of the house in the kitchen. She might be cooking for church, a neighborhood bake sale, or one of the many groups where she volunteered. Any second, she’d open the door and scold him for not coming in the back way.
The wind chime she and Dad hung on the porch last summer sang a melancholy song in the cold breeze.
He felt a surge of fear. Without bothering to ring the bell again, or knock, he used his key and let himself in.
The door opened to silence.
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“Mom?”
No answer.
She knew he’d planned to come by this afternoon, with his checkbook, to go over the details for the reception. If it kept snowing like this, it would be impossible to pitch a pup tent, let alone one large enough for the reception in the ‘back forty’ as Dad liked to call the huge back yard. And knowing his mother, hell would freeze over before she’d give up on the idea of having the reception here at the house. The island idea seemed better by the second.
“Mom, it’s Alex. I’m here with a boatload of money.”
No warm smells of coffee or the cinnamon rolls she promised wafted through the air. The house felt dead.
A rush of panic grew as he checked the rest of the house, the living room, den, the downstairs bedroom, and the sunny red and white kitchen. He ran downstairs to the basement, but she wasn’t there either. She hadn’t driven the car anywhere—
his were the only tracks in the long driveway up to the house.
The garage—he hadn’t checked out the garage.
“Mom!” Alex yelled into the wind.
The only thing he got for his efforts were a few rogue snowflakes that tried to strangle him. The pretty, lacy things were deadly when he inhaled them.
He raced towards the detached garage. There, just barely there, were the faint traces of her size five footprints in the snow leading from the back door of the house to the garage. It was sheer luck he saw them at all. It had been snowing like a son of a bitch all morning long.
The three-car garage, built of white-painted concrete b
locks back in the fifties, had new overhead doors installed last year and a regular door to one 80
A Perfect Bride for Christmas side of the building. It stood open.
“Mom! Mom, are you here?” he called out. The overhead heater was on, but no matter how hard it chugged away, it couldn’t compete with the cold air whistling through the door. Twenty-eight degrees, the weather reporter on the car radio had reported with cheer. Perfect Christmas weather.
The temperature in the garage felt close to freezing.
“Alex.”
Relief flooded through him so fast he came close to breaking into tears. He rushed to where he heard her weak voice, near the back of the garage. She lay on her side, her foot twisted at an odd angle, surrounded by dry cat food. A pool of blood surrounded her head.
“Oh, my God. What happened?” He took in the pink and purple flowered, flannel pajamas and bright, lime green, pull-on rain boots. She’d pulled a heavy denim jacket over the odd getup.
“I came out here to feed the cats, and one of the kittens, the white one, got underfoot.” She started to move but gasped in pain. “I tried to do some fancy foot work, but I guess my disco days are over. My knee went out again,” she chattered from behind blue lips. “Like an idiot, I left my cell phone in the house. Keep forgetting to take the darned thing with me.” She reached back to feel her head. Her hand came away covered with blood. “That can’t be good.”
“Where does it hurt, anywhere besides the head and ankle?” He wanted to touch her, but didn’t know if he should in the circumstances. Her body shook with cold. His mother was right—this couldn’t be good, not by a long shot.
“I’m just shaken up.” She tried to sit, groaned, and lay back down. “A head cut always looks worse than it is. I’ll be fine once I’m in the house.”
Like hell. Her foot canted at an odd angle, 81
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almost a hundred and eighty degrees. She’d said her knee went out, as well as God knew what else. He bit back the nausea lurching around in his stomach.
“Mom, I’m going to run into the house for some blankets. Where’s your purse? I’m calling an ambulance, and I’ll need your insurance card.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Your head is bleeding like crazy, and your ankle is twisted backwards. I am not arguing with you about this.”
A spasm of pain crossed over her face. “It’s on the kitchen counter by the sink.”
Alex leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You scared the crap out me.”
“I scared the crap out of myself, figuratively that is, thank goodness.” She tried to smile, but her lips seemed to be frozen in place. “Go on. I’ll be okay, but hurry.”
It took him less than five minutes to hotfoot it to the house and thumb in 911 while he grabbed some blankets off the guest room bed on the first floor.
Her purse was right where she said it would be. The whole time he talked to the 911 operator and gave her the particulars.
Snow pelted his face, dampened the blankets with their wet lacy kisses. White arms of cold pulled at his legs as he trudged through the snow and back to the garage.
The big, calico mother cat curled up against his mother, purring and rubbing its head against her face. The litter of kittens played close by, one or two trying to nibble on the scattered cat food, while the others twisted and danced in a mock fight. His fought the urge to drop kick them out of the way.
Dammit, this was their fault.
Instead, he crouched beside Mom and nudged momma cat out of the way. The kittens scampered off when he threw one of the blankets over his 82
A Perfect Bride for Christmas mother.
“The ambulance will be here as quickly as possible. There’s a lot of accidents out on the road today.” He tucked the soft pink thermal blanket around her and put one of her brightly colored handmade quilts on top. “There, is that any better?”
She continued to shiver in spite of the blankets.
“Some.”
Her eyes closed. The 911 operator had said to make sure she didn’t fall asleep. Maybe she’d hit her head a lot harder than she’d admitted. There were times his mother could be stubborn about her physical ailments. She refused to use a cane, in spite of her bad knee.
“Come on, Mom. They said you can’t go to sleep.
Open your eyes.”
“I don’t want to.” She squeezed them tighter, refusing to obey. “The room spins when I open my eyes.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does if I don’t want to throw up.”
“Now, I wish I’d taken up med school instead of the law.” He reached inside the blankets and took hold of her hand. It felt like a chunk of ice as he closed her small fingers under his.
“You can’t stand the sight of blood. Now, Clint and Heath, didn’t bother them a bit, but you always turned green.” Her eyes stayed closed, but she gave his a twitch of her lips. “Law was the better choice, for you and the rest of the world.”
“Are you saying I’m a wuss?”
She shifted, trying to get more comfortable on the hard, cold concrete floor. Even though it might be unnecessary, Alex tucked the blankets around her again, wanting to touch her but still afraid to do more than hold her hand and make sure she was warm.
“I’ve seen you in the courtroom. You’re ferocious, 83
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even a little scary. I’d never call you a wuss. You never could stand getting a shot as a child either.
Practically had to hog-tie you.”
He didn’t like the way her face paled as she groaned.
“I still don’t. Now look, you don’t need to talk so much. Just lay there, be quiet, but don’t go to sleep.”
He gave her fingers a slight squeeze. “Hey, I’ve got some news that might make you feel better …or want to chuck a rock at me.”
She opened her eyes, the blue looked more faded then he ever remembered. “Why would I do that?”
“You know how you’ve always been after us boys to supply you with grandchildren?” The words came out in a rush.
She blinked, opened her eyes and frowned.
“Grandchildren?”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the bump on his nose. “It seems about five years ago I, well remember when I had that incident in Vegas? Well—”
“Tell me it’s Zoe. Her children, the girls—they’re yours.”
“Well, take the wind out my sails, why don’t you, Mom.” Her hand gripped his tighter. “How did you know? No wait, no talking, remember? I’m telling this story. “
“Last week, when I stopped by Zoe’s shop. I saw them but I didn’t dare ask.”
“They have the King Notch.” He fingered the place in his own ear that bore their paternal birthmark, passed down since the Civil War.
“I noticed.” She gave him a weak smile, gripping his hand even tighter. “Lord, I tried to figure out how to bring up the subject, and you’ve already figured it out. They’re something else, aren’t they?
The girls, I mean.”
Sirens sounded off in the distance.
“I think that’s your ride.”
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“Alex, if you don’t make it up to Zoe, you’ll make the biggest mistake of your life. I don’t mean you have to marry her. I mean…you are marrying Sydney, aren’t you?”
He wanted to say no, but nodded.
****
Alex sat on one of the black vinyl chairs that masqueraded as real leather. At least it had a better chance of getting disinfected by the janitorial staff than the couch in the hospital waiting room. Who knew what bodily fluids the hodgepodge of tans, blues, reds, and dark browns disguised. And he wasn’t about to sit on it to check it out. He didn’t consider himself germophobic, but hospitals gave him the willies.
It had been over three hours since his mother went into surgery to fix her broken ankle, and he was going nut
s.
“Alex, how is she?”
He jumped up at the sound of Jesse Saurs’ voice and wrapped her in a bear hug. “Jesse, I didn’t mean for you come to the hospital in this weather when I called.” He glanced over her shoulder in search of her teenage foster child. “Where’s Ethan?”
“Now where would I be with Mom in the hospital? Ethan’s at home.”
Jesse had spent so much time at the King house that she’d adopted his mother as her own. How many days had he and his brothers played and grew up with the proverbial girl next door? Only, they never thought of her as a girl, just another kid to run around on the acreage between their homes.
He’d lost track of how many summers they spent wading in the creek to hunt for frogs, snakes, or whatever caught their interest.
This was the sister he wanted, not Keeley Jacobs.
Today, her face looked gorgeous, even free from 85
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makeup. A long black ponytail swished against her bright, multicolored ski jacket. A hot pink bandeau protected her ears from the cold.
“Have the doctors told you anything?” Her bright blues clouded with concern.
Alex shook his head. “Nothing I didn’t already know.” Alex rubbed his hand over his hair. “I mean, even I took one look at the thing and could see it wasn’t going to be a matter of throwing on a cast and calling it good. Dr. Singh said she had a superficial head wound, but they were worried about hypothermia. She felt so cold, Jesse.”
Jesse hugged him again, giving his back a pat before she stepped away. “Mom’s a fighter, you know that. And stubborn.”
Alex nodded. He felt some of the tension he’d been holding fade away as she wove her hand through his. “Yeah, she won’t let me call Clint or Heath until the surgery is over—didn’t want to worry them unnecessarily.”
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