Runaway Groom

by Virginia Nelson

  “No, you didn’t. But even if you did—”

  Enough was enough. Getting into her personal space, he backed her up to a pillar. “How many of the letters have you read, exactly?”

  “The letter thing again. Really?” Another sigh and her hands came up between them, stopping shy of planting themselves on his chest. “Can you back up? You’re crowding me.”

  “No, I won’t back up. I’ve given you a decade of space. I wrote you. I might have been half-assed afraid of your response, a chickenshit, but I never stopped writing. Even when I told you I would stop writing, I still wrote you.”

  “Bullshit!” Now her hands did plant themselves on his chest. Smack! Tears shined in her eyes.

  He shook his head. “The letter thing is why I’m pissed.”

  “You’re pissed? You’re pissed?” She practically yelled the words, punctuating them with more slaps to his chest.

  “Yes. I’m pissed.”

  But it didn’t stop him from wanting to taste her.

  Delving his fingers into her hair, he cocked her head sideways and dipped for a kiss. Sliding his lips across hers, he took what he’d been craving. Maybe he was rough, maybe his fingers shook as he held her face, but it was because it mattered.

  She mattered.

  And she responded. It might have been that little hair trigger response, anger changing to need, but she drove her tongue to tangle with his.

  It only made him want more.

  Cupping her ass, he helped her hike herself up, legs scissoring around his hips to grind herself against his cock. It seemed he’d been walking around with a hard-on ever since he came home. It was all her. Only she made him feel like this.

  All jagged nerves and constant hormones.

  Pressing her into the post, he got lost for a moment in the feel of her surrender.

  But it wasn’t surrender. Not really.

  She still hadn’t read the damn letters.

  Coming up for air, it seemed for a moment he really was drowning in her, as the gasp he sucked in felt harsh. “Yes, Abs. It kind of pisses me off.”

  He let her drop to her feet. Her lips were red from his kiss and her fingers came up to touch them. “Braxton…”

  He resisted scooping her back into an embrace, carrying her home with him, finishing what he started.

  “When you’re ready to hear me, really hear me, come talk to me. I’ll be here. I’ve always been here, Abby.”

  Because whether she believed it or not, he had.

  Chapter Thirteen

  January 2, 2012

  Abby,

  I was back in town again, your friendly neighborhood stalker. Lou said you were serious about Jake Hannigan. I caught sight of you two having coffee behind the diner at one of those patio table things they put in. You looked all sweet and romantic, and it made me want to throw up.

  Wonder if he knows you’re the kind of woman who ignores her best friend for a decade?

  Yes, still pissed.

  You are the most stubborn damn woman on the face of this planet, you know that?

  You told me once that a handwritten letter was the sweetest gesture any guy could ever make. We were sitting at lunch at the high school at the time and, as usual, I was a jackass, and just wrote “I heart Abasaurausrex” on a napkin and handed it to you. Asked you if that was sweet.

  You laughed.

  Well, dammit, how many letters have I written you now?

  Someday, I really hope you tell me why you didn’t answer even one of them.

  B

  Carnie sliced off a chunk of the cake and slid it onto a plate. “Seduction cake? You actually said that to him?”

  “Yes, I said that to him. What would you call it?” Forking up a bite of the dessert, Abigail scowled at her best friend. “That was its intended purpose. To seduce my ex.”

  Not that the idea wasn’t tempting.

  Trying to ignore her desire was like pretending the sun wouldn’t rise in the morning. That kiss, in the gazebo—

  Somehow it caused her breath to catch even thinking about it, more powerful a memory than him making her shatter against the side of his truck. She’d never been kissed like that before, not by him or anyone. That kiss was all possession. It was like he owned her.

  If he hadn’t stopped the kiss, she sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to.

  Sipping a glass of milk, Carnie looked out over Abigail’s backyard thoughtfully. “Maybe if you fucked his brains out, we could stop talking about him and move on to more interesting topics.”

  Flicking a cherry at her, Abigail grinned, attempting to hide the fact her pulse raced remembering him. “More interesting than my nonexistent sex life? What possible topic could be more fascinating?”

  The sun shafted golden rays over the back deck and the breeze was a cool wash against her skin. Home and with her best friend, she finally had a shot at calming down. Maybe she was making more of it than she should.

  “He kissed you again, didn’t he?”

  Forking more cake, Abigail didn’t answer.

  No, he didn’t kiss her. He destroyed every barrier she could imagine erecting against him with his lips. It wasn’t a kiss…it was a thermonuclear explosion that happened on the front of her face.

  “He did. I can tell by your face. Did he make your girly bits go all moist and goopy again?” Carnie laughed at her own teasing and dug into her dessert.

  “You’re disgusting.” Moist? Her lady parts turned into Niagara Falls. Moist was an understatement.

  Not that she admitted it.

  “What is disgusting about a man built like a brick shithouse making you wanna do bad things with him?”

  “Really?” Eyes wide, Abigail choked back a laugh.

  Carnie laughed again, pointing her fork at Abigail. “If he wasn’t your evil ex from days gone by, would you have caved by now?”

  An interesting question, actually. Even though he was her ex from days gone by, she really wanted to cave.

  Really.

  Instead, she shrugged. “Name one successful relationship I’ve been in. Men all leave. I keep telling you that.”

  Suddenly, the cake tasted as good as sandpaper and Abigail pushed it away.

  Carnie studied her, face gone serious for once. “You push them away.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “Do not.”

  Carnie raised one perfectly plucked brow. “James.”

  Abigail shoved up from the table, going to lean against the deck rail. “That wasn’t meant to be. He had dreams of living in the big city. He wanted to travel.”

  “Okay,” Carnie agreed. “Name one of those things that didn’t float your boat and I will commiserate with you like a good bestie.”

  “He would have left, even if I didn’t break up with him.”

  “Jake.”

  “Jake was a bad-boy fling. Jake was dangerous, rode a Harley. I think that was a phase to piss off my mom or something.” Abigail waved it away with one hand.

  “Jake wanted kids. Jake offered you a ring.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t mean it.”

  “Don’t tell Manda that. They’ve been married now for a while and she sure thinks he’s gonna stick.”

  “Carnie, who’s side are you on, anyway?” Rounding on her best friend, Abigail glared.

  “Yours, dead center on your side. But I’m not sure you ever got over Braxton. You have this twisted idea that all men leave, and we know way too many people who have been married thirty plus years for you to think like that. Not everyone leaves.”

  “He left.”

  The words slipped out before Abigail had a chance to suck them back.

  Her hand came up to cover her lips, but it was like closing the barn door after the horses were out. Carnie pointed her fork at Abigail. “Exactly. He left and since then you’ve determined that everyone will.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “What part don’t I get, Abby? He was your be
st friend. You planned to spend your lives together. You made promises to each other and he defaulted. Ever since then, you’ve hung onto the idea that no one is gonna stick by you. Well, now he’s back and telling people that he never really wanted to lose you. It kind of busts your whole I’m-not-worthy safety raft from which you’ve sat and watched the rest of us get tossed around and bumped and bruised by love. Now you actually have to consider the fact that he might just have fucked up.”

  “It isn’t like that, Carnie. Besides, he isn’t even telling the truth…I mean, the letter thing—”

  “Speaking of the letter thing…” Carnie paused to chomp more cake and sip her milk. “Have you done any research on that? You, Miss dot every ‘I’ and cross every ‘T’, have you looked into this at all?”

  “What’s to look into? I mean, c’mon. If he wrote me letters for a decade…I can see one or two getting lost in the mail, but a decade worth of letters and I never got even one?”

  “Why would he make up such an extreme lie though, knowing that you could so easily refute it? I know our post office sucks but have you even gone and checked it out?”

  “I—”

  It got so quiet the song of the tree frogs made it to the deck.

  “So, are we going to the post office or are we pretending I didn’t point that out?” Carnie finished off her cake and looked expectantly at Abigail.

  It was the one way to prove once and for all that the letter story was bullshit.

  “Yeah, we’re going to the post office.”

  Carnie fist pumped. “I’ll grab my purse.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  March 7, 2009

  Abs,

  Do you remember our song? It was playing on the radio today on my way to work. Made me remember the prom. I can’t believe I asked you to marry me at the prom. Looking back, yeah, that was lame.

  I would do it differently today.

  I found a story you wrote online.

  One thing hasn’t changed.

  Baby, I’m amazed by you.

  B

  The local post office, run by the Johnston family for as long as Abigail could remember, was two rooms and famous for slow mail. Ernie Johnston was rumored to have been in love with her grandma and was…

  A loon.

  No matter how nice Abigail wanted to be about it, the man, seventy at least, was sort of the town whackadoodle. Almost as soon as Abby could drive, she began toting her important mail twelve miles over to the next town, bigger and with a better post office. She hadn’t actually set foot in the local one, that she could remember, her entire adult life.

  But she saw Ernie. Everyone did. He still hand delivered most of the mail in town, only driving for those he absolutely couldn’t reach on foot. He also was known for peeking, regardless of the legal ramifications that his job was supposed to imply.

  People got away with more shit in a small town, where everyone had everyone else’s back, than anywhere else.

  When the bell on the door rang signaling their entrance, shuffling could be heard from the back room and Abigail darted a look at Carnie before Ernie managed to make it to the counter to peer at them with eyes gone somewhat milky with age.

  He smelled like old fish, looked like a pale corpse dressed in too-short shorts and shook like a leaf in the wind. “Abigail and Carnation! Good to see you girls. You have something that needs out today?”

  Abby put one hand out to catch Carnie’s arm before she could go into a rant about her stoned seventies parents’ idea of a name. “No, I wanted to talk to you, Ernie. About my mail.”

  Ernie shuffled from foot to foot and didn’t meet her eyes. “What about it, Abigail?”

  “Braxton Dean moved back to town and he said the weirdest thing to me…”

  Before she could finish, the old man flushed red.

  Up to this point, Abigail didn’t really think this trip would prove anything but Braxton was a lying son of a bitch who deserved a swift kick to the nut sack. The flush, however, screamed guilt, and she wondered if it meant there were actual letters.

  Letters she never received.

  “Ernie?” Her voice squeaked a little.

  “Come sit down. We’ll talk about it.” Waving them behind the swinging door, they followed the mailman to a room filled with boxes and mail miscellany. It also had one old recliner and a couch situated around a small coffee table covered in magazines circa the nineties.

  Once they were all seated, the old man reached for a still steaming cup of coffee he’d been obviously enjoying before they showed up. “At first, I saw the logic when your mother said she wanted the letters to stop being delivered. I couldn’t destroy them, not even at her request, though it seemed a kinder thing to do than make you relive being left at the altar like that boy did. Dean family was a good family, that Braxton boy should have known better than to leave you like that.”

  Abigail bit her lip, stopping words that threatened when he paused to sip his drink. Ernie was old. She’d spent years taking care of her grandma. She knew rushing the elderly didn’t get the story out any faster.

  “After a few weeks of not delivering though, Agatha came in and asked about it. Seems Katherine slipped up and she told my Aggie what was going on. Your grandma, she was a spitfire right till the end, even if the disease did fog up her memory a bit. She said to me to keep them. She knew your mother would destroy any that I tried to deliver to the house. She said she wasn’t sure how much longer she would remember one thing from the next. She already had a couple of those little strokes, they were scrambling up her brain something terrible. You know that.”

  He waved the coffee cup, sloshing a bit over the side of the mug. Automatically, Abigail reached for a napkin and handed it to him. “I know.”

  Grief stung, remembering Grandma Miller and how muddled those last months were for her.

  “So, my Aggie, she said to hold on to them if they came in. And they did. Always did. I couldn’t do what Aggie asked me or destroy them like your mother wanted. It’s against the law. I’m a postal worker. So I delivered them, even knowing your mother probably destroyed each and every one.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  January 7th, 2011

  Abasaurusrex,

  I heard about your grandma.

  I can’t imagine how much you’re hurting right now. I know how much she meant to you. Hell, she meant a lot to me. I’m remembering her today, sitting on a dock and fishing. I took off work.

  I couldn’t work, not when I heard. I hurt missing her and I hurt for you.

  All I could think of was her catching us up in the pine tree behind Demshar’s place back when we were nine. I thought she was gonna take a stick to our hides, she was so mad. But she didn’t. She took us back to her place, made strawberry milk and gave us cookies.

  You went off, full speed, once you’d eaten, into the backyard.

  She was looking at me and I felt like I was supposed to say something. So I told her I was sorry for climbing that old tree.

  “Braxton Dean,” she said, “My Abbiegirl, she’ll follow you anywhere. She thinks you know what you’re doing because you’re a little older than she is. You and I both know you aren’t more than a boy and sometimes boys don’t have a lick of sense. You need to remember she is a girl, she is breakable and take care of her. I love that girl. I think you do too. You take care of her.”

  All I could do was swallow real hard and say, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Abs, I’ve let her down. I’ve let me down. I’m not there now and I know you need me.

  I wish I did better by her. And you.

  And me.

  I love you, Abs.

  Brax

  “Well, that explains a lot.” Carnie followed her out to the car, but Abby waved a hand at her.

  “No, actually, it doesn’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Carnie slid into the seat and clicked her belt on. “We know there are letters. They were delivered to your mom and she destroyed them, mystery solved
.”

  “Okay.” Slamming her own door closed, Abigail turned the key. “So, where are the most recent ones now?”

  “Your mom—”

  “Hasn’t been fit to steal my mail for years.”

  “Ooh.” Carnie bit her lip. “Mystery very not solved. So, where is our next clue, Abby Abby Doo?”

  Rolling her eyes, Abigail pulled out with a squeal of tires. “My sister checks the mail.”

  “Gracie wouldn’t…”

  “Yeah.”

  Pulling into her mother’s driveway, Abigail paused to punch the steering wheel.

  “Is she home?” Carnie craned her neck at the other driveway.

  “Yup.”

  “Want me to go in with you?”

  “Yup.”

  Carnie sighed loudly. “Shit. I kind of hoped you’d say no.”

  “Sorry. I’ll take the backup on this one.”

  Together they crossed the yard and Abby knocked twice on the door. Grumbling from inside answered her.

  The door popped open and Gracie stood, sports bra on crooked and hair dyed seven different colors, at least. As usual, a potent cocktail of swirling emotions—frustration, love, dislike—flooded Abby at just the sight of her sister.

  “Oh, Abs. Thought you might be someone else. I guess you can come in…” Gracie spun on one bare foot and headed farther in the house. Her voice, not lowered to hide her words, trailed after her. “If you must.”

  “I must. How goes the life of responsibility-free debauchery?”

  Gracie snorted as she flopped sideways onto the beat-up leather sofa. “Fanfuckingtabulous. How goes life as a holier-than-thou martyr?”

  “Peachy. Are you hung over?” Abigail carefully seated herself on the edge of a chair.

  Gracie blinked heavily lined eyes that reminded Abigail painfully of her grandmother…if her grandmother had been a borderline alcoholic.

  “I’m not hung over. God, why do you always have to be so judgy?”

  “Why do you always have to be so self-centered? Have you even checked on Mom lately?”