by Lucy Score
Emma’s eyes prickled with fresh tears. “I couldn’t imagine a better partner for Dad,” she whispered, wrapping Phoebe in a one-armed hug.
“Oh, sweetie,” Phoebe sniffled. “You’re going to make me blubber.”
“You’re going to make us all blubber,” Gia’s voice cracked.
“Hell. I should have gone to poker,” Joey muttered, noisily blowing her nose into a pink napkin.
The roar of an engine from outside drowned out any further comment. It revved once, then twice.
“That’s not the entertainment, is it?” Emma demanded.
“It appears to be a sexy man on a sexy motorcycle,” Gia said, peering out the door.
It was a stampede. By the time Emma made it through the door, the men and kids had poured out of the house to admire Nikolai in jeans and that damn leather jacket astride a gleaming machine.
It wasn’t the warm Sunday dinner kind of love brought on by a man washing dishes, it was a hot fist of lust that socked her right in the stomach. He caught her eye, and that crooked, cocky grin of his went straight to her core. Friends or not, she wanted him fiercely.
And he knew it.
“Sweet wheels,” Jax whistled admiring the chrome and curves of the hulking bike.
“Thanks,” Niko said. “Got it from Ernest Washington outside of town. Had to turn the rental in and needed a set of wheels. And she spoke to me.”
The men nodded and grunted in approval as they circled up to admire the machine while the women appreciatively eyed the man.
“Just how are you supposed to resist that?” Phoebe asked Emma quietly.
“I have no idea,” Emma murmured.
The women flocked down into the driveway, mingling with the Pierces.
Nikolai dismounted and stepped back, letting Jax and Carter get a closer look. He ambled over to where Emma stood on the edge of the circle with her arms crossed.
“Want to go for a ride?” he whispered in her ear. Her blood turned to molten lava as a dozen visions crashed through her imagination. Not a single one of them involved her on the back of a motorcycle. But there were plenty of her on him, under him.
“Where are the seatbelts?” she asked lightly.
“I got a helmet for you just in case you want to throw caution to the wind and embrace a little adventure,” Niko told her.
“I like seatbelts and airbags and air conditioning,” she said primly.
“I think you’d like feeling the wind race over you when we lean into a corner.” His lips brushed her ear. “All that power between your legs? It’s an experience you shouldn’t miss.”
Damn if he didn’t turn her fair skin six shades of fuchsia.
She took a self-preserving step back and glared at him when he laughed.
“Friends, remember?”
“Emma, I’m feeling awfully friendly toward you right now.” Niko’s meaning was clear. He was the wolf, and she was Little Red Riding Hood. Only there was no woodsman to save her from herself.
The women, blowing kisses to their men and children, began to meander back to the barn. But Emma couldn’t quite drag herself away from Niko’s gaze. The evening air crackled with energy between them. It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t into bad boys. Why couldn’t her body back her up on this?
“Miss Emma? Are you ready for me?” The shirtless Corban waved a champagne flute at her from the barn door.
Niko’s face went slack, and it was Emma’s turn to laugh. “Gosh. I’d better go. Duty calls,” she said with a wink and sauntered back to the barn.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Poker with the Pierces and a passel of kids was memorably chaotic. The handful of games he’d attended in the city had been catered affairs in private rooms with high stakes. It was an entirely different experience in Blue Moon. The twins were already in bed, and the baby monitor sat on the kitchen counter.
Franklin, who had decided to forego an official bachelor party in favor of babysitting and poker, pulled two golden bubbly lasagnas from the oven. “Vegetarian one is on the left,” he told Carter, pointing with a spatula. Jax and Beckett made appropriate disparaging remarks about vegetarians
They tried settling Aurora in the dining room with a giant bean bag, a bag of chips, and a tablet streaming a bug-eyed kid cartoon, but the little girl was much more interested in being involved in the action. She pulled her beanbag up to the table and stood on it next to her brother Evan who eyed the cards Niko dealt him like a professional poker player.
“Is Fitz coming tonight?” Franklin asked Beckett, glancing over his reading glasses.
Beckett shook his head and tossed a chip in the pot. “No. He said something about a last-minute work obligation.”
“Damn,” Franklin sighed. “I was hoping to win back some of what he took last poker night.”
“He’s a burned-out hippie who runs a used bookstore. What kind of obligations does he have?” Jax wondered.
Beckett shrugged. “I don’t ask Fitz questions, mostly because I’m terrified of the answers.”
“Cardona will be here soon,” Jax said, dropping his phone back on the table. “Some kind of riot over at the park over warring popcorn vendors.”
“I’m gonna need some background on that statement,” Niko said, picking up his cards.
“Cardona’s town sheriff. We went to high school with him. Mediocre poker player but all right guy all around. It’s movies in the park on Fridays, and there’s this popcorn vendor whose been selling for years. Apparently tonight, some enterprising kid set up a competing popcorn stand with lower prices and a white cheddar flavor,” Jax said, tossing his chips in. “All hell broke loose when the first vendor accused the second of trespassing and the second vendor accused the first of…” he picked up his phone again and read. “’Being a bourgeois fat cat capitalizing on the hungry.’”
“Cardona texted all this to you?” Carter asked, picking up his beer and clinking it against Aurora’s cup of chocolate milk.
“Huh-uh. That last part came from the Blue Moon gossip group,” Jax said.
Beckett rubbed his forehead. “I hope to God this doesn’t come up during the next town meeting.”
Jax looked at something on his phone and smirked. He handed the phone to Carter who glanced up at Niko and back at the screen.
“Have you been to a town meeting, Niko?” Carter asked.
“I have not had the pleasure. How many cards?” Niko asked Jax.
“Two. You really should go. They’re a highlight of life in Blue Moon.”
Aurora peered over Beckett’s arm at his cards. “You have a lot of faces on your cards,” she said.
A collective “crap” went up around the table, and everyone threw their cards down.
Beckett, who wore a sleeping Lydia strapped to his chest, grinned and handed Aurora a dollar. “Nice job, kiddo.”
“Played by a first grader,” Franklin shook his head in disbelief. “You promised you’d only cheat for Grampa!”
Aurora giggled. “Next hand,” she said in a loud whisper. “Bucket?”
“Yeah, Shortcake?” Beckett ruffled her hair.
“Can we play makeover?”
The collective fear around the table was palpable, and Niko got the feeling this wasn’t the first time a game of makeover had been suggested.
“We’ll play next weekend,” Beckett promised.
Franklin saved them all. “Why don’t you come help me play poker?” he suggested. They all sighed with relief when Aurora climbed into his lap and started counting his chips.
The action around the table continued. Jax kept up a running commentary on all the joys of life in Blue Moon, which seemed to amuse everyone else at the table for reasons Niko couldn’t quite understand.
Beckett dropped a steady stream of chips and snacks on Lydia’s head until Carter covered her cute, bald head with a napkin.
“Nice beard, by the way,” Carter snarked at his brother.
Beckett rubbed a hand over the early stages of a full beard. “Thank
s. I think I’m going to keep it, let it get a little fuller.”
Niko picked up on the twitch of Jax’s shoulders as he picked up his cards. “You definitely have the face for a beard,” the youngest Pierce said amicably.
“It looks good on you,” Evan chimed in with an evil smile. “Don’t you think so, Niko?”
Niko felt the need to play along just to see how it all shook out. “It’s a great beard.”
“Thanks,” Beckett beamed.
Carter glared at him and stroked a hand through his own beard. “I thought you hated facial hair.”
“Where did you ever get that idea?” Beckett asked innocently.
Carter threw his cards down on the table. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because of every snide comment you’ve ever made about my beard in the past five years?”
“What are you talking about?” Beckett feigned confusion. “I’ve said nothing but nice things about your beard.”
“Bullshit!” Carter shouted, pointing at his brother. “Bull. Shit. ‘Don’t get beard hair in my food, Carter.’ ‘You look like a wookie, Carter,’” he mimicked in a falsetto voice. “Bull fucking shit.”
Aurora giggled into her fingers, and Franklin put his hands over her ears.
“What’s gotten into you, man?” Beckett asked, not even bothering to hide his shit-eating grin. “You’re gonna wake up Lydia. I’ve never said anything derogatory about your face.”
“Can we get back to telling Niko how great Blue Moon is?” Evan asked.
“Why is everyone educating me on Blue Moon?” Niko demanded.
“Grampa! All your cards are red,” Aurora announced.
Cards were slammed down all around the table, and Lydia woke up with a wail. While Carter and Beckett continued to bicker, Niko got up to help himself to the stuffed mushrooms Franklin had brought with him. Jax grabbed a fresh round of beers from the fridge.
“What’s with the beard wars?” Niko asked.
“Last week, Beckett bet me I couldn’t eat two dozen deviled eggs without puking. He completely underestimated my gastronomic prowess.”
“So you made him grow a beard?”
Jax grinned. “I’ve been trying to make this gag happen for years. Beckett hates not shaving. He’s been busting on Carter for his since he grew it when he got out of the Army.”
Beckett joined them in the kitchen and pulled a baby bottle from the fridge. “It was my idea to fuck with Carter over it,” he said proudly.
“So this is what having brothers is like?” Niko asked.
“Pretty much,” Jax grinned, handing him a cold beer.
It actually made Niko a little sad to be an only child.
They got back to the game with Carter still glowering at Beckett. Aurora had lost interest in cards and was under the table painting Valentina and Meatball’s toenails with sparkle polish.
Niko spotted headlights from the driveway.
“Is that Cardona?” Beckett asked, making a show of stroking his beard when Carter looked up.
Franklin poked his head out of the window and frowned. “No. It’s… Fitz? But he’s going into the barn, and he’s dressed like a cop?”
The table emptied as the men crowded around the window.
“What the hell is Fitz doing dressed up like a cop—” Beckett began.
“Emma did mention they hired ‘entertainment’ for Phoebe,” Niko said.
“There is no fucking way on the face of this earth that they purposely hired Fitz to strip for them,” Jax said, staring in fascination as Fitz pulled a patrolman’s hat down lower on his head.
“Wait. Someone paid Fitz money to take his clothes off?” Evan asked, looking more than a little confused.
“There’s no way,” Carter shook his head.
“Do those pants have snaps down the leg?” Franklin asked, squinting.
They all watched as Fitz knocked on the side door of the barn and walked in.
“Oh, this is going to be amazing,” Beckett predicted.
“I’ll get the baby monitor,” Carter said.
“I’ll get the beer,” Niko volunteered.
They piled out of the house and grabbed chairs off of both porches and set up in the driveway. It took about four seconds for the screams and shrieks to start.
“My eyes!”
“Put it back on!”
“Why would you do that?”
The men were in tears as the police cruiser eased down the driveway. A tired-looking Donovan Cardona got out of the car. “What the hell’s going on in there?”
“Get out!” Someone shrieked from inside the barn.
“Hey, Cardona, isn’t it illegal to impersonate a cop?” Jax asked.
Another set of screams erupted from inside.
The sheriff sighed and settled his hat on his head and stomped toward the door. He knocked, but no one inside could hear him over the chaos. He shoved the door open and went inside.
“For the love of God! Put your pants back on,” Cardona shouted from inside the barn.
Franklin cracked open a new beer as the brothers gasped for breath.
“Is someone recording this?” Carter asked.
“Live streaming it,” Jax said, holding his phone up.
The women flooded out of the barn looking like the survivors of an atrocity.
“He’s just so pasty,” Joey whispered over and over again and walked into Jax’s open arms.
“I’ve seen him in his yoga briefs a hundred times, but this was so much worse,” Gia shuddered.
Emma came out next, her arm around Phoebe’s waist, both looking like a deer in headlights. Phoebe walked straight up to Franklin and snatched the beer out of his hand. “I’m going to need a case of these to forget what I just saw in there.”
“Why in the hell did you hire Fitz to strip?” Carter demanded.
“We didn’t!” Summer insisted. “He just showed up and said he heard there were some naughty ladies who needed to… to… take the law into their own hands. Oh, I think I’m going to be sick.”
Cardona came out with a handcuffed, pantless man. Beckett covered Lydia’s eyes. Bill Fitzsimmons couldn’t weigh more than 140 pounds soaking wet and wearing cement shoes. His skinny rattail of hair hung out from under the hat that was askew on his head.
Carter and Beckett hung on each other laughing while their wives clung to each other for comfort. Franklin’s glasses steamed from the tears that streamed down his face and Jax’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.
Emma met Niko’s gaze and shook her head. “He just started flailing around like a scarecrow. It was awful, but I couldn’t look away.”
Elvira Eustace sashayed out of the barn and jogged up to Donovan’s patrol car. “Excuse me, sheriff?” Donovan stopped trying to shove Fitz into the backseat.
Elvira leaned around him and stuffed a wad of bills into Fitz’s shirt pocket. “Nice job in there, cutie. Call me when you get out of jail.”
Eva shrugged. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. He wasn’t that bad.”
Gia looked at her sister like the woman had grown a second head.
“What?” Eva asked.
The baby monitor lit up, and an unhappy wail sounded through the speaker. “I think this party is over,” Summer said. “I’ll take the first crier.”
Carter followed her back toward the house. “Hey, you know that Beckett hates beards, right?”
Emma turned to Phoebe, whose tiara sat crookedly on her head. “I’m sorry to end your night this way. I don’t know what happened to the scheduled entertainment, but I will find out and demand a refund.”
“Oh, please don’t. This was an… unforgettable night,” Phoebe said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, except Bill’s pants. Those should have stayed on.”
Donovan yelled through the back window at Fitz to keep his sweaty balls off the upholstery. The rest of the crowd began to disperse around them.
“Are you okay to drive?” Niko asked Emma.
&nbs
p; “I only managed to down two glasses of wine and half a dozen brownies before that hot mess arrived. If I would have had more, the scene in there would have scared me sober,” she said. “I’m going to get this straightened out with the sheriff and then take my sister home.”
“Then I’ll see you at the wedding?” Niko asked.
“See you at the wedding.” She nodded toward the barn. “Will you tell Carter we’ll take care of clean up tomorrow? I don’t think anyone wants to go back in there right now. It’s too fresh.”
He watched them go, Donovan beside him. “So, we’re seriously not going to play poker?” Donovan wondered.
Niko tilted his beer to his mouth. “I’m game. But don’t you have a prisoner?”
Donovan gave a one-shouldered shrug. “We can cuff him to a chair and play a few hands.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The day of the wedding dawned warm and bright with a gentle breeze that fluttered the walls of the white tent in Phoebe and Franklin’s front yard. Niko arrived early, camera gear at the ready and his wardrobe adhering to the casual dress code.
The yard was already overrun with caterers and early arrivals. Niko spotted Franklin directing the catering company into the house. Emma was deep in discussion with the event coordinator, ticking items off the list on her tablet.
She looked like a woodland fairy in her blush pink dress, her red hair down in a riot of curls. Her eyes sparkled with the excitement of the day, and when she spotted him, the smile she sent him from those perfect lips went straight to his gut. When had it happened? When had he fallen for the untouchable girl? Looking at Emma now, Niko couldn’t remember a time that he hadn’t felt this longing, this need.
They had just met. They hadn’t even slept together. How could he have such strong feelings for a woman he barely knew?
She laughed at something the guy in the coveralls said, and Niko’s world tilted. It wasn’t possible, but that didn’t change the fact that it was.
She came to him, skimming over the grass as her dress floated around her legs like that of a goddess.
“Hi.” Her voice was soft, her eyes bright.
“You look incredible. Stunning,” he breathed.
She twirled for him, kicking up the layers of skirt as the spring air caught beneath them, and before he was even conscious of it, he was raising the camera and snapping the shot.