Delay of Game

by Amber Lynn

  She loved the man carrying her into the bathroom and he made it clear every day that he loved her back. The rest of their night was going to be spent in each other’s arms, proving that point over and over.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  No matter how many times Jason told himself the wedding was just a technicality, he was still nervous when it came to the big day. It was weird how different everything was from his first wedding. The nervousness was just the tip of the iceberg.

  Standing up with the minister waiting for Kate to walk down in her yards of lace, had just been another day to Jason. It was a little callous to think of it that way, but when he thought back about it, he didn’t have the butterflies in his stomach thinking of Hope gave him. The crowd waiting for his first wedding had numbered in the hundreds, and they had all sat almost motionless as the event took place.

  When he looked in the backyard of the house he and Hope had been living in for two months, two dozen smiling faces looked back at him. For months, those in attendance had waited for the event and they were genuinely happy that it was finally happening. Even if the romance between the couple getting married had been a whirlwind, Jason kept hearing people mention that it was about time they got married.

  The atmosphere of it all gave Jason a high he didn’t think was possible. He took a deep breath, trying to keep from being too overwhelmed. If the groom passed out, they were going to have a little trouble getting the wedding off the ground.

  There were only two parts of the wedding that were going to be what most would consider traditional. Hope’s father was going to walk her up the terrace to meet Jason and the vows themselves. They had talked about writing their own, but they both agreed they spoke better with their actions, and they’d already said their vows to each other over and over in the weeks since they’d been a couple.

  Jason looked down at his dark gray suit to check his buttons for the third time of the afternoon. It was getting silly, but Hope was taking longer than he thought she would and it left him questioning whether he’d been able to dress himself properly. It made absolutely no sense, but Jason was beyond the point of logic.

  “If I catch you doing that one more time, I am seriously going to come over and mess up your hair or something to give you something to fix.”

  Jason’s older brother, Jacob, was standing next to Grace across from Jason. The comment made Jason almost reconsider picking Jacob over his other brothers, but the first notes of music filled the air and Jason’s eyes flashed to the patio door to watch for Hope.

  The song was a country number Hope had picked out. Since she’d had to listen to music every night at the bar for years, she decided she had the best taste in music and got to choose any and all music for the day. It was different than the usual music number that went along with a bride walking down the aisle. It was a song about a father walking his daughter towards her new life, so it fit perfectly.

  People moved to their places around him, but Jason was frozen in his spot as he stared at his bride. He hadn’t known what she was going to wear, even though he’d had to live with seeing various dresses thrown around their room for at least a week. She’d chosen a white dress that hit her just above the knees with a lace edge along the bottom. The top of the dress curved around her breasts to form what Jason saw as a heart.

  Her face was partially hidden behind a piece of lace that was attached to a white flower stuck in her hair, which was twisted and curled up so none of it fell on her neck. Even with the lace in the way, Jason could make out the dark red lips he loved to kiss.

  When Hope made her way up to meet him, she shared a quick kiss on the cheek with her father and then turned to Jason. He hadn’t taken a full breath during the whole walk, so he first swallowed to try to get rid of the lump in his throat and then breathed in the aroma of the rose blossoms all around them.

  “I thought you said you weren’t going for something traditional,” he said as he took her hand and guided her to their spots in front of the judge doing the officiating.

  The dress itself wasn’t what everyone would think of when they thought of a wedding dress, but it was white, and the veil was definitely a wedding kind of thing. Seeing it up close, he realized the bottom of it went to the top of her lips so it didn’t cover her face fully.

  “Then I decided I was only ever going to get married once, so I should probably make the best of it.”

  Hope smiled, lighting up her brown eyes. Jason was ready to skip the wedding and just get to the kissing part, but the friends and family they invited had probably witnessed more than enough of that and were there for the wedding.

  The judge went ahead and got things underway when neither Hope nor Jason said anything else. They’d requested enough words to make it worth getting a crowd together to listen, but wanted the vows to be as short as possible. After about five minutes of listening and doing their part when asked to repeat words and exchange rings, it was announced that they were husband and wife.

  A sigh radiated out of Jason before he swooped down to give his wife a kiss. The veil tickled his nose, but didn’t get in the way of their lips connecting. Knowing there was plenty of time later in the day for them to celebrate in their own way, Jason settled for keeping the kiss short so they could share the moment with the others gathered.

  When they turned to the crowd, the smiles Jason had already noticed were even wider, with a handful of tears falling from the respective mothers of the pair. Jason bent down slightly so he could pick Hope up and carry her down the stairs.

  “Are you crazy,” she asked as she hit his shoulder. “I barely made it up those stairs in these heels and you think you’re going to make it down them with me in your arms?”

  “That’s the plan. I had to watch you come up those stairs and there’s no way I’m chancing you falling down them.”

  “I can take off my shoes.”

  Jason ignored the suggestion and went on as planned. He’d practiced going up and down the stairs to make sure of his footing. It also made for a fun morning workout to get his blood flowing. Since it was July, he didn’t have his usual practices and was taking things a little easy before he started getting ready for the next season.

  The couple was swarmed once they got to the bottom. Someone had handed out little bags of birdseed it looked like. Jason chose to believe that rather than the idea that people were throwing small rocks at them.

  “You can put me down now.”

  Hope didn’t seem to appreciate the valiant effort Jason had put forth to protect her from the small flying objects as he shielded her as much as he could with his arm. His real goal was to make sure none of it found its way under her dress that would get in the way of his kissing every square inch of her once their guests left.

  “You’re the one who ended up wearing a white dress. There is a rule you have to be carried around.”

  “And you just made the rule up five seconds ago.”

  She had him there, so he went ahead and let her feet touch the ground. They had to deal with ten minutes of hugging and congratulations before people were ready to eat some of the food they’d had catered. Marie had helped with the food, providing the wedding cake she insisted they have. Most of the other food was appetizers that were easy to eat and not too messy.

  Jason guided Hope over to the table set up with food next to the barbecue they had installed. The table had a rich purple tablecloth on it with the various platters of food waiting to be devoured. Jason waited for Hope to notice the last minute edition he’d added to the cake. No one else had said anything, so either they weren’t observant or he’d been tricky enough to make the switch unnoticed.

  It took her a second, but as he lifted up the knife they were supposed to use to cut the cake, Hope kicked him in the shin. It wasn’t a hard kick, just one to let him know he was in trouble.

  “You didn’t,” she said with her hands on her hips.

  “He didn’t what?” Jason’s mom, Janice, asked in confusion. />
  Jason ignored his mother and put the knife back down. He reached over to Hope and grabbed her hand. She didn’t fight him, so clearly she wasn’t as mad as she tried to pretend to be.

  “They were going to know eventually. You quit working at the bar two weeks ago.”

  “You said you quit because you were ready to be a kept woman,” Marie said.

  Jason had to laugh at the idea that Hope had told anyone she wanted to be a kept woman. She had only been working at the bar before she quit. Her parents had hired a teenager who wanted some extra spending money to cover most of Hope’s old shifts at the bakery and she ended up coming on full-time. The retirement fund Hope had always been so worried about took a hit, but she enjoyed the free time having only one job had given her.

  “Technically that’s true, but circumstances forced me to become a kept woman. Did you guys really not notice that he switched the cake topper?”

  All eyes went from searching for an explanation from the couple to the three-tiered cake behind them. Jason was proud of himself for finding a topper that looked enough like the original one that everyone who saw the cake earlier in the day didn’t notice the switch. It still consisted of a black silhouette of a bride and groom kissing, but at the bottom of the bride’s dress there was baby tugging on it.

  They had been pretty diligent about using protection, but there were times, like their night in New York, when they were so into what was happening between them that they remembered a little too late. It sort of became a habit that they found out formed their son or daughter. The day the doctor confirmed the news was the day Hope quit working at the bar.

  “You’re pregnant?”

  Janice and Marie asked the question at the same time. Marie was already a grandmother, but Jason’s mom hadn’t welcomed any grandbabies to the family yet. One of the things that hit him hardest when he found out Kate’s baby wasn’t his was how much the news would devastate his mom.

  Two of his brothers were in long-term relationships, but neither had settled down enough to have kids. Jason had thought it was going to be up to them before he met Kate, but he was overjoyed to know he was still going to be the first one of the brothers to have a child.

  “Yes,” Hope said glaring at Jason out of the corner of her eye. “We’re told the baby will be born sometime in February, so I have plenty of more months of morning sickness in my future.”

  They hadn’t officially agreed to keep the baby a secret for a settled on amount of time. Hope had stopped him from calling everyone they knew the second they found out. She said people had enough to think about with the wedding. Since the wedding was officially over, he was ready to get everyone excited about more of their happy news.

  Plus, Jason really wanted to be able to tell his mom in person to see her reaction. When he told her he was going to be a father before it was over the phone and it seemed like she was a bit detached from the situation. He wanted to think she was overwhelmed, but she’d had a private conversation with him after finally meeting Hope to let him know her real feelings when it came to his first wife.

  Janice had told him that she’d witnessed Kate kissing another man when he was away for Juniors. She hadn’t told him because she thought it was a one-time thing and Kate was still young at the time, like it was a phase Kate would grow out of. He knew his mom wanted him to make his own choices in life, but it sure would’ve been nice of her to share her worries.

  Everything that had to do with Kate was in his past, so Jason didn’t try to dwell on how things could have been different. The woman Kate beat up had died, so she was charged with murder, along with a slew of other things, and a video tape of the attack evidently made it difficult to claim the woman had tripped and hit her head.

  Focusing on his mom, there was no detachment in Janice’s eyes as they filled with tears. She stepped forward to wrap her arms around Hope, who looked over to Jason for help. She’d already been hugged so many times that she was getting close to her limit.

  “You will never know how much you mean to this family, Hope. I don’t care if he can hear me or not. There were times I never thought I’d see my son smile again and here he is getting married and planning for a family. You are an angel.”

  Jason liked to think the smile claim was a little of an exaggeration, but there were times he felt the same way. It was hard to believe those times weren’t that long ago, when he found himself waking up every morning with a big smile on his face.

  “I think we can all agree she’s an angel. How about letting her have a little air, Mom. I hear growing babies need it.”

  It looked like Janice was fine squeezing Hope for the rest of the day, so Jason stepped in to try to extract his wife. Hope was kind enough that she probably wouldn’t complain until her oxygen levels dipped down to dangerous levels.

  “Of course they need air. I just can’t believe I’m finally going to be a grandmother. And this little one is going to be so spoiled. I’m warning you now.”

  Janice released her hold, but didn’t step away until she rubbed Hope’s stomach. Hope had already dealt with Jason kissing her stomach multiple times each day and his rambling one-sided talks with the baby.

  “There’s still champagne and booze for the rest of us to toast with, right?” Jason’s younger brother piped up to try to help break up the new round of tears.

  “Yes, there is plenty of alcohol to go around,” Hope replied, moving to stand closer to Jason and wrapping her arms around him.

  It was harder to hug two people, so Jason read it as a defense mechanism. He was more than willing to serve as guard if need be.

  Jason and Hope hadn’t wanted there to be any speeches or a toast. They’d said their vows and already knew how they felt about each other. They didn’t need to repeat what they’d already said, and for the most part they knew what the people around them thought about the whole thing.

  “Before we get to the alcohol, I’d like to say something. Janice was nice enough to welcome Hope to her family, and I’d like to do the same for Jason.”

  Marie paused, treating her statement as asking for permission instead of just going right into what she wanted to say. Jason looked down to Hope to see if she had any issues. She seemed to be waiting for her mom to continue, so Jason smiled warmly at Marie, interested in what his new mother-in-law had to saw.

  “As many of you know, I was not a fan of Jason when I first met him. He was in my bakery claiming to be a friend of Hope’s and all I saw was trouble. It probably didn’t help that he was volunteering himself to go furniture shopping with her.”

  Jason cringed. It wasn’t one of his smartest moves, but it did help him establish a connection with Hope.

  “By the next time I saw Jason, they weren’t just friends. At that point, I knew who he was and I was sure my daughter was nothing more than a fling for him on his road to fixing a broken heart. I wanted to keep believing that, but when his past came to our door looking for trouble, he came running when I called him. I realized that day that Hope wasn’t just going to be a fling. I have this picture engrained in my head of Jason barefoot with that long hair he used to have going every which way and a look of pure devotion in his eyes aimed at my daughter as he waved goodbye to her.”

  Hope squeezed Jason’s hand. They’d long wondered what it was that had changed Marie’s mind about him, but Hope had said her mom was still prickly after Jason left that day.

  “At first I told myself I was seeing things, but I couldn’t get the image out of my head. Later that night they showed up at our house for dinner and the look was still in his eyes. I couldn’t be happier knowing that my daughter has married someone who looks at her like that. Welcome to our family, Jason.”

  Through the vows Hope hadn’t shed a tear, but when Jason heard a sniffle come from her direction, he knew her mom’s words had gotten to her. After mouthing “thank you” to Marie, he turned Hope so she could see his face and be reminded of the look her mother was talking about. The look he trul
y meant to give her every day for the rest of their lives.

  About the Author

  Amber has always had a passion for the written word. Along with that, she’s always had ideas for stories swimming around in her head. It finally got to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore and had to start getting her thoughts down on paper. There are still too many ideas, but she is working to get them out as fast as she can. Her hope is that one day her brain will be hers again.

  Other hobbies of Amber’s include: drawing, baking, arts and crafts, motorcycles, hockey and archery. She likes to think she has eclectic tastes where her hobbies are concerned. She loves to laugh and tries to make herself smile at least once a day. With the crazy thoughts going on in her head that usually isn't hard.

  Follow Amber on social media

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AmberLynn00

  Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amberlynnbooks

  Blog: http://amberlynnsbooks.blogspot.com

  Other books by Amber Lynn:

  Five for Fighting

  Game Misconduct

  Blue Lines

  Empty Net

  Top Shelf

  Dropped Gloves

  Twisted Fates series

  The Call

  The Pull

  Argonauts’ Adventures

  The Witch’s Web

  The Dragon’s Fire

  Daughter of Gaia series

  Daughter of Gaia

  Queen of Aquima

  Nightwalker Saga

  The Nightwalker Knocks

  The Nightwalker Teaches

  The Nightwalker Fights

  Unlucky in Love series