The Wedding Diaries

by Linda Francis Lee

  “Did you ever hear anything from your father?”

  “Nope. It’s like he vanished. I guess deep down we’ve all held on to the selfish hope that he wanted to return, but couldn’t.”

  Chris came up behind them, then Max.

  “Time to pick teams,” Chris announced. “I get Vivi on my side.”

  Max blinked. “Her?” he said, the very same time Vivi said, “Me?”

  Chris only smiled. “Yep.”

  “Oh, well, I couldn’t, really.”

  “Why?”

  “For starters, I’ve never played. I saw myself more as a cheerleader or spectator.” Vivi shrugged apologetically. “You know, ‘Go team.’ ”

  “Not on your life,” Chris said. “Anyone who stuffs hot dogs with caviar is bound to be full of surprises.”

  Sure enough, when places were taken, Vivi found herself chosen for the first time in her life. No more play-ground games where kids lined up and she was the little girl in the too perfect dress that no one wanted on their team. This group actually gave her a starting position.

  Max watched with a mixture of bemusement and chagrin when Vivienne turned out to be such a good sport and actually looked as if she was enjoying herself. She also looked hot as hell and was definitely a distraction— for just about every male within a half-mile radius.

  But when Chris came up behind her, practically swallowing her with his arms as he showed her how to hold the bat, and Vivi blushed the deepest shade of red he had ever seen, Max had had it.

  “That’s enough!”

  “But, Max,” Chris said with unabated good humor. “I’m just showing little Vivi here a thing or two about the game.”

  Whatever he was doing, it worked. For all her sequins and perfect hair, Vivi got out there and hit the ball so hard that Max nearly missed catching it because of sheer surprise.

  “You nearly killed me with that ball,” he bellowed from the pitcher’s mound after it had come straight for his head.

  “And that’s a bad thing?” she asked with an innocent smile after she had run to second base.

  But for every bit of frustration that mounted in Max, his family liked her more and more. Everyone, that is, except Nicki, whose animosity grew and festered. The more the family liked Vivi, the more Nicki’s already simmering hatred began to bubble over, until at the very end when Vivi managed to catch a pop fly and win the game for her team, Nicki stormed off toward the concession stand.

  Vivi came up next to Max. “I can’t do anything right with her,” she said, staring at Nicki’s back.

  “This has been going on too long,” he stated. “It’s time I had a talk with her.”

  Vivi hesitated, grimacing at the thought that she’d probably only make things worse, but wanting to find some way to turn things around herself. “Please wait until you get home. For now, let me talk to her.”

  Max looked doubtful, but Vivi didn’t wait for permission.

  She followed Nicki, ignoring the rumbles of thunder that drew closer. She watched as the girl stopped in front of the guy Vivi recognized as Brandon Bonner.

  In the dim confines of Raiders, or even poking his head into her car, he had looked like trouble. But out in the open he looked like bad news in the worst sort of way. Sinfully good looks combined with an insouciant stance that spoke volumes about belligerence. Vivi had the fleeting thought that Max Landry might have looked much the same at his age. Then she dismissed the idea as ludicrous given Max’s controlled reputation.

  Nicki stood there in a kind of strange slouch and bat-ting black eyelashes, clearly trying to get the boy’s attention with little success. It was painful to watch.

  The longer Brandon ignored her, the more desperate Nicki became. Forgetting that Nicki hated her guts, wanting to mitigate the awkward situation, Vivi walked up and interrupted.

  “Hey, Nicki!”

  But if she thought to help, she was mistaken. The boy turned and ran his gaze over her, then said, “Hey, yourself. You’re the girl with the awesome car.”

  Great.

  Nicki’s face went bright red with fury. “Yeah, the awesome, repossessed car.”

  “Wow,” Brandon said. “Cool.”

  Cool?

  But before Vivi could respond, Mr. Cool glanced up at the sky, mumbled something about not wanting to get wet, then made a dash for the parking lot.

  “Do you have to take over everything?” Nicki demanded.

  “I was just trying to help.”

  Thunder rumbled, lightning cracked the sky.

  “Help?” Nicki demanded, her voice rising. “Like you know anything. Haven’t you figured out that no one likes you—at least no one that matters. Not Max, not even your own father.”

  Vivi’s head came back.

  “You think because you’re pretty and rich you can get away with being stupid and incompetent,” Nicki spat. “But you’re not that pretty and you sure can’t be all that rich if you’re working for us.”

  Vivi couldn’t speak.

  “I read the newspaper this morning,” Nicki sneered. “Your dad bolted. And even some lame fiancé of yours dumped you.”

  Confused, Vivi stood very still, unable to think much less move, as the skies finally let go of a light rain that dusted her hair. “What are you talking about?”

  Nicki rolled her eyes. “Did you really call yourself the Christmas Bride?”

  Vivi tried to make sense of the words. “How do you know about that?”

  “Don’t you read the paper? They said that even if you had managed to keep your fiancé, your father doesn’t have the money to pay for a wedding.” But Nicki cut herself off, her eyes going wide at something.

  Slowly Vivi turned and found Max standing there. While looking at Vivi, he told Nicki that it was time to leave and Pat was waiting for her in the car. Nicki dashed away just as the sky opened up completely and it began to pour. But neither Max nor Vivi moved.

  “Where is this article?” Vivi asked numbly.

  Max tried to take her arm. “We’ll talk about it at home.”

  With a calm she didn’t feel, Vivi pulled away. “Tell me. What article?”

  His expression grew even more grim. “In the morning newspaper. Your father defaulted on several of his loans.”

  “Defaulted?” She wanted to be incensed at an outrageous lie. She wanted to believe it was impossible. But she realized it all too easily could be true.

  Vivi blinked as the concession shop behind them banged closed. She stared at the pouring rain that soaked through her clothes. Within minutes the park was deserted, dirt turning to soupy puddles, her Oldsmobile waiting in the lot like a lonely holdover from days long past.

  She counted to ten, then twenty. She felt weak, her knees starting to shake, though she wasn’t cold. Pressure built at the back of her eyes, her throat tightening. She told herself it was the rain and mud, not Nicki or her father or even the strange unsettling sexual dance she kept playing with this man who stood so close, his hard, penetrating gaze unnerving.

  Rain surrounded them, but Max didn’t leave her, drops clinging to his dark lashes, spiking them together, making his blue eyes glitter.

  “As soon as I heard,” he began to explain, “I put in a few calls. Your father has defaulted on three outstanding loans. He has thirty days to make good or he’ll be forced into bankruptcy.” He hesitated. “My guess is that he’s not on vacation, but out of town trying to find financing. Also, I learned that this isn’t the first time it has happened. He has been struggling off and on for years, Vivienne. And he’s left a lot of people in the lurch.”

  Her mind reeled.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice a gruff whisper of sound nearly drowned out by a clap of thunder in the distance.

  She stared at this man, seeing a disquieting mix of emotions on his normally implacable features. The usual censure was there, but now something else mixed in. Not disgust, but pity. And that made her sick. “No wonder everyone hates me.”

&nb
sp; His gaze never broke from hers, and he looked at her hard. “Not everyone,” he whispered.

  His words made her heart go still, filling her with the same empty, hungry feeling he always stirred in her, a need that sank as deeply as the pain sinking into her soul. It was difficult to breathe as she looked at him, then impossible when he took the steps that separated them.

  Then she was in his arms, holding on, their mouths coming together in a hungry demand, as if they could somehow move beyond the barriers of clothes and even of life.

  Desperate and intense, Max pressed her up against the baseball diamond backstop, her fingers sliding back into the chain link as he touched her, leaning down to taste her skin like a starving man giving in.

  Mindless of the empty world around them, Vivi gave in and Max trailed his lips along her jaw, then lower. She realized that she wanted this, wanted more of his obliterating touch—had wanted it every day and every night since she met him. This man, for reasons she didn’t understand, had the ability to wipe her mind clean, erase all else but the desire to touch him.

  Pressing her breasts high through the clinging wet T-shirt, he lowered his head, kissing the fullness of each. Letting go of the fence, she wrapped her arms around his head, savoring, thinking of nothing else, tilting her face up to the wet skies. But she moved too fast, and slipped in the slick mud.

  For one startled moment her eyes went wide as she lost her balance, pulling Max with her despite his straining muscles that tried to keep them upright. They fell to the ground with Max landing on top of her, his weight supported on his elbows. Mud splattered them, their gazes locking in surprise.

  But then the elements were forgotten. Their mouths crashed together as he rolled her on top of him, his hands finding her hips, cupping, lifting, pressing her against the very real hardness of him. If their clothes hadn’t been plastered to their bodies, she was sure that he would have damned all else and slid inside her.

  Rain fell relentlessly, mud surrounded them, but they hardly noticed. He rolled them again so that he came over her.

  He looked at her then, a reluctant smile pulling at his sinful lips. “I guess I was wrong that you’d never like picnics.”

  “Or getting dirty.” She gave him a cheeky grin, feeling a relief wash through her that the despair had been pushed back, held at bay—at least for now. She would deal with the mess her father had made, but tomorrow. Later.

  “No one can call me a priss ever again.”

  He touched her cheek. “Thank you for today.”

  She could see the sincerity in his sharp features. “You’re welcome. You have a great family.”

  His lips crooked at one corner. “I do.”

  “I even fit in, sort of. I wasn’t half bad at softball.”

  Max tugged a strand of hair from her mouth. “Not bad for a girl,” he teased.

  “Hey! Chris thought I was great.”

  Max’s smile disappeared and his brow furrowed. “My brother is a young pup who better watch himself.”

  “Or what?” she whispered.

  “Or I’ll have to convince him that he’d better keep his hands off you. And he might not like my methods of persuasion.”

  “You don’t want him messing with your nanny?”

  “I don’t want him messing with you,” he stated, his voice lowering to a possessive rumble.

  Sensation rushed through her, sensation that she didn’t have words for, only made her think of sex and desire, yearning and heat, and the mindless pleasure she wanted to feel.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why does it matter what Chris does?”

  He framed her face, pushing her wet hair back, his eyes darkened with intensity. “Because I want you.” He took her hand and pressed it to him in proof.

  His body was hard against her, aching and yearning. She relished the taste of him when he coaxed her lips open with his tongue.

  Their need became frantic, desperate. She wanted to give in completely, and she almost did, wanting suddenly to feel the wet and wind against bare skin.

  As if understanding, but knowing a public park was not the place for this, he pushed up from the ground. He pulled her up and took her hand as they ran to the empty lot.

  “Where’s your car?” she yelled through the wind and rain.

  “Chris took it.”

  The rest of the family had gathered all the gear and leftovers and had departed. Max and Vivi found some old towels in her trunk, then wiped themselves clean with the help of the rain. Then Max asked for the keys.

  “Keys?”

  His expression was heated and sensual. “I’m not going to make love to you in a parking lot.”

  Her heart fluttered, and nervously she fell into the driver’s seat of the Oldsmobile. But Max followed instead of going around, forcing her to move over.

  When she looked at him, her mouth falling open, he said, “Women don’t drive me around.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Women don’t drive you around?” she demanded, sanity returning like a cold splash of water.

  “Vivienne, just give me the keys.”

  “Fine. Drive. Make Cro-Magnon Men of America proud.”

  He had the audacity to laugh, then, without an ounce of shame, start the car.

  Vivi plastered herself to the door, all but choking on disbelief. At him. At her.

  What in the world had she been doing rolling around in the mud with this man?

  Yes, she was attracted to him, even if his knuckles did scrape the ground on occasion, but that was as far as it went. He was big and broad and domineering. Demanding. There was too much of him—he was too overpowering. The kind of man who took without asking.

  A man like her father who’d leave her.

  The thought shot through her like a punch to the chest, and just as quickly she discounted it. She would never give Max Landry the chance to leave her. She would not allow herself to feel anything for this man other than concern that he reconnect with his family. That she could do. That she wanted to do. But nothing more— especially rolling around in any fashion.

  Max put the car in reverse and pulled out of the parking lot with ease. Vivi hated how he drove, the way his hand worked the wheel with a casual competence. He commanded the difficult Olds, steering it along like a fine-tuned sports car. Which only added to her frustration because it made him all the harder to ignore.

  Over and over again she had found herself in his arms. But that was very different from actually having sex, plunging into the rawness of totally giving herself to a man. She might be some throwback, but to her, making love meant commitment. Or so she had told herself for years.

  She knew she was old-fashioned, though she figured that it wasn’t so odd given her father’s constant stream of relationships and her mother’s decision to be free to love where and when she chose. Growing up with a relic hippy for a mom, Vivi had been the one to wait up and make sure she got home safely. That didn’t make a sexually free life seem all that appealing. And when she went to live with her father, things hadn’t gotten much better. Only he didn’t go out. He had the women in. No daughter should have to deal with her father’s assorted wives and paramours.

  As far as Vivi was concerned, sex should have meaning, a deep, committed bond. Though every time she was around Max Landry, all her beliefs flew right out the window. Suddenly a little uncommitted sex didn’t sound so bad.

  But she would not let this man alter her convictions.

  By the time Max slid into the drive of Number 15 Pinehurst, Vivi really wasn’t happy. When Max reached across the seat to take her hand, she leaped out of the car.

  “Got to go! Thanks for coming to the picnic,” she blurted out, then dashed into the house.

  Inside her bedroom, Vivi froze when she heard Max come up the stairs and hesitate outside her door. Her blood began to pound, her skin tingling. But after one long second, he continued on to his own room.

  Clearly both of them had regained their wits.

&nb
sp; Telling herself this was how it had to be, each of them keeping their distance, neither of them giving in to this crazy attraction, Vivi went to the bath and scrubbed every remaining inch of dirt from her body. She washed her hair, dried it, and dressed in pink, low-rise terry-cloth warm-up pants and a white cropped T-shirt. She could hear Max in his room, both of them moving around like they were two magnets dancing in tandem on either side of the wall. Vivi wanted to damn all else and open the door.

  But she wouldn’t give in. She gathered her dirty clothes and put them in a pile. She flipped through magazines, straightened her closet, organized her lipsticks by shade. But still she felt the presence of Max as if he were standing next to her.

  The phone rang, and she heard him pick up. His deep voice hummed through the wall, skipping down her spine. Suddenly she was pacing, itching to go through that door like a woman craving chocolate.

  She shuddered that she had resorted to comparing any man to food. So she slammed out through her door and flew to the stairs, intent on the kitchen and the promise of some very real and very uncomplicated cake. But she hadn’t gone more than a few steps down when she stopped, cursed, and hung her head. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered. “You kissed him, then ran away like an immature child.”

  They needed to talk. She would tell him what she was feeling, have an open and honest discussion about the precarious situation they found themselves in. Nothing more.

  Proudly, she raised her chin and marched to Max’s bedroom. Determined, she knocked.

  But when he opened the door, her breath caught. He stood shirtless, his hair still damp from his shower, all traces of mud gone. He stared at her. Feral, primal, his blue eyes burning.

  She gathered herself, her mind putting in order the very real things she needed to discuss. But when she spoke, all she managed to say was “I’m not sure why I’m here.”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Then, like a current pulling her under, she was in his arms, their bodies crashing together in a tangle as he pulled her into his room and kicked the door shut.