by Starla Night
She walked back to her place at the long buffet tables.
He studied the laughing guests, wishing he was walking with her. Then, he steeled himself and strode into the kitchen.
Mom was shaking Tara's silver broach bouquet in her face. "—and on top of that, weddings are about mothers and daughters. I've never paid as much attention to you—"
"I know," Tara blurted, easing back, "and I've never minded that."
"Which is why I'm trying to make up for it now. Won't you please let me make up for it?"
"I would love for you to help, Mom."
"Then fire Kris and get rid of that dangerous beast, Amber."
Tara glanced over Mom's shoulder at Darcy. "Um, Mom..."
"We're supposed to spend the day before the wedding baking a rum cake."
Tara gagged.
"Don't give me that face. It's tradition. And we're supposed to choose the wedding dress together, and decorate the arch with wedding finery, and scrape off those terrible weeds you've got on everything."
"My ferns? But they match the bridesmaid bouquets, and—"
"They're weeds, Tara, and if you think it's okay for a bridesmaid to walk down the aisle with a handful of weeds, I question your judgment. Speaking of which, you can't walk down the aisle with this piece of silver trash. What happened to your sunflowers? I ordered you an entire cart. We're going to make the backyard look like a summer palace."
"I've given them to Amber for her wedding."
Mom straightened. "What?"
"I don't want them. This silver trash, Mom, is made with the keys I got in honors academics, the game tokens I won, the band trips where we got bracelet charms, all of the activities I did that you weren't interested in. This is meaningful to me, and that's why my friends collected it and figured out how to make it a part of my bouquet. That's why I don't want the sunflowers."
Mom shook her head. "What's wrong with sunflowers? They're non-traditional and yet floral. It's a perfect match. Why do you hate my ideas? I only want you to look like a queen."
Tara held her hands. "Because I don't want to be a queen."
"Tara, I know—"
"No, you don't. This..." Tara shook her mom's hand so the bouquet rattled. "This is what I want. Can you please just leave it?"
"No."
"Mom..."
"No, Tara, because it doesn't make any sense. Why do you prefer to get married with a hunk of metal from things you did alone instead of surrounded by the love of your mother?"
"On my wedding day, it's such a mystery." Tara let go of her mom and turned away. "I have to see my other guests."
Mom followed her. "You don't appreciate me, Tara. You don't appreciate what I do. What I gave up for you. What those flowers cost!"
Tara headed outside, passing Darcy.
"You'll appreciate me in the end, Tara," Mom called. "When I'm the one who saves your wedding, then you'll know who cares about you."
Darcy cleared his throat. This could not be any worse timing. "Um, Mom, Amber wants to talk about the wedding..."
"I know." She clenched the silver bouquet. "I'll fix it."
"Great, but I meant our wedding."
Mom glared at him. Her sunglasses didn't blunt the obvious fury. "What?"
"Mine and Amber's happening on Monday."
She took a step toward him and raised the silver bouquet in a menacing shiver. "Darcy, I warned you I wouldn't let anyone tear apart our family."
"I'm not tearing it apart. I'm growing it. Just like Tara and Ed. Jackie and Michael."
"Darcy, so help me, I will spank you—"
"Everyone!" Tara stood in the center of the backyard and clapped her hands. "I want to say a few words."
Mom lowered the broach bouquet. Everyone quieted for her speech.
"Joining Ed's family is the most fantastic thing I've ever done. I can't wait to move to Silicon Valley to start our life together, and I know I can count on plenty of visits from Mama and Papa to keep our team Monopoly winning streak strong."
Ed's parents smiled while the rest of the audience chuckled.
Tara sobered. "It means so much to have you gathered together to celebrate our big day. So much has gone wrong. I mean, we all know this isn't the wedding I wanted."
"Vegas!" a friend shouted from one of the buffet tables.
"Right." She put a hand to her forehead. "We were supposed to marry in the Pinball Hall of Fame with a preacher that looks like Elrond, but we compromised on having it here in Portland—"
"We'll go for our tenth anniversary," Ed promised her.
"Vow renewal!" another friend called.
She flashed a grin and sobered to finish her story. "—and that was where everything went wrong. Double-booking the venue, ordering the wrong dress, canceling the cake, bullying my hair and makeup artist into quitting, and more that I won't talk about, sometimes it felt like someone was trying to stop me from marrying the man of my dreams.
"And then, a miracle happened." Tara lifted her wine glass and to the imagined miracle in the sky. "One person here at this very rehearsal saved me. She fixed the awfulness that went wrong."
Darcy's mom straightened, brushed off her shirt and skirt, and smoothed her lipstick. She raised her head in a bright, full-teeth smile, then must have felt the chip with her tongue, and closed her lips. A soft, happy smile smoothed her face and her hands clasped Tara's broach bouquet over her heart.
"And that person..." Tara panned across the crowd, squinting. "...is..."
Mom stepped forward and made herself more prominent.
Tara lit up. "Amber."
Mom froze.
"Amber, stand up."
Amber did. Everyone clapped and whistled, and Tara gestured for her to come close. She hugged Amber to more cheers and then kept Amber beside her.
"This amazing person is my own personal guardian angel." Tara squeezed Amber, who was a little shorter and stood placidly in her neat pencil skirt and cream blouse. "She found me a new, amazing baker, introduced me to a wild and super-fun makeup artist, saved my chalk welcome sign, rescued the arch, and is helping me to realize the fairy wonderland here in my parents' backyard. She made everything I wanted today possible. And she even saved my mom's life. She flew my mom to the emergency room to get her stomach pumped for alcohol poisoning."
More cheers and claps stopped Tara until the hubbub faded.
Mom crossed her arms. Tara's silver broach bouquet hung from her fingers.
"Amber, I have only known you for a few days, but I want to say that you're one of my new favorite people. I can't wait for you to marry Darcy and become my family. You're going to be the greatest sister."
"Thank you," Amber replied in a normal tone even after Tara gushed about her.
"No, thank you!" Tara hugged her again, hard, and released her. "Thank you, everybody! Tomorrow will be an amazing wedding because of all of you ... and Amber!"
Everyone clapped. Many people rose to get more food from the buffet tables and the barbecue, and guests shook Amber's hand as she made her way back to her seat. Darcy wove between people to reach Amber.
Tara skipped in front of Darcy to Ed and hugged him.
Kris grabbed her arm. "Honey, where's your broach bouquet."
"Huh? I put it in the kitchen."
"Hmm. My spider-sense is tingling..."
Darcy stopped on his way past. "Mom has the bouquet."
"Gayle has it?" Kris tutted and lifted on her tiptoes over the crowd. "Now, where is Gayle... Oh, she's just giving it to Amber."
Down the hill by the barbecue, his mom brandished the silver broach bouquet at Amber like a weapon. Darcy's heart dipped. But then his mom smiled and released the bouquet to Amber.
Was it possible that Mom finally welcomed Amber after hearing the good she'd done?
Amber shrugged and took the bouquet.
Mom offered her a plate piled with a juicy hamburger and trimmings.
He relaxed. Food was his mom's way of making peace and showing love.
> Amber refused the plate, and his blood pressure started to rise.
Kris let out her breath with a sigh. "I was worried about nothing."
"This wedding will make anyone paranoid," Ed said.
"Ha ha, what are you complaining about?" Michael joined their small crowd. "You guys have it easy. I didn't have a guardian angel—"
"Dragon," Jackie corrected, hanging off his arm.
"—dragon at our wedding and your mom darn near killed me twice."
Jackie turned to him. "She tried to kill you? During the wedding?"
"Your mom stuffed my suit with red hots. During the reception when you were changing, she tried to pour Fireball on me at the open bar."
"I didn't hear that."
Michael shrugged. He had aged over the last two years, his black hair thinning and his body softening, but he was the same sharp man with a dark sense of humor that his sister had married. "You didn't believe me."
"You still should have told me."
"It was our wedding day. I was trying to keep the peace."
Michael's answer stuck into Darcy like a hot pin.
Jackie hugged Michael's elbow. "Well, that won't matter when we're in New York."
"Right." He kissed her forehead. "And I'm buying you a mastiff even though you'll never leave the apartment."
"It's New York," she said, continuing to hang off him as he guided her to the ice chest for another sparkling water. "I could get mugged in our apartment."
"Not in our apartment, babe. We've got doormen, footmen, you name it. Company housing has the works."
Tara watched them bicker as they selected drinks. "That's sweet. They made up, I think."
"Didn't you see them sneaking upstairs during the murder mystery party?" Ed asked.
Tara shook her head.
"Yep, this is as close as they get to getting along," Nicole said from Darcy's elbow, startling the group. She had her video camera trained on Mom and Amber. "You, ah, might want to go rescue Amber now."
Down below, Mom gave Amber a nice hug.
"Rescue her?" Darcy crunched a potato chip. "She isn't having a nice conversation with Mom?"
"Well, Mom's complaining to Amber about how her children betrayed her, and nobody sees the dangers she sees so she has to prove it."
"Uh..."
Mom pressed the hamburger plate into Amber's hand insistently, and Amber finally relented, pinched the plate with her bouquet-holding fingers, and used the other hand to hold the large burger.
"And while I think nothing on Earth can poison a dragon, you should also know she stole my lighter fluid from the grill."
Darcy shoved through the group and started running. "Mom? Amber!"
Amber looked up at him, lifted the broach bouquet to wave hello, and took a big bite the hamburger.
Mom stepped back.
Amber's eyes widened in panic. She wrinkled her nose. Red fire glowed in her belly and soared up her throat.
She turned away from Darcy and sneezed.
Molten hot fire shot out of her mouth and engulfed Tara's broach bouquet.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Amber saw the fear and horror in Darcy's eyes at the exact second her fire spewed out of her mouth.
She aimed at the ground.
The hamburger and plate disappeared in the torch. Grass beneath blackened to bare earth. Her shoes smoldered and then melted to her feet, and her hose and skirt hem charred. Flares popped around her head. Continuous pangs stabbed Amber's nose.
Gayle shrieked.
Darcy sheltered his mom with his body and pulled her away from Amber's intense heat, leaving Amber alone in a circle of fiery misery.
Amber hunched over. Wave after wave of fire poured out of her mouth.
Darcy's only with you because he's never seen you lose control.
He'd seen her sneeze earlier but that was only a small reaction compared to the geyser of uncontrollable flame spewing out of her. Her stomach cramped. The eruption made her eyes water. It burned so hotly her teeth ached.
If she flew, the circle of destruction would only widen.
She staggered toward the koi pond.
Guests shrieked and scrambled away.
Amber plunged the melting silver into the pond. It hissed and a cloud of steam engulfed her face. Her hand cooled.
She climbed in. The water level dropped to her knees and she hunched to submerge herself as the clouds of superheated steam rose. Inside the water, the lighter fluid on her skin slid off and burned on the water's surface, charring the last of her clothes.
The stabbing sensation eased. The fire in her belly faltered. She coughed the last bits free and closed her mouth on a dry, leathery dragon tongue that tasted like ash.
The main banquet table was on fire.
Ed rushed from the kitchen with a big red fire extinguisher and sprayed foam powder over the flaming plates of food and tablecloths. The fire extinguished with a puff of smoke.
A black trail of destruction led from her back to the clearing.
Darcy hugged his mom and treated her for burns. She trembled, shell-shocked, and he led her up to the house.
"She went crazy," Gayle blubbered. "I tried to make up and give her a small plate of food to show the love in my heart. She exploded at me in fury. I thought I would die."
He kept an arm around her shoulder and led her into the house without once looking in Amber's direction.
Tara crept to the koi pond. "Um, Amber, are you okay?"
She coughed and started to rise. "Yeah."
"Oh, you're naked."
Amber looked down at her singed outfit.
Tara threw a blanket around Amber and helped her out of the pond. "Um, my broach bouquet. You didn't save it, by any chance..."
Michael fished in the koi pond and lofted the black metal. "Er, Tara..."
Tara's face crumpled. She hid her head in her hands and sobbed.
"Oh, honey." Kris enfolded her in a hug and then passed her to Ed still flecked with extinguisher foam. She took the bouquet with a sigh. "My spider-sense was tingling."
Tara's friends and Ed's family gathered around trying to put the barbecue back together and comfort Tara.
Amber kicked off her melted shoes and padded barefoot across the patio to the kitchen.
Darcy was at the counter putting ice cubes in a washcloth. He pressed the icy cloth to a red spot on his mom's cheek.
She moaned. "Darcy. Promise me you won't marry that dangerous beast."
"Okay, Mom. Hold the washcloth."
She saw Amber and shrieked, dropping the cloth. The ice scattered. She clutched Darcy and pointed. "She's back! She attacked me and she's coming to finish the job!"
Darcy's troubled gaze darkened. He detached his mom with soothing promises. "I'll be right back, I'll get rid of her, wait right here."
His mom clutched the counter in terror.
Darcy met Amber in the doorway. "Hey, I've got to handle this. Mom can't see you right now. You should go."
Her ash-filled throat hurt. Amber swallowed. "But on Monday, our wedding ceremony—"
"We're not having a wedding ceremony on Monday."
"No?"
"I'm sorry, Amber."
"But...Darcy..."
He shook his head. "It won't work."
Her heart screamed. "You proposed to me."
"Yes. It was a mistake to—"
"Darcy!" His mother shrieked. "Don't give in to her, Darcy! She'll burn down our house. Come back to Mom. Darcy!"
"I'm coming," he promised his mom and turned back to Amber more serious and troubled than she'd ever seen him. "Please go."
She swallowed again. "I never meant to hurt anyone."
His chin wrinkled. He sucked in a deep breath, stared at the smoky sky, and faced her again. True, confident, and serious. "I know."
She tried to reach for his cheek, to touch him, to make him change his mind. "I'll do anything—"
"No." Darcy caught her hands, kissed her fingertips,
and pushed her back out of the kitchen onto the patio, steering her small human form with his tall one. "I need you to go."
Her heart filled with ash.
"Please," he begged her, backing into the kitchen, uncompromising. "Please just go."
She stood.
He slid the glass closed between them.
Then he turned and walked back to his mom.
She clutched him, hysterical through the glass, and he leaned down to hug her, patting her with comfort.
Then, his mom looked through the glass at Amber and smirked in triumph.
Amber stumbled back.
She had failed. Failed on every level.
Darcy's mother had decided she wasn't worthy. "You will never be worthy of my son. You're nothing but a rough, dangerous, alien beast and soon my son will realize it. I will save him from a lifetime of unhappiness. That's assuming you don't eat him on the wedding night."
Amber had taken the hamburger plate in confusion. "Isn't there anything I can do to prove my worth?"
"No." She'd softened then and given Amber a hug. "But forget that. Eat this burger I made for you. It's the only thing that will make me happy."
And then she'd done it.
Amber had turned Darcy, who said he'd loved her for a long time, against her. She'd lost control, frightened him, destroyed his sister's bridal bouquet, and hurt people.
She reached her lair on autopilot, landed on the launch pad, and then veered away.
Memories of Darcy, nude, tickling and teasing and enrapturing her filled her lair. He'd broken past all her barriers. He'd trusted her and convinced her to trust herself.
What a mistake.
She circled the Earth a couple of times and then, because she didn't have any other sanctuary, she landed in her office at the Onyx Corporation.
Stumbling to her cabinet, she opened it and found more outfits Jasper had acquired for her to take to her lair for Darcy. She dropped the blanket on the floor in a messy pile, buttoned one of his long shirts, and belted it into a dress.
Her hands shook. Her stomach was still sore from throwing up fire so hard without a break. Her throat ached.
Coffee. Coffee would soothe her throat and get the nasty ash taste out of her mouth.
Amber opened the cabinet above her espresso machine.
It was empty.
She opened the ones below and to the side.