All I Need Is You aka Wedding Survivor

by Julia London

  But Eli’s fingers tightened on her wrist. “Just out of curiosity—have you seen The Dane?”

  “Not yet. I was going to rent it this weekend.”

  “Well, when you do, try and envision Olivia and Vincent’s wedding under the Arc de Triomphe.”

  Marnie blinked. Then laughed. “Oh, Eli! Not that arch. She was talking about another one.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because she described it to me,” she said and yanked her hand from his grip so she could sketch an invisible arch with her hands. “Not so big, and it’s plastic, and she offered to ship it, so what’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal,” he said calmly, “is that it’s not that size.” He mimicked her invisible outline. “It’s actually about the size of Kansas. And Olivia is right. It’s made of plastic—about three hundred pounds of it.”

  Marnie’s earlier feeling of being a player was rapidly disintegrating. “Huh,” she said, biting her lower lip thoughtfully. “Three hundred pounds, you say?”

  Eli nodded.

  “Mmm…that is a little different, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She winced. “But I think it’s a deal breaker.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “‘Fraid so,” Marnie said, nodding sympathetically. “If Olivia can’t get married under that arch, then she’s not getting married.”

  Eli surprised her by laughing. “Promise? Because that wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit,” he said, and intercepted the waiter who was about to lay the check on the table as he simultaneously reached into his back pocket, took out a wallet, and pulled out a platinum card of some sort and handed it to the waiter without even looking at the bill.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Marnie demanded.

  “I mean, if Olivia wants to pull the plug on this stupid idea of getting married up there—or at all—I’d be the happiest man on the planet.”

  “You’re not serious. You would ruin her wedding over a stupid arch?”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t lose any sleep. It sure ain’t the gal’s first rodeo and I’ll bet big bucks it won’t be her last.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Maybe, but it’s true.”

  Frankly, he looked so smug about the whole thing that Marnie bristled. “What is the matter with you?” she demanded. “Everyone deserves a nice, pretty wedding—”

  “You ready?” he asked coldly, suddenly sitting up and planting an elbow on the table. “Where’s that waiter?” he asked, looking around the room.

  The man was a horse’s ass, and Lord help the poor woman who eventually hooked up with him, because Marnie was certain that his wedding would be an event in front of the justice of the peace, over and done within five minutes and topped off with a trip to Taco Bell before everyone got back to work. What a goon.

  “Gee,” she muttered, reaching for her purse. “Throw in one little arch and look what happens.”

  “That’s right, just look what happens,” he said, snatching the bill from the waiter when he appeared and dashing off his name on the receipt. He slammed the bill holder shut and looked up at her with glittering blue eyes. “I thought I told you to manage her expectations.”

  “What, she’s not allowed to have an arch? Is that such an unreasonable expectation? Lots of weddings have arches, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that, because I doubt you’ve ever been close to a wedding, and with your views on the subject, I doubt you ever will be.”

  His face colored slightly, and he pressed his lips together for a moment. “She can’t have a fucking three-hundred-pound arch,” he snapped, and stood, caught Marnie by the elbow and pulled her to her feet. And he kept his hand tightly on her elbow as he steered her through the maze of restaurant tables and out the door.

  “Jesus, Marnie,” he continued as they walked, “did you ever think how we’d ever get it up there? I showed you the map. You know what we’re up against.”

  “Yes, you showed me the map, atlas man,” she shot back. “But I didn’t realize it was so high in the mountains that it might as well be on Jupiter. We’re getting up there somehow. Can’t an arch get up there, too?”

  The maitre d’ pushed open the door for them, and Eli and Marnie marched through it, side by side, halting together in front of the valet stand. Eli flipped his claim ticket at the kid, then turned to face Marnie. He was so close she could smell his cologne, the faint scent of wine.

  She tried very hard not to look at his lips.

  “This isn’t a made-for-TV movie. You need to keep a lid on things. She may have more money than God, but that doesn’t mean she has to spend it all.”

  She hated it when people—okay, men—talked to her as if she were a turnip. She folded her arms, lifted her chin, and glared right back at him. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you just let me do the job you hired me to do?”

  He blinked. And a grin slowly spread his lips. A very dark and dangerous grin. “All right. And why don’t you just do the job we hired you to do and stop playing Hollywood Barbie?”

  “Hollywood Barbie? You’re going to call me names because the bride wants some stupid plastic arch?” she exclaimed indignantly.

  His pickup screeched to a halt in front of them before he could answer. The valet jumped out of the driver’s side and rushed around to the passenger side to open the door for Marnie. She glared at Eli and marched forward.

  But he was right on her heels, and in a confused moment where the valet tried to get out of the way at the same time Marnie tried to get in the truck, she hastily stepped out of the valet’s way and backed right into Eli. Or rather, the brick wall that was Eli. Brick chest, concrete posts for legs. Solid and thick, the man was as hard as his head, and it felt like she’d just been zapped—the sort of zap that stings and makes you shiver all over at the same time.

  She quickly jumped forward before he could zap her with any other hard body part, and practically dove headfirst into his truck.

  Eli stepped up to close the door, and for a brief moment, a very brief moment, his eyes swept over her again, lingering for a split second on her breasts before he slammed the door shut and strode around to his side of the truck.

  He got in, put the truck in gear, and pulled away from the curb. “So where were we?”

  “Let’s see…Oh, I remember. You were impugning my professionalism by implying that I am not taking my job seriously.”

  “Oh right, right, you had decided to take a three-hundred-pound arch to the remote mountains of Colorado. An arch I bet she told you about after you’d spent a fortune shopping. Which is exactly my point, Marnie—don’t get caught up in the glamour.”

  “Glamour. Ha!” she cried derisively. “That is the most ludicrous thing you’ve said yet. Caught up in the glamour.” She snorted.

  “Oh yeah? Well, just look at you,” he said as he headed for Santa Monica Boulevard.

  She gasped indignantly. “Whaddaya mean, look at me?”

  “Your dress,” he said, as if that explained it all.

  “What about my dress?” she cried, getting very irritated now, and looked down at her most excellent dress. “For your information, this is just about the coolest dress on the planet, thankyouverymuch, and please don’t be offended when I say that I’m not about to take any fashion advice from Howdy Doody who thinks workout clothes are the same as banging-around clothes.”

  That made Eli laugh. “I may be Howdy Doody to you, but I ain’t blind, sweetheart. It’s because that dress is so fine that I’m saying this to you, all right? You wouldn’t have a dress that fine if you weren’t out shopping and getting carried away with Olivia Dagwood and her little sphere of stardom. But I promise you, the moment you become inconvenient or irrelevant to Olivia, she will cut you off and act like she never heard your name. I’m just saying things will go a lot easier if you just do your job and don’t buy into the pals bit.”

  Marnie flew right past the tone of his voice and the telling her what to
do to that dress is so fine. She tried to keep the smile from her face but was horribly unsuccessful. Actually, she was beaming. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “You really like it?”

  He groaned. But he was smiling a little, too. “Try and absorb what I’m saying, will you, coppertop? No arches. No fancy cakes, no china, no silver, no sit-down dinners.”

  “Aha!” she said brightly. “So you do know a little something about weddings.”

  “Maybe a little,” he said, and looked out the driver’s window for a moment. “Just listen to me, Marnie.”

  She laughed. “How can I avoid listening to you? When you actually talk, you’re usually complaining about something.”

  “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t try and mentor you a little bit here.”

  “Are you serious? Are you actually serious?” she exclaimed in disbelief. “You don’t mentor. You spout opinions.”

  “Come on. No I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. You have a tone. I don’t have a tone, but you so have a tone.”

  They argued about the perceived tone of his voice and her inability to listen, as well as how he came off like a frozen stiff who spoke only to bark orders until they reached her neighborhood.

  As he turned onto her street, Eli said, “Okay, woman, all kidding and bitching aside—we’re leaving in less than two months to go canyoning. We have to have the details of this so-called wedding nailed down by then. Do you understand? You can’t sit around talking about cakes all day. You have to get her nailed down.”

  “Roger, el capitan. We’ll show up in Colorado in our combat gear and have the kind of wedding you’d like to have.”

  Eli glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “You assume too much, you know that? You assume you know where I’m coming from, and you really don’t.”

  Whatever. He was a wet blanket and she sort of figured it really didn’t matter where he was coming from. Nothing was going to change. “All right, all right—I don’t know you, I don’t get you, but that’s okay. I don’t really need to get you to plan their wedding, right?”

  “Well…right,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “Just please do what we need.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. Miffed by the change in his demeanor after such a great dinner, she turned away in a huff and looked out her window. And saw a shape lying against the curb. As Eli drove past, she shrieked.

  Eli jerked the wheel with a start. “What the hell?”

  “Stop the car, stop the car!” she cried, pounding the dash.

  Eli slammed on the brakes. “Jesus, what is it?”

  She didn’t want to say, didn’t want to believe it. And besides, she was already out of the truck, running back to the shape.

  Bingo was lying almost motionless, but at the sound of Marnie’s heels on the pavement, he lifted his head and looked back over his shoulder at her, his big brown eyes full of fear and pain.

  CHAPTER NINE

  They wrapped Bingo in Eli’s jacket and took him to the twenty-four-hour pet emergency room. Marnie went running inside, demanding help, as Eli lifted the dog in his arms and carried him in.

  The vet told Marnie it was a good thing she’d spotted the poor dog, or else he might have died of hypothermia and shock. Eli wasn’t sure how badly he’d been hit, but he suggested to the vet that the fact the dog was alert and whimpering was a good sign. The vet agreed and asked them to wait while he took Bingo back for X-rays and an assessment.

  They watched the vet carry him back, then Marnie slipped into a seat and buried her face in her hands.

  She looked so forlorn, so distressed, that Eli sat next to her and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. For such a spunky woman, she sure felt fragile beneath his arm.

  Marnie slowly slid into him, so that she was pressed against him, with her face still in her hands. “Mam-mu,” she muttered tearfully.

  He tried to decipher that for a moment before bending his head down to hers. “What?”

  “Mam-mu,” she muttered again, only an octave higher.

  He squeezed her fragile shoulders. “I’m sorry, Marnie. I can’t understand you.”

  She drew a big gulp of air and lifted her head; her eyes glistened with tears. “Thank you,” she said, dragging a hand under her nose. She grabbed his knee with both hands. “Thank you for saving Bingo, Eli. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been with me. I know you probably think I’m silly, but I love that old dog.”

  Eli’s gaze fell to her hands on his knees. “I don’t think you’re silly at all,” he said. “I love dogs, too.”

  Marnie blinked, and more tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s just the way that you took control, and you knew exactly what to do, and you didn’t freak out, and you didn’t hurt him, and you were so calm and assured…” She paused, gulped more air.

  Eli sat staring at her slender hands clenching his knee, feeling a little self-conscious. “I did what anyone would do.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said sternly. “You saved my dog.” She sighed, let go of his knee, and collapsed against the chair, folding her arms across her. “I may not know where you’re coming from, but I know one thing—you’re a lot softer than you let on.”

  “No,” he said with a snort, “I am not soft.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No. I’m really not.”

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and sniffed. “You’re sure?” she asked with a tiny lopsided smile. “Not even a little?”

  “Not even a little,” he said, and stretched his long legs, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “Yes, you are,” she murmured.

  “Marnie—”

  “You are,” she insisted, laughing now.

  Eli sighed. But he was smiling big on the inside.

  They waited for what seemed hours. Marnie dozed off while he read a magazine, and before long, she had teetered to the right, propped up against him, dead weight on his shoulder. Her legs were sprawled before her, one cocked at the knee, the other leaning against the first.

  She was cute. He grinned appreciatively at how far up her thigh her dress had ridden. Nice thigh. Nice, shapely thigh. He could imagine sinking his head between a pair of thighs like that. Could imagine it so vividly that his pulse began to pick up a little.

  Thank God the vet reappeared when he did. “Bingo is going to be fine,” he said after Eli nudged Marnie awake. “He’s got a fracture, but there doesn’t seem to be any internal bleeding. I’d like to keep him overnight for observation. I’d suggest you folks go home and get some sleep. You can pick him up tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Thanks, doc,” Eli said, extending his hand. “Thanks for taking care of Bingo.”

  “It’s my pleasure and my job,” he said, taking Eli’s hand.

  He said good night to them, and Eli and Marnie walked outside into cool night air. “Are you cold?” Eli asked as Marnie wrapped her arms around herself.

  “A little.”

  Eli glanced back at the emergency vet. “Bingo’s got my jacket.”

  “I’ll be all right.” But she was clearly shivering.

  Eli put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. “You’ve never been right is what I’m thinking,” he said.

  “Me?” she protested, nudging him with her elbow as they began to walk to his truck. “This from a man who was obviously impaled on a stick because he’s so stiff and unbending all the time.”

  Eli opened the truck door for her and watched her long legs bend to get in the cab. He shook his head once to clear it as he walked around the back of the truck to the driver’s side. But her legs were still there in his head, and he knew, as he turned the ignition, that he was going to have a hard time getting them out of his head. And that smile. Not to mention the hair.

  “I can’t stand to think of him lying there,” Marnie said as they drove out of the parking lot. “He must have been so scared.”

  Eli couldn’t stand to think of
it, either—it brought to mind the dozen dogs he’d had in his life, ending with Hank, his golden retriever who had died of cancer a couple of years ago. God, he’d loved that dog, and felt the lump at the back of his throat even now. So he changed the subject. “He’s going to be all right. So listen, I’m out of town for a couple days. Let’s review: No arches, no spectacular waterworks, and no sky-diving routines for this wedding, right?”

  Marnie groaned and dropped her head back against the headrest. “You are impossible. What is it with men and weddings? Why can’t you just admit that the day is as special for men as it is for women? It doesn’t make you any less macho to get married under an arch,” she said, and proceeded to tell him how special arches made the world in general until they reached her house.

  He pulled in behind her car and got out, walked around to her side as she opened the door, and offered his hand as she slid out of the car.

  Marnie took it. And didn’t let go. She just kept holding his hand with a shy smile and a look of tenderness in her big brown eyes. “Thanks, Eli. I mean it. From the bottom of my heart,” she said, and squeezed his hand.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I have to mention it.” She smiled, stepped closer, so that she was brushing against him in that skimpy dress, and looking at him with eyes that could swallow a man whole if he let them. A warning went off in Eli’s brain, clanging like a railroad crossing, but he felt paralyzed, unable to get out of the way of the freight train that was headed right for him.

  Marnie rose up on her toes, touched her lips to the corner of his, and just sort of lingered there for a moment…her very soft, very warm lips on his. Then she slowly slipped down.

  “Thanks,” she said, and slid her hand from his before stepping back. Only now she was flashing a sexy, devilish smile at him. “I’m going to go look at some china settings with Olivia tomorrow. I suppose when you get back you’ll want to get together so you can tell me she can’t have china settings, either?”

  Eli blinked, made himself step back into the here and now, and laughed. “I’m not waiting until I get back, coppertop. I’ll be calling you every day. Which reminds me,” he said, and he stepped around her, reached into the glove box of his truck, and handed her a cell phone. “Keep it on you. I want to be able to deep-six china settings at a moment’s notice.”