Wedding Bells in Christmas

by Debbie Mason

  She scowled at him, sliding to the opposite end. “Sounds great, Hailey. But why don’t we go to the Penalty Box instead?”

  Chance reached over and patted her hand. “Good girl.”

  Hailey swatted him upside the head with the menus, then handed one to Vivi. “Sure. I’ll let Autumn and Sophia know. You can ask Skye and Maddie, but they’re probably busy with the kids.” She gave Vivi a once-over. “We can pop by the apartment and do your hair and makeup. Holly saw a cute cut that would look great on you.”

  An image of Vivi from the Garage popped into his head. “She doesn’t need you to do her makeup, and you’re not cutting her hair.” She had amazing hair. He loved the soft, silky feel of it, the way those long, dark locks felt wrapped around his fist.

  “What is with you? You’d think she was your wife or…” She looked over her shoulder when someone called her name. “I’ll be back in a minute to take your order.”

  Vivi whacked his arm with her menu. “Stop telling me what I can and can’t do.”

  “You’re beautiful. You don’t need that crap on your face.” He reached over and wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. “And I like your hair the way it is.”

  “There you go again with the touchy-feely crap. Stop it.” Cheeks flushed, she tugged her hair from his hand and opened her menu. “What’s…” She looked past him and winced. “Ah, there’s something I think you should know. Yesterday, when Natalee dropped by, she wasn’t…” She sighed when he looked over his shoulder.

  “What the fu… hell is she doing with him?” he asked at the sight of Natalee with Zach Callahan. Chance stood up at the same time his sister-in-law glanced his way. She bit her lip, said something to Callahan, and tugged on his arm. The kid looked at Chance, but instead of turning tail to run, he took Nat by the hand and headed toward the booth.

  Vivi slid along the bench, her thigh pressing against his. She nudged him. “Be nice.” He glanced at her. She sighed. “He’s just a kid.”

  Yeah, a tall, scrawny kid with curly brown hair and freckles. He looked about fifteen to Nat’s twenty-one. Callahan thrust out his hand with a confident smile. “Hey, good to meet you, man. Nat talks about you all the time.”

  Balls of steel, Chance thought, accepting the kid’s hand when Vivi poked him in the back. “Haven’t heard a word about you.” He raised a brow at Nat.

  Vivi poked him again, then leaned around him. “Hey, how are you guys doing? Why don’t you join us?” She shrugged when Chance shot her a look.

  “No, we have a table…” Nat began, giving Chance an apologetic smile when Callahan took a seat.

  “Probably a good idea to clear the air, you know, on account of you beating the crap out of my brother,” the kid said.

  Chance wasn’t buying the conciliatory tone in Zach Callahan’s voice. He decided to rattle him to see what shook out. “Put your old man away, too.”

  Something hard flashed in the kid’s close-set brown eyes before he pasted that genial look back on his face. “I don’t hold any grudges, man. Like I told Nat, it had nothing to do with us. That shit went down a long time ago.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Chance growled and sat back on the bench, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn’t buy the kid’s “forgive and forget” act. “And you might not hold a grudge, man, but I do.”

  “Chance, please,” Nat pleaded.

  Vivi kicked him under the table. “I’m starved. Hailey.” Vivi waved her over. “Okay, you guys must know what’s good here. What should I order?”

  Nat’s gaze moved from him to Vivi. She chewed on her bottom lip and shrugged, twisting to watch Hailey weave her way through the tables.

  “Thanks for trying, Vivi,” Callahan said, his cheeks flushed. “Probably best if me and Nat get another table.”

  Nat jumped off the bench. Callahan came to his feet, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She held herself stiff, her nervous glance darting from Chance to Callahan.

  “Me and Nat love each other, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  “Zach, don’t. People are looking at us. Let’s just go—”

  Callahan put up a silencing finger, and Nat wrapped her arms around her stomach, shifting on her sandals. “She told me about the checks and stuff. What Earl and her momma did was not cool, but I can take care of her.” The kid puffed out his scrawny chest.

  “What exactly do you do, Callahan? Work for your brothers?”

  “Stop it, Chance. It doesn’t matter. Come on, Zach.” Nat tugged on her boyfriend’s arm.

  “You think you’re a big shot, don’t you, McBride? Think you can come back here and stir up all that shit again. Well, you can’t. We’re doing good now. We got money. You can’t—”

  Chance went to stand up. Vivi hooked her finger in his belt and pulled him down. “Problem here?” Hailey asked.

  “Nah, just leaving. Lost my appetite,” Zach said.

  “Nat, stay. We need to talk,” Chance called out as the kid dragged her after him.

  “Let her go, Chance. She’s embarrassed. Give her a call once you’ve calmed down and Zach’s not around. She’ll listen to you.”

  “I don’t like the way the little bastard’s manhandling her.” He shifted in his seat. “There’s something off with that kid.”

  “Yeah, I…” She pressed her lips together. “You didn’t exactly make it easy on him, you know.” She glanced at Hailey. “What’s your take on Zach?”

  Hailey slid into the booth. “I didn’t catch all of it, but you’re right. You gotta lighten up, Chance.” When he opened his mouth to defend himself, she held up a hand. “I get it. But he’s only twenty-one. He didn’t have anything to do with what went on back then. I know you don’t want to hear this, but Jake’s done a good job with him. Kept him on the straight and narrow. Zach’s a smart kid, just like Natalee. They’ve been hanging out together for years. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never seen any sign of trouble.”

  “It doesn’t.” There was something in the kid’s eyes. A look Chance had seen before, and one he didn’t like. “But thanks for trying. We should order, Slick. I have to get back to the station in thirty.”

  Once they’d placed their orders and Hailey headed for the kitchen, Vivi asked, “What was that about checks and Earl and Natalee’s mom?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Fine, don’t tell me,” she said in an irritated tone of voice and reached into her bag, pulling out her phone and… a lacy black bra.

  Chance grabbed the bra from her, letting the strap dangle from his finger. “What’s this?”

  “McBride!” She grabbed it from him, shooting a flustered glance around the restaurant as she shoved the bra back in her bag. She lifted her gaze to his, and her cheeks pinked. “Seriously, can you be any more obvious? Stop looking at my boobs.”

  “Little hard, honey. Now that I know you’ve got nothing under your top. Are you cold?”

  “That’s it, I’m outta here.”

  He held back a laugh, snagging her hand. “Don’t go.”

  “Are you going to tell me about Earl and your mother-in-law?”

  “You going to tell me why you have a bra in your bag?”

  “I used the wire to pick the lock.” She rested a hand on her crossed leg and placed one under her chin, effectively ruining his view. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  “No, and I want to know how you banged up your knuckles, too.”

  “Demanding, aren’t you?” he said, raising his hand to inspect it. He might as well tell her. She’d just start nosing around if he didn’t.

  “You’re a good man, Chance McBride,” she said once he’d told her what happened. “And Earl Skully is lucky he dealt with you and not me. What a lowlife. I think I’m going to sue him for selling me that death trap. Have you talked to your mother-in-law?”

  “No, there was this gorgeous brunette who kept me preoccupied.”

 
She opened her mouth, then shut it when their order arrived. “Thanks, Hailey. Do you have any mayo?”

  Hailey frowned. “I’m sure they put some on your burger.”

  “No, for the fries.” Vivi plucked one off Chance’s plate.

  He grabbed one of her onion rings. “Yeah, and some vinegar when you get a chance.”

  “Why are you guys eating each other’s food? And mayo on fries? That’s…”

  “Amazing. You should give it a try,” Chance said. “Give me your pickle, Slick.”

  Vivi lifted her bun and handed over the slice of dill.

  “Broken up, my butt. You two are totally still dating.”

  “No, we’re just—”

  Hailey cut Vivi off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t bother denying it. I’ll get your mayo and vinegar.”

  As she walked away, Vivi rubbed her temple. “So, Nat and school. That’s a good idea. It’ll broaden her horizons, give her a little distance from Zach.”

  Chance aimed a fry at her. “I knew it. You think something’s off with the guy, too.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. I can look into him if you want. Quietly, of course. No one has to know.”

  “We talked about this. You promised to back off.”

  “I just thought…” She sighed at his pointed look. “Fine.”

  He didn’t trust her fine. She’d promised to stay away from Jake and Darwin, but sooner or later she’d be sticking her pretty nose into his investigation. The only way to keep her safe was to keep her busy. And the one person he trusted to do that was his aunt Nell.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Vivi woke up from her nightmare in a cold sweat. She rubbed her hands over her eyes in an attempt to erase the image of her sitting chained to a desk, writing an obituary—her own. There’d been one line on the screen. A shadow blotted out the early morning light as she sat up, turning to see a huge crow sitting on the ledge of the bedroom window. She’d never seen one that large before. Maybe it wasn’t a crow. Maybe it was a raven. And wouldn’t that be the perfect way to start another day in Christmas.

  Not only had she dreamed of her imminent demise, she now had the harbinger of death staring in at her. The bird gave the familiar caw of a crow and flew off. At least it wasn’t a raven. Now all she had to do was stop eating before bed to take care of the nightmares.

  But as she pondered the symbolism of the dream—one line on an otherwise blank screen equaled no accomplishments, no significant other, no family, while being chained to a desk represented a dead-end job she hated—she realized the quart of chocolate ice cream she’d eaten before bed hadn’t triggered the nightmare. No, it had been her late-night stalking of her brother’s and sister’s Facebook pages.

  Her brother, Finn, had just been awarded an assignment with Time magazine in Iraq, and her sister, Brooke, had announced her engagement to the VP of her father’s prestigious law firm. Unlike Vivi’s, their obituaries would be filled with their many accomplishments. She berated herself for the thought. She had to stop her nightly forays onto their social media pages. It was turning into a bad, and a depressing, habit.

  It had started out innocently enough—once a year on their birthdays. Then slowly it had gone to once a month to once a week to, well, daily. She’d simply been curious in the beginning. Then those small insights into their perfect family had become an addiction.

  She’d never actually met them, but she’d seen them once. Fourteen-year-old Finn had been playing basketball with a bunch of his friends the day she’d walked up the tree-lined driveway to their colonial mansion. While twelve-year-old Brooke played Barbies under a big oak tree with her friends. Vivi had been seventeen at the time.

  Her father had already been dead six months by then. Her grandmother, doubling up on pain meds for the cancer ravaging her body, had unwittingly given Vivi enough information to track down her birth mother. Vivi’d taken a bus to Greenwich, then hitchhiked to Round Hill. Ten minutes after knocking on the door and being shown in by a maid, Vivi went home the same way. Her mother had stood in the doorway, making sure she didn’t interact with Finn and Brooke. Afraid her oldest child would bring her perfect world down around her diamond-studded ears.

  She could have; bigamy was a felony. But she wouldn’t do that to Finn, who’d watched her walk away with a concerned look in his eyes, or Brooke, who’d waved good-bye with a sweet smile on her angelic face. They weren’t like Vivi. They were innocent, protected. They wouldn’t be able to handle the stigma of their high-society mother going to jail. Neither would their mother. Which was probably why two minutes into their conversation, Claire Donovan had pulled out her checkbook. Vivi had been tempted to take the bribe. Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money. But even back then she had her pride.

  As the years passed, the pain of her mother’s rejection had faded. In some ways, Vivi had come to understand why her mother had abandoned her. She’d been a mistake. The result of too much to drink on prom night. The prom queen and the bad boy had been forced to marry. It wasn’t long before her father ended up in jail, her mother working at a high-end resort on the other side of town to make ends meet. When Vivi was two, a man rode up in a white Cadillac and whisked her mother away to his castle in Connecticut. He had no idea his pretty bride-to-be was married with a child of her own.

  Vivi rubbed her temple. She wasn’t busy enough if she was dwelling on this crap now, letting it get under her skin. She needed to do something, she thought, as she got out of bed, pulling on panties and a T-shirt. She padded to the kitchen and plugged in the coffeemaker. What she needed was a job. Her best friends were wealthy; Vivi was not. She had a nest egg, but it was a hummingbird-sized nest egg. It wouldn’t take long to deplete.

  Chance was right. She should get her butt back to New York ASAP. But her knees got weak just thinking of leaving Maddie, Skye, and the kids with everything going on. They needed her, and so did Chance. Between the Drugstore Bandits, Natalee, his mother-in-law, Earl, and this thing with the Callahans, he had too much on his plate. If he didn’t stay focused, he’d end up in the hospital alongside Ray. She couldn’t let that happen. Somehow she had to get him to share the load.

  All she had to do was find a way to stay in town and earn a paycheck. She scowled at the intermittent drizzle of coffee splashing into the pot. It was as sparse as her job prospects. She didn’t have a choice. She had to call Meredith and get her job back. After their last conversation, sucking up would be required. Vivi hated sucking up about as much as she hated writing her Dear Vivi column. At the rate the coffee drip-dropped into the pot, it would be hours before she managed a full cup. She wasn’t about to call Meredith without at least two cups under her belt.

  As Vivi walked to the bedroom to get dressed, someone knocked on the apartment door. Probably her best friends coming to do some sucking up of their own. If they had coffee with them, Vivi decided she’d forgive them for not bailing her out yesterday. She opened the door and stuck out her hand.

  Nell shook it. “Good morning to you, too. You better get a move on or we’ll be late.” The older woman gave Vivi an up-and-down look.

  Vivi glanced at her T-shirt, tugging on the hem to cover her black thong. “Late? Late for…” She trailed off when Nell and her two friends walked past her.

  Evelyn Tate, a tiny woman who’d spent way too much time in the sun, gave Vivi a crinkled smile.

  “We’ll wait for you in the living room while you get dressed,” said Stella Wright, who looked like an older version of Yvonne De Carlo in The Munsters.

  “Hold it, why am I getting dressed?” Vivi called to their retreating backs. “Dammit,” she muttered when they didn’t respond, and went to shut the door.

  Maddie shouldered her way inside, dragging Connor’s stroller in with her.

  “Okay, did I miss the memo? What’s…” Vivi began, pushing the door closed.

  “Hold it, I’m coming,” Skye called out. “Just give the brake a kick, Betty Jean.”

  Once M
addie no longer blocked the entrance, Vivi peered around the door to see Skye and her stepmother, Betty Jean, with her mile-high blonde hair, carrying Evie’s pink stroller up the stairs.

  At the sound of Betty Jean huffing and puffing, Vivi said, “Why don’t you leave the stroller outside and carry Evie? It would be a lot easier, don’t you think? That thing looks like it weighs two hundred pounds, and Evie’s what… eight?”

  Skye, with one foot on the top step and one below, looked over her shoulder. “Honestly, you’re as bad as Liz. Evie’s not underweight. She has a delicate bone structure. She’s twelve pounds, a perfectly normal weight for a five-month-old. If you don’t believe me, ask—”

  Vivi held up a hand. “Relax, I believe you.” She forgot how sensitive her best friend could be. When Skye first discovered she was pregnant, there were people who voiced their doubts about her parenting abilities—namely Grandma and Daddy-To-Be. In a way, Vivi understood their initial concerns. Skye was free-spirited and unconventional.

  But she was an awesome mother, just like Maddie, who wheeled Connor in his stroller toward the living room. “Umm, aren’t you going to take him out?”

  Maddie rocked the stroller. “No, he’s a little cranky this morning.”

  “Okay, then, leave him in there.” Vivi turned back to Skye and Betty Jean, who’d reached the landing. “I don’t think there’s room for both strollers. Maybe you should—”

  Evie screwed up her sweet face and wailed when Betty Jean went to take her out of the stroller.

  “Best to leave her in it. She’s teething,” Skye said, bouncing the stroller up and down.

  Vivi was relieved Evie’s tears were due to her teeth and not to seeing her. “So, does someone—”

  Grace opened the exterior door. Her son, Jack Junior, held her hand. The little boy with his curly dark hair was adorable, but he was a wild child. “Sorry I’m late. Did you tell her?” Grace asked Skye, who made a zip-it motion with her finger.

  What the… Oh, good God, not again. Casting a nervous glance from little Jack to Evie, Vivi said, “You guys don’t expect me to take care of the kids, do you? Because they don’t like me very much.” If this was what the next couple of weeks in Christmas were going to be like, writing her advice column didn’t sound like such a bad gig. From New York.