Wedding Bells in Christmas

by Debbie Mason

  “I don’t know. I think we should change it up a bit.” She smiled then lowered her mouth to his chest, nipped her way down, soothing each love bite with a lick and a kiss.

  He tunneled his fingers in her hair. Jesus, wrong hand. He couldn’t contain his groan of pain. Vivi’s head jerked up. Then she moaned and rubbed her neck. “This sucks,” she said, lying back down beside him. She carefully lifted his hand to her mouth. “And first thing in the morning, we’re going to the hospital to get a new cast put on. I thought your dad was going to have a heart attack when he saw your hand.”

  “Yeah, it was quite the performance. Hey, did you see him and Liz out on the dock together? They seemed to be getting along pretty good.”

  “Yes, well done, Grasshopper. Your aunt trained you well.”

  “You caught that, did you?”

  “Oh, lover, when are you going to learn that nothing gets by me?”

  “Lover?” He turned his head to look at her. “I think you just came up with a solution to our problem.”

  “We’re going to have phone sex?”

  “More like talk dirty.” He got comfortable. “Okay, start talking, honey.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Three months later

  Vivi threw open the door to Paul’s house and rushed inside, her red high heel catching in the area rug. She grabbed the door in time to save herself from falling on her face.

  “Careful, honey,” Chance’s dad called out from where he stood in front of the fireplace in his black tux. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Little anxious to see my son, are you?”

  “No, I… All right, I may be a tad anxious,” she said with a self-conscious smile. Chance had been out of town on a job for two weeks. It had been the longest they’d been apart since they’d moved in together. And she’d hated every minute of it, though she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, least of all Chance. She didn’t want him to give up a job he loved because she missed him like crazy. His flight home had been delayed, and with the wedding scheduled for two this afternoon, he had to head straight to his dad’s.

  The sound of male laughter to her right had her taking an anxious step in that direction, but catching a glimpse of the framed photo in Paul’s hand, she crossed the living room to his side instead. “You okay?” she asked, looking at a wedding photo of Paul and Anna with their best friends, Liz and Deacon.

  “I’m good, honey.” He placed the photo back on the mantel, skimming his finger over Anna’s smiling face. “Time goes by so fast. It’s hard to believe we were married almost forty years ago.” He turned to Vivi with a half smile. “And here I am getting married again.”

  She straightened his bow tie. “Yes, and you look as handsome as you did then. Liz is a lucky woman.”

  “I’m the lucky one.”

  Vivi released a sigh of relief. She’d been worried he was getting cold feet and she’d have to stage an intervention. “You both are.” Reaching up, she kissed his cheek. “Happy wedding day.”

  “Thanks, honey.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and dipped his head to look in her eyes. “My son is a very lucky man. Lucky to have found you. And one day in the not-too-distant future, I expect him to make an honest woman out of you.”

  Good God, she couldn’t deal with this right now. She’d put the latest debacle with Nell out of her head, and it had to stay out of it or she’d strangle the older woman and ruin the wedding. Which is probably why her laugh sounded forced rather than amused. “I don’t mind being a dishonest woman. We’re both happy to keep things the way they are.”

  It was true. She’d come to terms with the fact that Chance would never marry her. He loved her, and that was good enough for Vivi. Okay, so there might be a small part of her, extremely small—infinitesimal, really—that might have been holding on to some faint hope that a few years from now he’d change his mind. Otherwise, Nell hijacking yesterday’s issue of the Chronicle and including a fake Dear Vivi letter from Superman asking Lois Lane to marry him wouldn’t have set her off the way it did. She didn’t even want to think what Chance would have thought or done had he seen it.

  But he wouldn’t. No one would. Because Vivi had caught his wedding-obsessed aunt’s latest attempt at manipulating them before the paper had gone out and now had a trunk full of undelivered newspapers. As a precaution, she’d shut down the paper’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

  “I’m not sure I believe you, but I’ll let it go. For now.” He smiled, then nudged his head in the direction of the bedroom. “Go say hello to him. And tell them to hurry up or we’ll be late.”

  Which wouldn’t be good because Liz would think Paul had gotten cold feet. Again. Over the last couple of months, they’d driven everyone crazy going back and forth about the wedding. Nell had taken matters into her own hands three weeks ago, arranging for Chance and Ethan to drop their respective parents off at an isolated cabin on Blue Mountain and drive away. As much as Vivi didn’t want to give the old meddler credit, she had to. Nell’s plan had worked. With Liz and Paul anyway. But it was not going to work with Vivi and Chance.

  Her stomach twisted in an anxious, angry knot and Vivi shoved Nell and the Dear Vivi letter out of her head, following the sound of male voices to Paul’s bedroom. She stood outside the door and smoothed down her short black dress with red leather piping. Hefting a red leather bag onto her shoulder, she knocked.

  “Hope you’re decent, boys, because I’m coming in.” She opened the door and pressed a hand to her chest at the jaw-dropping sight that greeted her. Three stunningly handsome men in various states of undress. They were lucky their aunt hadn’t walked in on them or they would have found themselves on the front page of the Chronicle. Or at the very least as the Christmas Cutie feature of the week.

  Chance, who’d been standing at the window on the phone, turned. Those grass-green eyes of his smiled at her before taking a slow and very thorough tour of her body, the smile in his eyes making it to his firm lips when he reached her shoes. Her eyes took their own tour. He looked good enough to eat standing there in an unbuttoned white dress shirt, the top button of his black pants open and riding low on his hips. She was about to run across the room and throw herself into his arms when he held up two fingers.

  All right, that wasn’t exactly the reunion she’d been hoping for. He turned back to the window, tunneling his fingers through his hair. “Give me a break. My plane just landed four hours ago. I’m not going out on another job this soon. Find someone else.”

  She briefly closed her eyes at the thought of Chance leaving again. It took some effort to force a smile on her face for his brothers. But when she turned to them, Gage and Easton were focused on Chance. They didn’t look any happier than she felt. In fact, they looked more than a little concerned.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Easton. If anyone would know, it would be Chance’s baby brother. He’d recently accepted an offer to work for the same security company as Chance. Only Easton, as a computer specialist, could work from anywhere. Rumor had it he was moving home. His father wasn’t the only one happy about the prospect. So were the single women in Christmas. Easton McBride was as jaw-droppingly gorgeous as his brothers.

  He glanced at Gage before turning eyes the same brilliant blue as his father’s on Vivi. Easton limped toward her. He’d been badly wounded in a mortar attack six months ago. He’d been lucky to have survived, let alone keep his leg.

  Placing his hands on her shoulders, he looked over her head at Chance, whose voice had grown quieter. “If they manage to strong-arm him into taking the assignment, talk him out of it, Vivi.”

  She searched his face, her chest tightening at what she saw there. “It’s dangerous?”

  “It’s a fuc… It’s a suicide mission.”

  “Can’t they get someone else? He just got back.”

  “They want him. He’s the best they’ve got.”

  “Easton’s right, Vivi,” Gage said, his eyes on Chance. “You’re the only one he’ll
listen to. If you tell him not to go, he won’t.”

  “I can’t do that. He loves his job. I can’t…” Noting she’d lost Gage’s and Easton’s attention, she trailed off. Both men were making a show of buttoning their shirts.

  Arms went around her waist, and Chance lowered his face to the side of hers, drawing her back to his chest. “But he loves you more.”

  She tipped her head, resting it on his shoulder to look into his eyes. “And I love you and want you safe, but I don’t want you to—”

  He smiled against her lips. “Shut up and kiss me.” He lifted his hand to wave off his brothers. At least she thought that was what he did. She was too busy doing what he asked her to to notice or care. Greedy for the feel of his mouth on hers, for his tongue tangling with hers and the promise of what was to come, she turned in his arms without breaking their connection. Sliding her hands up his warm, hard chest, she ignored their audience’s snorts of laughter.

  “All right, you… Oh.” She heard the smile in Paul’s voice. “Sorry to break it up, you two, but if we’re not out of here in five minutes, we’ll be late.”

  When Chance lifted his mouth from hers, it took everything she had to hold back a disappointed groan. He smiled down at her, and it finally hit her that she’d just kissed the hell out of him in front of his family. Heat climbed her cheeks as she planted her forehead in his bare chest.

  “Give us a minute,” Chance said, stroking her hair. She felt the silent laughter rumbling through his chest and pinched him. Of course he’d think it was funny. “E, what the hell is that on your neck?” he asked his brother.

  “Let me have a look at that, son,” his father said, a note of concern in his voice.

  “Dad, I’m fine. It’s…” Easton sighed.

  Gage laughed. “Stop fussing with him, Dad. It’s a hickey. He and Cat got reacquainted last night at the rehearsal party, didn’t you, little brother?”

  Vivi’s curiosity won out over her embarrassment, and she lifted her head to glance at a red-faced Easton. Cat had been acting weird at the rehearsal party, and she wondered if Easton was the reason why. Vivi’d had only a brief conversation with Cat before the dinner, leaving immediately afterward because she didn’t trust herself around Nell.

  “Uh, son, did Cat have long hair or short at the time you were… getting reacquainted?”

  “Cat has short hair, Dad. I…” His eyes narrowed at his father. “Do not tell me they did that switch thing they used to do as kids?” Paul grimaced. “I don’t freaking believe this.”

  “Chloe got herself in a little situation, so she thought it would be best if she and Cat traded places for the weekend.”

  “What did she do now?” Easton muttered, then held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “I do,” Chance said.

  “Me too,” said Gage.

  So did Vivi, but at that exact same moment, she felt something on Chance’s chest that drew her attention. She moved his shirt and, at the sight of the new ink on his chest, squeezed her eyes shut. Beneath “Never Forget Kate and Emma” was “Always Remember Vivi.” A sob bubbled up inside her, and she swallowed convulsively in an attempt to contain the sound. She couldn’t cry. She’d just indulged in major PDA in front of his family, she would not cry in front of them, too. And then it happened, and there was nothing she could do to stop them—big fat, sloppy tears rolled down her cheeks. She rested her forehead against Chance’s chest in hopes he wouldn’t…

  “Hey, honey, what’s wrong?” He leaned back, tipping her chin up with his fingers. His worried gaze searched her face.

  She shook her head, swiping at her eyes. “Nothing.” The word came out garbled.

  “She’s probably upset about you taking the job,” Easton said, moving to her side to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “He’s not taking the job,” Gage said, rubbing her back.

  “What job are your brothers talking about, Chance?” Paul came to stand beside her, stroking her hair as he looked at his son.

  “Relax, Dad. I’m not taking the assignment. I think it’s about time I went out on my own.” He dipped his head. “Does that make you feel better, honey?”

  “Um-hm.” She nodded, still trying to get her emotions under control.

  “About time,” Gage said, and Easton and his father enthusiastically agreed. Vivi would too if she could stop her damn sniffling. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Maybe it was because she was so glad to finally have Chance home, and thanks to Nell, she’d had such a nerve-wracking day yesterday.

  “Ethan would be interested in hiring you to do investigative work, you know,” Gage added.

  When Paul and Easton began suggesting other opportunities, Chance cut them off. “Okay, guys, thanks. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like a few minutes alone with my girl. We’ll meet you at the ranch.”

  Paul, Easton, and Gage each kissed her on the head, then gathered up their jackets from the bed and left. “The wedding’s at two, so—” Paul began.

  “Two minutes,” Chance said, looking down at her when his dad shut the door. “Are you going to tell me what the tears are all about?”

  “This.” She trailed her fingers over the tattoo, blinking as fresh tears welled in her eyes. “You burned me into your heart, too.”

  “You were always there, Vivi.”

  “Do not say stuff like that or you’ll have me blubbering like an idiot.” She covered her face with her hand. “What am I talking about? I am blubbering. I was blubbering. In front of your family. And I was making out with you, too. What are they going to think of me?”

  “That I’m a lucky man.” He removed her hand from her face. “They love you, Slick. They consider you part of the family.” He ducked his head. “You sure there’s nothing wrong? Everything okay with the paper?”

  “Why? What—”

  His gaze roamed her face. He seemed confused and maybe a little bit worried. No surprise, since she totally overreacted. “This week’s issue didn’t go out, Vivi. I was just wondering—”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Ah, is there something we need to talk about? You seem tense.”

  She was so going to kill Nell. “No, there was a problem with the printer, and I couldn’t get the issue out on time. It sucks because Natalee did such a great job with her story. But it’s okay, I’ll run it next week.” Forcing a smile, she began doing up his buttons. “Can’t waste time talking about that now. You have to get ready. We don’t want to be the reason the wedding is delayed.”

  * * *

  Vivi watched Chance and his brother head down the path to where the ceremony was being held. She didn’t know if she was happy Easton had decided to hitch a ride with them to the ranch or not. Yes, it had saved any further discussion about the reason the paper didn’t go out, but there was something going on with Chance. He seemed quiet. Distracted, even. And every so often she’d catch him watching her with a look of concern. What did she expect after her performance?

  Then again, it probably had nothing to do with her. He’d just quit a job that he loved. Though he hardly seemed upset about it. Ten minutes into the ride to the ranch, Chance and his brother had decided to go into the security business together. They’d keep it small and in Colorado. Which Vivi was all for. So maybe his mood did have something to do with her.

  “Chance.” She started across the lawn after him, cursing the high heels as they sank into the grass.

  He said something to his brother, then turned. His mouth twitched at her ungainly approach, and he walked toward her, meeting her halfway. “I know you’d probably rather be wearing flip-flops, Slick, but promise me you’ll keep those shoes on.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Did I tell you how crazy beautiful you look today?”

  And that was another thing, he hadn’t. She gave him a half smile and shook her head. “No, but thank you. You look crazy beautiful, too.” She took the lapels of his tux in her hands and reached up to kiss
the underside of his jaw. “I’m sorry I was an idiot earlier. I love your tattoo, and I love you. I missed you.”

  He covered her hands with his. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

  “Yes, I… Why? Are you upset about something?”

  “No, of course not.” He kissed her forehead. “I missed you, too, honey. I better go.”

  And he did, and Vivi didn’t miss the fact he hadn’t told her he loved her. Don’t be an idiot, she berated herself as she made her way into the house, he doesn’t have to say it every time you do.

  She walked through the living room, backtracking at the sight of the gorgeous, long-haired brunette in the pumpkin-orange dress sprawled in a wing-back chair. “Cat?”

  “How did you know it’s me?”

  “Your sister doesn’t sit as elegantly as you do, and she doesn’t pinch the bridge of her nose when she’s ticked off.”

  Cat nodded. “You’re good. No one else seems to be able to tell the difference.” She rose to her feet.

  “So I heard. Chloe made out with Easton last night, and he thought it was you.”

  Cat made a face. “I know. Chloe thought he knew it was her.” She itched her head, the wig moving when she did. “Why do I let her talk me into this crap? Now every time I look at the wedding photos, this is what I’m going to see.” She scratched her head again. “I should have made her cut her hair.”

  “Or you could have just said no.”

  “Right. You forget who pays my salary.”

  Vivi leaned against the back of the couch. “What’s going on?”

  Cat sighed. “Remember when I was home for the wedding in May and stayed for a couple of weeks?” Vivi nodded. “Well, my gullible sister fell for a guy who forgot to tell her he was married. Since she’s a complete Anglophile and he’s a Brit, it probably wouldn’t have mattered to Chloe that he was. But it mattered to his wife, who caught them in flagrante delicto. And Lady Whatever threatened to kill Chloe, so”—Cat lifted her hands—“here I am.”