The Last Man She'd Marry

by Helen R. Myers

  “And where does the other girl, the one with obvious sociopath issues, come in?”

  “She was the first girl’s current roommate. Actually, they all share the same apartment.”

  “Did you learn what they planned to do with the money?”

  “They already had reservations paid for with a stolen credit card for three seats to the Caribbean. They intended to live the good life.”

  “Which would be short, considering how fast the money would flow through their fingers.”

  Jonas yawned. “I’ve been craving a drink for hours, but I swear if I had one in-hand right now, in two sips I’d be unconscious.” He reached over to stroke her thigh. “I bet if you pulled over, you’d know how to wake me up?”

  Laughing softly, Alyx shook her head. “Forget it. I’ll bet the chief put out notice that if any of his people so much as see you accidentally drop a penny and not retrieve it, they’re to arrest you for littering. I’m not touching you until I have you safely behind a locked door.”

  “Yeah?” Jonas’s grin was brighter than the moonlight. “What do you have planned for me then?”

  “Probably fill a tub for you and let you soak for an hour, then scrub you down in the shower, considering some of the company you’ve been keeping.”

  Lifting his arm to smell his shirtsleeve, he grunted. “I’ll pay to have your car detailed tomorrow, too.”

  When they arrived at her place, Alyx insisted they leave their luggage in the trunk. There wasn’t anything in their bags that she couldn’t provide inside, or that they couldn’t do without.

  Jonas’s heavy-lidded eyes had her running him that bath as promised and he unceremoniously stripped beside her and eased in, groaning, until he was chest-deep in the lightly scented sea-salt water. When she turned on the hot-tub jets, he dropped his head back and closed his eyes.

  “Don’t wake me until I’m the consistency of the last raisin in a box of cereal,” he told her.

  Alyx kissed him tenderly. “Enjoy. I’m going to turn down the bed and make you that drink—or do you think a pain pill is more necessary?”

  “What’s necessary is for us to talk. Not about the FBI, or the kidnapping—”

  “Or when you have to return to Sedona,” Alyx added, already dreading that time without him even if it was only for a few more weeks.

  He looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “I’m not going back. Are you trying to get rid of me? H said he took me from someone else with a need and that he’s responsible to see that Zane doesn’t suffer financially for that. It’s just a matter of me doing the paperwork and telling him a figure.”

  Alyx’s heart literally did a jitterbug between her breasts.

  It was then that Jonas spotted her bracelet and with a soapy hand he took hold of her wrist. “Whoa. Who is this from?”

  “Another very generous person.”

  “Male or female?”

  “It’s from Parke,” she said to put him out of his misery. “Jonas…” She leaned closer and picked up a natural sponge, wet it, and stroked it over his chest in soothing circles. “If you’re still interested, I’d like to try talking again about you moving to Texas.”

  He caressed her cheek with his thumb. “I can’t do it.”

  Blinking, she receded a bit. “Oh. Because of the employment situation, right?”

  “No. I could find something. I’m not worried about that.”

  “Then why? Jonas, I love you,” she whispered, resting her forearms on the tub’s edge. “I’ve never said that to another man, if you can believe that.”

  “Then why won’t you marry me?”

  Confused, she shook her head. “I never said I wouldn’t, but you have to ask me first.”

  “Excuse me,” he replied. “I distinctly remember you saying—and I quote—‘You’re the last man I’d marry.’”

  Alyx bowed her head in shame. “I do wish your memory would fail you this once. That declaration wasn’t about you, it was about me and my flaws.”

  Grimacing as though in pain, he asked, “Can you get me a Band-Aid? Please?”

  She didn’t see any blood, but Alyx quickly went to the vanity and returned with one. “Here, let me get the paper off so you don’t accidentally get that bandage wet. There…now where do you want it?”

  Jonas took it from her and held it over her left ring finger. “Until I can replace this with something slightly more respectable, Alyx, my real love, my only love, my last love…will you marry me?”

  Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Yes, my darling, beloved G-man. I will.”

  After watching him awkwardly secure the Band-Aid, she kissed him and kissed him again. The tears continued, wetting his cheeks and mixing with the equally hot and salty bathwater.

  When they finally parted to catch their breaths, Jonas teased, “What is it about bathrooms with you and E.D.?”

  “It’s about realizing what’s precious to us and what we can’t bear the thought of losing.”

  Jonas stroked his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips. “You won’t ever lose me, Alyx. I promise.”

  Epilogue

  The wedding took place in the spring, and while that seemed to Jonas an eternity before he could make the woman of his dreams his, there were times that he thought it a miracle that it had happened at all. And all of the blame fell on his shoulders. Alyx would have been happy to elope; she actually suggested it periodically between his August proposal and the April day when she locked him out of her hotel room because she was getting into her gown.

  Standing in his own room in the suite provided by Mr. and Mrs. H. Freeman, Jonas felt awe, humility and inconceivable pride that Alyx had borne the whirlwind changes in their lives so graciously.

  It had begun with the stunning request by H that he become the head of security for his family. This came the day after Jonas had drafted him an outline of what he really should do to protect his loved ones, himself and his business. After the shock had passed, the real planning started. Jonas was to oversee the building of a compound which would include a new home for the Freemans and a house for him and Alyx, as well as quarters for other security personnel, a larger garage with apartments above for the chauffeurs, a communications center, dog kennel—the list was daunting. It was a request a corporation would be challenged to undertake, and Jonas had politely declined even before speaking with Alyx about it. He wouldn’t consider putting her through all that, asking her to give up a home she loved, living in a house that would never really be hers, and also having to live as a target and under the same rules as everyone else.

  With deep gratitude he thanked H and recommended a few companies he knew that were well versed in this kind of endeavor. H had listened patiently and said, “But I don’t know those people, Jonas, and I don’t want to know them. This is personal and I want to retain as much of the life we had before as possible. I know you understand that. Would you allow me to speak with Alyx?”

  Knowing he had no right to make a decision for her, Jonas brought Alyx to H’s home and everything was laid out for her. Her first response was to quip to Jonas.

  “So this is what you do all day when I’m in court.”

  But, oh, his darling was proud. She struggled with keeping her composure, and H discreetly left the room looking distraught that he had upset her with his request. Only, as soon as they were alone, Alyx had gone into Jonas’s arms and kissed him.

  “You are an amazing man, Jonas. I don’t know the half of what I’m seeing, and I worry for your workload, but this is a chance of a lifetime, as well as the supreme compliment in your profession to be offered this. You have to take it.”

  “The greatest compliment,” he’d replied, humbled, “is watching you open your heart to me.”

  And now, midway through all the construction and interviewing for personnel, and arranging for equipment—their wedding day had arrived. He couldn’t wait to see his bride. H had offered a Vera Wang gown. “Sarah says she’s tops,” h
e’d confided to Alyx. Jonas’s always-with-a-comeback darling had been left speechless.

  A knock at the door brought Jonas out of his daydreaming and he called, “Come in!”

  “I’ve got a getaway car posted outside the kitchen delivery dock,” Dylan said upon entering. “This is your last chance, compadre.”

  “That’s a helluva thing for the best man to say.” But Jonas grinned as he hugged his friend. Like Jonas’s, Dylan’s tuxedo was gray and he hoped he looked half as dashing as the judge did. “How much longer before we head for the church?”

  “Now—otherwise you’ll see the bride, because her limo has arrived as well.”

  “Alyx was right, we should have eloped.”

  “Come on, before Parke comes over herself and throws you down the elevator shaft for holding things up. That woman is more excited than E.D. to see this happen.”

  “Is Blake already there?”

  “With the Freemans, yes.”

  Jonas was proud that his son honored him by agreeing to fly out for the wedding. His teenager had visited once already and had met Alyx and the Freemans. Although he’d been literally openmouthed in his admiration of his stepmother-to-be, Blake was starstruck by H and they’d been talking computers and software ever since his arrival yesterday.

  They’d chosen a small chapel to offset the huge reception that would follow. As he and Dylan arrived, he saw all of the people he’d come to know and care for since retiring from the Bureau, and he was especially touched that the Freemans were there in the front pew. Jonas spotted the two guards he’d already hired to watch over them discreetly posted. He paused to hug his son sitting beside H, and shook H’s hand. He then stepped across the aisle to kiss E.D., ever-gorgeous and in pink, surrounded by the well-scrubbed Justiss clan.

  “Your hands are like ice,” she whispered to him.

  “My knees are knocking, too. How’s she doing?”

  “Like you, a wreck.”

  Most of the others already seated were friends and close associates from Alyx’s world of law, and then there were the VIPs, such as the mayor and the governor, sitting right behind the Freemans.

  He went back to shake hands with the minister of H and Sarah’s Methodist church and then heard the music change, the sign that the bridal party had arrived.

  Suddenly the nerves were gone and Jonas nodded calmly and followed the minister out to meet his bride.

  Alyx had decided she would walk down the aisle by herself, with Parke leading. His about-to-be-cousin-in-law was a knockout in a seafoam-green silk gown that made her Celtic coloring all the more exotic and had many a male eye follow her hungrily. Then he saw Alyx. Some wreck.

  She was a dream in liquid silk, not white, not silver, but all the radiance of the sun and moon. The gown enhanced her exquisite figure, yet shielded her in all of the places she preferred. Her veil was elegant but modest, and her bouquet was a gentle wave of white roses that finished the illusion of a goddess come to earth.

  He took an eager step forward to meet her, a move that brought several chuckles from the pews. Then he and Alyx looked deeply into each other’s eyes and everything else and everyone else fell away, and vows were a mere formality.

  When Alyx finally managed to maneuver herself and her gown into the limousine for the ride back to the hotel, she sighed in relief and as soon as Jonas settled beside her, she reached for his hand.

  “Husband.”

  “Beloved wife.”

  They kissed for real this time and when they parted, he suggested, “Let’s skip the party?”

  Alyx laughed. “The governor wants to make an appearance. Elections are coming up soon and he’s hunting donors. And Parke wants you to introduce her to one of your security people, don’t ask which because she can only describe him by, um, dimension.”

  “Soon to be ex-security person if he so much as considers accepting what she has to offer.” Jonas shook his head, unable to stop looking at her. “Mrs. Hunter.”

  “Oh, Jonas, I am so happy.”

  “And so beautiful.” Jonas stared down at her diamond bands and grew serious. “Thank you for all this. I know it’s been an ordeal. Will be an ordeal.”

  “An adventure. One we’ll experience together.”

  He smiled wryly. “You won’t let me be serious, will you?”

  She stroked his lips with her index finger. “Tonight, my love, you can get as serious as you want…in our bedroom. But first let’s go say thank you to all the people who made this possible.”

  As his imagination started spinning, he grinned. “Then let’s party, Mrs. Hunter.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-1918-6

  THE LAST MAN SHE’D MARRY

  Copyright © 2008 by Helen R. Myers

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  *Daddy Knows Last