“The yes is all I need. We don’t need to make an announcement. I can put that ring back in my pocket, and we’ll go back to the party as if nothing happened. I got my yes. I’m good.”
That had actually been in the back of her mind — until he proposed it, and then the thoughts of hiding their engagement made her sick to her stomach.
Iris held her hand out, clearly positioned for him to put the ring on, and the world seemed to click into place when it was on. Soul mates reunited. They’d gone on a detour, but nothing could keep them apart.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, set it so the foreground would be in focus and the background blurred, held her hand up, and took a picture. A quick share, and she typed in, Best birthday ever!
“Now the world knows. Or, they’ll speculate, which means even more people will know, since speculation will create a huge buzz.”
Danny’s smile told her how happy he was. His throat worked, and she was certain he was swallowing emotions down. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed. “I don’t deserve you, but I’m not letting go. I love you, Daniel Franklin.”
“Love you, too, Blueberry. People are looking for you in the main room. A few are already talking about the post.”
She squeezed one last time and stepped back. “Well then, we should get back.”
Chapter 39
Iris pestered Danny until he finally took her to meet his family, and then she understood why he hadn’t wanted to take her. He’d sent word through a neighbor to let them know he was coming and bringing his fiancée, so everyone was in human form when they arrived, and his mother had cooked a delicious stew of deer meat and some root vegetables.
They ate lunch outside, in the forest. Or, perhaps they called it a yard, but there wasn’t grass. Just woods and the normal ground cover one sees in a healthy forest.
A dozen logs had recently been cut the correct length, so one could sit on them like a short stool. No doubt, the logs would be used as firewood in the coming days. The dishes and silverware were a mish-mash, and not a set, but somehow, it all worked — family eating in the forest, just outside their cabin. The kids sat on the ground and didn’t seem to think anything of it.
After the first ten minutes, they made Iris feel welcome. Those first minutes hadn’t been their fault, but Iris’s. She’d been feeling sorry for them, looking at their surroundings instead of their faces. This family was happy.
When Danny had told her about them, she’d assumed they’d be like The Beverly Hillbillies, but it’s possible the television show characters had been more civilized than Danny’s family. He’d called them feral, and she could see it. His father, even as a man, seemed more wolf than human. His mom seemed human until she talked. Iris knew four-year-old children with a better grasp of the English language. It was as if the wolf were using the human’s vocal cords and not doing a good job of it.
His siblings and cousins also seemed ill-at-ease in their human skin, and they pulled at their clothing, obviously not used to it. Danny’s nieces and nephews who hadn’t gone through their first change yet ran wild, barefoot and happy, but they minded when told to do something. They might’ve appeared to be little hellions at first, but they clearly respected and loved their parents and grandparents.
Iris talked to Danny’s sister more than the others. She had to stay in human form most of the time to care for the kids, after all.
And yet, when his parents looked at Danny, she could see the love in their eyes for their son. Once Danny explained he’d asked Iris to marry him, his mom held both of Iris’s hands in both of hers, and told her, “You family. Love you. Family everything. Miss my Danny. You take care of him?”
“Yes, ma’am. We take care of each other. I love him, and that makes you family, too. If you ever need anything, you only need to let us know.”
“We no need. We good. Lights. Music. Happy.”
Danny had installed solar panels and a battery bank, and they had LED lights and an FM stereo. They also had running water and an indoor toilet and shower. To them, this was a luxury. Their cabin may as well have been a palace, as far as they were concerned.
And yet, despite all of this, Iris liked them.
Still, she understood why it wasn’t reasonable to expect them to make it to the wedding, even if Iris sent a car and driver. They’d be worse than Reyna around strangers. They were used to the forest. They’d gone to town a few times a month to get Danny, while he’d been in school, and she now understood how much they’d done to give him the education and life he craved. Looking around the cabin Danny had built for them, she saw how it’s possible to live with next to nothing and be happy. These people didn’t want more. They thought they had the world.
And with the Talladega Forest in their backyard, perhaps they did.
When they left, Iris asked Danny if they had enough electricity for a flat screen television and digital antenna, but Danny told her, “The kids don’t know what they’re missing. They don’t know about bathtubs and fancy beds and stoves and ovens. That electric refrigerator I bought them changed their lives in ways you can’t imagine. If they watched television, they’d want what they can’t have. They’re happy. If I ever see a child who wants to learn, who pays attention to other houses and what the people in them have, and who can’t get enough books to read, I’ll make sure he or she can get out of there and get an education. So far, I seem to be the only anomaly.”
The two rode Danny’s motorcycle from his parents’ cabin to her father’s house, and the contrast was almost too much. As a child, had she ever been as happy as the kids who were running around nearly naked in the woods? At times, perhaps, but she had a feeling these kids were happy just being alive and fed every day.
They had a late dinner with her father and Reyna and then went to a hotel. Iris was done sleeping away from Danny. She understood her father got to make the rules about what happened under his roof, so they spent the night elsewhere.
McGyver thought perhaps his Blueberry was going to drop the whole blow-job thing, but apparently, she’d merely been giving him time before she brought it up again. They were goofing off and playing around the next morning, still naked and in bed, when she dove under the covers and took him in her mouth.
He had to force himself not to push her away. “Blue. I thought we talked about this.”
“Yes. You were supposed to have a talk with your wolf and figure things out. It’s been nearly two months.”
When he was already hard, he could hold onto it, but he was soft, and there was no way to get hard while she used her mouth on him.
“You’re human. I can’t.”
She came up from under the blanket. “Do you want to turn me into a werewolf?”
He shook his head. “No. If you want to be turned, we can begin that conversation, but you’ll have to talk to a whole bunch of people besides me before I’ll agree to do it.”
She shrugged. “At first, I thought it’d be cool to be able to eat whatever I want, but sometimes it looks like it’s more of a burden than a bonus for ya’ll. I don’t necessarily want to be one, but if you need me to be, I’m not against it.”
“I don’t need you to be, I just need you to drop the blow-job bit. Most women would celebrate if they learned they never had to give another one.”
“I’m not most women.”
He smiled. “Don’t I know it.” His smile faded because she had him worried. “Is this seriously going to be a problem for you?”
She looked at him a good thirty seconds before answering. “If I were a supernatural, you’d be getting blowjobs. Fucking my throat. Whatever. Since I’m human, and you have hang-ups around that, you’ll never go into another throat as long as you live — never enjoy all the licking and tonguing and slobbering on your dick. I’ll easily survive not giving any more of them, but will you be happy never getting another one?”
“You don’t think I’ve already considered that? Having you in my life is everything.” He si
ghed. “I never saw myself having to apologize for not wanting a BJ.”
“You dated a vampire?”
He nodded.
“Maybe it’s none of my business, but how did that work? Did she drink from you?”
“She did.”
“And?”
McGyver had to focus on not rolling his eyes. “I don’t know what you want to hear. They can make the bite pleasurable, so you feel it in your arteries and veins, all over your body. They’re cold, so sex is odd, at first. Otherwise, everything works the same.”
“It wasn’t Kendra, was it?”
“No. My fling was in Atlanta. I haven’t talked to her in years.” Time to change the conversation. “You haven’t talked to me about what kind of wedding you want.”
She rolled off him and landed on the mattress on her back, looking at the ceiling. “I’ve been researching biker weddings. My research shows they’re most often in either a Harley Davidson dealership, the clubhouse, or outside somewhere.”
“Oh no. This is supposed to be your dream wedding, which means a biker wedding is out of the question. Outside doesn’t work if you plan it way ahead of time, because you don’t know what the weather will be. When we plan them outside, it’s usually done a few days or maybe a week ahead of time, and you can pull the weather up and decide where to go based on where it’s supposed to be pretty. When Tank and Sheila got married, we’d planned on going to the North Georgia mountains, but the weather shifted and we ended up going to Savage Gulf on Monteagle. You aren’t going to have that luxury.”
“Who are Tank and Sheila?”
“Sheila died, and Tank went back to Atlanta. Long story.”
“What happened to her?”
McGyver shook his head. “Long story. Let’s get back to the wedding, because I have zero expectations or hopes or whatever. You tell me what to wear and when to show up, and I’ll be there. Brain will be my best man. I can add one more person or ten more people to stand with me — makes absolutely no difference to me.”
“I think it needs to either be small and intimate, or a huge event. When I was young, I dreamed of a huge, fancy wedding, but now, I’m leaning more towards the intimate version. How many people will you want to invite?”
“The Chattanooga and Atlanta MC.”
“That means small and intimate is out.”
“How small were you thinking?”
“Like, maybe ten people? My dad and Reyna, Clay, and then a half-dozen or so people you invite?”
He considered how that would work and shook his head. “Okay, so it turns out, I do have a preference. I’m probably going to want to invite at least a hundred people.” He blew out a breath. “Unless we run away to Vegas and it’s only the two of us, I guess, but I can’t just invite a few people from the club. It’s kind of all or nothing. If you had siblings, could you invite one brother but not the other?”
“Okay, so a big wedding. I like the idea of having it outside. What if we rent an indoor space and an outdoor space, so we have a Plan B if the weather doesn’t cooperate?”
“Works for me. Do you want to do it in Chattanooga or Birmingham?”
“I don’t care. Let’s say anywhere within a three-hour drive of both, which would include most of North Georgia and Atlanta, as well as the Chattanooga and Birmingham areas. Do you have an outdoor space you’d like to use?”
“Not really. Aaron and Sophia got married at this wonderful venue on the Tennessee River. There’s also a place in Ringgold, on a lake. I went to a wedding down in Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, with a fancy white pier that went out onto the lake. The couple was married on the pier, and the seats were set up on the bank. All of those places have an area for the reception, too.”
“Okay, sounds like we need to go look at some of these sites so we can pick a date.” She took a breath. “This fall or next spring?”
“I’d prefer this fall, but I have a feeling you’ll need until next spring to organize it.”
“Nope. My people can handle the details fairly quickly. I’ll check in with my favorite designer and see how long he’ll need to design my gown. Our time frame will depend on his answer, and on when our preferred venue has an opening.”
“Okay then. Let’s tentatively plan to pick a date in late September — when everything’s still green, but it isn’t so hot an outdoor wedding will be miserable.”
She leaned up and kissed his chin. “Assuming we can find an open day at a venue we both like, that works.” Her gaze met his, those beautiful, shocking blue eyes, and he was once again thunderstruck by her beauty, her soul, her very essence.
“I love you. I wish there was a better way to say how I feel about you. You’re my life.”
“And you’re mine. I wanted to give you blow-jobs to give you pleasure, but if giving them stresses you out, it’s counterproductive. If you never want a blow-job from me, that’s okay, but if you ever wish you could have one, you have to promise me we’ll start working towards making it happen. Short sessions you associate with good, until your body stops thinking bad things when a mouth is on your beautiful, talented, and oh-so-magical cock.”
“You know how seriously I take my promises, and this is one I can give you without any hesitation. If it’s ever something I miss, we’ll figure it out.”
Epilogue
Three years later
* * *
Iris heard the ’copter and walked out on the side deck to watch it land. Clay and Trevor had visited Clay’s family in Birmingham, and then chartered a ride up to spend a week with Iris and Danny. The men lived in New York, in an apartment overlooking Central Park, and the guest bedroom was decorated with Iris’s tastes in mind. It was her home-away-from-home when she had to work in the city, and it meant Iris got to see her GBF and his bodybuilder boyfriend at least once a month, sometimes more.
Iris had learned Clay’s fiancé is a peacock shifter. Trevor had started competing in bodybuilder competitions, and she could almost see the peacock preening when he struck his poses on stage.
Trevor was as protective of Clay as Danny was of her, which was ironic, because Trevor obeyed just about any order Clay gave him. If Trevor didn’t think a situation was safe, though, he’d get Clay out of it, no matter what his orders might be.
Iris wholeheartedly approved.
The helicopter took off again once the couple was clear of it, and she met them halfway and walked them into the house. “I’m so glad ya’ll could come a few days early. You know where your room is. Get settled, and then we can walk down to the boathouse. All the ingredients needed for Harmony’s famous Long Island Tea are already down there, as well as some fun snacks we can eat while we catch up.”
Gen had found Iris and Danny the perfect house on the banks of the Tennessee River, with plenty of land and forest. Iris had a stable with two wolf-friendly horses, plus her beloved Nessie, who didn’t much care for Danny, but she was no longer afraid of him. Baby steps.
“When’s your dad getting into town?” Clay asked on the walk down to the boathouse.
“He flew in this morning. He and Danny are doing something together in town. I assume it involves either the party or one of my presents, but I still get nervous when the two of them are alone together.”
Clay laughed. “I know you’re still a little pissed that Danny signed the prenup behind your back, but whatever happened between the two of them at that meeting seemed to set them on the way towards...” He shook his head. “Not quite friendship, but mutual respect. I don’t think you need to worry anymore. They’ll be fine.”
Trevor took up a spot where he could watch the river traffic as well as anyone coming down the yard towards them, and she looked to Clay. She’d already learned it was impossible to order Trevor to stop playing the part of his bodyguard.
“My security is around. Unseen, but close. He isn’t the hired help. Tell him to sit with us.”
Clay looked at Trevor, and it was easy to see the unspoken command. Trevor sighed, but s
at with them on the end of the dock, under the shade of the second level Danny had built over the winter.
“Only because I can smell them close,” Trevor said.
Iris still contracted through Drake Security, but she no longer had Kenny or Ranger. It was a whole new crew, but they knew their business.
“I can’t believe Mythic Beast is going to play at your birthday party. I can’t wait to meet them,” Trevor said.
“I still have to be careful I’m not too friendly with Will,” she told Clay. “Danny’s wolf isn’t at all happy with the fact we had a fling.” She shrugged. “Danny isn’t thrilled, either, but since I’m cool with the sweetbutts he fucked before we were together, he kind of has to be cool about Will.”
Iris noted a boat pushing a heavy, obviously loaded barge downriver. How many millions of dollars of goods passed by her dock every day? Someday, she’d love to travel from her home to the Mississippi, and then down to the Gulf, but she doubted she’d ever manage to do it. Still, the romance of stopping to explore restaurants and cities on the way, and of being on the water at night, under the stars. They’d stop in New Orleans last, maybe spend some time on Bourbon Street, and then finally make their way to the Gulf of Mexico.
“The river is good for you,” Clay noted. “You’re thriving.”
“It is. We have a little grove amongst the trees, a few hundred yards upriver from here. Sometimes, I sleep outside with Danny when he’s the wolf. I’m most often in the hammock, but we have a tent we can bring down, if I want to be on the ground.” She shuddered. “So long as the bugs can’t get to me, I’m good. The sleeping hammock has a mesh thing around me.”
Clay laughed. “You’re such a girl, sometimes.”
“I am, and I’m looking forward to trying my birthday outfit on.”
He blew out a breath. “Starting my own shop with my own label has been terrifying. I can’t thank you enough for the extra push you’ve given me by wearing my designs and talking about them.”
McGyver Page 34