Back Where I Belong: A Wonderfully Witty and Completely Absorbing Love Story (Susan Wade Series Book 3)

by Virginia Gray

  She then held me at arm’s length and cataloged the female attributes Tyler had missed: hair, weight, make-up, clothes, purse, shoes. Interestingly, her expression suggested awe. “I heard you were a big shot up North. Are ya home visitin’ your mamma?”

  “Yes,” I answered robotically.

  Darla then glanced between Tyler and me as electricity crackled. His power source: the hey baby, let’s go watch Netflix and chill kind; mine: the I hate you and I’ve died a thousand deaths, wallowing in the despair of the rejected type. My palms were moist, and my heart was racing. That had been my go-to response whenever he swaggered past me in the dingy halls of our high school, all perfect and beautiful.

  Darla said, “Hey, didn’t y’all used to date?”

  “Yes!” Tyler loudly announced.

  “Sort of,” I mumbled synchronously.

  “Who’s this?” the alpha male materializing beside me asked. Darla’s tongue actually fell out of her mouth, and I’m pretty sure she started panting.

  “Um…this is Darla Jennings, and, um, this is Tyler I stole your heart and virginity then dropped you like a hot lava rock Nail.” Yes, that was his actual last name. And boy had he been that legacy realized.

  “Well, hey Darla, Tyler. I’m Pete Walsh.” He reached out to shake their hands, his eyes trained on Tyler’s face like the laser sight of a rifle. “Susan’s fiancé,” he added.

  Darla’s eyes instantly dropped to my left hand, and she did a double take. Oh, hell yeah, biotch! I smiled sweetly then looked at hers. Bare. Interesting.

  Pete began stroking my back, and warmth spread through me along with a shot of confidence. “They are—were classmates of mine.”

  I had to hand it to him. He registered my surely blanched complexion and the anxiety my wooden stiffness must have betrayed. One of the more psychologically astute members of the human race, he opened up a can of verbal whoop-ass and doled it out generously. I fully committed to thanking him in every position the Karma Sutra illustrated.

  “Classmates? Did y’all attend Northwestern, too? Academically ranked tenth in the nation. Y’all’ve got to be so proud. I doubt there’s a single graduate from Susan’s class who isn’t successful. I mean, Susan’s slated to be an officer of the largest computer company in the world.”—I did not know that—“I’m lucky she even talks to me. So, what business are y’all in?”

  “Textiles,” Tyler boasted, his eyes boring into Pete’s. Of course he was in textiles; his grandfather owned a carpet factory.

  “No, honey,” I interjected. “They’re high school classmates.”

  “High school? Oh, sorry about that. I just assumed.” Then he cocked his head. “You know, I was very surprised to learn Susan wasn’t homecoming queen. I mean, just look at her. A few more inches and she’d be a supermodel.”

  I looked up at him like he’d lost his ever-loving mind, and then at the actual homecoming queen, the king standing right beside her. It struck me suddenly how very sad the sight of the two of them together was: not sad for me, but sad in a cosmic way. Here, some twelve years after high school, the same people were hovering around one another, their clique a life sentence. And I wondered, had I ended up moving back home, if I would have remained in my same caste as well, locked in the social rankings of childhood?

  While Pete and Tyler stared one another down, a dense fog of awkwardness rose up around us, and the buried memories of my youth, of the way these people had treated me—of how they had looked down on me and made me feel inadequate and inferior in all ways, crawled from their shallow graves. I felt a piece of my soul shrivel, and I wanted nothing more than to sink into that blinding fog and disappear.

  Pete, sentient as always, suddenly met my eyes and seemed to register my anguish. He pulled me tightly against him and whispered, “I got this.” Then he turned back, banners waving, and charged.

  “So, where did y’all go to college?”

  Darla looked at the floor, suggesting she’d missed graduation day, but Tyler puffed out his chest and replied, “Carolina. You?”

  Pete smiled, all cocky. “Vanderbilt. You look like the fraternity type. Who’d ya pledge?” The entirety of my knowledge on the subject gleaned from a handful of snooty girls in a few of my classes, that question would never have crossed my mind. Clearly, it meant something to Tyler, because he recoiled.

  “Kappa Sigma,” he muttered.

  Other than the hum suddenly vibrating through his body, Pete was silent for a moment—a dramatic silence, during which I’m certain I heard the scream of a ballistic missile. “Really?” Pete raised a censorial brow. “That must be a sore subject, what with your chapter bein’ dismantled and all. I can promise your brothers at Vandy were shocked senseless when the scandal made national news. Farm animals,” Pete tsked. “Oh Lord, y’all must’ve been desperate.”

  Tyler’s face alternated at regular intervals between ghost white and beet red while he tried to make his mouth work again. I took the time to compare my stunning future husband to this man—boy still, in my mind—who I’d once believed I loved. Though still attractive, the golden aura surrounding him at seventeen had disappeared; he was now merely mortal. And though I’m quite certain Pete’s seventeen-year-old self was surrounded by a similar glow, if anything, it had magnified. And unlike Tyler’s air of snobbish entitlement, bolstered exclusively by generational wealth, Pete’s confidence stemmed from a deep respect for family and community, and his financial success had been achieved solely through hard work and fierce determination.

  “Honey, we’ve got to meet Mom at three,” I lied.

  He glanced at his watch accordingly.

  Tyler cleared his throat and finally spoke. “Well, it’s been great seein’ you, Susie. Here’s my card. Next time y’all are in town—eyes solely on me—give me a call.” He winked, a snotty smile spreading across his lips.

  “We’ll be sure to do that,” Pete replied, snatching the card from his hand. As we left the bookstore, he tossed it in the trash without a glance, and I stared at him with newfound admiration.

  “Who exactly were you channeling back there?”

  He snorted. “As in every walk of life, there are assholes, and my sophomore roommate topped the list. Plus, I can smell a Kappa Sig a mile away. Don’t know how many of ’em I had to put down in college. And with a pig?” He shook his head in disgust. “It’s damned embarrassing.”

  Pete turned on the ignition and hit my seat warmer. Then he looked carefully at my face, all humor gone. “You wanna tell me what happened back there?”

  There are those conversations you inevitably have with your lover—usually early on in the relationship: when you lost your virginity, how many sexual partners you’ve had, etc. Pre-Pete, I hadn’t cared in the slightest about reciting my stats. My relationship with Ryan had been my longest, and his only interest in such information was as a means of exploiting others in the company for personal gain.

  Pete and I had never really gone there—not in the standard sense. I knew vague details about Ashleigh, the girl who’d claimed his young heart, and of course Babs, his high school sweetheart—that title, as I understood it, shared with half the men in New Bern (rough estimate). He’d never said she was his first, or even if they’d had sex, but having met her, there’s little way any teenaged boy could turn that kind of shit down. And though I assumed there’d been a legion of women in between those two, when it came to partners, blissful ignorance was the state in which I paid my emotional taxes.

  Though he didn’t ask directly, he was clearly curious. And I honestly didn’t want to answer. Keeping secrets from him was not my M.O., per se, but this man I truly loved. This man made me wish I’d saved my virginity for him.

  When I answered with a single headshake, he tried a different approach. “Okay. So tell me what kind of person could rattle the most beautiful, confident, successful woman I’ve ever met—someone who, if unleashed, is quite capable of taking over the entire free world?”

  I sighe
d. “Pete, don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.” His face darkened perceptively. I sighed in surrender. “Okay, do you remember the night we met?”

  “I’ll never forget it.” His smile was radiant.

  “Remember how I was such a bitch?”

  “You were in rare form,” he answered, a dreamy smile forming.

  “And do you remember our faux-date when I accused you of being a lot of things you really weren’t?”

  He nodded.

  “He’s why.”

  “Ah.” After a moment of silence, he lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. “There is no one on this planet who can ever make you feel badly about yourself. Plenty will try, but in the end, it’s your call.” He then kissed my knuckles and let the subject drop.

  ♥

  We only exchanged stocking-stuffers at Mom’s, though he kept threatening to put that stupid book under the tree. I think we both wanted our personal gift-giving to be done in private—preferably with no clothes on.

  “Open it,” he said, kissing my cheek. Our king-size bed was an island floating in a sea of boxes and wrapping paper. It had been a William-Sonoma Christmas for Pete, as I’d purchased the last thirteen items he did not already possess from that fabulous kitchen store. I’d been hiding the copper fish steamer in the back of my closet for over a month. Inside, I’d planted the lingerie surprise I was currently wearing—well, sort of wearing.

  “C’mon,” he cajoled, running the milk-frother gently up my arm. I unwrapped the large, yet very light box. Inside was another.

  “This isn’t one of those nesting deals is it?”

  He laughed. “I figured you’d beat me if I put more than three together. I was right on target.” The small box sent a large thrill through me.

  “Thought we could start our own luck,” he said as I cracked the lid. Beautiful diamonds glittered up at me from their pale satin pillow. “They’re not the same quality as your ring. Considerin’ the trouble you have with earrings, I thought it unwise. Ow!” he then yelped as I twisted his nipple.

  “They’re lovely,” I said, mesmerized. As with my ring, they were set in a beautiful and unusual way. “I’ll wear them on our wedding day.”

  He kissed me tenderly. “I was hopin’ ya would.”

  10

  Bridezilla Strikes!

  “The dress has arrived!” Mona announced.

  Buddy Williams, the postmaster himself, marched down the hall behind her, carrying the large box. He set it on the floor carefully. “It’s supposed to go to your house, and it’s a federal offense to take it anywhere else, but I knew you’d want to see it soon as it arrived.” Glancing back at Jayne, he smiled sheepishly.

  Though Joe Pat had clearly staked his claim on Jayne, having taken her to dinner several times, he was not her only suitor. I sensed a storm brewing that only a good bar fight could calm.

  I couldn’t say she was immensely attractive, but she had a certain charm that seemed to attract males who would be considered her peers. While her figure was still pleasing, and her voice deep and smoky, I believe it was her general air of authority that drew these ex-military men to her like metal shavings to a magnet. What’s more, being a marine brat, she was one of them by extension.

  My office door was suddenly crowded with staff. Buddy pulled out a box cutter and very carefully slid it across the top. I ripped open the box as soon as he stepped away.

  “Ooh!” Mona exclaimed, running her fingers down the bodice. “I believe it’s even prettier than the one in the store. Try it on!”

  “Everyone but Mona—out,” I ordered. They fled as I cheerfully slammed the door. I then hugged it—hugged it to my chest and danced around the room with it in a sloppy waltz. While stripping down to my underwear, Mona cooed to it as she unfastened its buttons.

  “Okay, climb on in.” She held up the gown, and I gingerly stepped into it, my body immediately swallowed down its silky throat. I pressed my arms to my sides, holding the bodice in place as Mona fastened the back. Glancing down, I decided my red bra straps made me look like a harlot passing herself off as a virgin. I laughed at the thought.

  “Okay, you can let go now,” she said.

  I did, and the bodice sank to my hips like a deflated balloon. “Mona, I think you missed a couple of key buttons.”

  “Honey, I surely did not.”

  “You fastened all of them?”

  “Every last one.” I turned to her, and she gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth.

  “Oh, this is a nightmare!” I wailed.

  She began fretting and fussing with the back. “Finally, she said, I s’pose you could order the next size down.”

  “This is the next size down! Remember? She measured me before she placed the order.”

  “Well, I guess you could eat a little bit more.”

  I glared at her. “I’m calling Saks!” I dragged the weighty train to my desk and pulled out the bridal consultant’s card, tapping the numbers of her direct line. “Hello” barely spilled from her lips before I attacked. “This is Susan Wade. My dress just arrived and it doesn’t fit!”

  “Oh dear. Hold the line, please.” I tapped my foot impatiently as I listened to the crappy music, interrupted periodically by ads touting their high quality of service, an upcoming perfume extravaganza, and the ever-popular “open a Saks card today…” Some five minutes later, she returned.

  “Miss Wade, my records show that you tried on our size thirty-four and it was too large.”

  “Yes, Marion, and you assured me the thirty-two would fit perfectly, so that’s the one you ordered. Do you have that in your records?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it doesn’t fit!” I screeched.

  “I see. Let me put you on hold once more.”

  I rolled my eyes and Mona looked at me quizzically. “I’m on hold again.”

  When Marion returned this time, I could hear the panic in her voice. My heart accelerated tenfold. “I’ve just been on the phone with the designer in Italy. Unfortunately, they’ve retired that particular style.”

  “What exactly does ‘retired’ mean?”

  “In layman’s terms, your dress has been discontinued and is no longer available.”

  “Can’t you just order one from another store?”

  “Each dress is custom made. I’m so very sorry.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

  “We do have a wonderful alterations department. Just pop over and have our seamstress take a look. She’s quite gifted.”

  “I can’t just ‘pop’ over. I live in North Carolina!”

  “Oh. That is a problem. She certainly can’t alter it without measurements. And of course, you’ll want to do a final fitting for any last minute adjustments.”

  “Hold, please.” After stabbing the button with enough force to crack the glass, I turned to Mona and sweetly said, “You may want to step outside for a moment.” She flew out as if strapped to a jet engine, the door slamming behind her. I calmly took off my shoes, threw them against the wall with all my might, and screamed bloody murder. I then sucked in several deep, cleansing breaths and took Marion off hold. “Connect me with alterations, please,” I said sweetly.

  “Immediately, Miss Wade.”

  I opened my office door, and a wide-eyed Mona tiptoed back in. During the next five minutes of listening to the painful sounds of scratchy Chopin, we discussed the situation.

  “I have to take the flippin’ dress back to Philly for alterations.”

  “Well, Sally Russ over at Belk’s does a fine job. She did my dress, remember?”

  “She did,” I said with a tight smile. Honestly, there was nothing wrong with Sally’s work on Mona’s uncomplicated dress, but she sure as hell wasn’t touching my x-thousand dollar masterpiece. This was my wedding, dammit! “I’ll just ‘pop’ over during January’s budget meeting.”

  Saks’ seamstress finally came on the line, and I set up the appointment.

  ♥


  “Independence Hall…” Pete murmured, suckling one of my breasts. I moaned in ecstasy while his magical tongue performed great feats of…well, magic. When he gently twisted my nipple with his teeth, I nearly convulsed.

  “The Liberty Bell…” he continued. His fingers slowly traced the contours of my ribcage, waist, and hips while he delivered the lightest of butterfly kisses down my stomach. He spread my legs apart and shouldered them. His tongue swirled around my clitoris, and then he blew on it. I writhed, my hips bucking. “Fancy hotel room…”

  “I know what you’re doing,” I gasped, balling wads of sheet in my hands.

  “Great food…” He slid a finger inside me.

  “Nonstop—argh—meetings,” I garbled.

  A second finger followed the first, and he began moving them in that torturously slow and utterly illicit way that generally rendered me incapable of thought.

  “Historical sites…”

  “Covered with snow—right there! Don’t stop.”

  “Shopping…” he whispered, pressing firmly against me with his tongue.

  “Yes!” I screamed out as a violent orgasm rolled through me. He skillfully teased it out for the length of eternity. Finally pulled back to earth by thoughtless gravity, I whimpered, “I mean, no.”

  Positioning himself above me, his eyes bored into mine. “I want ya safe.” And with those words still hovering in the air, he slammed into me in a single, powerful thrust, driving his point home.

  Starbursts exploded beneath my eyelids. I scored his back fiercely as I yelled out, “I am!”

  He pulled back slowly until nearing the point of disconnection. “You’re not.” Then he thrust deeply into me once more and began slowly rolling his hips in a way that will never be legalized.

  “Differences between Mona and me,” I panted as we found a steady rhythm. “One, I know the terrain.” His speed increased, and I groaned gutturally. “Two—harder—I have allies.” I wrapped my legs around him to anchor myself and ground my pelvis into him. “And three, as you—ahh—often remind me—oh, fuck—I’m meaner than a snake. Pete!” I screamed out, as I shattered into fine pieces. “You’re not coming!”