"Yes," she prompted me after a long pause.
As I looked down into her beautiful face, I considered the kid I'd thrown into the punch bowl. Taking emotion out of the equation, I weighed the coarse words that had earned him a baptism by pink pineapple juice. Within myself, I searched for a trace of regret buried in some corner of my psyche. But it was no good.
"I'd do it again," I said without a smile.
Chapter Seven
That was not the right answer; at least not in Sophie's opinion. I had to endure that look of disappointment on her face again. And I gotta say, it killed me. I was ready to drop to my knees and grovel for her forgiveness. But I never got a chance. Or maybe I never got around to it. I think maybe I run a little stubborn.
Her expression cleared as I gazed down at her. And she smiled a cool, friendly, completely-disengaged smile that chilled me right to the bone.
"Well, goodbye," she said abruptly and turned on her spiked heel.
I watched her walk away. "Hasta la vista," I muttered.
But it was only goodbye. I didn't say fare thee well or anything permanent like that. Because things weren't over between us. Not by a long shot.
With my hands shoved deep in my pockets, I watched Mr. P.F.C. close Sophie inside his black BMW (which, I assumed, belonged to his parents). Then he strode around to the other side of the vehicle, got in and started the engine. As he drove out of the parking lot, I was thinking the night was over for me, thinking it was time to head back to Boulder. But Ian didn't make a right turn out of the parking lot, which would have taken him back to Sophie's house. He made a left.
And I wasn't too comfortable with that left turn. Because, obviously, Sophie and Ian were going somewhere other than Sophie's home. And I had heard enough stories over the years to know how a lot of proms ended up for a lot of young girls. And I didn't want Sophie to be a prom casualty.
So, you're probably gonna think my behavior was outta line here, but when you're a gargoyle and you care about someone, instinct kicks in and requires you to protect them. The stronger the attachment is, the more difficult it is to ignore that urge. Sophie had become part of my "hearth and home" four years earlier when I'd rescued her from those mountain lions. And the drive to protect her hadn't diminished since then. If anything, it had ramped up after seeing her at the prom and deciding that—well—I had to have her. I had to make her mine.
So, I peeled out of my jacket and shirt and tied them around my waist as I opened my wings and took to the air. After reaching cruising altitude, I followed Ian's BMW and—sure enough—Ian was not taking Sophie home. The car was traveling into the city.
"Maybe they're just going to dinner," I muttered to myself as the bow in my cravat unwound and the strips of cloth flapped behind me. But Myself didn't really believe that. Myself was pretty damn suspicious as I glided across the night sky and tracked the black sports car into the middle of the city.
Eventually, Ian pulled into the parking garage of a very nice older downtown hotel with a glowing sign near the top of the building and a lighted portico out front. I hovered in the air and watched the vehicle climb to the top floor of the parking garage next door then I soared upward and out of sight.
Landing on the hotel's flat rooftop, I crouched down to watch and listen. The wind was blowing through my hair and I had this whole Underworld thing going on. I just wished I'd borrowed Dare's long black trench coat. It would have looked really killer. Actually, black vinyl would have been even better. I love the sixties.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Ian was asking Sophie inside the car.
"Yeah," she answered with far too much enthusiasm, in my opinion. "It'll be fun. I've never done anything like this before."
"Nay," I groaned. "Don't do this, Sophie. Not with him. He doesn't deserve you."
But she didn't listen…quite possibly because she couldn't hear me.
I scowled down at the shiny black car as Ian opened Sophie's door and escorted her into the hotel lobby. I was right behind them, dropping to the ground and closing my wings, then rushing through the revolving door and hanging back about twenty paces as they got into the elevator alone. Hurrying across the lobby, I watched to see what floor the elevator stopped at then raced up the stairs to the same level.
At the top of the stairs, I cracked open the door just in time to see them disappear into room 502.
I crept down the carpeted hallway and pressed my ear against the door. But somebody was having a party in one of the rooms, and the music was turned up ridiculously loud. So, I went down to the end of the hall and looked for a little red box on the wall. I'd seen plenty of them in movies and public buildings. And I knew exactly what that little red box was used for. When I found it, I pulled the handle.
Within seconds, the fire alarm was making a fine racket. People stepped into the hall and looked around curiously. I held the stairway door open and shouted, "There's a fire blocking the stairs below. We need to get to the roof!"
It's amazing what a little panic will do to get people moving.
Heroically, I led the charge up the stairs. Once I got one person heading in that direction, everyone behind them followed. Up on the flat, black roof, I leaned over the edge of the building and watched as a whole slew of emergency vehicles came roaring up the street with their sirens screaming and their lights spinning. Grinning down at the light show below, I couldn't help but remember the time I'd accidentally caused an avalanche on I-70.
It was epic.
More people poured onto the roof and I joined them, loitering at the back of the milling crowd until I spotted Sophie. Thankfully, the boyfriend wasn't in sight. Sophie was hanging with a bunch of girls who were about her age. Some of them were wearing long dresses, like her. Others were in jeans.
I tossed the loose ends of the cravat behind my neck and made my way through the people, sneaking up behind her. "Lovely view," I whispered against her ear.
She spun around to face me. "Havoc!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
I took her elbow and steered her away from the girls she had been standing with. "Just running a little diversion," I answered.
Her eyes widened. "Are you responsible for…this?"
"There's a reason why my mother named me Havoc," I answered with a sharp smile.
She shook her head and started sputtering. "That's crazy. That's worse than crazy; it's irresponsible! What if one of the older guests had a heart attack because they were frightened? Or from climbing all those stairs?"
I lifted my hands and opened my palms as I looked around. "I don't see any heart attacks happening. Do you?"
"That's not the point, Havoc. Something could have happened."
"Aye, a good many things could have happened," I growled, thinking of Ian and Sophie alone in one of the hotel's bedrooms. "But they didn't."
"What kind of attitude is that?"
I lifted an eyebrow and sent her a bored look. "Hey, I'm sorry if I interfered with your plans to lose your virginity."
Her face went dark. Really dark. And I gotta say, Sophie's a lovely lass every single day of the week…but she's absolutely breathtaking when she's angry. Her hand flew at my face, but I caught her wrist easily before her palm connected with my cheek. And when she tried to jerk away, I yanked her closer.
She glared up at me. "That wasn't what was going on," she hissed. "It was just a party suite that some kids from school rented for the night."
A party suite, huh? Now, normally, I'm the sort of person who hates to back down. But I gotta admit her explanation gave me pause for thought. Releasing her wrist, I took a step away from her and ran my hand over my chin.
I didn't doubt she was telling the truth; there certainly appeared to be several of her girlfriends there on the roof with her. So, maybe she hadn't been alone with Ian. And I'm quite certain she hadn't planned for anything to happen. But that didn't mean Ian had the same plan. And she was just plain naïve to expect anything else, I decided stubbornly. Even from a really nic
e guy like Mr. P.F.C. "How many bedrooms were in that suite?" I asked bluntly.
"I didn't count them," she cut back at me.
"So. Too many to count," I summarized with a mocking laugh.
Her expression was both angry and offended. "You know what? You're impossible," she snapped. "How is it any of your business what I do? And what makes you think I'm still a virgin, anyhow?"
And just like that, I lost my sense of humor. I grabbed her arms and pulled her tight against me. "Don't mess with me," I warned her in a low rasp. "And don't tell me lies I'm not gonna like." Then I kissed her—hard—and let her go. I held her flustered gaze as I backed away.
Suddenly, Ian was there beside her, gathering her into his arms as he scowled across the roof at me. "Sophie, what's going on? Are you okay? Who the hell is this guy?"
I sent him a hard smile and said, "I'm the guy who's going to steal your girlfriend."
The crowd closed in around me as I turned and made my way to the edge of the roof. When I reached it, I dropped off into the night. I fell about twenty feet before I opened my wings and shot upward. Climbing on the air currents, I circled the sky over the hotel. Down below, emergency vehicles lit up the night, their flashing lights splashing red and gold onto the walls of the nearby buildings. I threw back my head and laughed as I completed a series of barrel rolls then veered off toward home.
Back within the city limits of Boulder, I landed at the kitchen door behind the house and crept inside after folding my wings. I didn't expect anyone to be up that late. And if someone was still awake, I planned to avoid them, sneaking through the halls and up the stairs to my bedroom. Because, really, I didn't want to go through a blow-by-blow account of my evening.
But my brothers had waited up for me. In the kitchen of all places! As if they had known exactly which door I was gonna try to sneak through. I might have heard them if they'd been talking, but they were playing a quiet game of cards.
"How'd it go?" Valor asked, throwing his cards into the center of the table as soon as he caught sight of me.
"It was a colorful evening," I answered evasively (but honestly), and eyed my escape route through the open doorway on my left.
"Was Sophie happy to see you?" Dare asked.
"Sophie and I had a blast," I threw back over my shoulder as I slipped into the hall and made for the stairs in the foyer, taking them two at a time on my way to my attic room.
Inside the safety of my dark room, I blew out a breath of relief and closed the door silently behind me. Unfortunately, it didn't stay closed. Before I could even loosen the knot on my cravat, my brothers opened the door and strolled in. Valor flipped the light switch and threw himself into the overstuffed chair beside my bed. Dare dropped into the old wooden office chair at my desk and swiveled the seat around to face me.
"Que Pasa?" I asked, squinting against the sudden light. I tossed the cravat around Monty's neck and went to work on the jacket and shirt tied around my waist.
"I don't know," Valor murmured. "You tell us."
"Not much to tell," I answered lightly, throwing my shirt on the bed. "The evening was a triumph."
"Just a triumph?"
"Sorry. Let me rephrase that. The night was an overwhelming triumph."
"Did Sophie have a date?" Dare asked point-blank.
"Aye," I answered like it was no big deal. I shook out the jacket and hung it in the closet. "She was with some guy named Ian. But she's not that into him. It was—you know—just a date."
Lifting an eyebrow, Valor shared a meaningful look with Dare then targeted me with his gaze. "You know we can tell when you're lying, right?"
"I'm not lying," I insisted. "I went to the prom and had a good time. Sophie had a good time, too. Just…not with me."
"So Sophie did have a date," Valor persisted annoyingly.
I lifted my eyes to the ceiling. "You only know about that because MacKenzie told you."
Valor didn't bother to deny it. "MacKenzie says Sophie's been going out with someone for almost a year."
"Almost a year!" I exclaimed before I realized I was tipping my hand. Swiftly, I cut myself off.
"Kenz says Sophie really likes him," he added, watching me closely.
"That won't last," I said, and dismissed the notion with a casual wave of my hand. "Not now that I'm back in the picture."
Valor sighed and smiled. "Okay, we just wanted to make sure you were…alright."
"I'm fine," I reassured my brothers and escorted the two nannies from the room. Closing the door quietly behind them, I leaned my weight against its solid surface as I pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a slow hiss.
"I'm fine," I repeated in an undertone. It didn't matter that Sophie was really into Ian. Because, deep down, I knew she was still in love with me. She just needed time to remember all that.
I'd give her a week, I decided.
Chapter Eight
So, I waited for Sophie to call me and tell me she was done with Ian. But she insisted on being stubborn. (That means she didn't call.) I even broke down and called her a few times. They were pretty short conversations. I would ask her if she was still going out with that guy she didn't belong with. She'd insist that she liked Ian. A lot.
I didn't believe her.
And while she was being ridiculously unreasonable, I had an engagement party to plan. Oh, didn't I mention the engagement? How remiss of me. But I'm sure you were expecting it.
Of course, none of us were sure how we were going to swing the actual wedding. We were all wondering how we were going to manage the paperwork…or the lack of paperwork actually, since none of us had any ID. And it's kinda hard to get married without identification, as it turns out. But that was all off in the future and we were going to worry about it later on, after we got the engagement party out of the way.
The fact was, Dare just couldn't wait any longer. He was hungry to take a step that would move him closer to placing Mim at his side forever. And he had decided if he couldn't schedule a date for his wedding, he was going to do the next best thing and have an I'm-getting-married-one-day garden party.
The party was going to be very formal with a public proposal and everything. It was to take place behind the house in late May, on our new flagstone patio…which the pack had been working on for the last month. A marquee tent would be set up right next to the patio and with direct access to the kitchen door. The tent would be a place of retreat if it should rain or a place to get out of the sun should the day get too warm.
And it was all on me to make the day perfect.
Besides, Sophie was going to be there. So it had to be perfect. By the evening, I'd have her wrapped around my little finger. And (if everything went to plan) falling into my arms. And the best part was, I knew she'd be alone because she hadn't been invited to bring a guest. Actually, she had originally been allowed one guest but I helped Mim with the invitations and I made sure her guest invitation fell out of the envelope before they were sealed and mailed.
I'm clever that way.
But I, myself, had ordered the tent from the rental company, selecting a top-of-the-line model with a polished oak center post capped with a pointed brass cover. That meant there was a small opening in the roof but I wasn't expecting it to rain and, even if it did, only a few drops would get through.
For me, it was all about the effect.
And naturally, I was doing all the food, which would not only taste fabulous but look gorgeous.
The day of the party started off with a glorious sunrise that promised nothing but clear blue skies. The morning progressed sunny but not too hot. Reason and Chaos erected a lovely wicker arch they'd built for Dare and Mim to stand beneath when my brother went down on one knee. Fresh white daisies and bunches of blue forget-me-nots were woven into its latticed walls.
While Victor set up white folding chairs, Defiance and his brothers wrapped tiny fairy lights around the handrail that bordered the patio. Additional strands had been strung between the trees that
enclosed the property. When turned on at twilight, they would light up most of the grounds. Working at night, Force and Courage had made short work of the job. Sometimes wings come in downright handy. And so much money can be saved on ladders!
Inside the shaded interior of the tent, Valor set up tables covered with fine Irish linen. Most everyone else was in the kitchen, under my command, wearing the long aprons Mim had made for us, pink rosebuds embroidered into the corners of the bibs. The girls were in raptures over the smart white aprons, and everyone seemed reluctant to part with them when it was time to join the party.
By the time the guests started to arrive, there was a lovely cooling breeze and no sign of rain. I had been cooking for days. Now it was show time. In one last burst of activity, we ferried the food from the kitchen to the tent.
I had baked a cake—three layers of rich chocolate decorated with whipped cream icing and fresh wild roses from the garden. But there were other desserts as well, including tall colorful jellies, fruit tarts, currant scones and smooth shiny buns filled with whipped cream. I even made a tray of Maids of Honor (little pies filled with raspberry jam and topped with almond cake).
In addition to the sweets, there were both hot and cold meat pies, homemade sausages with finely ground cheese and a hint of jalapeno, a large tray of spanakopita—spinach and feta cheese wrapped in phyllo pastry—baby carrots tossed in a buttery mint sauce and crisp eggrolls filled with savory vegetables and bacon. (My own recipe.)
The party came off brilliantly, naturally.
Mim was positively vibrant in a sweet little print gown sprinkled with flowers. Valor was Dare's right-hand man for the event. It was his job to get the ring into his brother's hands at the right time. And to carry tissues in his pocket in case Dare got sentimental. Which he did. Right in the middle of his proposal.
While that was going on, I turned and scanned the crowd, looking for Sophie. My heart seized up at the sight of the beautiful girl dressed in a knee-length silk dress, and I almost missed hearing Mim's response. (Although we all knew what her answer would be.) But Sophie was take-your-breath-away beautiful in peach.
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