by Zoey Parker
“Wait, reception?” he asked.
She looked up at him, her big blue eyes had filled with that cold fire. She had given him the same look in the kitchen. “Would you rather go from the justice to a cheap motel room? I mean, I’ve been told I’m hot, but at least give me the courtesy of a little pomp and circumstance before you jump me.”
His heart was picking up speed inside of his chest. Being annoyed was definitely winning out. How could little Emma talk so easily about jumping into bed together? Not that she wasn’t hot enough to want to jump. Suddenly it was all too easy to picture pushing her back against his sheets and seeing if those long legs could wrap around his hips. “Jesus, Emma, Jesus. Just stop, stop for a second. Have you seen me?”
She took a deep breath and placed the pen on her notepad. Her long fingers laced on top of the yellow paper. She squared her slender shoulders as if in preparation for war. With who, he wondered. Him?
“Kellan, I never thought you were a bad person. You have always been a little, I dunno, brash? Yes, I think brash works just fine. But brash doesn’t mean bad. I never thought you were oblivious, though.” She unlaced her fingers and dragged them down the list, pausing to trace some of the letters.
“Wait, what?” He felt like he had stepped into the middle of a conversation in another language.
“God, you still don’t know.” She pushed the pad to the side with enough force to send the pen rolling. Rocco let out a cheerful yip and chased the pen across the bed. She snatched it up before he could chomp on it.
“Don’t know what, woman?” He decided she was definitely speaking another language. She was speaking annoyed female, and he was not fluent.
She blinked at him with the solemnity of an owl. Her big blue eyes opened and closed twice. When she started speaking again she was using that firm and educated voice of a teacher, or the upper class. “Kellan, I’ve been looking at you since my dad first brought you through those doors.”
He followed the line of her hand towards the front of the house. His brain ground to a halt. “You what?”
“Due to that ‘smacked in the face by a pan’ look you are sporting, pretty sure you heard me.”
“Wait, what do you mean you’ve been looking at me?”
She went up to her feet. Even though she was half a foot shorter she managed to look down her nose at him. “What do you think it means? There you were all dark-haired and grumpy and my poor little teenage heart just couldn’t handle it.”
“You aren’t a teenager now, Emma. You’re a grown woman.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I am. And this grown woman wants a reception for her wedding.”
He wasn’t even sure where she would come from next. He felt like an idiot for not knowing about her feelings, and an idiot for not realizing that some quick stop at a federal building wouldn’t be good enough for her. She wasn’t some biker bunny who wanted the thrill of riding someone who wore the patches.
She was a good woman, he told himself. She was a good woman who was just working out some old feelings. That’s what all this was. He couldn’t hold those against her, but he could hold her acting out whatever teen fantasy was messing with her otherwise logical mind.
“Emma, you need to understand. This is temporary. We are both doing this to keep you safe, and keep your dad happy. And that’s fine by me, you know, whatever. But once this all blows over it’ll be the end of it, it’ll be done. You will go off and be the woman you are supposed to be, and I’ll go back to doing my thing.”
She fixed him with that steady gaze of hers. “That’s all well and good, Kellan, but do you think my dad is going to make it through all that?”
“Probably not.” He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like where she was going to go with all of this.
“So, as someone who isn’t a complete and total jerk, could you give me the opportunity to walk down the aisle with my dad?”
He knew he had lost the fight. She had asked it so softly and so gently that he almost didn’t hear the soft quaver in her voice. “Damnit, Emma.”
“So, is a BBQ all right with you, then?” She sat back down on the bed, and Rocco curled up by her legs.
“Can there at least be those little meatball things?”
She smiled, and her eyes melted from ice into jewels. “Yeah, there can be little meatball things.”
Kellan thought he might do a lot to get Emma to look at him like that again.
# # #
The dress had been her mother’s, and it fit better than Emma would have expected. It wasn’t white, but that creamy champagne color that worked well when your skin was too pale to get away with real white. A neckline of beads shimmered over her collarbone, and the skirt, crafted from layers of light fabric, floated around her like a dream.
It was, she had to admit, exactly the kind of dress she would have picked out for herself. She took a turn in front of the full-length mirror and watched the fabric move.
“Good god,” her father whispered. “You look just like her.”
Emma ran her hands over the hips of her gown, settling it back into place. “It’s surprisingly perfect.”
Her father wheeled into the room, flanked by two men she didn’t recognize, at least not immediately. One was so tall and golden that he had to be Joe. The other was just a few years older than herself, and there was a familiar twinkle in his eye.
“Rudy?” she asked.
“Hey there, little sister.” He opened his arms and swept her into a hug. Rudy wasn’t really her brother, but he was Leon’s one and only son. He had been the boy who actually took her to prom when her date had stood her up. There had been a very short time when the two of them had tried to date. It had lasted as long as their first kiss. Calling it awkward would have been a deep understatement.
“How are you, how have you been?” she asked.
“Good, good. Got hitched myself two years ago. Have a baby girl.” His grin turned stupidly happy and she felt a rush of joy for the boy who had tried to make her life easier all those years ago.
“Are you serious?” she asked, her surprise making her eyes grow large. “Who to?”
“You remember Hannah Louis?” His look turned from happy to sheepish.
“Hamster Hannah?” Emma asked. “Really? Man, that girl was always hoping you’d look her way.”
“She got the overbite fixed the year you left. She finally made me aware of her feelings. Nearly knocked me over the head and dragged me to the altar. Couldn’t be happier about it.”
She gave him another hug. “I’m happy for you, Rudy”
“She’ll be at the BBQ; she’s bringing perogies.”
Emma made a sound of deep appreciation. There was nothing quite like dumplings stuffed with potato and cheese. It probably wouldn’t go with her wedding dress, but who cared? She placed a hand over her heart. “I swear I will never call her Hamster again.”
“I’d appreciate that, little sister.” His planted a kiss on her forehead.
The golden boy stepped forward and offered his hand. “My name’s Hans, but everyone calls me—”
“Joe,” she supplied, shaking his hand. He really did look like a doll. If he had put on a suit, he would have looked perfectly at home on Wall Street or GQ. “I’ve heard.”
“And I’ve heard you are another academic.”
“You went to college?” She tried not to sound too surprised.
“Finances and business.” He waggled his perfect brows. “I’ve found working with The Beasts to be quite lucrative.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“He’s done wonders for the books,” Mac said. “The business end of things has never run smoother.”
“But that is not my goal for today. We are here to make sure the day goes smoothly. Anything you need, anything you want, here we are,” Joe offered. His lips formed into a model perfect smile. “We are your very own leather clad bridesmaids.”
“Just what I always wanted.” Emma laughed, charmed in s
pite of herself. “Well, we could all start by making sure my husband actually arrives.”
“My dad’s on that,” Rudy offered. “He figured it was the least he could do.”
She wondered what it said about the circumstances that it was a legitimate worry. “That’s great, fellas. I, um, I don’t know.”
Rudy snorted. “Don’t lie, Emma. If I know you, you’ve got three lists hanging around here of everything you need. You can hand over at least two of them and let us do this.”
Joe glanced past her to the little vanity she was using to get ready. “Legal pad.”
Emma gave him a friendly glare. “I can—”
“Handle it.” Rudy finished for her. “She’s been saying that most of her life, you know. Always had to get stubborn about basically everything. Emma, let us help.”
“Emma,” her father said, “let them help. They are family.”
To the club, anything associated with it was family. She could have said no, said she could do it all herself, but the fact was that there were thirty things left to do and she didn’t have the time.
“All right,” she said finally. “All right, here, let me dish out the chores.”
Joe laughed an eerily perfect laugh. “Decorating and food preparation. This is the life that I signed up for.”
“You got your marching orders, boys,” her father ordered. “We don’t got forever.”
Rudy gave her one last hug, and Joe patted her hand. They promised everything would be perfect for the nuptials. Joe actually used the word nuptials. Then they left her alone with her father, and to make use of what few cosmetics she had.
“You want me to do your hair?” Mac asked.
She glanced at him through the vanity mirror. “You haven’t done my hair since I was eleven.”
“Thirteen,” he corrected. “Your first day of high school. You were wearing some band t-shirt and those jeans that came ripped up.”
She ran her tongue over her teeth in embarrassment. “It was the style.”
“Style is expensive. But I still braided your hair.”
“All right,” she said. “Yeah, a braid would be good. We could pin it around my head.”
“Like a crown?” he asked. “You gonna be a princess for your wedding?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I’m gonna be a princess.”
He chuckled and plopped one foot down on the carpet. She didn’t ask him if he could do it. He didn’t shake too much when he righted himself, and his hand was steady when he put it on her shoulder. She handed him the brush and he pulled it through her hair.
He had dressed up for the occasion. He had put on his best jeans, and a collared shirt beneath his leather vest. Everything looked two sizes too big, but he had tried.
“I wanna say thank you for doing this,” he said as he split her hair into three long segments. “I know it’s not what you wanted to do with your life.”
“It’s not,” she admitted. “But I’m not angry about that. I’m angry about being totally unaware of everything since I left.”
“Em, you left.”
“Yeah, I did,” she admitted. “It…it seemed like a great idea then.”
He was quiet while he tied off the end of her braid. “Your mom left for the same reasons you did. I was mad when she did it, but you I understood.”
“Why?” Emma asked as she handed him a few pins.
“She was in love with the idea of me, not the reality. I should have seen that.”
“You never remarried.”
He shrugged and wound the braid around her head until it sat like a golden crown. He tucked the first pin in, and then the second. For all his hands were old, and trembled with pain, he could still plait her hair just right. “No, I didn’t. I had the club, and I had you. It was enough for me.”
He leaned down and placed a kiss on the top of her head.
She reached up and touched his arm. “Dad, I shouldn’t have just cut you off the way I did.”
He shook his head. “No, sweetie, I cut you off, little by little. I put other things before you and I shouldn’t have. I was an idiot.”
“We were both idiots, Dad.”
He pulled her up and wrapped his arms around her. He was thinner than she was. She could feel every rib as she buried her face against his chest. “We’ll make it right, sweetheart.”
He didn’t say that they didn’t have much time to make it right, but she nodded her head. She lost seven years with him and she wasn’t going to spend the next few minutes arguing over how long it would take to fix their broken relationship.
“All right.” He took a step back and rubbed his hand over one arm. “Let’s take a look.”
She gave a little spin. “Well?”
“He’ll be an idiot if he acts like you don’t look like a million bucks.”
“Kellan has always been an idiot.”
Her father laughed and ambled towards his closet. “I’m not an idiot, you know.”
Emma smirked, resettling herself on the vanity to dab some eyeliner on. “I thought we just got through saying we were both idiots?”
His chuckle echoed from the closet. “You gotta point there, daughter of mine. Let me try to rephrase that. I’m not a complete idiot. I know you had your eye on that boy when you were younger.”
“God, did everyone know?”
“Everyone but him. He didn’t have a clue.”
Emma snorted. “That’s the truth. He looked completely dumbstruck when I told him that.”
“Ha! I’d have paid to have seen that.”
Her father came out of the closet again. He set a small jewelry box in front of her. “I know you are already wearing her dress, but I thought these might go with it.”
The box started playing music when she opened it, a soft tune she recognized but didn’t know. Tucked safely inside was jewelry crafted out of rough-hewn crystals and fashioned into butterflies—there were necklaces, hairpins, and bracelets.
“She had a thing for butterflies.”
“I remember.”
When she looked into the mirror again, she could see her father watching her. The light from the closet made it hard to see him perfectly, but she was almost certain there were tears in his eyes, and his shoulders were shaking.
“Dad, what is it?” She didn’t want to turn around, not yet. It might scare away the moment.
“Knowing you are going to die makes you see things in a different light.” He put a hand on his dresser to steady himself. The sound of coins and the debris from pockets jingled with the motion. She started to get up, but he waved her down. “It’s my fault she left, Emma. She couldn’t handle the life, and neither could you, and that’s all on me.”
She turned around in her seat. “Dad, no.”
He sank back into his chair. His frail body folded in on himself like crumpled paper. The wrinkles around his eyes seemed to deepen, making him look even older than she knew he was. The tears slid over his cheeks and fell onto his leather-clad chest.
“Oh, Dad…no.” She sank to her knees in front of him and took his weathered hands in her young ones, linking everything together.
“I wasn’t there for you, and because of me your mom wasn’t either. She won’t be here today. She won’t be here tomorrow. Shit, I don’t even know if she is alive.”
“I don’t care.” Emma took his hands.
“Bull.”
“Hear me out, Dad. Please. You did a lot of things I hated. You had a bad habit of putting your club’s business before me and my business. But you never once walked out on me. When I walked away it was my choice, but I knew if I really needed you, you would be there for me.”
The tears weren’t stopping, but his hands clutched hers. “I love you, little girl. I love you so damn much.”
“I know, Dad. I know.” She tried not to cry; she almost managed it.
“I’m sorry for everything that pushed you away.” He wrapped one too thin arm around her body and pulled her closer to him.
<
br /> “I know that, too. You’re here now. For as long as you can be. I know it.”
She drew a few small matched pins out and offered them to him. “Will you?”
“Of course.”
# # #
She looked like some kind of fairy goddess when her father walked her down the aisle. She’d done something to make her eyes look big and sparkling. Kellan watched her make her way down the aisle and felt his stomach lurch right down to his feet.
