But that wasn’t fair to a baby, was it? Knowing that the chance of her parents staying together was so slim they were practically already planning their split. What if she could make him want to stay? What if…
She bowed her head again and stepped back to the microphone. “And Lord, if you could see it in your plans, let Natasha and Jacob find their pathway through the rest of their lives together, beyond this minute or the next. Make them strong together. Amen.” She smiled up at the crowd. “Now, are you all ready to release those balloons?” Her heart clapped in her chest as loudly as those applauding on the lawn in front of her. “Five…four…three…two…let them go.”
Only one out of the hundred or so hung up on a branch, and all things considered—that one of the young people climbed and set it free without need to call Jacob—the night was more than she’d imagined it would be. These people weren’t out here because they had to be or because someone forced them. They’d left their nice cozy houses because they wanted to be a part of this. And yeah, maybe it was about getting their faces on TV, but she didn’t think so. For the most part, no one had paid much attention to the crew operating the lights or the big furry ended microphones dangling overhead. Not a single person had hammed it up for the camera.
Maybe it was hormones or maybe she’d just never felt so a part of anything, but she had the sudden urge to hug every single one of them. And she would have, too, if not for Jacob’s grandmother dragging her off the stage and through the crowd. “Where are we going?”
“Just a little added insurance. Don’t worry.”
Added insurance? Don’t worry? Lucia shoved her in the backseat of a Bentley and yelled at the driver, “Go, before the camera man catches up.”
The car rocketed out of town toward the opposite edge from where Lanie had grown up. Toward the woods. Oh no. She’d heard stories about rituals and she watched enough TV to know that heading off into the woods was not one of the safer ideas in Creepyville. And somehow, all those feelings of safety she’d had at the square had morphed into real fear.
“Where are we going?”
“We are saving this night. Don’t worry. Jacob has everything all taken care of.”
Nat looked over at the door handle. One good tug and she could tuck and roll, run for home. Before she finished the thought, the car rolled to a stop in front of a log cabin. “Where are we?”
“My hunting lodge.” Lucia popped open the door. “No cell service, no television or electricity. Nothing but you, Jacob, and some candlelight.” Lucia slid out of the seat and gave Nat a tug. “He’s waiting for you.”
“How did he…?” Obviously the whole town hadn’t been at the vigil. Someone had driven Jacob out here or he’d hidden his car really well.
Lucia winked and grinned. “I’ll send someone to fetch you both tomorrow.” She climbed back in her Bentley, shut the door, and powered the window down. “Afternoon.”
* * *
NAT: Before the prayer vigil, I didn’t realize how invested the town really was in each other. But that night, when I was standing there looking out at all those people with their heads bowed in prayer, I felt…I felt a part of the town. I’d never had that before.
* * *
CLARA MILLER: She just up and disappeared. We looked and looked, but once she came off that stage, she got lost in the crowd. It was an hour before Lucia came back and told us she’d whisked them off for privacy. You know Lucia. Everything with that woman is a big game of cloak and dagger. Why she’s lucky no one went into a coronary attack with her having Dr. Jacob spirited off to the great unknown like that. What would we have done? Now, young man. Let me see your hands.
Amazing what he could get done with his grandmother’s help. She’d arranged for a meal to be cooked and delivered, champagne to be chilled, flowers cut, and the bed turned down. She’d even sent ca car to deliver him to the cabin. All he’d had to do was wait for Natasha.
First, he’d taken off all his clothes, reclined on the sofa and practiced a come-get-me gaze. Then he’d felt ridiculous just lying there, so he’d put on an old apron hanging on the kitchen door, and on his way to the table, passed by a mirror, rolled his eyes at himself and put his pants back on. He’d cranked the old Victrola—not a euphemism—and listened as the needle scratched across a vinyl record. Nat wasn’t really a big band kind of girl, so he’d pulled out his phone, gone outside and hunted until he had a signal. Turned out if he stood with one arm over his head while holding the third branch on the pine tree at the west corner of the lot, he had a signal. Five songs. That’s all he wanted. Bon Jovi not Basie. Love songs not Big Band.
As the last song downloaded, he heard the car and his heart lurched almost painfully. Lord, if you could just hold off on my heart attack until after, I will be a most faithful servant until the end of my days.
Dinner. Check. Candles. Check. Door locked. Check? Of course the door was locked. Tonight. The only night in its history it had likely ever been locked. Tomorrow, if destiny or fate commanded, he would happily go back to bumbling his way through every single thing, but just for tonight, couldn’t he be suave enough to make it through without looking like a fool?
He patted his pockets as Nat came to stand beside him. “Hi there.”
If there was one thing that would make it all better, it was that sultry voice, the smile he couldn’t see past.
“I must have locked the door.” Fool, fool, fool.
“Hmm. Maybe your grandma keeps a hidden key?”
He hoped so, or he’d damned well break a window. Didn’t have a problem with it if it meant salvaging enough of this night to show her how much he wanted to be with her, even when he didn’t act like it. She searched under a rock while he slipped his fingers along the doorframe. She looked under the bushes while he felt the porch looking for a loose board or pave stone out of place.
“Aha!” Nat held up a fake rock with a hollow center and pulled out a shiny gold key.
“I will go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life if that is the key to this place.”
She slipped it into the lock and turned. “Better brush up on your prayers, big boy, because you owe the Lord your Sunday mornings at mass.”
He smiled because he couldn’t manage anything else right then. He shook like some teenager who was about to see his first naked girl—his hands, his stomach, even his knees joined in, knocking together once before he reigned in his control. She was a woman. Like the others he’d been with.
But so much more. His wife. He followed her inside and she turned, leaning against the back of the sofa.
“You want something to drink?” Aside from the champagne, he didn’t know what else was there, but if she didn’t want champagne, he’d find something. She shook her head. “To eat then?”
She looked at the table set for two with candles flickering in the middle. Another head shake. “No.” It was going to be a long night if he didn’t get his shit together and fix whatever had her answering with single syllables. As he stood there considering, she pushed off the sofa and moved until she was in front of him, close enough he could feel her breath on his throat. “I don’t want anything to drink. I don’t want food.” She rested her hands against his chest. “I don’t want to dance or watch TV or read a book.” She inched her fingers up to brush against his neck, just the softest flutter of a touch. Simple but effective. His body stirred. “Ask me what I want, Jacob.”
His body thrummed, and all he could manage was a whisper. “What do you want, Nat?”
“You.”
* * *
JACOB: It was a good night. … Yeah. Definitely. A very good night.
8
Jacob shifted, uncomfortable in his own skin. He’d never really been a kiss and tell kind of guy, but there he was, confirming what everyone already thought but had no proof of. He turned to Nat. “That night in the cabin…” He didn’t know what to say. She’d given him more than he deserved, loved him in ways he’d only dreamed of.
> “One of the best nights of my life.” She smiled and put her head on his shoulder. “Who knew you had such feats of acrobatics all hidden away in that body of yours.”
He grinned, wanted to tell her how much he needed her to stay, to keep their family together, but she’d turned the moment playful. He couldn’t do it now. “You inspired me.”
Past tense? God he was a moron. Yeah. That night she inspired him, but also every day before and after, right up to the minute when he’d chosen the blue silk tie that she said made his eyes pop—whatever that meant—to an hour before they left tonight when she’d told him how rugged and sexy he looked when he let his beard grow just a little around his jaw; to this minute when he was dying to carry her out of there, take her home, and show her how much he loved her.
“I’ve never been someone’s sexual muse before.”
But instead, he would sit beside her, let her snuggle into his side and keep playing this ridiculous flirty little game that wouldn’t let him say all the things burning inside him. “I don’t know that I’d call you a muse, I think I prefer lion tamer.”
She moved closer, lifted her mouth to his ear, rubbed her chest against his arm. “If I get my whip, will you roar for me?”
This woman knew just what to say and do to get his body pulsing. “Nat…yes. God yes.”
“How much longer do we have to wait to leave?” She nibbled his earlobe, dropped her hand to his lap.
“They sent…six…DVDs.”
With a final tug of his ear between her teeth that went straight to his pants, she leaned against him. “Raincheck then?”
“Raincheck.”
* * *
LUCIA: When Natasha was a little girl, she came to the house quite often with her mother. She and Alexandra were friends…of a sort, I suppose. But I knew, even back then, there was something special about that little girl. And I couldn’t have been happier to accept her into the family. I thought a reunion with Alex would have been…It didn’t turn out like I expected. It almost ruined everything, is what it did.
316 Days Earlier
“How’s this?” Nat whirled out of the closet in some sort of polka dot vintage dress that hid all of her more tantalizing parts. Dammit. Not that game night at Grandma’s was a place for her saucier wardrobe, but a man could dream, right?
“You look nice.”
She gave another turn. “I found it at the thrift shop. I love the way the skirt billows out when I spin.”
God he loved her smile. And her eyes. He even loved the way she wrinkled her nose at his clothes. “What?”
“A tie? I mean it’s great and all, makes your eyes pop, but…” Instead of waiting for an answer, she walked forward. God, she was beautiful. That gleam of mischief…the naughty grin… She pulled the blue and black silk free and tossed it over her shoulder. “And you’re all buttoned up.” Every brush of her fingers against his skin as she fondled the buttons from his throat to his belly button, every bat of her eyelashes made his pulse thrum harder, his stomach tighten. Touching her was more from necessity than need. But cradling her hips in his hands, that was for pure pleasure. “Oops. I seem to have opened a few too many.” She pushed the shirt from his shoulders, and because he didn’t mind one damned bit, he let her. “Uh-oh. It seems to have fallen off.” She trailed a finger down his throat and when her hand came to his chest, she shoved him back onto the bed. Playful. Smiling. This woman made his blood burn.
When she hiked up the skirt and climbed on top of him, he knew. Falling in love with Natasha Quinn-Henry was no more his choice than it was to breathe. And if he had to, he would give up breathing to keep her, but he wouldn’t give her up to keep breathing. Oh man. This was not part of the plan.
* * *
Lucia kissed Jacob’s cheek and murmured, “You’re late.” She brought them inside to the living room where Jesse, Ryhan, John, Lanie, Jacob’s cousin Alexandra, an older man introduced as Mr. Alexander, Mrs. Miller, his high school principal, Melvin something or other, and a man about Jacob’s age who looked as if he’d rather be anywhere than in this room, all sat.
Funny, but Jacob remembered Alex as a very proper, God-fearing kind of girl very different from the heavily made-up, booty-short wearing woman who had instilled herself close to the mystery guy on her left. “Hey, Al.”
She pursed her crimson red lips. “It’s Lexie now.”
“Oh, okay. Well, Lexie, this is my wife, Natasha.” His very sexy wife who, despite retouching her makeup, redoing her hair, still looked well kissed and thoroughly ravished. Although, that could have been his imagination. Or maybe his memory…parted lips, fluttering lashes, legs wrapped around his hips… As soon as possible, and he wasn’t above faking illness, he wanted to get Nat home, back into bed. Wanted might not have been the right word. Needed to get Nat home, back into bed.
Lexie didn’t bother to stand, simply crossed her knee-sock wearing legs one over the other and waved. “Oh I remember little Nattie Quinn. ‘Bout time you cleaned yourself up a little and stopped wearing my hand-me-downs—although that dress does look familiar. Hey. Didn’t they make a superhero villain out of you?”
Nat clenched his hand tighter. “That was Harley Quinn. And I see you traded in your bible for the latest issue of Hustler.”
“Why should you be the one having all the fun?” Alex continued buffing her nails without looking up. “This is Keith. He’s Grandmother’s idea of a date for me.”
After Jacob shook his hand, Nat stepped forward. “Hello, Keith.”
His eye brightened. “Hey, I know you.”
Nat tried to pull her hand free, but the bastard held on. “Oh, I-I, uh, I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I do.” He kept shaking her hand and pulling her closer. “You’re that girl.”
Nat’s skin turned as red as her dress. “You must have mistaken me with someone else.”
“No. It’s you.” His appreciative grin turned to a leer and Jacob moved forward. If this son of a bitch didn’t stop looking at her like she was lunch, it was going to be a very long time until he could see anything. “It was the fundraiser at the country club. You turned that place into a strip club. I knew I remembered those ti—.”
Before he could throttle the guy, Nat yanked her hand free and ran for the door. Ryhan stood and followed Nat. Lanie followed Ryhan. Lucia took Jacob by the shoulders and spun him into the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder at Jesse. “Get him out of here.”
* * *
JOHN: Jacob had murder in his eyes. It we hadn’t gotten Keith out of there when we did, I think Jacob might have ended up on trial for killing the guy. Who can blame him? I mean, I was new in town, but I knew who Nat was. And before you meet somebody and you hear that stuff, it gives you a perception. But then when you actually talk to that person, and they’re nothing like you thought, you don’t want other people to think of them that way either. We all wanted to kill him, but throwing him out on the lawn, actually lifting him up and giving him a toss, that was kind of nice, too.
Nat didn’t have a complete memory of the night Keith mentioned—vodka and some hundred-proof shots had made sure of that. She remembered dancing on the bar. She remembered dancing around a pole in the bar. She remembered….but even if she did have complete recollection, the last place she would have chosen to make it a matter for discussion was on game night at Lucia’s.
Oh, God. What was she thinking, coming here, marrying Jacob as if she could pretend her past never happened? She ran out the front door, stopped at the edge of the steps. What a fool she’d been.
Ryhan tapped her shoulder. “You okay?”
No, she was not okay. She was just a fake, pretending to be good enough to sit in that living room with those people. “You can take the girl out of the trailer park…”
“Oh, please.” She thumbed her chest. “Sex video, right here.”
Lanie stood at her other side. “Wrecked Lucia’s gardener’s cottage by making out with the gardener in a piece of earth m
oving equipment.”
Ryhan nodded. “Sorry , pal, but if all you have is a pole dance in your bag of ugly past, you’re going to have to step up your game a little if you want to join the slutty sisterhood that is me and Lanie.”
Nat would have smiled if she could she have diminished her shame enough, but she had to go back in there, face all those people, and she wasn’t anywhere near a grin. If only they knew… they would run back inside to their happy little boyfriend and husband. A sex video? A destroyed cabin? If she told them all of her secrets, they would be bowing to her as their slutty queen.
“It can’t be that bad. And Jacob doesn’t seem to mind.” Lanie’s voice was softer, less playful than Ryhan’s.
“He doesn’t know.”
Ryhan took her hand and led the way around the house to the pool without speaking. When they were all seated at a patio table, she leaned forward, elbows propping up her chin. “These guys don’t need to know everything. It ruins the mystery of us.” When Nat raised her eyebrows, ready to say something about sturdy foundations and building trust, Ryhan held up a hand. “It isn’t a lie. It’s a past. I’m sure he has one, too. Everybody does if you dig deep enough. And so what? It shaped who you are. And, if you ask me, which I know you didn’t, but”—she shrugged—“if you did, I would tell you that Jacob wanted to kill the guy…not you. All he wanted was to get that guy’s hands off you. His eyes off you. And probably your clothes off you.” She ended with a knowing smile which made Nat feel better enough to breathe out the air she’d been holding.
The Wedding Plan Page 7
