Dedication
Thank you to everyone who helped in the creation of this book, most especially Tessa Woodward, LAFD Captain Rick Godinez (any errors are mine, not his), my agent Alexandra Machinist, the fabulous Avon team, and my ever-supportive family. Thank you to Lizbeth, Tam and Maxine, the Homer Public Library for the writing haven, and everyone involved in the production of chocolate. Thank you to Kristan Higgins and Eloisa James for being my idols. Most of all, thanks to the readers I’ve had the joy of meeting, either virtually or in person. This one’s for you.
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Author
Romances by Jennifer Bernard
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
At the wedding of Sabina Jones and Chief Rick Roman . . .
Derek “Vader” Brown could bench-press nearly twice his own weight and heave an unconscious fire victim of any shape or size over one shoulder, but weddings turned him into a ball of mush. When a bride walked down the aisle, he might as well be some mutant combination of puppy dog and marshmallow, especially when that bride was his best friend, Sabina Jones, joining in true love and matrimony with Chief Roman.
If only Sabina hadn’t begged Vader to be her “man of honor.” If only he hadn’t invited Cherie Harper, the girl he’d been seeing off and on for a year, the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about even during those “off” times. If only he hadn’t happened to glance her way while the preacher discussed good times and bad.
But he did, and the dreamy smile on Cherie’s face was the nail in the coffin of his dignity.
Blame it on the orange blossom high. Blame it on the look of rapture on Sabina’s face as Roman claimed his first married kiss. Whatever the reason, soon after the “I do’s” had been said, Vader found himself circling the dance floor with Cherie in his arms, blurting words he hadn’t consciously decided to utter.
“Marry me.”
Cherie stumbled. Not a good sign, since she taught dance. Her gray eyes flew to meet his, and all he read in them was wariness. “What did you say?”
Slightly shocked, Vader replayed the words in his mind and decided that he stood by them. Despite their ups and downs, he loved Cherie passionately. He knew she loved him too, even though she fought against it.
“Marry me. Be my bride.” His heart swelled. This was right. It felt right. Saying those words aloud made all his confused emotions about Cherie settle into place, like puzzle pieces fitting together. Cherie was the right woman for him, the only woman for him. “I promise I’ll take care of you and make you happy, all that good stuff.”
But Cherie seemed to be going through an entirely different set of emotions, judging by the anguish on her face. “Honey, you know how I feel about you. But I can’t marry you,” she whispered gently.
Vader’s world went still, as if a bubble had dropped around the two of them. Outside the bubble, everyone else grooved to the tune of “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Inside, things were a lot more confusing. “Why not? I’d be a great husband.”
“You’d be the best husband in the world.” Tears welled in her eyes, turning them silver. “But I’m not interested in getting married to anyone. Please just believe me, Vader, please?”
She seemed so upset, he swallowed back his protest. He looked away, only to encounter one blissful couple after another. Captain Brody and Melissa glowed with the joy of brand-new parents. Ryan Blake and his wife, Katie, were cracking up as they tried out some complicated new dance step. Thor and Maribel, who had flown down from Alaska for the wedding, beamed with their own good news: pregnant with twins. Captain Jeb Stone was whispering something to his brand new fiancée, Nita Moreno. Everywhere Vader looked, happy faces stared back.
Except for the one in front of him. Cherie had gone pale with distress. “Can we just erase the last two minutes?” she asked in a pleading tone. “Go back to how things were?”
Erase his proposal? He wrestled with that one for a long minute. Granted, he hadn’t exactly meant to propose. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and obviously a huge mistake. Why did the thought of marriage get her so upset? Didn’t most people want to get married?
He squinted at her, slightly dizzy from spinning across the dance floor under the influence of many champagne toasts. He hated upsetting Cherie. He’d jumped the gun and fucked this up. He had only himself to blame.
Even though it hurt his heart, he forced himself to nod. “Forget it. Weddings always mess me up. Now what were we talking about? Grey’s Anatomy, right?”
Her face lit up and she threw her arms around him. The feel of her curvy body, so warm and womanly, took some of the sting out of the moment.
He gathered her close and rested his cheek on her soft hair, which was currently blond with pink stripes. He inhaled a deep breath of lilac-scented essence of Cherie. They’d survive this. He didn’t give up that easy. At the right moment, he’d try again. In the meantime, he’d stay away from weddings.
Four months and twelve days later, from the wedding of Patrick Callahan IV and Lara Nelson . . .
The ring of her phone startled Cherie awake. Disoriented, she scrambled for it, squinting at the name that flashed on the screen. Vader. What in blue blazes? Vader was in Loveless, Nevada, at the wedding of his friend Patrick. And it was three in the morning.
Oh, sweet Lord. A wedding. She’d nearly forgotten what happened at the last one. The smart thing would be to ignore the call in case Vader did anything reckless like throw their relationship into chaos again.
Still, it was Vader, her own personal version of catnip, the only substance in the world she couldn’t resist for long. “Hello?”
Vader’s deep voice rumbled from her phone, sending the usual shivers down her spine. “We should get married, Cherie.”
Crap.
“I mean it,” he continued. “Why don’t you fly down here right away and I’ll pick you up in Psycho’s tractor and we’ll get ourselves hicced. I mean, hitched.”
“Vader, are you drunk?” Was Vader drunk-dial-proposing to her? Despite her sinking heart, a little snort of laughter escaped her.
“Oh come on, Cherie. You know we’re meant to be together. You know it. Hang on. Some dude’s banging on the door.”
“Where are you?”
“Bathroom.”
“You’re proposing to me in a bathroom?”
“Dude! Find yourself a bush. Toilet’s taken.” He returned to her. “Some guys have no manners. Frickin’ embarrassment.”
Cherie clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling out loud. “Let’s talk later, okay?”
“I can’t stay in here all night. People won’t like that.”
“No, I mean, let’s talk tomorrow. When the wedding’s totally over and you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”
Vader went quiet. Then, “Aw, hell.”
<
br /> “What?”
“I proposed again, didn’t I? And you rejected me.”
“Vader. I didn’t reject you because you didn’t propose. You’re a little buzzed, and I’m half asleep, and none of this counts.” Please, just let him forget the whole thing ever happened.
“You wanna erath . . . erase it, don’t you? Just like last time?”
Cherie groaned silently. “Could we?”
“Guys don’t like having their proposals erased. Feels bad.”
No, no, no. Cherie hated hurting anyone, but hurting Vader was the worst of all. She couldn’t bear it. “Please don’t feel bad, sweetheart. You know how I feel about you. This is just bad timing, that’s all. We’ll talk about it later.” She cast around for a distraction. ”How was the wedding?”
“Beautiful. That’s the problem, right there. Weddings. I can’t take it. They’re too freaking beautiful. The way Lara looked at Psycho, like he’s made out of stardust or something . . . and the llama . . . the cute little llama had the ring tied to her collar and she trotted up right when she was supposed to, and—” He broke off.
“Vader? Are you okay?”
“I better go.”
“Are we cool? Still friends?”
Vader let out a long groan. “We are what we are, tha’s all. Whatever that is. And don’ ask me to figure it out. I’m done trying, Cherie. Done.” And the connection ended.
Cherie dropped back on her pillow, then grabbed another one and clamped it over her mouth so she could let out a frustrated scream. If only she could explain everything to Vader . . . but she couldn’t . . .
This was a disaster. Vader had now proposed twice. In the morning, he’d probably hate her. What if he hated her so much he decided to call it quits, for real? The thought gave her a horrible chill. Life without Vader . . . she didn’t want to think about it. Vader was too important to her.
They’d survive this. She didn’t give up that easily. At the right moment, she’d try to get their relationship back on track.
With her natural optimism flowing back, she searched for a bright side and finally found one.
Vader was one of the famous Bachelor Firemen of San Gabriel. Bachelor Firemen. As in, single. Surely that meant no more weddings for a while. If the Bachelor Firemen would just stop getting married, Vader would forget about proposing and they could go back to normal. She floated a tiny prayer into the heavens. Let the Bachelor Firemen curse last just a little bit longer.
Chapter One
Vader, wearing firefighter’s pants, suspenders, and nothing else, bent the giggling blond girl backward over his left arm, flexed his right biceps, and grinned for the camera. “How does that look?”
Stupid, mouthed Fred, also known as Stud, who was manning the Firefighter Photo Booth.
“Perfect,” squealed the girl. “It looks like you’re saving me from a fire, right?”
“Well, I normally wouldn’t fight a fire without my shirt on.” He lowered his voice to Elvis Presley range and wiggled his eyebrows. “Except on certain special occasions.”
She laughed and playfully swatted his chest, letting her hand linger. Vader plastered the grin back on his face, added a little Elvis lip curl, and jerked his head for Fred to take the photo. As soon as the telltale click had sounded, he dropped the pose and planted the girl back on her feet.
“Whew,” she said, a little breathless at the speed with which she’d been righted. “You sure are strong. Do you work out?”
Vader caught a spluttering sound from Fred’s direction.
“In our job, it pays to be fit,” Vader told the girl. Her gaze drifted back and forth over the musculature of his torso. He fought the urge to say, Eyes up here. “The better to rescue pretty girls from all those fiery infernos.”
She sighed at the prospect of a fiery inferno. But Vader wasn’t paying attention to her anymore; Cherie was somewhere in the crowd. He knew it, even though he couldn’t exactly say how. Maybe he’d caught a glimpse of her red hair, the color of Hot Tamales, through the throng of visitors. Maybe he’d heard a thread of her voice, that silvery, tender, maddening voice of hers, between the shouts of the Muster Games participants scrambling to don turnouts. Or maybe it was his sixth sense that always responded whenever Cherie was near.
Stud brought the photo to the blond girl, who by now had realized that Vader’s gaze had wandered. She shifted her attention to Fred.
“Hey, you’re kinda cute too,” she told Stud. “Are you a Bachelor Fireman?”
“We don’t really call ourselves that.” Fred reddened. According to local legend, a volunteer fireman from the 1850s, thwarted in love when his mail-order bride ran off with a robber, laid a curse on the station. Since, in the time-honored tradition of firemen everywhere, his fellow firefighters had relentlessly teased him about his broken heart, he’d vowed that every San Gabriel fireman forevermore should suffer in love the way he had.
The curse certainly seemed to apply to Vader and Fred, both of whom were still single.
“You want a picture with Stud too? I’ll take it,” offered Vader. Normally he liked feminine attention. In fact, he loved it. But this thing with Cherie had been knocking him off his game for a while. Two failed proposals took it out of a guy. He’d been avoiding her since Psycho’s wedding two weeks ago. He wasn’t sure what she was doing here. Hope for Firefighters was his turf.
He realized the girl was waving a hand in front of his face. “You all right there, big guy?”
“Sure. Little thirsty. Hot day, huh? Hey, you have fun today. Thanks for supporting the San Gabriel Fire Department, we sure do appreciate it.” He moved her away from the backdrop under the guise of reaching for a water bottle. With a sulky pout, she snatched up her photo and wandered to the next booth, where Ace, the blond surfer-boy rookie, was serving up his mother’s Southern fried chicken.
“I need a bathroom break,” said Fred, slapping a “Closed” sign on the photo booth. “Be right back.” He hurried away as Vader slouched against one of the sawhorses that partitioned off their area. Three city blocks had been cleared of cars for the Hope for Firefighters event. White canopied stands lined both sides of the street, and happy crowds of sweaty San Gabriel residents strolled from one to the next. Vader loved this event, because he actually got to talk to people when they were in a good mood, rather than terrified, traumatized, or unconscious.
He tilted his head back and let the water flow into his mouth. It was a scorching hot August day. The force of the sun overhead was nearly physical, reminding him of the way air heated by a fire beat against his body. A few stray drops of water rolled down his throat and chest, offering some welcome relief. He should have signed up for the dunk tank. But since he, more than anyone else at the station, fit the image of a macho, ridiculously muscled superhero-type, once again he’d been given photo booth duty.
Last year. He swore it. He was becoming a cliché.
“Isn’t that your friend, Cherie?” A smirky male voice caught his attention. “I think he’s trying out for a Crystal Geyser ad. Hand me the camera, Nick.”
Vader groaned. He knew that voice. While he didn’t hate anyone—it wasn’t in his nature—if he’d hated someone, it would be the owner of that voice, Soren. He was one of Cherie’s housemates, the other being Nick. Soren and Nick had an emo-goth-trance band called Optimal Doom, which for some reason they thought was super-hip.
Vader refused to say what he thought. Cherie’s housemates were friends of her brother Jacob, and she was fiercely, unshakably loyal to her brother.
Reluctantly, he turned his head. And there she was, standing just behind the two weedy guys in their black T-shirts, her cinnamon-red hair in a haphazard pile, a little sundress the color of pink lemonade skimming her generous curves, looking so delicious every muscle in his body clenched.
She smiled uncertainly at him and gave a little wave. He frowned at her. How dare she smile at him, after shooting him down a second time?
She lifted her chin a
nd intensified her smile. That was Cherie. Always determined to make the best of things and stay friends, no matter what. “Yes, that’s my buddy Vader.”
Buddy? Buddy? Vader saw red. She didn’t call him her “buddy” when she screamed his name in mid-orgasm, she didn’t call him “buddy” when he tied her to the bedposts—granted, she’d been pissed that he’d used his socks, but that hadn’t stopped her from coming three times and . . .
He shook himself to attention just as Soren took a picture of him, most likely looking like an idiot as he gaped at them over an empty water bottle. “That’ll be five dollars for the photo,” he told Soren.
“But I didn’t pose with you.”
“Doesn’t matter. If you want a picture of me, it’s five dollars.”
“Dude, get real. This is a public place. I can take whatever pictures I want.”
Vader’s jaw tightened. “This is a charity event. It’s five dollars.”
“Then I take my picture back. Here.” He deleted the photo from his camera. “Gone.” He smirked. “No more Poland Springs ad for you.”
“Hey,” Cherie protested. “Was that necessary?”
Vader would have liked to pick the loser up and launch him toward the dunk tank, but he reminded himself that Cherie appreciated Soren’s prompt rent payments. “Let me guess. You guys have been walking around here, taking pictures and making fun of stuff, and you haven’t bought one thing yet.”
The two guys looked at each other, smirking. “Yeah, pretty much.”
He shook his head, disgusted, and turned away. They weren’t worth his time. He didn’t know why Cherie put up with them. Maybe it was just one more indication of how wrong for each other he and Cherie were.
Too bad the rest of him didn’t seem to believe that. Even now, a little current of electricity was racing through his body.
“Don’t you worry, I’m spending enough money for all of us,” said Cherie, with a trace of a Southern accent and another determined smile. “I got a Sloppy Joe from Ryan that was pretty much out of this world. I bought a whole strip of those raffle tickets. They said the prize was a Firefighter for a Day.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “No wonder they’re going so fast.”
Four Weddings and a Fireman Page 1
