As Ryder scanned the faces in the hotel room, reality crashed down around him. Mr. Boone hadn’t cheated. He’d been telling the truth.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled, catching Mr. Boone’s attention.
“I should shake your hand,” Mr. Boone said, stepping forward to meet him. “I wasn’t sure how to get Evelyn all the way up here without cluing her in. When I saw you following me after the poker party, I got the idea to call in a tip.”
Horror shot through him. “You saw me? After the party?”
“I sure did.” Mr. Boone nodded. “You were with the pretty lady.”
Oh hell.
“You aren’t as stealthy as you think you are,” Mr. Boone said, wagging a finger. “But I lost sight of you in the park. You disappeared like a ghost.”
Or a wolf…
Fear whooshed out of Ryder’s lungs. That could’ve been disastrous.
Mrs. Boone smacked her husband upside the back of his head. “That was a horrible trick.” Tears welled in her eyes and fell down her wrinkled cheeks. “How could you make me think you were cheating? That was mean, Barney. Mean to the bone.”
“You’re too smart for your own good, Evelyn. No one can surprise you with nothin’. I had to pull out the big guns this time.”
“You better not get any ideas for our fiftieth!” She smacked him again, but this time she smiled, and the hotel room erupted in laughter behind them.
“Let’s take it one party at a time, shall we?”
“But wait,” she said, dragging her feet, “what about the lipstick and condoms I found in the front seat?”
Yeah, what about that?
He’d completely forgotten.
“Condoms?” Mr. Boone’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know anything about condoms, I swear.”
“Ahh, I can explain that.” A lanky forty-something man stepped forward raising his hand. His scent blended with the others in the room, but as he came to the forefront, Ryder picked up evergreen and spice. “Dad let me borrow the car last week while mine was in the shop. My girlfriend and I might’ve—well, the lipstick was hers, and the other thing you found was mine.”
As Mrs. Boone scrunched her face in disgust and shoved her fingers in her ears to plug them, Mr. Boone laughed.
“That’s my boy,” he said, grinning wide.
Relief that he hadn’t been spotted as a wolf was one thing, but the hopefulness inside him was unlike anything Ryder had ever felt before. It was a release. The sensation of being freed from invisible shackles. As if someone had lifted a great weight from his shoulders. He could breathe again. The tightness in his chest lifted so much that stars danced in his line of sight.
“As for you,” Mr. Boone said, drawing Mrs. Boone into his arms in the middle of the hall. “You have to know I love you more today than I did the day we said our vows. No one could tempt me to stray. Not ever.”
Despite the pain she must’ve felt and the surprise she’d just received, Mrs. Boone rested her head against her husband’s chest and sighed. Her eyes closed. Her body molded to his. And then he whispered something in her ear. She sucked in a relieved breath, and her heartbeat kicked into tune with Mr. Boone’s.
“You didn’t cheat,” Ryder said to himself. But he spoke too loudly.
“I could never.” Mr. Boone cradled her against him. “Every day with my wife is a blessing, an adventure. If I didn’t have her at my side, life would go on, of course. But everything would be dull and pointless. There’d be no light to brighten every mundane experience. I’d walk the earth an empty shell of a man. Don’t you have someone who makes you feel that way?”
Josie.
Her name shot into his head like a cannonball.
From the moment he met her, everything had changed. She had brought light, humor, and hope into his life. He’d been so focused on the fact that true, long-term happiness didn’t exist, he hadn’t thought about the possibility of a roller-coaster kind of love. One that had highs and lows, and lovers who would stick with it. For forty years and beyond.
There really were couples who stayed together despite the odds, weren’t there? Mr. and Mrs. Boone looked old and weary, yet their love seemed as fresh as it had decades ago…and he didn’t know even them back then. But the faces of the family and friends waiting for them in the hotel room revealed the truth.
They were madly in love after all this time.
Till death do them part.
That kind of love was real and tangible. And he’d almost let it slip through his fingers.
“She brings out the best in me,” Mr. Boone said, kissing the top of his wife’s head. “Every day, I strive to be the man that’s reflected back at me in her eyes. She sees me as her hero, the love of her life, and I can’t let her down.”
And then his words hit home, like a hammer to the heart.
When Josie gazed up at him, nothing else mattered. Every worry in the world fell away. In her eyes, he was good, even when he didn’t feel it. He wanted to protect her, cradle her in his arms, and feel her heartbeat against his chest. The last thing he wanted was to become a beast. He could work on it, he realized. And no one made him want to improve himself more than Josie. To be with her. To be the kind of man she deserved.
“I hate to be wrong, but in this case I’m thrilled for the two of you.” Ryder waved to the happy couple as he retreated toward the elevators. “Now if you’d excuse me, I have to go find my perfect match.”
If only it wasn’t too late…
Chapter Twenty-One
“Where is he?” Carrie pressed, twisting her arms nervously in front of her. “Mitch told the captain that we can’t push off from the dock until Ryder’s here. That means my wedding is already”—she spun, checking the clock in the captain’s quarters—“twenty minutes late. Do you have any idea what’s holding him up?”
Josie readjusted her eggplant-colored bridesmaid dress. “Mitch said Ryder was caught in traffic.”
Carrie huffed and pushed the veil back from her face. “This is ridiculous. Why do we have to—”
The Hornblower’s horn blasted as the floor rumbled beneath Josie’s heels. She gasped. “We’re moving.”
“Thank God.”
For the next ten minutes, Josie peeked out the door and into the hall for signs of Mitch or the pastor. While there was no sign of the men she was searching for, she caught sight of Jeff, her date for the night. He sat in the last row, closest to the center aisle, with his back to her. The guy was handsome, with almond-shaped brown eyes and silky dark hair that fell over his ears, but she wasn’t drawn to him the same way she was to Ryder. He didn’t make her fight to breathe when she looked in his eyes. He didn’t cause dirty thoughts to race through her head, or make her heart stammer when he was near.
He was plain. Vanilla, and a little dull.
And Ryder was a firecracker, making everything she thought she wanted in her life spontaneously combust.
The pastor—a werewolf from the San Francisco Wolf Pack from what Mitch had told them earlier—peeked his balding head around the corner. It was strange to think it, but the pastor, Mitch, and Ryder really did seem like regular guys—ones she’d see on the street without thinking for one second that they could shift and turn into a wolf.
As odd as the reality was, her heart thumped steadily in her chest. There wasn’t a trace of fear or uncertainty. Carrie and Mitch really were meant to be. And she wasn’t pushing them together because of the cameras on the yacht zooming their way or the television special to come.
They were simply perfect. Fated to be together, as he’d said.
“He’s here,” the pastor barked. “It’s time.”
Gooseflesh pebbled over her skin at the thought of seeing Ryder in a tuxedo. She’d have to work on that instinctual reaction and tamp it down, so he didn’t know how much he affected her.
“Okay.” Carrie nodded quickly, her breath hitching. “Do I look all right?”
“More than all right.”
Car
rie’s ball gown was fit for a princess, with a fluffy tulle bottom and cinched-in waist. Her hair was piled on her head and cascading down beneath her veil in a dark fall of loose curls. Her lips were painted soft pink, matching the dusted shade of her eyelids. But most of all, her cheeks were rosy and her eyes shone with euphoria.
“You look fabulous,” Josie added, embracing her sister. “Now go marry the man of your dreams.”
Carrie nodded excitedly as Josie turned and led the way down the aisle. Keeping her steps slow—one, together, two—and her hands clutching the bright pink stargazer lilies in front of her, Josie approached the last row. Jeff looked up at her and winked.
Okay, so he was cute.
She couldn’t help but smile back. But when her gaze landed on the flowered arch at the front of the room, the grin pulling at her lips fell flat.
Ryder stood to Mitch’s left, his hands clasped in front of him. The tuxedo must’ve been designed just for him, as it complemented his body perfectly. The jacket tightened over his impossibly broad shoulders and narrowed to accentuate his middle.
As her feet carried her closer to him, her stomach caught. When would her reaction to him end? How could she be expected to move on with someone else, to marry another, when she still felt this way?
Damn her traitorous body, anyway.
And then his full lips pulled back into the sexiest grin, stopping the world in its spin.
Holy hot flash.
With waves of heat flooding her chest, Josie took her position on the opposite side of the archway and forced herself to watch Carrie walk down the aisle. The wedding guests rose, and a wave of “aahs” swept through the room. Her sister was stunning, the most beautiful bride she’d ever seen. As she closed in on her future husband, she grinned, and all the happiness she must’ve felt inside was written on her face.
It was picture-perfect. And she was sure the Channel 10 cameras captured every blissful moment. The ceremony passed in a blur. Vows were whispered so quietly the guests couldn’t hear. It’d been Mitch’s last request. Apparently he’d wanted a small wedding so the vows could be between them, as husband and wife alone.
Mission accomplished.
Tears fell. Guests swooned and clapped. And when the pastor introduced Mitch and Carrie as husband and wife, the yacht erupted in applause. They’d done it. Vowed to spend their lives together forever.
Who cared about the television special or the potential clients she’d gain from this?
“Look at them,” Josie mumbled to herself as they walked down the aisle. Mitch raised Carrie’s hand and kissed the back of her knuckles. Werewolf or not, he was a prince, treating Carrie like a queen. His queen. “She finally got what she wanted all along. A man who’ll treat her right.”
As she stepped into the center of the aisle, Ryder gently put her arm through his. The heat from his touch lit a fire over her skin, awakening every nerve ending in her body.
“And what do you want, Miss Cole?” he asked, his voice a sexy rumble.
She forced herself to hold the air in her lungs, so she wouldn’t breathe in his lovely scent. “I want what every woman wants, I suppose. A man who’ll promise me the world and actually deliver.”
He didn’t flinch from her retort, but maybe she hadn’t said it with enough conviction. She’d have to work on that.
When they reached the back aisle, and Jeff brushed his hand along the side of Josie’s gown, a low rumble came from Ryder’s chest. If he didn’t want her, he’d have to come to grips with the fact that she’d date others. Starting now.
“Have you met my date?” she jabbed. “That’s Jeff Dumpst—phry,” she corrected at the last minute. Damn Carrie for putting the horrible nickname in her head. “Did I mention he’s a doctor?”
Ryder leaned in close as he whisked her to the back of the room. “Josie, can we talk?”
“I think we’ve done enough of that. Ever heard what they say about beating a dead cow?” No way was she going down that road again. He’d had his chance.
His eyebrows pinched together as his kissable lips spread into a grin. “Isn’t it a horse?”
“Beat whatever large, four-legged farm animal you want. Doesn’t matter.” As the pastor walked by, he shot her a strange look. She didn’t even have the energy to apologize for how rude her statement might’ve sounded. Her emotions had flatlined—Ryder had bled her dry the last week. There wasn’t an ounce of humility left. “Anyway, it’s all right that we want different things as long as we’re up-front about it from the start. And you were.”
“Mr. Boone wasn’t cheating,” he blurted.
She frowned. “What?”
“The Danny DeVito look-alike…he wasn’t cheating. I was wrong.” He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand.
It was the softest touch, yet every muscle in her body went tight.
With a jolt, she ripped her hand from his, severing the connection. And then she folded her arms over her chest so he couldn’t touch her and elicit that reaction again. If he didn’t want her, those reactions were no longer for him. They were for Dump—damn it, what was his name?—Dumphry. If that’s who she wanted to end up with.
“He was planning a surprise fortieth wedding anniversary for his wife,” Ryder went on, his voice solemn. “That was the reason for all the secrecy and late nights out. And that’s why I was late today.”
A sweet thrill rushed through her at the thought of the old lady laying all her worries to rest. What it must feel like to have a love like that…
“That’s incredible,” she said.
But then the reality of her situation crashed down. Couples who were deeply in love surrounded her at every turn. She’d matched couple after couple—one hundred of them, for crying out loud—and had watched them promise forever. Yet she was so far from having that herself.
Ryder’s bright blue eyes bore into hers. “Josie, listen—”
“I’d rather not.” Be strong, don’t fall for him.
“Josie…” He paused, his gaze flipping between her and Dumphry. “I don’t deserve you, and I know that—”
“Good,” she interjected, her heart drumming loudly, “then that makes two of us.”
He weakened, right before her eyes. As if she’d sucker punched him in the gut. His shoulders downturned, and shadows moved behind his eyes. Before she was drawn in to him again, Carrie rushed between them and wrapped her arms around Josie’s neck.
“I did it,” she screeched in Josie’s ear. “We really did it. I’m married, and you’re the matchmaker of the century. We both got everything we wanted.”
If only it were so simple.
“Come on,” Carrie said, dragging Josie toward the captain’s quarters. “Help me take off my train for the reception.”
Carrie didn’t hide the fact that she tasked Josie with a bunch of things to take her away from Ryder, and she didn’t mind. He’d already ended it. What more was there to say?
On the other hand, she hadn’t expected him to look so…remorseful.
Stay strong.
Josie removed Carrie’s train, and then unfastened and packed away the veil. Checked with Axel to make sure he had everything he needed. She confirmed the DJ’s list of songs, too. At Carrie’s request, there should’ve been no lying about big butts, booty dropping, or rump shaking.
It took way longer than she’d anticipated.
By the time she finalized everything, the yacht had already sailed around Angel Island and was headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The wedding guests, Dr. Dumpster included, had moved down to the second floor for the reception. Large windows lined each side of the room, allowing for breathtaking views of the San Francisco skyline and the bay.
“Hello, gorgeous,” a voice said from behind her.
It wasn’t Ryder.
She steeled herself against the slump of her shoulders and nearly spun into Jeff’s chest. “Hey,” she said, forcing her tone to be light. “Are you having a good time so far?”
; He stood beside her, taking in the craziness of the wedding. Dinner was being served—a vegetarian and a meat option—and music had begun to play. The newlyweds moved from table to table, mingling with their guests. Ryder was missing. Not that she’d noticed, or cared.
“I’d be having a better time if you were actually present, but you’ve left me hanging for the last hour.” Jeff’s tone filled her with guilt. “I don’t know a single person here. Are you about finished with your maid of honor duties so you can keep me company?”
He was lonely. She got the message loud and clear. But he should’ve possessed the needed social skills to strike up conversations that would’ve kept him occupied while she took care of a few things. This was her sister’s day, after all. If anything, she should’ve spent most of the day taking care of business so that her sister could enjoy herself.
As she felt herself getting fired up, Josie took a deep breath. She had invited him and sort of ditched him for the last hour.
Maybe she was being bitter.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as a slow John Legend song oozed from the DJ’s speakers. “I’m here now.” Her gaze tracked Carrie and Mitch to the dance floor, where he wrapped her in his arms and started their first dance. “Look at them. They’re completely enraptured with each other.”
“Well, yeah, they just got married.” Jeff chuckled, shoving his hands in his pockets. “This has probably been a long time coming. How long have they been dating? A few years?”
“Eight weeks.”
“What?” His mouth dropped. “They can’t possibly know enough about each other to enter into this kind of commitment.”
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “They know they can’t live without each other. For some people, that’s enough.”
“They’re morons then.”
Her defenses shot up.
“Some psychologists believe what they’re feeling is still lust,” he rambled on, seemingly oblivious to her frustration. “Two months is not long enough to know if passion has morphed to love.”
What a Werewolf Wants (San Francisco Wolf Pack) Page 17
