Containing her smile wasn’t easy. Poppy was pleased that her friend wasn’t infatuated with Leicester anymore, but given the way Charley had once felt about him, her reasoning was funny.
Poppy’s phone began to buzz, not that they heard it. The device moved across the table, light brightened the dark screen and the word “First” was there for all to see. Neither of her companions needed to ask who that was.
Picking up the phone, she cringed at the ladies, though they didn’t appear offended by the intrusion.
“Take it,” Val said, waving her away. “He’ll be suspicious if you don’t answer.”
“Oh, Poppy gets to talk to guys, but I can’t?” Charley said to her mom.
“Your brother, her fiancé.”
Leaving the women to their good-humored debate, Poppy hurried toward the door. There was no point trying to have a conversation in the bar; it was just too noisy.
“Hello,” Poppy answered just as she opened the door.
“Babe?”
The door swung shut behind her, damming the sounds of the patrons having a good time. “Sorry, baby,” she said. “Is that better?”
“You’re out?”
“At Naughtie’s,” she said, going to lean against the corner of the building. It had become her spot for talking to him on the phone. “We won’t be out late.” A smile curved her lips. “If you’re alone and want to play, I could just walk home right now.”
“Ritchie will take you home later. He’ll have to do two runs. You got my mom out there too.”
She wasn’t surprised that he already knew the details of their evening. “I thought you didn’t know I was out.”
“I meant out of the bar,” he said. “I knew where you were. I always know where you are.”
After all the running around she’d done that week to get their surprise wedding planned, Poppy really hoped that wasn’t true. “I miss you.”
He sighed. “I know, baby. I miss you too. I tried to talk Aitken into giving me tomorrow off. He wouldn’t even hear it. I don’t know what’s going on.”
She’d instructed her Grammie and Preston not to let Turner leave until the last possible minute. The more time she could have to organize everything, the better. But that wasn’t the only reason or the most vital one. The more time he spent home at the Venture before she revealed their wedding, the higher the chance he’d discover what she’d done to his building.
“You’re a good worker,” she said. “He doesn’t want to lose you. I wouldn’t let you go either.”
“That your way of telling me I shouldn’t have let you go?”
“I left for a good reason.”
“What was it again?” he asked. “Spending all this time sleeping alone makes me forget why this is a good idea.”
“You should enjoy it while you have it. After you come home, you’ll never spend a night alone again.”
“Bring it on, baby. Bring it on… Charley still in our place?”
“Yes,” Poppy said. “There’s nowhere else for her to stay. Besides, I like having her around.”
With her sisters, Violet and Primrose, in apartment thirteen where Poppy and Charley used to live, it was necessary for Charley to live in Turner’s place.
“Sooner we get Faye into her own house, the sooner Charley can go back home.”
“I don’t know that she’ll want to,” Poppy said. “My sisters won’t stay forever… Violet will go back to the estate, probably sooner rather than later… Primrose might be reluctant…”
“Yeah, Ritchie said she’s spent the night obsessing about Pres… Don’t know how anyone could obsess over that dude, but hey, what do I know?”
“You know what it is to be infatuated with another person. Primrose hasn’t had the best luck in love. I like them together; I hope it lasts.”
“Whatever you say, baby,” he said. “You talk to Zo today?”
She frowned. “No, not since last night. What happened?”
“Casey got into it with her parents again, apparently… She told them she’s moving out.”
Poppy’s surprise raised her brows. “She did? Where to? Your mom’s? Do her parents know she and Zo are together?”
“I don’t know,” he said on a gruff, tired exhale. “Who can keep up?”
She could. Val could. The sisters could. Poppy didn’t blame him for not probing for more information. Sharing a dinner table with her parents and Grammie wasn’t an environment conducive to private conversation. He said she was better with the emotional stuff anyway.
“I’ll call her in the morning.”
“Zo plans to take Casey back to Mom’s. Don’t know that she knows that yet. The two of them are flying back with Faye and the kids tomorrow.” That she knew. The kids would need to get to their fittings before Saturday was done. “Pres is riding back with me. I told him he could fly back with the girls, but… Maybe he’s not as into Primrose as you think.”
“Maybe not.” Or maybe he was doing her a favor by maintaining contact with her groom so she could be updated on the journey. Changing the subject, Poppy brightened the smile in her voice. “As long as you’re as into me as I think, I can handle anything else.”
“Into you more than you’re into me,” he said. “I wouldn’t have left you out here alone.”
The creeping guilt was assuaged by reminding herself of why she’d left. Turner would understand soon. When she revealed the truth.
“I love you,” she said. “And I like being in the Venture. Being in your bed… Still feels like a dream sometimes.”
“It’s no dream, baby. It’s your reality.”
One she’d fantasized about. They were together and getting married. Poppy wouldn’t take their love for granted, which was exactly what she was trying to demonstrate with the secret wedding. He’d get it, she was sure. Once they’d said the words, they’d have forever together. Poppy planned to relish every second.
THIRTY-TWO
It took Poppy forever to fall asleep on the Sunday night. Talking to both Turner and Preston during their drive home, she kept tabs on where they were every step of the way. The latter was discreet in giving her updates and was doing a great job of delaying her love… to his increasing irritation.
Everything was set. Her plan was in motion. The next part would be the most difficult, which was why she was so nervous.
Being in Turner’s bed helped. All week she’d fallen asleep wrapped in the scent of him as it mixed with hers. Still, something felt naughty about being there. Naughty in the most incredible way. Probably because he wasn’t in it. During their phone calls, he’d reiterated that his bed was her bed. Her mind was just taking its time catching up to that truth.
She didn’t even feel the bed move or hear him approach. Her first awareness was of his mouth in her hair, teasing her neck. Smiling, Poppy moaned and turned towards the delight.
“Candy-Cane,” he whispered, touching his mouth to hers.
Her smile grew wider, but she didn’t open her eyes. “My favorite kind of dream.”
A short, gruff laugh warmed her skin. “Mine too.”
When the weight of his mouth ebbed from hers, Poppy whimpered in disapproval. The disappointment flipped to excited anticipation when the heat of the bed covers was pulled away from her body. As his mouth found hers again, Poppy rolled onto her back, stretching her arms out to coil them around his neck.
Her love was home. With her. In their bed.
Turner didn’t know the plan, but it had been exactly this. Teasing, tasting, loving each other until the sun rose. Distracting him until daylight would be easy if he kept taking the lead.
His clothes were already gone. There was nothing keeping them from each other. Skin touched skin as their mouths deepened their greeting. Loving him was easy. Every second of every day for the rest of time, they’d be together. If not in body, then definitely in spirit.
Lying beneath him enjoying the indulgence of his dominant mouth, it hit her: they were home. So many
times since they’d met it seemed that it would be impossible. Whether it was Turner following his rules or Poppy deciding their worlds were incompatible, they’d faced some daunting odds. But somehow, they’d found their way to each other. Their hearts, their love, wouldn’t be denied and they’d made it out the other side.
Loosening her embrace to cup his face, she broke their kiss to look into his eyes. Even through the darkness, Poppy felt his love. She basked in the passion burning in him. His passion was like no other man’s. Its certainty was forthright. No games. No equivocation. He loved her, just as she loved him.
“I love you,” she whispered, stroking his face.
“Told you I’d come home to you.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real,” she murmured, watching her fingertips trace his lips. “That I can be this happy. The last time we were together in this room…”
Being together hadn’t been on the table, in anything other than fantasy.
“I’ll never let you walk out like that again,” he said, kissing her touch. “We’re gonna make it, Popkat.”
“I know,” she said, more sure about that than anything else. “I know how much we both want this.”
“And that it was hard won. Either of us could’ve given up at any time, but we fought for this.”
At different times, which was maybe why getting there was all the sweeter. Both knew what it was like to lose the other. That was a pain Poppy never wanted to go through again.
“Sometimes I still can’t believe we ever found each other.”
Given their contrasting backgrounds and the distance between their homes, some might say it should never have happened. That Poppy happened to leave her family and by chance got a job with her love’s sister who needed the newspaper at the same moment Poppy needed an apartment… Serendipity was too mild a word.
“Everything in my life made sense until you came into it,” he said, as he had before. “When you walked out… I’d been lost a long time, I just hadn’t seen it. We need each other, Pop.”
“We’re family,” she said, combing her fingers through his hair.
Turner kissed her again. “We’re so much more than that.”
He was right. The words didn’t exist that could explain what was between them. When he kissed her again, she closed her eyes, begging to absorb him. But the new kiss didn’t linger. Like he needed a manifestation of their connection, he aligned their bodies to slide into her. They were more than just a part of each other. They made each other better. Lifted each other up. There wouldn’t be a tomorrow if they didn’t have each other. It felt like the world would just stop turning, like all life would cease to be if they were torn apart.
Her love moved in her, enlivening them both, heating their hearts and arousing their bodies. They’d had sex in that bed before, but not as two people in love, destined to be married. Poppy had been in love with him and some secret part of her had acknowledged that truth. But she’d never voiced it and he hadn’t seen it until she was taken away.
Thinking became impossible as the beat of orgasm crept closer. She couldn’t breathe as it rose higher, tightening her core and racing her heart.
“Yes,” Poppy whimpered, focused only on him.
His consuming gaze went from concentrated to aware, with maybe a hint of amusement. Poppy didn’t get it, but she didn’t care. Everything in her world was about him and what his body was doing to hers. It just felt right to hand herself to him, to trust him with her heart and with her pleasure.
“First,” she panted. “Oh God, First… Oh, just like that.”
“Damnit, I love you,” he exhaled swooping down to kiss her quick before speeding up to take her to ecstasy.
It wasn’t her fault that her head spun in the bliss of climax. Just the way he looked at her could turn her on, having him occupying her body was almost more than Poppy could handle. She completely missed his climax while lost in the pleasure of hers.
When he flipped over onto his side of the bed, the cold left her bereft.
“First,” she whimpered, rolling toward him to snuggle against his side. “Where’d you go?”
“I’m right here, baby,” he said, hooking his arm around her to pull her closer. “Just like always.”
From that point on, they’d have each other. Sometimes she had to repeat it in her mind just to convince herself it was true. They were together and in love… and getting married in less than two days. Turner just didn’t know it yet.
Waking up with Turner was supposed to be a treat. It probably would’ve been, except when Poppy opened her eyes to look for him, he wasn’t anywhere around.
Damnit.
Driving both fists into the mattress, she forced her upper body off the bed to scan the whole space.
“Damnit,” she said out loud.
All she had to do was keep him in one place, with her, until she could convince him they needed to get their marriage license. If she’d been thinking, Poppy might have realized he’d probably want to check on his buildings. No, well, she had thought that… she just thought having his naked fiancée in bed might be enough to keep him in one place for the time she needed.
Calling him was an option, but there would be no way to be subtle about bringing up their license. Her mind was racing through options when the bathroom door opened, startling her. When Turner appeared, relief surged through her.
“Baby,” she said, probably revealing too much elation.
“You okay?”
Her smile widened. “I thought you’d gone and left me.”
“I was about to,” he said, approaching her. “There’s a whole long list of shit I need to do.”
“I know,” Poppy said, holding her hand out. When their fingers laced together, she pulled with all her strength and lay down without letting go, which forced him to sit with her. “I don’t mean to pile on…”
“Hmm,” he said, freeing his fingers from hers just to brace his hand on the other side of her so he could bow down for a kiss. “If I could stay in bed with you all day…”
“I know you have to work,” she said, stroking his torso. “I was just thinking I might come with you.”
That request confused him. “To work?”
“If you wanted, we could make a quick stop… somewhere we might… maybe…”
Straightening his arm, Turner put a little space between them. “Might maybe, what?”
“Do you have your driver’s license? I brought my passport from home.”
“I don’t understand what you—”
“It’s just a quick hop to the clerk’s office.”
For a second, he considered her. “You wanna get a marriage license?”
“If you think it’s a good idea.”
“They’re only valid for a certain amount of time, I don’t know how long. Once we get it, the clock will start counting down.”
“It’s not a one-shot deal. If we want to put it off, we can. We can always apply again later.”
“You said you didn’t want a big fancy party.”
“I don’t,” she said, toying with his tee-shirt. “If you really hate the idea—”
“I don’t hate the idea,” he said. “I don’t want you rushing into anything you’ll regret later.” Her eyes flashed to his in horror, but Turner just laughed and kissed her. “I know you’re sure about us, I meant the party. If we do something quick and simple, you might regret it later.”
Playing it coy, Poppy avoided eye contact. “If we really want a big party in a year or two, we can have one. I just want to know we’re making progress, that we’re serious about this… But if you really don’t want to—”
“I want to get married,” he said and exhaled. “I just think we could enjoy living together for a while before we decide how we want to do it.” His next kiss was longer and slower. When their lips parted, he stood up. “We have forever, Candy. We don’t have to rush it.”
Oh no. Icicles of dread prickled her all over. As he walked away
from the bed, she sat up, wide-eyed and worried. The flowers. The cake… the kids! They’d been told a wedding was happening; they’d never be able to keep her humiliating secret. What kind of a woman arranged the whole wedding without even giving the groom the date?
The short huff of his breath caught her attention and she looked up to find him at the end of the bed, frowning at her. “It means that much to you?” he asked. “You’ve got a look on your face like I just told you I’m sleeping with your best friend.”
Her best friend was his sister, so that was one thing Poppy could be sure he’d never confess. “I was just excited,” she said, though it was only half the truth. “I really want to be married to you.”
“You’re thinking the longer we wait, the longer it will take us to start a family.”
That wasn’t her primary concern, but she’d let him run with it. “I wouldn’t ever force you into anything.”
“Can’t you do it online?”
“I filled out the application already,” she admitted. “But we have to go down there to show ID and sign it… And we have to pay our sixty bucks.”
“I used the last of my cash at a gas station on the way back. We’d have to stop at an ATM.”
Thrilled, Poppy was relieved and excited all at once. “You mean it? We can do it?”
“Yes,” he said, laughing at her as she leaped up out of bed to rush to him. “Okay, stop flaunting that body in front of me and get it in the shower before we run out of time to do anything today.”
“Okay,” Poppy said, sliding both hands down his face to tempt him lower for a kiss. “I love you.”
“Uh huh. Shower.”
Their future was beginning. Sooner than he thought it would, apparently, but Poppy would take the flack for her enthusiasm. She fled her sister’s wedding without any idea she’d be next down the aisle. Providing all went to plan, of course.
THIRTY-THREE
On the roof. Why had Poppy thought getting married on the roof of the Venture was a good idea? The weather was beautiful and their temporary marquee was doing its job. Thank goodness Ritchie had known what he was doing or she’d have floundered for sure.
Found (Lost & Found Book 2) Page 27
