Kissing The Bride
A Stewart Island Wedding Short Story
Tracey Alvarez
Icon Publishing
New Zealand
Kissing The Bride (A Stewart Island Wedding Short Story)
Copyright © 2016 by Tracey Alvarez.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Tracey Alvarez/Icon Publishing
PO Box 45, Ahipara, New Zealand.
www.traceyalvarez.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com
Cover Art by Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design
www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk
Kissing The Bride - Tracey Alvarez -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-473-35709-2
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Maori Glossary
More from this Author
Excerpt of Saying I Do (Stewart Island Book 8)
About the Author
Author’s Note.
Welcome to New Zealand!
Land of Lord of the Rings and the All Blacks rugby team, breathtaking landscapes, and laid-back friendly people who refer to ourselves as ‘kiwis.’ I hope you’ll enjoy your visit with me as we travel Due South to Stewart Island—which lies 30km south of New Zealand’s South Island. The unspoiled wildness of the place is a perfect backdrop to my characters’ struggles and triumphs. The Stewart Island series focuses on family, community, and of course, each book contains a scorching hot romance.
Happy reading!
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Other Contemporary Romances by Tracey Alvarez
Stewart Island Series
Book 1: In Too Deep (Piper & West)
Book 2: Melting Into You (Kezia & Ben)
Book 3: Ready To Burn (Shaye & Del)
Book 4: Christmas With You (Carly & Kip)
Book 5: My Forever Valentine (Short Stories)
Book 6: Playing For Fun (Holly & Ford)
Book 7: Drawing Me In (Bree & Harley)
Book 7.5: Kissing The Bride (Shaye & Del Short Story)
Book 8: Saying I Do (MacKenna & Joe)
Book 9: Bending The Rules (Tilly & Noah) Coming late 2017
Bounty Bay Series
Book 1: Hide Your Heart (Lauren & Nate)
Book 2: Know Your Heart (Savannah & Glen)
Book 3: Teach Your Heart (Gracie & Owen)
Book 4: Mend Your Heart (Natalie & Isaac) Coming 2017
Book 5: Break Your Heart (Vanessa & Sam) Coming 2017/2017
The countdown is on to the Wedding of the Year, New Zealand!
It’s seven days until Shaye Harland and Del Westlake finally tie the knot—and it’ll be the most awesomesauce wedding Stewart Island has ever seen if Shaye has anything to do with it. Her All Things Nuptial journal has the big day planned to perfection, but not everything runs like clockwork. While marrying the man of her dreams beats chocolate as an Easter treat, a few mini-catastrophes like Boris the obstinate sea lion threaten to ruin their special day.
WARNING: If you’re new to the Stewart Island world, this fun and sexy short story of Del & Shaye’s wedding isn’t the book to start with. Lots of favorite characters join in the wedding craziness—and if you haven’t read the earlier Stewart Island books it’ll just be crazy-confusing.
For Siobhan.
You asked for a wedding, so this HEA is for you.
Chapter 1
7 days before the Big Day and counting…
Shaye had one up on Santa, a point she never failed to mention whenever her fiancé teased her about her list-making. While Santa had to check his list twice, she never did. Shaye Harland, a week away from becoming Mrs. Shaye Westlake, got it right the first time. Because she was organized—beyond organized.
B-organized. Big time b-organized, thanks to her journal of All Things Nuptial.
Sitting crossed-legged on their bed, Shaye ran a fingernail over the love heart doodled on the journal’s inside cover.
Shaye & Del tying the knot on Easter Saturday. Yay us!
The sparkly, swirly doodling was the only frivolity she allowed herself on the color-coded, alphabetized, daily—and on the last pages before their wedding day, hourly—planning contained in All Things Nuptial.
She slipped off the cap on her gold gel-ink pen and placed a check mark beside the first entry on Day 7’s page: Wake up and remember how damn lucky you are to be marrying your Mr. Perfect-For-You in a week’s time!
Out in the kitchen came the rattling sounds of Del making coffee, and the tap-tap-tap against the glass door as a kaka, which Del had nicknamed Birdbrain, let it be known he expected his breakfast pronto. While Del gave a handful of peanuts to the feathered hooligan disguised as a native New Zealand parrot, Shaye continued to scan her to-do list.
Everything was under control. Everything would be perfect.
“Seriously?” Del said from their bedroom doorway, a steaming I Heart NY mug in each hand. “I make my woman a morning caffeine fix, and instead of finding her naked and waiting for it, she’s pawing through that damn notebook again.”
“Planning makes perfect,” Shaye said.
Though looking at the smooth, ripped expanse of Del’s chest above his boxer shorts made her rearrange today’s list to include a new number one to-do priority: Jump my hot fiance’s bones.
“Come back to bed, and I’ll paw all over you.” She patted the sheet beside her.
She caught a flash of white teeth as Del cut her a wicked grin and handed her a mug.
“I’ll hold you to that, cupcake.”
Shaye took a sip of coffee then set the mug and her journal on her nightstand. She slid down under the covers and snuggled into Del’s side, placing a row of soft kisses along his collarbone. “You do that, Hollywood.”
Outside their little house, the wind howled, whipping the water of Shearwater Bay into a frenzy, rustling furiously through the miles of native bush behind them. But nothing could touch the two of them while they were together in Del’s big bed—constructed by him and his mates before he’d followed her to New York and proposed sixteen months ago.
Del ran a palm over her hair, selecting a strand and tickling her jaw with it. “One week ‘til you make an honest man out of me, huh?”
“One hundred and seventy-six hours.” Shaye pressed her nose against one hard pec and snuffled up—just a little bit—the delicious scent of warm male with an undertone of his cedar wood and basil-scented cologne. Of all the delicious things she’d smelled over the course of her career as Due South’s sous chef, nothing smelled as good as being tucked up with her man, naked and all hers, on a blustery April morning. Not quite naked, she thought, her wandering hands finding the waistband of his boxers.
“These need to come
off.” She snapped the elastic waistband.
Del laughed. “In due course.”
Suddenly, Shaye was no longer curled up against her man but rolled onto her back and trapped beneath his big body. His big, hard body. She hooked her ankles behind his butt and arched, rubbing her hips against him. Heat flared in his blue eyes as he gazed down. He dipped his head, teasing a kiss from her that transformed her breaths from sleepy relaxation to choppy with anticipation.
“Think I can make you scream before your coffee goes cold?” he asked, wriggling down the bed a little so his mouth was level with her bare breasts. His warm breath had her nipples singing the “Hallelujah Chorus”, tightening into unbearably pleasurable buds.
“Pretty sure you could.” And probably more than once, since her body was already sizzling like butter on a hot plate.
“Damn right.” Del flicked his tongue over her nipple on his way down to nuzzle at her belly button.
Shaye gripped the edge of her pillow as Del proceeded to drive her out of her mind with damp kisses. By the time he’d shifted lower, the orgasm countdown had begun, and she could only hold on for the ride. And what a ride. Del brought her to the precipice in record time as he returned to her very favorite spot, and she flung out her hand—clunk!
Del froze. Shaye froze.
Sounds of a liquid pitter-pattered on her nightstand and onto the floor. Light-headed from the feel-so-damn-amazing endorphins flooding her brain, it took Shaye two beats to connect the action of her fingers bumping something hot to the clunk and splashy-sound that followed.
Coffee-spill—journal!
Shaye squeaked, but before she could even roll to the side Del had reached over her and snatched the sopping journal off the nightstand. He swore, shaking the pages as Shaye squirmed out from under him, trying to see past his wide shoulders to evaluate the damage.
Oh God. It looked bad. The cream pages with their embossed gold edges clumped together—no longer cream but stained brown. Really, really bad.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and she blinked them away. She scooted to the far side of the bed and dived over to their laundry basket, grabbing out a towel. Tossing it to Del, who caught it one-handed, she headed to the dresser where she kept her hair dryer.
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
Del patted the journal’s cover with the tenderness her sister Piper patted down her little treasure, Michaela, after a bath.
As sick as the sight of sopping paper and running ink made Shaye, her heart still gave a little somersault. Del loved her enough to care about her feelings, even though her to-do-list journal had probably driven him insane these last few months.
“This’ll take care of the worst, and most of it’s locked in my brain anyway.” She managed a smile and brandished the hair dryer. “My mind is a steel trap.”
She plugged in the hair dryer and sat on the bed. He handed her the journal and crouched to mop up the coffee puddle on the floor. Shaye opened the cover…and the first few pages stuck to it. Heart walloping against her ribs at the smeared ink, she flicked the dryer on low.
Del tossed the towel back into the laundry basket and returned to sit beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist. “You know we’ll have a wonderful day with or without that book, don’t you?”
She gently peeled the first page away from the cover and aimed warm air onto it. “Yeah.”
“You just want it to be perfect.”
“I’m that transparent, huh?” Hard to deny since her man knew her better than anyone else in the world…and loved her regardless.
“Like one of your Vietnamese rice paper rolls.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’ll make us breakfast in bed while you resurrect the Holy Grail of wedding planning. Don’t even think about getting un-naked before I get back.”
“Yes, chef,” she said.
He stood, and as it often did, her gaze zipped to the surgical scar on Del’s abs left by donating a kidney to his dad. She’d resurrect her journal, all right, because she wanted Del—her amazing, loving, generous and illegally sexy fiancé—to have the wedding day he deserved.
***
6 days before the Big Day and counting…
“Left-two-three, spin-two-three. Dip your beautiful bride,” Mr. Randal instructed and dipped Mrs. Randal over his arm.
The man might be in his seventies, but he still had some moves. Del gritted his teeth and swiped a sweaty palm down his jeans, casting a surreptitious glance at the community hall’s doors. If he was lucky, the Sunday afternoon yoga class would arrive twenty minutes early and disturb his and Shaye’s final wedding dance lesson.
“Don’t even think of making a run for it.” The words squeezed out between the clenched teeth of his soon-to-be bride’s mile-wide grin.
Mrs. Randal popped up out of her dip and beamed over at them. “Easy-peasy. You’ll get it next time; I’m positive.”
Positive that after two months of weekly lessons before their afternoon shift he still wasn’t any closer to turning into the bloody Fred Astaire of Oban, Del peeled his lips back into a smile. Jeez, his mouth was aching, but Mrs. Randal had already barked, “Smile, Del. This is your wedding dance, not a funeral march,” at him twice this afternoon.
Shaye, naturally, had picked up the steps as quickly as she learned any new skill. Him? Not so much. He should be thankful Shaye had organized the Randals to act as dance teachers instead of Del’s show-off brother.
“Let’s take it from the top, shall we?” Louis Randal let go of his wife’s hand. “Darling, check their closed dance position and then hit the play button again.”
Del assumed the closed dance position—yeah, he’d learned something in the last eight weeks—taking Shaye’s right hand with his left, placing his right hand on her waist and then sliding it gently up to her shoulder blade. Shaye rested her left hand on his biceps, giving him a teasing little squeeze and mouthing sexy beast.
Mrs. Randal crossed over to them and pushed against Del’s back to straighten his spine, tapped under his arm to raise it a little. Satisfied, she walked to the ancient CD player and pressed the play button. The opening notes of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” drifted out of the speakers.
“Slow, a-quick-quick slow,” Del muttered. “Right foot first—” He lurched forward with his left, the ball of his foot stomping down on Shaye’s toes.
Shaye jerked backward then uttered a word that would’ve cost her a couple of bucks if she’d had her swear jar nearby.
Ed’s soulful voice cut off abruptly.
Del crouched to pat Shaye’s poor little toes—or maybe just grovel like hell. “Sorry babe, I—”
With impeccable timing, the community hall door banged open. “What in the devil are you doing?”
Del squinched his eyes shut and counted to three, but his dad’s voice continued to bugle from the other side of the room.
“Bloody hell,” Bill said. “Did that big oaf step on your toes again, girlie?”
“It’s fine. He’s nearly got it,” Shaye said.
Del rose and glared over his shoulder at his dad, which had all the effect of a blow-torch pitted against an oncoming avalanche.
“Afraid my youngest son missed the dancing gene.” Bill did a few complicated dance steps on his way across the wooden floor. “Unlike yours truly.”
Rub it in, Dad, thanks.
“Time to practice the father-daughter dance.” Bill made a move-aside gesture with his fingers. “Watch and learn, sonny-boy.”
Shaye laughed, sending Del an apologetic glance as she moved into his dad’s arms. His dad—who’d acted as hers since her own father Michael died when she was fifteen. The sound of discs clattering as Mrs. Randal switched them then the silky tones of Luther Vandross’s “Dance With My Father” swirled around them.
Bill raised a bushy eyebrow at Del. “Just keep it simple, stupid. This isn’t an episode of Dancing with The Stars.” With a wink at Shaye, he guided her into a smooth spin then drew her easily back in
to a perfect closed dance position.
Del’s gut clenched as Shaye smiled up at his dad. The equal measure of love and loss etched on her face sent hot prickles into the corners of his eyes. Like many little girls, she’d grown up dreaming of her wedding day, and while Del couldn’t bring Michael back for one last dance, he’d do everything in his power to make their wedding day live up to her expectations.
Starting by asking his smart-assed father and brother for dance pointers.
Chapter 2
5 days before the Big Day and counting…
“You realize this is just the rehearsal, right?” Del swung a leg over their moped scooter and sat, shooting a glance at Shaye.
She fiddled with her safety helmet strap, emitting little growls like a kitten wrestling with a ball of yarn. Adorable.
“I know.” Once satisfied the helmet was on correctly, she checked her watch for the umpteenth time then shoved the ever-present notebook into her tote bag.
Miraculously, the damn thing survived a swim in caffeine and then being blown-to-hell by a hairdryer—although the pages were crinkled and stained light brown in places. But they were now ten minutes late to their wedding rehearsal because somehow, the notebook had gotten kicked under their bed during the acrobatics taking place on top of it. And, yeah, he was still smiling.
“But we’re late.” Shaye slipped onto the scooter behind him, snuggling in close and wrapping her arms tight around his midsection. “And when we leave the kids unsupervised, you know how unruly they can get. So let’s go.”
She had a point. Put the Westlakes, Harlands, and their other friends together in a confined space, and the odds predicted chaos.
Del started the scooter, and they puttered down the road that ran beside Shearwater Bay. The sun sank below the horizon of another stunning autumn evening, casting sparks of pink light off the small waves rippling ashore. He slowed the moped at the first bend in the road, then stopped, bracing his boots on the gravelled surface. He tapped Shaye’s leg and directed her attention to the beach.
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