by S. J. West
“Oh yeah, we’re fine. I like him good enough.”
Seeing that I wasn’t going to be getting much else out of Tara, I left her to watch the rest of her movie and took a shower to get ready.
Brand and I didn’t really have anything in particular planned for the day. We had to wait on the private investigator to wade through the one hundred Anna Miller’s she found born in Indiana the same year as my mother. I hoped it wouldn’t take her long to discover which one had been my mom and where my grandparents were, if they were even still alive. That thought hadn’t occurred to me until now. What if they were dead? People died in accidents and from diseases all the time.
No, I wouldn’t let myself entertain a negative thought like that again. Brand said we would find the answers and I trusted his judgment.
After I got ready, Tara was in the kitchen making herself some tea.
“I have a question for you,” I said standing against the kitchen counter, uncertain to how she would react to my query. “What would you think about me marrying Brand now?”
“What, like today?”
“No,” I said smiling, shaking my head, “but soon.”
“This got anything to do with what that Faust told you about having two months?”
“Sort of,” I admitted. “I just don’t want to waste my time with him. No matter how much time that might be whether it’s a hundred years or just two months.”
“You might as well marry the boy,” Tara said. “You’re practically married as it is. You spend all your time with him day and night.”
“Would you think any less of me if I did it now?”
“Girl, you worry too much about what other people think. You need to make that decision for yourself. Don’t worry about me or anybody else. But if you gotta know what I think, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t do it.”
“Thanks,” I told her, giving her a hug. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Die an old maid,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me. “Just don’t forget who your best friend is after you marry Mr. Wonderful.”
“Like you would let me,” I replied rolling my eyes.
“That’s true enough. Someone has to keep your feet on the ground.”
Now that I had the blessing of the two people whose opinion meant the most to me, I was having a hard time seeing any reason not to marry Brand as soon as possible. What I told Tara was true. Whether I only had two more months or a hundred years of life left, I knew I wanted to spend my remaining days with Brand as his wife.
We received an unexpected guest soon after our talk. Will stopped by to see how things were going. I filled him in on what had happened since I last saw him after our encounter with Faust. He seemed to be in league with everyone else and told me I needed to be more careful.
“Let Brand do the dirty work,” he said. “You don’t need to put yourself in danger like that, especially with Robert. You know a little bit about how cruel he can be, but you don’t know the whole story.”
“Then why don’t you tell me? Malcolm called him a sadist and Brand acted like he hated him even before I told him what he did to me. What exactly has he done in the past?”
“He likes seeing people suffer, Lilly. It’s what he gets off on. He doesn’t just hunt down his prey like most of the vampiric Watchers do. He hunts them down then he plays with them. He likes to torture people as much as he likes sucking the life out of them. Robert isn’t someone you want to mess with. He’ll find your weaknesses and use them against you to cause you the most pain.”
“Well, we know he’s planning something. I guess we’ll just have to be as prepared as we can.”
“You just stay away from him,” Tara told me as she stood up from her chair at the kitchen table. “I need to go get ready. Malik should be here soon. I made some fudge in case you need some. It’s in the fridge,” she told me as she made her way to her bedroom.
Will and I were alone for the first time since our talk by the lake Even though he had been totally out of line, he was still my friend and I felt like I owed it to him to tell him I changed my mind about waiting to marry Brand. I didn’t want him to hear it from Tara and I wasn’t sure how often he kept in touch with Utha Mae. I planned to tell Brand my decision that day and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be keeping it a secret from anyone.
“Listen, Will, I think we need to talk.”
“Have you thought more about what I said?” The look of hopeful expectation on his face was something I wasn’t prepared to see. I thought I had made my feelings about his suggestion plain the last time we discussed the subject.
“Not really,” I admitted and watched his hope visibly fade. “I need to tell you that I plan to marry Brand soon.”
“What happened to waiting until you got out of college?” The snide way he made his remark made me wonder if it was even worth my time to try and explain my reasoning to him. Did he even deserve it?
“I don’t want to wait,” I said, trying not to let his open disdain upset me. “There will never be anyone but Brand for me and with everything that’s going on, I don’t want to waste anymore time. I want to be his wife for whatever time we have left together. Can you understand that?”
“You don’t have to rush into anything, Lilly,” he was almost pleading. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
“I know,” I tried to put as much confidence into the statement as I could. “But it doesn’t matter. Brand’s the only one I see myself spending the rest of my life with, no matter how long or short that is. I don’t see any point in waiting any longer.”
“Why don’t you at least wait until we figure everything out and have things settled once and for all? It would give you more time to be with him and know for sure he’s the one you want. It just seems like you’re rushing things, Lilly. How do you know you’re not just making this decision because of the stress you’re under? Maybe you should wait and make sure it’s really what you want.”
“You’re just not getting it, Will.” Why was he making this so hard? “I want to marry him. I would want to marry him even if things were perfect and we had all the time in the world to be together. Everything inside me tells me this is the right thing to do and the right time to do it. All of you keep telling me to trust you to save me from what might happen. Now you need to listen to me and trust that I know what I’m doing. Marrying Brand is what I’m meant to do. I know it. I have no doubts about my decision.”
Will let out a heavy, defeated sigh as his shoulders sagged.
“I always thought we’d be together, Lilly,” he murmured so low I had to strain to hear him.
“I’m sorry, Will.”
Even though he had tried his best to cast doubt in my mind about Brand’s true feelings for me I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Will. He was still one of my best friends and I didn’t like to see him in pain. But, I knew it was the right decision to let him know where things stood between us. Maybe now he could put his fantasies about us having a future together behind him. It was better to have him know there wasn’t a chance I would change my mind than linger around, hoping I would choose him one day.
“It’s my own fault,” he said apparently finding the whole situation ironic. “I’m the one who kept pushing you away after we kissed that night. If I had been stronger and took a chance on us, things would be different.”
I didn’t say anything. It was hard to know what would have happened if Will had declared his love to me then. I wondered if what he said was really true though. In my heart, I felt like what Will had done then was the way it was meant to be. It was my destiny to find Brand and fall in love with him. He was my soul mate. He was the one I was meant for.
“I’m not sure this is the right time to ask you to do this,” I said, wondering if I should wait to make my request, but wanting to give Will time to think about it before giving me his final answer. “Since I don’t really have a male relative to do the job, I was wondering if y
ou would give me away at the wedding.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do that, Lilly Rayne,” he shook his head at me like I had just asked him to jump the width of the Grand Canyon. “That’s a lot to ask.”
“Think of it as your wedding gift to me. You’re part of my family, Will, you always will be. I hope you’ll still be a part of my life even though our relationship isn’t exactly the way you thought it would end up. It would mean a lot to me if you did it.”
“Let me think about it.”
“That’s all I ask.”
At least he hadn’t given me an emphatic ‘no’.
Will left soon after coming up with an excuse about school work.
I called Brand and asked him to come over to the apartment. I wanted to wait around until Malik arrived to pick Tara up. It was odd. I actually was starting to feel a connection with Malik even though I didn’t know him that well.
While we were waiting, I thought I should mention the house Malcolm gave me to Brand and Tara.
“He built you a house?” Brand acted like he was certain he had heard me wrong.
“What kinda house? Where is it?” Tara asked, excited by the idea of me owning my own home.
I described the house as best I could and told them it was somewhere in Colorado. I hadn’t even thought to ask where it was exactly.
“How did he design and build a house in such a short amount of time?” Brand asked.
“Well, I suppose it’s like you always say, people will do anything if you wave enough money in their faces,” I replied.
“They do it all the time on TV,” Tara chimed in. “Ain’t you ever seen that show where they build these 4,000 square foot houses in less than a week? Did he get you any furniture?”
“No,” I said, remembering how empty it felt without anything in it.
Brand looked troubled.
“I told him I couldn’t take it, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer,” I told him.
“No, you should accept it,” Brand said completely stunning me with his easy acceptance of Malcolm’s gift. “He obviously went to a lot of trouble to do it for you. It would be rude to refuse it.”
“Does this mean I get to try skiing?” Tara asked. “You know I would look hot in one of those ski suits.”
“It might be tempting fate to put skis on either one of us,” I told her. “Remember how we used to trip over each other in those ballet classes Utha Mae put us in? I don’t think we need a replay of what we did to the Swan Lake recital on the side of a mountain.”
“Yeah, you might be right,” Tara said rethinking her earlier enthusiasm. “Maybe we could get a couple of them snow mobiles though. I bet that’d be fun.”
There was a knock on the door.
Tara didn’t even bother to get out of her chair and make sure it was Malik. She just yelled, “Come in,” at the door.
Malik walked in and smiled when he saw I was present.
“I was hoping you might be here,” he told me. “I wanted to know how yesterday went. Did you two find anything out?”
Brand and I told Malik what we had discovered. He too chastised me for not being more careful. At least he was the last person I had to tell. I wouldn’t have to hear ‘you shouldn’t have done that’ from anyone else.
“So now we’re just waiting to hear back from this P.I. you hired?” He asked Brand.
“Yes. Hopefully she’ll have the information we need soon.”
“Well, keep me informed and let me know if I can be of any help.”
“Thanks,” I told Malik. “We’ll let you know.”
“Come on,” Tara said grabbing her purse. “Let me give you a tour of the campus. Then you can take me out to eat somewhere.”
Malik chuckled at Tara’s brashness.
“At least I don’t have to worry about knowing what you’re thinking,” he told her.
“No, I pretty much say what’s on my mind,” she agreed. “See y’all later!”
When Tara and Malik were gone, I turned to Brand and made him stand up with me.
“Where are we going?” He asked.
“Home.”
I phased us inside his paint studio.
Brand looked around. “Why this room?”
“It’s where I first told you I loved you,” I said, holding his hands in mine, looking at him to see what his reaction would be to what I was about to tell him. “There’s something just as important that I want to say to you now.”
That statement definitely grabbed his attention. “And what would that be?”
“I want to marry you.”
Brand smiled, completely confused. “I know that, my love.”
“No,” I said, wanting to make sure he fully understood what I was saying. “I mean I want to marry you as soon as possible. I don’t want to wait four years.”
He looked almost afraid that he might have heard me wrong. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes, I don’t want to wait. I love you. And honestly, I don’t really see the point in waiting four years. It would just be a waste of time.” Time I might not have, I thought but didn’t say. “I want to be your wife as soon as possible.”
Brand put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me long and hard. When he finally pulled away he looked down at me in complete bliss.
“I will love you every day of your life as much as I do this very moment. I promise to make you as happy as I can and I want you to know that you will always be the center of my world. Everything I am or ever will be revolves around only you. I am completely yours in this life and the next.”
“Those sound a lot like vows,” I said unable to hold back my tears of happiness staring at his earnest, joyful face.
“They’re my vows to you and I will always keep them.”
Brand and I decided to spend a quiet day at home together. It was rare that we actually had time to just enjoy each other’s company and not worry about things for a while. We pushed our problems out of our minds as far as we could and spent the day like any other normal couple would.
Brand finally showed me the painting he did of me on our perfect day together when I wrapped myself in one of his paint cloths and sat on a whicker chair framed by the lake behind me. You would have thought I was draped in expensive silk the way Brand painted me. I still couldn’t get over how beautiful I looked in his paintings. When I mentioned it again, he still professed it was the way I looked to him. I wasn’t going to argue. Who minded if their fiancé had a completely distorted view of them as long as it was a positive one?
In fact the next three days made me feel like I was any normal girl going to school and arranging a wedding to marry the man she loved. I went to Malcolm’s house to tell him my decision about marrying Brand early. He didn’t seem surprised and told me to tell him if there was ever anything he could do to help me with the arrangements. I was glad to see him take the news so well.
When I called my mom to tell her the news, she was over the moon. She started talking so fast about dresses and flowers I had to ask her to slow down. I had never heard her so excited before. After talking with her about everything we would have to arrange, I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t be able to marry Brand as quickly as I had hoped.
After looking at the calendar, keeping in mind everything that had to be done, I decided to set the wedding date on November 17. It would give us plenty of time to do things right. Plus, it was the start of our Thanksgiving break. I had missed so much school as it was this semester I didn’t want to miss anymore than I had to. It was still my goal to have my degree in as little time as possible. The sooner I earned that small piece of my life’s puzzle for myself, the better.
I wanted to have the wedding in Utha Mae’s church but I was hesitant to ask Brand if he could even step foot inside a church. I remembered how he answered Utha Mae’s question about attending church, and I wasn’t sure if it was a decision he made for himself or if it was something his kind just weren’t allowed to do.
There really wasn’t any getting around the issue so I just asked him one day while we were walking along the lakeshore after supper one evening.
“There is one detail of the wedding arrangements I need to ask you about,” I started, hoping my question wouldn’t hurt his feelings if he were indeed unable to walk on holy ground.
“You know you can ask me anything.”
I guess I wasn’t hiding my nervousness very well from him.
“I want to have the wedding in Utha Mae’s church. Can we do that?”
“Of course, if that’s where you want to have it.”
“Then you can go into a church?”
“Oh,” he smiled at me squeezing the hand he held, finally realizing what I was really asking. “You know all those myths about vampires aren’t true. The only reason I don’t go to church is because it reminds me of what I lost. It’s hard to worship and not actually be in his presence. It would be like loving you but never being able to see you again.”
I’d never thought of it that way, but it made perfect sense to me now.
“Speaking of the wedding,” he said. “Why don’t you let me give you the money for the expenses? I’m sure we could hire someone to arrange everything for us.”
“It’s traditionally the bride’s family who pays for wedding,” I told him.
“But I have plenty of money, Lilly. We could pay to have things done much faster and not have to wait.”
“Are you in a rush?” I asked. “I did move the day up by almost four years you know.”
“I know,” Brand groaned, taking me into his arms. “But now that it’s so close, its complete torture to have to wait a minute longer.”
“It’ll be worth it. I promise. Plus, just think about how happy you’ll make your future mother-in-law by letting her arrange everything for us.”
“She does seem happy about it,” Brand agreed.
“I’ve never seen her so excited. She’s planning a trip to Jackson for us this Saturday so we can find dresses for me and Tara.”
“This Saturday?” Brand asked in surprise. “Will you be back early?”
“I don’t know. Why? Did we have something else planned?” I couldn’t remember planning anything to do that day.
