Wedding Dreams: 20 Delicious Nuptial Romances

by Maggie Way

  The muffled sound of a sneeze reached him through the heavy door.

  “Emily, open up.”

  He heard a thump followed by a sharp curse.

  The force of his smile surprised him. He leaned a shoulder against the house. “Take your time. I can wait.”

  A sliver of light filtered out to him when the door cracked open a fraction of an inch.

  One brown, red-rimmed eye appeared through the opening. “What do you want?”

  He could hear the congestion in her voice, which managed to be husky and sexy rather than gross.

  “You’re not asleep, are you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Good. Let me in.”

  “I’m in m-my pajamas.”

  “So?”

  “So, go away.”

  He held up the bowl in his hand.

  She eyed it. “What’s that?”

  “My special healing recipe. It’ll clear your sinuses and feel good on your sore throat.”

  Naked longing swept across her face and he coughed with the force of lust that knocked into him.

  Her small hand shot out through the crack. “The soup can come in, but you can’t.”

  “We’re a package deal.” He held the bowl out of her reach. “It’s all or nothing.”

  A frown tugged at her mouth. “Where’s your date?”

  With one shoulder, he pushed his way inside the house. He opened his mouth to explain, but then made the mistake of glancing at the giant snowflake stretched across her chest. Beneath the fabric of her midnight blue sleep-shirt, the twin peaks of her beaded nipples protruded, begging for his attention, and whatever words he might’ve said fled his mind with the blood rushing to his groin.

  He set the soup on the counter and rummaged around her kitchen for a bowl and spoon. She sank onto a barstool at the island and slumped forward.

  “Have you taken your meds?”

  Another sneeze burst from her, and she moaned. “Uh-huh.” She dabbed at her bright red nose with a crumpled tissue.

  Soup warming in the microwave, he laid his hands on her shoulders. “C’mon then. Let’s get you to bed.”

  She slid off the stool and he followed her through the mudroom, down a short hall, and into a small quartered living space. Decorated with the same neutral beiges and rustic hardwood flooring as the rest of the house, the room featured a pair of French doors that framed the spectacular view of Lake Michigan beyond.

  “Man, you really are sick. You’re not going to try to kick me out?”

  In response, she released an exhausted sigh, trudged to the overstuffed sofa, and dropped onto a pile of bed pillows.

  He returned for the soup, and handing it to her, sat on the circular coffee table before the couch. She took a small taste, and then swallowed several more greedy gulps.

  Holding the bowl under her nose, she fixed him with a dark look. “You can leave now.”

  “I will. When I’m ready.”

  Her mouth pinched, but she didn’t argue.

  “Kate and I are friends,” he said.

  “Well, I should hope so,” she muttered.

  “We’re just friends.”

  She set the soup on an end table and burrowed deeper into the quilts. “If you say so.”

  “I do say so.” With the pad of his thumb, he brushed over a callus on his palm. “I promised someone I’d look out for her and that’s what I’m doing. That’s all I’m doing with her.”

  One eye cracked open to search his face.

  “But I didn’t come here to talk about Kate.”

  Both eyes popped open, and though they were heavy lidded with tiredness, he could still make out the whiskey swirls near the center.

  He ran a hand down his thigh. “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?” Her throaty voice had a vulnerable hitch to it that pinched the center of his chest.

  He shifted on the table, suddenly having trouble finding the right words.

  She grew impatient. “For insulting m-my cooking?”

  “No.”

  “For nitpicking the way I drive?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “For kissing m-me?”

  He leveled her with a look. “Absolutely not.”

  “For not kissing m-me m-m-more?”

  At the hopeful ring in her tone, a smile tugged at his mouth. “Maybe, but that’s not where I’m going with this.” Shame rushed forward. “I’m sorry for the way I left. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink. “I’m sorry I said something to upset you.”

  Guilt kicked in his chest. “No, it was nothing you said.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s all this hero bullshit. It’s driving me a little crazy. That’s all.”

  She studied him over the top of the quilt for a long moment. “You’re so weird.”

  That startled a laugh from him and he turned to her to say more. Hell, he might’ve told her the whole shitty story if he hadn’t caught himself in time.

  For all he’d tried to forget the day a fifteen-year-old took his dad’s gun to school and opened fire on his classmates, Luke found himself wanting to talk to Emily about it, if only so she’d understand what a load of bullshit this idea of him being a hero truly was.

  Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was the feeling he couldn’t shake, the hope, that she’d understand. He wasn’t a hero. He’d watched that coward’s bullet rip through his colleague’s chest. The man, a friend, had slumped to the floor as the life drained from his body, and Luke didn’t stop to think, or feel. He’d lifted his gun and fired.

  He’d been close enough that the kid’s blood splattered on his face and clothes, marking him with the truth.

  That though he’d built his entire life around being honorable and fighting for the good guys, he was no different than the criminals he’d devoted his life to stopping. The bad guys.

  He was no different than his own father.

  A killer.

  Her hand poked out from under the quilts and she knuckled one droopy eye.

  “I’ll let you rest.” He scooped up her nearly empty bowl.

  “Luke?”

  He turned.

  “Thanks for the soup.”

  “You’re welcome.” He closed the door to her suite behind him.

  In the kitchen, he rinsed out her bowl and laid it in the dishwasher. An odd disappointment spread through him and he rolled his shoulders, trying to shake it off.

  It was for the best he didn’t tell her all of it. She was one of the few things in his life not tainted by the stain of that day.

  He should head out. Let her sleep. There was still time for him to hit the gym for a workout. If he hit it hard, he might tire his body out enough to give him two, maybe three, hours of sleep that night.

  Yep, that’s what he should do.

  She dreamed of him.

  Of him with her.

  Her white-gold hair cascaded across the pillow like silken strands of spun gold. His mouth brushed over her milky smooth skin.

  When she laughed and rolled to face him, his large, tanned hand closed over her full breast.

  Emily longed to kiss her skin, putting her mouth everywhere his had been, so that she might know the taste of his pleasure.

  She stirred enough to know she dreamed before the blackness pulled her under once more.

  Sometime later, she awakened to warmth and darkness, and the vague niggling of some far-off pain.

  “Wake up, sweetheart.” He wiped her cheeks with wet hands and she twisted away from him.

  The next time she roused, light flickered against the beige walls and the silhouette of a man crouched before the fireplace. The glow of a fire cast him in warm lighting, illuminating his profile as he stared into the flame.

  Her heart constricted. Why does he have to be so beautiful?

  His head snapped up and he straightened to his full height.

  The sofa dipped when he sat on the
edge next to her. “How are you feeling?”

  She blinked away sleep.

  He held a cup of water under her nose. “Drink this.”

  The cool water slid down her parched throat. Her head pounded and she collapsed onto the cloud of pillows.

  Sleep reached out to her, and a vision of Kate, naked and splayed for him, jolted her awake.

  “Here, take these? They’re for the fever.”

  The pills scraped the walls of her swollen throat and she winced.

  “Try to sleep,” he told her. “I’m here.”

  But when she awoke the next morning, she was alone again in her big old empty house.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The weeks passed in a flurry of cough syrup and antibiotic intake until Emily’s sinuses dried out and her muscle aches eased. With her renewed energy, she completed the inn’s website and designed an advertising campaign to begin in the next few months and slowly ramp up, peaking in the spring.

  She’d also gotten her period.

  At loose ends, she convinced Mina to let her take on more wedding-planning activities. She crafted handmade invitations and mailed all but one to the forty-person guest list comprised mostly of family members and colleagues from the university where Noah worked.

  The last invite, to the Mayor of Thief Island, sparked a squabble between the couple, with Noah arguing Mina’s ex-fiancé had no place at their wedding and Mina countering, gently, that despite their failed engagement, the Mayor had been a childhood friend to her.

  Mina won the dispute.

  Next, Emily delivered Vivian’s menu to a caterer in town that would prepare the meal for the reception following the ceremony. She then selected a bakery and presented a sampling of three cakes—vanilla, red velvet, and chocolate—to the couple. Another heated discussion ensued with Mina favoring the red velvet and Noah, the chocolate, arguing that Mina’s cake, when cut, looked like roadkill.

  Noah won the debate.

  In that time, fall came to the island with a relentless chill and an explosion of color. Growing up in the desert, Emily was unprepared for the drama of the seasonal change. Deep red and vibrant orange torched the treetops, and a honey-yellow glow warmed the landscape.

  One afternoon, she arrived at the cemetery to find her mom’s oak tree had dropped a ring of fire on the ground, burying the tombstone with orange leaves, and for the first time, Emily experienced a sense of ease when visiting her mom’s grave.

  Two weeks before the wedding, she sent Max an e-mail to verify his arrival the Monday after the wedding, which he confirmed.

  Two days before the wedding, the order she’d placed for fresh-cut flowers arrived at the inn. The rest of that day, she and Mina gutted twenty white pumpkins and stuffed them to bursting with deep purple ranunculus, cream-colored lilies, and greenery.

  The day before the wedding, after she’d checked in with the vendors and fussed some more with the flower arrangements, she drove into town to pick up her dress from the bridal shop. On her way home, she spotted a sign hanging over one of the storefronts.

  She chewed her bottom lip. When was the last time she’d had a hair cut? Unable to recall and knowing she’d only talk herself out of it if she paused to think it through, she whipped into an empty parking space in front of the Curl Up and Dye Hair Salon.

  An electronic chime sounded when she entered the shop and a woman at the front desk looked up with a warm smile.

  Emily recoiled.

  The woman’s smile crumpled.

  Emily’s feet grew roots where she stood, or else she would’ve have run. The psychologists had it wrong. Fight or flight might describe most people’s instinctual response to attack, but not Emily’s. No, for Emily, when a threat presented, the circuits of her brain went haywire, leaving her mute and motionless.

  It should be fight or flight or freeze, but they never mentioned the or freeze.

  Kate shoved to her feet. “Can I help you?”

  “I n-n-need a haircut.” Emily’s voice sounded muffled through the whoosh of blood rushing past her ears.

  Kate’s cornflower blue eyes took in Emily’s unkempt hair. “Follow me.”

  Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, Emily focused on not tripping over her feet as she followed Kate through the salon. Black leggings clung to the other woman’s impossibly long legs, and her hips rocked with a womanly sway. She had everything a woman could want, Emily realized glumly. A killer face with unblemished skin, Luke Nolan, and a thigh gap.

  Kate swiveled a chair around and Emily climbed in.

  “Just a trim today?”

  In the mirror, Emily frowned at her reflection next to Kate’s. “Do wh-whatever you want.”

  Kate’s eyes widened.

  “Wh-whatever you think wo-would look nice,” Emily rushed to clarify.

  With a comb, Kate started to pick at Emily’s snarls. “Have you ever considered layers?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “Layers would add some body. What about the length? Can I take it up a bit?”

  Emily wrinkled her nose. Her hair was a kind of security blanket, providing her with a curtain to hide behind when she needed one. And she always needed one. “M-maybe a little, but I w-want to be able—”

  “To pull it back in a ponytail.” Kate finished Emily’s sentence with a smile. An adorable dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Got it.”

  Kate led Emily to a row of wall-mounted sinks at the back of the salon. She wet and shampooed Emily’s hair. The conditioner’s fruity scent floated with them when they returned to Kate’s styling station.

  After running the comb through Emily’s now snarl-free hair, Kate picked up the scissors.

  With the first snip, Emily squeezed her eyes shut.

  “How long have you known Luke?”

  One eye popped open. “Uh, n-not long. You?”

  Kate’s gaze remained fixed on the top of Emily’s head and a frown pulled down the corners of her wide mouth. “We’ve known each other for years. He’s been a good friend to me.”

  Relief swamped Emily, and with it, a smile brightened her face. Luke had told the truth that he and Kate were just friends. Emily was not, in fact, the other woman.

  Kate caught her smile in the mirror and frowned. “But we’ve been growing closer lately. It’s only a matter of time before we make it official.”

  The scissors sliced and a hank of Emily’s hair fell to the floor. “We’re perfect for each other, really. I know we are…”

  “B-but?”

  “But… It’s just… He’s so…”

  Annoying?

  Prickly?

  Bullying?

  Kate sighed. “Perfect.”

  Emily deflated in the chair.

  Another slash of scissors sent more hair falling. “Although, he does have this one little problem.”

  A frown twisted Emily’s mouth. “What problem?”

  Kate held up her index finger, straight and rigid, and then let it droop like a wilting flower.

  Emily stared at her finger a moment before its meaning struck. “He’s impotent?”

  A frisson of panic swept over Kate’s features. “I’m sure it’ll pass, once we’ve gotten to know each other a bit better.”

  Emily recalled the firm press of Luke’s erection poking against her thigh, and the feel of it sliding inside her.

  “Promise you won’t say anything. I’d feel terrible if he found out I told you.”

  Emily smoothed the shock from her expression. “Of course. I just can’t believe it. He seems so….”

  “Virile?” Kate offered.

  Emily nodded. Yes, virile. And hot-blooded, and horny, and—

  “He is. I’m just being picky. He’s perfect, except for that one little thing.”

  Thinking to remove Luke’s male member from the topic of conversation, Emily asked, “How long have you lived on the island?”

  “I moved here five years ago. My husband grew up here.”

  H
er husband?

  Emily blinked, too stunned to ask questions.

  In Kate’s hand, the scissors trembled a moment above Emily’s head before she steadied them and executed a brutal slash. “I need to stop calling him that,” she said quietly. “Anthony’s been dead more than six months now.”

  A twist of misery turned Emily’s stomach. She knew that look on Kate’s face. She’d observed the same expression on her own face almost every day since her mom died.

  “My m-mom died last year.”

  The scissors froze above her head, a large swath of hair poised between the blades.

  “She’s still my m-m-mom,” Emily said softly. “She’ll always be m-my mom.”

  Kate’s eyes glistened, but she blinked and ducked her chin. She cut the rest of Emily’s hair in silence.

  When a pile of strawberry-blonde hair lay at their feet, Kate spun Emily away from the mirror and attacked her head with a blow dryer and a round brush. Finally, the blow dryer fell quiet and she turned Emily to face the mirror.

  Emily gaped at the women in the mirror with the soft, full head of red hair that shimmered about her shoulders.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I think y-you’re a miracle w-worker.”

  Kate even blushed prettily, her cheeks taking on a soft, rosy glow that wasn’t at all splotchy.

  “Do y-you think it will last until tomorrow? I’m in a wedding.”

  “Why don’t you come by in the morning and I’ll touch it up. What time is the wedding?”

  “Three o’clock.”

  At the front desk, Kate pored over an appointment book. “Want to come by at nine?”

  The next morning, Emily arrived as Kate was unlocking the front door. She wore her long blonde hair in an elegant ponytail and huge hoop earrings dangled from her delicate earlobes. Her blue jeans had more bling on the butt pockets than Emily had ever worn at any one time in her life.

  “I was wondering, what would you say to a little color?”

  Emily slid into the styling chair. “What kind of color?”

  Kate waved a comb through the air. “Nothing drastic. Just a touch of copper to bring out your red highlights.”

  The previous night, Emily had revisited her reflection in the mirror numerous times, and every time she marveled all over again at Kate’s cut.