1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Fourteen

by Kristen Ashley

  The whole top was made of lace, but the part from the built-in bustier over my shoulders, the lace was see-through. I had a rhinestone belt that was thin and pretty and made my waist look teeny-tiny. And the skirt flowed down in huge, soft, angelic, slanted vertical gossamer ruffles with a nice train at the back.

  My wedding flowers (you could probably guess) were big cream gerbera daisies with little black buttons in the middle mixed with some cream roses, and subtle pretty pink velvet ribbons were bunched under the petals of the blooms so you could just catch a touch of their color.

  I had the diamond earrings Marcus gave me the night I officially moved in with him in my ears. They looked like a passel of daises, so big they had to drop down in loop after loop. I also had the diamond bracelet on my wrist he gave me just because.

  And of course, I had on the huge-ass diamond solitaire ring he gave me when he asked me to marry him.

  He’d gone ostentatious with the engagement ring.

  My man knew me well.

  I’d picked a fluffy, wide, lacy blue garter for my blue and it was already on my thigh.

  The dress and shoes (platform pumps with peek-a-boo toes covered in lace, with lace crawling up the back of my heel, a lace rosette at the toe with rhinestones in the middle, and high heels covered in diamanté—again, I was Daisy) were my new.

  I had a lacy handkerchief that LaTeesha had given me stuffed in my cleavage that had been her grandmother’s. That was my old.

  And my borrowed I’d been in a panic about until I saw the pearly pink fingernail polish that Michelle brought and had shown me that morning. I’d loved it so I immediately replaced the one I’d picked because hers was way more perfect.

  I was set.

  Like I said.

  Perfect.

  “You can’t see her,” I heard Michelle say at the door.

  “Honey, I’m walking her down to the restaurant,” Marcus replied and I craned my neck to see down the hall in an effort to catch a glimpse of my man.

  But Michelle had the door mostly closed, her rounded body in its pretty, pink bridesmaid dress wedged in the part that wasn’t.

  “You’re meeting her at the door and walking her in,” Michelle returned.

  “Will you just let me see my wife?” Marcus asked on a sigh.

  His wife.

  Oh my.

  “She isn’t your wife yet and seeing her before the ceremony is bad luck! Heck, walking her to the ceremony is bad luck even if it starts at the restaurant doors! I don’t know how I agreed to this. Like I told you two dozen times, you should let Doug give her away.”

  Michelle was freaking out.

  And she was super sweet, if right now acting a little crazy. I’d thought that (except the crazy part) since I’d first laid eyes on her (okay, maybe the crazy part too).

  I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d be sweet. But since the day I met her months ago, I’d thought the same.

  Partly because she took one look at me, burst into tears, and shouted, “You’re perfect!”

  But mostly because she helped make my man all the man he was.

  And that man was a lot.

  “We’ve had enough bad luck, every one of us,” Marcus growled, and I watched him push in the door, doing this looking down at his sister who had his hair, but she had warm brown eyes. “No god there is would give a single one of us more.”

  Boy, I sure hoped that was the truth.

  But I did it holding my breath.

  Because Marcus looked fine all the time, in clothes, but especially out of them.

  Though in a tux?

  My coochie quivered.

  Marcus was sauntering purposefully in the room, but the second he turned his head from his sister to me, he stopped dead.

  “Hey, honey bunches of love,” I called.

  He said nothing.

  His face was slack with wonder as he stared at me.

  God, I loved my man.

  I swirled my skirt side to side with a sway of my hips. “I take it you like it.”

  “Leave us,” Marcus ordered his sister curtly.

  I stared.

  He might get exasperated with his sister’s sweet brand of crazy, but he never talked to her like that.

  “Marcus!” Michelle cried in shocked surprise.

  See?

  He twisted at the waist to look back at his sister. “Don’t make me shove my own sister out of a suite in a fucking five-star hotel.”

  “Your language!” she yelled. “I thank God you had the control to curb it in front of the kids.” She looked at me. “And he did. But barely.”

  I giggled.

  “Michelle,” he warned.

  “God, you’re annoying,” she snapped.

  She also gave me a look that included a roll of her eyes right before she left.

  But when she did, I panicked.

  Because what I knew would happen, happened.

  The minute the door clicked, Marcus stalked to me.

  I lifted a hand his way, grabbed hold of the back of my skirts with the other one, and retreated, warning, “Don’t you be messin’ up my face and hair, sugar. We got us a fancy photographer and I’m gonna be picture perfect, not have sex hair!”

  “You take one more step away from me, darling, I’ll guarantee sex hair.”

  I halted.

  Marcus got close.

  “Christ, how can you get more beautiful?” he asked when he stopped, looking me up and down.

  I planted my raised hand in his chest, shoved (ineffectually, I’ll note), and hissed, “Now you’re gonna make me cry.”

  “Yes, I am,” he declared. “But the makeup girl is outside. I stopped her from leaving so she can fix it if she needs to.”

  “I don’t have time to cry and have a makeup fix,” I returned. “We’re gettin’ married in ten minutes.”

  “Daisy, honey, I hired out the entire restaurant. The only guests they have are you, me, Doug, and Michelle. They’re good to wait.”

  Well then.

  “I don’t want a red face and puffy eyes in my wedding photos,” I tried.

  “You won’t care.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Yes I will!”

  “Baby, every time you see it, you’ll remember the day you married me was also the day I returned these.”

  And with that, he lifted his hand between us and from it dropped a necklace with a dainty gold chain and thirteen perfect pearls at the bottom. The biggest one in the middle, they got smaller but no less beautiful up the sides.

  I’d know that necklace anywhere, if I’d seen it the day after I’d hocked it or if I saw it when I was old, addled, and a hundred-and-three.

  My entire body seized.

  Marcus moved behind me.

  I felt the coolness of pearls and the tickle of a dainty gold chain at my neck.

  Then I felt his lips at my ear.

  “You thought Miss Annamae wanted you to get married wearing these pearls. And Miss Annamae helped make you the you for me. So you’re getting married in these pearls.”

  He killed me, every time so softly, the fall felt like hitting a cloud.

  “How—?” I started.

  He kissed my neck and then wrapped his arms around me from behind.

  “Your life starts now,” he said all gentle and still in my ear. “The one you’re meant to be leading. The one you’ve always deserved. I thought it best to mark that occasion in a way you’d never forget.”

  I twisted my neck to look at his handsome face.

  “I would never have forgotten, sugar.”

  “It’s my job to be sure.”

  God.

  Marcus Sloan.

  “I love you so much, I don’t even know what to do with all of it,” I whispered.

  “I’m thrilled someone else understands that feeling.”

  God.

  Marcus Sloan.

  The tear lingered but finally traced down my ch
eek.

  Marcus leaned in and caught it with his lips.

  My belly fluttered, my heart clenched, and my hands went to his at my middle.

  He lifted away and looked at me. “That all you got?”

  “For now.”

  “Want to go get married?”

  I nodded.

  Fast.

  And smiled.

  It was shaky but it was big.

  He smiled back at me, came around, took my hand, and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

  He stopped long enough to offer me my bouquet and take hold of Michelle’s to give to her.

  Then he led me out of the room.

  I held it together until I walked into the restaurant of the hotel that Marcus had hired out because it had two stories of windows and an unencumbered view of the mountains of Aspen covered in snow. We were going to be married in front of them. Then we were going to have a five-course meal in front of a blazing fire, all alone, the only guests in a beautiful, cozy, five-star restaurant in a beautiful, cozy five-star hotel.

  After that, Doug and Michelle were going back to the suite, Marcus and I were spending our wedding night at his (no, our) place in Aspen, and tomorrow we were going to fly to the Maldives.

  When I lost it, I didn’t lose it because of the view.

  I also didn’t lose it because the big sprays of gerbera daisies and roses with their pink velvet ribbons that stood on columns that floated up from diaphanous sheers of white that would be what Marcus and I would stand between to get married (and stand around to have pictures taken by our fancy-ass photographer) were exactly what Michelle said they were when she’d checked on them after they’d been delivered.

  That being perfect.

  I didn’t lose it because the fullness of Marcus getting me Miss Annamae’s pearls back finally hit me.

  And I didn’t lose it because I felt beautiful, looked beautiful, and the beautiful man whose arm I was holding on to was about to become my husband.

  I lost it because our small wedding party had an unexpected guest.

  He looked older. I actually barely recognized him, especially looking stiff and uncomfortable in a suit.

  But when Marcus and I hit the doors to the restaurant with Michelle trailing and Doug got up from his chair, looking at me with his mouth hanging open, and that man turned his eyes to me and they immediately got wet, I knew.

  I knew he was a man called Stretch.

  * * * *

  “Daisy, darling, wake up.”

  I moved, blinked, opened my eyes, and from where my head was resting on Marcus’s shoulder, I looked drowsily out the windows of our limousine.

  It was dark. No streetlights. No overhead lights in a garage.

  Just what seemed to be shadowed trees.

  We were just back from our honeymoon.

  The honeymoon was fab-you-las.

  The return flight was killer.

  I lifted my head and asked, “Where are we?”

  “Home.”

  I looked to him. “Honey bunches of oats, this ain’t no underground parking.”

  Eyes twinkling even in the dark car, he smiled.

  Ronald did a sweep with the limo before he stopped and muted light came into the car.

  Marcus’s smile changed in a way I felt in my belly.

  I stared at it and whispered, “What’d you do?”

  I heard Ronald’s door open.

  Marcus took my hand.

  But he didn’t answer.

  “What’d you do?” I repeated.

  Ronald opened Marcus’s door.

  This Ronald didn’t do. Unless otherwise instructed, Ronald opened my door first if I was in the car.

  Marcus slid out and pulled me with him.

  My platforms hit gravel.

  My eyes hit light.

  And my mouth dropped open.

  Because in front of me, amongst a dark backdrop of not-quite-fledgling trees, stood a huge castle.

  Yes.

  A castle.

  Just like it had been brought stone by stone straight from Germany or England or something.

  It stood strong, high and proud, with turrets and everything.

  Lit up totally with lights, I saw every inch.

  Even the drawbridge.

  And the moat.

  Marcus’s arm slid around my waist, curling my front into his side, and his lips found my ear.

  “Welcome home, Daisy.”

  Well, apparently, way back when, I did blather on about my castles.

  So Marcus built one for me.

  My body bucked.

  The sob sounded painful.

  But it was the most beautiful pain I’d ever experienced.

  And it was the pain of knowing I’d never really needed a castle.

  I just needed my prince charming.

  And I’d found him.

  * * * *

  “They’ll be fine right there.”

  “You should wear them.”

  “They’ll be fine right there, honey bunch.”

  Marcus turned me so my eyes left the glass-covered case with its ice-blue silk amongst which the circle of an add-a-pearl necklace was perfectly placed. A case that was standing displayed on a slant on the shelf that was above the seven-drawer jewelry cabinet in our walk-in closet.

  The only other thing on that shelf was a fabulous wedding picture with a beautiful bride, a handsome groom, and three other dolled-up people, everyone smiling big, standing amongst daisies with a backdrop of mountains covered in glistening white snow.

  The bride and groom were holding each other.

  They were also holding glasses filled with champagne and etched with peacocks.

  I looked up into my husband’s eyes.

  “Is there something you aren’t telling me?” he asked gently.

  “I want them perfect for her when she comes to us and it’s time to give them to her,” I replied.

  I knew Marcus got it.

  Because he always got it.

  And because his smile took my breath away.

  * * * *

  Marcus

  A number of years later…

  “Darling, would you like to share with me what’s troubling you?”

  Marcus had his eyes on his wife.

  Since they’d come home from the party, she’d been subdued.

  She didn’t normally come home from a Rock Chick party or after having anything to do with the Rock Chicks subdued.

  She could come home drunk. She could come home exhausted from dancing in a club mostly populated by gay men. She could come home sharing she’d tipped a number of drag queens (or strippers) so many fifty dollar bills, he was out thousands. She could come home having used one of her (seven) stun guns. She could come home to an angry and/or alarmed husband because she’d been shot at or in a car chase.

  This was the life of a Rock Chick.

  Which meant he led the beleaguered life of the man of a Rock Chick.

  As insane as it was, he wouldn’t have it any other way. The women she’d found and formed into her posse were the best he’d ever met.

  And they loved his wife down to their souls and made her happy.

  “Nothin’, darlin’,” she murmured, turning toward the stairs. “I’m thinkin’ tonight’s a facial night.”

  He caught her as she would pass him and pulled her in his arms.

  She looked up into his eyes.

  “Tell me what’s troubling you.”

  “Nothin’ is, sugar.”

  “Then what’s on your mind?”

  “Ally’s pregnant.”

  His chin jerked into his neck. “Christ. Those people breed like rabbits. How many is this?”

  “Lee and Indy, two. Eddie and Jet, three. Hank and Roxie, two. Vance and Jules, three. Ava and Luke, two. Stella and Mace, one. Sadie and Hector, two. Ren and Ally, this will be two. Which makes almost seventeen.”

  Marcus had gone still.

  She had them counted out.

/>   Seventeen for her girls.

  None for Daisy.

  Marcus and his wife had everything.

  But they couldn’t have kids.

  They’d tried.

  But according to the doctors, and after two failed tries at in vitro, they’d been told it most likely just wasn’t going to happen.

  “Baby,” he whispered.

  “I’m fine,” she lied.

  He held her closer and dipped his face to hers.

  “I’ll say it again, and I really want you to think on it this time. We can adopt. Now, especially, we can adopt.”

  He’d taken all of his concerns legitimate and gone into business with Vito Zano’s nephew, Daisy’s friend Ally’s husband, Ren Zano. There was nothing preventing them from adopting. Not their ages. Not money. Not his business. Not now.

  She nodded. “I’ll think on it, Marcus.” Her eyes focused on his. “I’m real happy for her, sugar. Just—”

  “I know,” he said quietly, and fuck him, but he did know, and he hated knowing it. He bent to give her a soft kiss. “Go do your facial, darling. I’ll bring some champagne up.”

  She gave him a distracted smile.

  He let her go and watched her walk up the stairs.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed it, seeing her before their wedding in her gown. Maybe he’d given them bad luck.

  Or maybe there was a god, theirs, who wanted them to remember not to take anything for granted.

  But he suspected there was a god, his, who wanted to use the most important thing in his life to remind him, to have the life he’d been able to give her, there was penance to be paid.

  He’d done all he’d done and, especially when it allowed him to give Daisy the life she deserved, he’d done it without remorse.

  But Marcus stared at the stairs up which his wife had disappeared.

  And for the first time in his life, repentance sliced through him like a blade.

  * * * *

  She moved on him, her hands trailing his abs, her eyes watching, her glides slow, her face languid, her bottom lip caught in her teeth.

  Christ, she was beautiful.

  Marcus put his hands to her hips, bucked and turned, taking her to her back, him over her, loving hearing her breathy gasp.

  He lifted his head, moved inside, feeling her sleek, wet silkiness gorgeous and tight around him. He looked in her eyes, found her hand, and laced his fingers through hers.