by Marci Bolden
Marcus was in such a good mood, he didn’t even mind her nonstop rambling about the weather report. Having an outdoor wedding in April was risky, but she and Paul had decided to go for it. And she’d been afraid rain would ruin her wedding ever since. Now that the day was actually showing in the televised forecast, and with a twenty percent chance of precipitation, she was on the verge of having a panic attack.
She had played it cool, she said, for Paul’s sake, but the truth was, she didn’t know what they’d do if it rained on Saturday.
“Twenty percent chance of rain means eighty percent chance of it not raining. And if it does rain, you can always move things inside. I know it isn’t ideal, but it’s the ceremony that counts, not the location,” Marcus offered.
She sighed and looked at him. “I know. But I’ve been planning this since Paul proposed Christmas morning, and Murphy’s Law has done nothing but mock me.”
He chuckled. “You’ve handled it like a champ.”
He parked in front of a house with a for-sale sign in the yard. A man was already standing in the driveway looking up at the house.
Marcus climbed out and walked ahead of Dianna. “Hi. Marcus Callison.”
The man glanced past him at Dianna. “Brad Schafer.”
“I hope you don’t mind my tagging along. I haven’t seen this place yet and thought this was the perfect opportunity.”
“Not at all,” he said.
Dianna gestured toward the house, and Marcus followed behind, thinking how much he was going to miss being part of the O’Connell Realty team. It was going to be worth it, though. Being with Annie would be worth it.
Chapter Four
Annie had just finished filling her coffee mug when two large hands gripped her hips. She sighed loudly but couldn’t quite stop herself from smiling. She and Marcus had arrived later than most of the wedding guests—he’d insisted on stopping for dinner at some dinky sandwich shop along the way—but even so, she’d been the first one awake. She thought she’d have some peace and quiet before the hubbub of wedding preparations started, but it wasn’t to be.
She didn’t actually mind that he was touching her, but for the sake of continuity in their relationship, she said, “You’re in my bubble again.”
“I like your bubble,” Marcus said over her shoulder. “I’d like it more if it came with coffee.”
She reached into the cabinet and grabbed another mug, filling it for him as he advanced his invasion by sliding his arms around her waist and pressing his cheek to her head.
“What are you doing?”
He exhaled slowly. “Imagining what our mornings are going to be like after I move in with you.”
She pulled away enough to look over her shoulder. “What?”
“Your house is much too nice to rent. Mine is better suited for that.”
She turned and faced him in the small amount of space he was allotting between his body and the counter. “Are you insane?”
“Yes. I’m also teasing you. Maybe.” Reaching around her, he grabbed his mug. “In one week, I’ll no longer be on your staff. If you think I’m wasting one more minute—”
A throat clearing behind them made Marcus take a step back.
Paul pointed over Annie’s head. “If I can just get two cups of coffee to go, you can get back to…whatever.”
“Oh, we’re done with whatever.” Annie slid around Marcus and sat at the table, where she’d left her toast and fresh fruit before her space had been so temptingly invaded.
“Everything ready for today?” Marcus sat beside Annie and snagged an apple slice from her plate.
She merely cocked a brow at him. He was certainly getting comfortable with their relationship. They weren’t even dating, and he was talking about moving in? And stealing food off her plate? Brave man.
“As ready as can be,” Paul said.
“How are your nerves?”
“None to speak of.” He poured creamer into his coffee and stirred his drink. “I’m marrying an incredible woman. We’ll be surrounded by our family. And the forecast finally cleared so my bride can stop stressing about rain. It’s going to be perfect.”
With that he disappeared from the kitchen, and Marcus smiled at Annie. “He’s incredibly calm.”
“He’s internalizing his fear.”
“How can you tell?”
“He fixed two cups of coffee and then walked away without them.” She nodded toward the mugs still sitting by the pot. She grinned when Paul came back in, grabbed the cups, and left again, muttering about wedding rings and vows and hoping he didn’t forget anything else.
Marcus chuckled. “We should definitely just elope. Skip out on all this.”
Annie stopped lifting her cup to her lips so abruptly, liquid sloshed over the side and splattered on the table. “Elope?”
“Unless you want a big wedding. I didn’t think you’d be the type for all this fuss.”
“Who says we’re getting married?”
“Well, after I move in with you, eventually the next step will be marriage. Don’t you think? We want to set a good example for Mallory.”
His deadpan face cracked a bit, and his smile shone through, but she shook her head at him anyway.
“You need to leave my daughter out of your delusions.”
“She’s the one who brought it up.”
She let her jaw go slack as he stood and got a paper towel. “When did you talk to Mallory about us?”
“Oh, we had lunch Thursday after you blew her off, even though she drove all the way to the office.”
“I didn’t blow her off. A deal almost fell through at the last minute. I couldn’t back out of the meeting I was in.” She took the towel from him to clean up her mess. “What has gotten into you?”
He crossed his arms and rested them on the table, and all signs of teasing faded. “We’re not exactly teenagers anymore. We have to take our happiness while we can.”
“We’re not exactly ready for the nursing home yet, either. Jumping into conversations about moving in and getting married feels a bit premature.”
“You’re right. It is. I’m just teasing you. Maybe. But to be honest, we’ve danced around this thing between us for too long, Annie. One more week, and I’m all in. And I’m dragging you in with me.”
She couldn’t help but smile at him. “Do you think we could maybe have at least one real date before jumping all in? Maybe get to know each other on that level before deciding when and how we’re getting married.”
“Oh, I’m going to get to know you on every level.”
He leaned close but didn’t kiss her. She was surprised how deep her disappointment ran. She wanted him to. It seemed like the perfect moment. But she’d drawn lines, and while he might nudge them, Marcus wasn’t going to outright disrespect her wishes. Damn it.
She closed her eyes and moaned quietly as she looked away. “I can’t decide if your cockiness turns me on or annoys me.”
“Oh, it annoys you. But being annoyed turns you on, so it works out well for me.”
Cupping her mug in her hands, she stared at him. “Did Mallory really talk about us getting married?”
“Yes, but she was just teasing me. She learned that from you.”
She drew a slow breath. “You love when I tease you.”
“I love everything about you. Well. Almost.”
He smirked, and she glared playfully.
“She just wants to see you happy.”
“And she thinks I need a man to be happy?”
“No.” He ran his hand over her hair. “No, you most certainly don’t. But I do like to think you need me.”
Swallowing as that familiar anxiety—the one that warned her against putting too much faith in anyone but herself—started to rise, Annie leaned away and pulled his hand from her. He clutched on to hers, though, refusing to be dismissed.
“You sure want to put the cart before the horse, don’t you?”
He smirked. “Not as much as
you want to shoot the horse before the journey even begins.”
She laughed, mostly because she couldn’t argue. Patting his hand, she pulled free as she stood and slid her uneaten breakfast toward him. “I’m going to get ready for the wedding before you decide which retirement community we should move into.”
“Stonehill Senior Village,” he called as she left the kitchen. “They have an indoor pool and shuffleboard.”
The sun shone high in the sky, only a few white clouds peppering the perfect blue. The lakefront air was a bit chilly but not as cold as it could have been in April. Marcus chuckled as the ceremony started with Kara’s granddaughter tossing white petals like the professional flower girl she insisted she was. Her brown hair was swept up in a bun, and her fancy dress flowed as she walked dramatically down the makeshift aisle.
Sean and Toby, Paul’s sons, stood next to their father, and he beamed with happiness as Dianna’s sons, Jason and Sam, walked at her sides. With their four college-aged boys standing around them and family and friends looking on, Paul and Dianna became husband and wife.
Annie sniffed as Paul slipped a ring on Dianna’s finger. Marcus imagined if Annie weren’t feeling so sentimental, she would have put an elbow into his ribs when he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held a handkerchief out. Instead, she snatched the cloth and dabbed her eyes as her brother kissed his wife.
“Okay,” Sam sang out after a several seconds, “your children don’t need to see this.”
The couple parted as everyone laughed. A moment later, Paul was hugging Annie tightly. Marcus envied how close Annie was to her siblings. He was determined that eventually she’d be that free with her affection for him, but jealousy still unreasonably bit at his gut at how willing she was to hug and kiss her family.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said and then hugged her new sister while Marcus and Paul shook hands.
“How are you doing?” Marcus asked Annie as the newlyweds moved on to embrace other members of their family.
“I have all these…things going on inside me.”
He nodded with understanding. “Those are called feelings, sweetheart.”
She wiped her cheeks dry again. “My eyes won’t stop leaking. I think they’re broken.”
He laughed and put his arm around her again. He expected her to remind him of her bubble—the personal space that she preferred to keep intact—but she actually leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Marcus chuckled. “I think you could be happy.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
Wrapping his other arm around her, he used this unusual moment of vulnerability to hold her. “You might want to get used to it. I plan on making you all kinds of happy.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t. I can’t handle this. I need bickering and opposition.”
“There will be plenty of that, too.”
She tried to pull away as Mallory approached them, but Marcus kept one arm around Annie and put the other around her daughter. Annie looked up at him. Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he felt her body relax a bit and she didn’t pull away.
“That was a lovely wedding, don’t you think?” he asked Mallory.
She grinned at Annie. “There is something very lovely about small weddings.”
Annie’s mouth fell open, probably to tell them both where to stick it, as the photographer approached.
“Smile,” said the kid, who didn’t look like he was even out of high school.
Marcus pulled his girls closer to him and smiled. When the photographer walked off, he chuckled at the look on Annie’s face. “That’ll look good on the mantel, don’t you think?”
“She’s going to kill you.” Mallory laughed and walked off.
Annie gave him a side-eye glance and then pulled away and joined in a conversation with her sisters-in-law. Marcus followed her lead and starting mingling. When dinner was served, however, he moved to Annie’s side and sat at a table with her and Mallory.
“So, you two,” Annie said, cutting her chicken. “Let’s clear this up right now. If I decide to get married, it’ll be on my terms.”
“And Marcus’s, I assume,” Mallory said innocently.
Annie stabbed at her lunch. “Who says I’d marry Marcus? Maybe I have better options.”
Mallory smirked. “I hear Oscar the Grouch is taken, but Grumpy Cat may still be available.”
Annie narrowed her eyes, but Marcus howled with laughter. He loved when Mallory and Annie engaged in their native language of sarcasm. Few bounced quick wit off Annie as well as her daughter.
Annie turned her glare to him. “You two are just like peas in a pod these days, huh?”
Mallory smiled at Marcus. “I happen to like him. Not only does he tolerate you, but he seems to actually enjoy your company. Two pluses in my book.”
“What book is that? ‘How to Marry Off Your Mother’?”
Marcus tried to hide his grin when Annie glared at him, but he knew he wasn’t doing a good job. “Your mother hasn’t quite come to terms with this change in our relationship. She still thinks she has the power to resist me.”
“Oh, I have the power.”
“Come on, Mom. Look at his dimples.”
Annie snorted and picked her fork up again. “Those aren’t dimples, Mallory. Those are potholes on the road to hell.”
“Good day?” Marcus asked, startling Annie.
She gasped and looked over her shoulder as he stepped into the living room. “Damn it. You scared me.”
“Whatever it takes to get that stone-cold heart of yours to go pitter-patter.”
She returned her focus to the view outside the big window. It was dark, but the moon was reflecting off the water, creating a mesmerizing view. “It’s late. Why are you still up?”
“Why are you still up?”
“Thinking.”
He sat on the couch next to her and looked at the lake as well. “About?”
She took a deep breath when his knee bumped hers and an unexpected thrill made her stomach clench. “I just… I hate change, and everything is changing so fast.”
Putting his hand on her knee, he waited for her to look at him. “Are you really happy with the way things were between us, Annie?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Working late every night, ignoring how we felt, going home to an empty house. Getting up the next day and doing it again. That made you happy?”
She pressed her lips together and focused on the night sky again. “If you’re going to psychoanalyze me, I’m going to bed.”
“I’m not trying to psychoanalyze you. I’m trying to have a conversation that we’ve been avoiding for too long. You can’t keep going through life bottling things up, Annie. It isn’t healthy.”
She frowned. “This certainly feels more like an analysis than a conversation.”
“It’s time to let go of a little of that control and let someone take care of you for a change.”
“And you’re the one to do that, huh?”
“Yeah, I am the one. I’m the one who can see right through that cold façade of yours. You use sarcasm and frigid interaction hoping no one will see that you’re lonely, and you’re tired, and you’re ready for your chance to have what Matt and Paul have. But you know what? I’ll see your sarcasm and raise you some cold hard truth. You have used taking care of Paul and Matt and Mallory as an excuse to not let anyone in. You’ve kept me at arm’s length for years because you’re scared.”
“Because you were my employee.”
“Because you think if you let me in, I would hurt you, so it’s easier to be aloof and act like you don’t need me and that you don’t love me. But you do.”
Tears stung her eyes without warning. She swallowed hard, but it was useless. They sat on her bottom lids, threatening to spill over. Lookin
g out the window to avoid his piercing gaze, she shook her head.
He tightened his hold on her knee. “I see through you, Annie. I’m not intimidated by your bitterness. Hell, you’ve earned it. You have every right to think that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself. You’ve yet to find someone to prove you wrong. But you can rely on me. I’m not going to leave you holding the bag while I drown myself in a bottle of tequila.”
She laughed quietly as she wiped a tear from her cheek. “Well, we’re pushing fifty, Marcus, so I’m not too concerned about you leaving me with nothing but a fetus and a late rent payment.”
“But you do think I’ll leave you. Don’t you?”
Her lip trembled, betraying her determination not to cry. “I like where we’re at. I can trust where we’re at. Even though you were joking, once you start throwing in things like living together and…marriage…” She sighed and bit her lip.
“Then things feel real and that’s frightening.”
“I don’t need romance to care about you, Marcus.”
“I don’t need either, Annie. I already care about you. I love you. But it sure as hell would be nice to hold you now and then.” He exhaled loudly and looked down at where his hand was resting on her leg. “Here’s the thing. When I go home at night, and my house is quiet and my bed is empty, my heart aches for you.” He put his free hand to his chest. “I physically hurt because you aren’t in my life in all the places I want you to be.”
She swallowed hard. Damn him and his emotional confessions. “Maybe it’s just indigestion.”
He smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m so goddamned in love with you, the fear that you don’t feel the same is tearing me apart inside.”
That did it. She creased her brow as her tears overflowed. “You know, when I was younger, I had all these plans for how my life was going to go. I had this path planned out: college, career—I wanted to be the first female CEO of some huge corporation and have a big family with all these kids and a great husband. A white picket fence and a mansion.” She laughed flatly. “After Mom died, I kept saying to myself I’d see Paul and Matt off to college because Dad sure as hell wasn’t going to take care of them. I decided I’d work as hard as I had to, and then it would be my turn. Then I got mixed up with Mal’s dad, and he bailed. So I told myself, I’d work hard and see Mallory grow up, and then it would be my turn. Eventually, I just forgot about me. About that path I wanted to take. I look at my life now, and it’s nothing like what I wanted. I don’t just mean the career and the kids, Marcus. I mean me. Donna and Dianna are so domestic and maternal and warm, and I just… I can’t be like that. That’s not me.”
