“Shhh. The Ladies Auxiliary is watching.”
He leaned back and Pippa’s focus shifted to find a row of women in a rainbow array of dresses all turned her way, beady eyes pinned on her. And Griff. And the fact that she was all but in his lap.
Her eyes caught on Lady Calliope, who watched her with a small smile. An understanding smile. As if she knew exactly what was going on. Pippa wished she could take a quick second to go ask her, as she suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore.
Applause broke out, and Pippa flinched, thinking for a second it was for her. But then Griff stood, clapping, and she did too, while Brent and Honey bounded down the aisle, laughing, waving, moving through what seemed a thousand pairs of arms. The Dixon cousins and Nina trailed giddily in their wake, the groomsmen bumping chests and crying, “Let’s party!”
“It’s done?” Pippa asked.
“All done,” Griff said.
Meaning she didn’t need him anymore. It should have been a blessed relief; instead, it left her feeling strangely bereft.
Then Griff held out the crook of his arm. “Coming?”
She thought about thanking him for his help and ignoring him the rest of the night, as she’d planned to from the beginning. But looking up at him in the dying sunlight, so tall, so broad, so beautiful, so strong, so deeply entrenched in the best and worst parts of her life, she knew she couldn’t ignore him for all the money in the world.
She tucked her hand into the crook and tried instead to ignore the frisson of heat and hope incited by their contact, the ensuing warmth that touched every soft place inside of her, and said, “Come on, bad boy. Let’s give them something to really talk about.”
The bridal party had been whisked away for photos, so the crowd was bundled into the ballroom, which was set up for drinking and dancing.
The open bar was already three deep in guests, and hip-high cocktail tables draped in swathes of perfect white linen littered the outside of what would serve as a dance floor. Open French doors let the outside in, with views of the glorious grounds now lit with thousands of twinkling fairy lights in the looming dusk. Inside, the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band rocked until the walls shook.
Pippa had managed to catch up with the gang she’d gone to school with, many of whom had married one another, most of whom had seen her website, or heard of it at least. One talked about how her niece loved the thing and even thanked Pippa for helping give the once painfully shy girl the confidence to be herself.
As always, they asked where she got her ideas for her raw and honest musings. As always, she smiled and said, “Everywhere, so be careful what you say!”
Truth was, in the early days, she’d waitressed, washed dogs, manned the loan desk at a pawnshop to make money to simply survive. Back then there had been times when she’d lived out of her car.
But the extreme quiet, the long silences, of those early days had been everything. No reckless mother making arbitrary decisions about her life, or boyfriends with ten-year plans, or best friends who begged her to stay in one place forever. It had been her, her rust bucket Firebird, café Wi-Fi, and a secondhand laptop. For the first time in her life she’d been able to hear herself think, and she’d started blogging as a way to delete where she’d come from, so she could get where she was going, always with a little P.S. at the end, an affirmation she’d learned from the events of her life.
Then her ramblings had found some fans. Then more. She’d scrounged up some advertising dollars. Started to find some traction. To feel like she might be onto something special. To feel like, for the first time in her entire life, she’d been heard.
Until one day, her candid words had stopped an eleven-year-old girl who’d been mercilessly bullied at school from overdosing on her mother’s sleeping pills. The mother of that same girl, an editor at Miss magazine, couldn’t have thanked Pippa enough for simply being. A month later Miss had named P.S. one of the Top Ten Websites for Tweens. And that was when things had exploded.
She’d lived in an amazed daze ever since. And then the invitation to revisit Bellefleur had turned up in the mail and her inflated self-confidence had popped, just like that, and Pippa had begun to wonder if she knew what she was talking about at all.
When the pressure of smiling at all the nice things being said about her work began to press against the inside of her skull, it was a relief when she felt Griff’s hand land possessively on her waist. Well, as much of a relief as anything that made her tummy tighten, her thighs clench, and saliva pool in her mouth could be classified as such.
“Excuse me, folks,” Griff said, all smiles and charm that had the other women, even the married ones, fluttering their eyelashes and fixing their hair, “but this is our song.”
Pippa gave her champagne to one of the girls, who watched her with a mix of understanding and envy, as Pippa was hauled out to the dance floor, spun to the tip of Griff’s long arm, and curled back into his embrace.
At the sexy twang of a slide guitar, she turned to the band in time to hear them sing about doing bad things. “This is our song? The theme to True Blood?”
She felt his laughter as a rumble through her chest.
“If you say so. Now shut up and dance.”
She rested her head against his chest, breathed out long and slow, and let herself enjoy it. She’d made contact with both Honey and Brent and seen them get married with her own two eyes. And from that alone, her world felt lighter. She could do with giving herself a small break.
“Well, well. Don’t the two of you look dear together.” With an audible sigh, Pippa lifted her head to find Lady Calliope shaking her groove thing next to them.
“Looking mighty fine tonight yourself, Lady Calliope,” Griff said, bringing out the big guns with his most charming smile.
Lady Calliope had been around the block enough times not to fall for all that. Her eyes narrowed. “How did this come about, then, what with you two livin’ on opposite sides of the country?”
“Have blog, will travel,” Pippa said at the same time Griff came up with, “I build houses all over.”
Then their eyes locked, the air suddenly thick with meaning. Their answers had been so quick off the tongue it was as if each had quietly thought how it might have worked, if it were in fact real.
“Save me a dance now, Lady Calliope,” Griff insisted before moving them gracefully out of Lady Calliope’s vicinity, only to nearly knock into his cousin Rainer Delacroix, who was dancing with Honey’s aunt Opaline, who was by turns simpering at Rainer and shooting daggers at Lady Calliope.
The intricate family squabblings and politics of the place she had not missed. She was thankful when Griff curled them past with great grace.
“You got some moves there, Mr. Delacroix,” Pippa said, the lightness of her tone belying the heaviness tugging at her everywhere his hard body pressed into hers.
“You have no idea,” he said, his voice rough as he stopped with the fancy stuff and pulled her close. And there was no mistaking the heat flickering beneath the shards of blue. No denying the hot waves that swept through her in response. No getting away from the way his big body pressed long and hard against hers.
She swallowed. Hard. He noticed. The edges of his mouth curving into a knowing smile. The mouth that all too recently had set her nerve endings on fire. When that mouth moved nearer, as if she was dragging it closer through sheer willpower, she curled her fingers into the lapels of his jacket and hurried him the hell up.
She moaned in frustration as his mouth bypassed her lips for her ear. Though when warm breath scooted across her neck, it sent shivers up and down her spine. Her eyes fluttered closed and she had to bite her lip so as not to moan in pure and utter craving.
And then he whispered, “Pip Squeak, I’ve had the hots for you for the longest time.”
Thankfully she had a hold of Griff as her legs buckled under her.
“It’s been a couple of hours at most,” she just managed. “I mean the rumors always went that you wor
ked quick but—”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”
She didn’t. Well, she couldn’t. Because he couldn’t possibly be talking about—
“May I cut in?”
Griff looked ready to deck any man who dared, until he saw it was his father. And Pippa watched in fascination as myriad emotions shot across Griff’s face. Love, respect, authority. Two giants of the South, who hugged.
Pippa’s heart twisted and melted and yearned the same way it always had with Griff’s family. Forget the money, forget the power, forget the history, and they still made for such a tempting picture.
“Pippa?”
Pippa turned at that voice, with a kind of compulsion she’d never managed to deny, to find Griff’s beautiful mother watching her. Ms. Marie, who’d raised two strapping, ambitious men, both of whom Pippa had found it impossible not to love, though in very different ways. Ms. Marie with tears in her eyes. Oh, hell. Pippa was not going to cry!
Griff’s spectacular mother took Pippa’s face between her garden-roughened hands and looked her right in the eye. Pippa’s heart beat so hard she could feel it in her cheeks. “Pippa, my sweet girl, I am so glad you’re here. So glad you’re back.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” Pippa managed through her tight throat. “Thank you for everything.”
“Thank Brent,” Ms. Marie said with a tender smile. “Smart boy of mine. He wanted you here, for Honey.” She then kissed Pippa on both cheeks, then released her to her husband.
“Nice to see you, kiddo,” Griff’s father said, and when Pippa looked into the smiling blue eyes of Robert Delacroix, a man who could have given Paul Newman a run for his money, she melted into a hug as strong and warm as he’d given his own son.
Her connection to this family was deep and entangled. She hadn’t let herself remember how much so. And now she found herself stunned that she’d managed to pull away from all that temptation when she was young and alone and scared. Now that she understood more fully what she’d turned her back on, she wondered if, in the same situation, she’d have the strength to do it again?
Griff stood at the patio door—some fruity cocktail Lady Calliope had insisted would change his life cooling his palm—watching Pippa. She was still dancing. With the third guy she’d danced with that hour.
And while he itched to dive in, to haul the guy’s hands off her body, to put his own hands and lips everywhere in their stead, he gritted his teeth and kept his distance.
What had he been thinking telling her he’d had the hots for her like some randy twenty-year-old? Even if it was exactly how he felt, her small soft body all melted against his, the scent of her everywhere, the taste of that crazy kiss still on his lips while she sassed him like he wasn’t twice her size.
His intention had been to get her alone and thank her for being such a gutsy little thing. To make sure she knew that she’d shown him, a guy who’d had more chances, more opportunities, more options than she’d ever been given, how to take charge of his own life.
If she hadn’t have left that night, if he hadn’t made himself let her do what she had to do, he might be heading up property development giant Delacroix Development to that day. And Building Blocks—the business he’d created from scratch that gave him such joy, such pride, and the belief that he finally deserved the good things that life gave him—might never have been.
Watching her laugh, her head thrown back to release that boisterously joyous sound, he found himself remembering the first time he’d seen her.
It had been the Fourth of July picnic, his first summer home from college. He’d been restless at school, even more restless about coming home, the future at Delacroix Development looming ever closer along with the impending sense that his life was hurtling down a path he didn’t want.
Hands in pockets, forehead by then in a near permanent scowl, he’d ambled down to the park to find his family, not sure how he was going to pull off a smile, when he’d heard a squeal of pure delight. He’d lifted his head, the summer breeze catching his hair, and bringing with it the scent of ketchup and mustard and blistered sausages. And the sound of female laughter, wild and free.
His eyes had followed the sound to find a girl, a couple of years younger than him, skinny in frayed jeans and a Bellefleur high T-shirt, dark hair flying, glinting hazel eyes bright, by then nearly screaming as she caught a football while Brent came at her like a Mack truck.
She’d swerved, ducked, and Brent, the Pirates’ first string left tackle, had missed her by an inch. She’d passed off, commando-crawled away, scrambled to her feet, then beckoned Brent with a fearlessness that had gripped Griff like nothing had gripped him in a long time.
This was the most unfettered person he’d ever laid eyes on. He could see it in every loose movement. Every hungry glance. And as someone with so many things anchoring him to the place, he was jealous and enthralled from that first second. He hadn’t even realized he was jogging toward the makeshift field until Brent had caught the girl, whipped her around, and planted a kiss on her laughing mouth that showed the town, and Griff, the girl belonged to him.
Griff rolled his shoulders. He’d been eighteen at the time. Pippa sixteen at most. He’d tried real hard to convince himself back then that she was young, too young, too flighty, too free. It had been the only way he’d survived it.
That Fourth of July, Brent had looked up and seen him, called his name, gestured him over to meet his girl. And Griff knew girls. It was the one thing that had come easy in his life that he’d never had a problem with. And when Griff’s eyes had slid to Pippa’s, the tilt of her chin, the straightening of her shoulders, hadn’t been able to hide the way her pupils had darkened, all for him.
While Brent had grinned and looked at her like a lovesick puppy, sparks had arced like Fourth of July fireworks between Griff and his little brother’s girl.
He’d started dating Debbie Camden that same day, and a different girl every holiday he’d come home. As if that might temper the flare in Pippa Montgomery’s soulful hazel eyes. Or the heavy tug in his own gut every time he thought of her.
It hadn’t made a lick of difference.
Neither, it seemed, had a decade apart.
The kiss in the kitchen all those years before wasn’t a fluke. The kiss in the hall upstairs had been incendiary. Every time he looked at her, touched her, thought of her, spoke to her, it was like a chemical reaction went off inside him.
A decade ago, she hadn’t been his to want, and it had had precious little to do with Brent. He’d had to let her go, needed for little Pippa Montgomery, with nobody to support her, nowhere to go, to make it out of there, to ignite his own emancipation.
Now she was single. He was single. They were grown-ups. He was free. And he wanted more.
He wanted Pippa.
So what the hell was he doing letting her dance with other men?
He pressed his feet into the floor, not allowing himself to take a single step. Because every time he’d caught her since that day, she’d still somehow managed to slip away.
She’d left Brent to forge her own life. He got that. But her mother had been a serial runner. What if Pippa had gotten the taste for it? What if she’d gotten good at it? What if it was in the blood?
He’d worked hard to start his own business, because his blood, Delacroix blood, meant something to him too - Delacroixes didn’t know how to fail. Meaning that he’d never had to actually chase anything his whole life.
If she ran, how far would be really be willing to chase her?
Chapter Six
Pippa was half-relieved, half-disappointed to find herself at a table in the reception tent a ways away from Griff’s.
Griff was near the front with his parents and Judge and Mrs. Moreau, while Pippa was at a table of singles, all from Bellefleur High—Go Pirates!—including a couple of ex-football players who insisted on singing a gin-soaked version of the school fight song every time Brent’s name was mentioned.
When, during the speeches, Pippa realized she was poking at the remnants of her dessert, a crème brûlée with hazelnut gelato that the insanely talented chef Beau Vaughn—another Bellefleur High guy—had served up, she put down her spoon and rubbed at her eyes. Driving much of the night—after kicking off a fund-raising sleepover at the middle school in Austin, Texas, the evening before—too much champagne, catching up with so many old friends, and getting the monkey off her back had finally caught up with her. She felt like she could fall asleep where she sat.
And then every time she looked across the room and caught Griff watching her, she felt like she could go on all night. But then what? He’d go back to Boston, she’d meander her way back to LA. And all the regret she’d spent the day releasing would be replaced by a whole new batch.
A batch she honestly thought might be harder to negate than the first. Either way, she knew she needed to get some cold water on her face and fast.
When Aunt Opaline headed into the fifth stanza of the poem she’d written especially for the happy couple, Pippa pushed back her chair and, grabbing her purse, eased away from the table.
As she made to sneak out, like a moth to a flame, her gaze was drawn to Griff’s table. And as if he’d sensed that she’d hadn’t quite decided whether to find said water elsewhere in the house or elsewhere in the state, he stood as well. He raised an eyebrow in question.
Whatever she might have mimed in response was drowned out by Vance Tyler, the emcee. “Aunt Opaline, folks! So unless anyone else has some words for the bride and groom…?”
And that’s when Pippa found herself blinded by a spotlight.
When Honey Got Married Page 20
