“Pippa Montgomery, ladies and gents!” the emcee said. “Get her a microphone.”
When one of the younger cousins shoved a microphone at her, Pippa took it in self-defense so as not to end up with the thing up her nose. She made to shove it right back, but that’s when she saw Honey, leaning forward, expectation written all over her face.
Honey was the kind of girl who could have been friends with anyone. The kind of girl who’d spotted a new girl whose mother had morals as loose as duck’s skin in winter, and taken her under her powerful wing. A girl who’d apparently had a crush on Brent as long as she could remember, who’d been nothing but supportive when Brent had asked Pippa out. A girl who’d created a wedding enough for ten brides and who’d looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown for much of the evening. Just the kind of kind, loving, hopeful person Pippa hoped to unearth from inside of herself every time she wrote a P.S. blog. And most of all, a friend Pippa should have never left behind.
As Pippa lifted the mic to her mouth, she glanced across the tent to find Griff, hoping to get a shot of the confidence she felt when she saw herself through his eyes. But the spotlight was too bright in her eyes to see much of anything. So after the feedback settled, reverting southern, she said, “Hey y’all. Um, okay. So, those of you who remember me from Honey and Brent’s high school days would know that the two people sitting up there I once knew very well. In fact for much of my time in these parts they were my family.”
Honey’s hand went to her mouth, her eyes glistening, and Pippa suddenly found herself trying to hold herself together.
“Watching them together today, seeing the adoration in Honey’s eyes, the felicitousness and care in Brent’s every touch, well, it’s given even me hope. Hope that true love is really out there for those willing to open up to it. For those as intrepid and deserving as the two of them.”
Her words weren’t unique under the circumstances, but as Brent’s hand curled around his new bride’s and held it tight, they rang wretchedly true. Love, trust, and support buffeted Pippa in waves, and it was all she could not to choke on the swell of emotion swirling about inside of her.
The image of Griff slammed into her head, all six feet four inches of him in all his big, buff glory. She was totally in lust with him. Had been for forever. And he’d admitted he had the hots for her. But if, even for a second, she pretended what she and Griff felt for each other was even a fraction of what Honey and Brent felt, it’d make her a bigger fraud than she’d ever imagined possible.
She somehow found enough blood in her suddenly cold and shaky arms to find her glass of champagne and lift it high. “To the bride and groom, love to you both.”
As the crowd stood and toasted and spoons began clinking against glasses, Pippa grabbed her sparkly purse, turned, and headed for the opening of the tent, tears of exhaustion and hopelessness filling her eyes until she was walking, then running, through a blur.
She got as far as the steps leading up to the house when a hand clamped around her elbow. She didn’t need to turn to know it was Griff.
“Now what?”
He flinched at the volume of her voice, then looking around, drew her back down the stairs and along the side of the house into the garden of perfectly tended roses that masked the entry to a maze of sharp clipped hedges.
Once they’d gone several twists and turns, and found themselves in near darkness, Griff asked, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“What does it matter? I’ve done everything I came here to do, and now it’s time for me to leave.”
“Who says you’ve done everything you came here to do?”
Pippa’s mouth popped open at the raw insinuation in his voice. But she was too tired, too emotionally wrung out by what she’d realized under the spotlight. She stuck her hand on her hip and glared at him. “Are you suggesting I can’t leave because I’ve yet to do you?”
She couldn’t see his face. Moonlight rained down on the back of his head, his shoulders blocking out any ambient light reflecting off the big white house behind him. His eyes were dark circles above his now-rigid jaw.
“You can’t scare me away, Pip,” he said, his voice now eerily calm. “Brent might have wanted to smooth out your sass, but I like it just fine. In fact, it’s a good part of the reason I’ve never been able to get you out of my mind. From the day we first met to right now.”
Pippa shrugged—at least, she tried, but with his hands burning prints into her upper arms, his face all slicing shadows, the scent of him clawing at the deepest darkest parts of her desire, it came out as more of a sway in his direction. “Please. I can’t even remember when we first met.”
“Liar.”
She felt his smile even as she couldn’t see it, and it felt way more dangerous than his ire. Especially when he was dead right.
Great. She was a fraud and a liar.
“I was two years older,” he said, “a hell of a lot more experienced, home from college, twice your size, and that day you gave me this look that said, ‘I’ve heard all about you, boyo, and I for one am not impressed.’”
Pippa swallowed, but her mouth was now dry as sand. Drier still when his hands moved down her arms to cup her elbows. He stepped closer until she met with a hedge, the branches prickling against her bare back, making her curve into him.
Even so, she tilted her chin as she said, “Ever thought that maybe you weren’t that impressive?”
At that, Griff laughed out loud. His head thrown back, his face catching the moonlight. All angled cheeks and curving lips and eyes like a stormy summer sky.
She must have whimpered at the delectable sight, as Griff’s laughter stopped. He breathed deeply. Then with a groan that sounded exactly as frustrated and confused and aroused as she felt, he crushed his lips to hers.
She tried fighting it this time. Truly she did. She was pissed at him for being so sure of himself. So sure of her. But this was Griff, and the heat swelling through her like a wave of lava destroyed every remaining denial in its wake.
She threw her arms around his neck, pressed her whole self along his, and opened her mouth to him. His tongue swept inside, tracing her teeth, tangling with her tongue, driving her plum crazy.
Desperate for him, and for even the hint of something real and warm and true, she slid her hands beneath his jacket, shucking it from his back to gather at his elbows. Then her fingers were at his tie, tugging it free. At his shirt buttons, liberating them until his shirt lay open, revealing an expanse of hot male skin. Of Griff, all toned and muscled from years of football. Leaned down with a few random scars from years of building houses, and not from afar as it could have been, but with his own bare hands. Good God, she’d never thought the man could get any hotter. Turned out, for her, self-sufficiency was a hot button.
She traced her fingers over his chest, then splayed them flat to explore his ribs, her nails scraping down the arrow of dark hair that curled about his navel before disappearing south. Reveling in the way he flinched, flexed, his muscles at her command.
Until he tangled one hand in her hair, slid the other to her backside and pulled her to him, and kissed her until she thought she was going to pass out.
Her skin was so sensitized she had to bite her lip to stop from calling out as he kissed his way down her neck, his hand finding the bow at the back of her neck, sliding it open with a single tug as if he had magic in his fingers. And then his mouth was over her breast, drawing it in as though he couldn’t get enough. He gathered her acres of skirt with his talented hand before cupping between her legs, his gifted thumb sliding along the seam of her panties.
Soaking up every sensation, opening herself to him as she’d fantasized a million times over, she gripped his hair, his shoulders, anything she could so as not to crumble to the grass.
Which turned out didn’t matter as all too soon there they were, his jacket sweetly tucked beneath her head, the man of her dreams poised over her, an ever sweeter ache pouring through her as
his thick hardness nudged against her, as if he waited upon her final acquiescence. As if he needed it.
All he’d ever had to do was ask.
She slid a hand behind his head, and he pressed inside her as his mouth took hers and smothered the cry as he filled her more fully than she’d ever known possible.
And okay, so she was impressed. By everything that was good and holy she was impressed! Hot skin, hot Griff, more, bigger, better, sending waves of pure pleasure rippling through her.
Heat spiraled into her center. Sensation tumbling and pressing and stretching and contracting. Then came a beautiful pinpoint of perfect silence before bliss rippled through her, and even Griff’s kisses weren’t enough to silence her. She wrapped her legs around him, wanting more, taking everything as his every muscle contracted and he found release inside her.
Pippa drifted slowly back to earth to feel a stick digging into her back and leaves crunching in her hair. Then the tinkle of laughing voices all too close brought her back to the present with a snap.
Her eyes found Griff’s. His hair was a gorgeous mess. His eyes wild. It was all she could do not to roll him over, straddle him and ride him until she screamed out his name. Again.
But he stood, slid his pants over his hips, then pulled her to her feet. His hands were gentle as he roped the ribbons behind her neck and tied the bow.
She buttoned Griff’s shirt. Found his jacket and flicked away the fresh-cut grass and bruised rose petals before holding it so that he could re-dress himself. Then before she could stop herself, she ran her hands through his hair, smoothing it down.
When he reciprocated, running his hands over her hair, pulling out a twig, then taking his time to add a curl at the end, the tenderness was almost her undoing.
She could have been forgiven for imagining a glimmer of love, trust, support in those gentle actions. But it was the occasion. Nothing more.
Because while their chemistry was potent, it wasn’t real. It was a moment in the moonlight. And if she was going to stop being a fraud, she was going to have to start trusting the voice she’d first heard in the peace and quiet all those years before.
“Pip,” Griff said, his voice ragged.
She said nothing, just tightened his tie.
“What you said in there,” he continued. “About being willing to open up to love. That was about me.”
Pippa let him go, ostensibly to tug a high heel from the damp grass, but also to begin the inevitable disentanglement. “It wasn’t about you, Griff. Or me. It was about them.”
“Pip—”
When he reached to cup her cheek, she shrank away. She couldn’t start thinking him tender. Or romantic. He was pragmatic, always had been. Leaving the family business behind to start one much more suited to him proved it. As did that long-ago night when he’d kissed her like he’d meant it, then drank his damn juice and wished her a safe trip.
“Pippa. Look at me.”
She took in a deep breath and did just that. Memorizing every angle, every inch of his beautiful face. Knowing she’d never regret being with him. With a man who managed to look at her like she was precious and brave all at once.
Then he surprised her by saying, “Thank you.”
“For?” she asked on a cough, wondering if she’d thought too soon.
His mouth kicked up sexily at one corner as he got her meaning. “For that too,” he said with a tilt to the grass, “but mostly for coming to Bellefleur. Back then. It changed us, Pippa. All of us. Showed us how to think beyond what we had, to what we really wanted. I hope in coming back you can see you’ve never been forgotten. That I never forgot you.”
When the determination that had flowed through her mere moments before showed signs of crumbling, she steeled herself for all she was worth. She had to. If she’d ever been worried she might be swamped by Brent’s life plan, Griff was the kind of man who overshadowed everything else within a five-mile radius.
“Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot.” With that, she stepped away.
He followed. Was he being purposely obtuse? “But even while watching you leave was the gutsiest thing I’d ever seen, I’m not so sure you should have left.”
Damn it! Her feet came to a halt. Damn him. It could have ended on such a high. Simple, clean, magical, and instead he was making her feel all tangled all over again. “How can it possibly help to say that now?”
“Because I can’t not say it anymore.”
“So why the hell didn’t you ask me to stay?”
A muscle worked in Griff’s cheek. “I didn’t have the right.”
“Who says?” Pippa rose up on her toes, and jabbed Griff in the chest to push her point home.
Griff ran a hard, fast hand up the back of his hair. “You wanted to leave. You needed to leave. What kind of friend would I have been to have stopped you?”
Emotion rising so hard and fast within her, Pippa clenched her hands into fists so as not to poke him again. Then had to fight the urge to pummel him like a two-year-old having a tantrum. “A friend? We were never anything as innocuous as friends, Griff Delacroix. And while we’re saying things that should have been said a long time ago, you were right back there. I am a liar. I do remember the first time we met. I even remember the first time I even heard your name.”
She wished for sunlight, anything so that she could read his dark, shadowed eyes. To know if any of this was making a dent. But he seemed so big, strong, stoic, while with each new confession she felt like she was being summarily stripped bare.
But the only way to leave Bellefleur behind without leaving a part of herself behind this time was with the truth. All of it.
“There was always something there with you, Griff. A spark. A recognition that I never felt with Brent. You’re a smart guy, you must have had some idea. And knowing that, you kissed me like you meant it, then let me go.” He reached out for her then, but she shoved him away. “What happened tonight is simply something that should have happened years ago. A way to get each other out of our systems. I’m heading back to LA. Leaving Bellefleur and all its ghosts behind me for good. And if you still think yourself any kind of friend of mine, don’t follow.”
And with that she walked out of the bushes, into the light, into the stream of guests now milling about, barely taking in the string quartet playing in the tent, the band back rocking the ballroom, the sea of faces, some calling her name, as she headed down the dogtrot and out the front door.
Her shoes crunched on the gravel as she all but jogged back to her Firebird. But rather than feel any kind of relief that her getaway car was just around the corner, she felt pissed that she still owned the thing. It was a bomb. It should never have left the swamp it was found in. And yet she’d never sold it, as it was the one last thing connecting her to Bellefleur. To the Delacroixes. To Griff.
Emotions scattered all over the place, one last memory sneaked through her defenses.
She remembered standing outside the Delacroixes’ five-car garage one summer holiday. The Firebird’s hood was popped so she could gaze in wonder at the engine, barely able to believe the car she’d scrimped and saved to buy from the guy with the swamp, was hers. It was her ticket to freedom. To choice. To the world.
Then came the crunch of footsteps on the gravel behind her. She’d known it was Griff before she’d even turned around. Something about the lazy strides, the prickle of skin at the back of her neck, the wave of heat that hit her before his large body had blocked out the sun.
He’d leaned beside her then, his big hands curling around metal. Then he’d laughed and shaken his head. “Pip Squeak,” he’d said in that deep Louisiana drawl that did exquisite things to the backs of her knees, “what have you gone and done?”
“Bought and paid for my own car, which is more than you’ve ever done.”
He’d turned to look at her then. His dark shaggy hair haloed by the afternoon sun. Dust motes dancing in a ray of sunlight. The thick scent of bougainvillea and summer in her no
se. His face mere inches from her own.
“You got me there, Pip Squeak,” he’d said, his voice husky and deep. She hadn’t dared breathe for fear of fracturing the moment.
When she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, his eyes had moved to her mouth. Had darkened. And he’d breathed in long and slow, his nostrils flaring, his head shaking ever so slowly, as if he couldn’t help thinking bad, bad thoughts.
She’d been seventeen years old and it was the first moment she’d known what true desire felt like. Not a crush. Or puppy love. But grown up, hot, luscious, rich, decadent, dangerous need.
Then Brent had arrived, twirling the keys of the BMW his folks had bought him the day he got his license. He’d bounced up to them, flung an arm over Pippa’s shoulders, like a buddy would, and grinning, said how cool her car was, and dragged her away to meet the gang for ice cream.
She’d looked over her shoulder, half expecting Griff to be watching her walk away with that dark brooding thing he did so deliciously well, but he’d grabbed a rag and some kind of long stick thing, and was fiddling with her engine.
It wasn’t the last time she’d found him beneath her hood that summer. And at the end of those holidays, her car had started for the first time.
She shook her head hard, as if to rid it of the memory for good.
The minute she got back to LA she was selling the damn car. Hell, maybe she’d push it back in the swamp in which it had been found before she even left the city limits. Then she’d take a bus to LA. She’d hitch if that’s what it took.
Then no regrets, no loose ends, no looking back, she could get on with her life for real.
Okay, so she looked back once as she approached her car. But no one was on her tail.
She’d told Griff not to follow and he’d listened. Just as he had all those years before.
She fumbled for her key, got in her car, shoved the key in the ignition, and stilled.
She stared down the road. Streetlamps lit the rows of trees framing the pavement, sending gossamer shadows of Spanish moss fluttering over the whitewashed wall leading out of town.
When Honey Got Married Page 21
