He reached for the shower nozzles and turned them on. “If I’m still home when she gets here, tell her I’m gone.”
Sadie squeezed the face lotion on the pads of her fingers, then rubbed it into her cheeks and forehead. “She loves you, Vince.”
“She makes my brain burst with all her talk of hair and makeup and loser friends.” He tested the water temperature with his hand. “She treats me like one of her girlfriends, and it’s your fault.”
Yes, she knew he blamed her. The second or third time that Sadie met Vince, they’d practicably had sex inside the bride’s room at the Sweetheart Palace Wedding Chapel. Before she’d even known quite how it happened, Vince had her little bridesmaid dress around her waist and his warm hands and hot mouth on her hot places. “You started it that night. I didn’t follow you.”
He pushed the deep red shower curtain aside and stepped into the bath. “You’re the one who got off, then left me in that room with a hard-on. I had blue balls for a week.” He stuck the top of his head beneath the shower. “You were heartless.”
Sadie chuckled and took out a tube of mascara. It was a good thing she’d left the room when she had because less than a minute after she’d grabbed her coat and partially run from the chapel, Becca had entered the bride’s room to find Vince sitting in a salon chair, waiting for the “tent pole” in his pants to go down before he left, too. Vince was a big guy with big proportional parts. “I didn’t want to scare the girl to death with my enormous hard-on,” he’d told Sadie. So, he’d had to sit and wait while Becca sobbed about her last boyfriend, her backstabbing girlfriends, and her life in general. She’d mistaken Vince feeling trapped for feeling genuine interest and care about her heartache.
“Tell her I’m not home, honey” came from behind the curtain.
“I could go to hell for lying, Vince.” She tried not to laugh. “You know I don’t like to lie.”
“Just this once.” He stuck his head out, and water dripped down his nose and off his long black lashes. “Baby, I’ll owe you big.”
Wow, a honey and a baby. He was serious. “Don’t antagonize Sam.”
“Okay.”
That was a little too easy. “Promise.”
He held up one wet hand like a Boy Scout. “Promise.”
BECCA SAT WITH her back straight and her knees to one side on the black-and-white cowhide sofa in the formal living room at the JH Ranch. She raised a cold glass of sweet tea to her lips and took a sip. “I had new photos taken to show you.” The ice cubes rattled in the tall glass as she set it on the coffee table. “But they aren’t ready yet.” Nathan said his mother lied about putting the photographs in the mailbox. Daisy hadn’t ever seemed like a liar to Becca. She was a professional. Why would she lie? Why would Nathan lie? It was crazy. Maybe the knock on his head had given him a concussion and memory loss.
“That’s okay.” Sadie pointed to a photo of a model with loose curls and a waterfall braid in back. “I like this one. It’s pretty and informal.”
“I like that one for you, too. It fits the wedding and your dress. It’s relaxed and gorgeous with or without a veil.” Sadie had chosen a simple filigree and pearl comb and single layer cathedral veil. “I can tuck your headpiece into the hair at your crown.” The wedding was scheduled to take place in the big backyard, with the reception directly afterward in the bunkhouse. It wouldn’t have been Becca’s first choice in venues, but the more she knew Sadie, the more it fit her. And Vince, too. He was a no-fuss kind of man. He scowled and frowned a lot, but he was a regular sweetheart. “Is Vince around?”
Sadie shook her head and her gaze slid away. “No. He’s not home. He’s probably checking out my surprise wedding present. I think it’s just about ready.”
“I take it the surprise isn’t a surprise.”
Sadie shook her head and her straight blond hair fell over her bare shoulder and strap of her orange tank top. “He’s having my mother’s 1966 Cadillac restored down at Parrish’s auto body shop.”
“The long red car?”
Sadie smiled. “He had it painted red?”
Becca sucked in a breath and covered her mouth with her fingers. “You didn’t know?”
Sadie leaned back against the cowhide sofa and laughed. “No.” Light from the big antler chandelier shined in her blue eyes.
“I feel horrible. I thought it wasn’t a surprise.”
“It isn’t.” Sadie took a sip of her tea, then set the glass on an end table next to a portrait of her deceased daddy, Clive Hollowell. He looked as mean in the picture as he had in real life. “Vince doesn’t know that I know, but you really can’t haul a big car like that out of the barn without it being noticed.” She set Becca’s portfolio on the sofa between them. “Please don’t let on that I know about the surprise. It’s very sweet of him.”
Becca nodded and took a drink of her tea. “He’s a sweet guy.” Sadie laughed and crossed one long leg over the other. She was a beautiful woman, and Becca figured that Sadie should thank her lucky stars and god or goddess of her choice that she resembled her beauty queen mother and not her grouchy daddy. “I think you’ll like it.” Although Becca didn’t particularly care for old—or classic, rather—cars, the paint shone like a cherry apple in the sun.
“When did you see it?”
“Today.” She took another drink then. “I had to run to Parrish American Classics before I came out here. Daisy took some photos for me, but there was mix-up and they weren’t there. That’s why I was a little late this afternoon.” She was also a little late because she’d stood in Nathan Parrish’s house, watching droplets of water run down his spine to the waistband of his underwear. She could have stood there all day and watched him blow water from his lips and shake his head and fling droplets around the kitchen. She could have watched him pull his T-shirt down his hard chest and flat belly just above his spiky belt a few more times, too. And for those few moments while she’d stood in his kitchen, she’d forgotten all about the photographs and her portfolio and that that she was a busy girl and time was money. She’d forgotten that she wasn’t there to look into his eyes and breathe in the smell of soap and skin and the lingering hint of oil. So much for ignoring tingles and urges and lethal good looks.
“What color is the interior?”
Becca smiled. She knew it was white, but said, “I’m not going to ruin any more of Vince’s surprise.” Becca returned her glass to the table and grabbed a pink binder. “Do you know what Deeann wants me to do with her hair the day of the wedding?”
“I don’t.”
Deeann was Sadie’s one and only bridesmaid, while Stella was both maid of honor and the stand-in for their father. Sadie had asked her sister to walk her down the aisle. “I was thinking of doing a fishtail. Both those girls have long, straight hair, and I just thought something elegant and pretty.” She flipped open her portfolio. “We don’t want anything to take the attention from you.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible. Stella’s belly is huge and she waddles like a penguin these days.”
“Has she outgrown her dress again?” Becca asked as the stairs to her right creaked. Stella walked toward them in a long black dress, looking amazingly like penguin.
“Are you okay?” Sadie asked her sister.
Stella waddled to a wingback chair and fell into it. “No.” She shook her head, and the light from the antler chandelier glistened in the inky black strands of her hair. While Sadie was tall and fair, Stella was petite and had inherited her complexion from her Hispanic mother.
Concern wrinkled Sadie’s brow. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“My vagina hurts.”
Becca sucked air between her teeth and the corners of her mouth turned downward. Stella Leon was close to thirty but looked younger. She stood just a tad over five feet, and the only thing she’d inherited from the father she shared with Sadie was Clive Hollowell’s blue eyes.
“Oh. Well, I don’t think there is anything I can do for you
r aching vagina.”
“It’s my cervix.” Stella leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “I’m miserable.”
She looked miserable, too. Becca wanted to have children one day, but not if it meant she had to walk around with a sore vagina and an aching cervix.
“We could try and pull the baby like a calf,” Sadie offered. “I’ve got some experience with calving.”
Stella opened her eyes. “No. Thank you.” She rubbed her big belly and sighed. “Besides, she has to stay in there until after the wedding.”
“When are you due?” Becca would guess she was overdue by a month, at least.
“Three weeks.”
“Do you have a name picked out?”
“Not really. I want to name her Mercedes after Sadie, but I’d call her Mercy.” She smiled at her stomach. “Beau wants to name her Olivia.”
“That’s pretty.”
“Yeah, but it’s a really common name.” She glanced at her sister. “Have you seen Beau around?”
“No. I thought he wasn’t supposed to get in from Dallas until tonight.”
“He got an earlier flight and called me a while ago to say he’s on his way to the ranch.”
Becca stood with her portfolio and moved past a big stone fireplace with a horse painting on the mantel. “Sadie and I were discussing hair.” She knelt by Stella’s chair. “I thought you and Deeann would look pretty in fishtail braids.”
Stella balanced the book on her belly. “Thank God. I thought Sadie was going to stick me with some hideous Texas hair.”
Becca flipped a few pages to one of her most popular prom hairdos. “Like this?” The model’s hair had been set on big rollers, then backcombed in a half-up, half-down retro beehive.
“I actually like that.” Stella pointed to the photo. “I used to wear an Amy Winehouse beehive once in a while, but it’s too damn hot these days.”
“It won’t be hot in the bunkhouse,” Sadie reassured her sister.
Becca looked up into Stella’s face and her silky black hair. When things settled down, and the baby was born and Stella’s vagina didn’t hurt anymore, she’d love to have her as a hair model. Work about a ton of root pump in her hair and construct a stellar constellation circling her head.
The sound of a door closing near the rear of the big ranch house drew their attention to the hall. Becca took her portfolio and rose to her feet as Beau Junger moved toward them wearing a blue dress shirt with “Junger Securities” embroidered on his breast pocket. Like Vince, Beau was retired Special Forces. Becca couldn’t recall which branch. Probably the one that camped out at the North Pole and wrestled polar bears for fun.
Vince and Beau were both big guys with ripped muscles and wide shoulders, but where she thought Vince was a sweetheart, Beau intimidated the heck out of her. Maybe it was his hard jaw and cold gray eyes that could freeze a person in place. At the moment, his cold eyes turned a warmer, softer gray, as he looked at the mother of his child.
“Hello ladies.” He moved toward Stella and reached for her hand. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“Her vagina hurts,” Sadie told him as she rose to her feet. “And her cervix aches.”
He looked from one sister to the other. “What does that mean? Is that in the baby book?” Becca stood a few feet behind Stella, and although she wasn’t sure, she thought that perhaps the hard-as-nails, steely-eyed, ass-kicking security specialist looked a little afraid.
“It means you knocked up my little sister with a big baby.” Sadie pointed at Stella, then dropped her hand to her side. “She’s a small girl, and I’ve never seen anyone that big.”
Beau kissed Stella’s temple and put a hand on her belly. “I’m sorry, boots. I wish I could take the pain for you.”
“So do I.”
One corner of his mouth twisted in a smile. “How’s the baby?”
“She kicked all night and I didn’t get any sleep. My skin is so tight it itches like I’m covered in hives. I have to pee all the time and I’m just irritable.”
He lowered his mouth to the side of her head and whispered something in her ear. Something warm and masculine that made Stella dip her head and her cheeks turn red. Something that only the two of them shared. “Stop,” she told him.
“I missed you,” Becca heard him whisper as he raised his face and smiled. “Excuse us.” He glanced from Sadie to Becca. “It was nice to see you again.”
“You too,” she said as Beau led Stella out of the room and up the stairs. She turned and watched them leave. She wanted that. She wanted a man to look at her the way Beau looked at Stella and the way she’d caught Vince looking at Sadie.
Becca was young. She was busy. There was lots of time to fall in love. Still, she wouldn’t mind finding a man to whisper in her ear and make her laugh. A man who missed her when he went away and seemed desperate to return to her.
No. She wouldn’t mind finding that at all, but for some reason, of all the men in Texas, all the men in the world, all the men she’d ever fantasized about falling madly for her at first sight, men like Zach Efron or Chris Pine, Nate Parrish and his blue eyes popped into her head. And that didn’t make sense at all.
STELLA LAY SPREAD-EAGLE in the middle of the old wrought-iron bed while an oscillating fan stirred fine stands of her black hair. She wore a pink bra, and her huge belly hid most of her pink panties. She was more beautiful now than the first time Beau had seen her working behind a bar in South Beach, wearing a leopard bustier and a pair of tight leather shorts.
He picked up the open tub of cocoa butter lotion and dipped his hand inside. “You ready?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded and let out a tired sigh. “It’s been five days. Make it good.”
“You know I will.” He sat and took her right foot in his hands. He rubbed the lotion into her arch and she let out a soft moan. If she wasn’t so big with his child, he’d pull her against him and capture that moan in his mouth as he touched more than her foot. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
“I’m as big as cow.”
“A beautiful cow.”
She chuckled. “I’m fat.”
“You’re not fat.” He massaged her ankle and the heel of her foot. Just over a year ago, Vince had contacted him and asked for a favor: find the younger sister that Sadie had never met. Until Clive Hollowell’s death last year, Sadie hadn’t known about Stella.
“I think I need one of those electric scooters like they have in Wal-Mart. I’ll need it to zip to the bathroom at Sadie’s wedding.”
“There’s probably a four-wheeler around here somewhere.” Clive had never even hinted of his affair that had produced a second daughter. Now that Beau was about to have his own baby girl, he couldn’t imagine not wanting her in his life every day. He couldn’t imagine a circumstance in which he would raise one daughter and ignore the other. If Clive Hollowell were still alive, the two would have had a conversation about it, too.
“I think there’s a four-wheeler in the barn, but I doubt I can climb on it.”
He wasn’t even going to let his mind recall all the times she’d climbed on him. He pressed his thumbs into her arch and thought of something else. Something boring like “How are the wedding plans?”
“Good. The event planner seems to have it all under control, although Becca seems to think the woman is lazy.”
“Becca is one serious girl.”
“She’s kind of intense for a twenty-three-year old.” Stella rose onto her elbows. “When I was twenty-three, I was singing in a crappy band at dive bars. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do with my life.” A wrinkle pulled her brows together. “I just bounced from thing to thing, place to place. I’m such a slacker.”
By the age of twenty-three, Beau had graduated sniper/scout school and been assigned to the First Recon Battalion, Fifth Marines. He and his twin, Blake, had always been competitive overachievers. “You’re not a slacker.” Stella had supported herself since graduating from high
school. There had been no one to take care of her. “You’ve acquired a unique toolbox of skills and operate under many titles.” No one had looked out for her, until now. “Currently, you’re my baby incubator.” The pregnancy certainly hadn’t been planned, but neither he nor Stella was sorry for the unexpected surprise.
Stella laughed and her hair slid over one shoulder. “Sadie’s worried that you knocked me up and won’t marry me.”
He raised a brow. “You still haven’t told her?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to think you had to marry me.”
He didn’t care what people thought. He’d asked Stella to marry him even before they’d found out she was pregnant. After they’d found out, he’d wanted to have a quickie ceremony at the justice of the peace. He wanted Stella and the baby covered on his insurance and under his protection. Stella had dug her heels in for a wedding with the white dress and flowers and a big cake.
They’d compromised. Something he didn’t have a lot of experience doing, but with Stella, he was learning. She’d agreed to marry him, but only if he kept it secret from everyone, even his brother. He ran his hands up her ankle and massaged her calf. “When was the last time you had more than a passing acquaintance with a razor?”
Stella watched him from beneath her lowered lids. That look used to mean she wanted to make love. “The last time you shaved my legs for me.” These days her nirvana came from a foot massage or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Toffee Bar Crunch. Sometimes while she had both. “Who would have thought a big Marine like you would be so good at foot massage?”
Not him. “I told you I have a big set of skills in my toolbox.” He never thought his life could be like this. He never thought he could love someone as much as he loved his wife.
Chapter 3
BECCA SWEPT THE hair from around the salon chair and threw it in the wastebasket near her station. Her last cut and color had just left and she didn’t have anything booked for the rest of the day. Mondays were typically light, and she needed to think up a way to put more clients in her book.
I Do! Page 3
