Love Everlasting

by Tracey Alvarez

  And I…think I’d like to shag you into a coma.

  And I…often have to resist buying a doggy muzzle to shut you up.

  Or.

  And I…wonder if you’d like to grab a pint at the pub later tonight.

  Reid’s big hands came up to cup her face, his thumbs gently stroking her chin.

  “What I was going to say is that you’re the most complicated, contradictory, irritatingly perfect woman I’ve ever met, and I love you.”

  His touch sent an explosion of fight-or-flight hormones rocketing through her system.

  “As a friend, right?” she croaked. “You love me like a friend.”

  Because, please God or whoever held the fates of star-crossed lovers in the palm of their hands, please let it be the old agape, love-everyone type of love or else they were in some seriously deep poo.

  He chuckled, seemingly not offended by her lack of swoony dewy-eyedness. “Like a friend—”

  Darby’s heart gave a fist pump.

  “Like a lover—”

  Then an uh-oh.

  “And like a man who wants to keep loving you every day for the rest of his life.”

  Now her heart curled in on itself in a crumpled, icy ball. Somehow she must’ve managed to maintain a poker face, as Reid continued to stare smiling into her eyes before he dipped his head and kissed her.

  While Darby hadn’t exactly been acting strange all evening as they’d danced under pink helium balloons and fairy lights, there was something off about her. This became more and more apparent as Reid’s mouth moved against hers.

  She kissed him back, but there was something missing. As if she went through the mechanics of kissing—lips to lips, touch of tongue to tongue, remember to breathe—while mentally ticking off a checklist.

  Dude, it was the L-bomb you dropped, his inner voice said with an eye roll. She’s not feeling the same vibe.

  Like hell she wasn’t. He knew it was early to start talking about love and forever, but, dammit, Darby of all people knew you couldn’t hang around waiting for happiness to drop into your lap. You find it, you grab it with both hands, and head hell for leather toward the goal line.

  And given that his brain was coming up with sport analogies instead of the usual fireworks-bright static that accompanied kissing Darby, he was surer than ever that something was wrong. So instead of letting the kiss run its course, where Darby would sag against him with a cute little moan and then try to climb him like a tree, Reid broke it.

  And this time he studied her face without rose-tinted glasses.

  Her mouth, while lushly pink and parted, didn’t look as if it was about to beg him to lock lips within the next thirty seconds. Instead her lower lip gave a little wobble before it glued itself to her upper lip in a pinched line. Her eyes had a suspiciously shiny glimmer and they weren’t at their usual half-mast, lost in the moment glaze. In fact, her gaze spoke more of a panicked hiker lost in the bush with a storm on the horizon and night falling.

  And it was that look that felt like the time the first of his schoolyard bullies had sucker punched him in the gut.

  Told you, man, his inner voice chimed in again. She’s reaching for the panic button there.

  “Ah…you’re not on the same I love you page,” he said. “Guess it’s too late for backsies?” His attempt at flippancy fell embarrassingly flat—making him aware that audiences over his past three debut shows must’ve been exceedingly kind with their applause for his acting.

  Or blind drunk.

  “I’m sorry,” Darby said.

  “Don’t be sorry.” He gently squeezed her upper arms. “We can revisit the L-word issue in a couple of months—or years. I can wait.”

  She flinched away from him—actually rocked back on her heels—and a look he couldn’t begin to describe crossed her face.

  “No. I mean, it’s not that we’re not on the same page, it’s like we’re reading from completely different books. Yours is a Harlequin Mills and Boon where on the last pages you see the hero and heroine getting married or playing with their chubby and devilishly good-looking offspring. Mine is a Nicholas Sparks book that you end up hurling at the wall because he kills off one of the lovers.” Her gaze shot left after this outburst, her chest heaving up and down. “We’re not on the same page because I don’t feel the same about you, and I’m sorry if I’ve led you to believe I ever could.”

  He got it then.

  Big, dumb male that he could be, it was ball-bustingly obvious.

  “I’m calling bollocks on the love connection or lack of it. This is about fear, plain and simple. You’re afraid to love me back because you’re scared that if you get sick again, I’ll leave you.” He tightened his grip on her upper arms and dipped his head, forcing her to meet his gaze so she could see how serious he was.

  Come hell or high water, she needed to understand she could trust him with her heart. That given only a little time and space, the love he felt for her would grow strong enough to withstand anything life threw at them.

  “I wouldn’t leave you, not for a moment, not for anything. You must know that?”

  He watched the pale violet flicker of a vein pulsing in her throat and the harsh lines of her jaw as muscles bunched in it.

  “I do know it.” Tears spilled over her lower lashes and down her cheeks. “You’re a good man, Reid Hudson.”

  He reached out to draw her back into his arms, to coax her into capitulation with kisses and reassurances that he understood her terror, but that he—

  Darby whirled away in a flurry of skirts and ran the length of the foyer toward the main staircase. He watched her run, a part of him impressed at her speed and the grace she always denied she had, and another part of him fighting to keep his feet from following.

  She vanished down the stairs without another glance in his direction, and his gaze flicked back to land on the nearby padded bench. And the two electric-blue high heels she’d forgotten.

  He cursed and stalked over to pick them up. “This Cinderella stuff is getting a little bit old.”

  Chapter 16

  Darby had driven the entire two-and-a-half-hour trip from Invercargill to Queenstown convinced she had lost her ever-loving mind. The steady stream of Saturday morning traffic banking up behind her probably thought so. She’d pulled over onto the verge of State Highway 6 at least six times to let cars pass because she just couldn’t force her little car to go any faster. A tractor beam of incredulity kept wanting to drag her back to her safe little home instead of making her way as a guest to Reid’s aunt’s wedding.

  An uninvited guest, she should add.

  Clearly during the past two weeks since the ball her sanity and emotional self-preservation had flown out the window. But for whatever reason lay at the bottom of her motivations, the one closest to the top was she couldn’t let Reid attend his aunt’s wedding without the support of a friend.

  And yes, she thought the word friend with annoying finger quotes.

  Darby pulled into the parking lot of the Lodge at Highland Station. The lodge was nestled between the alps—which still had a pretty dusting of late season snow—and overlooked Lake Wakatipu. It was the perfect spot for a wedding. She parked and got out, and the view of lake, mountains, and blue, blue sky momentarily took her breath away. It came rushing back with force when she spotted Reid’s car parked five cars down from hers.

  He was here.

  Good news, since this gate-crasher didn’t really have a plan B.

  Darby followed the occupants of a sleek gray Mercedes that’d just arrived around the side of the lodge to a wide open lawn facing the lake. White folding chairs were set out either side of a center aisle leading to a flower-covered wedding arbor. Reid sat in a chair farthest away from the aisle, slouched down as if he were trying to blend in with the freshly mown grass. His body was angled away from the rest of the guests in his row, arms folded, fingers drumming a relentless tattoo on the biceps of his crisp white shirt. Understandably, the chairs on eithe
r side of him were empty. Nobody wanted to sit next to the six-foot-something guy who looked as if he were chewing on carpet tacks and planned to violently object to the marriage when the time came.

  The empty chair would make her entrance a little more unobtrusive than having to sit on his lap in lieu of a spare seat. Assuming Reid wouldn’t take one look at her and frog-march her off the property.

  Her mouth twisted as she approached his seat from behind. Couldn’t really blame—the heels she’d worn with her new I come in peace to your aunt’s wedding dress sunk into an uneven and soft patch of lawn, tipping her off balance. She let out a startled “eeep” and lurched forward, uttering an “oomph” when her stomach met the hard chair back. She folded half over it like a rag doll and dropped her evening purse, her hands scrabbling on the wooden seat to slow down her forward momentum. The chair wobbled madly but didn’t collapse. Thank the Lord for small mercies.

  She tilted her head sideways toward Reid. The matching feathery fascinator the shop assistant had talked her into slid out of her hair to sit jauntily over one eye so she was unable to see his expression. So she turned to the other side and the bug-eyed gazes of an elderly couple, the woman clutching her handbag to her chest as if Darby had been about to snatch it.

  “I’m okay.” Darby would’ve waved reassuringly at them but the chair threatened spitefully to tip over if she shifted her weight. “This kind of thing happens to me often, sadly.”

  The fascinator fell to the ground with a soft plop, looking more like a dead peacock than a woman’s hairpiece.

  She cleared her throat, and this time when she turned her face toward Reid she found him looking back at her. Inscrutably looking back at her.

  Whatever shocked, stunned, horrified, happy, or amused expression had been on his face at her sudden clumsy appearance had been wiped clean.

  The slight chill in his gray-blue eyes seeped through her skin and froze the quivering muscles in her hands—which were locked either side of the chair seat—down to her tippy-toes, which through the peephole toes of her shoes were dug as counterbalance into the grass. She wriggled said toes experimentally and the chair creaked in protest. Yep, she was stuck.

  And trust her on this, the only thing worse than being sprawled over a glorified deck chair next to a man who wasn’t thrilled with your presence at a wedding you weren’t invited to, was to be sprawled over a glorified deck chair with your ass hanging out.

  Which hers was.

  Because her butt cheeks, covered in the carefully selected pink panties Reid liked even though she knew he almost one hundred percent certainly wouldn’t see them, suddenly felt a little chillier than the rest of her body.

  “A little help here?” she asked.

  Reid sucked in his cheeks and arched a brow. From her folded-over position, he didn’t seem to be moving. Then a big, warm hand slid over her cat-arched spine and smoothed the flirty short skirt back down over her exposed panties.

  Niiice.

  But not quite the help she required.

  “I meant,” she added sweetly, since she was in no position to demand, “could you help me up? Please.”

  “Ah, the magic word.” He stood and disappeared from view, leaving her to stare at her dead fascinator while wondering how many guests were copping an eyeful and omigod, what if he was mad enough with her to leave?

  Her spidey senses tingled a second before the front of Reid’s thighs brushed the back of hers. He slipped an arm around her and hauled her upright against him. Darby leaned into his broad chest, resting her fuzzily swirling head on his shoulder. Fuzzily swirling because of the blood rushing back into it, not because of being held upright by Reid’s strong arms and Reid’s big buff body that smelled so damn good she wanted to roll her head to the side and turn semi-cannibalistic.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  His lips were close to her ear and the mist of his breath against her earlobes made her ache in all the right-but-wrong places. Darby caught the scandalized gaze of a woman two rows ahead of them and squelched the phantom aches that Reid was causing by gently extricating herself from his arms. She smoothed down the skirt of her dress—yup, still covering her butt—and unwedged her shoe heel from a clod of earth where it had become stuck after being yanked off her foot. She stood on one foot to yank it back on, with Reid gentlemanly cupping her elbow so she didn’t overbalance.

  “Meeting at weddings is kind of our thing,” she said.

  “I thought we didn’t have a thing?” He released her elbow and returned to his seat. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  Figuring that was as good an invitation as she was going to get, Darby scuttled onto the empty seat next to him.

  “I know you didn’t want to come to your aunt’s wedding, so I thought you could use some support.”

  “I’m a charity project now?”

  Darby didn’t miss the edge of bitterness in his tone. She squirmed a little on the hard wooden seat but forced herself to meet his gaze. She did, after all, deserve his hurt and anger. “Whatever else you are,” she said quietly, “you’re still my friend.”

  A muscle in his jaw gave a sharp spasm and his gaze once again chilled. “Sweetheart, the thing is, I have enough friends.”

  Before she could reply, the string quartet that had been quietly playing off to one side struck up the bridal march. Everyone around them rose and Reid stood also, his body held in stick-up-the-ass stiffness as he faced the aisle. Darby wobbled to her feet, watching through the small gaps in the rows of people as the bride—Reid’s Aunt Lynn—appeared. And when Darby did finally see her for a brief moment, three things struck her simultaneously.

  She was tall like her nephew and wore a smile so like Reid’s that it made Darby’s heart begin to race.

  She wore a simple but elegant cream lace shift dress that made her tanned skin glow.

  She was completely flat chested—as in, no breasts, boobies, knockers, or lady bumps to speak of—and Darby’s racing heart punched into her throat so fast it nearly knocked her flat.

  Reid turned at that moment, his eyebrows drawing together as he caught sight of her expression. Her gaze shifted to his and he dipped his head in a brusque nod. He sat, along with her and everyone else once the bride took the hand of the beaming groom beside the celebrant.

  While everyone was rustling and getting comfortable in their chairs ready for the ceremony to start, Reid leaned in, his arm brushing hers. “BRCA1,” was the only thing he whispered.

  But it was enough for Darby to put two and two together and come up with a probable four. Reid’s mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. Younger sister Lynn then had her DNA tested and found she had the susceptible BRCA1—Breast Cancer One—gene. Lynn made the decision to have a radical mastectomy. Reid’s mum died of the disease, his aunty lived, and Reid was torn between loving his remaining family member and resenting her for living when his mother had died.

  As the celebrant began to speak, welcoming them all to this day of joy and celebration of love, Darby sniffed and rummaged through her handbag, desperate for a tissue.

  “Give these to your lady,” someone whispered.

  Darby glanced sideways to the elderly woman who was leaning over the spare seat to tap Reid’s arm with a travel pack of tissues. Reid took them and silently handed them over.

  “Don’t worry, love,” the woman whispered again, obviously having decided that Darby wasn’t the dangerous sort of wedding crasher. “Everyone cries at weddings.”

  She offered the woman a watery smile and pulled a tissue free from the packet, dabbing it on her cheeks before positioning it under her leaking nose. Slanting a sideways glance down at her feet—the heel of her left mint green pump now stained with the darker green of damp grass—she contemplated just how rusty her boot camp skills were. If she was really quiet and used her teeth to grip the slingback straps of her shoes, she could probably commando crawl her way to yonder gazebo and disappear back to her car before anyone notic
ed.

  Reid’s hand covered hers, trapping it against her thigh. He linked his fingers with hers, and even though he didn’t smile, his gaze seemed to soften.

  “Stay,” he whispered gruffly, as if he’d read her mind. “Please.”

  There were no more embarrassing spectacles at the Hudson-Tanner wedding ceremony, unless one counted the groom blushing scarlet after he’d kissed his bride for the first time in public. The guests blew bubbles as the new Mr. and Mrs. Tanner strolled back down the aisle.

  Darby wished she could float away with the bubbles.

  Coming here had been a mistake of Darby-esque proportions. Reid had continued to hold her hand during the ceremony but kept his gaze locked forward. She hadn’t dared move in case he remembered he was touching her and stopped. Oh, how she’d missed his touch—and more than that, she’d missed him.

  A couple of times she’d snapped Duke or one of the cats doing something funny and been about to send the photo to Reid to make him smile. Then she’d caught herself, the little leaden ball that’d taken up residence in her belly growing heavier as she’d stuff the phone back in her pocket. Countless times she’d thought of him, and at least during the day she’d managed to push those thoughts aside.

  The long hours of darkness were a different story.

  Reid released his grip on her as they stood and a man in the row in front of them turned to shake his hand. Other people drifted over to talk to him, a couple smiling politely at Darby and commenting on the beautiful weather before turning their attention back to Reid. Not wanting to be rude but feeling a little superfluous to the conversations going on around her, Darby edged away from Reid’s side, turned, and came face-to-face with the bride.

  “I was just coming to talk to you,” said the newly minted Mrs. Tanner.

  “Um, me?”

  Reid’s Aunt Lynn grinned at her. “You’re the girl who fell all over my nephew before the ceremony, aren’t you? I saw you from my room upstairs in the lodge.”

  Darby peeled her lips open into what she hoped was a nonchalant smile. “I am that girl. Darby Livingston—happy to provide some light entertainment before you made your much more elegant entrance.”