Blood Trails
Page 24
Bud didn’t know how he was going to walk out of this house when there were tears on her face.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“We’ll be with her,” Savannah said.
“We’re all sleeping together anyway,” Maria added. “We’ll put her in the middle like always, so she doesn’t fall out of bed.”
Holly’s eyes widened, and just like that, the tears turned to laughter. The first few years of her life when they’d all been small, they really had always put her in the middle to keep her from falling out of bed.
By the time Bud kissed her goodbye and left the room, they were laughing. That was the sound that followed him out the door.
Later, the house was quiet. Outside, the night was broken by the occasional howl of a coyote and an answering yip from another on a faraway ridge.
They’d all crawled into Andrew’s bed to sleep. It was the closest they could get to him now that he was gone. As promised, Holly lay in the middle, flanked by the sisters of her heart. They’d been talking and then stopping, swearing they needed to sleep, and then one of them would start a conversation all over again.
But it was Savannah who finally topped the night off with an announcement.
“You know that I’m now sinfully rich, right?”
Holly giggled.
Maria poked her. “Don’t brag.”
“It’s just a fact,” Savannah said. “I got both of you a special wedding present. Thomas Jefferson, who is my lawyer and whom you will meet tomorrow, helped me get them for you.”
“I didn’t get you anything. We all said we weren’t buying each other presents,” Maria said.
“I didn’t get anything, either,” Holly said.
“I don’t need anything but you two,” Savannah said. “Since my grandmother’s murder, you two and Bud are all the family I have left. My entire birth family is either dead or in prison because of that money. It’s time it was put to good use, so FYI…I had a million dollars deposited into each of your bank accounts.”
They gasped in unison.
“Savannah! You can’t do that! It’s too much!” Holly insisted as Maria nodded furiously in agreement.
Savannah shrugged. “I can and I did, and you’re welcome. Now be quiet. We need to get some sleep.”
Suddenly she was bombarded with pillows, and the house was filled again with laughter.
The John Wesley United Methodist Church in Missoula was packed to the walls, the pews filled with longtime friends of Andrew and his girls. The open invitation to the triple wedding had been announced a week ago in church, and anticipation had been mounting.
The brides had commandeered a Sunday school classroom at one end of the church and were using it as a dressing room, while the men had taken over the pastor’s study at the other end.
A florist was running madly from one end of the church to the other, pinning miniature white roses on the men’s lapels, and then dashing to the far end of the church with three wedding bouquets. The church was awash in flowers and greenery, but there were no bridesmaids and no best men. By the time the three couples got lined up around the altar, there wouldn’t be room left for anyone else but the pastor who would marry them.
The ushers, however, were strangers to the crowd, and whispers abounded as they were being seated.
One was a bald giant of a black man in an elegant suit named Thomas Jefferson, who was in fact Savannah’s lawyer and the man who’d helped save her life. The shorter, older man with cropped graying hair and hard, steely eyes went by the name of Whiteside and was the ex-CIA man who’d sacrificed everything he owned to keep her safe.
Coleman Rice, the family lawyer, was the only one who knew the answers to the questions everyone was asking, and he wasn’t talking.
Finally the last guests had been seated.
The music began, and the congregation quieted. Up front, two grooms entered and took their places at the altar.
The music swelled, and then the wedding march began.
The congregation stood, watching as Robert Tate escorted Maria, the first of the brides, to the altar. At that point Bodie Scott stepped forward.
“Who gives this woman to this man?” the preacher asked.
“I do,” Bud said, then stepped back as Maria slipped her hand through Bodie’s arm.
There was a titter of amusement as the music swelled again and Robert Tate made a beeline back to the foyer. Seconds later, as the wedding march played again, he came back down the aisle with Savannah on his arm. She was still tiny despite three-inch heels, and resplendent in white satin.
When they reached the altar Judd stepped forward, and again the pastor asked, “Who gives this woman to this man?”
“I do,” Bud said, and then moved back as Judd Holyfield claimed his bride.
Once more Bud headed back up the aisle, and this time the congregation was laughing aloud.
When the wedding march began again and he came back a third time, it was with Holly. Her hair was down and loose over her shoulders, while the sleeveless ice-white gown she was wearing hugged every curve of her body to perfection. They walked down the aisle toward the altar arm in arm, and when they reached the pastor, again he asked, “Who gives this woman to this man?”
“I’m keeping this one for myself,” Bud said.
The congregation roared.
And so it began, the ritual that would bind these women to their men.
It had begun with laughter.
It ended in vows and promises.
For Andrew Slade’s daughters, the end of their wedding was just the beginning of the rest of their lives.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1376-0
BLOOD TRAILS
Copyright © 2011 by Sharon Sala
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