Emily's Wedding

by M. L. Buchman

  Emily’s Wedding

  a Night Stalkers Wedding Story

  M. L. Buchman

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  5 Years Ago

  The events in this story occur shortly after

  The Night Is Mine

  (The Night Stalkers #1).

  Chapter 1

  “No, you can’t!” Emily Beale considered pounding her head against the small desk in the Bagram Airfield’s USO communications center.

  “Sure I can, Squirt.” Not a chance she’d give him the upper hand just because he used his childhood nickname for her.

  “Listen to my words, Sneaker Boy. No! How complicated is that? Two whole letters and an exclamation point? Even you can understand that.” Perhaps pounding the phone against the desk would be the right answer. She could feel her voice rising and couldn’t stop it.

  If only the wedding had happened months ago when it was supposed to. But their planned leave had been interrupted by a crisis mission, then another. Now their current deployment was ending and she didn’t care who she had to kill, her marriage was going ahead.

  “I’m the Commander-in-Chief. Of course I can do a wedding ceremony.”

  “Actually, Mr. President, you can’t. That power doesn’t come with the office!” As soon as she shouted the words into the phone, she knew it was a mistake.

  Until that moment, the other military around her had been chatting away with their own spouses, parents, children—whoever they were willing to spend their precious phone-home minutes with.

  Now there was an echoing silence up and down the long rows of tiny desks at the Pat Tillman Memorial USO Center’s phone bank. Each station was about as wide as her fiancé’s shoulders—who thankfully was nowhere to be seen—with an empty ammo can for a seat. The whole reason she’d come over here to return this call, rather than doing it from the hangar, had been the privacy. She didn’t want every single Night Stalker she flew with to overhear this.

  Instead, every single person in the Tillman USO was looking at her with varying stages of shock on their face. They were mostly Air Force today, so they didn’t really matter, but not even Special Operations majors were supposed to be chewing out the Commander-in-Chief. She’d always had special dispensation: President Peter Matthews had been the dashing older boy next door and also the only friend of Emily’s overly precocious childhood. But these fliers didn’t know that and she’d just kicked the base’s gossip mill into high gear. Thankfully it couldn’t get much worse.

  Peter was still effusing in the background, “We’ll have the ceremony here in The Residence, in the Blue Room. It will be great.”

  Emily lowered her voice and whispered through gritted teeth. “We’re getting married on Mark’s family ranch, not the White House.” Her attempts to hide her frustration still had absolutely everyone’s attention. And her whisper seemed to echo about the room.

  “There a problem here?” A deep voice sounded close behind her. So much for not getting worse.

  Emily didn’t bother to turn her head. She placed her forehead on the desk and tried not to whimper.

  “Hey, honey,” Mark’s big warm hand rested on her shoulder. “Who you talking to?”

  She didn’t bother to answer. Instead she simply held the phone up behind her head and he took it from her.

  “Who’m I talkin’ to?” Mark used his totally lame Texas accent rather than his most-decorated-Night Stalkers-helicopter-commander voice. He was from Montana, but never seemed to quite remember that.

  Emily waited through The President’s half of the conversation.

  “W’all howdy there, Pete. What were you two jawin’ about?”

  Emily, head still down, gave her fiancé the finger. She could hear the whispers to either side of her as flyboys and girls started telling their spouses about the crazy woman yelling at the Commander-in-Chief. Yelling? Next time she saw him, she was going to dump him into the Reflecting Pool—a second time. Just like when he was eighteen and she’d been a furious twelve that he was leaving for college without her. Back then it had upset the park police. This time she wouldn’t care if it upset the Secret Service.

  “Now, Peter…” Thankfully the Texas was gone and Mark was trying to sound calm and placating.

  He had long since learned the mayhem she could unleash if riled—especially since he was here and her target was most of seven thousand miles away. Most of? Now Mark had her doing Texas. She raised her head just enough to thump it back down on the desk. The cool wood did nothing to abate the heat roaring between her ears.

  “I’m afraid Emily is right. That power is not granted with the office.”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “Uh-huh…”

  “Well, you know, sir, they’ve got that online church where you can get ordained in just a couple minutes. Just sign yourself up and then it’s all fair and square…”

  Emily tried to jolt up in protest and bumped against Mark. The man was so solid that she practically bounced off. Resigned to her doom, she returned to her head-down position. Duck and cover!

  “No, we’ve got our heart set on my family’s ranch…Montana, that’s right. When was your last vacation, sir? The day after Election Day? Not much of a break. W’all…”

  And…the Texas was back.

  “Don’cher think it’s ’bout time yer took un?”

  Except Mark’s Texas might have been Virginia with a little bit of Scotland mixed in. It would be easier to accept if he didn’t think it was so endearing—which would be kind of cute, if it wasn’t so awful.

  “Wonderful! I’ll let my folks know that Frank will be calling.”

  The head of the Presidential Protection Detail was just going to be so happy about this.

  “Do you want to speak some more with Emily?”

  “No? Well, can’t say as I blame you. But you’re gonna owe me some, ’cause I ’spect I’m about to catch a bellyful. Goodbye, sir!”

  He reached past her to hang up the phone.

  “Don’t see what has you all fussed up, honey. He’s just—”

  Emily shot back an elbow square into his hard gut, which earned her little more than a surprised grunt. One of these days she’d catch him when he wasn’t ready. She stood up to face him, doing her best to ignore the dozen eavesdroppers.

  “What was that for, darlin’?” He grinned down. Being so damn handsome wasn’t going to save him this time.

  Maybe another tactic. She pulled him down into a kiss—an unusual enough event on a military base to make sure she had everyone’s attention, but she was past caring. Catcalls and loud whistles echoed about the room.

  She felt Mark ease into the kiss.

  That’s when she fisted him in the solar plexus with a sharp right jab and took him to his knees.

  “That was dirty,” he gasped for air but his body wasn’t going to cooperate for a minute or two.

  “You should understand by now,” she recalled the t-shirt that her father had given her when she’d earned her Taekwondo Black Belt in high school. “I fight like a girl.”

  Chapter 2

  It was the company’s first taste of America after a six-month deployment. They hit Joint Base Lewis-McChord with the sunrise after a twenty-three hour flight. The cool and moist September air a vast relief after flying through an Afghan summer—blazing with heat and near constant firefights. Summer and fall were the seasons of war over there and he was glad to be out of it for a while.

  Because they were the 5th Battalion D Company and al
ways ready—even when promised a full week of uninterrupted leave—they took care of their helicopters the first moment after touchdown on American soil.

  The War in Afghanistan had to end some day, but Mark wasn’t seeing any obvious signs of it doing that yet. Especially not for SOF. Special Operations Forces like Delta Force, the Army Rangers, and the fliers of the 160th SOAR were still deep there.

  So, putting first things first, they immediately unloaded their helos from the belly of the C-5 Galaxy transport plane. The helicopters were reassembled, refueled, test-flown, and hangared before Mark dismissed the team.

  Then they’d all piled into vans to head up to Sea-Tac Airport.

  It might have been poor planning that there was a two-hour wait for the next flight to Great Falls, Montana, or good planning as it was lunchtime. That, and the fact that the US allowed bars in their airports. Perhaps if he hadn’t bought the first couple rounds…

  But in Mark’s opinion it was his job as commander to encourage his people in battle. And it was just as much his responsibility to encourage them on the ground.

  Besides, the Concourse C bar was as close to a bachelor party as he was going to get. Somehow, doing it up in a dry country like Afghanistan, on an airbase, while living in body armor around the clock, didn’t quite cut it.

  They were a pretty loose crowd by the time they rolled out of the bar and reached the gate.

  “We would like,” the gate agent finally announced, “to invite those with small children or needing extra time to board the flight to please come forward. We’d also like to welcome any veterans currently serving in the US Armed Forces to board at this time.”

  Once the women and children were clear, the 5D stormed the queue.

  Thankfully the flight was half empty, so they simply took possession of the rear of the aircraft. The stews were wisely routing any passengers with far back seats to open positions further forward. The Dash 8 was a small plane, just two narrow seats to either side, and the 5D took more than its fair share of them. There was no way for guys as broad-shouldered as Tim Maloney and his best buddy Big John Wallace to fit in the two seats side by side.

  Eventually, he could feel them closing the baggage hold’s doors by the solid thumps transmitted up his heels. They were too loud as a group to hear any announcements, so Mark moved along, shoving them down into seats.

  Once he had them all down—he’d leave it to the stews to make sure they were buckled in—Mark dropped into his seat beside Emily. She was staring out the window as they were pushed back from the gate and beginning engine startup.

  “Yer mighty quiet there, darlin’!”

  She gave him one of those looks.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” He dropped the Texas then reached out and took her hand as Tim and John started setting up some kind of a game with the flight attendants. The prizes being the little packets of pretzels and peanuts. Mark knew the game would be rigged to move the maximum number of them into the 5D’s hands and that the stews would never see it coming. A couple of the attendants were seriously cute and he wondered if there might not be a few more guests for the wedding before the flight was over. He could hear the guys working on it. Only a two-hour flight, boys. Better be quick about it.

  Mark didn’t need to play such games anymore. He had Emily Beale. He could never get over how incredible it felt to hold her hand. It wasn’t just the connection that coursed through his system; it also humbled him every time, that he was the one who got to do it. Though she returned the gesture, she didn’t turn from her study out the window as they taxied to the active runway. It all seemed to be in slow motion after six months in Bagram. No one trying to mortar them on the runway here. No yelling, no running soldiers. These people behaved as if there wasn’t a war on. He knew the disorienting feeling wasn’t going to wear off any time soon, so he ignored it and focused on the wonder of holding Emily’s hand.

  “Not having second thoughts, are you?” The sole beer that he’d allowed himself wasn’t enough to keep his throat from going dry at the thought.

  She shook her head and the straight fall of her golden-blonde hair swirled about her shoulders. Her hand tightened in his.

  “Then cheer up, Emma,” his nickname for her while they’d been working undercover inside the White House. “It’s only a life sentence after all.”

  At that she turned to him. “Thank God for that.” She kissed him on the shoulder, which was sweet but didn’t do much to heat up the fire that he always had simmering for her. There was no sign of tears in those perfect sky-blue eyes, but then there never were—well, almost never. She kept those to herself except for the few times he’d been really thoughtless.

  “Something’s eating at you.”

  She nodded absently—either agreement or just an acknowledgement that he’d said something, he couldn’t tell—then turned to face once more out the window.

  Mark kept his sigh to himself. That’s what he got for falling in love with Emily Beale. The woman never spoke a single thought until she was good and ready to.

  Before he could pursue it, Dusty James called out to him. “Hey Mark. You got to tell these fools that Portland, Oregon is not the end of the Earth.”

  “You sure about that?” He made a point of leaning out and looking back then furrowing his brow. “I always thought it was.”

  “Man!” Dusty groaned in frustration. He was always trying to defend his home state and Mark was the only other one in the 5D who’d actually been there. His sole excursion was due to a hot little brunette named Jennine he’d met on leave a couple years back.

  She’d promised him sex on a sandy Pacific Ocean beach that stretched for miles. Of course she failed to mention that the wind never dropped below twenty knots and the air rarely warmed over sixty degrees in a chill sea fog—all of which she seemed to think was normal for July. The summer ocean invited him to swim, but she warned him of rip tides and hypothermia risks—locals never swam in it. The total fiasco was finalized when her parents—not being stupid—had put them in separate rooms. Oregon had a beautiful wildness, which Jennine had been willing to share for all the good it hadn’t done them. Maybe both were best left to the imagination.

  “I’m pretty sure that Oregon exists only in some parallel universe, Dustman. You find a girl there, you’re welcome to her.”

  Dusty continued protesting as the others sought a new target to tease.

  Mark faced front as the pilot eased the throttles forward and the plane slipped down the runway. Even that felt wrong. Bagram takeoffs were full throttle, hold down the nose wheel until long past take-off speed was achieved, then pop up into a hard climb to get out of RPG range, because rocket-propelled grenades could ruin a man’s day.

  So many things were disorienting.

  His past filled with mostly meaningless women was now…the past as well. Two more days and he’d be a married man. She was nothing like his quiet, endlessly patient half-Cheyenne mother, who’d always been his measure for women.

  Emily Beale was strong-headed, taciturn, and always showing a cool facade—until the moment she tipped over into pure, unadulterated lethal. He’d never wanted anyone, needed anyone the way he needed Emily. What was up with that? It didn’t sound like any Major Mark Henderson that he knew.

  For life.

  He believed in that. It’s what his parents had. He’d just never imagined it for himself.

  Maybe he understood Emily’s strange mood as the plane eased off the runway and began its long climb.

  Chapter 3

  It was early the next morning, and Emily knew she’d have a psychotic break if she didn’t get away from everyone for a while. The boys had spent the previous afternoon, after their arrival at the ranch, wearing themselves out with a touch football game that ended up with more tackles than touches. Dinner had been a grand affair at a campfire out behind the main house filled with pilots, crew chiefs, and ranch guests.

  Mac and Ama, Mark’s parents, had made her welcome. But she
still didn’t fit in. In any group, she’d always been—

  “Here you go,” Doug, the ranch’s stable manager, led a big horse the color of mahogany out of one of the stalls and handed her the reins, as if she knew what to do with a horse. Then he pushed a straw cowboy hat onto of her head, as if she knew what to do with a cowboy hat.

  She’d mentioned to Mark that she wanted to get away and he’d suggested they go for a ride. A ride? What did she know about riding? She was the daughter of the FBI Director and a socialite mother. She’d grown up in the heart of D.C. No cowboy hats.

  Doug led another horse over to Mark, which was an even taller pure black mount. Mark already had his cowboy hat on, which looked both unfamiliar and utterly charming. If he’d taken off his mirrored shades, she might not have even recognized him.

  Emily looked at her horse. It looked back at her. Détente.

  “Here,” Doug returned and broke off a three-inch piece of a carrot he must have hidden in his pocket. “Flat hand, thumb tucked back as far as you can. A horse isn’t nasty, at least not Chesapeake, but she can’t see what she’s eating, so let’s not feed her any confusing fingers.” He dropped the carrot in her open hand, then guided it over to the horse. The soft brush of Chesapeake’s lips across her palm tickled. She rubbed the horse’s soft nose and decided that the carrot-crunching sounds were soothing.

  “Thanks. I can do this.”

  “Of course you can. Easier than flying a Black Hawk helicopter.” Doug showed her how to mount. “Always from the left.”

  She’d just remember that it was the opposite of a Black Hawk. In military Black Hawks a pilot sat on the right side, but now she was back to the left side—copilot to a horse.

  Once Doug had the stirrups adjusted, he gestured side to side with the reins, “Right and left rudder.” He grabbed her boot and moved her foot through a kicking gesture into the horse’s side. “Collective up.” He moved her hands and reins forward, “Cyclic forward.” Then he pulled the reins back into her lap.