Then someone started laughing loudly, getting the middle finger from Elijah over his shoulder. “Fucking Samson. Remind me why he’s here?”
I knew this was going to be good. That’s why I’d suggested Hurst be the one to do it.
“Sadie, are you sure you want to marry Elijah?”
“I am.”
“But are you really sure?” Hurst pressed, mouthing after it, “I can save you.”
After reassuring him a second time, he exchanged a look and shrug with the captain and continued with the ceremony.
“Conducting this ceremony is an honor, especially when there’s a beautiful soul like Sadie Dahl involved. Which is why we’re so confused that she’s marrying Elijah.”
Elijah’s fingers spasmed around my hand as he growled, “Old man.”
When he got to the part where he asked if anyone had any opposition to the marriage, I lost my composure.
“If anyone feels that these two should not be joined by marriage, please speak now or forever hold your peace.” Waiting, he looked around the guests and pointed at someone. “Was that a hand?”
Whoever he’d singled out shouted back, “No.”
“Ah, okay.” Then, leaning on the plinth, he rested his chin on his hand. “It’s okay, we can wait while you muster up the courage.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Elijah hissed, but I was wiping tears of laughter from my cheeks, my belly jiggling so much that our daughter was kicking up a storm.
Grabbing his hand, I put it where the strongest ones were, calming him down instantly.
Still, the silence dragged on, with only the sound of people laughing breaking it.
After about ten minutes, he looked at the captain and sighed, shaking his head slowly. “I guess we should probably proceed, then.” And passed it over to him to finish.
By the time we’d said our vows, I knew there was absolutely no way that I was ever going to forget anything about today. Not just because I was memorizing all of it, but because everyone was recording it on their phones, too.
Behind him, I saw Elijah’s brothers move in closer as Captain Tosh said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride, if your brothers don’t get their first.”
I hadn’t been prepared, and when Jackson grabbed me out of Elijah’s arms and tipped me over his arm, as far as my belly would allow me to go, I burst out laughing, not expecting him to kiss me. But he did, a big fat smackeroo right on the nose, just as the others leaned in and kissed my cheeks and forehead noisily.
Once their point was made, the brothers put me back on my feet, and I saw a struggling Elijah being held back by my brother and some of his cousins.
“I’m going to tell him I saw your penis that time,” I threatened quietly so that Elijah didn’t hear.
Jackson went pale but still smiled smugly at me. “You wouldn’t dare, you love me too much.”
“You’re all dead,” he snapped over his shoulder as he pushed away from them and then pulled me in for the kiss everyone was waiting for—none of them more than me, though.
Finally, with a smug smile, he let me up for air, declaring, “Mine!”
And then he spun and jumped on Jackson, taking him down to the ground in a headlock.
“Are you sure you married into the right family?” Cynthia asked as she moved to stand next to me, watching the brothers with amusement.
I didn’t have one doubt in my mind about the choice I’d made. “Absolutely.”
Epilogue 2
* * *
Sadie
I was five hundred and eighty-three years pregnant today. I felt like a prisoner in a movie making tallies on the wall to mark weeks or months of their sentence, except for me it’d been since I’d last seen my feet.
Medically speaking, I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant, and tomorrow I was meant to be going in to be induced, but I’d delayed it by three days so I could be here tonight.
My blood pressure had been high for the last three weeks, and I was supposed to be on bed rest, but today was the charity night at Rebels to raise funds for a young boy who’d lost his father last year.
The dad had been about to donate part of his liver to him when he’d taken on a last job that brought him to Gonzales County to make sure his family had enough money while he recovered. Sadly, there’d been a car accident, and he’d left instructions in a letter that in the event of something like that happening, they were to keep him on life support so the boy could still have the transplant back in Denver.
Long story short, the man had saved many lives through that request, including his son’s, because they donated more than just his liver to people waiting for different organs. We’d been planning this since to raise money for the family to help them financially.
It’d started as a small thing and snowballed into a three-hour-long event, so I’d gone against my OB/GYN’s advice that I get induced tomorrow and had postponed it until Monday.
I had Parker here to keep an eye on me, and I had the first OB/GYN that I’d seen here as well, so I’d be just fine so long as I rested during the journey back to Sarasota. Given that I’d slept the whole way here, that wouldn’t be an issue. Oh, and I had my trusty yellow file with me, which was now full of forms and paperwork because Elijah never let me leave home without it.
As Ariana stood on stage, talking about why the fundraiser was taking place, I looked around me at all of the people who’d come tonight. It hadn’t just been locals either, because many of the residents from Piersville where Hurst and Linda lived had come, too. In fact, some of them were taking part in it.
“And first, we’ve got Piersville PD,” Ariana introduced. “Raise your hands and welcome them to the Fight For Life fundraiser.”
I’d only met some of the men briefly when we’d gone to visit Elijah’s family there, but seeing the sheriff, Dave, and five of the men who worked with him—Garrett, Raoul, Logan, Alejandro, and Carter—come onto the stage wearing a native Indian costume, an old fashioned police uniform, a black leather outfit and hat, what looked like an electrical engineer’s outfit, a naval uniform and finally a cowboy outfit complete with chaps, I bit my fist. Why? Because at that moment, a sharp pain made it feel like someone had tightened a wire around my middle.
Then the first notes of YMCA started playing, and nothing, not even the pain, could’ve stopped the laughter that took over as I watched them act out the Village People’s dance. I’d give them credit, they all got into it and gave it everything they had, blowing kisses to the women who were throwing dollar bills and pairs of underwear onto the stage.
As they left the stage, Ariana came on, wiping her face with a fistful of tissues, and introduced the next act.
The Piersville Townsends came on dressed up as the Spice Girls, singing Wannabe.
“Holy shit,” Ebru, Cole’s wife, shrieked as she fell off her chair laughing. “He’s Victoria Beckham.”
And so it went, through another eight acts, before the one I’d been involved with was announced.
The Gonzales County Townsends, along with Hurst, were coming on.
The stage went dark as things were shuffled around and the props brought on. Then, the beginning of Queen’s I Want To Break Free started, and the lights began to go back on, one by one.
Hurst came out pushing an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner from the right side of the stage, with a black wig, black mustache, short leather skirt, sleeveless pink turtleneck, fish tights, and stilettos on.
That was me officially gone. Trying to suck in air as he moved over to where Noah was dressed up as an old lady as he sat on the couch reading a newspaper was almost impossible. And then came Tate, dressed in a Saint Trinian’s style school uniform, with their friend, Madix, who was only an inch taller than Elijah, in a silky pink nightgown.
Either side of me, Linda and Lily grabbed my hands, both in the same state of oxygen deprivation as I was.
“He’s really getting into it,” Linda shrieked, watching Hurst li
p-sync along with the lyrics as he moved his leg in time with the music and pushed that vacuum back and forth.
“What size are his boobies?” I gasped, watching them bounce up and down with him.
“Cantaloupe size D,” she snorted. “At least the left one is. He couldn’t find two equal-sized ones.”
Movement from the left got our attention as Levi was shoved on stage, wearing a schoolgirl outfit like his brother’s and a red wig. Charlotte grabbed onto Luna and made a honking noise like a goose as she laughed.
Give them credit, the men were mortified, but they played along, smiling at the audience as they danced across the stage until another one of them, dressed just like Hurst was but with a blonde wig and black mustache, joined from the left—Parker.
“What did he do wrong?” I asked the girls, pulling my hand out of Lily’s and grabbing my stomach as another pain spread across it.
“He laughed at them all, so Ariana got him a matching outfit to Hurst’s,” Linda told me, smiling smugly. “Now he knows what karma is.”
Halfway through, Noah came on stage with an over the top chest wig stuck to him, wearing leather trousers.
“He got off easily,” Lily shouted at Luna, who shot her an evil grin over her shoulder.
“Oh no, he didn’t. Wait for it.”
Sure enough, when Noah turned around, we saw his white boxers through the huge gaping hole where the arse of his trousers should’ve been.
I’m sure my makeup was everywhere and that I resembled Alice Cooper by the time it was over. I was also slightly relieved because the cramping from all of the laughter was getting fierce.
“We’ve got one final act,” Ariana announced. “This one joined at the last minute, so it won’t be on your programs. However, I give you the final show of the night, Totally Dirty Dancing.”
Fuck me, I needed to find Elijah. God was laughing his arse off at me when he created me without whatever it is you need to burp. I’d had awful bloating for most of the pregnancy because of it, and because I’d laughed as much as I had tonight, it was the worst it’d ever been at that moment. Add that onto indigestion or whatever I had going on, and I wanted to throw up and go to sleep.
Just as I stood up, a light shone on the stage, lighting up my bloody father in a pink dress and wig.
“What the fuck?”
As Time Of My Life began playing, he looked off stage to his right, and Elijah, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, walked toward him.
“Oh, bloody hell,” my sister screamed, laughing harder than I’d ever heard her laugh before.
I wasn’t laughing, I was standing watching it in horror. My husband and dad, Governor Dahl, were acting out the most iconic dance in Dirty Dancing together.
And it got worse as Elijah took Dad into his arms, then ran his hand from Dad’s wrist down to his side, even getting a giggle like Baby did in the movie.
And that’s when a big gush of water ran down the inside of my legs, soaking my feet.
I was in deep shit.
Somehow, through some dancing miracle, both men copied all of the moves from the movie.
“How long have they been rehearsing this?” I whispered to myself. Elijah had just set up a new company, designing early warning and safety systems for ships—when had he had the time?
Then it got even more bizarre as the other brothers and their dad began dancing down the gap between the tables toward them, and Elijah jumped off the stage and ran up to them to prepare to dance back to where Dad was standing, swinging his pink dress around his knees.
Putting my hand on my stomach, I begged the baby. “Please don’t come out and see this. Wait until it’s all over, I’m begging you.”
Could babies have therapy? Was there such a thing?
The worst pain yet hit me just as Dad was helped off the stage and started running toward Elijah.
“Oh Christ,” Linda wheezed next to me now. “He’s going to do the lift.”
Biting my fist, I clenched my knees together as tightly as I could, a bit like Elijah’s were doing as he braced for Dad’s weight to hit him. Jackson and Marcus appeared on either side and helped Elijah hoist Dad into the air, then both dropped their hands and jumped back, laughing at the panicked look on their brother’s face.
“They were meant to hold him, too,” my sister snorted, now standing too and holding herself between her legs. “I’m going to pee.”
Elijah’s legs buckled under the weight of my dad, and down they went, along with Cynthia.
“I can’t—” she wheezed, then squealed and held her hand up. “Did you pee? You dirty cow!”
It felt like someone stabbed me right through the gut and up my arsehole at the same time, and I dropped to my knees beside my sister, holding my stomach as I screamed in pain.
“Okay, Sadie. It looks like your daughter’s coming into the world,” Parker announced as he stood between my legs staring right at my nunney. Actually, from what I’d seen on the stupid birthing videos my arsehole husband had made me watch, he’d probably be able to see right up my nunney.
Grabbing Elijah’s hand, I smiled wearily up at him.
After I’d ended up on the floor, all of the women had started screaming for Parker and Elijah that the baby was coming. Not wanting me not to have medical help for the drive to the hospital, Parker had insisted on driving us there as I lay in the backseat with my knees together. Yes, actually together. I wasn’t giving birth on the side of the road. I didn’t care if my vagina tried to evict her mid-journey, my knees weren’t separating and letting her out until we got somewhere sterile that had good drugs.
“Uh, Parker, do you want me to take the wig off?” a nurse whispered, standing next to him and staring at the blonde curls dangling over his face.
“No time,” he huffed and started barking out commands for what he needed.
Yes, he was my OB/GYN for this birth because Elijah trusted him more than anyone else. Because it was eleven o’clock at night, he had it in his brain that every other doctor in the world must be drunk, and he knew for a fact Parker hadn’t drunk a drop. God save me from stupid, stupid men.
Now my poor daughter was going to have a man dressed up like Freddie Mercury’s character in the music video as the first thing she saw.
“Her head’s starting to crown, Sadie. On the next contraction, I need you to push until I tell you to stop.”
And then Elijah took his life into his own hands by making a stupid mistake just as that contraction hit. He bent over me and said, “That’s it, pixie, you’re doing such a good job. Not long now.”
“What the fuck do you know?” I screamed, making everyone jump. “Have you done this? Have you? Squeezed a bloody whale out of your arse? If you have, then, by all means, tell me how it’s done.”
When he looked nervously at Parker, and I saw the expression on the good doctor’s face, he ended up on the receiving end, too. “And don’t you look at him like that. You can see the state my poor cooch is in, can’t you? Oh, bloody hell, it’s like someone wrapped a pineapple in barbed wire and tried to scratch an itch.”
Wincing, Elijah moved his hand to cover his crotch.
“Yes, come here and let me show you,” I snapped. “You should feel this pain, it’s your fault my vagina’s being ruined.” I ended it on a sob, feeling truly sorry for myself and the pain I was in.
“Uh, I’d hug her, Elijah,” Parker suggested. “But the screaming was a good way to squeeze the little princess out, look at that,” he added to the nurse beside him, pointing at whatever destruction had just happened to my poor little flower.
Opening my arms for the suggested hug, I would’ve laughed at the look of panic on Elijah’s face if it wasn’t for the pain. Hesitantly, like he was hugging a nuclear warhead, he leaned in and gave me the cuddle I wanted.
Well, that was until Parker shouted, “Okay, push again, Sadie. Give it everything.”
Grabbing a handful of Elijah’s hair, I lifted the top half of my body a
nd screamed as I did as he’d said.
“I saw your brother’s penis!”
Our daughter came into the world, doing her best to make her presence known over the noise coming from her father and me. That was more than likely due to the curly blonde wig on her doctor’s head, with a face shield showing the gory reflection on my ravaged cooter, though.
Nine pounds and four ounces of beautiful, healthy baby girl was placed into her father’s arms, and even with his hair looking like he’d been attacked, I’d never seen a more beautiful sight in my life, and I’d been blessed with a lot.
Elijah leaned over as she was taken away to be cleaned up and gave me a tentative kiss. “Have you forgiven me yet?”
Exhausted from the trauma, I closed my eyes and gave him the best smile my facial muscles could muster. “Probably not. The first thing she saw was that.” I pointed at Parker, who held his middle finger up, not looking away from whatever he was doing down there.
Chuckling, Elijah looked over at where the baby was still screaming her head off. “I think she’ll get over it once she realizes what awesome parents she’s got.”
I had to give him that. “Elijah,” I whisper hissed as something horrible dawned on me. “Parker’s had his hand up my vagina.”
Elijah’s head shot up as he glared at Freddie, whose shoulders were shaking as he laughed, obviously having heard what I’d said.
“Did you miss the part where she told you she’d seen your brother’s penis, man? I’d be more pissed about that.”
Turning back to me, he growled, “Which one?”
Smiling as innocently as I could, I shrugged. “One of the five, but it was an accident and happened a long time ago.”
Before he could say anything back, the nurse called him over to the table our baby was on.
Throwing an arm over my eyes, I tried to go into hiding from Parker, who was watching me with amusement. “I’m never going to be able to look at you again.”
“Ah, you’ve seen one vagina, you’ve seen them all,” he replied, trying to put my mind at ease and failing.
Great Sass: Providence Family Ties Series Page 23
