Inked Ever After (20 page)

They were all in Rosita’s. James’s dad had insisted on
paying for all the wedding expenses, but Tate’s mom had decreed that she was
taking care of the rehearsal dinner, so after the wedding rehearsal, the bride
and groom parties had all gone to Rosita’s.

Tate shrugged. “No frigging clue. Elle insisted on coming
with me to tape the whole tattoo session, but I was almost in a coma from the
pain, especially during the last part, so I must have missed something.” She
did recall Elle complimenting Kai’s hands, though. And other parts of his body
too.

James watched as Kai said something and Elle laughed.
“Obviously.”

“Can’t say I’m all that surprised,” Tate mused. “Although he
doesn’t seem to be an asshole.”

“No, he isn’t. He’s cool.”

Well, that was it, the kiss of death. “Then she’ll walk all
over him.”

James let out a snort. “She’s welcome to try. I don’t think
she’ll succeed, though.”

Tate stared at Kai. Yeah, maybe James was right, and he could
stand his ground. He surely looked big and badass enough.

“Wait a sec,” James said. “Let’s backtrack a little. Did you
say Elle taped you while getting the tattoo?”

“Yep. She said she was uploading it to YouTube. ‘Haters can
convert’ or some shit like that she was naming it. She was going to show it to
you before, though. Haven’t you seen it?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find it tomorrow in between the other
wedding presents. Just ignore the part where she zoomed in on Kai’s ass.”

James shook his head, amused. “Your sister is nuts.”

“On that you’re absolutely right,” she agreed and kissed him
on the lips, caressing his sexy, weeklong stubble.

James had been discharged from the hospital two days ago.
His injuries were almost healed, but his face was still pretty much a map of
bruises, now already blue and green.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing much better. You seemed a bit
tense during the wedding rehearsal, princess.”

She shrugged. “A little. Rehearsing without the guests and
all that, it’s—I don’t know—down to basics, I guess you could say, and it hit
me how empty my side of the altar is.”

James said nothing, just tightened his embrace. What was
there to say? Her side of the altar was missing people—important people.

The rehearsal dinner, however, was turning out to be a much
more enjoyable experience. All the people she loved most in the world were
under one roof, and they were having a great time.

The food was fantastic, as always when Tate wasn’t involved
in the process. Wine and beer flowed freely, and soon they were all tipsy
enough not to realize she wasn’t drinking anything. James kept her on his lap,
like he always did. She’d tried complaining, with him being discharged from the
hospital just two days ago and all, but he wouldn’t listen to her. And, well,
he had a point; if he could fuck her the way he’d been doing it lately, he
could hold her weight while sitting.

Since finding out she was pregnant, James had become even
more protective, and when she was in his arms, or in his lap, his hand always
found its way to her stomach. In bed, though, he continued making love to her
as often and single-mindedly as before, as if he couldn’t stand not being
inside her.

Cole came back after talking to his father and dragged Christy
to sit on his lap. It seemed keeping their women on their laps was a trait all
Bowen men shared. Christy was back, this time permanently, and Tate couldn’t
recall seeing Cole this happy and relaxed. And Christy was beaming, a beautiful
engagement ring on her left finger.

Tate reached for her hand. “So beautiful,” she said,
admiring the ring.

“Thanks,” Christy responded.

Cole and Christy had flown back to Alden from LA the second
Max called Cole and told him about James’s accident. They’d come to the
hospital straight from the airport that first night. She’d been wearing it
already then, but Tate had been too out of it to notice it.

“So, Christy, are you signing on as the town’s new
librarian?” James asked.

She nodded, but it was Cole who answered. “Yes, she’s
starting next Monday.”

Thank God, because Mrs. Wilkinson had been a wreck since
Christy had left. Not as much as Cole, but close enough.

“I’m pretty excited,” Christy said. “I already got Annie and
the girls signed for the e-romance club. Can I count on you, Tate?”

“Sure.” She’d never been big on reading, but it wasn’t too
late to start.

“If you’re signing up all the pretty girls in Alden, I want
to join too,” Max told Christy.

“We aren’t taking men,” she explained.

He cocked his eyebrow. “What? We aren’t sensitive enough for
your kind of literature?”

Christy turned to Annie and both broke into laughter. Annie
leaned closer to Max and whispered, “We are talking cliterature here.”

His roguish smile was breathtaking. “Oh, clits and chicks, I
can handle that,” he answered with a wink, his eyes glittering with laughter.

Tate looked at her soon-to-be brother-in-law and shook her
head. Jeez, the guy did charming with the best of the best. He was coming to
the wedding without a date, which made sense because any woman brave enough to
dare dating him for more than a couple of days in a row would end up tied,
gagged, stuffed into a trunk, and left to die a long and horrible death.

Tate had spoken with Max before James had been discharged
from the hospital, and thanked him for not listening to James and coming to get
her.

He’d shrugged it off. “One has to admire the perseverance of
the guy. All these years and he’s still under the illusion I’ll obey him.”

“Thanks,” she’d repeated, hugging him.

He’d sobered. “James loves you. He will always put you
first. Even before himself. That’s why he wanted to keep you away. And that’s
why I totally ignored him.” Yeah, Max was much more than a pretty face and a
heart-stopping body.

Aunt Maggie, who thank God didn’t seem to have heard the
last part of the conversation between the girls and Max, chimed in. “By the
way, did you know some young man came to the Salvation Army two days ago and
tried to convince Mrs. Patty to give him a humongous engagement ring someone
had donated?”

That had been Christy’s ex-fiancé’s engagement ring. She’d
tried donating it anonymously, but very few things were anonymous in Alden, and
in no time the whole town knew.

“Really?” Christy asked, surprised. “What happened?”

“He got too rude, and, let’s just say he’ll have trouble
standing up for a while. Mrs. Patty may look as inoffensive as a fly, but she’s
been attending Mike’s self-defense classes for seniors down at the gym.
Apparently she managed to nick I don’t know which part in the young man’s groin,
and something deflated. I don’t think permanently, though.” All the men around
winced in commiseration. “It seems she exceeded all her teacher’s
expectations.”

No shit.

“And then a rather heartless, uncharitable soul hunted the
poor devil down and dragged him out of the doc’s and to the train station. Sent
his ass back to California,” Max added.

To California from Boston by train, with his groin hurt?
Ouch.

“Really?” Christy narrowed her suspicious eyes on Cole. “I
wonder who did that.”

Cole stared back at her, all innocent looking. “Yeah, I
wonder who.”

While dessert was being served, the door opened and Jack
strode in, a gorgeous and exuberant blonde by his arm, legs up to her chin, all
boobs and ass and arrogant sass.

“Wow,” Tate whispered. Jack had gotten a phone call and had
to leave right after the rehearsal. He’d said he had shit to do and that he’d
drop by Rosita’s later on. “That’s his date?”

James snorted. “More like a job. He’s babysitting.” And
judging by Jack’s expression, he was not very happy about it.

As fate had it, the only available seats were near Kai and
Elle. She glanced in their direction and straightened her back, an unholy smirk
on her face. Jack looked at her too, and at Kai, his demeanor betraying nothing
outside the slight stiffening of his shoulders.

Tate hadn’t been aware Kai and Jack knew each other, but
apparently they did.

“Kai,” Jack greeted curtly as they reached the table.

“Jack,” Kai answered, placing his arm on Elle’s backrest.

Jack said something to his date and motioned for her to sit.
Blondie smiled and gracefully assented with a jerk of her chin.

Elle leaned back in her chair. “Not allowed to talk either,
huh?” she asked her.

Jack’s jaw pulsed. Kai snickered.

“Remember how you said that if Jack and Elle made it through
the rehearsal dinner, we were good?” Tate whispered to James.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m afraid they won’t.”

* * * *

Tate wasn’t going to be able to sleep. She was too wired up.
Going out through the door wasn’t an option; the house was too full for her to
sneak out unnoticed, so she grabbed her purse, opened the window of her
bedroom, and down she went.

Halfway, she realized she should have changed out of her
pajamas. Or at the very least ditched her slippers and put on shoes, but
whatever. All she really needed were her car keys.

“Now, why did I have the feeling you were going to pull a
stunt like this?” she heard someone say from the ground.

She looked down.

James was there, his arms crossed over his chest, one
eyebrow raised.

She felt her face cracking, her smile was so big.

“James!”

“If you think for a second that breaking a leg will get you
out of the wedding tomorrow, you’re fucking wrong. I’ll throw you over my
shoulder and carry you down the aisle myself, cast included.”

“Perfect pair then,” she said with a smirk. “A banged-up
groom and a bride with a cast.”

She was still a couple of feet up, but he caught her easily.
“Babe, I’m inked into your skin, and you’re pregnant with my baby. Your time to
run away is long gone.”

She kissed him softly, sinking her hands in his gorgeous
hair. “I’m not running away. I was going home to see if I could sneak in and
stay with you. You’re not totally healed.” For tonight, James was staying at
his father’s while she was staying in her parents’ house in Boston. “What are
you
doing here?” she asked.

“Not used to sleeping without you, princess. I was wondering
if I could stay here with you.”

“Elle is bunking with me.” Between her mom, Elle, their aunt’s
family from San Francisco, and her mom’s friends from Florida, they had a full
house. “Our place?”

James shook his head. “Totally full too. Relatives and
friends from out of town have taken it over. Maybe we could drive to Rosita’s
and stay in your old apartment. Or get a hotel room for the night. Maybe drive
to Cape John?”

“James, if this bunch wake up tomorrow and don’t find us
where we’re supposed to be, they’ll contact the army. Besides, we’re getting
married tom—” She looked at his watch. It was past midnight. “Today actually.
It’s supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the
wedding.”

“Fuck it. The groom is going to go crazy if he has to go
back home alone. Wait, I have an idea,” he said, taking her hand and directing
her around the house toward the backyard, where a porch bed swing stood. “It’s
warm. Let’s stay here,” he suggested, pulling her down to lie beside him, and
covered them with a quilt that had been folded at the end of the swing.

She snuggled against him; she couldn’t imagine a better way
of spending the night before her wedding than under the stars with James.

“The rehearsal dinner was fun,” she whispered.

His snort was full of humor. “Sure it was.”

It had ended without big incidents, but for a while there,
it had been touch and go. Jack didn’t seem to tolerate Elle too well, but for
some reason, he tolerated seeing guys around her even less. The blonde perched
on his arm, whom he ignored but who didn’t give up, didn’t sit well with Elle
either. And to top all that, Kai was no pushover.

“Jack doesn’t know what to do with Elle,” Tate mused.

James laughed. “Princess, Jack is used to women throwing
themselves at his feet for a chance to blow his cock. He’s not used to women
throwing attitude at his face for a chance to aggravate the living crap out of
him.”

Well, that would explain his reaction to Elle.

“How on God’s earth did you convince Jack to be your best
man?”

“I didn’t have to convince him. I asked and he agreed. Well,
he bitched a bit but agreed. He feels he owes me.”

Somehow she couldn’t imagine Jack bitching. Kicking ass,
cursing, or in stoic silence, sure. Bitching, no.

“Owes you?” she asked when his last words registered,
because she’d heard James say many times he owed Jack for Tate’s life and that
he wouldn’t be able to repay him ever.

“It was something that happened a lifetime ago. I tried
explaining to him we are even, but he doesn’t listen. It’s just the kind of man
he is.”

Yes, exactly the same kind as James; that was why they got
along so well.

They rocked in the swing in silence for a while, James’s
arms around her.

“How were you doing in there?” he asked quietly. “Trouble
sleeping?”

Suddenly she felt like crying. That was her future husband;
he hadn’t been unable to sleep, as he’d claimed. He’d just come to make sure
she was okay because he knew she needed him.

She’d made her peace with the place—sort of. But tonight she
hadn’t had James with her. She’d brought his T-shirt, which smelled of him, but
it hadn’t been the same. Not by a long shot.

She cleared her throat. “It’s okay. Too many people around
for me to stop and think for too long.”

“You sad?” he asked, his hand gently rubbing her stomach.

“And happy too. And nervous and petrified and exhilarated.”