Marrying Her: The Keeping Her Christmas Wedding (The Keeping Her Series Book 5)

Marrying Her

A Keeping Her
Christmas Wedding

by

Kelly Lucille

All Rights
Reserved

Copyright 2015
Kelly Lucille

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Clytie vaguely heard the
ringing of the phone but ignored it.  She was working on the final touches of
her newest encaustic and everybody knew that she was incommunicado when she
worked.  When it stopped and then started again, she looked briefly in the
direction of the great room but didn’t think anything of it.  Then it kept
ringing.  She knew Ben and Mac had taken Cassandra and Roxanne into town to Cold
Stone Creamery, but Demon was somewhere close by.  When he was not out on
assignment for Lionsgate he always was.  And he tended to guard her private art
time as zealously as she did, if not more so.  Unless he was patrolling deep
into the wilds in his wolf shape, he would hear the phone and come.  She
brushed the long strands of red curls that had escaped her braid off her face
with the back of her free hand.

The thought of the way
Demon would growl and snap at anyone who even thought about disturbing her made
Clytie smile to herself.  But then there wasn’t much he did that didn’t make
her smile. Even after nearly two years of living together, half of that with an
adopted daughter, a family, she still felt like she did the first time he
kissed her.  There had been some rough times.  And as often as he made her
smile, he also made her crazy with his over-protectiveness and alpha tendency
to give commands.  But she would not trade any of it.  Not when he still looked
at her the way he did.  Like she was the special one and he would protect her
with his last breath.  Like he needed to touch her as much as she needed to
touch him.  And with Demon and his heated brown eyes and warrior body she could
not keep her hands to herself.

Clytie shifted thoughts
of Demon out of her head before it distracted her beyond redemption.  She
turned down one of the burners that was cooking the wax too much and tried to
get her mind back on her work.  Her tin cans were hot enough that the wax was
the perfect liquid for painting, but too hot was as bad as not hot enough for
some things.  In this case, she needed a slightly cooler texture to build the
waves.  The pigments she was using were darker than her usual swirls of color,
but this particular piece was a nighttime dream.  The textures and the shimmering
moonlight on water were giving her trouble, not coming out exactly right, so
she added a touch more silver to the mix and tried again.  The phone stopped
ringing when it went to voicemail.  Then it started up almost immediately. 
Demon was definitely not anywhere close to the house or he would have already
tromped in snarling and likely verbally smashed whoever was so insistent. It
happened a fourth time and Clytie sighed; giving up, she went to answer the
phone, noticing absently that she had spilled some green wax on her overlarge
t-shirt, but had managed to miss the loose sweats so far.  Her naked toes were
painted a metallic blue and she liked the flash of it when she walked.  Her
absent thoughts shifted to the insistent phone. 
Who would call on the
landlines and not the cell phones or the Lionsgate security office phone
anyway? 
Someone was always stationed in the booth, today it was the newest
member of their little pack.  A young crow-shifter who, so far, she had barely
seen herself.  She was starting to think he was purposely avoiding her for some
reason, and he was fast enough and quiet enough to do just that.  Not to
mention those advanced shifter senses.  It had been nearly a month since Logan
showed up with him and asked if he could stay for “awhile,” well passed the
time for her to weigh in.  Physically, the child was a lanky thirteen, but his
eyes were going on a hundred.

What kind of name for a
crow-shifter was Crow, no last name, anyway?

Thinking of having a talk
with Demon about the boy, Clytie picked up the phone and answered with a
distracted, “Hello?”

“Clytie?”

“Sara?” she asked even
more confused when she realized who it was.  “How did you get this number?”

“I tried your cell.”  Her
sister’s voice was brittle.  “No one is answering it.  Jordan gave me this
number.  She said it was for emergencies.”  She paused here, her voice cooling
slightly.  “Though I was surprised you gave it to my daughter but not to me.”

Clytie ignored that and
did her best not to react to the accusation.  “I’m sorry, Sara, I was working. 
I usually turn off my phone to work; and Jordan was here when the house phone
was installed.  She took the number just in case.  Since we got it for
emergencies, as in 911 calls, I don’t give it out and just use my cell.”

“I see,” but the cold
frost didn’t thaw.  There was a silence where Clytie could hear nothing but
some jagged breathing.

Clytie clutched the phone
tighter.  “Has something happened?”

“Father is in the
hospital in Oklahoma City.  The cancer moved to his liver.”

Clytie felt as if someone
had punched her in the stomach, and tried to breathe through airways that had
closed.  She tried to speak and it came out raw and pinched.  “What cancer?”

***

Demon was out of his
depth.  Give him a battlefield and an army to fight and he could take on all
comers, but seeing his mate listlessly sitting on their bed, staring at nothing
with that quietly devastated look in her green eyes, all he wanted to do was
pound his fist through the walls.  This was not Clytie.  Clytie was smiles and
energy.  He didn’t like it; no, he fucking hated it, and the feeling of
helplessness in the face of her pain was enough to make his wolf want to rend
and tear at things.

“Lucas is sending the jet,”
Mac said from the doorway.  “Cleo will be flying with Shawn, backing us up with
security.  They have already left for the airport and expect to make it in
tonight.  We can head out as soon as they fuel up.”  Smokey silver eyes grim, Mac
was not one to smile just because, and his own mate was feeling this hit as
well.  Cassandra was Clytie’s cousin; she had never been close to her uncle but
family was family, and besides that connection, she was Clytie’s best friend. 
She was feeling this, too, and Mac and Ben were in nearly the same situation as
Demon, having a mate in pain and unable to do a damn thing about it except
handle the itinerary and be there. Mac moved his eyes to Demon but continued to
talk to Clytie.  “He says to tell you that any of your family are welcome.  The
plane and Cleo are at your disposal.”

Clytie looked up and
smiled, but unlike every other time he had seen it in the two years they had
been together, this one didn’t reach her eyes.  “That’s kind of him.  I’ll call
my sister and let her know.”

“I called her,” Cassandra
said from behind Mac.  He turned and she walked into his open arms thankfully,
her golden-brown hair looking light against Mac’s dark coloring.  Worried hazel
eyes moved to her cousin.  “They decided that driving out as soon as she gets
the shop covered is more appropriate in this case.”  Cassie moved her eyes to
Mac, which were heated with anger, ensuring that Demon was not going to like
what she said next.  “She would not like to be beholden, or stranded.  And she
doesn’t think bringing strangers to a family affair is appropriate, especially
when we know that her father would not approve.”

“What the fuck does that
mean?” Demon asked on a growl.

Clytie sighed and
answered before Cassandra could.  “Exactly what it sounds like.  A massive
disapproving slap in the face of your kindness.”  She blew out a breath and
stood up to finish packing.  She didn’t look at anyone else in the room, and
her voice was listless.

“Incidentally, I asked
her why neither you nor I knew about Uncle Gilbert having cancer,” Cassandra
said, her voice turning downright hostile.

“I asked her, too,”
Clytie said, her voice giving none of her emotions away.  “She said my parents
did not want anyone but immediate family to know about it.”

Cassandra opened her
mouth, a fire in her eyes, but then looked at Demon who shook his head grimly,
turning his attention to his mate. Without another word, Cassie pulled Mac from
the room and shut the door.  She was forgotten along with everything else but
his mate by the time the door shut behind them.

He took Clytie’s arm and
swung her gently around.  He held her there until she finally looked him in the
eyes.  The void he found there made him want to howl.

“Don’t be nice to me
right now, Demon,” she said with a break and a swallow to force back down her
tears.  “I’m holding on by a thread.”

“Why?”

She blinked at the
unexpected question, a little of her hollow shield falling away.  “Why what?”

He pulled her closer, his
eyes burning into hers.  “You’re killing me baby,” he growled, shaking her just
a little.  “Let it the fuck out.”

Clytie opened her mouth
and then closed it again, then face-planted into his naked chest.  Since he had
been patrolling in his wolf form, he had pulled on his usual old sweats and
nothing else when he came in.  She wrapped her arms around him and held on
tight.  He was trying to think of something to say when he felt the dam break
with a little catch in her throat.  The hot tears fell against his skin like a
wet brand and he felt the grief ripping out of her in near silent desperation. 
“My dad has cancer.”  Her broken voice was barely a whisper.

“Baby.” Demon gritted the
words as his guts twisted.

“Nobody told me.”

Demon pushed one hand
into her hair, the other wrapped tight around her waist.

“Nobody told me.”  She
repeated the words as if they made no sense to her.

Demon bared his teeth,
his eyes flashing wolf gold, but he kept his mouth shut.  It wouldn’t do any
good to curse her fucked-up family now.

“My dad is dying,” she whispered
low, and he felt her whole body quake and held her tighter.  When she started
crying in earnest, he did the only thing he could do.  He lifted her into his
arms and carried her to their bed.  He laid her down and joined her there, wrapping
himself around her as she clutched at him and bucked with her tears. 

When she finally lay
quiet in his arms, he ran his hand up and down her back in slow circles as he had
seen her do countless times to Roxy when the cub was restless.

“I don’t want to go,” she
said quietly, raising red-rimmed eyes to meet his and breaking the long
silence.

“Then we stay here,” he
answered with a flat finality that almost had a smile appearing on her soft
lips.

 “I have to go,” she
finally said, searching the implacable will in his eyes that made no judgment.

“You don’t have to do
shit,” he growled, pulling her closer so that the whole of her body pressed
down the hard length of his.  She rested her head on his chest with a sigh.  He
felt the rest of that stiff tension fall away.

“I would never forgive
myself otherwise.” She smoothed her hand down the heated skin of his chest.  “I’m
not going to delude myself into thinking he will be happy to see me, but . . .,”
she sighed again and lowered her head back to just over his heart, “I have to
go.”

“Then we go,” Demon
growled. Wrapping his own arms tightly around her, he leaned down enough to
kiss the top of her soft hair.

“If you thought my sister
was bad . . .,” she started to warn him with a little hint of her usual sass
coming back.

“Fuck ’em.”

Demon felt her lips curve
up against his chest.  “You are not allowed to beat down anyone in my family,
no matter what they say to you.”

There was a short silence
while Demon thought about it.  “Fine.”

Clytie leaned back so she
could look up and meet his eyes again, her own narrowed on his face.  “You can’t
beat anyone no matter what they say to
me
, either.”

Demon leaned down and
kissed her hard and fast.  “I make no promises.  Anyone that fucking stupid
gets what they get.”

She laughed, shaking her
head.  Then as he watched, her eyes grew tender and her soft hand found the
howling wolf tattoo on his neck and rested there.  “You know it’s not your job
to shelter me from everything.”

Demon leaned down and
kissed her again, this time soft and long.  He pulled back. “The fuck it isn’t,”
he grumbled out, his voice deeper, and from the change in his sight, his eyes
were flashing to wolf gold again.

This time the curve of
her lips was a full-on smile as she fought against laughing at him.  “No beatings. 
Promise me or I won’t let you come.”

Demon raised a brow and
just looked at her.

Life sparked back into
her eyes and she faced him down as best she could, laying pressed against him
in their bed.  Even with the determination in her eyes, her lips were fighting
the desire to curve. 
Fucking adorable.

“I mean it.  I want your
word that you will not resort to violence no matter how provoking they might
be, or
I will
leave without you.”

Since he recognized that
stubborn look and there was no way in hell she was going anywhere without him,
he decided to change tactics.  Plus, Clytie looking sassy always made him want
to fuck her blind, and if he didn’t end this, she was heading toward a full-blown
temper and he wouldn’t get
anything
but attitude.  Which also made him
want to fuck her blind, but without the happy result.  “I’m not going to smack
your dad around in his hospital bed, baby, give me some credit.”