Sinner (The Hades Squad #1) (31 page)

She didn't meet them all until Thanksgiving, which proved both good and strained. The first hour of tactful, diplomatic interrogation had Destiny inventing new crayon hues with her blushes. When his sisters shifted from what they considered polite conversation to tortured teasing, he hovered like a chopper straining for the best angle to spray gunshots.

“You'd better start retraining him right away,” Arabella Mansfield informed Destiny. “Believe me, once you get married, it's a lifelong retraining process.”

“Retraining?” Destiny queried.

“Future sister-in-law, you have a lot to learn.” Doing an about-face, Arabella announced, “Conference time. Mom's study.”

The women all disappeared for a good two hours.

Linc's Dad broke out the Irish whiskey. The squad arrived, and the women crawled out from their retreat looking a little too pink and smiley.

“Crap,” his father grumbled. “I bet they finished that last bottle your mother stashed someplace. It was a single malt from one of her uncle's distilleries. They use only mountain-fed water. Pure manna.”

The pregame quarrel over who would captain took on a dangerous slant. No one could ever figure out afterward how the final decision had been made, but Destiny was named captain of the SEAL/paratrooper team, while Arabella led the Chapman squad.

The Hades Squad won. Final score: forty-five to seventeen.

Seventeen. Linc would gloat for the rest of the year. Seven fucking teen.

Right after Thanksgiving, Lucifer discovered a series of emails between Nadine and Juanita. Apparently, Nadine and Juanita were both co-conspirators in using Destiny to re-write their books into best-sellers.

Turned out Juanita had deliberately set out to steal Ken from Destiny. The bitch had concocted a wild scheme to record her and Ken having monkey sex and leak the tape to the press to jump-start sales of her book. No such thing as bad publicity. Her nefarious scheme to use the ’spat’ and possible suing of Destiny to fuel her sales further had Linc furious.

Nadine used Juanita’s info on Destiny’s talent to manipulate Jess into assigning her as her editor, knowing full well that Destiny would do anything to make Nadine’s book succeed. Both females roped Kenny into their scheme. Kenny convinced the only too-willing janitor, Mr. Ronson, to let him into Destiny’s apartment, and he had been the one who stole
Fated Destiny
.

Linc wanted to pound Kenny and Ronson into the ground and initiate immediate negative email and publicity campaigns against Juanita and Nadine. When he broached his intentions to the squad, Satan nixed both ideas.

When Linc told Destiny about the malicious deviousness of the two women, she fumed and raved for a good twenty-four hours. The following morning, she sat down at her desk, and began writing her new thriller. His chest ached with pride at his wife’s grim determination.

Destiny finished her second book on November twenty-ninth.

By then Linc had Satan casing the New York publishing houses with Destiny's query letter and synopsis. The whole squad read the book and so did his brothers and sisters. His mom gently deferred. He was as proud as a peacock strutting his stuff in peahen heaven.

The wedding ceremony had been set for December thirteenth.

They found a house in East Marion about a seven-minute drive from Satan. Five bedrooms and three baths, so Lincoln knew his kids would be forever arguing whose turn it was. The thought made him smile at least once a day.

Mom insisted he live at home for the twelve days before the wedding. The day he packed and moved into the bedroom he'd shared with his brothers years before, Destiny transferred her belongings to their new house.

Destiny had managed to accumulate a ton in five years. Lincoln was amazed how many possessions the tiny loft yielded. She decided to donate her bedroom furniture and couch to the Salvation Army.

The day of the move, Linc shouldered the sofa away from the wall to uncover a legal-size brown envelope.

Destiny hovering behind him, bent down and picked up the packet. “What's this?” She read the label on the envelope aloud. “Destiny Driven. I hardly ever get mail in my real name.”

Linc remembered their first night together in her place. “Didn't Mrs. C give you that the first night I was here?”

“She did. I'd forgotten all about it. It must have slipped under the sofa when I was checking the other mail.” She tore the perforated edge and retrieved two letter-size sheets topped by three smaller documents. “Omigod, Linc. This is my original birth certificate. My Destiny Driven original birth certificate. Look.”

Handling the document carefully, Linc studied the county seal. “This looks authentic.”

“I have a cousin,” she whispered, her head bent over one of the handwritten sheets. “My mother had a sister. Her name was Patricia Driven.”

Was?
Linc's gut nosedived.

“She had Alzheimer's for the past fifteen years and died a couple of months ago. Her son, my cousin, found my birth certificate when he went through her belongings.” Destiny raised her gaze from the sheet of paper, her eyes moistening, pools forming at the corners. “You'll never guess his name, Linc.”

“What is it, Baby Doll?” Lincoln shifted and pulled her down onto his lap.

“Hero Hunter,” she croaked. “Hero Hunter.” Destiny shook her head. “That's as bad as Destiny Driven. Maybe worse.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe your mom wanted you to live up to your name?” Linc's lips curved. “For you to be driven to your destiny? Sure sounds as if your mother and your aunt were creative souls who wanted their children to stand out from the crowd.”

“You think?” She lifted her chin when he stroked her throat. “He gave me his email address and asked me to get in touch. He's in the army, and according to this, he's expecting orders to be deployed any day. He also gave me his Skype info.” She gnawed on her lower lip. “I guess he's the one who took Mrs. C to the Plaza for brunch.”

Linc spied a five-by-seven photograph lying on the envelope. “Did you see this?” He flipped the picture over and read aloud the handwritten note. “Hero, me, Patty, and Destiny.”

Tears streamed down Destiny's face, but she smiled through them. “I look like her.”

“Yeah, you do. Here's another.” He picked up a wallet-size shot. “This must be Hero today.”

Sweeping her gaze between the two photographs, Destiny swallowed a couple of times, her throat muscles flexing as if the movement pained her. “He looks a couple of years older than me in that one. So twenty-eight would be about right for his age.”

“You okay, Destiny?” Linc cradled her cheek, turning her face to his.

“I guess. Confused but happy.”

They resumed the final packing of what was left of her stuff. It didn't take them long to haul all her belongings to their new house. The whole Chapman family joined them in helping Destiny unpack.

Then they hustled Lincoln out of the house, his mother insisting he was not to see her before the wedding.

On the first day of December, Linc sent Destiny the paratrooper he'd carved out of birch. His sister had sewn a parachute for the Christmas decoration from a white material she'd dusted silver and gold, and he'd wired the underneath with an incandescent LED string. It looked like it could be the star on a tree, he figured.

On the fifth day, Destiny announced she'd signed a contract with a leading e-publisher.

“Why?” he asked, glaring at the receiver as if the instrument had a brain.

“Because that's the future of publishing. I can write what I want, and the editor I submitted the book to loves my voice. Trust me, Linc, finding an editor who believes in you is like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. ’Sides, I negotiated a Valentine's Day release date.”

“Jess on board with all of this?” He hadn't smelled her for five days, and he had two more to go.

“She's got this marketing plan. Wait till she gives you the spiel. That woman is amazing. She's going to start her own business, and I'm going to be her first client.”

“Jess is a good friend. She'll be along for the ride.” His father had told him that morning that Destiny had asked him to give her away. “Dad told me about giving you away. Destiny, don't you think you should at least—”

“I don't need to confront my father, Linc. I finally have a real family—yours. I invited Hero, but he's not due for home leave for six months. He made me promise to send him a YouTube thingy. I didn't really expect he'd make it.”

Linc could just picture her right shoulder rolling, see her black eyes flashing. A wry grin captured his lips. “I'm glad you and your cousin are getting along so well on Skype. But are you sure about not inviting your father and stepmother?”

“There's no way I'd want either my father or my stepmother at our wedding. I'm going to imagine my real mom looking down at me, her eyes tearing up when I say the words ’I do.'”

His eyes misted, and the lump in his throat grew to golf ball-sized proportions.

What did I do to deserve you, Destiny Driven?

“Linc?”

“Destiny?”

“I'm going to publish the book using my maiden name.”

He grinned like a baboon.

“I can't imagine a better name for
A Paratrooper, a Pear Tree, and a Supertanker
,” he declared.

“Good. Oh, one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Lucifer installed the pole today. In the master bedroom, of course.”

A red haze dogged his vision. “Lucifer? You had Lucifer install the stripper pole?”

“Stop that bellowing this instant, Lincoln Abraham.” His mother's terse order made him want to cower and hide under the hallway alcove that anchored the old-fashioned landline phone. He felt like a thirteen-year-old caught jacking off in a corner.

“Is that Destiny on the phone?” Mom wriggled her fingers. “Give that to me. Jess phoned earlier. She's staying with Destiny the night before the wedding, which of course is her duty as maid of honor. But your sisters and I plan on going over there and cooking dinner. Don't just stand there gawking—give me the phone.”

What could he do?

He hadn't spoken to her in two days, two excruciating, more-than-twenty-four-hour days. Lincoln didn't have a clue what her wedding dress would look like. His sisters and his mother had clouded everything with an “it's bad luck” excuse every time he'd tried to worm a detail from them.

Performance rehearsals devoured most of the five days before the wedding. Never in his life had he ever been anxious before a concert, but his nerves sparked that week every time he sang his bass solo for Handel's
Messiah
. The new conductor for the Philharmonic loved his voice and encouraged him to reach new lows. They settled upon a different interpretation of the original score.

Lincoln was singing for one woman, and one woman alone. This performance was more than a concert—it was the foundation the remainder of his life would rest on. He wanted to be perfect—perfect in pitch, perfect in harmony, perfect.

The fact that Christmas would dawn twelve days later, that they'd put up a tree, turn the house into a home, make memories that would seep into the walls and pulse and vibrate from every room, clogged his throat five or six times a day.

His wedding day dawned gray and overcast. Moisture hung in the air. He wanted to howl at the heavens. How dare they mar his perfect day?

“Not to worry, son,” his mother declared in the limo on the way to the church. “The Irish consider rain on a wedding day pearls from heaven.”

Mom looked ten years younger than sixty, silver lining her raven hair at the temples, her storm-sea eyes clear and bright. Rose stained the apples of her cheeks.

“Thanks, Mom.” He grasped her hand and squeezed her fingers lightly before brushing a kiss over her knuckles. “Thanks for everything, for being a great mom, for accepting Destiny as your own. You know, I hadn't realized it until now, but I chose a woman exactly like my mom.”

“You're going to make me cry.” Her voice wavered. “I've cried at every single one of my children's weddings, so I guess once more won't kill me. Heck, I knew I was going to cry the minute I arranged for you to be married after Handel's
Messiah
.” She swallowed. “No more talking, or else I'll ruin my makeup.”

The church oozed ivy of every species. English ivy, the variegated leaves glistening silver in the flickering candles nestled into each pew's entrance, trailed the burnished mahogany back of each bench. Irish ivy boasting shining dark emerald leaves and clusters of electric blue berries decorated the gray and white altar.

Not a pin dropped during his solo.

His family sat in their regular pew, along with Mrs. Charles and Lincoln's surprise wedding present to Destiny, her cousin, Hero Hunter. Destiny wasn't with them. His eyes roved the audience as he sang. No Destiny. The conductor caught his searching glance and angled his head left to the vestibule. Only her face was visible, her black eyes brimmed moisture, and a lone tear snaked down her cheek. She smiled, the gesture dreamy, enchanted. As he sang the last note, he bowed in her direction.

When the solo ended, his sisters one by one swayed up the church's aisle, followed a minute later by Jess. Seconds elapsed, the “Hallelujah” chorus, low and hypnotic, bounced from wall to wall and up to the cathedral's high, domed ceiling.

Destiny, escorted by Lincoln's father, began the traditional bridal walk.

She'd chosen a dress with a sweetheart neckline and a long transparent veil, which made her features shadows and mystery, woman and girl, wife and soon-to-be mother. Joy and happiness and contentment so complete, so surreal, sank from the roots of his hair to his toes, curling in the Kenneth Cole shoes Arabella had insisted he wear.

His dad placed her hand on Lincoln's forearm. Heart threatening a full hurdle out of his rib cage, Linc covered her small fingers with his and turned to the priest.

“Linc?” Her hot breath tickled his earlobe and started an embarrassing fire in his groins.

It'd been thirteen days, and he was primed and pumped. No jacking off before his wedding. No, sir.