A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember (22 page)

H
E WATCHED
her Little Bo Peep butt wiggle as she led the way. “Annie—”

“Shh,” was all she said. “She's going to screw everything up unless you fix it.”

Whoa.
He
was supposed to fix this? Hell, he couldn't fix his own life.

That's when she tried to tug him into the women's bathroom.

“Now just a second.” The last time he'd been in a women's only bathroom had been in sixth grade. A group of ninth graders had forced him in, where inside had been the entire girls' basketball team, changing.

He'd been suspended for a week, and the horror of it still made him dig in his heels at the threshold. “I can't go in there.”

“No?” Annie gripped his arms and went up on tiptoe to whisper in his face. “If you don't, she's going to break your brother's heart.”

Damn. He tried to peer inside the bathroom. “If there's a naked basketball team in there, I'm going to be mighty upset with you.”

She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. “What?”

“Never mind.” He walked in, his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking straight ahead. The place was decorated in gold angels, and had a couch. A
couch.
What did women need a couch in the can for? “Lissa? You in here?”

“Go away.”

Ah, hell. The voice came from behind a locked stall, under which he could see a bunch of white satin. He crouched down and spoke into the space beneath the door. “Hey, maybe you didn't know, but they're playing your song. Here comes the bride.”

He heard a loud sniffle.

Oh, God.
Tears.

“I can't do it, Kyle,” she sobbed. “I can't even remember why I wanted to.”

“Uh…” He searched his brain and came up with the reason Kevin had given him. “Because you get to have sex every night—Oof.” He rubbed his gut and glared at Annie. “What? It's true.”

“That's a
guy's
reason,” she whispered furiously.

From behind the door came more sobs, and Kyle could only sigh. “Lissa, I thought you wanted this.”

The sobs increased in intensity.

Annie stared at him accusatorily, as if it was
his
fault his brother's fiancée had gotten cold feet.

He lifted his hands in surrender.

Annie pointed under the stall.

Oh, no. No. He wasn't going in.

She crossed her arms and gave him the you-are-pond-scum look that every woman seemed to have in her bag of killer expressions.

Ah, hell, he was going in. “Open up, Lissa.”

“No.”

Of course not. With another sigh, he went to his knees and prepared to climb under. “If I ruin another tux, I'm not taking the fall for it.” He got stuck when his broad shoulders jammed under the door, and he bashed his shin, twice. Jerking back, he slammed his head into the stall divider. Stars clouded his vision. When he blinked them clear, he was blinded by white satin. Miles of it.

“Scoot,” came a direct order from behind him. The next thing Kyle knew, there was also miles of
pink satin as Annie slid under the stall with much more grace than he had, forcing him to put his arms on the walls to brace himself in the sea of satin.

Now all three of them were squished into place—Lissa sitting on the closed commode lid, he and Annie practically joined at the hip in the remaining few inches. Cozy.

“Well.” He looked at both women, one of whom was sobbing into her hands, the other was glaring at him. Oh, yeah. Cozy as hell. “Let's go have a wedding, huh? We can straighten out all these details later.”

Annie shook her head.

Lissa just cried harder.

“But…” He searched for a reason to end this. “Lissa, if you keep crying, you'll ruin all the makeup you spent too much on.”

Annie rolled her eyes heavenward.

Lissa bawled.

“Lissa, please.” He resorted to begging without hesitation. “I'm bad at this. Just talk to me.”

“Talk to you?” She lifted her wet face and flung back her hair. “Can you tell me why I thought that love was so cool that I agreed to wear this stupid dress and march down an aisle in front of hundreds of people I'm not sure I even like to say, ‘I do'?”
She swiped her nose with toilet paper. “And do you realize I can never wear granny underwear again?”

“Uh…” Kyle glanced at Annie, but there was no help coming from that department. “Look, I doubt Kevin cares what kind of underwear you put on.”

“Men don't like granny underwear,” Lissa wailed anew. “But that's what I always wear on laundry day.” Standing, she gripped Kyle by the lapels. “So many things are going to change. What is love about, Kyle? Do you know? What's love?
Tell me!
”

Annie raised a brow and looked at him with less animosity than curiosity.

Oh boy. “Love is about…”
Blow this, and toss out any plans you had for great sex tonight.
“Well, it's not that difficult, really.”

“It's not?” Annie frowned doubtfully. “Then tell us—er, Lissa. Tell Lissa.”

He drew a deep breath, but no answers magically appeared. Then he looked into Annie's gold eyes and suddenly it became clear. “Love is about wanting that person safe,” he said.

“Safe, smafe.” Annie looked disgusted. “A person can keep themselves safe.”

“Then…it's about making that person happy,” he said, feeling brilliant. “Yeah, that's it.”

“A person can make themselves happy,” Annie said, with far less animosity now.

Two strikes. One more and he was out. “Then it's about how you feel in the other person's presence.” He closed his eyes and dug deeper. “It's about how you become a better person because they've been in your life. How you want to be that better person for them.”

Lissa sniffled and sank back to the commode. “Really?”

Well, yeah. Really. At least Annie didn't shake her head this time. Instead, her eyes filled with something other than anger, and he was pretty certain it was wariness now.

She thought he was messing with her again.

If only he was. She had no clue that she was the one woman who'd brought him to his knees. “Love is about always being there for that person,” he added softly, staring right at her. “Even when you think they're being stubborn and ridiculous.”

Another sniffle from Lissa, but Annie never took her eyes off Kyle. “Maybe you should keep talking,” she said.

“Love transcends all barriers.”

“Such as a distance of thousands of miles?” she asked.

It was as if it was just the two of them. If he didn't count the yards of silk and the bride sitting on the commode between them, glued to their every word. “Those miles mean nothing,” he said, and meant it. “Nothing to a person not attached to any one place.”

“But some people
are
attached to their one place.”

“And some aren't.” He wasn't. With his eyes he tried to tell her that, tried to decide if it even mattered to her. “With love, being together is all that is important. Everything else falls into place.”

Lissa burst into tears again.

His heart sank. “Lissa—”

“Shut up.” She stood so that the three of them had so little room they were breathing each other's air. “Just shut up. You had me with the stubborn, ridiculous part. Oh, Kyle…” She threw her arms around him. “That was so beautiful. Now get out of my way or I'm going to be late. I can't be late for my own wedding.” She opened the door, but before she went out she grabbed both Annie and Kyle close to her in a bear hug that spread perfume
and lipstick all over his neck. “I'm going to make this work because I love that big, old lug,” she vowed. “But if he ever pisses me off, I'm going to kill him.” She pulled back and smiled. “Just want you to know up front.”

Then she was gone.

Silence reigned.

“That was quite a speech,” Annie said.

“Yeah.”

“Did you mean it?”

Before he could answer, Lissa was back, sticking her head in the stall. “Hey! If I have to go, so do you, remember?” She grabbed each of them and tugged them out of the stall, out of the bathroom and down the hall to the back of the church, where the music had already started.

“This is it,” Lissa hissed, still holding on to them with a death grip. “Oh, God. Kyle, I hope you know what you're talking about because I'm about to get hitched. Now take Annie and escort her down the aisle. Be sure to turn around and smile at me when you get there to remind me this is a good thing, okay?”

Then she was shoving him, and Annie was on his arm, looking breathtaking in spite of the pink
dress that didn't suit her, and they were walking down the aisle.

 

A
NNIE WATCHED
the wedding take place as if from a great distance. Through this nice, comfy, blessed distance she didn't feel much more than a stab of pain watching Kevin watch Lissa come down the aisle. There was so much love on his face it made the entire audience tear up.

From that same distance she watched Lissa repeat Kevin's promise of love and felt another stab. She watched them smile dreamily at each other and seal their vows with a kiss and felt yet another.

When it was over, her chest ached with the pressure. She was barely holding it together, and she didn't know why. Then she saw the one person in the audience that made her throat tighten all the more.

Amelia Grundy. She'd come. The sixtyish, rather tall and formidable woman was built as round and solid as a brick, but when their gazes met, Amelia's entire demeanor softened, and Annie felt weak with homesickness.

“Hello, lovely,” Amelia mouthed, her sharp blue eyes warming. As always, her silver hair was on top of her head, and as always, she wore tweed.

At just the sight of her, Annie nearly burst into tears. On Amelia's lap sat the satchel she'd carried as long as Annie could remember. It was filled with all sorts of useful items like cookies and pliers and the requisite romance novel.

Wildly, Annie wondered if she had fairy dust in there, anything in which to sprinkle over Annie and make this all come out okay.

Chin up, don't let him see you cry.

Annie straightened, startled, staring at Amelia. She could have sworn Amelia had spoken that out loud, which of course she hadn't.

But how did Amelia know? Well, of course she knew, Amelia knew all. And the woman had always known Annie's mind better than even Annie knew it.

Suddenly she was driven by some need to turn her head. She found Kyle watching not the wedding, not the audience, but her.

He was tall, dark and heart-stoppingly gorgeous. He was rough and tough, intense, sharp and had a job.

Her favorite qualities.

But—there always seemed to be a but when it came to her happiness—they were worlds apart.

Literally.

Not to mention he had no idea she'd done the unthinkable, that she'd started to fall for him. It was asinine, really. They hadn't known each other long enough for her to even contemplate such a thing.

Which hadn't stopped her from tumbling into bed with him last night, had it? She'd done so with shameless abandon, and because it had been the best night of her life, she couldn't bring herself to regret it.

But it sure as hell was going to make it all that much more difficult to walk away. And she
would
walk away. Grunberg was her heart, her home, her life.

And she was going back tomorrow morning.

 

T
HE RECEPTION
was loud, boisterous and joyful. But Annie had trouble putting a smile on her face. Around her people were cheering as the newly married couple walked around arm in arm greeting their guests.

Annie sighed and wished she was home. Or that Nat had made it. Wished she could find that distance again so she didn't feel the ache in her chest that she couldn't—or wouldn't—explain to herself.

It's not like you to accept defeat, lovely.

Annie whirled around, but Amelia wasn't behind her.

She was hearing things again. Telling herself the melancholy was normal—after all, she'd been through a lot in just a few days—she moved outside, desperate for air.

She'd be happy to go home, but…

No. No buts. She was a grown woman who'd chosen to scratch an itch, that's all. And the itch had definitely been scratched.

Only she still itched…

She heard someone walking toward her. Now she was going to have to smile. Make nice. The reception was in a fancy place made for such events, and Annie had moved as far away as she could, standing just outside a set of glass French doors. She leaned over the balcony and studied the glorious New Mexico landscape and willed whoever it was to keep walking.

But it wasn't just anyone. It was Kyle.

She didn't feel like smiling and making nice for him. She felt like slugging him because…she didn't even know. He'd been a temporary diversion. A very nice temporary diversion, and she'd never forget that he'd not only saved her life but taught her that sex wasn't overrated.

Not overrated at all.

In fact, just thinking about it, how his hard, hot body had fit to hers, how he'd—

“Whatever you're thinking,” he murmured when he came close enough, “you're turning me on with just the look on your face.”

“I'm thinking about the buffet table,” she lied. “All that food.”

“And that's arousing you?”

“How do you know I'm aroused?”

He looked down.

So did she, and then groaned. Having sensed the man who'd sent them into ecstasy the night before was close by, her nipples had thrust themselves against the restraints of the pink satin.

She crossed her arms. “I'm cold.”

He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Liar.”