Jess stared at her, caught between relief and exasperation. And fighting back the urge to snicker.
Lars looked as if he was fighting the same battle.
“Oh, Daisy,” Jess murmured, “trust me. With those eyes and that hair, you’ll have to beat the men off with a stick. Or your daddy will. Finding someone to marry will not be a problem.”
Lars suddenly looked a little grim, as if the prospect of beating potential suitors off with a stick wasn’t entirely out of the question.
“But Jack needs a sister, Daisy.”
And a father and a family,
she added silently. “He needs you.”
Daisy blinked at her. “He needs me?”
“To help take care of him. To show him how to do things. To make sure nobody picks on him. Because they wouldn’t want to mess with your brother, would they?”
Daisy’s eyes grew thoughtful. “My brother.”
Lars was smiling again. “I can tell you about that, Dais. About having brothers. It’s not a bad thing.”
A long, soulful moan echoed from the general vicinity of the backyard.
“Crap,” Jess muttered. “I forgot to let Sweetie back into the utility room.” She pushed herself to her feet.
Daisy’s expression became fretful again. “What about Sweetie?”
Jess blinked. She wasn’t sure what she was being asked. “Sweetie?”
“Is Sweetie our dog?” Daisy gave her an earnest look, that would have been utterly guileless if Jess hadn’t known her so well. She took a deep breath.
“I’ll tell you what, Daisy, everybody gets a wedding present in this deal. And Sweetie can be yours. From me.” Jess was very careful not to look at Lars.
Daisy’s brow furrowed. “Sweetie’s my dog?”
“If you like.”
Daisy’s face was transformed into a cherubic gleam. “Yes. And I get to be flower girl. And I get a velvet dress. With lace.”
Lars sighed. “Come on, sweetheart, time to get you ready for bed.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was a beautiful wedding. Even Lars thought so, and his previous experience with weddings hadn’t been particularly pleasant.
Docia and Janie had taken charge, as he’d known they would. In short order they managed to reserve the private dining room at Brenner’s restaurant with its massive limestone fireplace and bronze lone star. It meant keeping the guest list down to less than a hundred, but that was fine with Lars. Jess said she didn’t know anybody in town except Toleffsons anyway, but there were enough of them to fill the place, even on Christmas.
The room was hung with ropes of evergreens and bittersweet and occasional clumps of mistletoe. Everything except the evergreens was local, including the poinsettia plants that ringed the hearth, but the room still smelled vaguely like Iowa in December.
Pete had strong-armed one of the local judges into presiding—apparently, he owned Pete a favor and performing a wedding on Christmas afternoon was a suitable way of discharging it.
Fortunately for them all, Daisy had no problems with opening her presents on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas morning.
Jess had found Daisy her velvet dress, red with white lace at the neckline and wrists. She had white stockings too, and black slippers. Docia had given her a wreath of red and white roses to wear in her coffee-colored curls and a basket of rose petals to toss as she skipped down the aisle between the folding chairs. She looked so lovely she made Lars’s heart ache. Of course, when she stood next to Jack, who wore a green velour coverall, the two of them looked a little like Scrooge’s worst nightmare.
His mother sat at a table now with Jack in her lap, guiding his fingers away from the gorgeous wedding cake Allie had made for them. Mom looked surprisingly relaxed about being on Jack duty, but then she’d had a lot of practice with male babies in her time.
His parents had also sent him what was probably the best wedding present he could have wished for—an announcement that had appeared in
The Des Moines Register
, informing the world that Sherice Bettendorf Toleffson had wed Dr. Carl Nolan, “prominent West Des Moines plastic surgeon”, in Cancun on December twentieth. The very fact that Sherice hadn’t bothered to contact him about her marriage told him she was no longer interested in her ex-husband or her daughter. Lars wondered if she’d bothered to tell the prominent plastic surgeon that Daisy existed. Not that he particularly cared.
He glanced around the room at his brothers. Pete, looking at home in his tuxedo, was in conference with the judge. Cal was giving Daisy a ride on his shoulders. His tuxedo looked a little the worse for wear. Erik sat beside his father at a table, eating a piece of wedding cake. Even in a tuxedo he still looked like a cop. Lars wondered if that had always been true, but he was pretty sure it hadn’t been. Still, he had to admit—it looked like Erik’s thug days were behind him.
His sisters-in-law stood at the side of the room, surveying the buffet table. In their black silk bridesmaid dresses, they looked like a pair of mismatched Bond girls—one of whom had a slightly greenish tinge. As he watched, Docia grabbed a soda cracker from the table and started munching.
Lars glanced at the other side of the room and saw Allie talking to Jess. His wife. His throat tightened suddenly as she turned in his direction and smiled. The moss green of her dress matched her eyes, making them seem almost luminous. The bodice molded to her breasts, the long skirt skimming across her hips, ending at her ankles with a side slit that showed enticing glimpses of leg now and then. Her bosom glowed white above the rounded neckline.
His wife was standing under a clump of mistletoe. Well, sort of beside it. Next to it. In the vicinity. Close enough.
He was beside her in three steps. Jess looked up at him, green eyes dancing, the corners of her lips edging up. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He nodded at the clump of white berries behind her. “Mistletoe.” Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his lips to hers. She tasted of champagne and frosting. He brushed her lips lightly. There were, after all, a lot of people around, including a couple of kids who belonged to them.
Jess reached her arms around his neck, drawing her body tight against him.
Lars took a deep breath and wondered if it was too soon to leave. “Sure you don’t want to go to Austin? Or even Fredericksburg—that’s closer. We’ve got three days of child care. Daisy’s with my folks, Jack’s dividing his time between Docia and Janie. Sweetie’s staying with Cal’s Chihuahua. We could still head for the wicked city.”
“We have food, drink, and a king-size bed back at the cabin,” she murmured. “What else do we need?”
“You know, we could be in that king-size bed in under twenty minutes, assuming we undress fast, which is pretty much guaranteed.”
Jess ran the backs of her fingers along his jaw, her smile turning sultry. “You’re on, ace.”
Lars carried Jess over the threshold, which was sweet but totally unnecessary. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to break a sweat when he picked her up, which made her feel a lot more delicate than she really was.
Inside, he kicked the door closed and set her on her feet. “You’re not carrying me to the bedroom?” Jess raised an eyebrow.
Lars took hold of her shoulders and turned her around. “We’re not going that far.”
She felt cool air against her back as he pulled down the zipper, a brief pause before the warmth of his breath grazed her nape.
“No bra. I like that in a woman.”
“It’s built into the dress.” Her voice shook slightly. Amazing. They’d been making love for over a month now, and he still took her breath away.
His hands cupped her breasts as he pulled her against him, his tongue tracing a sweltering line from her shoulder to the tip of her ear.
Jess sighed, letting her body relax. Her bones had turned liquid. Oh god. Three days would
not
be long enough.
But then they had a lot longer than three days. With any luck, they had years ahead of them.
The rest of your life.
Jess pushed the phrase away. After all, Barry had had the rest of his life with her, and it had only been a couple of years. She wanted more than that with Lars. Lots more.
She pushed her dress down over her hips, then turned back to him, trying not to cross her arms over her breasts. “You look over-dressed to me.”
He had a killer smile—she knew that already. His molasses eyes turned warm. “Want to give me a hand here?”
Jess slid her hands up his tuxedo shirt, pulling the studs loose and dropping them to the floor. Lars stripped off his jacket and reached for his belt.
“Uh-uh. That’s mine.” Jess pulled the buckle open and jerked down his zipper.
Lars kicked his tuxedo pants and underwear into the corner, and pulled her against him again. Clearly, he was very, very glad to see her. She reached for him, sliding her hand along his erection.
His breath hissed between his teeth. He took hold of her hips, raising her so that she could wrap her legs around his waist, then lowering her so that she sheathed him slowly.
Jess gasped with the effort, slowly, slowly, taking him bit by bit into herself. She pushed her back against the wall as he braced her.
“Look at me.”
She raised her gaze to his then, staring into the depths of those deep brown eyes. “Ah, Lars,” she whispered.
“Jess. My Jess. All mine.” His forehead creased with strain as his pace increased, filling her again and again.
The explosion started at her heels, moving up her body in a wave of heat, until she cried out, pushing her head back against the wall. She held onto his shoulders as he drove into her in a last series of wild plunges, then buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, gasping for breath. The wall behind her was cold, pressing against her backbone, and she slid down as Lars bent his knees, collapsing them both to the floor.
He cradled her against his chest, warming her skin. The rough surface of the carpet pressed against her shoulder. Jess felt as if her bones had liquefied.
“Okay,” he muttered after a moment. “That’s the living room. We’ve already done the kitchen and two bedrooms. That leaves the dining room, the study, and the utility room. I assume we’re skipping the nursery—the crib doesn’t seem like a good option.”
Jess crooked an eyebrow. “The utility room?”
“Hey, that dryer looks pretty sturdy to me.”
Jess giggled, then drew a finger through the thick hair on his chest. “We’ll have to stop to eat occasionally. And cook.”
Lars shook his head. “Not a problem. Docia and Janie left us with a full refrigerator. They said it was a wedding present. Just heat and serve.”
Jess leaned back to look at him. “You have a wonderful family.”
“I do.” He ran his fingers along the line of her cheekbone. “And now you’re part of it.”
“I am indeed. I’m also freezing.”
Lars chuckled. “Yeah. I was going to say something about that, but I didn’t want to break the moment.”
“My chattering teeth would have done that anyway.”
She sat up slowly, reaching for her dress on the chair where she’d tossed it.
“You’re not getting dressed are you?” Lars looked faintly disappointed.
“Nope. Just going to hang this up so I can pass it down to our daughters.” She grinned again to hide the quick shiver. Their daughters.
Theirs
.
In the silence, she heard the chirping of a cardinal, the breeze rustling the live oaks and the sound of tires crunching on the gravel of the drive outside. Jess jerked toward the door as Lars sat up quickly. “Guests?”
She shook her head. “The B and B’s booked for the whole week. They’re already up there.”
Somewhere outside a car door slammed. “Holy shit!”
Jess ran to the bedroom to grab a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, while Lars pulled on his bathrobe. She pushed the hair out of her eyes as someone rapped on the door. “Just a minute!”
The FedEx delivery man on her doorstep didn’t bat an eye when she finally opened the door. He handed her a signature box. Jess scrawled something that looked sort of like her signature.
The delivery man gave her an envelope, allowing his lips to spread into a slightly dry grin. “Merry Christmas, ma’am.”
Jess turned back to the living room, closing the door behind her. “Who sends FedEx on Christmas? It must cost a couple of significant limbs.”
“You could always open it and find out.”
She stared down at the envelope, her chest tightening. “It’s from Belle View.”
Lars’s eyes turned dark. “Do you want me to open it?”
“I can do it.” Jess took a deep breath and pulled the tear strip along the side.
She pulled out what looked like a stack of spreadsheet printouts with a densely written memo clipped to the front, along with a letter. “What is this?”
“Let me.” Lars took the stack of papers from her hand and began leafing through them.
She reached into the envelope again and pulled out a single sheet. “It’s from Preston.”
He said nothing. She glanced at him. His gaze was glued to the papers.
“What is it?” she asked breathlessly. “What are those spreadsheets?”
“A statement of worth. Jack’s worth.”
His voice sounded slightly choked as he stared up at her again. “Did you know how much he’d inherited from his father?”
Jess shook her head. “Barry’s lawyer asked the Morelands for an accounting, but their lawyers threw up all kinds of roadblocks. He said we’d have to go to court, and he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about doing that.”
Lars blew out a breath. “Looks like they’ve changed their minds.”
Jess looked back at the letter again. “Preston says it’s a wedding present.”
“Did you send him an invitation?”
“No. But I wrote to tell him we were getting married. I figured it wouldn’t hurt for the Morelands to know we were official.”
Lars sank onto the couch, staring down at the spreadsheets again.
“What’s the matter? Is there something wrong about Jack’s inheritance?”
He shook his head slowly, his lips spreading in another dry grin. “Only that there’s a lot of it.
Really
a lot of it. Jack’s worth more than some countries I know. They’re small countries. But still.”
Jess peered over his shoulder, then slid down beside him. “Is that the total? Holy crap!”
“You didn’t know?”
“That Barry had that much money? No. I mean the Morelands are a big deal in Belle View, but Belle View’s a pretty small town.”
“I’d say the Morelands are probably a big deal in other places too. Are you Jack’s legal guardian?”
Jess nodded. “Barry made sure of that. Technically, I’m also Barry’s executor, but like I said, the Morelands stonewalled me. And then I ran away.” She bit her lip, trying very hard not to be scared witless.
Lars stared down at the paper again. “This…explains a lot.”
“Such as?”
“Such as why Lydia Moreland wanted Jack.” He raised his gaze to hers, eyes dark.
Jess wiped her suddenly damp palms against her thighs. “What do you mean?”
“Did she ever strike you as grandmotherly? Or even maternal?”
Jess shook her head. “That wasn’t the point with her. She wanted Jack because he was a Moreland. She wanted what he represented.”
“Exactly.” Lars picked up the memo. “But I’d be willing to bet this was what he represented to her, not the whole Moreland honor thing.”
Jess stared down at the figure on the page again, the almost unbelievable figure. “But she had her own money, Lars. Why would she want Jack’s?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t have as much as we thought she had.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it would be interesting to see her husband’s will. To see just how much of the Moreland fortune he left her and how much he left his sons.”
Jess raised an eyebrow. “Can we see it?”
“Oh yeah.” Lars nodded emphatically. “We
will
see it, although it may take a minor battle.”
“You think he disinherited her?”
“Maybe he just put her money where she couldn’t get at it easily. If he knew just how scary she was, he may have wanted to make sure his sons had some way to protect themselves.”