Best Man (10 page)

“Sheriff’s Department! Open up!”

Maddie bent down and grabbed the gun before I could. She held it in front of her like she knew how to use it.

The front door exploded open and deputies piled in, yelling for Cardarrio to freeze. I slumped back against the wall with relief as Maddie looked back over her shoulder at me. She was pretty badass for a bartender.

M
ADDIE WAS SWINGING
her legs over the back on the ambulance. They wrapped a blanket around her and bandaged her head as I sat on the porch steps and went over all I knew with the sheriff.

“Looks like they had her tied to the radiator for a while,” the deputy was explaining.

I nodded my head and zoned in on the fresh gauze wrapped around her wrists. “Think I can go to her now?” I said.

“You bet, son.”

As soon as he said it, I crossed the distance between us in three long strides.

“Hey,” she smiled at me.

I said nothing. I just grabbed her in my arms and crushed my mouth down on hers. People around us went silent at her gasp, but her arms swung up and around me instantly. Heat spiraled like a tornado through my insides, and all I could think of was taking my complete fill of her right there in front of everybody.

“How drunk am I? Is he really kissing my sister?” Travis asked somewhere behind us.

“That looks like way more than kissing,” Ava laughed.

I pulled my lips off hers and sank my hands in her hair. Her lips glistened in the moonlight and her breathing was hard and erratic. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d been hurt.”

One of the deputies sauntered up next to us and laughed. “Yes sir. Usually, it’s her we’re putting in the back of the squad car.”

“Har, har, har, very funny, Lambert,” she said. “You just remember who got the bad guys, got it? Me. You just got here in time to handcuff them.”

“That we did,” he laughed.

“I still can’t believe Luke kissed my sister,” Travis said, shaking his head. “That’s gross.”

CHAPTER 18

MADELINE

^“
Y 
our CT scan was great. Just a mild concussion,” the doctor said, shinning a penlight into my eyes. “Look up for me and follow the light with your eyes.” He moved the little flashlight back and forth in front of me, and my eyes obediently followed along.

I sighed heavily and wrapped the hospital dressing gown tighter around my body. I already missed Luke. I went to the hospital, and he went with the sheriff. I didn’t want to be separated from him any longer. It didn’t feel right in the pit of my belly.

“For the next twenty-four hours, I want you to be careful. If you sleep, I’m going to need someone to wake you up every two to three hours, just to make sure there are no problems,” the doctor said, then turned to face Travis and Casey, who had stayed with me throughout the night. “Please make sure someone is with her to do this.”

Casey’s eyes bulged, and her face blanched. “Oh my God,” she said, clasping her hand to her chest. “I’m…I’m supposed to be getting married in less than twenty-four hours.” She looked down at her watch and slapped her palm against it a few times. Her eyes shot back up to me. “Correction, I’m getting married in five freaking hours.”

The doctor smiled tightly in her direction. “That’s nice,” he said.

Her eyebrows shot up past her hairline. “I’m getting married in five hours,” she whispered.

The doctor turned back to me and narrowed his eyes. “If you’re feeling any pain you can take an over the counter pain reliever—ibuprofen or acetaminophen. No strenuous activities, avoid driving, and no alcohol for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

“So no sex?” a deep voice asked from behind me, making me whirl my head around and wince. His voice slid over me with little spikes of heat and fire. He stood in the doorway, leaning up against the open door, smiling. His arms were folded over his chest, and his hair was a mess. Splatters of dark blood stained the top of his shirt, but his eyes were all over me, like he couldn’t get enough.

“No,” the doctor answered him coolly, “no sex, no sports, no strenuous activities.”

“Ew,” Travis grimaced. “That’s my sister.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Okay, then. I’ll get all the paperwork ready so you can be discharged.”

“Ugh,” Travis mumbled under his breath. “Sex and discharge.”

Casey smacked him on the shoulder. “Do you realize? Five hours? Five! Hours!”

He laughed and pulled her into his arms, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Yes, Casey, five hours. Five more hours and you’ll be Mrs. Me.” He gently tugged her out of the room and looked back over his shoulder at me and then at Luke. “We’ll give you some privacy to change, and I’ll go see about the paperwork with the doctor.”

The doctor walked out behind them, nodding a curt goodbye in my direction.

“How are you feeling?” Luke said, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed I was on.

I nodded my head. “Better now that you’re here. I have approximately fifty-six billion questions.”

He reached up his hand and tucked a strand of hair off my forehead behind my ear. “I’m sure you do.”

“I have a feeling,” I said, swallowing hard, “there will be a lot of answers I’m not going to like.”

His fingers softly touched the bottom of my chin, and his eyes turned soft and sad. “No, some things you won’t like at all.”

I
T TOOK
another hour for all the paperwork to be finished and for them to find where my clothes went. Then, I was quickly shuttled to Casey’s mother’s house, briskly cleaned in a shower, and shoved in front of a make-up artist. “How much time before pictures?” I asked Casey as she walked into the room—fresh from her shower.

“Two hours,” she hissed. “We have two hours for these people to make me look like I didn’t stay up in a hospital all damned night.”

I felt my shoulders drop, but I offered her my best fake smile. “I’m sorry all this happened on your wedding day.” It was nothing, but a lie. I didn’t care about her wedding day. I mean I did care, before I was wire-tied to a radiator and almost raped, but now...not so much. Casey looked past me and scowled like it was all my fault—as if I’d ruined her wedding on purpose. I pinched my lips together and crossed my arms over my chest. “Stay still please,” the make-up lady mumbled.

Casey’s chin lowered to her chest, and her hands fell to her sides. “I’m not mad at you, Maddie. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t want to be in the hospital with you. I just…”

“Didn’t want to be in the hospital with me...that late?” I smiled.

She smiled and nodded. “Gosh. I’m…sorry. I’m being selfish. I’m not even thinking of what you went through, and I’m over here whining about my tired eyes. I didn’t even ask if you felt okay to do this…you still feel up to being my maid-of-honor?”

“Of course I do.”
Of course I didn’t
. My head throbbed like a bitch, the Tylenol I took hadn’t kicked in yet, and all I wanted to do was sit down and ask Luke what the hell had happened. And why it happened. What
was
happening? Where I stood. I tried to in the hospital, but there were too many people around talking over us or at us—and honestly—the pounding of my head made it almost impossible to concentrate on anything but the pounding of my head.

Thick powdery smelling foundation was patted onto my cheeks. “Close your eyes,” the make-up lady murmured, brushing something cool over my eyelids.

“I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep,” I whispered.

“Go ahead,” she said, “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to do your hair.” For what felt like a brief moment, I closed my eyes and let my shoulders slacken against the chair, and my muscles unwind and soften, but a quick knock at the door jarred me back up straight.

Before I could open my eyes, I heard Luke’s rumbly voice, the clinking of spoons against mugs, and then the strong, bitter smell of dark, rich coffee filled the room.

I struggled to open my eyes, but when I did, I realized I must have been asleep for more than a few moments because my make-up was perfect, and my hair was completely set into some sort of intricate hairstyle. Luke placed a mug of coffee in front of me as I stared in awe at myself in one of the mirrors. How long was I out? The other girls were gathered around a small rolling coffee tray filled with pastries and chocolates; their dresses hanging up against the wall with a cloud of fine mist puffing across them from a small steamer on the floor.

I pulled myself forward and cupped my hands around the mug, and then lifted it closer to my face to breathe it in. The vapors moistened my skin as I blew over the top. “How are you feeling?” Luke asked, touching his hand to my knee.

I took a small sip of coffee and felt it travel like lava down my throat and spill heat across my chest. “Weird. I think I slept through getting my hair and make-up done.” I held the mug of coffee in front of my chest and noticed my nails were perfectly manicured. “Looks like I got my nails done too.” I laughed, placing the mug down on the table next to me and waving my fingers in the air.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, squeezing my leg. “I kept coming in here to check on you.”

“How much time do we have before the pictures? Or did we take them and you guys just propped me up somewhere while forcing my lips into a smile?”

“We have about fifteen minutes,” he said, smiling and reaching his hand up to the bottom of my chin, “and you look beautiful.”

He was dressed in his tuxedo, his hair was perfect, and I hadn’t even realized it until that second. “Wow. So do you. I’m so out of it, I didn’t even notice what you were wearing.” I sighed and ran my hand up his arm. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about anything.”

“We’ll talk tonight after the wedding,” he said, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. He shifted forward, leaned his elbows on his knees, and spoke quietly. “Let me come home with you tonight.”

“God, yes,” I giggled.

He leaned back and a huge smile tugged one corner of his mouth up into a sexy, lopsided grin. “Now, let me help you into your dress.”

“That’s like the total opposite of what I want you to be doing right now.”

“I know, but we’ll have plenty of other times where I’ll be doing the undressing, believe me.”

“I’m holding you to it,” I whispered as I lifted myself off the chair and clumsily made my way over to my dress, bumping into the food tray as I went. I pulled the material off the hanger and the metal triangle dropped to the floor. “I hope nobody expects me to walk straight down the damned aisle. It seems I can’t even walk two feet without causing minor mayhem.”

I swung the door to the bathroom open and stepped inside. Luke was right behind me, not leaving an inch of space between us. “Mayhem should definitely be your middle name,” he said, wrapping his hands around my waist and brushing his lips along the top of my shoulder. His fingers slid under the edge of my shorts and curled, sending a rush of heat through my body. Tightening his grasp, he twisted the material into his fists, making the shorts ride up over my skin. Hot, wet lips slid up the back of my neck and bit softly at the pulse pounding franticly beneath my skin.

“Hard to control myself with you,” he whispered against my skin.

“Then don’t,” I said, drawing in a deep breath and twirling in his arms to face him. His movements stilled as my body skimmed against his and a strong surge of electric and chaos crackled in the air around us. It was everywhere our skin touched—like fire and ice. The pad of his fingertips burned holes in my flesh—his lips set an inferno loose under my skin. Our breaths mixed as his lips brushed softly over mine and a low gasp escaped from his mouth to mine. My hands trailed up his arms and around his neck; fingers and nails pressing into his skin. I lifted myself onto my tippy toes and slipped my tongue against his. He drew in a sharp breath, and his hands grasped into my skin tighter as he rocked against me. I fumbled and cursed, sliding my tongue deeper, and he kissed me slow and hard—a kiss I’d never felt before—one of those kisses a girl would wait her whole life for. A kiss to make you feel like you’ve never really been touched by a man until then.

Breathlessly, he pulled his mouth from mine. His eyes were wide and glazed, both of us breathing hard and fast. “If we don’t stop now we’re going to miss the wedding,” he said.