Happily Ever Afton

Happily Ever Afton

By

Kelly Curry

HAPPILY EVER AFTON

Kindle Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Kelly Curry.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

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Acknowledgements

For my Angel Mother,

Everything I am,

Everything I will ever be…

Love Always, Kelly

Chapter One

‘FORTY–EIGHT, FORTY–NINE, FIFTY!
There – you’re all buttoned into your wedding dress now!’

Afton Lanford craned her neck over her shoulder, gaping in awed shock at the multitude of silk-covered buttons marching in a precise row down her back. ‘You mean there are
fifty
buttons on this gown?’

The owner of the exclusive bridal boutique specializing in couture,
high dollar
wedding gowns, clearly sensing a sale slipping away through her fingers, got right to work reassuring the recalcitrant bride-to-be. ‘Yes, but remember it is a designer original – all the way from Paris, France,’ she warbled fluttering about with the same frenetic energy of a nervous hummingbird she’d exhibited throughout the last weary hour of dress shopping, Afton marveled.

‘And just think of the special treat it will be for your new husband on your wedding night –’ she trilled, ‘a last present for him to unwrap!’

Afton watched the blush spread across her cheeks in the full-length oval mirror set before her. ‘You don’t know my fiancé,’ she mumbled. Carefully lifting the long train, she exited the noxiously pink dressing room resembling the inside of a music-box, now filled to overflowing with scads of flouncy silk and lace rejects, ‘he can be
very
impatient sometimes. I’d better try another one on because I don’t think he would like –’

Her words trailed off, glancing over the woman’s shoulder out the plate-glass window facing the sidewalk beyond. Her heated imprecation caused the boutique owner to release an affronted gasp clutching at the strand of gleaming pearls around her neck.

‘There is no need for that type of language! Now don’t get discouraged – we have
plenty
of other gowns for you to try.’ She turned briskly away headed for the showroom, ‘I’ll just go bring you another one and unbutton –
hey!
’ The saleswoman rushed, stunned, to the open door of the bridal shop, looking out after Afton who’d just fled through it in a blur of white satin. ‘Where do you think you’re going in that gown?’

‘I’ll take it – just charge it to my credit card!’ Afton threw back over her shoulder. She scooped the train high off the ground, racing towards the parking meters. ‘I’ve got to go break-up with my fiancé now!’

‘Look out!
Here comes a bride!
’

Cooper Stewart Carrington III glanced curiously over his shoulder, hearing the shouted warning just a fraction of a second too late to save himself. Reaching for the doorknob to the coffee shop, the sturdy watch on his wrist – purchased for its many useful functions that proved very handy when climbing tall mountains – snagged on the fluttering veil of a white-gowned bride zooming past on the sidewalk astride a candy-red motor scooter.

‘Oof!’
Newton’s laws of motion proved themselves correct and Cooper found himself lying flat on his back with a twisted bundle of taffeta and satin containing one small woman splayed across his chest.

‘Get up you big oaf – let me loose!’

Dazed, he lifted his aching head that had cracked a pretty good one against the sidewalk, focusing his swimming vision on a pair of feline-like hazel eyes glaring down at him.

‘You are lying on my veil –
lift up
and get out of my way!’ she clenched.

Cooper slowly closed his eyes then reopened them. He readjusted his glasses crazily askew across his nose, but the vision of a freckle-dusted small face still floated before him. With a very cross look still very much in evidence upon it.

‘What…’ he sat up, rubbing at the lump rising on the back of his head beneath a thatch of thick dark hair, ‘what happened?’

The battering bride spared him one frustrated look. Reaching up she tried to remove the headdress perched at a crooked angle on her head. ‘What happened is you got in my way on the sidewalk and you almost let them get away!’

‘
Them
?’ With great dexterity Cooper ducked a hairpin sailing by, wondering if he might be suffering a concussion as nothing she said was really making much sense, ‘them who?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter… just sit still and be quiet for a minute would you!’

Most unusually, Cooper found himself obeying.

With a grimly determined look on what he realized was a
very
lovely face beneath the frown, she gave up trying to remove the headdress, setting about instead carefully unhooking the large face of his watch from the confines of an antique-ivory lace veil.

‘This was my grandmother’s veil and my mother will absolutely kill me if it gets torn,’ she muttered. Once successful in the delicate operation to separate them from where they’d been joined like the world’s most mixed up pair of Siamese twins, the expensive mountaineering watch that had accompanied him to the top of six of the famed Seven Summits was tossed back into his lap. ‘Done!’

She jumped to her feet; agile as the cat she’d stolen her eyes from. Cooper noticed with puzzlement, she wore a pair of pink running shoes beneath her gown. Not the usual footwear for fashionable brides this year that he knew of.

‘Give me your hand and I’ll help you get up,’ she offered with what appeared to be a grudging condescension.

Cooper raised an obliging hand and they both started for a moment, a course of electric current seeming to flow between them as their hands connected. It took a few vigorous tugs on her part, but then he was back up on his feet, seemingly none the worse for his ordeal.

She quickly released him to retrieve the dented scooter sprawled on its side on the sidewalk, parking it out of the way. There was a moment of awkward silence before it became clear he was to receive no apology for being laid flat out by her chosen mode of transportation. He got the distinct feeling; in fact, he was actually being
blamed
for the collision that had resulted in the loss of the elusive
‘them’
.

‘Er…
thanks
?’ Cooper proffered with palms upturned. Silence lengthened. ‘So…er…can I help you look for
them
?’

‘No need,’ she jerked her thumb in the direction of the coffee shop with a dark glower, ‘they went in there.’

Always a lover of a good mystery, Cooper stepped forward, cupping his hands to peer in through the front windowpane. While he perused the large crowd gathered inside, she silently came and stood beside him, rising on tiptoes in her sneakers to sneak a peek herself before she turned away with an even blacker frown. Cooper glanced down noting the top of her veiled head barely reached his chin, but then few people were ever able to look him in the eye at six-four – not even the willowy models he typically dated. He knew from experience these things always seemed to even themselves out somehow in the dark.

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense,’ he drawled with a white-toothed smile known to work its magic on elderly ladies and bawling newborns, having no success now raising an answering one from the pouting bride. ‘Which ones are
‘them’
? I’m just dying to see who’s responsible for the dent in my skull…’

‘Do you see the
Children of the Corn
type couple at the counter?’ she grumbled with back pressed against the front wall of the store, arms grumpily crossed over eye-catching décolletage that had definitely caught his eye.

‘That’s
them!
My fiancé Jason – make that
former
fiancé! And my best friend, Mollie – make that
former
best friend!

Cooper’s black brows rose an inch. He flashed another quick look inside spotting an attractive though generic blonde woman with an equally generic blonde man standing together at the counter. Wrapped so closely around each other, not even a whisper of scandal could get between them. ‘Oh yes, I see them now. They do seem pretty lovey-dovey.’

Poor choice of words he realized when the bride became visibly riled. Cooper almost expected to see fur and a long tail sprout from beneath her wedding finery as her back arched and she practically spit out her next catty words.

‘Ken and Barbie wannabes! I mean, good gosh, they aren’t even
attempting
to hide it!’ she hissed. ‘They know this is
my
favorite coffee shop in all of Seattle with the free Wi-Fi and the jazz band I love to come hear play on Wednesday nights. Bad enough they‘re carrying on behind my back – but I’ll be
damned
if they keep me away from my skinny cinnamon dolce lattes too!’

Cooper held back laughter. 
Well at least she has her priorities straight
!

They both turned and peered in again. Like a couple of spies he thought, unable to help feeling amused by what she obviously considered a tragic turn of events. Their noses practically touched the glass surveying the couple intently as they stood in line. Both watched closely as Jason bent to drop another tender kiss on Mollie’s lips before pulling out his wallet, tossing a few bills down on the counter to cover their order.

‘He never picked up the check with me!’ she fumed while Cooper tallied another black mark against the unknown man who had raised such ire in the beautiful bride he didn’t even realize he had lost yet. ‘Rotten cheapskate! I even had to pay for my own engagement ring!’

Her left hand was thrust in the air and the ring on her finger blinded him for a moment, catching a ray of sunlight. She tugged it off, shoving it down the cleavage formed by a pair of perfect full breasts in the snugly tight, pearl-beaded bodice of the wedding gown.

Cooper grew distracted thinking how he wouldn’t mind
at all
being the one who had to help her fish it back out again…startled back to attention by her vexed exclamation.

‘
Oh Lordy
– they’re coming this way!’

He was even more startled by her next move.

Afton had only a few moments to think once she saw Jason and Mollie heading for the door of the coffee shop. But she prided herself on being quick on her feet. She would have liked a more believable swain to work with; she thought, dubiously eyeing the tall man she’d knocked over, noting the dark scruff on his chin, heavy frame Poindexter-type glasses parked on a strong, dignified nose and mop of black curls on his head.

The bright sunlight kept glinting off the tinted lenses of his glasses, so she couldn’t quite make out the color of his eyes, but she could make out the width of broad shoulders beneath a khaki jacket that had seen better days and the seemingly never-ending length of legs encased in a pair of rather disreputable stained blue jeans. Afton scanned his left hand quickly –
bingo!

No ring
.

Not the best choice, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. ‘Kiss me!’ she muttered beneath her breath.

The stranger did a double take, warily bending his dark head closer to hers. ‘Pardon me – what did you say, I’m afraid I didn’t hear –’ He gulped as his words were cut off, Afton – with no time to waste on explanations – seizing the lapels to his jacket between her hands, pulling a pair of perfectly sculpted lips against hers in a deep, sultry,
sexy
kiss.

His eyes remained wide open in surprise while she slammed her own shut, releasing a low moan of simulated ecstasy causing something
very
real to occur in the hard male body pressed closely against hers. Men, she thought disgusted, they’re all dogs!

Why he doesn’t even know me
!

‘Oh, lover,’ she purred against his lips, determined to keep up the charade. She slid a hand up an impressively wide chest feeling the muscles there contract beneath her slithering touch before her fingers moved on to tangle in the surprisingly soft black hair curling low into the nape of his neck. ‘You are such a good kisser –
oh!’