Sanctuary (Family Justice Book 3) (63 page)

As she sipped a coffee, the older woman had this innocent expression that struck her as really funny. Beside her in a matching chair sat Meghan’s mother, also wearing an inscrutable and completely guileless look on her face. Man, they were good.

Breaking out her mini iPad, Angie tapped and scrolled—like she didn’t know EXACTLY what was on tap—and finally looked around the room.

“Well, let’s see. Uncle Eddie is coming by at five to meet with the bride.”

“Oh, goodie,” Sophie quipped. “He owes me two bucks.”

“What for?” Mrs. Marquez asked.

“A bet,” she told her mom with a funny smirk. “He lost and I won.”

Lacey, who was stuffing a cookie down her throat, paused and looked at Sophie with wide eyes. “Let me see if I understand what’s happening.” Cookie crumbs stuck to her lips as she brushed away what had fallen on her shirt. “That sweet, old man wearing the collar of a priest is engaging in betting?” She gasped in faux outrage. “My goodness. Isn’t that against the rules?”

“Old man?” Alex’s mother laughed. “Just who are you calling old, young lady? He’s only two years older than Cristián, and truly, my dear, don’t be fooled by the collar. He plays a mean guitar and …”

Angie quickly cut her off before she unintentionally spilled the Boston beans and ruined the surprise.

“Anyway,” she drawled as she shot a hard glance at her mom. “Ed at five and then we all meet at the church at six. Quick run-through—the men will be clueless no matter how many times we practice so that part will be quick—and then dinner with the entire extended Marquez-O’Brien-Justice clan.”

Meghan looked up. She’d been busy texting and wasn’t paying attention. “Everyone?”

The whole room nodded. Probably not a smart move because she could see Meghan’s antennae go up. The woman wasn’t daft. She knew these people well and some synchronized and wide-eyed innocent head bobbing wasn’t going to pass without notice.

“Dress code?”

Victoria had a sudden cough to fight off, and Mrs. O’Brien found a speck of invisible dust to swipe off a table between the two chairs. It wasn’t a trick question, but somehow, Heather knew that the real answer would give far too much away.

“For you, oh chaste one? Angelic white. Conservative. No flashing the Irish twins,” she jested. “I don’t know how you’re doing it, sis. Sending your man to bed every night with balls tinged a frustrated blue.”

The pithy comment earned a half-choke from Alex’s mom, an embarrassed groan from Mrs. O’Brien, and a fluttering of giggles from everyone else.

“I’ll say it for you because we all know you’re forbidden to say the words … shut up, Tori!”

“What’s forbidden?” Sophie asked.

Heather looked around the room. Lacey, Tori, and Angie were quietly smirking. The two moms just looked clueless.

“Oh!” Tori laughed. “Didn’t you know? Your big, bad brother has laid down the law with Irish. She’s not to say shut up. Not if she wants to sit down the next day.”

“Goddamit, Victoria!” Meghan shrieked. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Ooooooh! I’m telling on you,” Angie snicker-snorted.

“What?” Mrs. Marquez demanded.

Meghan’s mother turned to the gypsy-waif and clucked her tongue. “I believe what she said was that your son thinks it’s okay to put my daughter over his knee.”

Heather almost vapor-locked. File this under
Too Much Information
. No way did she want to know that the groom spanks the bride. Or maybe she did. Meghan O’Brien was the absolute last person she’d ever imagine would have a submissive side. Hmph. Interesting.

“Oh. Well, then. Guess my son didn’t fall all that far from the Marquez tree.”

“Jesus,” Sophie muttered. “Really, Mom? You just had to share that?”

Angie was cackling with glee. “It all makes so much sense now,” she hooted. “Explains why Parker’s folks don’t so much as blink when he pulls that caveman shit on me.”

“What about you, Maggie?” Mrs. Marquez had the look of an imp up to no good. No wonder Angie was the way she was.

Meghan slapped her hands across her eyes and groaned. “Ma, please. Don’t answer.”

It was all so amusing that Heather finally gave up and started to laugh like hell. “Maybe I should be taking notes,” she choked out as the giggles jacked her up. “Can anyone explain to me what the function of a spreader bar is?”

Everyone wailed with hysterical laughter. Everyone, that was, except Sophie. She either didn’t get the joke, was offended by the subject matter, or was better than all of them at hiding her reactions.

“All right, all right. That’s enough,” Angie pleaded. “Everyone needs to go back to square one and get ready for tonight. We’ll all meet at the church. Oh, and by the way, we’ve arranged for limo buses to do the driving after that so take a cab to the church, okay?”

Once again, Meghan picked up on the unspoken subtext but didn’t ask for clarification.

A little while later, as she waited for Brody to swing by and pick her up, she was chatting with Victoria out of earshot of the others. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Heather. I’m all ears.”

“Well, won’t Meghan figure out what’s planned when everyone turns up at the church looking like the Kardashians?”

The little woman’s hearty chuckle was bigger than she was. “Haven’t you noticed? If Big Daddy’s in the room, Channing fucking Tatum could saunter through naked except for assless chaps and she wouldn’t even look up.”

She had a good point. But honestly, the same was true of them all. Heather didn’t think she’d ever been around so many people who acted so blissfully in love.

Ummmm, hold on a second.
True of all of them? Had she included herself? Was she a card-carrying member of the Blissful in Love Club?

“Don’t worry,” Tori assured her. “That outfit you got? Brody Jensen’s face is going to melt off when he sees you in it, and if I know the rest of the Justice boys at all, they’ll be backslapping and high-fiving that poor son of a bitch into the ground. Hope you don’t mind but we don’t operate with a lot of filters where this stuff is concerned. I figure it’s in the water or something ‘cause all of them are ridiculously oversexed alphas with a proprietary streak six miles wide and a hundred miles long. Welcome to the club, sweetie.”

“Father Ed is here Meggie. Better get a move on.”

Shit, really? Meghan pushed a pile of crap away from the clock on her nightstand and checked the time. Dammit. Almost five and she wasn’t ready.

“Ma,” she yelled just as her mother appeared in the doorway. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “I thought you were in your room. Where’s my ankle chain?” she frantically asked. “I can’t find it and there’s so much shit in here it’s impossible to know where to look.”

It was obvious her mother was biting off a laugh as she glanced around at the wardrobe carnage littering her usually pristine room.

“Lord, Meggie. How many outfits did you try on?”

Throwing up her hands in defeat, she wailed, “Everything looks like crap.” Pointing at a blue outfit that lay in a crumpled pile on the bed, she grumbled, “That was my first choice, but it made my behind look huge.”

Glaring at her parent, she saw the amused expression and grumped some more. “And that? The brown sweater dress? That piece of shit is going straight in the trash. Plus size, my ass.”

“Well, what about this?” Her mom held up a smart little black cocktail dress that she knew would look awesome, but she’d been trying really hard not to fuck with Alex’s head by wearing anything that started and stopped with the word sexy in the description. The clingy bandage-style dress with the neckline that should never see the light of day inside a church was perfect but completely inappropriate.

“Ma,” she sniped. “If God was going to shit a brick because my arms were bare in my wedding gown, I think he’d be hurling lightning bolts if he got an eyeful of what that dress puts on display.”

“Mmm, good point.” After a pause, she said, “I know just the thing. What about that white dress you wore when Alex proposed? You said he liked it. Very much, in fact. I know there’s a bit of cleavage to worry about, but maybe you can wear a little cover-up for the rehearsal. Like a sweater or one of those cute short shrugs.”

Meghan knew the dress. It was an absolute favorite and not just because she looked hot in it. The dark green back and white front of the square-neck dress with the cap sleeves clung to her like a second skin and made her curves a blessing. It was, in a word, perfect.

“So that’s settled.” Ma chuckled. “And here’s the anklet. Right where you left it on the dresser. Now hurry, child. You don’t want to keep Father Ed waiting.”

Bounding up the steps to the O’Brien front door, Alex struggled with his flapping tie and tried to smooth his unruly hair. He and the guys had been hanging most of the day with Meghan’s brothers and a couple of their buddies. After a whirlwind tour of Meghan’s childhood haunts, they ended up at the Fireman’s Hall to check things out for the evening ahead. The place had been completely transformed into a badass cowboy honky-tonk, and Dev hadn’t been kidding about the gargantuan size of the drum kit they’d rounded up.

Unable to resist, they started drinking and fucking around—mapping out exactly what they wanted. He’d dropped a substantial wad of cash on a bunch of guys to handle the sound and lights while Mike and Deval ran the videographer through what to expect. Finn? That little fucker was all but carrying Parker’s damn coat. Talk about a man-crush. Shit. The younger guy hung on Sullivan’s every word.

And now, here he was, scrambling to make himself presentable and hopefully arrive anywhere near on time as he came to fetch his bride for their wedding rehearsal. Breathing into his hand just before ringing the doorbell, he was relieved not to smell like a brewery. Those damn O’Brien boys had iron stomachs. He’d never seen anyone put away as much beer as they did.

When the door swung open and Maggie O’Brien greeted him with a warm smile, he knew that he was looking into the future and seeing what his Irish goddess would look like in thirty years. The woman was an older, and just as beautiful, green –eyed and curvaceous version of her daughter. He and Paddy had more in common than maybe they realized.

“Alex,” she gushed. “My, don’t you look dashing tonight.”

Um, okay, although dashing was a stretch. Wearing black jeans and dress boots, he had on a plain white button-down shirt and a sports coat. The tie he added as an afterthought right about the time he admitted that without Meghan to pick out his clothes, he was a hapless mess.

“Good evening, Maggie,” he said as he brushed her cheek with a polite kiss. “And you, of course, take my breath away.”

She smacked him playfully on the chest, exactly the way her daughter did, and blushed. “Oh, you!”

Stepping into the front hallway, he heard voices coming from the back of the house. “Your parents are here. We’re all riding together with the Sullivans plus your two uncles. I believe Stephanie decided to travel with the ladies.”

“Is Meghan ready?”

As he asked the question, she motioned to him to shush with a finger to her mouth. Tiptoeing to the parlor door, she went to pull it shut. Curious, he looked over her shoulder and stopped dead. Meghan was there in a familiar looking dress only with some sort of shawl thrown about her shoulders. She spoke quietly to someone, gracefully crossed herself, folded her hands, and sank to her knees.

What the fucking fuck was going on?

As the door silently shut, Maggie put her arm through his and hugged tight. “She’s giving her confession to your uncle. Best we don’t interrupt.”

Seriously? Since when did Meghan go to confession and what exactly did she imagine she needed to confess? The woman didn’t have a truly bitchy bone in her body. Everyone adored her, and he’d rarely, if ever, heard her say anything snarky that required confessing.

“Faith means a lot to my daughter,” she added. Okay, well, that he knew, and it was something he’d been giving a lot of thought to.

As they wandered into the family room where his parents, along with Calder, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Wendy were gathered, he straightened instantly and had to stop from offering a salute when Patrick O’Brien stood and joined his wife. The man still gave him a case of the shits. Despite their regular conversations, he wasn’t entirely sure that Meghan’s beloved father liked him all that much.