Sinners On Tour 06 Sinners at the Altar (18 page)

Chapter Nine

Eric smiled down at his wife when she slid her hand into his and leaned against his upper arm. She gazed up at him with beguiling blue eyes, and he was glad they’d decided to put off the customary reception for a couple of weeks. How did new husbands make it through an entire evening without making love to their women? Maybe that’s where the booze came in.

“Did you have a nice talk with Isaac?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said. “Can we leave now, before someone else decides to interrupt?”

“Oh good, you’re still here,” a familiar voice called from the church entrance. “I thought I’d missed it.”

“You did miss it, Jon,” Sed called. “They’re ready to leave.”

Jon rushed down the aisle. He looked surprisingly
good as he took Eric’s hand and eagerly pumped it up and down.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Eric said.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he said.

“Jon,” Sed said, shaking his head. “You
did
miss it.”

“I did? Right. Hope it was special. Anyway, I think I found us a drummer.”

The entire band swiveled their heads in Eric’s direction, various levels of shock registering on their faces.

“You aren’t going to leave the band, are you?” Jace said, grabbing Eric’s sleeve.

Sed tilted his head back and shook it at the ceiling. “Happens all the time. Guy gets married. Wife takes over his life. Guy leaves band. Band is screwed.”

“I’m not leaving Sinners,” Eric said. “I just… want to start a second band.
A band with fewer fan expectations so I can try some experimental things. And sing. And play guitar.” Which would step on every band member’s fucking toes.

Rebekah squeezed his hand in encouragement. He hadn’t wanted the guys to find out like this. He’d wanted to have some songs for them to listen to so they could see how different the two bands would be and why he didn’t expect Sinners to share his new vision.

Nice, Jon. Thanks for that.

“So do you need a bassist?” Jace asked.

Eric couldn’t even bring himself to look at Jace when he said, “Jon’s playing bass.”

“Oh,” Jace said flatly.

Shit.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Jace. Eric wished that Jon knew how to keep his big mouth shut. That way Eric could have broken the idea to the guys himself and ensured that they realized he wasn’t going anywhere. The side project would always take a back seat to Sinners.

“This thing is in its infancy,” Eric said, hoping to lessen the impact of his news. “I’m not even sure if it will get off the ground.”

“It will definitely get off the ground,” Jon said excitedly. “I was talking to Caiden James when you sent me the wedding invite this afternoon. It took some encouragement and quite a bit of alcohol, but he’s agreed to join us. Well, he will if you ask him. I don’t think he really believed me. But he was stoked by the thought of working with you, Sticks.”

“He’ll get in touch with you in a couple of days,” Rebekah said to Jon, taking Eric firmly by the elbow. “And you can hash out all the details about your band then.”

Jon’s smile faded, and he scowled slightly as he looked down at Rebekah.

“My
husband
,” she continued, “is mine for the next seventy-two hours or so. After that, I
might
give him a few minutes to himself, but don’t count on it. The man promised me a lifelong honeymoon, and I plan to hold him to his word.”

Eric grinned and drew her against his side to give her a hearty squeeze. “That’s right
, I did. We’d better get started on that. Later, dudes.”

He scooped Rebekah off her feet
and into his arms, and carried her toward the church exit. There was only so much waiting a guy could be expected to tolerate.

Chapter Ten

Rebekah hugged Eric’s neck and giggled against his shoulder. Thank God he’d decided to make an escape. There was only so much waiting a girl could be expected to tolerate.

They’d almost made it to the door when rapid footfalls approached from behind.

“Wait!” Jessica called. “Don’t forget to throw your bouquet. And we have rice. For luck!”

“And the garter,” Myrna added.

Eric blew out his cheeks and set Rebekah on her feet. “Almost made it,” he said.

Rebekah tossed her bouquet over her shoulder without looking.

There was a loud thud, and Rebekah turned to find Jessica on the floor, her body obscured by a pew, her feet sticking out into the aisle. “Warn a bride-to-be!” Jessica complained from between the pews. She lifted a hand into the air, clutching the bouquet in victory.

Sed chuckled and shook his head as he helped her to her feet. “Did you hit your head? Why did you dive for it like that?”

“Because no other woman in this room is getting married before me!” Jessica said, brushing off the skirt of her dress.

“Aggie might,” Jace said quietly. “If we find the right time and place.”

Jessica huffed out a breath. “Well… too bad. I caught the bouquet at risk of grievous injury, so we’re next.” She looked up at Sed. “And you’d better catch the garter or you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Rebekah squeaked in surprise as the skirt of her dress was suddenly pushed up. Eric’s long warm hands grasped her bare thigh and then shifted to the other to
slide the garter down her leg. He was surprisingly matter-of-fact about it. He tugged it over her foot and tossed it directly to Sed, who caught it against his waist with one hand.

“Are you happy?” Eric said to Jessica.

She flushed. “Yes,” she said quietly.

“Good. Now go cook your man some rice
; we don’t need it.”

Rebekah snorted at Jessica’s wide eyes and even wider mouth. Jessica hadn’t managed to deliver a comeback before Eric tossed Rebekah over his shoulder, gathered her cumbersome train in his other hand, and practically sprinted the last few feet to the door. Giggling, Rebekah waved goodbye to all the smiling people in the church. Even Jon was grinning like a fool as he patted Jace on the back.

At the top of the church steps outside, Eric yelled, “My wife!” before jostling her uncomfortably as he bounded down the stairs with her still over his shoulder.

“My husband!” she yelled back.

He swatted her on the butt, which she barely felt through the layers of fabric. And then at last he set her on her feet next to the passenger side of the Corvette. Her heart threatened to beat itself right out of her chest as she gazed up into his smiling face. He leaned down to kiss her. Before his lips brushed hers, he was interrupted by a loud, “Wait! You’re not married yet.”

Her dad
came rushing toward them waving a piece of paper. “You haven’t signed the license.”

“So much for a speedy getaway,” Eric said, “but I guess signing the license is pretty important.”

They signed their names, using the hood of the car as their writing surface. Jace and her mom signed as their witnesses, her dad signed as the officiating clergy, and it was finally official. They were married.

“Can we go now?” Eric asked. “I never realized that marrying her would keep me out of her arms for so long.”

“You can go,” Dad said. “Congratulations.”

The rest of the party had made their way to the car by this time. So everyone required another hug, another handshake, another kiss on the cheek, another pat on the back. Eric opened the passenger door and slowly herded Rebekah away from well-wishers and into the car.

He closed the door resolutely, took a deep breath, and circled the car to get into the driver’s seat. Jessica took out her camera phone and made them smile so she could snap a few photos. She’d taken some of the ceremony too. And Myrna had gotten a video on her phone. Rebekah spent the next several minutes thanking them profusely. She leaned out of the car to give Myrna a hug. And removed her veil to return it to Jessica, thanking her again for letting her borrow it. She turned toward Eric to find him with his jaw set, rolling his eyes at the steering wheel. He started the car, apparently ready to run over anyone still in their path.

From behind the car, Aggie said, “I think you need to change your sign. It says
almost
married.”

Eric slapped his forehead. “You people are driving me nuts! I don’t need all this ceremony. I just need her.
Comprende
?”

He shifted the car into first and revved the engine in warning.

“We’ll celebrate at the reception!” Rebekah called to the apprehensive friends and family backing away from the car. “It’ll be fun. We’ll even get a cake and dance and everything.”

Eric eased forward, waiting somewhat patiently for Dave to maneuver his wheelchair out of the car’s path. When they were finally clear to leave, Eric drove off, honking his horn all the way out of the parking lot.

Rebekah turned in her seat so she could wave at everyone over the open back of the car. When they were all out of sight, she turned around and sighed happily. She didn’t mind a bit of ceremony, but she’d much rather spend her evening with Eric than with well-wishers.

“Do you want to stay at a hotel tonight?” Eric
asked, his eyes on the road.

“No, I want to stay at your house.”

“Our house,” he said.

“
Our
house,” she repeated with a tender smile.

Maybe the reason the ceremony was necessary was so a person felt married. She didn’t really feel as if anything had changed between them. Was she supposed to feel different? She’d given him her heart well before she’d said
I do
.

Rebekah looked down at her hand and then rubbed the wedding band on her finger. It was a well-worn ring, comfortable as an old pair of sneakers. She almost felt as if
she’d always worn it.

“I’m glad
Daddy let us use these rings.” She glanced at Eric, her eyes a bit on the watery side.

“I figured you’d feel that way.”

He reached over and cupped the back of her head, his own eyes shinier than usual.

“Did he tell you the story behind them?”

He shook his head.

“His great
-great-grandparents immigrated to the United States from England during the mid-eighteen hundreds. The husband, Walter, was a skilled cabinet maker, but they struggled at first because any profit they made had to go back into the business. Apparently they had to sell their wedding bands to buy shoes for their children so the kids could go to school. After many years, the cabinet-making business began to make a profit. Walter and his wife were able to buy a house and shoes for their kids. Figuring the man they’d sold their rings to had melted them down for the silver long before, they even bought new wedding rings. One day old Walt was designing new cabinets for a used-jewelry dealer and what did he see in the display case?”

“The rings.”

Rebekah reached over to squeeze his knee. “Right. The rings. So it became a tradition that newly married couples in the family would start their marriage wearing these very same rings until they could make their fortune and afford new ones. Then they’d replace them and save the silver rings to pass on to their children. By the time of my dad’s generation, things weren’t so tight financially, so he and Mom did use the rings in the ceremony, but they traded them for new rings right after.”

Eric lifted his hand over the steering wheel to look at the ring on his finger. “So we aren’t supposed to wear them forever?”

“We can wear them as long as we want,” she said. It wasn’t as if they’d be able to have children to pass them on to. Well, at least not blood-related children. She wondered if her ancestors would be okay with an adopted child wearing the rings.

“What if Dave wants them when he gets married?”

Rebekah smiled, hoping someday soon her brother would find someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. “Then I say we let him have them. They’ve been blessed with many generations of love, including ours. We can’t really expect him to give that up.”

Eric smiled sadly. “I wish I had a cool story to tell you about my ancestors, but I know nothing about them. I probably come from a long line of derelicts and criminals.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “You have too good a heart, Eric. I have to think at least some of that is genetic.”

He concentrated extra hard on the road. They were still miles from home.

He was silent for a long while, and she didn’t press him further. She didn’t want him to be sad today. She almost wished she hadn’t told him the story about the rings, how they connected generation after generation of her family. It had to make him feel completely disconnected from his own family.

They turned onto the gravel road that led to Eric’s sunny yellow Victorian-style house in the country. He stopped in the driveway and shut off the engine, but didn’t make a move to get out of the car.

He took a deep breath and turned toward her. “I never really thought much about my family—what I was missing by not having one—until I found you.”

Her heart panged. “Baby, if you want to try to figure out where you come from, we can go look through records and stuff
, figure out who your relatives are. I’m sure there are plenty of interesting stories in your ancestors’ pasts.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“With your birth certificate. Also, as a former ward of the state, you have a file somewhere.”

He laughed. “Oh,
I have a file all right.”

“If you don’t want to know, that’s fine,” she said. “I don’t mind being your entire family.”

“You and my band. It’s enough,” he said. He took her hand in his and kissed her knuckle just below her wedding ring. “But I’ll think about it. Maybe knowing the truth about who I am and where I came from will be a bit less terrifying with you beside me. You make me feel I can overcome any obstacle.”

Her shoulders drooped
, and she relaxed into her seat with a dreamy grin. “You’d better stop making me swoon,” she said. “I’m liable to melt right into this seat.”

He grinned. “I like to make you swoony. Never had a woman get swoony over me before.”

“Then you must have not shown a single woman who you really are.”

“You don’t think this sentimental sap is really me, do you? I just act this way to get in your pants.”

Blue eyes twinkling with mischief, he winked at her.

She laughed. “
It is effective in that regard,” she admitted. “But I’m not wearing pants. And I’m not sure your swooniness is enough to get you under my skirt.”

“When we get in the house, you won’t be wearing your skirt either.”

She opened her mouth to tease him further, and he added, “Or your panties.”

She laughed. He knew her well
; she had been going to tease him about the extra swoon requirement for getting in her panties.

His teasing smile faded and he simply stared at her for a long moment. His eyes searched her face as if
he was trying to decide if she really could handle being there for him for things other than great laughs and hot sex. Her heart rate accelerated when his eyes finally settled on hers and she steeled herself to support whatever he’d decided. She wouldn’t force him one way or the other. She might push a bit, because she believed knowing what he came from would give him some closure, but she wouldn’t force him to face it if he didn’t want to.

“I’ve spent the last twenty-five years trying to forget I ever had a family,” he said. “I’ve lived my entire life focusing on the present. For the first time, I’m ready to concentrate on my future and building it with you. And I don’t think I want my past to intrude on that.”

Planning their future was more important, but for her, the future was far more terrifying than the past. They’d already survived their pasts. The same could not be said for their futures.

“That’s fine, baby.” She touched the cleft in his chin with one fingertip and then cupped his face between her palms. “I’ll always support you. Always.”

His eyes flicked up to stare at her forehead, and he flashed a perfect set of white teeth at her when he grinned crookedly. “You realize I’m going to have to test that promise, don’t you? Make sure you mean it by being obnoxious and picking fights.”

“Well then, I’ll start looking forward to a lot of make-up sex
.” She pulled his face to hers so she could kiss him.

She drew away when his fingers began to work the buttons at her back. “Not here,” she said, reaching for his door handle to exit the car.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Right here.”

“But the neighbors will see us.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the nearest house, nearly a mile away and set back away from the gravel road by a driveway almost as long as theirs. The roofline was barely visible. He turned his gaze to her again.

“I highly doubt that,” he said. “Do you remember the very first thing that we bonded over?”