Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3 (17 page)

None of that mattered as we hit the steps. Spread before us was the beach. White sand. Bright blue ocean with gently white-cresting waves. The giant reception tent and everyone gathered for Cat and Nick.

I glanced at Cat, and her eyes lit when she caught sight of her husband, standing puffed up and proud with one arm around his mimi and Josh next to him. Josh said something to Nick, and Nick nodded without ever taking his eyes off Cat.

My gaze wandered to Ashe. She watched me with the same attention, and I inclined my head in her direction. The bright rays of sunshine lit her from behind. She looked absolutely angelic.

All this romance crap was seriously going to my head, because I wanted more, so much more with Ashe than jerking off in the front seat of my truck or getting slotted into her hectic schedule a couple nights a week. I wanted to sleep beside her and wake up next to her. I wanted to move in, make plans, and know she was in it for the long haul. I didn’t want to be another boxed up part of her life: date night, dinner night, dick night.

Everything had changed. Ashe had become the beat of my heart, the pulse in my veins. After getting the news about Cat’s marriage, I’d broached the subject of moving in together with Ashe. She hadn’t even wanted to discuss the possibility. Maybe she was content with waiting to see how things would play out but I wasn’t. I aimed to change that tonight.

Christ. I wanted to star in a Hallmark Channel/Nicholas Sparks movie crossover, apparently.

Boomer and I delivered Cat down the boardwalk and into Nick’s waiting arms. He bent her slightly over his arm and kissed her as everyone cheered in congratulations.

Lifting Cat against him, Nick bellowed, “My wife, Catarina Steele!”

The joy on her face was unmistakable as she said, “Catarina Steele Loveland, that is.”

My work was done.

I left the nuzzling newlywed couple to make sure everything was in order for the reception. Boomer and I had organized music, caterers, the tent that was closed off to the baking lowcountry heat, and inside—thank the fucking Lord—giant fans. We’d sent evites because it was all rush-rush last-minute stuff, but everyone showed.

I looked back as I heard Boomer addressing Miss Myra, “Can I help you to the tent, ma’am?”

She appeared to have shrunk since I’d last seen her in the hospital, her body stooped, her face more gaunt, but nothing could diminish the sparkle in her eyes.

“Why, Boomer Steele. We’re family now, no need to call me
ma’am
.”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Myra.” He winked at her.

“Aren’t you good-lookin’ too. Must be in the family what with Cat and Brodie. Now they got the tattoos. You got any on you?”

Boomer’s face reddened. “Reckon so, not that you can see right now.”

“Oh my. Well, doesn’t that get the heart jumpin’ again.” She pressed her hand to her chest.

“So, this your ride?” Boomer asked her.

“Dang wheelchair. Worse than a g-damn walker.” She glared at the thing that had to have been kitted out with sand-ready extra wide tires just for the occasion.

“Don’t know about that.” Boomer helped her sit down. “Got your own fancy chariot, right?” It had been decorated with satin bows and a few tinkling bells.

“Oh, you keep up that sweet talk, might land yourself a wife too. Not me, mind you.” She slapped him on the wrist. “I’m too old for you.”

“And way out of my league,” Boomer added.

“
Daddy! Daddy! Is it cake time yet?” Little JJ pushed past me, waddling up to Josh to yank on his hand.

Josh glanced over at me in question.

It wasn’t officially cake time, but then it wasn’t the official wedding either, so it didn’t matter to me. I knew Cat couldn’t have cared less about who ate what or when, so I nodded.

Crouching down, Josh gripped his squirming bundle of son. “One piece, okay, kid?”

“Uh huh. One piece, Daddy.”

Gerald—the big black sumbitch mechanic from Stone’s garage—picked up JJ and threw him into the air before carrying the boy away on his shoulders, all to squeals and giggles.

“I mean it, Gerald,” Josh ordered.

Gerald flipped the middle finger to his boss without even breaking stride. Josh stomped after them.

Total chaos. The usual
. And I couldn’t stop smiling.

“Brodie Steele, you handsome devil. Escort an old lady to the tent?” Gigi Stone approached me across the soft sand.

She was still a looker with her sterling silver hair and her sharp eyes. I tucked her hand in my elbow. “So we should’ve brought Ashe’s girl, Cara?” I asked, starting off after JJ and Gerald.

“Of course. You arranged all this, didn’t you? But I heard tell you needed a date night. Now,”—she angled her chin at me from her perch at my arm—“do tell me about this Officer Kingston. Leelee’s filled me in a little, but I ain’t met her yet.”

“She’s a detective now.”

“Like
NYPD Blue
?”

Yeah, where everyone gets killed.
Great.

Pointing across the crowd, I said, “That’s her.”

“Oh. She’s beautiful. You are in trouble with that one aren’t you, dear?” She left me standing at the door of the tent with a pat on my arm. “Good luck, son.”

What the hell did that mean? I stared across the beach at Ashe, and she glanced over with a sultry wink.

Inferno of need, in my pants.

Yeah, maybe I did need some good old-fashioned good luck when it came to her.

I entered the tent and a cool wash of air blew over me. It didn’t do a damn thing to ease my need to get my hands on Ashe, but at least I stopped sweating.

Josh made his way to me, glaring at Gerald feeding his kid cake, with Viper, Nick’s Rottweiler, lapping all the crumbs from JJ’s face.

“Hey, Stone. How you holdin’ up?” I asked.

“How’s it look like I’m holding up? Leelee’s about to pop, I’m about to pop an aneurism, and Nicky swears the baby’s a girl because he’s an asshole like that.” Josh swigged his drink and then glanced past me, his hazel eyes turning soft.

I looked around until I saw the vision he stared at. Leelee Stone. She wore some kind of wrap dress that didn’t look one bit maternal, which most men would probably need an instruction manual to get her out of. She glowed like the sunset, and that was pretty accurate considering her red hair in ringlets down her back. She talked to Mimi, holding the older lady’s hand against the swell of her belly.

“Goddamn. It’s so worth it, though. My heart skips a beat every time I look at Leelee, probably why I need to be hooked up to my own monitor every time she gets a baby scan.” Josh patted his chest—and I knew about his tat. The one for JJ and Leelee, over his heart. “She looks amazing, right?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to agree with him when he scowled.

“Shut it.” He strode off, grumbling about tire irons and crowbars and Jiffy Lube and dudes looking at his woman.

Love did weird shit to people.

On that note, I searched the tent for Ashe. There she was, with a bunch of Redemption women. She threw her head back with a laugh, the soft, pink dress clinging to every sexy part of her.

Ray from Stone’s garage sidled up to me. “Lemme guess. Bossman gave you the
keep your fuckin’ eyes, hands, and thoughts off my woman
speech.”

“Somethin’ like that.”

A baby squalled and Ray’s lips quirked behind the big blond beard. “Sounds like I’m being paged.”

He shouldered through the throng to reach his missus and their baby girl.

Tate and Javier snuggled at a table near me. Tate—the all-American-jock-dude—passed napkins to his Latino lover. “He gets weepy at weddings.”

I remembered that from Stone’s.

Before I could reply, the Hens descended upon me. I hardly knew the three women in Nick’s writing group, but they were good people, if a little too forward. Case in point:

“
Brooodie
! Do tell, what happened with Nicky’s OutFAGEous Fans at Stone’s wedding,” Janice—best man, best woman, all around hippy chick—exclaimed.

Jacqueline looked me over top to bottom three times with her head doing that snake-charmer thing. “
Mm hmm
. We want to know if Brodie Steele boned any of the crazies.” The cocoa-skinned beauty had no shame, and she spoke a little too loudly.

The sensation of someone glaring at me hit me full force on the back of my head. I looked over my shoulder. Ashe could’ve shot lightning bolts from her narrowed eyes.
Hell, yeah.
Ashe with a hot jealous streak? Finally?
Nice.

I dropped my voice and huddled with the Hens.

They leaned in, all ears.

“Didn’t do a single one of them, but don’t let it get out. I took them to a bar, bought them drinks, and left them in Frankie the Tailor’s capable hands.”

“I’d like to be in
your
capable hands.” Jacqueline groped me all over again without even touching me.

Then Missy Peachtree, the eldest of the three, made some completely off-color—increasingly loud—comments about wanting to bend me over in some impossible position on my Harley, naked . . . as she tied me up?

“Ahem. Am I interrupting something?” Ashe materialized by my side.

“Yeah, babe, introductions.” Hooking my arm around her waist, I dipped her into a kiss to rival the one Nick had planted on my sister earlier.

The Hens were background noise to Ashe’s gasp, her hands grasping my shoulder, her thigh riding up to my hip:

“Somebody fan me.”

“Die! So
hoooot
.”

“Swooning. I’m swooning, bitches!”

When I let Ashe up for air, her hair was mussed, her face flushed, her lips swollen. I aimed to keep it that way.

“Detective Ashe Kingston, I’d like you to meet Nick’s friends. Jacqueline—she writes male-male. Janice here does Steampunk—”

“That’s not all I do.” The bouncy flouncy woman grinned at me.

“And Missy Peachtree. BDSM.”

“Detective, huh? So you carry cuffs and a nightstick as part of your job?” Missy stepped up to bat.

“I can show them to you sometime, if you like.” Ashe turned to me, kissing the corner of my mouth to more swooning and sighing.

“Oh, good. Show and tell, not show
not
tell. I like you, girl.” Jacqueline shook my woman’s hand in approval.

Half an hour later, Josh called everyone to order for champagne and speeches. He stood behind the head table, frowning over the gathering. “Nicky skipped out and got hitched without saying a word, stripping me of the whole best man deal. So I figure it’s his turn to get roasted. I mean
toasted
.”

“So, he’s keeping a grudge?” I asked Ray who rocked his baby in his arms on one side of me, while Ashe sat on my other side.

“He’s like that.”

“I’ve razzed on Nicky about half my life and had nothing but respect for Cat since the minute I met her,” Josh continued. “Two of the best people in the world getting married, nothing wrong with that, right?”

Everyone shouted in agreement.

“Like I said on my wedding day to beautiful, beautiful Leelee”—Josh helped his wife to her feet—“we have a lot to be thankful for, but that doesn’t mean we don’t miss the people not here. Daniel Loveland, Rebecca and Vaughn Steele. If you could give a moment of silence for Nicky’s brother and Cat’s parents.”

I bowed my head with everyone else. Ashe gripped my hand so tight, and my gut clenched. I rubbed a knuckle under my eyes.

“Now it’s time to raise your glasses—” Josh deemed the moment of grace done.

“Bottles!” Mick shouted.

“To Nicholas Loveland and Catarina Steele Loveland. May they be happy, even when Cat cracks him upside the head.”

After the cheers were given, Josh slumped into his seat. “I suck at speeches. Did anyone even cry?”

Leelee rubbed his chest with a purr. “I did. Mimi did. Gigi did. Cat too. You were perfect, and I love you, sug.”

All the happy couples converged outside on the sand for dancing after that. The sun was sinking in a soft pink and orange blur anchored to the horizon.

My Retribution guys created a bottleneck on the dunes, whispering heatedly.

“What’s up?” I asked Tail as Ashe scooted off to join the dancing throng.

Tail drew his long black hair back in both hands. “Just talkin’ about your old lady. She’s a cougar, man.”

“Oh fuck me. Not this shit again.” I started to march off but Handsome shoved his hair-covered face in my way.

“Hey. I think she’s a puma. Your cop’s not old enough to be a cougar.” He grinned.

“Detective,” I gritted out.

“Whatever,” the two pudwhackers chorused back.

“Ashe is a total MILF.” The same girl who’d called my woman badass at the MC brushed past. Petite. Blue-streaked black hair. A flair to her hips inside a tight clinging dress.