Wolf's Oath (After the Crash 3.25) (5 page)

Though Des had held her closely against him to shield her from the wind during the hour long walk, she was cold and stiff when he set her on her feet inside the den. It appeared to be a lobby, where the hotel front desk would have been. Sherry, Stag, Faron and the other men crowded in with them. They were out of the wind here, but she immediately missed the warmth of Des’ body. She balanced herself on her cane with one hand and groped to take off the scarf with the other. Her hand, still in the bulky mitten, couldn’t get a grip on the wool. Des gently pushed her hand away and unwound the scarves from her neck and pulled the thick knitted hat from her head. He grasped her wrist to pull the mitten off. Feeling like a five-year-old, she forced a sigh back while she passed her cane to the other hand and let him pull off the other mitten.

“Welcome!” Carla, the crash survivor who had married the Pack Alpha, hurried forward with the three other crash survivors who lived here. “Come into the rec room, where it’s warmer. Snake! Bring cups of cider for everyone.”

Connie peeled off her heavy coat and handed it to Des. He nodded to the room the others were streaming to, so she followed them into a large room dominated by a stone fireplace. The floor was plain polished wood strewn with fur rugs. A few tables with chairs stood here and there. A primitively decorated pine tree in a corner a few yards from the fireplace added a festive touch to the masculine décor. The ornaments were carved wood, some bright with paint, and strings of popcorn looped over the branches. Connie liked it.

Snake handed her a cup of hot apple cider with a big welcoming smile. She had gotten to know Snake a little bit while he stayed at the Plane Women’s House during Tami Casper’s counseling sessions. After he left her to hand a cup of steaming cider to Sherry, she saw Tami wave at her and shift over on a padded bench by the fire.

“Have a seat,” she offered.

Connie hobbled over, still stiff from the cold, and sank gratefully down. She set her cane aside to wrap both hands around the hot cup. Tami had stayed at the Plane Women’s House for several weeks and Connie had gotten to know and like the direct woman. They were about the same age, had both served in Iraq, and had a similar attitude about survival.

“So,” Tami said. “What are you doing here?”

Connie sipped the cider. “I’m here for a wedding.”

“Yeah, I guessed that.” Tami tilted her head inquiringly. “That was nice of you, but it’s a long cold walk to see the weddings of people you don’t know all that well.”

Connie felt her lips curve. “It’s my wedding I’ve come for,” she said, and tried not to laugh when Tami choked on her cider.

“Yours? Who are you marrying?”

“Des.”

Connie followed Tami’s gaze to the far side of the room, where Des stood talking with Stag. His black hair was shiny with melted snow, his eyes fixed on her while he spoke. Connie turned her back on him. A spear of nerves went through her. What was she doing? She didn’t even know him, and she was marrying him? She took a deep breath to steady herself and made herself join in the conversation the other women were having.

The ceremony wouldn’t be performed for several hours. That gave Connie plenty of time to doubt her decision to marry Des. She wouldn’t back out. She had given her word. But that didn’t keep her belly from turning like a demented Ferris wheel. When they had lunch an hour later she wasn’t able to force more than a few bites down.

After lunch the men left the den and Carla showed her and Sherry to a room where they could rest before the weddings. It was a standard motel room, with two beds whose frames were bolted to the wood floor, a chair and wobbly table, and a closet with a sliding mirror door. The mirror was wavy, and the top right corner was missing. The closet was bare, only a few empty hangers on the bar. The room had no art on the walls or knickknacks to give it personality. There was another door, probably to the bathroom, but it was locked.

Connie sat down on the bed and eased off her shoes. She stared at Sherry. “I’m curious. Why did you come with us today?”

“Well,” said Sherry in her gentle southern accent tinged with her native Asian language. “Stag… I mean, he wants me to marry him. I thought maybe I w… But I can’t.” Tears welled in her exotic eyes. “I just can’t.”

“That’s okay,” said Connie hastily. “You don’t have to.”

Sherry sniffed and turned her head aside, as if to hide her tears. “Is the bed comfortable?”

Thank God, a safe subject
, Connie thought. “Yeah. I guess I’ll try to get a little sleep.”

“Me too,” the other woman said, and stretched out on the bed with her face determinedly turned away.

Connie inwardly berated herself. It wasn’t any business of hers why Sherry had come. She had made it her business to know each of the thirty-one crash survivors, but she couldn’t say she understood each of them. She could rattle off their names, ages, where they had come from, and whether or not they were likely to shirk work or make trouble. Some, like Tami, she felt she understood, but Sherry was one she didn’t understand at all. She wished she knew where Des was. She wanted to talk to him, but he had disappeared with the other bridegrooms. She settled her cheek against the pillow and dozed uneasily. She was glad when one of the young men tapped on the door and called that it was time to get ready for the ceremony.

She dragged herself to the mirrored door and studied herself in it with a sigh. Her hair was a mess and her clothes were wrinkled. Why hadn’t she brought her comb? She did her best to smooth her hair with her fingers. There wasn’t much she could do with her clothes, though. The other brides probably had something special to wear. Not elegant white gowns, but something beside jeans and flannel shirts covered by the remains of a pilot’s uniform jacket. Connie didn’t have special clothes, but she did have the earrings Paul had given her the month before he died. She had tucked their small box into her jacket pocket before she left this morning.

He had found them in a market in Bagdad and presented them to her with a laugh. “They’re cheap things, probably made in China, but they reminded me of you.”

“Oh, now I know the truth.” She’d thrown a mock punch at his shoulder. “You think I’m cheap!”

“No!” He’d wrestled her onto the bed in her quarters, laughing. “I expect you’ll be very expensive, for the next fifty years or so.”

Connie was glad she had happy memories of Paul and that it no longer hurt to remember them. She drew the small box out of her pocket and opened it. The brass discs gleamed and the tiny turquoise dangles on the earrings chimed cheerfully when she held them up.

“Pretty!” said Sherry. “Were you wearing those on the plane?”

Connie smothered a laugh at the idea of wearing anything like this with her pilot’s uniform. The airlines regulations weren’t as stringent as the Corps’, but chandelier earrings certainly wouldn’t have been permitted. “No, they were in my jacket pocket.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears and hooked the earrings through her lobes. She enjoyed the tiny chiming sounds they made when she turned her head. A memory of Paul flicking his finger against them to tease her made her laugh. It was another good memory.

“I guess it’s time to go,” Sherry said with a subtle cringe.

Connie led the way down the hall, both of them moving slowly on their canes.

At the door to the rec room Sherry gave her a timid smile and went in. Connie went through the dining hall to join the brides gathered in the kitchen with the men who were to give them away. Marissa Paulson was only in her mid twenties, but the son she’d left behind when she boarded the plane in 2014 was in his mid-fifties. The idea
weirded
Connie out so she glanced quickly away from them. Carla’s waist-length brown hair was a glossy fall down the back of her ivory dress. She was whispering instructions to the teenaged wolf who was giving her away. Tami was in green, holding Snake’s arm, looking cool and serene. Renee, another crash survivor whose face had been damaged in the crash, was talking to a wolf named Jay. Or maybe she was talking to herself. Connie couldn’t help a grin when she heard her mutter her hope that the ceremonies wouldn’t go so long that the venison she was roasting for supper would be dry.

Connie’s churning stomach wasn’t interested in food, but she wanted this over with. She was going to be given away by Stag. Aside from Des and Snake, he was the only man she knew here. His face was calm, but under her fingers, his forearm was tense. He had taken Sherry aside a few minutes earlier. He’d leaned close to her, speaking passionately while she kept her face stubbornly turned away. Connie could guess what they’d talked about. But he was here with her, and Sherry was in the rec room across the hall. If he’d asked her to marry him, she had refused.

Marriage. It was a lifetime commitment. Four years ago Connie had been prepared to make that commitment with a man she loved. They had known each other for three years, first as friends and fellow Marine pilots, then as lovers when they could steal some time alone, and then as an engaged couple. Marriage between two fighter pilots stationed thousands of miles apart might have been a struggle, but they’d known that, and were prepared to sacrifice for their relationship and their future together.

Their future had ended when Paul’s plane was shot down by insurgents in Iraq.

Stag tapped a finger on the back of her hand. “Miss Connie? Could you loosen up, please?”

She hastily released his arm. Her hands threatened to cramp from the grip she’d had on him. “Oh, my God, sorry! Sorry.”

He gave her an understanding smile and Connie wondered why Sherry wasn’t utterly infatuated with this gorgeous man. “Bridal nerves?” he teased.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

She took a deep breath, and put her hand lightly over his arm again. “Let’s get this rolling. It’s time.”

The five couples paraded solemnly across the hall and into the rec room. Through the aisle created by the rows of standing men crowded into the room she could see Sherry sitting close to the fireplace beside the elderly lady everyone called the Grandmother, and Rose, a sixteen-year-old crash survivor. Father John, the priest from a nearby town, was between the fireplace and the Christmas tree with the five bridegrooms lined up in front of him. When she saw Des, Connie’s heart stopped dead and then gave a wild bound. He was wearing a white button down shirt and jeans. She’d never seen him wearing a dress shirt. The pristine white almost glowed against his dark skin and his long, unbraided hair hanging over it. She hadn’t ever seen his hair unbraided, either, and it was gorgeous. His square chin was lifted an inch higher than normal, a small smile playing over his lips.

God, he was handsome. Men with long hair had never been her thing, but Des was stunning with his shiny black hair loose. She stared at him in a daze all the way up the short aisle until Stag took her hand from his arm, put it in Des’ and announced, “I do.”

What? Shit, the ceremony had already started, and Stag had just given her away. She tried to focus on the priest. She was getting married,
dammit
; she ought to follow along. Stag left her there, her cold hand in Des’ warm one, and went to stand near Sherry.

She tried to pay attention, but words floated around her like the clouds she’d flown through. With five couples being married at the same time, the priest’s words were confusing. Sometimes he seemed to be addressing all of them at once, and sometimes he seemed to be speaking to a particular couple. Des squeezed her hand. She looked up to find him smiling at her with an expectant expression on his face.

She’d missed something important. “What?” she whispered.

The priest sighed. “Do you, Connie Marie Mondale, take this man, Desmond Shiny Rock Wolfe, to be your wedded husband? To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey until death parts you?”

Her attention fastened on “Shiny Rock” for a long moment before moving on to the word obey. Her suppressed urge to giggle died fast. “Obey?” She jerked her hand away from Des and scowled at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “No way. That’s archaic.”

“It’s just routine,” Des began soothingly.

“
Bullsh
—” Connie broke off with a guilty glance at the priest. “If I make a vow, I’ll keep it. But there’s no way I can keep a vow to obey you.” She unfolded one arm to poke a finger in his chest. “This wedding was your idea. You want to be my husband? Then we’re leaving that little ‘obey’ bit out of the vows.”

“Fine by me,” Des said, obviously not disturbed as he took her hand back.

The priest was disturbed, but Des fixed a cold glare on him. Connie noticed that all the other bridegrooms did the same, and Taye growled, “The ladies don’t have to swear to obey.”

The edge of violence in Taye’s voice made Father John swallow. She didn’t blame him. Taye was about ten years younger than she was, and he’d always been so nice to her that she forgot he controlled a pack of werewolves with an iron fist. Wolves, she corrected herself. She had to remember they weren’t werewolves! She cast a glance up at Des and found him looking down at her with a small smile curving his lips.

The brides’ vows went smoothly after that, and then the men said their vows. Thank God, thought Connie, it was almost done. But the men didn’t stop with the traditional vows to love and cherish. Des’s warm fingers closed more tightly around hers to draw her closer.