She rushes away and I rotate to the mirror, quickly noting the fact that my pale skin is glowing and why would it not be? I’m marrying Rick Savage. After all those years apart from him, all those painful years, we’re together. The rear door opens and closes, and I assume it’s a staff member or a delivery. My attention is back on the gown, but I’m thinking about Rick. He’d been awkward with the priest, but so very Savage.
“I’ll just be frank, Father,” Rick says, after we sit down across from the priest in his office, and right after we’ve been told the priest is the final say in who does and does not get married in the church. “I’m not what you’d call a good guy, but God didn’t strike me down with lightning when I walked in here, so he’s made his judgment. I’m with an angel, I’m marrying an angel, and I need her to have her fairytale wedding. Are you going to keep her from having what God clearly wants for her?”
The priest leans forward and smiles. “What God giveth, I cannot taketh away. And for the record, Rick Savage, we’re all sinners.”
“There are different levels of sin,” Savage counters. “I’m the one foot into hell kind of sinner,” I take his hand and he adds, “but she pulled me back.”
“Sounds like we should visit the confessional before you leave, son.”
“God no,” I spurt, with my heart racing. “No,” I add. “I ah—pardon me, Father. Let’s save that for after the wedding.”
Savage laughs and to my surprise, so does the priest before he says, “Let’s talk about the wedding.”
I smile with the memory and with the plans for the wedding.
Married in our new home city, where we have started our new life, a beautiful day, and church, with our new family watching. Of course, my father and a few friends will join us as well. Sadly, Rick’s father going into rehab has not mended their relationship. Savage will not invite him to the wedding.
I blink myself back into view and dream of the moment I walk down the aisle wondering how Rick will react.
A whistle lifts in the air and my gaze jerks to the left to find Rick standing in the hallway. Tall, dark, and dangerous—the love of my life who is always a rebel, living outside the rules. He cannot be here. It breaks every rule in the pre-wedding book.
It’s bad luck that we do not need.
CHAPTER FOUR
Candace
At the sight of my future husband, staring at me in my wedding dress, I do the only thing I can do.
I fling my arms around myself, attempting to hide any little part of my dress from Rick, who should not be here. “You can’t see me in my dress!” I shout. “Go, Rick. Go now!”
He doesn’t go. He’s staring at me with his piercing blue eyes, gobbling me up with a hungry look. “You’re beautiful, baby. So fucking beautiful.”
I twist around, away from him, desperate to find a robe, but it’s too late. He’s already in front of me, all six-foot-five inches of hot, hard man, dragging me against him. “God, woman.” His voice is raspy, affected, and he cups my head and leans in close. “I can’t believe you're finally going to be my wife.”
Wife.
His wife.
The very idea undoes me and heats my skin and my heart.
My fight and flight mechanisms are both weak as the warmth of his body consumes mine. His eyes are filled with love, and that love is exactly what draws my attention to the scar on his cheek that represents so much of our past. The bad parts that almost took him from me forever. “Rick, damn it,” I whisper. “This is bad luck.”
“Nothing about you and me is bad luck, baby,” he says. “You are my lucky charm, woman. Haven’t you figured that out?”
My heart softens, and the remainder of my resistance fades away. “I wanted to surprise you on our wedding day.”
“You surprise me every day of our lives.” He strokes hair behind my ear, a tenderness that defies a man who can be brutal to his enemies and kisses me, a soft brush of lips to my lips, before he says, “I love you more than I knew any human being could love. You know that, right?”
“Oh no! Oh my God!” Mary exclaims. “He can’t see you before the wedding!”
Rick kisses me again. “Tell her to go away.”
“Rick,” I hiss. “She’s my seamstress. This is her store.”
He acts as if she isn’t here, and says, “I have to run an errand for an old friend. I’m going to be gone for a few days.”
My heart leaps. Rick’s old friends are trouble, the kind that gets people killed. I turn to Mary. “Can we have just a minute, Mary, please?”