Cupid’s Surprises (A Valentine’s Day Romance Anthology Book 2), page 96
With everyone ready, we got right to it. Dad stood by my side as my best man. We didn’t need to buy new wedding rings. Blyss always wore hers and she’d brought mine with her to the hospital. Dad held them for us. This time, when we put them on each other’s fingers, it would be legit.
As he and I stood there, waiting, he said, “You know, son, I could never have chosen a better girl for you. Blyss is one of a kind. The way you found her was a bit off the wall, but I’m glad you did.”
We hadn’t talked about how Blyss and I had ended up together. I’d had to tell my parents about what happened to her and how she ended up hurt and needing our help. I did have to confess to the whole thing. But neither of them forced us to talk about it anymore than I already had.
“Thanks for not judging us, Dad. We’ve never told you and mom how much we appreciate you two not giving us sermons over what we were doing. I’m sure it’s not something you can easily understand.”
The look on my father’s face was confusing to me. It was a mix of saucy and raunchy. “If you think your generation invented that kind of stuff, you’re dead wrong. Your mother and I weren’t always this old, son. We get why you were doing what you did. Don’t you ever tell your mother I told you this, but she and I had a few things stashed away for when you kids went to summer camp. The house would get a little dark for those three weeks each year.”
“Oh, hell,” I muttered as my mother came down the aisle to take her seat. I blushed horribly as my father chuckled.
So my parents were freaks, too, once upon a time. I suppose it was good to know that I came by my fetishes naturally. And at the very least, my parents weren’t ashamed of what Blyss and I had done. Things could’ve been so much worse.
The music started and the man who would marry us came to stand with my father and I at the altar. We watched little Tatum come out from the back and toss red rose petals all over the place. She stopped once and looked at her grandfather. “Papa, take lots of pictures, please. I need proof I’m the best flower girl there ever was.”
Laughter filled the little chapel as she finished her job, making sure she used every petal that was in her basket. She even shook it upside down, then looked at me. I gave her a nod. “I’ve never seen a more efficient job of flower girl done. You are, hands down, the best ever. Don’t let anyone take that title away from you, princess.”
She did a few fist pumps into the air and a funny little dance, then she went to sit by my mother. “I was good, huh?”
Mom nodded and hugged her as she looked at me with a smile on her face. I loved seeing my mother with her only grandchild. She loved her so much and it came so easily to her. Where Tatum was concerned, my parents could’ve taken that badly too. Instead, they welcomed her and her grandparents with open arms. If I was only half as wonderful as my parents were, I’d still be proud of myself.
The music changed to the bridal march and I waited to see my beautiful bride come down that aisle to me. And I waited, then I waited some more. Mom jumped up after much too long had gone by and went to see what the problem was.
“Well, what do you suppose the problem is, son?” Dad asked me, as if I knew.
“Maybe pregnancy stuff,” I said. “It couldn’t be cold feet, could it?”
“Surely not,” Dad agreed. “Why would she get cold feet? For goodness sakes, she’s been staying with us and planning on living there with us, even if you weren’t there. I just don’t see it being that.”
“You don’t think this is all just too much stress for her, do you?” I asked him as I began to get really nervous. “She’s so fragile. I bet I made her do this marriage thing much too soon. I barely got back from being missing. She must’ve thought I was dead at times. Why did I push her to do this so fast? I’m always making mistakes where she’s concerned. She’s like a porcelain doll that I have no idea how to handle. Damn!”
“She’s a lot tougher than you give her credit for. This is a wedding. There’ll be pictures you guys will have forever. I bet she was crying, because her hormones have her doing that a lot. I bet she wanted to fix her makeup. That’s probably all. You’re pretty hard on yourself where she’s concerned.”
“Only because it’s true. I should’ve waited. I could’ve waited. I mean, look how long she stayed with you guys, waiting to see if I’d ever come back. She has the patience of a saint, and I have none. No patience at all. Man, what have I done? I bet she’s a mess and that’s why she’s not coming down this aisle to me. I bet she’s wondering if I want to get married just because she’s pregnant and she’s thinking she doesn’t want a marriage based on an impending baby. She wants to get married for love and love alone.”
“That’s just nonsense, son. You should calm down before you stress yourself out. You do have a problem with patience, that much you have right about yourself. You should’ve taken more time at the hospital and let them help you get some nutrients into you. You shouldn’t be physically taxing on yourself right now. And you have the honeymoon coming up in just a little while.” He stopped as something came to his mind. “I wonder if she’s worried about that. You know, worried you’re not up to that yet. I bet that’s it. I bet she’s thinking you guys should give it a while before you think she expects sex out of you.”
“Wrong,” I said as I shifted my weight. “She and I did that already.”
Shock filled his expression. “When in the hell did you manage to do that?”
“In the hospital room, in the shower. The doc left us alone.”
“Did he know what the hell you were doing?”
“He winked at me before he left. I suppose he did know.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have even allowed that. You’re depleted. That was just dangerous. Damn, son!”
“I felt a hell of a lot better afterward, let me tell you.” I thought about what he’d said, and there was just no way she wanted to hold off the marriage for the reason he thought.
The man who was going to marry us leaned up to whisper, “Maybe we should reschedule this. I have a couple coming in at midnight. That’s only an hour away. There’s the matter of vacuuming up the rose petals, you know.”
“We’re not rescheduling until I find out what the problem is.” I tapped my foot and looked at my watch. “I’ll give her five more minutes, then I’m going back there myself. I don’t care if it is bad luck to see her in the wedding dress or not. This is ridiculous!”
“Daddy, is Mommy going to come up there with you and get married or not?” Tatum called out. “Cause I’m gonna be so mad at her if she don’t!”
“Mommy must be having problems with her dress, princess. Don’t be mad at her for it. She won’t leave Daddy standing at the altar like some kind of loser. Not after all Daddy’s been through. She’d never do that.”
Would she?
Would she actually leave me like that? Did some idiotic fear surface in her and she wasn’t going to go through the wedding?
I knew she had issues. God knows I knew that. I put my faith in her anyway. She’d waited for me. She’d made commitments all on her own to my daughter, something she didn’t have to do.
She could commit to adopting Tatum, but marrying me was something she couldn’t seem to commit to. What was wrong with me? Was I some kind of an idiot and didn’t realize it?
I was a catch! A motherfucking catch!
Blyss had me feeling like chopped liver and right at the time I was supposed to be feeling like the king of the motherfucking world!
What the fuck!
Blyss
“It was the stupid orange juice,” I whined, then wretched again as I hung my head over the toilet. “I shouldn’t have drunk it. I know how citrus affects the baby. Even apple juice comes right back up.”
“Oh my goodness, Blyss. This is just awful. Should I go tell them to call this thing off? You can get married in the morning when you feel better,” Troy’s mom tried to comfort me.
“I don’t want to …” I had to stop and blow some more chunks. I didn’t know where all the food was coming from, I hadn’t even eaten that much.
She patted my back. “It’s nerves too, I bet.”
She handed me another damp paper towel as the spewing ended. “I’m not nervous at all about marrying Troy. Well, I am a little. But not because of him, because of me. Even then, I’m not about to not to go through with the marriage. I want it. I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted.” I burped and waved away the stench that came along with that. “I need to brush my teeth. I can’t give my new husband a kiss with trench mouth.”
“I’ll run and get you something. I’m sure the front desk has something up there. I’ll be right back.” She left me alone, and I looked in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot, my hair had strands that had fallen out of the perfectly-shaped updo the nice lady in the beauty shop did for me. It matched Tatum’s perfectly.
We were supposed to have all these gorgeous pictures of the night we finally wed, and I looked like a drunken cliché of a bride. A real typical Vegas wedding picture, only I wasn’t drunk at all!
“Baby? Blyss? You back here?”
It was Troy. He’d come looking for me. And he’d see me in the dress!
“Troy, what are you doing back here?” I opened the door only a crack, making sure he couldn’t see me. “Cover your eyes!”
He did as I said and covered his eyes. “What’s wrong? You’re not chickening out on me, are you? I wouldn’t advise it, or Tatum will be very mad at you. She told me to tell you that.”
“I’m not chickening out. I shouldn’t have had the orange juice. Your son hates it. And he’s making everything else I’ve eaten in the past week come out of me. He’s kind of shitty like that.”
“Oh, baby. I’m sorry about that. Should we do this tomorrow?”
Him asking me that sent shivers down my spine. “Why? You don’t want to do this now? I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want you to do it while you’re sick. That’s all. Of course I want to do it. But I don’t want you to have to use a barf bag as you come down the aisle to me.” He chuckled and it made me mad.
“Well, I might just have to do it that way. If you want a perfect wife, I guess you should’ve thought about it some more. I’m far from perfect, Troy.”
His fingers reached through the door, looking for mine. “Hey, take my hand.”
I did and felt the Earth move, like it always did whenever we touched. “How do you know me so well, Troy Masterson?”
“I don’t have a clue. I’m just glad that I do. So, you haven’t puked since I’ve been here. Wanna give this thing a shot?”
“Your mom’s bringing me a toothbrush kit. I’ve got a case of the stinky breath, thanks to our son.” I leaned on the wall, still holding his hand. “Can you believe this is finally happening? You and I went from me selling myself to you for the summer, to pregnant and soon to me married in less than one year. That has to be some kind of record. Don’t you think?”
“Probably. When you add in what you went through, what I went through, and adding Tatum in there, too, then it sounds like it should’ve been a few years, doesn’t it?”
I nodded. “I wonder how things would’ve been if we’d never met. I wonder if that man would’ve done those terrible things to me. I wonder if Mr. Sandoval would’ve made the decision to call you about Tatum. I wonder if you’d have been captured when you went on your mission. Do you wonder about any of that, Troy?”
“I did. When I had nothing to do but think, I thought about it all.”
“What if we bring each other bad luck, Troy? What if our lives will be one disaster after another because we’re not meant to be together?”
“It’s too late,” he said. “You’re already in my heart. And I think I might be in yours too.”
A smile curled my lips. “Yeah, you are.”
“If life’s going to throw curveballs at us forever, I can handle anything as long as I have you in my corner.”
“Me too.” I played with his fingers. “We’re gonna have a baby, Troy.”
“We’re going to have more than one, Blyss. I want a houseful.”
“Your house is way too big to make that a goal.” I laughed, then heard his mother’s voice coming down the hallway.
“Your toiletries are here and I’m heading back to wait for my blushing bride to come to me. Promise you won’t make me wait too long, Blyss?”
“I promise. Give me five more minutes. Sorry if I made you think I didn’t want to meet you up there. I do.”
“Great job, baby. You just keep on saying ‘I do’ and I will too. We’ll be hitched before you know it. Then we can go up to our hotel …”
“For God’s sakes, Troy!” his mother grumbled at him. “I’m right here, son! Now, go back to where you were and I’ll have her there ASAP.”
He let my hand go and mumbled as he walked away, “I wasn’t going to say anything nasty, Mom.”
She opened the bathroom door with the little kit in her hand. “Sure, he wasn’t.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure he was about to get graphic.”
After I had done a quick brush and done what I could with my face and hair, I shooed her out and gave myself a pep talk. “Okay, Blyss Danner, you’re about to change your life forever. Say goodbye to that young woman who preferred to be alone. Those days are long gone. Prepare to be in a crowd at nearly all times and to love those people who make up that crowd. And prepare to be loved by them too. The lonely times are over for you. You, lucky girl, you have a family, a home, and a man who would walk through fire for you. You have it all, in spades. And you know what, Blyss Danner? You deserve it!”
I stepped out that door. I picked up my bouquet off the little round table that was just outside the door and I smiled. I was doing something I never thought I’d do. I was marrying a man. And not just any man. I was marrying a man who was better than any I’d ever dreamed about.
As I moved into place, the wedding march began and I saw my man standing at the end of the aisle. His smile was every bit as wide as mine was. We were happy, he and I. We would make it work. We had a daughter and a son on the way. We were already a family. The marriage was the icing on top of a fantastic cake.
Every step I took brought me closer to the man I’d prayed would come back to me. And there he was, fifty pounds lighter after going through hell. But he was there and he wanted me. More than he wanted to rest and recuperate, he wanted to make me his wife.
No one was luckier than I was.
As I walked past Tatum, she whispered, “You look beautiful, Mommy.”
I looked at her and blew her a kiss. “Thank you. So do you.”
“I know.”
We all had to laugh at her darling ways. Our little princess was well aware of how adorable she was, and I always wanted her to know that.
I’d grown up trying to be invisible. I’d had no idea that I was even remotely pretty. Not until Troy showed me I was. He made me feel beautiful. I wanted Tatum and all of our children to know they were special and beautiful on the outside as well as the inside.
I gave the bouquet of flowers to Tatum to hold for me, and she beamed at me. “I’ll take good care of them as the best flower girl ever.”
“I trust you, Tatum.”
Then I went to Troy, who was waiting so patiently for me. “Hey, you.” He took my hand. “You ready to become Mrs. Masterson?”
All I could do was nod. A lump had decided to move into my throat as tears began to sting my eyes.
A day ago, the man who was holding my hand, saying things a strange man told him to, was near death. He was living in a prison, being fed insects, and given filthy water. It’s safe to say that most men who’d gone through that wouldn’t be standing at an altar in Las Vegas at almost midnight, getting married. But my man was.
Emotions overwhelmed me, but I was thankful the lump in my throat allowed me to say those all-important words, ‘I do,’ whenever I was asked about devoting myself to the man whose blue-green eyes looked at me like I was a goddess. Would I ever be able to live up to being the wife Troy Masterson deserved? Maybe not. But God knew I’d try my best to be the woman who’d make him the best man he could be.
He brought things out of me. I didn’t know from where they came. I didn’t know I had the capacity to love someone else’s child like she was my own. I didn’t know I had the courage to stay strong when I had no idea if the man I loved was alive or dead. That was something I’d certainly never want to find out about myself again. Never again!
But I had done it, and it was Troy Masterson who had showed me I could. He took me to the brink of pain so bad, some would think it couldn’t be withstood. But I took it. I made pain work to heal me. My poor broken soul was getting better all the time. I was no longer the little girl who no one wanted. I was a woman, and a very special man wanted me.
The one thing I remembered, the thing I’d never forget, was when the preacher asked me, “Blyss, do you take this man to be your lawfully-wedded husband, until death do you part?”
I smiled as I looked at Troy. He seemed to be holding his breath, waiting to see if I’d welch on him right at the finish line. “Breathe, Troy. I do take you to be my lawfully-wedded husband, until death do us part.”
He let the air expel from his lungs. “I wasn’t scared.”
We both laughed, then he finished his vows, slid the wedding rings we’d used for our fake marriage back onto our fingers, and we kissed.
When our mouths met for the first time as a real married couple, fireworks went off in my head, our baby kicked, and Tatum came up, hugging us with happy tears in her little eyes that looked just like her daddy’s.
It was official. We were a family. The Mastersons!
Troy
Her body felt like silk as I moved over her. The wedding was behind us; the wedding night was in front of us. She shivered as I eased to lie beside her, stroking her stomach that was plumping up with our son. “Hey there, Junior. Daddy’s going to be poking around in there the next couple of days a whole lot. Try not to make your Mommy sick while I show her how much I love her, please.”
