“LADIES, LADIES,” ANGIE yammered above the din of the crowd jammed into Whiskey Pete’s, as she tapped on her wine glass. “I don’t know about y’all, but I want at least one really good story about my asshat of a brother from this epic honeymoon we’re all so jealous of. Told from the perspective of one Meghan Marquez or as she will forever after be referred to as Double M.”
Meghan looked around the table at the ladies of Family Justice and smiled broadly. She couldn’t imagine a more fiercely loyal or loving group than this one.
Stephanie laughed merrily and patted her on the hand. “Shugah M,” she slyly smirked. “I demand you share that man’s most romantic moment. Give me something good, darlin’. Something I can hold over his uncle’s head.”
“God, I love you. And my mom thinks you’re the bomb.” Angie chortled with glee as she winked at Stephanie.
Lacey and Tori looked at her and raised their glasses in salute.
Heather came back from a bar run with two glasses of wine. One for her and the other for Angie. With Stephanie and Lacey assigned to the non-alcohol zone, she and Tori opted to join them in solidarity. Of course, Meghan had a different reason for declining, but nobody knew yet. Not even her or Alex. They’d decided to wait until the weekend to take a test because they both felt if things went the way they hoped, they’d be able to enjoy the moment at their leisure and celebrate privately. And if it didn’t go their way, well …
“What did I miss?” Heather asked.
“We’re waiting for our fearless leader to tell us something sexy about the Major and their honeymoon.” Tori’s eyes sparkled with humor.
“Excuse me,” Meghan cheerfully complained, “but I believe you said romantic not sexy.”
“With Alex Marquez, is there any difference?” Stephanie said with a mocking swoon.
Angie did a dramatic head-to-toe shudder, stuck her tongue out, and groaned, “Ew! Does my uncle know you have salacious feelings for his nephew?”
Meghan, Lacey, and Tori almost lost it in unison. Tori screamed, “I’ll have you know my sainted mother does not do salacious … feelings or otherwise.”
It was Heather and her dry wit that brought the house down. Twirling her wine glass, she stopped and took a sip then fixed all of them with a comical expression. “Are you guys always like this or are we rehearsing for the Real Housewives of Bendover and nobody told me?”
They earned some curious looks from the other patrons when their table erupted in gales of laughter, accented by Angie and Tori pounding their hands on the wood table after the merriment got out of hand and Lacey almost toppled backward off her chair.
She wiped away a tear from laughing so hard and sipped her lemonade cooler. The refreshing drink was new on the menu. Courtesy of Pete’s new resident foodie, none other than her brother Finn O’Brien. She recognized the light tasty brew. It had the tang of her ma’s summer lemonade and the smooth back end finish of sweet from ingredients Finn insisted were a secret recipe. Whatever he mixed up was fantastic, making it easier to offer him a tip of her hat.
“Time to behave. We’re drawing attention.”
Every single head at the table turned, and all their gazes swung to the line of men commandeering the entire end of the long bar. Of course, they were drawing attention!
Calder grinned like an idiot at Stephanie. He raised his longneck bottle high when she giggled and twinkled her fingers at him.
Parker was doing one of those ‘I have my eyes on you’ hand gestures at Angie who, of course, was snickering and doing everything she could to inflame him right down to popping open two buttons on her shirt. Enough that her cleavage came busting out.
Brody. Oh, my! Meghan did a double take. The way his eyes devoured Heather was so, um … what was the word? Oh, yeah. Hot.
Cameron, who finally shaved and got a haircut, did what could only be described as a Mick Jagger strut. Back and forth in front of the guys as they laughed, looked back at the girls, agreed with whatever Cam was saying, and nursed their beers.
And Drae. Meghan smiled warmly. He looked terribly dapper tonight in a very sexy pair of tailored pants. Black, of course. And a dark gray shirt. Alex wouldn’t like her using the description ‘sexy,’ but it fit. In the sometimes-dim lighting, he had a smoky intensity about him, and she was sure he’d command quite a few desirous looks when he hit the spotlight.
She caught Alex’s eye. He raised his glass in salute and winked. Then he made a funny face she called his ‘Yes, master’ expression. It was a total joke between them. A private reminder of something others would likely find a tad unusual about their relationship. Because she was feeling especially joyful and full of fun, she countered his hilarious attempt to remind her of his control with a saucy smirk, an almost imperceptible flipping of the bird, followed by a deliberate hair toss. He was roaring with laughter when she finally looked back.
“Can NOT believe I’m saying this,” Heather joked, “but I find all that manly attention sort of …”
“Hot!”
“Sexy!”
“Yummy!”
“Lovely!”
“Smoldering!”
“Yeah”—she smirked after they had all commented—“that.”
Stephanie waved her hands and said, “Shush, ladies. I for one am on pins and needles waiting for a glimpse into the Marquez honeymoon. How about we all zip it and stare at Shugah M until she gives up the goods.”
So they did, and Meghan enjoyed the free and easy humor she’d missed so much while she was on another continent.
“Well, guess what,” she told her rapt audience. “Y’all are in luck because I have the most romantic honeymoon tale of all time.”
“Does it involve forgetting to wear panties and then leaning over a rock wall to stare at the ocean?” Angie. Of course.
Raising an eyebrow, she gave a pithy answer. “I was assured by a certain Major Alpha that he Photoshopped that image.”
Tori laughed. “Oh, you mean how he scribbled some random black lines over your ass to protect your dignity? Is that what you mean by Photoshopped?”
“It’s so unfair,” she mumbled. “Him and that damn phone. Happily snapping pictures all day long while I had to lug a big thirty-five millimeter around ‘cause my phone was on lockdown.”
“Well,” Heather chimed in, “don’t groan, but I find the whole taking your phone away thing pretty romantic.”
She offered the newest face in their quirky ladies’ group a warm smile. Some sparks of tension still existed between them—normal female territorial stuff—but they were becoming fast friends.
“To romance,” Lacey cooed in a toast. After everyone drank, she said, “Stop stalling, Mrs. Major. Oh, and ladies?” she burbled. “Get out a pen and grab one of these drink napkins. When she’s finished, score on a romance curve from one to ten.”
Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, she took another sip and began. “Okay. Try this on for size. So the village near the finca was a picture-perfect quaint little town. Exactly what you’d expect. Every few days, we’d walk into town. Visit the shoppes. Have this yummy drink with coffee and milk that I’d sweeten to death.”
“Café con Leche,” Angie murmured. “Mmm.”
She nodded. “Right, right. Carmen makes a version of it. Anyway, so we’d walk to town, and of course, since I don’t speak enough Spanish to do more than order food, I kept Alex close as my interpreter. The townspeople were lovely. Friendly. Curious about the redhead who married into an important family.”
“I never thought about it that way,” Lacey offered with wonder in her voice. “Did you feel like you were on display?”
“Oh, totally,” she admitted with a series of head bobs. “Alex was really good about it. Everywhere we went, he’d do this whole ‘my wife’ speech. Anyway, the town has an annual festival to commemorate something about a church bell.” She held up her hands in surrender and laughed. “I know. So shoot me, okay? Never did have an ear for languages.”
Everyone chuckled.
“Well, we planned to spend the day in town. I was super excited and couldn’t wait to get moving. Kept hollering to the hubs to move it along. Ladies, let me tell you. When he finally appeared and was ready to go, I nearly vapor-locked.”
“Please tell me he was dressed and not naked,” Lacey moaned.
“Oh, god yes, he was dressed. In his kilt.”
Gasps erupted around the table. Meghan grinned. They so understood the importance of the symbolic gesture.
“It was all I could do not to cry. Off we went on a two-mile hike into the village along a stunningly picturesque country road, with him marching along in his sexy kilt, the dark gray one. Because he’s Alex, he wore black socks and a pair of half-unlaced shit-kicking Doc Martens. And his shirt? Wanna know what it said?”
Stephanie looked like she was having a case of the lady-swoons. “Oh, yes! Please.”
“My beast wore a black t-shirt. The one that says ‘Glenfiddich’ in big white letters.”
“Hold up,” Angie barked with a snorting laugh. “I have to take some notes to rub in Parker’s face later. Are you saying that for a village festival, my brother donned a whiskey t-shirt, a kilt, and some combat boots?”
“Yep.”
“That is so fucking badass.” She chuckled.
“As we paraded around town, you could see the villagers nodding with admiration. When a Valleja-Marquez wants to honor his wife, everyone pays attention. By the end of the day, I was Doña Meghan and treated like Spanish royalty. Ladies, that man is such a treasure—you don’t even know.”
As if it was choreographed, all the women scribbled on their napkins and stood, facing the bar where Alex and the boys gathered. Holding up the napkins, each one showing a ten, they started clapping enthusiastically. Angie even hollered, “Way to go, bro!”
Meghan knew she’d remember the moment as long as she lived. Not the ladies and their refreshingly silly delight. No. She was going to remember how sexy and off-the-charts manly her alpha beast was that day. Wearing the kilt to the festival sent a powerful message to the townspeople. She was his amada, his beloved, and he wanted to make that clear to everyone who saw them.
When they calmed down and sat around the table once more, all eyes immediately turned to Victoria. She squirmed under the intense regard.
“Now that Irish is home, and all is right in the world of Family Justice once again, it’s time to offer our unsolicited two cents to you, Mrs. St. John. I’m pregnant and need shiny, happy people around me. Same for your mom.”
She reached out and grabbed both of Tori’s hands. “It hurts to see you guys going through something and not understand what’s happening. Let us help, sweetie.”
Meghan kept quiet. This was Tori’s come to Jesus moment, and she didn’t want to spoil Drae’s plans.
Pressing her hands to her cheeks when they flamed red, Tori gave them all a feeble smile. “I knew that man was going to be trouble the minute I laid eyes on him.”
“He loves you, shugah,” her mom offered in a deeply serious voice.
Tori’s head shook, and she threaded her hanging hair behind both ears. “Love isn’t the problem, Mom.”
Heather leaned on her forearms and fussed with her wine glass. Having a bona fide therapist in their little group made for some interesting dynamics.
“At the wedding, you guys weren’t exactly sympatico.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Angie agreed.
Something flashed on Tori’s face. Reminding her of a time when she couldn’t help how she behaved or explain what was happening in her marriage was difficult to hear.
The psychologist inside Heather came back with a swift comment. “From an outsider’s point-of-view, it just struck me as odd. It was apparent how close you guys were, but there was something else.”
“It was the PPD,” Meghan insisted. “But we have that under control now, right?”
Tori nodded. “Yeah. Lacey’s doctor is pure magic, and now that I have you to load me up with oils and supplements and ditched the unhealthy amount of caffeine and sugar I was living on, it’s like the cloud lifted. No more Red Bull for me.”
Stephanie was listening quietly. “But why so much tension still, darlin’?”
The toughest thing she’d had to do in a long time was remain expressionless while Tori decided how much to share.
“Remember that part about what an arrogant, cocky shithead Draegyn St. John can be at times? Yeah. Well, while I was flirting with gimbal lock and threatening to vanish in space, he was burnishing his asshat credentials.”
“Gimbal lock?” Angie leaned close to whisper.
“Shh,” Meghan replied. “Nerd speak. I’ll explain later. She’s on a roll so just go with it.”
The roll seemed ready to gain momentum when Victoria brought it to a screeching halt. “A better truth is that we both did some stupid shit and went too far.”
Stephanie seemed especially upset to learn this. Meghan so wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, but this was the St. John’s crisis to solve, and everyone, her included, had to let things play out the way they were supposed to.
“How far is too far?” Heather asked. “Too far like lawyer shopping or too far like ‘Here’s a pillow, you’re sleeping on the sofa.’”
A hushed, expectant silence descended on the group. Tori took her grand old time answering.
Her hand slipped inside her top and drew something out. “Check this out,” she murmured.
Angie immediately snickered. “Were you carrying that in your bra?”
“Hush,” Lacey said with a stern frown. “We all do it.”
Heads all around the table nodded in unspoken agreement.
Meghan knew what Tori carried next to her skin and close to her heart so she didn’t rush forward to see what was laid upon the table.
Their eyes met over everyone else’s lowered head. Tori gave her an eyebrow inquiry, but Meghan simply smiled and remained passive.
“Oh, my god,” Angie barked. “Is this for real?”
“Yeah. He gave it to me earlier.”
Heather laughed, picked up her wine glass, and sat back. Lacey appeared to be struggling with her emotions and Stephanie was smiling so broad, all Meghan could see of her face was teeth.
Angie, who couldn’t help being exactly who she was, giggled. “Hey. I like this new logo. The three flames.”
“The Justice phoenix,” Meghan muttered.
Once again, everyone’s eyes drifted to the cluster of their men who though giving them space were balls-out standing guard nearby.
“I’m thinking a tattoo,” Angie crowed gleefully. “Someplace really obvious that will drive Parker batshit.”
“Oh, for god’s sake, Angie,” she bit out. “Give that poor man a break, would you?”
A devilish glee shone in her sister-in-law’s eyes. “You mean like you gave Alexander a break by inking up your ass with his brand?”
Heather nearly choked on her drink. “Whaaat?” Everyone else snickered quietly.
“This is about Drae and Tori. Not a Marquez URL code.”
The table shifted when Stephanie rocked back in her seat and belted out an enormous laugh. “Marquez URL code. Holy shit, that’s funny.”
Sighing, she asked a question hoping it’d get the attention back on the St. Johns. Alex had just given her a heads-up with a discreet tap on his watch to let her know it was nearly time.
“That’s quite an olive branch, honey. Is it enough?”
Tori didn’t say anything at first. So she asked the same question only more directly.
“Do you have enough love inside you to get beyond the stupid shit? You know, hon,” she said gently. “A wise man with a double-oh-seven complex once told me that loving Alex wasn’t a magical prescription. He wanted me to understand that even though we loved each other, the man still had some serious faults and that the future wasn’t always going to be rosy.”
“He says I can trust him, and I want to. But there’s this”—she waved her hands and grimaced—“this THING standing in our way.”
While Stephanie and Angie smiled with a nod, Heather, Lacey, and Meghan said, “We’ve all faced a THING.”
Meghan put on her invisible Lady Mama hat and hoped she did her husband proud. “We all love you, Tori. Love Draegyn too. I think everyone here would tell you to run for the hills if any of us thought you guys would be better apart. Be strong, sweetie, and remember who you are.”
Tori looked at her mother with a watery smile as tears slid down her face.
“Damn. I love that stupid man. Can’t live without him but shit, ladies. He is a handful.”
“So are you, baby girl,” Stephanie softly reminded Tori.
It was enough. She was well pleased. Now all she had to do was get Tori to the main stage and let destiny take over.
Standing up suddenly, she smoothed down her dress and said, “Come on. Let’s move closer to the stage. I think the entertainment is about to start.”
Startled but following along, the group grabbed their drinks and whatever else couldn’t be abandoned and moved to a small round table in the middle of the dance floor, not far from the stage.
Pushing Tori forward, Meghan pulled out a chair for her to sit and plunked her half-empty soda on the table in front of her. “We’ll grab chairs. Be right back.”
Motioning to the other ladies to “Shhh,” and follow, Meghan stepped back and then pointed at the stage.
The house lights dimmed and a spotlight shined on a solitary mic stand. Tori looked around and glanced over her shoulder. Meghan blew her a kiss and twirled her finger so she’d turn back around.
Then Draegyn St. John walked into the spotlight and took the microphone. People packed Pete’s to the rafters every night now that word had gotten out about the new menu. Finn was well on his way to being a foodie superstar, so when Drae started talking, the noise was louder than the sound system.
In one of those pricelessly funny moments, Brody sauntered forward and shoved Drae aside.
“All right, you fuckers,” he boomed into the microphone. Meghan glanced around at the crowd and gave a secret sigh of relief that it was late enough for the families with kids to have cleared out.
“Shut it and listen up.” He slapped a hand onto Drae’s shoulder and shook him. “My man’s got some groveling to do and since every single one of the men out there has probably been in the same spot, let’s give the poor moron some support, okay?”
All the guys laughed, cheered, stomped their feet, and acted like a bunch of twelve-year-old boys. It was cute as could be.
Brody drifted into the darkness behind Drae as the man, with a sheepish smirk, tried again.
“As my friend was saying, give me a show of hands, gentlemen, if anyone here has ever stepped in it big time.”
The crowd erupted in raucous cheers.
Meghan slid forward, touched Tori’s shoulder, and kissed her cheek. “Listen with your heart.”