Chapter Twenty-Seven. Temperance
Once Temperance found her balance, Frankie ushered her to the back of the bank barn’s event space. In the partially finished kitchen, Maren had had the forethought to set up a makeshift dressing room for any of the wedding party who needed to freshen up after the ceremony. She needed more than freshening up. She needed an entirely new identity. But this would do.
Rowan was already there, bent over and using a pair of scissors to hack off her muddy wedding dress at the knees. She’d already ditched the wildflower garland from her head and wound her curls into an unruly bun. “You okay, T.J?”
“Eh.” Temperance slumped in a wooden chair and pressed her fingers to her temples. “I’ve been trying for hours to figure out how to make your wedding day about me. How’d I do?”
Frankie buzzed around her like a bumblebee. She slipped off Temperance’s shoes and handed her a dry hand towel, then got to work on the grass stain on her dress. “At least it was only dry heaves. Could’ve been worse.”
“Pressure change from the storm, you think?” Rowan stepped away from the scraps of her wedding dress. “Still the vertigo?”
“I think so. I’m fine now. Not sure about my pride, though.”
Frankie dried and rebraided her hair into the same elaborate fishtail braid she’d done earlier, and a few minutes with a hair dryer restored Temperance’s shoes and dress to wearable.
“I’m sorry it’s raining on your wedding day, honey,” said Temperance.
“No, no. This is good. Rain like this means I won’t have to water anything the rest of the weekend. It’s a relief, really. I have more important things to do over the next few days.” Rowan wiggled perfect auburn brows.
“Rowan Brady.” A loud giggle bubbled up. Temperance’s eyes filled with happy tears. “You’re married.”
Rowan’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god, I am.”
The three friends stood in the middle of the kitchen in a little cluster, foreheads tipped together, each with an arm around another’s waist. Beyond the thin wall, music thundered louder than the storm overhead.
“I love you both. So much,” Rowan said. They all smiled and hummed happy sounds of agreement. After a beat, Rowan stood back and said, “But oh my god, Frankie—the garlic.”
They howled with laughter.
“Ooh,” Frankie said. “Who did this?” On the granite countertop island in the center of the kitchen was a bottle of Dom Pérignon on ice, vintage 2010. There were three champagne flutes, waiting.
“I assumed it was one of you,” Rowan said.
“Rosebud, this is a five-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne.” Frankie laughed.
“Wasn’t me,” Temperance said. “André bubbs are more my budget.”
“Is there a note?”
“No. Nothing.” Frankie shook her head and popped the cork. “We’ll figure it out later.” She poured the bubbly into two flutes.
Temperance put a hand on Frankie’s arm as she poured the third. “Just a little for me.”
“You sure you’re okay, T.J.?” Frankie frowned.
“Yes, yes—I just don’t want to get dizzy.”
When Frankie handed the champagne to her, Rowan said, “Sometimes I think about fate. Like, what I’d be doing in any given moment if I hadn’t gone with you to the Brady party that night, T.J. Or if I hadn’t gone to the greenhouse to hide during that game of Team Tag. Or if I hadn’t played at all. What would I be doing right now, in this exact moment, if I’d never met Harry?”
“Mm. I think the odds are good that whatever it is would’ve involved cheese popcorn, bottom-shelf Cabernet, and some seed catalogs,” Temperance teased.
Frankie took a sip of her wine. “It’s funny—everyone assumes fate is on our side. Maybe we spend our whole lives fighting against it.”
“It’s kind of terrifying how an entire life is decided in such tiny little moments,” Rowan said. “Coincidences.”
“I like to think of coincidences as convenient opportunities,” Frankie said.
“Well.” Temperance held out her flute between them. “What should we toast to?”
Frankie said, “To fate and coincidences, obviously.”
Outside, thunder shuddered along the roof of the barn.
Rowan raised her glass. Her eyes glittered like the champagne. “And to joy. Even when it storms.”
THEsliding barn doors stayed open during the reception. As night fell, the storm opened up further, streaming hard from a gunmetal-gray sky. Rain squalled against the roof and overflowed the gutters, and some of the chairs from the ceremony blew across the lawn like doll furniture. But the atmosphere inside the barn was lively and loud. A year ago, this kind of rain would have sent Harry into a spiraling panic attack, but tonight, he barely seemed to notice.
For Harry, Rowan brought the sun wherever she went.
He spent the cocktail hour of the reception mingling and asking, “Has anyone seen my wife?” and “Have you met my wife? Let me introduce you to my wife,” even when Rowan stood at arm’s length, or the people he spoke to had, most certainly, already met his wife.
After the meal, Duncan stood at the end of the wedding party table for the first toast of the night. He’d rolled the sleeves of his cream button-down halfway up his forearms, making the vivid ink on his skin seem even brighter. A champagne glass balanced lightly between his thumb and first two fingers, absurdly dainty in his big hand. Before he began, the deejay approached with a small wireless microphone. Duncan laughed and waved her off.
Everyone went quiet, turning in their chairs to face him.
“Really appreciate everyone being here this evening. I’m Duncan Brady—”
A crack of thunder interrupted. Duncan slowly looked to the ceiling, and the crowd chuckled. “Wetter than an otter teat out there,” he muttered, and the crowd laughed louder.
He already had everyone in his palm, and he’d barely started.
When everyone quieted, Duncan began again.
“Everyone has a person in their life who stands out.” The warm bass resonance of his voice filled the high-ceilinged space in spite of the noise from the rain. “There’s something about that person that makes them—bigger, somehow. Smarter. Wiser. More charming. More everything.” He paused and looked around the room. “This person becomes the standard you aspire to. You think, if you can be even a little bit like them, you’re doing something right.” He looked down into his champagne glass for a moment, then raised his head with a rakish grin. “But that’s enough about me.”
The crowd roared. Harry’s chest shook with a silent laugh, but the emotion was plain on his face. Duncan was about to wreck him, and he knew it.
He indulged the murmuring crowd a moment longer before he continued. “When Harry and I were kids, we spent hours barefoot in the yard. It was a solid carpet of dandelions out there, just yellow, everywhere. I was probably seven or eight, and I stepped on a bee. It stung the shi—” Duncan cut his eyes to Gia. “Ah, the heck out of my foot. Harry carried me into the house that day, and I cried for an hour afterward.” He waited a beat. “Haven’t ever cried since, obviously.”
Another low laugh from everyone.
Temperance indulged in the excuse to openly watch him. He was made for this. Charisma and emotional intelligence radiated from him like heat from a flame. An understated lift of his eyebrow here, a gesture with his golden glass of champagne there. And he was beautiful in a way that went beyond the obvious. It was the way he brought his full authentic self to everything he said and did, and made others feel like they could do the same. It was in the way he carried himself, and the way he looked at a person and made them feel seen in their entirety.
Duncan Brady would always stand out in all the best ways, no matter where he was, or who he was with. He was barrel-proof whisky at afternoon tea. A hot-air balloon in a field of plain paper kites.
He could be mine.
All the blood rushed out of her head and into her belly.
“For weeks after that, I refused to go out to play, even with shoes on. One day, Harry dragged me out onto the porch, and our little yard was completely clear of dandelions. A stretch of green, bee-free grass. There was a bucket on Ma’s rocking chair, full to the top with the yellow flower heads. Harry’d picked them all. Had to have been hundreds.”
A sentimental “Awww” went up through the audience.
Harry looked ruefully at Rowan, who gave him a teasing smile and a contrived look of disappointment.
Duncan turned his attention to Rowan. “Red, I debated whether I should tell this story tonight. I know how much you love dandelions. But then I realized—there’s a connection here. Harry picked those dandelions back then because he loved me. Nowadays, the reason this entire family leaves them to grow is because of you. We love them because you love them. We love you.”
Rowan hid her face behind her hands for a moment, and Harry kissed her temple. He bent his head to murmur against her ear, and she lit up like a star.
Duncan raised his champagne and waited for the crowd to follow suit.
Once all glasses were lifted, he said, “To Harry and Rowan Brady.”
The crowd echoed the same, and someone catcalled loudly from the back. Another trill of Colby Everett’s whistle.
Duncan held his glass even higher. With a subtle downward tilt of his chin, his eyes found Temperance’s… and held. “And to finding your perfect match.”
The reception crowd exploded into applause and cheers and pounded fists against tables. Duncan kept his gaze locked on Temperance as he tossed his champagne back like a shot. Then he sat down and leaned back in his chair, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee.
How the hell was she supposed to follow that?
Her mouth went dry, and her fingertips numbed. She stood.
Her turn.
“Good evening, everyone. Does anyone have any champagne left in their glasses?” Temperance’s laugh wavered as she scanned the crowd. Everyone chuckled. The people-pleaser in her wanted to apologize for not being half as charming and fun to look at as Duncan Brady. “I’m Temperance Madigan. I’m, ah, not a Brady, but—”
The deejay trotted over again with a microphone, and she gladly took it. She tapped on the top, and it made a crackly noise over the speakers.
“Let’s try this again. I’m incredibly lucky to call Harry and Rowan two of my soulmate friends. I’ve known them and loved them separately for more than a decade, and now—wow. They’re married.” Temperance pushed her knuckles against her lips for a moment before she continued. She turned to them. “There’s, um—this Japanese phrase. Koi no yokan. It doesn’t have an exact English translation. It’s a feeling you get when you first meet someone. An intuition.”
At the edge of her vision, Duncan shifted in his seat. He lowered the leg he’d just crossed and sat forward with his elbows on his thighs.
“It’s this awareness that, someday, you’re going to fall in love with them.”
When she looked down into her champagne, Duncan was motionless in the periphery of her vision. Still enough that it was a distraction. A single unmoving tree while the forest around it swayed in the wind.
Don’t look.
“You two are the embodiment of it.” Temperance looked back to the newlyweds and took a deep breath, trying to cling to her script. “Rowan, I think you denied it for a long time”—that drew a genuine laugh from the crowd—“but Harry, I’m pretty sure you felt koi no yokan the first night you met her.”
Everyone tapped silverware against the sides of their glasses, and the barn filled with chaotic, joyful tinkling. Temperance paused to take a baby sip of her own champagne while Rowan and Harry shared a kiss. Over the edge of her flute, she looked to Duncan.
The way he watched her was so heated it should have raised a trail of fire across the wood surface of the table. His chest rose and fell unnaturally fast beneath his shirt, and above the open vee of his collar, his throat convulsed in a painful-looking swallow. The force of his gaze made her feel hot and hollow.
He wasn’t simply staring at her. He was staring into her.
Goosebumps pulled her skin tight across her arms. She gripped the microphone in both hands like it was a gravity anchor. The crowd quieted, and an anticipatory hush fell again as everyone waited for her to continue. She looked back to the newlyweds. “I really love you both.”
BEYONDthe toasts, Rowan and Harry had decided to forego any other wedding reception traditions and treat the evening like a big party. Everyone loved it.
Except Temperance.
For her, it meant staring down an entire night of unstructured socialization in an intimately lit, overtly romantic atmosphere where Duncan Brady could—and would—materialize at any moment.
After the toasts, the deejay invited everyone to the dance floor, opening with a pulse-pounding EDM track. Temperance danced with Frankie and Harry and Rowan, losing herself in the music—and a single shot of Fireball. On the other side of the dance floor, Duncan and Millie truly were dazzling together. Striking and unrestrained, somehow more vivid than the people around them. Like an artist had outlined them in high-contrast ink. Temperance felt faded and itchy in her grass-stained vintage lace.
As the song wound down, they took a few selfies, and when Millie lowered the phone, Duncan met Temperance’s eyes across the crowd. He bent to say something in Millie’s ear, and a new song started to play.
“Just Like Heaven.”
“Oh, crap,” Temperance mumbled under her breath. Louder, she made excuses to Frankie and Rowan, planning to slip away from the dance floor unnoticed.
When she looked in the direction she’d last seen Duncan, he was gone. And she knew it all the way down to her bones—he was on his way to her.
TEMPERANCEfled the dance floor, mumbling “pardon me” and “sorry” and “right behind you.” At the quieter end of the bank barn, the ramp to the barrel room was blocked with a sawhorse and a sign in Duncan’s handwriting that read NOPE. The rain was still a solid drone of noise on the barn’s roof, so she couldn’t go outside, either.
If anyone were to ask in that moment, she couldn’t have explained how she felt Duncan bearing down on her in the darkness. She didn’t even really know why she was trying to get away. It wasn’t fear—it wasn’t even anxiety. It was an impulse pumped through her bloodstream with every beat of her heart. All she needed was five minutes. Five minutes to breathe, five minutes to tighten the bolts in her armor. Five minutes to quit shaking like a fucking tambourine.
The photographer was shooting the dancing, so the photo booth Duncan had built in the loft was still dark. Temperance scurried along the rear wall, then hiked up her dress to take the stairs two at a time. She stopped midway to yank off her heels. A table sat along the wall beside the booth, covered in novelty hats and sequined masks and feather boas. She knocked an oversized rainbow Stetson to the floor when she threw back the curtain and ducked inside. Breathing deep in through her nose, she released it in a tight stream between pursed lips.
The occasional strobe of the deejay’s colored lights from below were the only illumination inside the booth. A disc-shaped flash sat dark and still at the front corner, and the back wall of the booth was covered corner to corner and ceiling to floor in fresh flowers. They were insanely fragrant. Provocative, somehow.
Sitting in front of the wall was the Victorian sofa she’d overheard Gia talking to Rowan about a few weeks ago. Duncan had found it at an estate sale in Philadelphia, specifically for the photo booth. The upholstery was velvet—dusky pink or a deep apricot, she couldn’t tell in the darkness—and despite its strangely asymmetrical back, it was absolutely gorgeous. One of the historical romance books Frankie had brought her had a near-identical one on the cover.
Temperance sat, cradling her face in her hands.
The air moved at the entrance to the booth, and Duncan was there. White light streaked over his face, then disappeared. The heavy curtain rippled closed behind him.
She’d barely had thirty seconds.
Temperance shot to her feet. Her heart dashed itself against her ribs, a wild bird in a bone cage. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it.
“White flag,” he said. “Whatever game we’re playing, I concede. I can’t do this anymore. I’m fucking miserable.”
The words sank so deep, they entered her bloodstream.
He took a hesitant step toward her. “Just give me anything. And I swear it, Temperance—I’ll give you everything.”
“Where’s Millie?” she said. It sounded weak and silly, even to her own ears.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “She’s getting ready to go home. As soon as there’s a lull in the rain.”
Temperance blinked. “Why?”
“She got what she needed.” Duncan moved closer, close enough that he wouldn’t have to shout over the music. The backs of her calves hit the velvet chaise. He loomed over her, his attention riveted on her mouth. “The Millie thing is sorted between us. I’ve already told you—” He cut off like he’d been choked. His nostrils flared. “Have you been drinking Fireball?”
The sweet-hot cinnamon of the liquor on her breath was powerful in the enclosed space, even though she’d done only one shot. “Yes. So?”
Duncan groaned and spun away. “Goddamn it.”
“Why?”
He swiped a hand over his short new beard. “I want to kiss you.” The words were sharp. Like an accusation.
“Well, you don’t have to look so mad about it,” Temperance fired back.
Then he was kissing her, open-mouthed and consuming. Kissing her so hard her head rocked back, his body following her down as she bent like a bow. It turned filthy fast, hot and wet and hair-pulling, the force of it jamming lips against teeth.
Duncan Brady kissed with his entire self. His mouth was just the messenger.
Without disengaging his lips from hers, he reached low and dragged her dress up her thighs. He straightened to his full height and lifted her against him in the same motion. She followed his lead, locking her ankles behind his waist. With one hand cupped around the back of her neck, he pinned his other arm beneath her ass and clamped that hand on her thigh.
He was handling her.
Everything went black.
The music cut off, followed by a moment of unnatural silence.
Temperance drew back. She searched up, down, around for any source of light. Duncan’s hot exhale drifted warm across her forehead, down the slope of her nose. They could’ve been in a submarine a thousand meters under the sea, or the lone passengers of a derelict ship floating through space.
Thunder boomed. Gasps and chatter spread through the crowd. The storm beat a relentless incantation against the roof.
Duncan’s hand closed around her jaw. He turned her head toward him to align her face with his in the darkness. Against her mouth, he growled, “We’re not done yet,” and the force of his lips spread hers wide. His fingers pressed tight into her cheeks where he gripped her chin. Her hands thrust upward and fisted into his hair, knuckles and nails pressing hard against bone.
Darkness amplified all her other senses. The buttery fabric of his shirt was still damp from the rain, and thin enough that she could feel the texture of the hair on his chest beneath it. The taste of him was achingly familiar on the back of her tongue, warm and dark and savory.
She wanted him. Here.
Her finger was in the rip cord. All she had to do was pull.
“Duncan,” she whispered, dragging the edges of her teeth over his bottom lip. “Please tell me you have a—”
“Front pocket. Left side.”
He swung them around to swap their positions so he could sit on the chaise. By the time his ass hit the sofa with her astride his lap, Temperance had already found the condom and had his belt buckle free. His pants were more challenging. Tight, strained over the prominent ridge in his lap. The buttons were impossible to open in the darkness. She made a little sound of frustration against his mouth. Gently, he took her by the wrists to move her hands away. In seconds, he’d opened the buttons and rocked side to side with her still on his lap. Temperance rose to her knees to give him room to get his pants down. The velvet fabric of the chaise dragged against her knees.
She took his erection in both hands. He was soaked at the tip. She gathered some of that wetness with a swirl of her thumb and pumped loose-wristed strokes along the length of him. Choking out an obscenity, he thrusted instinctively against her palm, before snatching her hand away.
Duncan gasped “Please” like a prayer.
She slid on the condom with a smooth pinch and roll. Duncan clamped his big hands at the bend between her hips and thighs, running his thumbs down her pubic bone and into the side seams of her panties. He slid them up the slick center of her.
“Oh, Madigan,” he breathed, “you’re as ready for this as I am.”
The storm raged on the roof like a living thing. Temperance felt pinned between two forces of nature—one celestial, one urgently, achingly human.
The pitch blackness was starting to fuck with her head. Seeking an anchor, Temperance traced the pads of her fingers across Duncan’s face. His brows were drawn tight. A flicker of muscle at his temple. His mouth found the center of her palm, kissing, tasting with his tongue.
Reflexively, her fingers curled into his beard. A caress. She found the thundering pulse at his neck. A tempest.
“You sure?” she whispered against his lips.
He groaned. “Temperance, I’ve been sure for over half my life—”
She pressed her fingers against his mouth. “Are you sure right now, in this moment?”
Hot breath blew down her forearm. His lips moved against her fingers. “Yes, for fuck’s sake—it’s always going to be yes for you—”
“Then stop talking.”
Duncan bit the pads of her fingertips.
The heat of his erection was tangible, straining upward between her spread legs. Just centimeters from the hot center of her. Duncan tugged the crotch of her panties aside—she was sure she felt a seam bust—and he closed that tiny distance with an upward thrust of his hips and a downward tug on hers. They both exhaled through open mouths—his to her chest, hers to the infinite black above them.
Her insides were in free fall.
Temperance rose up, tilting her pelvis forward until only the tip of him remained inside her.
“What are you—” he began, but when she sank down again, he cut off with an agonized exhale.
She did it again and again, withdrawing and resheathing him bit by delicious bit, churning her hips in a slow, coiling curve. Heat hung low in her belly, unbearable pressure and friction mounting. Palming the cheeks of her ass, Duncan pistoned his hips beneath her, echoing the tempo she set.
Abruptly, his thighs pulled taut beneath her. Fingertips dug into her hips, halting her in place. “Don’t move.” The words were a steamy shot of breath across her collarbone. “This is going to be over real quick if you don’t slow down.”
“That’s the point.” She rolled into him, sinuous and slow.
He cupped a hand around her throat, cuff-like and featherlight, using his thumb again to turn and tilt her chin to bring her mouth to his. Temperance was desperate to focus on the determined slip of his tongue against hers. The eager throb between her legs. But Duncan downshifted the kiss from electric to tender before she could brace for it. His hand went loose and gentle around her jaw, cradling her like something rare and beloved and terrifyingly temporary. A sound of breaking and burning rumbled forth from him, and the same lonesome thing inside her answered.
Impossible heaviness dropped between her legs and swirled up her belly. Her nipples tightened; her breath hitched. Temperance’s whole body began to shudder, and she bared her teeth in the darkness, panting like she was possessed. Her toes curled, cramping the arches of her feet. She lifted from his lap to taper some of the friction, but Duncan gripped her by the waist and pulled her back down tight.
“Stay here,” he said through his teeth, punctuating with a hard upward jerk of his hips.
That did it.
The orgasm rampaged through her entire lower body. A sensory supernova in her belly, her thighs, her ass. She pressed her mouth to his temple, swallowing her moan. Duncan met her there at the top, his shuddering exhalation muffled by her hair. A convulsive breath of relief. He pressed his mouth to the curve of bone behind her ear and said something quiet and incomprehensible. Then, a low, rolling groan into her neck as he began to buck beneath her. Temperance wrapped her arms around his head, holding him tight to her.
For a long moment, they sat there in the endless black, each of them riding the tide of the other’s breathing.
Temperance let her arms slide away. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. His mouth was warm and unimaginably soft.
“Why do you do that?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer right away. “You know why.”
She did know why. Maybe she’d asked simply because she wanted to hear him say it.
The power returned in a blaze of party lights and house music. Temperance could feel the rumble of the bass through Duncan’s body beneath her.
It had barely been five minutes, and everything had changed.
Temperance lifted herself off him and stepped backward. The elastic in the crotch of her panties was definitely ruined. She smoothed the front and back of her dress. “I don’t know what we say to each other now.”
Duncan pulled a folded white bandana from his back pocket and used it to manage the condom. He stood to redo his buttons and belt. The buckle made a quiet tinkling sound. Blue and green lights from below strobed across his face when he gave her a tender side-slung smile.
He dropped a warm kiss on her mouth when he stood. “I think we just said everything.”