Chapter One #2
Working alongside him for three years, watching the endless parade of female wedding guests throw themselves into his waiting and willing arms, grated.
He’d never put a move on her, something she was thankful for.
At the same time, she couldn’t help the stupid little crush that had developed.
When he wasn’t acting like God’s gift to womankind, he was actually a smart and witty guy, in addition to a talented photographer.
She knew the flirting served a purpose with the wedding party attendants when he was photographing them.
It relaxed them and got them to smile naturally.
But still. She wished he could suspend his man-whore ways just once.
“Oh, you had it handled, did you?” His mocking sarcasm chafed.
“Exactly how did you have it handled, Charity? Were you gonna throw a drink in his face?” He glanced down at her balled hands.
“Oh, hello. No drink. Were you gonna scream?” He looked over one shoulder and then the other.
“Sorry, no one around to hear it. Tell me exactly how you were gonna handle a six-foot drunk with dick-lust and no one around to prevent him from doing what he wanted?”
He folded his arms across his massive chest, and all she could think of doing was drop-kicking him in the balls.
Sanity prevailed, though, and she didn’t. Well...sanity and a serious need to get this wedding ended without the benefit of an ambulance or the police being called.
She hauled in a breath and dug down to her toes for the professional calm that never served her wrong. When she was sure her emotions were contained, she said, “Look, this wedding’s just about over. Let’s get through the rest of it, okay? Then I won’t have to deal with these handsy idiots anymore.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Have more of them been bothering you?”
The knuckles on his hands went white. That gave Charity a moment of pause.
He seemed...angry.
She rolled her eyes and tried to infuse some snark into her voice.
“They’re a bunch of moronic twenty-three-year-old spoiled babies.
” She lifted a shoulder and shook her head.
“They don’t have fully formed prefrontal cortexes yet, so they act out, emotionally and without boundaries.
You’re the same gender, O’Brian. You know what’s inherent in the breed. ”
Another head shake and she went to move past him, adding, “Let me go make sure that everything’s done with service, then we can start to wrap up.”
He shifted subtly, not to completely bar her way, but to make it impossible for her to get by without touching him.
“What?” she asked, slamming her hands on her hips.
“Tell me what they’ve been doing.” His voice was low again, barely above a whisper, and so filled with a dark and threatening promise she involuntarily shivered. His eyes glowed with a feral intent she'd seen in the barn cats back home when they were spoiling for a fight.
Why the hell did that arouse her? And why the hell did it have to be him, the one man she could never give herself to, be the one doing the arousing?
Her life was such a pain in the ass at times.
“Tell me, Charity,” he commanded.
Something in his tone warned her not to. Without thinking, she stretched out a hand and circled his wrist. Her fingers didn’t even touch. “I-I will. Just not now, okay? Let’s get this day done, and then I will. Okay?”
“Char—"
“Please, Kolby.”
His forehead slatted again as he stared, hard, down at her. She wondered what was running through his mind as his gaze dragged over her face, heating every part of the skin it touched.
With a reluctant head bob, his lips stayed tight at the corners.
Charity eased the breath she’d been holding through her lips.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go check with the bride and groom and see if they need anything or want you to take any more posed pics.”
While he followed her back to the ballroom, she dug deep for that inner calm again.
Forty minutes later, after the bride tossed the bouquet to the singles in the room, male and female, and the happy couple had done a final slow dance, Charity and Kolby escorted them to the inn’s owner, Maureen Alexander.
They'd kissed their parents and then made their exit, allowing the party to continue on without them.
“Thank you for making our day perfect.” The bride hauled Charity into a fierce hug.
Hundreds of mother-of-pearl beads sewn into the girl’s designer gown slammed into her cheek.
Because of the height difference between them, Charity’s head only grazed the girl’s chest. With her face plastered against twenty-thousand dollars of beadwork and corseted breasts, it was all Charity could do to breathe without inhaling one of the tiny pearlescent orbs.
The bride released her, then threw herself at Kolby, who was smiling cheekily as he looked over at the groom.
“I married a hugger,” the newlywed said with a grin and a good-natured shrug.
“Maureen has your room ready,” Charity told them, “And I put two bottles of champagne and a few desserts, including a couple of pieces of your cake in there, too.”
“No one will be disturbing you in the morning,” Maureen said. “You come down to breakfast whenever you’re ready. I have you down for late checkout.”
The bride was an equal-opportunity hugger and now pulled the inn’s owner into a tight clutch.
“I’ll text you in the morning after I make sure the car service back to New York is running on time,” Charity told the girl.
“I checked with the limo company today, and they’re all set to take you to the airport whenever you’re ready.
” She pulled an envelope out of her big bag.
“Here are your printed boarding passes. I texted them to you, too, so you'd have the backup. I’ve already checked you in for tomorrow's flight, and your travel itinerary is confirmed. A car will be waiting for you at the airport in Rome.”
“You’ve thought of everything,” the groom told her. “We can’t thank you enough.”
Charity waved a hand in the air. “All part of the service. Now, if there’s nothing else...”
Another round of hugs and then the couple sprinted up to their suite.
“Everything went okay from your end?” Maureen asked.
“No worries.” Charity gave her a hug.
“See you in the morning,” Maureen told her. Then to Kolby, she tossed a crooked grin and added, “I know I won’t be seeing you.”
“Got that right.” He kissed her cheek. “The couple requested no morning-after breakfast shots, so I’m sleeping in.” He asked Charity, “Ready to go?”
She nodded, told Maureen goodnight, then the two of them exited Inn Heaven.
Summer nighttime temperatures in New Hampshire were seasonably fickle, tonight no exception as the air was chilly for July.
Charity shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest, her huge messenger work bag slung over one shoulder and bouncing across her hip as they silently walked to Kolby’s truck.
He punched the car alarm on his keyring and then opened the passenger door.
They’d been working together long enough that he knew he shouldn’t help her up into the cab, as she preferred doing it herself, so he waited until she hoisted herself in and then closed the door behind her.
Ten seconds later, he pulled out onto the county road.
The benefit of a morning wedding was that their job ended by seven-thirty at the latest, and not the usual midnight or later an afternoon ceremony brought with it.
The reception would go on for another hour at least, the band playing one more set after the bride and groom’s departure.
But their work was done, so they could leave when the newlyweds did.
Charity closed her eyes and thought about how wonderful it was going to be once she got back to her apartment, slid out of her shoes and clothes, and then into the hot bath her muscles had been begging for all afternoon.
She offered up a silent thank you that Kolby wasn’t pestering her about the trouble she’d had with the groomsmen, but simply driving. His silence was welcome, even though it was unusual.
The truck was slowing down much too early for her to be at her apartment. Charity opened her eyes, then frowned.
“Why are we here?”
The LOVE SHACK sign stared down at them.
“Because it’s a Saturday night, I’m starving, and you haven’t eaten anything all day.”
“How do you know I haven’t eaten?”
He turned to face her, one eyebrow cocked upward, his forearms resting lazily on the steering wheel.
“I’ve been glued to your side since six this morning when I picked you up, Charity.
You got in my truck with a big-ass cup of coffee, and then we got right to work.
You haven’t eaten or drank anything since then.
I haven’t either, and I know if I’m starving, you gotta be, too.
So,” he shrugged and lifted a hand to point to the bar.
“We’re gonna go in, I’m gonna make sure you have something to eat, and then I’ll take you home. ”
She glared across the cab at him, equal parts of pique and pleasure at war within her. After a moment of mutual staring, that eyebrow still flirting with his hairline, she let the pleasure win.
“Okay.”
The other brow rose. “Okay?”
Charity wanted to grin, and almost did, at the surprise in his voice.
Almost.
“Yeah. I was going to DoorDash when I got home anyway, so this will be easier.”
Shock took many forms on a person’s face. On Kolby’s it was a jaw-dropping, mouth-opening then slamming shut again response, accompanied by the aforementioned raised brows and widened eyes.
“Something wrong?” she asked, innocence coating her tone.
With a jerky head shake, he said, “Nope,” then pulled his keys from the ignition.