“Oh my God, Starr,” Aggie bellowed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You know he doesn’t treat me like his slut. I’d never put up with that bull. Now stop being a jealous bitch and pull your shit together.”
Starr’s jaw dropped, and for a moment Jace thought he was going to have to break up a cat fight, but then Starr laughed.
“You’re right,” she said and shook her head, sending her dangling earrings swaying. “You are right. I’m jealous. I am. I admit it. And I’m not jealous of Jace for winning you. I could have had you if I’d wanted you. I’m jealous of you for finding someone to accept you the way he does. Christ, he saved your life tonight, Aggie. Did you even thank him?”
Aggie glanced at Jace, who suddenly wished he was invisible. He didn’t need her thanks. He was just glad she hadn’t been hurt.
“Thanks, baby,” Aggie said and placed a rather platonic kiss on his cheek.
“It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” Starr said. “I don’t have anyone who would stick their neck out for me like that.”
Jace tilted his head to the side. “I would.” He’d have shoved a perfect stranger out of harm’s way. It wasn’t a big deal.
“You would?” Starr squeaked.
“Of course he would,” Aggie said. “I’m not sure what you’re so worked up about.”
“Do you know how fucking rare it is to find a man like him, Ice?”
Aggie nodded and turned her head to look at Jace. “Yeah, I do. And that’s why I’ll never let anything come between us. Not you or anyone else; living or dead.”
The redhead is exceptionally attractive, Thomas’s voice sounded through Jace’s head unexpectedly. Do you think I could have a go at her?
“Where do you find a guy like him?” Starr asked. “You wouldn’t happen to have a brother, would you, Jace?”
Jace shook his head, answering Thomas and Starr simultaneously. But he did have an annoying ghost Starr was welcome to have.
“Let’s go back to the party,” Aggie said. “People probably think we’re fighting.”
“Most of them know better,” Jace said.
Aggie laughed. “Yeah, most of them probably think we bailed early so we could spend time dancing between the sheets rather than on the dance floor. No telling what Eric told them we were up since he was the one who checked on us.”
He’d love to be alone with Aggie dancing between the sheets. Unfortunately, they weren’t alone no matter where they went while at the castle. And Jace sure didn’t want Thomas and Katherine yelling in his head when he was pouring his heart out to Aggie the next day. The ghosts had to go and he had to be the one to make them leave.
“You two head on back,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Aggie’s eyebrows drew together. “What’s going on?”
Jace chuckled. “Voices in my head.”
Starr gave him an odd look, but Aggie nodded before kissing him gently. “Don’t keep me waiting too long. I don’t want anyone thinking I murdered you and buried you in the garden.”
He grinned. “I won’t.”
He watched her walk away with Starr, and then he sat on the ledge of Queen Katherine’s tomb.
“You still there, Thomas?” He spoke to the stone floor.
I am.
“Go after her. Go after Katherine. Don’t hesitate. Go now.”
She doesn’t want me.
“She waited for you for five hundred years. She wants you. She loves you. But you hurt her, so you have to fix it. You don’t want to spend eternity alone, do you?”
A deep sorrow settled in Jace’s heart. He didn’t know if it was his sadness or Thomas’s. An eternity alone? And he’d once thought a life lived alone was unbearable. He couldn’t imagine spending all eternity alone.
If I’d known I’d see her again, I wouldn’t have tried to forget her in the arms of other women. Kat was different. Kat saw me, the man beneath the scoundrel. She knew what I was and loved me anyway.
“I have a woman like that,” Jace said.
Treat her well.
Jace nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
He sat quietly for a moment, wondering if his best was really good enough for Aggie. Even with a lifetime of loving stretching before them, he wasn’t sure if that was enough time to give her all that she deserved. But if they could be together forever—beyond death—then maybe… Maybe she could come to realize the depth of his devotion.
He couldn’t imagine the devastation that Thomas must have endured when Katherine died; first watching his child grow within her, seeing her hold that child, love that child, then watching her die days later, leaving them to carry on without her. Jace didn’t know that he’d have made the same decisions Thomas made—being unable to love the child they’d created—or if he’d have clung to and cherish the little piece of her left on Earth, but he knew that if he ever lost Aggie, his heart might as well stop beating.
“You still there, Thomas?” Jace said.
Yes.
“Go tell Katherine what’s in your heart, man. Just tell her.”
And if she doesn’t forgive me?
“At least you tried.”
Will you tell your lady what’s in your heart as well?
“Tomorrow,” Jace promised. “When I marry her.” He would lay his heart at her feet and pray she didn’t stomp on it.
Chapter Twelve
Jace stirred. The sound of rain lashing against the windows was a muted lullaby that made finding consciousness a challenge. He slowly opened his eyes to be confronted by a direct blue-eyed stare. He flinched, releasing a gasp of surprise.
“I’m not that scary in the morning, am I?” Eric asked with a wry grin.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Trying to wake you with the power of my mind. Did it work?”
Jace smacked him in the face with a pillow. “You are so fucking weird, Sticks.”
“That’s a given.” He gripped the pillow between both hands, stood up straight so he was no longer leaning over the bed staring in Jace’s face, and shrugged. “Did you sleep well?”
Jace stretched lethargically and grinned with contentment.
“Good,” Eric said. “I thought you might like to know that your wedding starts in twenty minutes, he-who-sleeps-like-the-dead.”
“What!”
Jace kicked the tangle of covers aside and leapt from the bed, searching the cottage in a mixture of disorientation and panic. Eric was already dressed in his tux, and the clock on the fireplace mantel made it clear that Eric had not been joking about the time. It was a quarter till one in the afternoon. “Where’s Aggie?”
“Somewhere getting ready with Rebekah and the rest of the women. They wouldn’t let me watch them dress. Can you believe it?”
Jace dashed to the closet and pulled out the garment bag that held his tuxedo. He tossed it on the bed and yanked the zipper open. “Yeah, you perv. Most women think that’s creepy.”
“They just don’t know what I’m missing.” He wet a finger and smoothed one eyebrow with it.
Jace shook his head and laughed. “Once a perv, always a perv.”
His highly polished black shoes tumbled out of the bottom of the bag, and he reached for his slacks. He decided he didn’t have time for a shower. Good thing he’d taken one last night before he’d climbed into bed alone. No Aggie, but also no ghosts, thank God.
“Takes one to know one. Rebekah made me feel better by promising that I could watch her undress later.”
“Good thing you met that woman.”
“And I say the same of you and Aggie. I guess there really is someone out there for everyone.”
Jace hurried through dressing, one eye on the clock. “Why didn’t you wake me when you left this morning?”
“I did. Several times. You said you were up. Aggie sent me to check on you since you hadn’t shown up yet. Good thing she did. Only you would sleep through your own wedding.”
J
ace didn’t remember Eric waking him at all. He had gotten to bed rather late. Once he’d made his way back to the ball—without Thomas infiltrating his thoughts—everyone had given him a hard time about trying to kill Aggie with a chandelier but chickening out at the last moment. His friends had strange senses of humor.
“I suppose I don’t have time for caffeine.” Jace slipped the tuxedo jacket on and then sat on the edge of the bed to put on his socks.
“No, but do take the time to brush your teeth. You don’t want to melt Aggie’s face off with your dragon breath.”
Jace slipped on his shoes and darted toward the bathroom. Managing not to piss on his shoes while multitasking brushing his teeth and relieving his bladder, he went over his vows in his head. Forgetting what to say was not an option. Almost every person he knew would be there, but he figured he could get through it if he just kept his eyes on Aggie the entire time. Still, his stomach began to do its best impersonation of a roller coaster.
“You can do this,” he said to his reflection as he dabbed some gel at the ends of his bleached-blond tips to spike them haphazardly.
He gargled a bit of mouthwash and washed his hands. He ran a hand over his jaw and winced. His beard stubble was a little longer than he normally kept it, but he didn’t have time to trim it. Damn it, why hadn’t he woken sooner? Aggie would be furious with him if he was late. And as much as he’d enjoy her punishing him, he did not want to disappoint her.
Deciding he didn’t look half bad for ten minutes of prep work, he hurried toward the sitting room at the front of the cottage. Eric was waiting for him with a large umbrella in his hand. He seemed to be tempting fate as he opened and closed the contraption indoors.
He glanced up when he noticed Jace had joined him. Eric twisted pursed lips to one side as he assessed Jace’s attire. “So you’ll wear a penguin suit for your wedding, but refuse to wear knickerbockers to your rehearsal dinner.”
“Is that what those ugly fucking pants are called? Knickerbockers? For real?” Jace chuckled and then burst out laughing, glad for something to release his tension. Eric was usually good at turning Jace’s naturally dark mood lighter. He wasn’t sure what he’d do with himself if he didn’t have the obnoxious goofball in his life.
“Those pants are not funny,” Eric bellowed indignantly. “They are historically accurate.” Eric tried to keep a straight face, but was soon busting a gut along with Jace.
After a moment, Eric wrapped an arm around Jace’s back and whacked him on the shoulder. “Better?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” Jace said, wiping tears from his eyes.
“Ready to get married?”
“Yep.”
Eric opened the umbrella, and Jace opened the front door. It was pouring.
“Sucks that it’s raining,” Jace grumbled.
“Rain on your wedding day is good luck,” Eric said. He tried shoving the large open umbrella through the door, but it was much wider than the wooden frame.
“This is a bit too much good luck for my tastes.” Jace scowled up at the dark clouds overhead. At least he wasn’t getting married outdoors. He remembered the disaster Sed and Jessica’s beach wedding had been due to rain. Funny how the happy couple hadn’t been upset about it in the least. Had he been in their position, he’d have been pissed.
Grunting with feigned exertion, Eric attempted to get the black umbrella out of the house sideways.
“It’s not going to fit no matter how much you want it to,” Jace said.
“That’s what she said,” Eric said automatically. “Maybe this is why you aren’t supposed to open umbrellas indoors. Has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with geometry.” He tried sending it out handle first to no avail.
“Dude, I’m going to be late if you don’t stop fucking around.”
“She’ll wait,” Eric assured him, but he folded the umbrella slightly so it would fit through the door.
Jace was scarcely aware of his surroundings as they hurried toward the beautiful chapel where he would say his vows. What were his vows again? He wrung his hands together, trying to remember the words he’d agonized over for so long. The words that expressed exactly what Aggie meant to him. He couldn’t remember a damned one.
“Nervous?” Eric asked, giving Jace’s arm a much needed squeeze.
“I can’t remember,” he said dully.
“You can’t remember if you’re nervous?”
“I can’t remember what I wanted to say.”
“No one pays attention to that part anyway,” Eric said.
Eric’s assurance made Jace feel marginally better, even though he knew Eric was lying. Maybe the guys in the crowd would be thinking about the football season or which bridesmaid was the most doable, but the women—and one woman in particular—would be hanging on his every word, and he damned well knew it.
“Did you write them down?” Eric asked, looking at him as if he’d just checked into intensive care with no hope of recovery.
“About a thousand times,” Jace said.
“So just read them to her. She knows you get stupid in front of crowds and even more stupid when faced with topics of a romantic nature. She won’t care if you just read them to her. She’ll understand.”
Jace rubbed a hand over the scruff on his jaw. “I shredded all the papers. I didn’t want her to find them.”
Eric snorted at him. “Real smart, dude.”
“You’re not helping, best man.”
“Was I supposed to be helping? I thought I was just supposed to stand behind you at the altar and catch you if you faint.”
Jace slugged him in the arm and when Eric jerked to the side to avoid a second blow, Jace got a face full of ice cold rain water from the edge of the dripping umbrella. Rivulets dripped down the back of his neck beneath his collar. He shuddered from the chill and sidled in next to a wary-looking Eric once more. Jace might have been a bit damp now, but at least he felt slightly more alert. He was surprised by how alert Eric was. The guy had drunk so much the night before that he and Rebekah had to practically carry him to bed.
“How are you not hung-over this morning?” Jace asked.
“Myrna,” Eric said.
Jace lifted a brow at him. What did Brian’s wife have to do with anything? “Myrna?”
“Yeah. She made me consume her banana and drink all her fluids.”
Baffled, Jace gaped at him. “What?”
“I always knew that chick had a thing for me.” Eric winked at him.
Jace chuckled. “Don’t they all?” He then muttered under his breath, “In your imagination.”
“Keep talking like that and I won’t catch you when you faint.”
A few people were standing outside the chapel under umbrellas. Aggie’s mother happened to be one of them. As usual, she had a lit cigarette in one hand, but she looked quite elegant in her black bridesmaid gown.
“Wasn’t sure if you were going to show up, Maynard,” she said, taking a puff off her cigarette and releasing smoke in a drawn-out cloud as she looked him over.
He was used to her trying to sum him up, and he knew it was because she was overprotective of her daughter—the woman just had a weird way of showing it.
“You knew I’d be here,” he said.
She tossed her cigarette into a puddle and nodded, avoiding his eyes. He extended a hand in her direction and touched her chilly bare arm. She glanced up and blinked back tears.
“You make her happy,” she said, her voice quivering slightly. “Don’t ever stop making her happy.”
“I promise.”
Before he could dodge her, she was hugging him. Jace normally didn’t do hugs, but he made an exception in this case. He surrounded Tabitha’s slight frame with both arms and embraced her. Gently at first, but then more securely so she’d know that he meant it. Her entire body was trembling, at least partially from the cold.
“Don’t make me cry, damn you,” she said, and then she tugged away to slap him on the chest. “I’m
not the emotional type.”