Good Girl Gone Page 16

  “Don’t!” Josh cries. He gets between his mom and Mrs. Jameson. “She made a mistake. An error in judgment. That doesn’t make her a bad person.”

  “Thank you.” Liza starts to adjust her clothing, jerking and pulling, trying to right herself.

  “What makes her a bad person is what she did after the accident. Not before. She threw me away like trash. She cut me off from everyone.”

  Her eyes dart around the room and land on Emilio. “Surely you understand.”

  “I understand that you don’t want him in your family,” Emilio says.

  “Of course, you do understand.” She appears slightly mollified and smiles a triumphant smile at Mrs. Jameson.

  Emilio comes forward and lays a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “But we want him in ours. We appreciate him, and my daughter loves him. You may not want him, but we certainly do.” He looks down at Josh. “Her loss is our gain.”

  Josh is too moved to speak.

  His mother leaves as quickly as she arrived, slamming the door behind her.

  “Well, I wish that had gone better,” I say.

  “I’m glad it went just like that,” Josh says. He nods and looks up at Emilio. “I’m honored to be invited into your family.”

  “The honor is ours, Josh,” Emilio says. He claps Josh on the shoulder.

  “Well…who wants a cookie?” Mrs. Jameson says brightly.

  “Cookie?” Emilio says hopefully. He follows Mrs. Jameson, and his nose, out of the room. I can hear them talking as they walk down the corridor. “You got one hell of a swing, Jameson,” he says. “That bitch never saw it coming.”

  Mrs. Jameson chuckles. “I have wanted to do that for so long!” She laughs heartily. “And you can call me Evie.”

  Their voices fade away.

  “Are you all right?” I ask Josh.

  He nods.

  “You sure?”

  He grins. “Your dad totally took up for me.”

  “He likes you.”

  Emilio comes back into the room with his mouth full of cookie and two more in his hand. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he says around his cookie.

  Josh laughs. I kiss Emilio on the cheek. “Love you, Melio,” I say against his chest as I wrap my arms around him. He holds me tight.

  Epilogue

  Star

  Marta fluffs my veil and reaches under it to swipe her thumb beneath my eye. “If we have to apply your makeup again, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to repair the damage,” she scolds. She squeezes me against her and sets me back. “I used to daydream about this day.” She looks around the room at my sisters, who are all here. They’re my bridesmaids, my best friends, my confidants, and they’re my sisters in every sense of the word.

  “What did you imagine, Marta, when you daydreamed about our weddings?” Fin asks.

  Marta laughs. “I could already see Emilio standing in the hallway, pacing, scaring the pants off your husbands-to-be.”

  We all laugh. I think Emilio is doing just that right this minute.

  “And…” Marta stops and shakes her head, getting choked up. “And I dreamed about the time I would spend fluffing your veils and adjusting your dresses. And in the very back of my mind, I wondered if you would wish your real mothers were with you on your wedding days.” She sniffles. “That’s all.”

  “Our real mother is here,” I tell her. She sobs into a handkerchief Emilio gave her earlier today—just in case she might need one, he’d said.

  My sisters are quiet. I sink to my knees in front of Marta because she has collapsed into a chair. “Our real mother is here,” I say again. “And we’re so grateful you’re ours.”

  “Your mother would be very proud of you,” she whispers.

  “Then she should tell me that,” I whisper back. I laugh and cup my hand over my ear. “Come on,” I cajole. “I want to hear my mother tell me how awesome I am!” I take her hands and give them a squeeze.

  “I love you so much and I am so proud of you.”

  I wipe my thumb under her eye. “We’re all going to look like shit,” I tell her and my sisters, because there is not a dry eye in the room.

  We set about repairing our makeup.

  Wren wraps her arms around my shoulders and squeezes as she looks at me in the mirror. “Mom would be really proud. Dad too.” She buries her face in my shoulder and holds tightly to me.

  “Thanks, Wrenny,” I say. I whisper her real name so that only she can hear it. “Jenny.”

  A knock sounds on the door. “Who is it?” Fin calls out.

  No one answers.

  “Maybe it’s a surprise.” Fin arches her brows in question. She opens the door and freezes. “I think it’s for you,” she says in my direction.

  Tag takes up the whole doorway.

  “How dare you show up here!” Wren shrieks and she starts toward him, but Peck grabs her arm and hauls her back. “Did you need more money? Is that it?” Wren asks furiously. She fights against Peck’s hold.

  I walk toward him, teetering on my heels a little. “Hi, Tag,” I say.

  He smiles tremulously at me. “Hi,” he says back. “I didn’t want to interrupt your special day, but I had to come and see you. I wanted to congratulate you.”

  “How did you know about today?”

  He looks at me kind of funny. “Josh called me. He told me to come.”

  I nod slowly. How dare he?

  “You didn’t want me here, did you?” he says. He sighs and then takes in a big breath. “I should have known.”

  “Well, you kind of left in a hurry after you got a lot of money out of Wren,” I tell him, trying to remain calm.

  “I had to go and get something,” he explains.

  “It had better have been something important,” Wren bites out.

  He smiles and looks back into the hallway. “It was.” He reaches past the doorway and picks something up. He walks into the room with it and sets it gently on the floor. It’s a baby carrier, and there’s a sleeping newborn inside. “I had to go and get him.” He points down to the sleeping child.

  Everyone in the room goes silent.

  Wren blurts out, “What is it?”

  A tiny ripple of laughter moves through the room.

  “He’s my son.” He looks at me and then at Wren. “Benjamin Taggert the Third.”

  “You have a son?” I bend down to look into the perfect little face.

  “It’s a long story,” he says.

  “I want to hear all about it.” I do. I really do.

  “I’ll be around for a while. Do you mind if I stay and watch you get married?” He tilts his head like an inquisitive puppy. “I promise not to cause any trouble.”

  “You can stay.” The words rise unbidden to my lips. But I don’t want to take them back.

  “Thanks.” He leans over and kisses my forehead. “Mom and Dad would be proud, you know?” he whispers. Then he picks up the carrier and goes out of the room.

  The wedding planner suddenly appears in the doorway and claps her hands. “It’s time,” she says.

  My sisters follow her out of the room like ducklings behind their mother, and I go too. My knees are shaking, and I feel like I really need to throw up, but I swallow it back. But then Emilio threads my arm through his and his strength bolsters me.

  One by one, as the music swells, my sisters go down the aisle.

  “Not too late to back out,” Emilio says softly. He grins down at me.

  I stop and turn to face him. I take the lapels of his coat in my hands and hold tight. “I need to tell you something, Melio.”

  He adjusts my veil. “You can tell me anything, kiddo.”

  “Some day, when I have a daughter, you’re going to have to go into her room every single chance you get and tuck her in, okay? All the time. Like whenever you babysit, you have to go into her room and read her stories and hang out with her, okay?” I’m crying again—ruining my makeup again—and I don’t care. Not at all.

  “Some day when y
ou have a daughter, Star, I’m going to do all sorts of things with her, the least of which is tucking her in every single chance I get, and reading her stories, and I’m going to go in her room and just hang out with her. I promise.”

  “Good.” I sniffle. “Because I’m pregnant.”

  He stumbles. “What?”

  I grin up at him. “I think it’s our turn.” I point down the long aisle, where people are watching us, probably wondering if I’ve changed my mind or what’s taking so long.

  “I’m going to kill him,” he mumbles.

  I look up at him. “Okay, but will you let me marry him first?” I lay a hand on my belly. “I’d like to make this kid legitimate, if you don’t mind.”

  We start down the aisle, and I see Mrs. Jameson and Lilly sitting where Josh’s parents should be, and I can’t help but think how appropriate that is.

  We move slowly down the aisle, and I watch Josh’s face when he sees me. His mouth falls open, and he has so much love in his eyes for me that my knees go weak.

  Then I realize with a shock that Josh isn’t in his chair. He’s on his feet.

  He has been working with Daniel, his personal trainer, for hours every day. I have barely seen him for the past two months. Now I know what he was doing.

  He’s standing at the end of the aisle waiting for me, with all the Reeds behind him. He grins as I come close. “I’d take your hand but I’m afraid I’ll fall over,” he whispers.

  “You’ll be lucky if Emilio doesn’t kick you over,” I mutter back.

  “Did you tell him?” he asks. But he’s grinning.

  “Figured he couldn’t kill you today if I told him right before the ceremony.” I look at Josh standing tall, just a few inches taller than me. He’s supported by leg braces keeping his legs straight, and he’s holding his body weight up with his forearms and gravity, using crutches with forearm braces. “When did you learn to do this?”

  “I wanted to stand next to you and look into your eyes while I pledge my life to you,” he tells me.

  The priest coughs into his fist. We look up at him and smile.

  “Who gives this woman to be married?” he asks.

  No one answers. Marta elbows Emilio so hard that he grunts. “Well, crap,” he mutters. “I guess her mother and I do. If we have to.”

  The crowd titters and the priest moves on. Emilio winks at me and I know everything is okay.

  I can barely follow the ceremony, but I say the appropriate things at the right times, because the preacher finally says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  One of the Reeds produces Josh’s chair and he sits down. Then he pats his lap, and I settle into it. He carries me down the aisle, and the laughter of our friends and family surrounds us.

  I can’t imagine a better day.

  Josh

  Sam and Pete Reed come back to the party, and Sam hands me my keys. “That thing is kinky as hell,” he says quietly.

  Pete starts laughing. He jerks a thumb toward Sam. “He already bought one for his bedroom too.” He pretends to thumb something into his phone, glancing furtively and comically to the left and right, pretending like he’s Sam. “There!” he cries. “Mine’ll be here next week!”

  “I did not do that,” Sam murmurs. But his face starts to color.

  “You totally did!” I cry.

  “Dude,” he whispers fiercely. “With all the ropes and straps that swing has, the possibilities are endless!”

  I laugh. “Did you seriously go through the accessories?”

  He grins. “Well, I didn’t fondle them or anything,” he says, “but I did take a look at the packages.”

  Sam coughs into his fist really hard.

  “Okay, fine!” Pete says. “I might have fondled a few of them.”

  I laugh out loud. I bought some special equipment for Star for our honeymoon, which we will be spending locked in our apartment. I couldn’t get rid of Star long enough to install it all and put it together, so I asked Sam and Pete to do it for me. It’s a swing and a special chair for sex, which Daniel pointed out to me in a mobility catalog.

  “What’s so funny?” Star asks as she comes up behind me.

  “Nothing,” Sam and Pete say at once.

  She narrows her eyes. “What did I miss?” She sits down in my lap, her white wedding gown billowing around us.

  “Nothing.” I bark out a laugh.

  “You’re a bad liar, Josh.”

  “It’s a surprise.” I kiss her quickly, and she runs her fingers through my hair. “You look so beautiful,” I tell her.

  The Reeds wink at me and disappear to find their wives and children. I’ve seen Matt a few times as he dances with each of his daughters, and Paul has danced with his little blonde ever since the music started. I look up and see Pete and Reagan dancing and their daughter is squished between them. Logan is chasing Kit around the dessert table.

  “I want to be like that,” I tell Star. I look into her eyes and I swear I can see our future gazing back at me.

  She lays my hand on her belly. I still can’t believe that a life we created is growing inside her.

  “We will be,” she says, and she sounds so sure. She turns so that she’s facing me a little more. “You feel like dancing with me?”

  She danced with her father a few times, and I have seen the Reeds pass her around, but she and I haven’t danced. Not yet, anyway.

  “Why not?” I say. I’d do just about anything for her, and if she wants me to roll her around on the dance floor on wheels, I’ll do that too.

  She smiles and cups my face. “You should have warned me you would be standing at the end of the aisle.”

  “Where would be the fun in that?” I protest. But I’m laughing inside. The look on her face was priceless. I didn’t tell her what I was planning because I wanted it to be a complete surprise. I had talked to Daniel about it and he said, “It’s worth a shot!”

  Then we got started. Daniel got the braces and the forearm crutches. Then I learned to balance. My upper body is pretty strong, so once I was on my feet I was able to stay there. I did warn the Reeds that they might have to catch me if I fell over, and when she came down the aisle…damn…I almost lost my balance when I saw how beautiful she was.

  I brush her hair back behind her ear. “Were you surprised?”

  “Well, yeah,” she says. “I’ve never had to look up to look into your eyes before.”

  I jostle her in my arms. “Do you wish I could walk? That I wasn’t injured?”

  She looks at me intently. “I’ve never wished that for myself.”

  I’m not sure I like that answer.

  “I have wished it for you once or twice,” she says quietly. “Only because I see how you’re treated at restaurants and in public places. The way you have to work three times as hard to get things done.” She brushes her fingertips through my hair. “But I’ve never wished it for me. Not even once. I love you exactly the way you are.” She gets up from my lap. “Now come and dance with me.”

  I take her out onto the dance floor and a slow song starts. I pull her back into my lap and she curls into me as I start to spin us slowly in a circle.

  “Come a little bit closer. You smell good,” I tell her.

  She laughs and wiggles her ass on my lap. Her lips touch my neck, and I can’t help but remember that first night.

  “This reminds me of the first time I took you home with me.”

  She groans into my shoulder, burying her face there. “Don’t remind me.”

  “You were so warm and soft in my arms. And it had been so long since I’d had anyone that close to me.”

  “I was so drunk,” she says with a laugh.

  “You wiggled your ass in my lap and asked me if I was getting a boner, right in front of everyone.” I stop spinning so I can squeeze her to me. I whisper in her ear, “And I totally was.”

  She snorts into my neck. “You’ll never let me live it down, will you?”

  “Best moment of
my life, Star.”

  She sighs into my neck, and the warm, moist heat of it shoots straight to my heart. “I love you, Josh.”

  “I love you too.”

  I stop moving us in circles and just stare at her. “My whole life changed when I met you,” I tell her. I’m suddenly getting choked up and I didn’t plan for this.

  She waits a beat. “I hope like crazy that you can forgive me for what’s about to happen.” She squeezes her eyes shut tightly.

  Then I feel my chair move. “Oh, hell no,” I say when I realize what’s happening.

  Paul and Logan have the front of my chair and Sam and Pete have the back. They pick me up and start toward the fountain in the middle of the party area.

  “Oh, hell no,” I cry again. I point at Star. “If I go, she has to go too!”

  Matt, the only one with his hands not full, shrugs and picks her up, cradling her gently but firmly in his arms. They know she’s pregnant, so they’ll be careful. But she will not get out of this without a dunking too. Payback’s a bitch.

  “This is not how this was supposed to go!” she shrieks, but she’s laughing as she beats on his chest. “Put me down!”

  “I will,” he says. “In just a second.” He laughs.

  The four Reeds who aren’t holding my wife set my chair down beside the fountain and I think they’re rethinking their decision. But then one of them grabs me under the arms, and another takes my legs.

  They swing me side to side. “One!” they shout. “Two!”

  “Three!” Matt yells, and they all let go at the same time. I fly into the fountain, and they set Star gently on top of me. I go under the water, even though my ass is on the bottom and there’s no possible chance I could drown. I come up laughing, but Star doesn’t look nearly as happy. I grab her and pull her against me, holding her tight.

  I reach down to the bottom of the pool and pull up a handful of change. “Care to make a wish?” I say. I remember the time we were at the hotel and she said she didn’t believe in fairy tales.

  She brushes the change from my palm and it plunks into the water. “I already have everything I could ever want.” She laughs. “But it’s good to know that wishes work.”