Did This Count As Groveling?
DANCING FOLLOWED THE WEDDING. “I really need to thank your mother when I meet her.”
“For what?”
“For teaching you to dance. You’re very good.”
He grinned and her insides melted. “I suppose so.”
What was it about this man that attracted her so much?
As the music faded, they slowed and stopped. “Want some refreshments?”
“Sure,” she said. “So do you have any regrets over losing your fiancé?”
“No. I did at first because I hated everything after I was turned, but I’ve realized that she and I weren’t a good match. We were both too immature and entitled to have been happy together. I understand she married my best friend six months after I disappeared.”
He didn’t even sound bitter about it. That was good. “So I won’t be competing with her in our marriage?”
He smiled. “No. You won’t be competing with anyone in our marriage.”
“Good. Because I find I’m quite jealous where you’re concerned.”
They walked to the table where Dixie and Jingle sat, and Beckett went to get them food. She could see Michael and Nicholas in line, too.
Dixie was all grins. “You and Beckett look so cute together, so lovey-dovey.”
Jingle laughed. “You should see your face right now, Stacy. You are blushing more than I’ve ever seen anyone blush.”
Stacy picked up one of the announcements on the table and fanned herself with it. “I’m not surprised.”
“Beckett is so cute,” Dixie said.
The three of them turned toward the refreshment table.
Stacy couldn’t help but smile. “He is, isn’t he?”
“Holy snow flurries, you got that right.” Jingle made a show of fanning herself off, too, and Stacy laughed.
Gasps from the lobby caught their attention, and they turned in that direction.
A woman walked in. Her dark hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and she wore a gray dress. And a lightweight red jacket.
Stacy recognized that red jacket.
Yolanda?
There were more gasps and people started moving away from her.
Even these werewolves and vampires were scared of her? That made Stacy’s heart pound.
Behind them, there was the sound of dishes crashing against the floor, and men’s voices, yelling.
Yolanda looked hurt as she lifted a gift-wrapped box in Beckett’s direction. “I heard you got married so I brought you a wedding gift.”
“Is it a bomb?” a woman near them asked in hushed tones.
The sheriff moved past them, followed by Beckett and Michael and Nicholas. Two deputies moved in from the other direction.
Yolanda yelled in fury as they tackled her to the ground.
It took a few moments for the commotion to settle down enough for her to tell what Yolanda was screaming. “I just want to ask for his forgiveness!”
“Whose forgiveness?” the sheriff asked.
“Beckett Robertson. The man I wrongfully turned.”
Beckett froze in place, not sure he’d heard correctly. “What?”
People stood all around the large room, as far from Yolanda as they could.
Everyone had been talking and gasping and running out of the way, but the sound had vanished.
Now there was only the sound of Yolanda, who caught Beckett’s eye and held out the gift. “I’m sorry, Beckett. I’ve done aversion therapy so I will never again do what I did to you. I can’t make it up to you, I can’t fix it, but I can ask for your forgiveness. In fact, I need to have you sign this Writ of Forgiveness or I will be your slave for the remainder of my days. Which I would deserve. But I hope you can find it within yourself to forgive me.” Tears ran down the monster’s cheeks. “Please.”
Stacy pushed her way to Beckett’s side and took his arm, squeezing it and letting him know that she was there with him. She didn’t speak, for which he would be forever grateful.
“Please,” Yolanda sobbed out.
The crowd crept closer, and their eyes moved from Yolanda to Beckett.
Anger flared in him. “There is no forgiveness for what you did. You ruined my life.”
He wouldn’t forgive her. He would never forgive her.
Stacy stepped forward, her hand out toward Yolanda. Beckett grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him, hissing, “Stay away from her. She’s dangerous. We don’t know if she’s really had aversion therapy or if this is just one of her lies to get close enough to hurt us. I won’t let her hurt you.”
Stacy looked tortured. “This is a moment of healing.”
“The hell it is.” Yolanda had ruined everything. She’d cost him his fiancé, his family, his job, and his friends. “How do we even know she’s telling the truth?”
Yolanda said, “I wrote you about it in my letters. The prison warden put in a good word for me. Don’t you remember?”
“I didn’t read your letters. I burned every single one.”
He found Jack Murphy at his side. “My friend, you don’t have to decide now. You need some time to work through this, not in public.”
Relief flooded him. “Yes.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“Thank you.”
Everyone’s eyes had pity in them. He turned back to Stacy and saw pity in her eyes, as well. Did she pity him? Did she not respect him any more?
He couldn’t face that look in her eyes.
Yolanda was caught, so the danger was over. It was time for him to do the right thing.
He would free Stacy from the bargain he’d made with her. He said, “The danger is over now so I release you from our one-year contract. You may keep the money and the house.”
The look in Stacy’s eye changed from pity to fury. “You’re breaking up with me?”
“I don’t want you with me because of a commitment made when we had just met.”
Stacy stepped closer, her eyes blazing, and a smile curled on her lips as she repeated, “You’re breaking up with me?”
“I’m just—”
“That’s too bad,” she interrupted. “I am staying. I am invoking that contract and I do not release you from it. And it’s going to cost you big time, buddy. I wasn’t going to take them before, but now I am. A million dollars and a house.” She turned to Michael. “Will you drive me home please?”
Dixie said, “Yes, we will. To our house?”
“No. To my house.” Stacy stormed off several steps, and then turned back, marching back to him. “And do a better job on the lunches, Buckwheat. Last time you forgot the Oreos.”
She touched his arm. “By the way, we’re getting a dog.”
And she marched off to stunned silence.
He had screwed up big time.
He turned and followed after her, just in time to see her climb in Michael’s vehicle and be driven off.
Jack said, “Get in,” and he followed down the lane.
“What do I do now?”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Better plan on groveling. First lesson to learn in a good marriage. Happy wife, happy life. You’d better do something to make your wife happy, Beckett. And she’s a keeper, so you’d better not go releasing her again. You’re lucky she didn’t leave you.”
He was lucky. His heart was sick at the thought of being without Stacy. “I’ve got to win her over so she’ll stay married to me.”
“Yes. Grovel.”
“I have to romance her. Do things right.”
“After you grovel.”
Everything was done in the wrong order. This time he was going to do things right.
When Beckett got home, he thanked Jack for the ride and the advice.
“Remember to grovel.”
“Grovel. Got it.”
Dread filling his heart, not sure what to expect from this woman he’d married but didn’t really know, he walked up to the front door. It wasn’t locked.
He went inside and started searching for her. She wasn’t in the common living areas, not in the kitchen, nor living room, nor family room. He walked upstairs, slowly.
What was awaiting him? A woman scorned? A woman who was going to punish him? He didn’t know her well enough to know.
He looked through the other rooms and then came to the master bedroom. His bedroom up until now. This door was locked.
He knocked lightly.
“Wait two minutes and come in,” Stacy said cheerfully, and he heard the sound of the door unlocking.
Confused, Beckett waited, opened the door — and stopped, amazed.
Stacy sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed he’d slept in every night for the past two years. There was a pink blanket on it he didn’t recognize, placed over the dark blue comforter he’d bought.
“I just thought you’d like to know that, since the house is now mine, I’m claiming this bedroom.”
“But—”
She raised a hand. “Not your turn to talk.”
She stood. She was dressed in a negligee.
His heart pounded and his body began to warm. “Okay,” he managed to get out.
Grovel, remember?
“I’m sorry, Stacy.”
She held up her hand again. “I’ll tell you when it’s your turn to talk.”
She stepped closer to him. “Did I tell you about the guy who dumped me my first year of college?”
He shook his head.
“We’ll call him Jerkface to protect the not-so-innocent. Anyway, Jerkface wanted to sleep with me, so he pretended to love me. He even proposed to me, all in the hopes that I would give in.”
He would kill Jerkface.
“He never succeeded in getting into my bed, but he broke my young, innocent heart. It took me over a year before I managed to forgive him. Do you know why I did it?”
He shook his head again.
“I did it so I could move on with my own life. So he no longer had any hold on me. Finally, Dixie and our other friends found a firepit, built a fire, and burned his picture and a few things he’d given me.”
“I burned her letters.”
She held up a hand. “You weren’t doing it to forgive her, to let go of the hurt, you were doing that to hide from it.”
“That’s unfair,” he growled.
“I know. Just believe me that life is better on the other side.”
“I can’t condone what she’s done.”
“No, you can’t. I couldn’t condone what Jerkface did, either. But my forgiveness had nothing to do with condoning him, just freeing myself.”
She took another step. “I will support you in working through this because I think it’s important.”
A flash of recognition hit his mind. If he hadn’t become a vampire and stayed here in Moonchuckle Bay, he would never have met Stacy, who in a short week had come to mean everything to him.
She pulled out her phone and pushed a button, locking eyes with Beckett.
Her father answered the phone, “Hi, babydoll. How are you doing?”
“I actually have some big news for you, Dad. Better get Mom on the phone, too.”
A moment later, her father said, “Okay, Mom is here and you’re on speakerphone.”
“You’re on speakerphone, too,” Stacy said, and made it so. “And I’m going to introduce you to my new—”
She paused.
“Remember when you said you wished I would find a good man and settle down?”
“Have you met someone?” Her mother’s voice was breathless.
“I have, and I married him already.”
“What?” Her mother and father said together.
Then her mother was laughing and crying.
When things calmed down, Stacy said, “Say hello to my parents, Beckett.”
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.”
“We have to come out and meet you. Though I wish you’d have waited long enough to invite us to the wedding.”
“I know and I’m sorry, Mom. What can I say? Beckett just swept me off my feet.”
They talked for ten more minutes, and then said goodbye.
She held Beckett’s gaze the entire time, daring him to try to get rid of her again.
After she hung up, he exhaled loudly. “So your father won’t come to town with a stake?”
“No, silly,” she said, smiling. “He doesn’t know you’re a vampire. He’ll come with a gun.”
His eyes widened.
She shook her head, her face becoming serious. “If you don’t work through this thing with Yolanda, I’ll shoot you myself. I’m a much bigger threat than my father.”
He said, softly, “I can’t forgive her, Stacy.”
She moved up close to him, running her hand up his chest. “You have to.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You know why?”
He could hardly think with her touching his chest, wrapping her arm around his neck. His mouth was dry. “Why?”
“Because I’d decided it was time to consummate our marriage, but I’ve realized I can’t do that until you get her out of your heart. I won’t share heart space with anyone else.”
“Consummate?”
“Yes.” She nodded and pulled back, slowly, until she wasn’t touching him anymore. “Work through it quickly because I don’t want to wait much longer.”
He gulped.
“Now you need to get out. Your bedroom is down the hall. I have a few more phone calls to make and then I’m going to bed.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Alone.”
Without a word, he turned, walking out.
Did this count as groveling, letting her keep his bedroom — without him?