Dylan (Bowen Boys) (17 page)

“And what would that be?” His voice had
hardened. Jacob folded his arms over his chest and glared at her.

“You keep them safe. The Bowens, you
keep them all safe no matter what happens with Lucius. You have to promise me
that or I don’t do it. I can’t do it.” Dylan started to speak, but Jacob raised
his hand to him, and he was unable to move.

“All Bowens? You wish all of them safe?”
Jacob asked. She nodded. “Then we have a deal. I shall keep them safe. You’ll
help me, then?”

“Yes.” She put out her hand, and he took
it to pull her to him. Dylan was set free, and he moved to the man. Jacob let
her go before he told him to. Then he pulled him to his body for a hug, as
well.

“You’ll marry her today,”
drifted through
his mind.
“Marry her, and she becomes one of you. I cannot protect her
without it.”

~~~

Jack was nearly at a run to keep up with
Dylan. She had no idea where they were going, but he was in an all fired hurry
to get there. She finally jerked on his hand and made him stop. This was
stupid.

“You make me run to your brother’s house
to borrow a dress you made me put on and shoes that are pinching the crap out
of my toes. Then you leave the place like it’s on fire, and now we’re running
like we’re being chased across town. What the fuck is wrong with you?” She
leaned against him to pull off her shoe and massage her foot. “I’m not going
any farther unless you explain yourself.”

“We’re getting married.” She looked at
him. “Now. Right now, we’re getting married. I want you in my life, and I don’t
want to wait any longer.”

She looked at him and could see he was
serious. “You think you might have told me? Or someone else at your brother’s
house? We were at that office for over an hour, and you couldn’t have told me
then?”

“They’re at the courthouse now, my
family is. I told them before I asked you to get dressed up and they left
already.” He reached for her hand again, and she backed away. “If you want a real
wedding later, we’ll have one as big as you like. But my family is waiting on
us.”

“Does this have anything to do with
making me a Bowen?” He flushed. “It doesn’t work that way, Dylan. Making me
carry your last name doesn’t make me a Bowen. It makes me your wife. Especially
if you do it this way.”

“I don’t understand the difference.” She
didn’t think he would. “Tell me, Jack, because I want you as my wife for a long
time. If this is how it works, then we’re going to do it.”

“Do you love me? I mean, really love
me?” He said he did. “But you don’t trust me. Because that’s the only reason I
can see that you’d whisk me across town without telling me why. Did you think
I’d get there and say ‘well, he’s gone to this much work, I’ll do it’? You have
to know me better than that.”

He leaned against the tree near them. “He
told me to marry you. Jacob did. He said to marry you today or he couldn’t
protect you.”

“I see.” She turned to go back to the
house. She didn’t want to start their life together like this. When she took
several steps, he said her name. She turned back to him.

“I had it set up for tomorrow. Our
getting married. I had my parents come up today so that we’d be all set for
tomorrow morning. I have tickets for us.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “See?
I bought us tickets to honeymoon in Paris. I wanted everything to be perfect.
Monica helped me order flowers; Khan even had my suit dry cleaned. All for
tomorrow.”

“We can wait,” she said as she walked
back to him. “I can wait until tomorrow if you want to.”

“No. I’ve…I need you, Jack. More than I
thought possible, I need you. Having you as my wife one day earlier means I get
one more day with you as my bride than if we waited until tomorrow.”

“You’re a sap.” He nodded. “But I love
you.” The applause startled them both. She looked at the crowd around them and
flushed. They should have been a little more discreet in their argument. Then
Dylan picked her up and swung her around to the pleasure of the people around
them. Then he put her down and dropped to his knee.

“Jack Crosby, will you please marry me
today? I have it all set up so that all you have to do is say ‘yes’ now and ‘I
do’ later.” He nodded.

“Go on, girl. The man is getting his
pants dirty for you. And he’s too purty of a thing to be all mussed.” The older
woman cackled. “Though if I was younger, I’d muss him but good.”

Laughing, Jack said, “Yes.” When Dylan
stood up, he kissed her, then went to the older woman and kissed her, as well. They
were off again, and this time she was dragging him.

They were all there, all the Bowens,
including Monica and the babies. Marshall was there to make sure there were no
glitches. Warren sent her three dozen daisies, because she didn’t strike him as
a rose sort of woman. And just before the ceremony started, Jacob showed up.

“There you have it. You’ll be a Bowen,
and all will be right with the world.” She looked at him and smiled. “You know,
don’t you, lass?”

“That you would have saved me anyway?”
He winked. “Yes, you old fart. You had to put the fear of losing me into him.
But you were wrong. He’d already had it planned for tomorrow.”

Jacob nodded and kissed her on the
cheek. After shaking hands with everyone, he left them with a gift. He told
them not to open it until they were back to their own home together in Ohio.

Chapter Thirteen

Kirby looked over the letter again. He
thought it was all there, but he knew that he’d missed a few things. Finding
small mistakes, easily fixed, he was finally finished. Hitting the send button was
all he had left to do, so he sat back and looked around the room.

“Christ.” He had no idea how long he’d
been sitting there. He thought it might have been only a day, but when he
rubbed his hand over his chin he knew it had to have been more. Getting up, he
nearly tripped over his own pants. They were hanging on him like he’d lost a
great deal of weight. Going to the mirror, he almost didn’t recognize himself.

His eyes were bloodshot and dry. His
hair, usually so well kept, looked as if some small rodent had taken up residency
in it. It was ratted and all over his head. His face was haggard, cheeks sunken,
and whiskers long and curled so that he looked homeless and starved. Pulling
off his clothes, meaning to get into the shower, the stench made him gag and
his eyes water. He’d lost weight, too. More than he could afford. He looked
like he’d not eaten in—

Kirby went to the television that hadn’t
been on since the interview he’d seen with Bowen the Bitch. Thumbing through
the stations until he found the weather station, he sat down hard on the bed. He
had to watch the time and date flash three times over before he could take it
in. He’d been there for six days. Six whole days writing and sleeping. Standing
up, he went back to the bathroom, turned on the spray to the hottest setting,
and went to his luggage. Kirby pulled out his first aid kit and got scissors.

Trying not to look at himself but at the
task at hand, Kirby cut away the beard first. He didn’t know enough about his
hair to cut it himself, so he debated for several seconds before deciding he’d
wait until he got out of the shower. If it still looked horrible, he’d hack at
it until he couldn’t any longer. Getting into the stall, he scrubbed his body
three times, feeling better with every wash. By the time he got out, he realized
he was hungry.

Shaving proved to be exhausting. There
was so much hair still on his face that he’d cut himself twice pretty good and
had to change out razors halfway through. When he finished he looked marginally
better, but not the Kirby Mann that he’d made himself into.

He was dressing when the door to the
room exploded open. He knew this day was coming and was glad now that he’d—
Damn it. He’d not hit send.

“Hello, human. I have been looking for
you.” Lucius walked into the room and looked around. “You’ve become a pig. This
room looks as if you’ve been here for months and not even had anyone clean up
after you. You’ve let yourself go to ruin.”

Kirby laughed. Not smart, he supposed,
but he couldn’t help it. Lucius couldn’t have been closer to the truth. The
vampire looked at him with disgust. Kirby picked up his shoes and took them to
the chair he’d been sitting in for days.

“I had some things to straighten out. And
I needed peace and quiet.” Kirby leaned over and pulled on his shoe. “And the
house smelled of death.”

“You will know that smell soon enough,
too. You have disappointed me greatly, and we had a deal. What do you think I
do to people who do not—?”

“You killed my wife and daughter, didn’t
you?” Lucius looked shocked, then smiled. “I thought so. You disappoint me, as
well. We had a bargain of sorts, too, and you fucked it up when you killed my
Sally and Karrie. They were the only things that kept me in line. When I
figured out you’d murdered them, I decided to quit you.”

Kirby leaned down to pull on his other
shoe, put his hand on the computer, and moved the mouse. When he reached down
to tie his shoe, he could see that he had no connection. He nearly cried out. Mother
fuck, could nothing go right?

“You knew they were dead? How? She
couldn’t call to you. The child…she was nothing but a drain on you. You have
thought yourself the same thing.” Kirby moved the mouse again, sweat beading on
his forehead. “I gave you something you have wished for.”

“I never wished for their death.” He got
a connection and moved the mouse again. But the computer was thrown away from
him before he could try to send again.

“You wished them gone.” Lucius had
shoved the computer to the floor, and Kirby glanced at it to see that it was
still running. When Lucius slashed at him, Kirby knew he’d fucked up royally. He
should have sent it when he finished. Now no one would know.

He dropped to his knees, his blood pouring
from his throat. Lucius sat in his chair and watched him as if he was a
fireworks display, and he was waiting for the grand finale. Kirby thought maybe
he was.

“You should have done what I told you. You’d
still be dead, but I would have made it quicker.” He laughed as Kirby fell
fully to the floor. “Maybe not. I do love a grand death scene.”

The keys were there. Letting go of his
ruined throat, Kirby tried to see the keys. His vision was blurred, and he was
fading quickly. Blindly, he touched where he thought he needed to be and closed
his eyes. He knew he was as good as dead, but worked at opening them once more,
just to see if he’d been successful. The words, “
Your message has been sent.
View message”
were the best words of his life. He heard Lucius cursing.

“What is that thing? What does it mean
you’ve sent something? What have you done? Bring it to me.” Kirby smiled. He
could barely move, much less bring back an email that should have been taken
care of years—no, decades—ago. Lucius continued to scream at him to stop the
machine.

Kirby closed his eyes as he felt his
belly spill out onto the dirty floor. There was no pain now, only a sense of
accomplishment, something he’d not felt, he realized, for many years.

~~~

Dylan shook hands with his family and
tried to move his new wife, his only wife, toward the door. He had made them
reservations at the Grand after Jacob had left, and now all he had to do was
get her there. He wanted her there ten minutes ago. She looked at him again
when he pulled her to the door. Khan laughed.

“He wants to consummate the marriage. Don’t
blame him. I felt the same way after I married Monica.” The woman in question
hit her husband. “Okay, she wanted to. Nearly raped me when we got into the elevator,
too, if I remember right.”

Monica handed him one of the twins and
told him to shut up. She moved toward the newlyweds, pushing them to the door. She
had a way about her that made Dylan glad she was his leader, too.

“Go now, before someone else comes in
here and asks you about where you’ve been.” Jack had been questioned by
everyone. “I’ll take care of the reception for tomorrow night. It’s still on,
right?”

“Yes.” Dylan kissed her cheek. “Thank
you for this. I know that I sort of messed up your plans to—”

“You married her, and that’s what we all
wanted. I love you both dearly, and am glad you’re together.” Someone called
for Jack, and Monica told them to wait. “If you don’t go now, I may shift and
eat the lot of them.”

Laughing, they ran out the door and into
the waiting limo. As soon as the door closed, Dylan pulled her over his lap and
kissed her. She responded just like he’d hoped she would. Christ, the woman had
him panting before the car moved.

He took her nipple through the bodice of
the dress. He felt it harden, and he nipped at it until she moaned. Reaching
behind her, he pulled the zipper tab down and peeled the dress off her, leaving
her arms caught in it.

“You distract me. I want to nibble, and
when you touch me, I can’t think.” She moaned again when he unhooked her bra
and filled his hands with her. “So warm and all mine. When we get to the hotel,
I’m going to make love to you. Softly, slowly, until you can’t move.”