Vanilla Beaned (21 page)

“I'm sorry,” Mel said. “So very sorry.”

She didn't know what else to say. She was pinned under a woman who was clearly crazed with grief, and she didn't know what to say or do to get Lisa to let her go.

“Like that does me a damn bit of good,” Lisa snapped.

She grabbed Mel by the hair on the top of her head and yanked Mel to her knees. The pain made tears fill Mel's eyes and she couldn't see. She tried to grab Lisa's wrist and dig her fingernails into the other woman's skin, but Lisa was relentless. She dragged Mel toward the pool and without warning dunked Mel's head under the water.

Mel didn't have time to suck in a breath or close her mouth. Her head was submerged, and she immediately began flailing and fighting. She tried to punch the arms that held her under but she was losing strength and couldn't connect.

Her lungs began to burn and her eyes felt as if they would pop out of her head. With sudden clarity, she knew
she was about to drown. Her life didn't pass before her eyes. There was only one thing that filled her mind. Joe.

His image came to her in a fuzzy, dreamlike visage. He told her he loved her and he leaned in close to kiss her. When his lips met hers, Mel thought that if this was death, it wasn't such a bad way to go.

It was then that she threw up a gallon of water all over him. The water came out of her lungs as if it was being suctioned out of her nose and mouth. Mel felt as if every part of her head and lungs had been flushed out. She choked and sputtered and began to suck in air in great gulping gasps.

“Cupcake, you just scared me to death,” Joe said. Then he hugged her. Hard.

Mel whipped her head around, looking for Lisa. She spotted her unconscious on the ground beside them.

“You're here?” Mel asked Joe. “You're real?”

“Very much so,” Joe said. His tight grip on her made it hard for Mel to breathe but she didn't care. In fact, when she began to sob all over him and his grip got even tighter, she welcomed it.

“That was specfreakingtacular!” Oz shouted. “Joe took that crazy woman out in a diving tackle at the same time he grabbed you . . . wow, just wow!”

“Totally, wow,” Marty added. His Elvis wig was hanging off the back of his bald head and his eyes were a little bugged as if he couldn't quite believe what had just happened.

“Mel! Mel!” Angie raced out onto the patio. She slipped in the water but Tate caught her before she fell. They both dropped to their knees beside Mel.

“Are you all right?” Angie demanded. She went to elbow Joe out of the way to hug her friend but he wasn't having any of it and Angie was forced to hug them both.

“I'm fine,” Mel said. Her voice was raspy. She glanced at the faces around her so full of concern and love. She felt her throat close up. Had she really come as close as she feared to never seeing these people, whom she loved so very much, ever again?

A sob wracked her body and Joe scooped her up into his arms and she buried her face in his neck.

“Let's get you dried off,” he said. His voice sounded rough as well, and Mel wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him close.

Before he stepped into the house, he turned back and nodded at Lisa's unconscious body. “Call Manny. Have him get her out of here.”

“So, it's all true what Holly told us when she came screaming through the casino?” Angie asked.

Mel nodded. Angie glanced at Lisa like she was going to do her some harm, but Tate put his arm around her and
held her back. Mel gave them a weak smile before Joe carried her into her room.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” he said as he set her on the bed. “Let's get you in something dry and catch a cab.”

“I don't need to go to the hospital,” Mel said. When he looked like he was going to argue, she grabbed him by his tie and pulled him close. “What are you doing here? Did you win the case?”

His hand was shaking as he brushed her sodden bangs off her forehead. “No idea.”

Mel frowned. “What do you mean?”

“After we talked on the phone, I couldn't stop thinking about what you said,” he replied. “You were right. I have always put my career ahead of us. It wasn't fair to you. When it came time for closing arguments, I passed it off to my colleague and caught the first flight to Vegas.”

Mel studied his face as if she couldn't comprehend what he had just said. “But you worked on this case for months, we were almost killed . . . how could you just walk?”

“You are more important to me than any case,” Joe said. “As soon as I got that through my thick head, then the only place I wanted to be was by your side. And it's a good thing I got here when I did. You . . . I . . . oh, hell, cupcake, I could have lost you forever.”

His voice cracked and Mel cupped his face between her hands and kissed him. She felt as if she couldn't get close enough to him, and she kissed him with all the pent-up longing she had suffered over the past few months.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing hard.
Joe pressed his forehead to hers and said, “I love you, Melanie Cooper.”

“I love you, too, Joe DeLaura. I always have.” Tears streamed down Mel's cheeks and Joe gently brushed them away with his fingertips.

“Then marry me,” he said. “Right here. Right now. Before another day passes. Be my wife.”

Mel looked into his dark brown eyes. No one had ever looked at her the way Joe was looking at her now, as if she was his very reason for drawing breath.

“Yes,” she said. Then she laughed. “Yes!”

They kissed again and it was quite some time before they left Mel's room.

“I really think I look fine,” Mel said. “I almost died last night, so while I might be a little pasty, I'm still alive so that's something.”

“This is your wedding,” Angie said. “You need to raise the bar a little bit higher than ‘alive' looking.”

She took Mel's hand in hers as if she expected her to balk and dragged her into the salon at the Blue Hawaiian. Holly was already there talking to two women behind the counter. They were both somewhere in their forties but had enough Botox, hair extensions, and whatnot to appear ageless or at least in their thirties.

“Oh, my,” one of the women said and she put her hand to her throat as if Mel had just been fished out of a toilet.

The other one tossed her long blond hair and looked
Mel up and down as if she were a car. Mel wondered if she was going to kick her tires.

“Daisy, Larissa, this is Mel. You have one hour to work your magic,” Holly said. “And just so you know, she is marrying her true love so this is important.”

“True love?” Larissa perked up.

“I've loved him since I was twelve years old,” Mel said with a closed-lip smile.

“Oh my god!” Daisy cried. “True love. This is epic. Let's do this!”

Mel wasn't given a chance to say anything else as she was hustled into a back room, where she was primped, plucked, and polished within an inch of her life.

“No, don't touch,” Daisy said when Mel went to rub her right eye. “The glue on your eyelashes hasn't set yet.”

“Eyelashes?” Mel asked. That was all she got out as Daisy set to work on her other eye.

“You're going to look amazing,” Larissa said, watching Daisy's work from behind her. “Trust us.”

Mel would have felt better about the whole thing if her eyelids didn't feel like they were being glued open. She was lying in a reclining chair with Daisy looming over her using a huge magnifying glass and tweezers to place the false eyelashes on Mel's eyelids.

“There,” Daisy said finally. “Now don't move.”

“I'm going to see if Angie found you a dress yet,” Holly said from where she was sitting reading a book with Sydney. “You wait here.”

“There was another option?” Mel asked.

She sighed and closed her eyes. This was her wedding
day. She was going to marry Joe DeLaura. It was crazy, rash, and wild, and somehow it felt perfectly right.

She had called her mother earlier, dreading her mother's reaction to missing Mel's wedding. Her mother had shocked her all the way to her core.

“You are marrying dear Joe?” her mother had sputtered as if she couldn't believe it. She always called him “dear Joe,” a habit that used to be annoying but now felt quite endearing.

“Yes, Mom, he's here in Vegas, and we're just going to go for it,” Mel said. “But if it will hurt you not to be here, we'll wait. We'll do it when we get home in a traditional ceremony that you and I can spend months planning together.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Joyce had cried. “Go! Go marry that boy now! He's the love of your life, Mel. You only get so many chances to find true love. Don't blow it.”

Mel had been stunned. “You're not mad?”

“Of course not,” Joyce said. “We'll plan a huge party for you when you come home.”

“Wow,” Mel said.

“I love you, baby,” Joyce said. “Now go!”

Mel had hung up bemused and bewildered and ready to marry her man. She supposed that being so close to death had kicked her in the caboose. The thought that she wouldn't get to spend her life with Joe—well, it had really clarified what exactly was important to her.

She thought about Lisa and how losing her baby had tipped her over the edge of crazy and she wondered if that's what heartbreak did to some people. It sent them to a dark
place that they could never leave. She was scared to think about it. If she lost Joe before she got to pledge her life to his, would she go crazy like Lisa?

The police had grilled Lisa and discovered that her belly was a fake silicone job that she bought online. Apparently, losing her baby had sent her into a tailspin, and she had convinced herself that if she couldn't provide a baby for Billy like Holly had then it was only a matter of time before he left her to return to Holly.

Initially, she had only been trying to stop Holly from opening a bakery so that she wouldn't take Sydney and Billy away from her, but when Scott Jensen had been killed, Lisa had decided she had nothing to lose and that killing Holly by pretending to be a deranged stalker would solve all of her problems, namely, that she would get to raise Sydney as her own and keep her husband.

It was a sad situation and Mel knew that both Billy and Holly felt like they should have seen the crazy in Lisa before she cost Scott his life. Mel knew how they felt. She had been in their shoes before. But out of all this horror, she had found her way back to Joe.

Since Joe had saved her life and asked her to marry him, he was determined to put a ring on her finger as soon as humanly possible. They had been at the courthouse first thing that morning and their wedding was to be held at the famous Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel as soon as they could get there. Mel couldn't wait.

“Hey, wake up, princess.” Larissa nudged Mel awake. “Let's get you dressed and out of here.”

Mel blinked. She hadn't even realized she'd dozed off. She felt her new lashes brush her cheeks when she closed her eyes. Weird.

“I got the dress!” Angie cried. “It's perfect.”

“And I have the headpiece,” Holly said.

Sydney followed her mother into the room. Angie helped Mel out of her robe while Holly held the dress for Mel to step into. It was a fifties retro tea-length dress with a crinoline under the skirt and V neckline in a soft white silk that felt as comfy as pajamas.

Angie closed the hidden zipper on the side while Daisy and Larissa fussed with Mel's veil, which consisted of a pearl-encrusted headband with a pouf of delicate white chiffon hanging off the back. Angie dropped a pair of demure white open-toe pumps on the ground to complete the look.

Finally satisfied, they all stepped back and studied Mel. Angie sobbed and put her hands over her cheeks to catch her tears as if she was afraid she might leak all over Mel's gown.

“You look like a princess,” Sydney said. Her eyes were wide with wonder, and Mel thought she was very kind, just like her mother.

“Come look,” Daisy said and she led Mel over to a tall three-way mirror.

Mel stood in front of the three images and blinked. She touched the side of her face and her reflection did, too. The woman in the mirror was a vision. Mel looked at the others and they were all smiling at her.

“That's me?” she asked.

They all nodded at her, and Mel felt like she was going to cry. She had never felt more beautiful in her life.

“No crying!” Daisy said. “You have a wedding to get to—now go before I cry myself.”

Mel glanced at Holly and Angie and realized for the first time that they were wearing matching pink chemise dresses and that Sydney was in an adorable white dress with pink trim.

“The colors reminded me of the bakery,” Angie explained. “Is it okay?”

“Are you kidding?” Mel asked. “It's perfect. You all look lovely.”

“I don't have to be in it,” Holly said. “I know that we haven't known each other very long and you probably have other girlfriends . . .”

“Stop,” Mel said. “After what we've been through and now that we're business partners with you owning our very first bakery franchise, I really don't see how our bond could be any stronger. I know you have my back just like I have yours. Besides, since you and Sydney are a package deal, I get an adorable flower girl, too. How perfect is that?”