Lucky in Love (24 page)

Late that night, I was lying exhausted and happy in Chance
's arms, floating in the afterglow of awesome marital sex and the first truly wonderful day I'd had in a long time. My wedding dress was puddled in a heap on the floor of an incredibly ritzy hotel room. Chance's yellow tie was draped over a potted ficus tree in the corner. I was spending my first night as Mrs. Atkins wearing nothing but a huge grin and a gorgeous cat's eye aquamarine.

"
Did you see the way Julian and Betty hit it off?" Chance asked, absently playing with one of the rosebuds that had fallen out of my hair.

"
No!" I crowed. "Are you serious?" Julian had opted to come back to Vegas for the wedding instead of leaving his safehouse for his boring old room at Restful Pines. Betty had been there already, a part of the surprise entourage.

"
Yup," he chuckled. "Your mom told me the last she saw him, he was climbing on to the back of Betty's Harley."

"That is so perfect." I giggled.  "I didn't even notice them. I was too busy watching Nate trip over his own crutches trying to impress Angela."

Chance rolled his eyes.
"And speaking of tripping over things…"

"
Hey, that wasn't a trip! You stepped on my foot—"

"
Did not. You slipped on the cord to the sound system."

"
—and if the Elvis preacher hadn't caught me, I'd have been sitting in our wedding cake!"

"
Did you pull your stitches loose?"

"
No, they're fine."

"
Are you sure? I'd better check, just in case."

I laughed breathlessly as he tugged the sheet down and started kissing a path downward between my breasts, his breath hot on my sensitized skin.
"Now that you mention it, it does ache a little—" I gasped as he licked my sweet spot.

"
That's not my thigh," I chided.

He bit gently and I yelped and grabbed his shoulders, digging in my nails, my hips jerking upward. Within seconds, the teasing stroke of his tongue had brought me racing to the edge of another orgasm.

"Inside me, now," I commanded.

"
You sure are a bossy broad, Mrs. Atkins," Chance huskily, moving to my side and leaning back against the headboard. I'm afraid
my
stitches are pulling a little, though, so you're going to have to come over here and sit on my lap. Wrap your legs around my waist," he ordered.

My legs were almost shaking too badly to comply
and the injured one ached fiercely, but it was worth the effort to lower myself down to his straining hardness. I hooked my ankles behind his back and his hands gripped my hips to hold them still as he shifted his own upward, slowly, millimeter by millimeter, pushing deeper until he was fully embedded in my heat. I tried to rock back to take him further, make him move faster, but he held me tighter, stilling my frantic movements.

He captured my lips with his own firm, warm ones, flicking his tongue in and out in time with his gentle thrusts.
"I love you, Lucky," he groaned. His fingers slipped between our sweat-soaked bodies until he found the hard little bud of sensation that was currently the center of my universe. The callused tip of his finger moved in slow circles that intensified the unbearable tension in my body until I peaked, coming in waves, my contracting inner muscles drawing out his own climax. He poured himself into me on a long sigh, still kissing me deeply. Drained, I let my head fall onto his shoulder, and he lowered me back onto the mattress. An aftershock of pleasure throbbed as he slipped free of me.

Floating in a smoky haze of fulfillment, I vaguely heard the rattle of a pill bottle.
"Come on, Lucky," Chance said, softly shaking my shoulder. "Tylenol 500's all around. You'll thank me in the morning."

We washed them down with sparkling white grape juice and another piece of chocolate wedding cake and then I fell asleep, wrapped securely in Chance
's arms with his deep and even breathing soft and reassuring at the nape of my neck.

Chapter 43

We stayed holed up in the hotel room for another four days, alternately sleeping and ordering room service and making love until we were too tired to move and had to start the whole process again. Chance and I finally emerged on the fifth day, when Angela called and told us to meet her in the restaurant downstairs for dinner and a wedding gift.

"
Does this mean you're off the clock?" I asked when I saw her in the lobby, her killer curves sheathed in a short, painted-on black dress with crimson stiletto heels. Her hair was loose and curling down her back, and she was rummaging around in a matching red shoulder bag.

She smiled at me, dark eyes sparkling.
"Maybe I have a hot date later."

"
Woohoo! Is it Nate?" I asked.

She scowled.
"Hell no, he is the last man on this earth I'd hook up with. He's still hung up on someone else." The irritation on her face cleared as she came up with a ring of keys on a Marilyn Monroe keychain. "Voila."

I recognized them immediately
and wanted to jump up on the table and dance. "The Roadmaster!"

"
Yes ma'am. The FBI even had her washed and detailed as a little token of thanks for your part in bringing down the bad guy. Half the guys in the field office put in on a pool to see who got to drive it. I won," she grinned charmingly. "Bribed the office manager into picking my name. Best fifty I ever spent. That car is a dream."

"
Don't ever say the FBI didn't do anything for you," Chance told me with a smile. "A wash
and
a detail?"

Over dinner, Chance and I decided to check out the next day and start driving back to
ward Kalamazoo to settle things up there, but taking a meandering route through Alabama to see his mom, Kentucky to check on things at his horse farm, and then Ohio to visit his brother and sister, maybe even with a crazy jump over to Iowa at some point see R.J. I'd already called him to make sure he was doing okay, but I thought it would be fun to get that cup of coffee he'd promised us. We figured we'd make it an extended honeymoon, taking our time, splitting stays between fancy hotels, cozy bed and breakfasts and occasional nights in the Boles Aero at out of the way campgrounds. We'd have some much-needed alone time and, hopefully, in the meantime the media circus would move on to another freakshow.

Later, I was glad we got the visit with his mom out of the way first. Chance was still pretty tight-lipped about his home life as a kid, but I thought I knew enough about him to guess his relationship with his mom. I was wrong. 

Chance
's dad was currently a guest of the county, courtesy of his sixth DUI in as many months, so we didn't have to worry about running into him when we showed up in front of his parents' singlewide, situated on a scraggly plot of land about an hour outside of Mobile.

We pulled in the drive and Chance shut the engine off, staring distantly at a screen that had fallen off one of the windows and was resting against the front corner of the trailer. It probably had happened a while ago, judging by the weeds that had grown up around it. The yard was a mass of them, almost hiding the chained-up, overweight basset hound that was sprawl
ed out on his fat belly. He gave a half-hearted woof as we approached, but didn't trouble himself enough to actually struggle to his feet.

"
Some guard dog," I joked.

Chance just grunted, climbing the rickety front porch and knocking on the screen door.

I plucked self-consciously at the sleeveless, full-skirted white summer dress I was wearing with its lattice print of fat purple cabbage roses. It was one of my favorites that I'd bought in a whirlwind shopping trip with Addy before we'd left Las Vegas, and it had seemed like a perfect "meeting the mother-in-law" dress when I'd put it on this morning, but now I felt tacky and overdressed, like I was showing off or something. Oh, well, I had to wear it while I could. The waist was already fitting more snugly than the first time I wore it.

"
You look good," Chance murmured, taking my hand. "Mom won't notice what you're wearing anyway." His smile was forced and a little ball of dread formed in my stomach.

The front door opened with a loud crack, making me jump. A pale, gaunt woman
smiled up tentatively at Chance for a moment. Then her eyes flicked to me and back to Chance, and her face slid back into a sullen frown.

"
Jesus, Chance," his mom muttered. "I thought you were Lee. Well, you might as well come in." With that gracious invitation, she let the door swing open the rest of the way, turned her back on us and walked inside.

"
We won't stay long," Chance said in a low voice, his back stiff as I followed him in. I wasn't sure if he was reassuring me or his mom.

I came here prepared to be
openminded, knowing what little I did about Chance's parents, but I was starting to really not like Tricia Atkins. She seemed to like Chance even less. She had flicked off the TV and was standing there watching him with an unfriendly look on her face, ignoring me. Rude. My annoyance with her ticked up a notch and without waiting to be asked, I plopped down on her threadbare orange couch. A little puff of dust rose up.

"
I told you last time you came here that we didn't need anything from you." Tricia's voice cracked whip-sharp in the stifling air of the trailer. "So why don't you take your fancy-ass girlfriend and get going."

"
I wanted to check up on you. I heard he was in jail again." Chance sighed and sank down on the couch next to me, hands on his knees. "Mom, this place is falling apart. I can get you into something nicer than this. A little cabin, or—"

"
You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Her face, already older than her years, twisted, the lines of dissatisfaction etching deeper. "Still trying to make up for betraying me and your daddy all those years ago."

Instead of snapping back at her, Chance just stared back stonily. This was obviously an old argument.
"I was 11 years-old," he said evenly. "He was drunk and had beaten the shit out of you, belted Aaron one and started on Jessica."

My stomach clenched. His brother would have been nine, and his sister only six.

Tricia's face went mutinous. "You were a kid," she sneered. "You had no idea what was going on. The way I remember it, you made up some bullcrap story and told that social worker we beat you, when you were really just a messed up little delinquent who attacked his daddy for no gawdamned reason."

Suddenly, it clicked. I remembered the summer Chance stayed with us for a few weeks. I didn
't think anything of it at the time, since he was always over at our house anyway, but that summer stuck in my mind. Because when he'd arrived, he had a broken nose, two black eyes and a cast on his arm. I remember feeling bad for him because my mom had to tie a plastic bread bag around it when she'd take us to Lake Michigan and the cast hadn't come off until the last week before school.

I shot up off the couch like I
'd been stung by a wasp. "You're talking about the summer Chance broke his arm?" I demanded.

Tricia looked at me in vague surprise, like she
'd forgotten I was there. "So?" she asked belligerently.

"
Hey," Chance said, getting up and putting a hand on my shoulder. "Sit down, Tiger. Not your battle." I shook him off and took another step forward, getting right up in his mother's face.

"
You're telling me that your sorry, lowlife, drunk ass husband broke a little boy's arm when he was defending you and you're sitting here still punishing him for it?" My pulse pounded in my ears and I felt lightheaded with anger.

Tricia took a wary step back.
"Who the hell are you?"

"
I'm Lucky. Chance's
wife
. The person who loves him more than anyone else on this planet. And I'll tell you who you are. You are a sad, pathetic woman who doesn't deserve a son like him. I am proud to say that he'll be the father of my children, because I know he'll love me and protect me, just like he's always loved and protected you and everyone else he cares about." Tears threatened. Damned hormones.

"
I'm going to have his babies, and if you ever want to see your grandchildren, you'd better do some honest-to-God soul searching, because, lady, as it stands now, I don't want you anywhere near my family, you bitter, deluded old wench." On that grand exit line, I headed for the door. You could take my lottery winnings away and I still wouldn't stay in that house for another minute.

A few moments later, I was sitting in the Roadmaster, mortified, picking apart everything I
'd said to Chance's mom. I mean, who called their new mother-in-law a
wench
? Who called anyone a wench anymore outside of a Renaissance fair?

Chance finally came out, heading over to wrestle the window screen free from its overgrown prison. He fiddled with the fasteners and had it back in place in a few moments. He didn
't look mad but I still got nervous when he finished up and started for the passenger seat, where I was sitting instead, of heading for the driver's side. He opened my door and pulled me out.