Mother of the Bride (29 page)

Hate to interrupt while you're on a roll,
her little voice said.
But calling yourself a pushover and a peashooter ain't exactly standing tall.

“Oh shut up, you big-mouth know-it-all,” Cydney blurted, and winced as Gus swung around and glowered at her.

“Five minutes ago I was a rude, insensitive jerk.” He draped his left arm over the steering wheel and flipped his fingers at her. “Now I'm a big-mouth know-it-all. Am I moving up on your shit list or down?”

“I wasn't talking to you.” Why not? Cydney didn't care if it made her sound loony. “I was talking to this little voice I have that pipes up in my head every once in a while.”

“Well, at least you weren't talking to pictures of me.”

“It's a lot easier to talk to your picture than it is to talk to you.”

“At least I
try
to talk to you.” He straightened behind the wheel, took his foot off the brake and eased on the gas. The tires spun until the Jeep found its footing, then it crunched forward into the snow, blurring in the headlights, it was coming down so fast. “I've tried to talk to you about writing—since you claim to be a writer—but all you want to talk about is Aldo and Bebe and this damn wedding.”

“I do
not
—” Cydney stopped and thought about it. Well,
nuts. Bebe and Aldo were her only topic of conversation. Talk about obsessive.
And b-o-o-o-r-r-i-n-g,
her little voice tossed in. “If I'm so one-dimensional, why do you want to sleep with me?”

“Quite frankly—” He sighed and gave her a thank-God-I-came-out-of-my-coma blink. “I don't know that I want to anymore.”

“Good. I don't want to sleep with you, either,” Cydney replied coolly, amazed that she could sound so calm while her heart shattered. “I think it's an extremely bad idea.”

“Oh yeah?” He shot her an affronted, tight-lipped glare. “I thought it was a damned fine idea till you said you had no desire to see my balls.”

“You're incredible! How can you sit up straight with an ego that big and that bent out of shape?”

“This ain't ego. I've got the best-looking pair you'll
never
see.”

“Send me a picture. I'll pin it on my corkboard!”

Here we go again, sports fans,
her little voice said.
Off to the races.

Hotter, heavier and lots nastier than the first heat. Slinging names and insults while the wind howled, the snow swirled and somehow Gus managed to weave the Jeep around mountain-sized drifts, half trees, whole trees and huge broken chunks of trees fallen into the road.

In a dim back corner of her mind, one that wasn't hazed with anger and heartache, Cydney knew what she was doing— venting her crushed hero worship on Gus.
And who better?
her little voice asked. It felt so good to just scream and let it all out. She couldn't hurt him. He didn't love her. He just wanted to show off his balls and get laid.

Well, fine. They were sexually mature adults. Obviously not emotionally mature or they wouldn't be shrieking at each other like ten-year-olds on a playground, but it was just the two of them. No one would ever know. And no one would care if they ripped each other to bloody shreds.

What an empowering realization. Just this once, she could be as bitchy as Gwen, as selfish as her mother. As pouty and
shrill as Bebe, and get away with it because she wouldn't hurt anybody who loved her.

What a rush that gave her, almost as good as the first hot quiver of an orgasm. Which was probably as close as she was going to get to one tonight, so Cydney went for it, gathered up all her hostility and pent-up frustration—most of it sexual—and threw it in Gus' face.

He took it like a man. Every lousy, stinking thing she said to him and accused him of he hurled right back at her. It was wonderful. Exhilarating! Her face flushed and her blood pumped. Cydney wanted to laugh, but she was afraid it would break the mood.

By the time they reached the top of the bluff that swooped down to the entrance to Tall Pines, the veins in Gus' temples were pulsing. The Jeep nosed over the crest and lurched toward the ditch, the road ahead a vicious, glistening mess in the sweep of the headlights. Cydney could hear ice hissing against the windshield.

“Oh goddamned wonderful,” Gus cursed, steering furiously into the slide. “Now it's sleeting.”

“Be careful.” Cydney grabbed the dash, her fingers clammy. She hated ice. Four-wheel drive was useless on ice.

“Calm down. I'm not going to wreck your goddamn truck.”

“My goddamn truck is insured. I don't want you to kill yourself or me before Saturday. I want to live to see the look on your face when the minister pronounces Aldo and Bebe man and wife. Oh wo!” Cydney smacked her hand against her forehead. “We forgot the clergyman!”

“Here we are in the middle of a goddamn ice slide—” Gus gritted his teeth and wrenched the Jeep out of another slither “—and all you can think about is that goddamn wedding!”

“It's better than watching you drive! You steer
into
the slide.”

“I
am
steering into the slide!”

“You're
not,
or we wouldn't be sliding!”

“The whole damn road is solid ice!”

“No it isn't. There's a snowy spot right over there.”

“Oh for crissake! Do you wanna drive or just tell me how?”

“If you think you can pull over without putting us in a ditch—”

“I'd like to put you in a ditch,” Gus muttered.

“I heard that!”

Somehow, with all four wheels locked and skidding on the ice, Gus skated the Jeep down the long, curved slope. At the entrance to Tall Pines he stepped on the gas and sent the Jeep plowing through the grill-deep drift that had blown over and buried the lip of his driveway, shooting plumes of snow out from under the front fenders.

Cydney sighed with relief and glanced at the dash clock— 11:15. It said 8:30 the last time she'd looked at it in Branson. A trip that should have taken an hour had taken almost three. No wonder she felt like every bone in her body had been stretched and snapped back into place.

“Whew.” Gus blew out a breath. “I don't want to do that again soon.”

Cydney couldn't imagine how he'd done it period. She peered into the sleety darkness at the snow-crusted hardwoods and ice-tipped pines slumping over the split rails edging the drive. Ice pellets skittered across the windshield and she shivered. “Great job,” she told him.

“Be quiet.” Gus steered the Jeep up the first grade, the tires slipping on the glazed-over snow. “It's a long way up and we stand a better chance of getting to the top if I don't have to fight the urge to pull over and stuff a snowball in your mouth.”

“That was a compliment. I
meant
it.”

“Oh I
know
you meant it.”

“No. I
really
meant it.”

“So did I.” He scowled at her and swung the Jeep around a blue spruce that had toppled into the drive smack in the middle of the first switchback. The wheels bumped over its buried-in-snow crown, spun a little but dug in and churned the Jeep up the second grade. “Be quiet.”

“You can't order me to shut up in my own truck.”

“Yes I can. I'm trying to drive over here.”

“Trying
is the operative word.”

“I mean it, Cydney.” He steered the Jeep through the second switchback, the wheels spinning and the back end fishtailing all the way through the glassed-over curve. “Put a sock in it.”

“So you drive and I'll yell. Sounds fair to me.”

“That's it!” Halfway up the third grade, the last and the steepest, he slammed on the brake and shoved the gearshift toward park.

“What are you doing?” Gus ignored her, pushed his door open and bailed out of the Jeep. Cydney sucked a mouthful of sleet and frigid air and ducked her chin in the cowl of her sweater. “Where are you going?”

He swung around, his dark hair already dusted with ice crystals, and squinted a glare at her through the driving sleet.

“To make a snowball!” he shouted, and slammed the door.

Cydney gaped at him through the window. She couldn't believe he was actually doing this. She watched him grab the side mirror and use it to pull himself toward the front end. He made it and picked his way around the hood toward a snowdrift on the edge of the drive.

A nice fluffy drift full of heavy, wet snow that would pack down great into a big fat snowball that would probably choke her. If she were dumb enough to just sit here and let him cram it down her throat—which she wasn't. She was dumb enough—and mad enough—to unclip her seat belt, shove her door open and follow Gus out into the blizzard.

The wind snatched her breath, the sleet stuck her eyelashes together. She wiped them with her sleeve and saw Gus, leaning one hand on the snowy hood, making his way toward her. Cydney edged forward, slipped and grabbed the side mirror, the ice-encased chrome burning her bare hand. She thought she heard metal groan, thought she felt the Jeep move. Her head spun and her stomach clutched, but the sensation passed and she told herself it was only the wind howling in her ears. She clutched the mirror and skated up
the side of the Jeep on her slick, rubber-soled Keds. She met Gus at the right front fender, her teeth chattering and her nose already frozen.

“Get back in the truck!” he shouted. “You'll freeze!”

“We'll both freeze! I'll shut up, I promise!”

“Too late!” He bent down and scooped up a handful of snow.

Cydney yelped and dove out of the way. Gus came up with a glob of snow, slipped and nearly fell. They both grabbed the Jeep and pushed off its nose at the same time—Cydney to propel herself and Gus to stay on his feet. Which Cydney managed to do until she slid on the ice and fell headfirst into the snowdrift.

She landed hung over the fence, the air knocked out of her lungs and that weird metallic groan in her ears again. She twisted around and stared, openmouthed, at the Jeep sliding slowly backwards away from her, snow and ice crunching beneath its tires.

“My truckl”
Cydney shrieked, stretching a hand toward it.

Gus grabbed her and yanked her out of the way. She stumbled against him, wrenched around and watched the Jeep slide down the grade, crash through the split-rail fence and slam into a gnarled oak that snapped in half and collapsed onto the roof, showering her with a spray of ice. Cydney spat snow out of her mouth, blinked it out of her eyes and stared at her Jeep, the right side of the roof cleaved and crushed beneath the tree. The windshield was shattered but the engine was still running. Exhaust snaked from the tailpipe.

“My truck,” she whimpered, stiff-lipped with cold.

“Stay here.” Gus stepped around her and slid down the hill, caught himself on the side mirror and opened the driver's door.

He leaned inside and turned off the engine, shut the door and started back to her with the bags of beef and broccoli. He slogged up the edge of the drive where the snow gave him traction, in the navy suede hiking boots she'd brushed mud off of the other night. He stopped in front of her and held out
her keys. She closed them, still warm from hanging in the ignition, in her frostbitten fingers and looked up at Gus.

“How did that happen?”

“My fault.” He winced at her, his eyebrows spiky with ice. “The gearshift wasn't quite in park.”

Not quite in park. That meant reverse or neutral. Cydney sucked in a breath and hit him. Square in the rock hard, ripped gut she'd glimpsed when he'd keeled over in her dining room like the oak tree had just keeled over on her truck. She didn't hurt him—she was a peashooter, after all—but he made a surprised little “Oompf.”

“You wrecked my truck!”
she screamed over the wind.

“If you'd kept your mouth shut like I asked—”

“If you'd used the hand brake this wouldn't have happened!”

“If I'd locked your bedroom door
none
of this would've happened!”

“Exactly! It's all your fault!”

“I just said it was!”

“Well finally! We agree on something!”

The wind slapped her in the face as she spun away, and knocked her back into Gus. Cold as it was, she felt a seep of warmth from his body and wanted to stay there, pasted against him, while the blizzard howled around them.

“Take the bags,” he said in her ear, “and hang on to me.”

“I'drather
crawl.”

“Fine—then crawl!” He sidestepped her and strode past her, his cleated boots breaking the crust on the snow piled up along the drive.

She almost had to crawl to make headway against the sleet whipping her around like a wind sock. She could barely see, but she floundered behind Gus, following his tracks. The second time she fell flat on her butt with her legs splayed and a jolt of pain shooting up her tailbone, he wound his fist in the cowl of her sweater, hauled her up and dragged her— stumbling, falling and spluttering with fury—toward the house.

He dragged her all the way up the last wretchedly slick
grade in his 3.5-mile-long driveway. Dredging her up when she fell, tightening his grip like a vice when she slipped, ripping stitches out of her blazer until she could feel the back of it flapping in the wind. When they finally reached level ground, he towed her like a sled; Cydney clutching his arm, her breath coming in sobs, an icicle frozen to the tip of her nose.

Gus pulled her up the buried front steps and across the icy porch, kicked the front door open and pushed her inside. The frozen soles of her Keds melted on contact with the warm pegged-pine floor and stopped her like she'd hit a patch of Super Glue. She whipped around, her breasts heaving, as Gus followed her inside and gave the door a push.

It didn't quite latch and blew open. He turned around to give it a boot, swinging the wet, torn bags of Chinese food within Cydney's grasp. She grabbed them—and when Gus spun around—she threw them.

The cartons inside split and broke when the bags smacked him in the chest. His mouth fell open and he stared at the rice stuck in clumps to the front of his suede jacket, the congealed beef oozing down his jeans.

“That's what you get for wrecking my truck!” Cydney sobbed, so furious all she could do was cry. “And for dragging me up here like a—a bag of frozen hash browns!”