Mother of the Bride (52 page)

Starting right now, Noah decided, as he stepped around Jolie and headed toward Lindsay.

“You hang on to him, Jolie!” The angry voice roared out of the crowd again. “That's the no-good feller what lured my Sassy!”

Lindsay spun away from Noah, spread her hands on the railing and peered over it. Noah followed her gaze and saw a tall, bony old fart pushing his way through the crowd toward the stairs with a doughy, white-haired woman wearing gold round-rimmed glasses—Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfrre— pulling on his arm.

“Is that Lucille?” Noah asked Jolie.

“No. That's Aunt Dovey.”

“Where's Lucille?” Noah scanned the crowd. “And who is Sassy?”

“My other aunt. The one who showed you up to my office.”

“The scrawny little redhead who propositioned me?”

“That's Aunt Sassy. She's Uncle Ezra's wife, and he's the jealous type.” Jolie clamped her hands on Noah's arm and yanked. He held his ground. “I mean it, Noah. You don't want to tangle with Uncle Ezra.”

“What's he gonna do?” Noah snorted. “Shoot me?”

The old fart gave Mrs. Doubtfire a shove, reached the stairs and sprang up them, the angry scowl on his face fixed on Noah. Lindsay wheeled off the gallery to intercept him. Noah went after her, Jolie dragging at him like an anchor until he shrugged her off.

“Lindsay!”
Jolie shouted.

Lindsay whipped around and saw Noah, glanced at Uncle Ezra, then at Noah again, and came up two steps to meet him.

“I'll handle this,” she said, looking him in the chest, not the eye.

“Handle what?” Noah asked.

Over the top of Lindsay's head, he saw the old fart open his tweed coat and reach for— a shotgun. Jesus Christ. The crazy old coot had a shotgun in his coat. He pulled it out and kept coming up the stairs.

“Meet Lucille,” Jolie said behind Noah.

The crowd was still cheering and clapping. Did they think this was part of the show? Or had Lindsay and Jolie's mother, Vivienne, the sneaky bitch, arranged all this just to get him shot?

Uncle Ezra stopped a few steps shy of the landing, raised Lucille to his shoulder and pointed her single barrel straight at Noah—and at Lindsay as she turned around to face him. Noah flung himself at her, swept his arms around her and dragged her to the floor.

They hit the gallery with a thump. Nose to nose and out of breath with Lindsay partially on top of him. A happy accident that gave him a pulse-thudding feel of her curved-in-all-the-right-places body. Her eyes were a wonderful shade of blue, like the Pacific on a calm day. Wide-open and startled like her mouth.

What a mouth. Pink and lush. The most kissable mouth he'd been this close to in years, so he kissed her. Nothing fancy. Just a hi-there-long-time-no-remember brush of his lips. He expected her to recoil, but all she did was blink. Once, slowly. As if she shut her eyes and opened them again, he'd be gone. Like a bad dream.

“Noah,” she said, her voice stunned and breathless. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving you from being shot by your lunatic uncle Ezra.”

“Lucille isn't loaded.” Lindsay's luscious pink mouth firmed into a frown. “She's never loaded.”

“So much for being a hero.” Noah flashed his best TV heartthrob smile. “Then I guess I stopped by to see if you'd care to pick up where we left off.”

“Did you?” Linday's Pacific blue eyes darkened like a storm at sea, then she doubled her fist and punched him in the nose.