My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (2 page)

His hands soon found Odelia's face, and he cradled it as he stared into her eyes, speaking in a low, urgent tone and lobbying hard for his cause. "You and me are meant to be, 'Delia. What are the chances that we're both only children? You lost your momma on the same day and year I lost my daddy, we're even born on the same day, July twentyfirst, and just so happened to be at the same university at the same time from the same part of the world, graduating the same year, and both feeling things the way we do? We practically breathe the same breath . . . can finish each other's sentences. Girl, we have the same favorite color, sky blue, and like the same music, believe the same things, and both want to be together like nobody's business; what are the odds? Tell me this ain't meant to be." His argument was hard to deny as she stared into his eyes. They had a hypnotic quality to them that she'd seen before but just couldn't place. And the things his touch did to her body just didn't make any kinda sense. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a rush of breath exited where words failed. He pulled that same air into his mouth through his barely parted lips. Just seeing him do that made her nipples sting so sharply that she crushed her breasts against him, forcing him to wince and close his eyes.

"I know," she finally said, swallowing thickly as the ache sent slingshot spasms of desire between her thighs. "We're a perfect match."

He nodded. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. Can't nothing break us up."

"My people got Funny ways," she said, practically swooning as his palms slid up her arms until his fingers were able to tease the edge of her tank top. She could barely catch her breath while his fingertips danced beneath the straps and across the swell of breasts, but not daring to go beyond the fabric border.

"Mine do, too," he admitted in a rough whisper. "You wanna go to my place?

It's gonna rain."

She could only nod and gently stroke his cheek. He had no idea how serious funny ways could be. Her folks took the meaning to a whole new level. Yet he'd made the statement about the weather without even looking at the sky, just like her daddy always did. Heavyladen clouds had indeed formed, now pregnant with pending doom. Yes, it was gonna thunder and lightning and rain cats and dogs, and all hell was gonna break loose, once her family found out she was dating a McCoy.

But marry one?

Odelia almost cringed at the thought but kept her expression serene as she stared at him with love. They'd put the hoodoo on her Jefferson, would throw every conjure in the mojo book at him, just to get back at his Family For possessing the wrong gene pool and because of an old Hatfield versus McCoy land score unsettled. IF she slept with him, they'd
know.

"We can't go back to your place. . . . You know what's likely to happen if we do." It was all a conjangled web of spell versus counterspell. Her aunties had cast a conjure that only a legit marriage could shield. They'd promised her that they had from the moment she'd begun to bud with puberty . . . and the insidious roots that had been worked promised that if any boy went too far, he'd fall dead away. It was their insurance policy that she'd return to the fold, bring her dead momma's inheritance with her to add to the Hatfield larder, and work alongside them one day. She believed them; her aunties didn't play. She'd never tested the theory, until Jefferson McCoy made it hard not to. The way he was looking at her now made it next to impossible to hold the line, even For his own safety.

He kissed her again and didn't answer the charge. What could she do but kiss him back? There was no way to explain this nightmare. Determined to get away From all of that Family drama, she'd up and gone to college, hoping that root conjures had distance limits. But her daddy told her he'd redoubled his efforts and gone in with his sisters on that Frontto supposedly protect her virtue. She couldn't chance it, not the way she loved her Jeff.

"We're gonna get wet if we stay out here." Jefferson's voice was a quiet rumble, his gaze penetrating.

"I know," she whispered, already wetter than he could imagine. The slow trail his fingers made along the edge of her tank top was maddening. But she couldn't stop thinking about the few times they'd been alone, had come close, and the mysterious things that would always happen to break the mood and give them pause. A stove popping onflames on higha window slamming shut, pictures falling off the wall. . . yeah, Jefferson had ultimately come up with plausible explanations to calm her nerves, but to her mind, the virtue spell was in Full effect.

"I love you," she Finally said, and tried to put a bit more distance between their bodies, even while still in his embrace.

For a moment, he didn't answer. The look on his Face was that of a tortured man.

She expected the kiss that was coming, but instead he only swept her mouth, bent his neck, and spilled a series of hot, wet kisses along the edge of her tank top until she writhed.

"I love you, too," he said against her breast, and then captured a nipple between his lips and suckled it through her shirt.

He'd never touched her there before, had only held her arms, stroked her back, or caressed her face. No man had ever touched her secret places. The closest they'd gotten to that was hot friction on a sofa, their hands afraid to explore further. The sensation was exquisite; the gasp that escaped her was immediate. It made her fit herself against the hard length in his jeans and grind against it to staunch the sweet pain, even though her mind screamed for her not to.

But she couldn't pull away as his free hand cupped one tender, swollen lobe and then began to roll the distended tip of it between his fingers while his mouth played havoc with her will, wetting her tank top as it attended the other. Before she knew it, her top had been lifted to expose her bare flesh, and the sensation of his mouth against her skin put tears in her eyes. The word "don't" formed and fled on a whimper as he nuzzled the ache within her to fever pitch. Somehow her hand slipped between them on its own volition, touching a part of him she'd dared not before, and the sound that escaped him nearly buckled her knees.

Harsh kisses pelted her face as rain began to fall. A spell be damned, she couldn't hold out for a minister or a judge, nor could Jeff. They had all they neededeach other, privacy, a blanket, and a vow to marry. The intent was clear; today would be the day. Storm clouds would be their witness. There was no stopping love. She be

gan unfastening his jeans.

A bright flash of lightning, Followed by an instantaneous loud crack and heavy thunder, made them both stop, look at each other, and then jerk their attention toward the huge pine tree a hundred yards away that had been split clean in two.

"Shit . . . ," Jefferson murmured, and stepped back From her.

Odelia nodded, and Fixed her top. "It's a sign."

He nodded. "Baby, listen . . . there's something I need to talk to you about."

"I know," she said, her gaze flitting between him and the angry sky. It had eerily stopped raining, but the overhead threat was still very real. "I've gotta talk to you, too."

"How about if we talk about it in my hoopty on the way home?" he said, gathering up the blanket as she snatched up the basket of abandoned food.

"Ya think?"

Racing to the car, they both jumped into his rustedout white '87 Ford Tempo jalopy at the same time. They simultaneously turned to look at each other when Jefferson gunned the motor and another bolt of lightning struck the spot under the tree they'd just fled From.

"My
family," they both said in unison.

"You First," he said, peeling down the small gravel and dirt road.

"Uhuh. Not out here," she said, wiping her Face with both palms.

"Yours, too? That's all you gotta say."

She stared at him as he drove.
"Yours?"

"Yeah. Mine."

"They . . ."

"Yeahthey do all of that. Baby, I was hoping that all this stuff they always told us was really just a bunch of superstitious hocuspocus, but now I don't know. . . ."

Odelia glanced up at the sky again with Jefferson as he stepped on the accelerator. The sun had mysteriously come out. Their words were a quiet, unified confirmation embedded in a terrified whisper.

"Family roots."

To Odelia's mind, there was only one solution: call Nana Robinson. Her mother's mother wasn't a Hatfield and was a powerful woman in her own right. She had never accepted her youngest girl marrying a Hatfield and then dying way too young from a mysterious fever that claimed her the night of a horrible storm.

Odelia had only been a crib baby then, but the family oral history on the event was cloaked in whispers and murmurs.

Odelia sat in the car outside her apartment and kept a close watch on Jefferson's expression as she told him about her kin. To her surprise, the man only rubbed his palms down his Face and sighed, seeming weary, and then confessed the most outrageous set of circumstances, which eerily paralleled her own.

"So what are we gonna do?" she finally asked, relieved that her fiance didn't think she was crazy. She'd been fully prepared to slip the engagement ring off her Finger and return it.

"I need to go on ahead and meet your daddy, and do this the way men gotta do."

Odelia sat back in her seat. "Are you nuts? With
your
last name, you wanna go into Hatfield territory to meet
my
daddy
before
we get married?" She shook her head no.

,

"It's the only way. Can't stand another minute not being with you, girl. We gonna have to try to reason with our Folks, and you're eventually gonna have to meet my momma, too. That's all there is to itshe ain't no real McCoy, just upholds the traditions on account of the Fact that I got thirteen uncles that ain't to be trifled with."

Odelia closed her eyes and slumped back in the passenger's seat. "Can you see it now, Jefferson? My thirteen angry Hatfield aunts squaring off with your thirteen uncles, and all our cousins by blood at the same wedding? My daddy just goes along with the git along to keep the peace and to probably stay alive. But my aunt Effie ain't no joke."

"My uncle Rupert is the McCoy ringleader on my side. But we'll have all the Robinsons From your momma's side and all the Jones clan From my momma's side as a buffer. They'll all be there, since both me and you are the first ones graduating beyond high school on all Four sides. So, the way I see it, if I can get my momma's momma, Grandma Jo, to help us out'cause she ain't no McCoy but ain't no slouch, eithermaybe we can get through the ceremony. Who knows? Don't worry. My grandma still ain't square with the way my momma, her daughter, ran off to marry my daddy, a McCoy. We still don't know how or why lightning struck a tree that Fell on his car and killed him when I was two. I'm half scared to speculate, girl. Just trust me when I say, though, Grandma Jo got some juice, too."

This was a shaky plan; Odelia could Feel it in her bones. But there was no denying how badly she wanted to be with this man. Despite the Fear, her body still burned For him. It was all over his Face, too. Passion denied was a powerful lure.

"We do this together," he said, pressing his point when she'd taken too long to respond. "We go up to your apartment, and make the headsup calls... get a temporary truce in effect, so we can safely drive down home together. All right?"

"Okay," she said, hedging, "but how about if we don't drive
down there, have them come up here to campus, and throw the graduation partywedding reception right at the church on campus?"

"You got a point, 'Delia," he said, nodding. "Might be prudent to let Reverend Mitchell from down home coofficiate with Pastor Wise From up here, just to be on the safe side."

"Yup. You remember how it was back home: Hatfields on one side of that little church, and McCoys on the other. But if you cut out Reverend Mitchell, who knows how to deal with our kin, then that poor local pastor won't know what hit him."

"See, girl, we're on the same page," Jefferson said, opening his car door.

Odelia got out of the car, glancing around and wondering if she was missing her mind.

"What!" Nana Robinson shouted, Forcing Odelia to briefly remove the telephone receiver from her ear.

"Nana, I love him, and need"

"Chile, you go on and get that marriage license straightaway and book the church," her grandmother fussed. "You let me deal with one Ezekiel Hatfield, ornery SOB, even if he is yo' daddy. Serves him right; that ain't nuthin' but the Lord setting the record straight. Probably yo' momma up in heaven orchestrating yo' daddy's payback. So, don't you fret. Awe's having us a wedding, baby! I'll marshal up Opal Kay, you hear me? My sister can go up against all them Hatfield heifers who think they can conjure. My grandbaby girl done us all proud, gots her education, ain't brung us no babies home, ain't been out in the worl' fornicatin', and snagged herself a lawyaI don't care what his last name is. Humph! Plus, any monies due you by way of your momma's soul going on to glory by rights is

supposed
to stay with her chile, not them!"

"Thank you, Nana. I love you," was all Odelia could say as she watched Jefferson shift from foot to foot close by.

"I love you, too, baby," her nana said. "Stay strong. I'm calling in reinforcements. Byebye."

When the call disconnected, Odelia and Jefferson just stared at each other for a moment.

She handed him the cordless phone. "It's started. Nana just mounted up a war party."

He sighed and accepted the receiver from Odelia and then punched in the number he knew by heart. Growing impatient, he waited for the tenth ring, knowing that his grandmother didn't believe in technology, by way of an answering machine.

"Who dis here?" a surly elderly voice finally said once the call connected.

"Grandma Jo, it's your boy, Jefferson."

"Oh, my Lawd in heaven! Chile, whatchu doing calling this ole lady on the phone out of the blue, my Favorite grandbaby?"

Jefferson hesitated. "Grandma, I've got a problem."

Quiet Filled the line.

"Now, baby," the old woman said slowly, "you know Gawd don't put nuthin'