VA 2 - Blood Jewel (12 page)

I tensed as I waited to hear the
verdict. I knew Anna was on our side, but Grady was a tougher nut
to crack since he was still angry at me for hurting Chansey when I
left.

“I need to speak with Curry alone
for a minute,” Grady requested. Chansey and Anna didn’t make a move
and he said, “Go on, now.”

I nodded at Chansey, letting her
know I was fine with Grady’s request to speak to me alone. “We’ll
be inside in a minute.”

When Anna and Chansey were inside
the house, Grady motioned for me to sit in the same spot in the
garden where I confided in him about my first argument with
Chansey. He took the seat next to me and asked, “I’m Chansey’s
granddaddy, but I’m responsible for taking the place of her daddy
since he isn’t here and he would want me to make sure you were
right for her.”

“I completely understand, sir.
Please, ask me anything you feel is necessary,” I
offered.

My interrogation began by Grady
asking, “You really love my girl?”

He watched my face for any sign of
falter and I honestly replied, “With all of my heart and
soul.”

He seemed pleased by my words of
affection for Chansey and asked, “How will you take care of her
financially?”

“Although my truck might not give
you the impression, I’m quite wealthy and I can assure you that
Chansey will never want for anything I can’t give her. She’ll never
have to work if she doesn’t want to, but I don’t have a problem
with her finishing her degree in education and teaching if she
wants to do that. It’s up to her.”

I clearly saw I was passing his
test, but I could tell he had saved the best for last. “Chansey
wants children. Probably several of them if she had her way. How do
you feel about that?”

I swallowed hard before I answered
Grady, but not because I was about to lie. It was because I knew I
wouldn’t be giving Chansey any children at all. “I would love for
us to have several children.”

I would give Chansey as many babies
as she wanted if I were able, but it was impossible because life
couldn’t originate from death. She accepted being forever childless
because it was her sacrifice for being with me, but I couldn’t help
myself from wondering if she would one day hate me for taking that
opportunity away from her.

“I know Chansey loves you because
I saw how hurt she was when you left.”

His words reminded me of the pain I
had caused her and although I hated the reminder, I deserved it.
“You never have to worry about me leaving Chansey again, sir. I
learned my lesson the hard way.”

“I trust she would not have
accepted your marriage proposal if it wasn’t what she wanted. She’s
a very good judge of character, so I’m giving you my
blessing.”

I breathed a sigh of relief because
Grady didn’t make that easy on me. I offered my hand and he shook
it firmly as I said, “You won’t be sorry, Mr. Emerson.”

“I better not be or you’ll have
Anna to answer to.”

≈ ≈ ≈

After we spent a few hours playing
catch up with Anna and Grady, I returned to my former apartment in
the basement and unpacked the few things I would need during my
brief stay at Grady and Anna’s while Chansey spent some time with
them.

In the basement, I could hear her
explaining away about meeting the friends I considered family since
I had none and her voice was full of love and appreciation as she
told Anna about Gia and Lairah’s generous offer to help her with
the wedding.

I wanted her to spend as much time
as possible with them since we would be leaving for an undetermined
amount of time at the end of the week. She loved Grady and Anna so
much and I hated the thought of taking her away from them. I felt
so guilty about it, but I would do it because it was the only way
to keep all of them safe.

We didn’t belong in Savannah and I
knew Chansey didn’t want to go. We belonged in New Orleans so
Chansey could be close to friends and family. We had our lives
worked out perfectly until Marsala ruined everything for
us.

While Chansey was upstairs, I
decided to get online and make other plans for our honeymoon. We
didn’t have time to get passports, but the perk of being a vampire
was that I could convince everyone we didn’t need them if we
traveled somewhere that required them.

I couldn’t find vacancies in
Tahiti, but I got lucky and was able to book last minute
reservations at a luxury resort in The Bahamas. I wasn’t ready to
drop the idea of spending our wedding night in a bed and breakfast,
so I went in the opposite direction of New Orleans. I chose a
quaint B&B in Mobile and would drive over this week and make
arrangements with the owners.

I heard a light knock at the door
and knew it could only be Chansey, so I closed my laptop to hide
our surprise honeymoon before I let her inside. When I opened the
door, she leaned against the doorframe, biting her lower lip. “What
cha doin’ down here all by yourself?

“Wishing I wasn’t down here all by
myself.”

She smiled mischievously and
stepped inside to put her arms around my neck. “Well, then I must
be your genie in a bottle because I just made your wish come
true.”

I shook my head at her. “Nuh-uh.
You haven’t yet, but we have the rest of our lives for you to
try.”

“I’m more than glad to start
trying right now,” she informed me.

There is was...her intoxicating
scent calling me to her. What if I did take her right now? What if
I grabbed her from where she stood and carried her to the bedroom
and gave in to what we both so clearly wanted? It couldn’t be wrong
if it was what we both wanted, right?

I recognized my old self-pleasing
vampire thinking and turned it off like a switch. “Six days until
you are my wife. After that, you may do whatever you want to me.
What’s mine is yours, remember?” I reminded her.

She walked past me and sat on the
sectional. “I’ve waited 22 years for you, so I guess I can wait six
more days,” she reasoned.

“I waited a little longer than 22
years for you, so I think you can make it if I can,” I reminded her
as I sat next to her.

She leaned toward me for a kiss.
“Not my fault you’re older than dirt,” she laughed. I could still
feel her lips curl into a smile as she gently placed them against
mine, but they didn’t stay like that for long because they became a
little too eager as they left my mouth and began to trail down my
neck.

I gently pulled away and said,
“Hey, you shouldn’t disrespect your elders like that.”

She leaned back and looked at me
with a raised eyebrow. “We’re in trouble if you think this is
disrespect. I haven’t even begun to disrespect you the way I plan
to.”

She didn’t play fair at all. “No, I
was talking about you calling me older than dirt.”

“So, I can’t put that in my vows?
I promise to love, honor and cherish you even if you are old as
dirt?”

We had a wedding in six days and I
hadn’t given any thought to our vows. What kind of husband did that
make me? “Do you want us to write our own vows?”

“We are somewhat of a unique pair.
I think our vows should be, also. What do you think?” she
asked.

I didn’t need to think it over
because I totally agreed with her. “You’re right. Ordinary vows
alone would never cover what we will be pledging to each
another.”

“I’m going to be busy the next
several days and you probably won’t see much of me,” she warned. “I
have to go dress shopping and see to some of the arrangements. Gia
and Lairah are doing most of it over the phone and online for me,
but I don’t feel right about them doing it all. I appreciate their
help, but it’s our wedding and some things I want to take care of
myself.”

I reached into my back pocket and
pulled out my wallet. I didn’t know if she would have trouble using
one of my credit cards so I handed her a stack of cash. She opened
her mouth to protest and I placed my finger to her lips. “Don’t say
a word about not taking my money. You are mine to care for and this
is part of the way I do that.”

I pulled her closely to hug her. “I
know you’ll be busy this week and I completely understand. Do what
you need to do this week with the wedding and spend as much time as
you can with your grandparents. We have the rest of our lives to be
together.”

She scooted closer. “Have I told
you how wonderful you are and how much I love you?”

I laughed and said, “Umm, not in
the last four hours.”

She leaned her head back to look up
at me. “You are amazing and I can’t tell you how much I truly love
you.”

I kissed her on her forehead. “You
better be finding a way soon if we’re writing our own
vows.”

≈ ≈ ≈

The days flew and each one behind
me brought me closer to becoming Chansey’s husband. I sat on my
sectional with a pen and pad each one of those days and tried to
write my vows, but I was experiencing a severe case of writer’s
block. Nothing could be clearer to me than my love for Chansey, but
I wasn’t able to find the words to express the depth of my love for
her.

There was a knock at my door and I
opened it to find all of my family members on the other side. “The
whole crew has arrived. It’s time to party.”

“I can’t believe you’re all here.
Why didn’t you call to tell me you were coming?”

“We wanted to surprise you,”
Chansey said from the back of the crowd. “I knew you were
disappointed when you thought they wouldn’t be at our wedding, so I
moved the time back so they could all be there.”

I kissed her forehead and said,
“You are phenomenal.”

“Yeah, I sort of am,” she laughed.
“But it’s your wedding, too. There’s no way we could do it without
our family there. The humans will just have to get over the late
ceremony. It’s our wedding, so they’ll just have to think we’re
weird. I don’t care.”

We visited with our family for a
while, but they didn’t stay long because Chansey and I still had
last minute details we were sorting out about the wedding. “How are
you coming with your vows?” I asked.

“I wrote them the first night we
were back from New Orleans. How are yours coming?”

I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t
have the first word, yet. “I’m still working on them.”

She saw my troubled face. “Are you
having a hard time with them?”

“A little bit,” I
admitted.

She rubbed her hands up and down my
arms. “Take a deep breath and relax. Don’t try to write fancy words
to woo people. Pretend it’s only the two of us and say the things
you want me to know. This is about you and me. Forget about
everyone else.”

I felt a sense of calm and relief
wash over me in a way only Chansey could make me feel. “Two more
days. Can you believe it?”

“I can hardly wait,” she squealed.
“Since we have to leave Pascagoula, are we driving to The Savannah
Compound after the wedding?”

I grinned and said, “Nope. We’ll be
in Savannah soon enough. We’re going to get away from all of this
craziness for a couple of weeks so we can just have a little
fun.”

“Yay! Are you going to tell me
where you’re taking me?” she quizzed.

I thought about leaving her in the
complete dark about honeymoon, but then I thought about how well
she would take that and decided against the idea. “You told me that
you wanted me to take you somewhere tropical on our honeymoon, so
you better pack a swimsuit because you’re getting your way, but
that’s all I’m telling you about it.”

Her face was full of anticipation.
“I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere special because I didn’t think
you would be able to book anything on such short
notice.”

I thought of how I surprisingly was
able to book the reservation to the honeymoon suite that someone
has just canceled. “This place sort of landed in my lap, so I guess
it’s destiny for us to spend our honeymoon there.”

“Destiny seems to have a way of
finding itself into our lives, doesn’t it?”

“It’s done a pretty good job of
bringing us together, so far,” I agreed.

10 Forever Times Infinity

Friday arrived and we did a very
brief rehearsal that night with the pastor and our two members of
the wedding party, Shelby and Solomon.

Sol was acting weird with Shelby
before and during the rehearsal and I didn’t know what to think
about it. He flirted shamelessly with her the way a human would and
touched her even when the opportunity didn’t present
itself.

At one point, Chansey turned to me
and gave me that WTH look and all I could do was shrug in answer. I
didn’t know what was going on, but I intended on finding out as
soon as possible.

The rehearsal was over quickly
because our ceremony was going to be very simple and Sol suggested
we go out together as a foursome. Shelby was obviously thrilled
with the attention Sol was giving her and I couldn’t wait to get
him alone so I could find out what he was up to.