River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(9)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Ruthie stamped her foot and looked at Nan. "You just wait. You bet, too. She’ll get back at you, and I’m going to be the one smirking." She stalked off with an offended air while Nan and I watched.

Nan shook her head. "Some poor man is going to end up with her."

I laughed. "He’ll never know what he’s gotten himself into. Curt still thinks our mother is a sweet thing who needs his protection, and he’s perfectly happy about it." I remembered belatedly that I was supposed to be mad at her. I frowned. "Enough about Mom and Ruthie. You were going to tell me how you went from bet to surprise wedding."

"Well," she said, "like I said, it is your fault. When she saw how stressed you were getting about it, Mom offered to do the whole thing for you." She laughed at the look on my face. "I know. Terrifying thought, isn’t it? But you obviously weren’t going to enjoy planning it yourself, either."

She slanted a thoughtful look at Bran, who was talking animatedly with my stepfather. My stepfather was a dentist. Bran ruled werewolves. I didn’t want to know what they had in common to get that excited about.

"So, anyway, we started egging you on," Nan said, "just for fun–and the betting got just a little more serious. As soon as the money at stake got over twenty bucks, Mom’s competitive instincts overruled her motherly ones. The date Mom picked for your elopement was tomorrow. So she planned the butterfly-and-pigeon thing, but I guess about then she started feeling bad about robbing you of a real wedding. She decided to plan the wedding without you anyway. Which proves she must have a conscience, if a little underdeveloped. She enlisted Jesse as her woman on the ground and got this wedding together with her usual efficiency." Nan took a big swallow of alcoholic punch, and her eyes watered.

"I am so glad Todd and I eloped," she said sincerely. "There was no way to salvage the wreckage. But I think that you deserved this, and I’m very happy for you." She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. Then she whispered, "He is really, really a hottie. How did you manage that?"

"Brat," I told her, and gave her a hug. "Todd’s not exactly chopped liver."

She smiled smugly and took another sip. "No, he’s not."

"He could be," said Ben from behind me, his British accent giving him a civilized air that he didn’t deserve. "Do you want him to be chopped liver, darling?"

I turned, making sure I was between Ben and Nan. "My sisters are off-limits," I reminded him.

A flash of hurt came and went on his face. With Ben, it was even odds whether the emotion was genuine or not–but my instincts told me it had been. So I continued in a mock-chiding tone, "Ruthie is too young for you, and Nan is married to a very nice man. So be good."

Nan had caught the flash of hurt, too, I thought. She was softer than our mother, more like her father in temperament as well as looks. She couldn’t stand to have anyone hurting and not do anything about it.

She sighed dramatically. "All the pretty men, and I’m tied to just one."

Ben smiled at her. "Anytime you want to change that …"

I poked him in the side–he could have slipped out of the way, but he didn’t bother. "Okay," he said, backing away with exaggerated fear. "I’ll be good, I promise. Just don’t hurt me again."

He was loud enough that all the people around us looked at us.

Adam pushed his way through the pack and ruffled Ben’s hair as he went by him. "Behave, Ben."

The Ben I’d first met would have snarled and pulled away from the affectionate scold. This one grinned at me, and said, "Not if I can help it, I won’t," to Adam.

I liked Ben. But if I catch him alone in a room with Ruthie or Jesse, I will shoot him without hesitation. He’s better than he was when he first came to Adam’s pack, but he’s not safe. Some part of him still hates women, still looks upon us as prey. As long as that is true, he needs watching.

"I have someone I’d like you to meet," Adam told me, with a nod to Nan.

He took my hand and led me past the giant wedding cake. It was a beautiful thing of blue and white flowers and silver bells–and despite having been cut and served to everyone here, it was still huge. Someone else had ordered it for another wedding and hadn’t paid for it, which was the only way–Jesse had told me–that she’d managed the cake. Whoever had originally ordered it must have been planning a much bigger wedding than this one. I glanced at the crowded basement and tried to imagine a bigger wedding.

"Quick, now," Adam told me, and tugged me out the side door and up the back stairs. "We’re escaping."

We made it out to the parking lot without seeing anyone else. Adam’s truck, inexplicably attached to a huge goosenecked travel trailer that looked bigger than the mobile home I’d lived in until this winter, when the fairy queen burned it to the ground, awaited us, poised for a quick getaway.

"What’s the hurry?" I asked, as Adam boosted me in through the driver’s side, got in behind me, and started the truck before he had the door closed.

"Some of the fae have an odd idea of bride send-offs," he explained, as I wiggled over to the passenger seat and he guided the truck out of the parking lot, "including, according to Zee, kidnapping. We decided not to chance Bran’s feelings should such a thing happen, and Zee promised to run interference for us until we were off."

"I forgot about that." And I was appalled because I knew better. "Bran and Samuel are probably more of a danger than any of the fae," I told him. "Someday, I’ll tell you about some of the more spectacular wedding antics Samuel’s told me about." Some of them made kidnapping look mild.

I belted in, helped him to put on his own seat belt, and glanced behind us again. "In case you didn’t notice, there’s something very big stuck to the back of your truck."

He smiled at me, his eyes as clear and happy as I’d ever seen them. "And that’s my surprise. I told you I’d plan the honeymoon."

I blinked at the trailer. "Bring your own motel room along?" It loomed over us, taller than the truck–which was plenty tall on its own–taller and wider, too, with sections along the sides that were obviously intended to pop out. "I’m pretty sure it’s bigger than my old trailer."

Adam glanced over his shoulder and huffed a laugh. "I think it might be. This is the first I’ve seen of it. Peter and Honey took the truck and hitched it up."

"Is it yours?"

"No. I borrowed it."

"I hope we’re not going anywhere with little windy roads," I said. "Or small parking lots."