By the time her dad knocked on the door and said they were ready, Shayla had a massive headache.
The wedding ceremony passed in a stomach-churning blur. Despite his promise, Rory kept making eyes at her whenever their gazes connected. She tried not to look at him, but he was in her line of vision and did everything he could to make sure she saw him. In addition she could feel her mother’s stare like an itch between her shoulder blades.
Her shoes pinched—she’d lost the battle over her boots—making her feet hurt. Just her rotten luck that she and her mother wore almost the same size and she’d had an extra pair of pumps in the car. There wasn’t enough time to drive to Kiesha’s and pick up the shoes matching her dress, so Shay wobbled down the aisle on three-inch stilettos, praying she wouldn’t fall and embarrass herself. Simply making it to the altar was a challenge. Flowers in one hand, dress in the other to prevent tripping over the hem, she kept her head lowered, watching the placement of her feet in the carpet in the candlelit church while valiantly ignoring her mother’s whispered hisses of, “Lift your head up, Shayla. Stop looking down.”
Despite her misery, she couldn’t help but smile when Alex bent Kiesha back over his arm for the kiss after they were pronounced man and wife.
The end was in sight. Alex escorted his new bride out of the church, the photographer snapping pictures the whole way. Then went Mary Elizabeth and her mate, a bear-shifter named Hugh. Shannon and some guy she didn’t know were next. Shay wondered where the vampire was. Still home in his casket? The sun was setting outside, so he should be rising soon.
Rory held out his arm, and she laid her hand on the sleeve, leaning a bit heavier than she wanted as she gathered her dress in the same hand that was holding her bouquet. He leaned close to her ear. “You okay?”
“Damn shoes are killing my feet,” she complained. She caught her mother giving them an appraising look out the corner of her eye and abruptly pulled away. Shay would have tipped over if Rory hadn’t caught her. “She’s watching,” she muttered out the side of her mouth.
“Who?”
“My mother. She’s matchmaking.”
He grinned. “With me?”
“It’s not funny,” she hissed. “Your sister and my cousin put her up to it. They were singing your praises. It was enough to make me sick.”
“Look at it this way. She won’t be upset when she finds out about me and the babe,” Rory stated.
She didn’t remember the aisle being this damn long. If she didn’t get out of these shoes soon, she was going to hurt someone. Finally they reached the exit and joined the rest of the wedding party in the reception line. Shay immediately stepped out of her heels.
She was bent over, rubbing the toes of her left foot, when her mother’s commanding voice rang out as she passed. “Shay, straighten up and put those shoes back on your feet.”
A growl slipped out as Shay glared at her mother’s retreating back.
“I heard that,” her mother called over her shoulder.
She muttered some very succinct curse words under her breath as she stuffed her abused feet back into the torture devices masquerading as shoes.
“You don’t have to put them on if they hurt,” Rory stated.
“Yeah, I do. I wouldn’t put it past her to come and check.” As much as Shay loved her mother, a little bit of her presence went a long way. Now she remembered why they hadn’t seen each other in a year.
As soon as the last person cleared the line, Kiyona went into drill sergeant mode. “You there, clear the area. It’s time for pictures.”
Rory whistled under his breath. “Your mother’s something else.”
“Right now I wish she were somewhere else.”
Kiyona got a few startled glances, but everyone obediently moved off the steps. Then came the poses. The bride and groom. The groom with his parents. The couple with his parents. The couple with Shay’s mother and father. The bride with her bridesmaids. The groom with the groomsmen. It went on and on, in every combination possible.
“All right, everybody back in the church,” Kiyona ordered.
They trooped back inside, the beleaguered photographer having lost control long ago, if he ever had it. Everything was repeated. Shayla knew she’d be seeing cameras flash in her nightmares.
“Shayla, the man said smile! That is not a smile.”
Shay told Shannon through clenched teeth, “I’ll kill her. You eat her. No body, no evidence.”
“But lots of witnesses,” Shannon reminded her.
“They won’t tell. Hell, they might even help.”
Just when she was tempted to make good on her threat, her father came to the rescue. “Okay, that’s enough. I’m sure the kids are tired and hungry and so am I. They’ve been at it an hour. The guests are waiting.”
Thanks, Dad, she mouthed.
He winked in return.
Everyone, including the photographer, heaved a sigh of relief as he led her mother off. Shayla promptly came out of her heels, and she noticed Mary Elizabeth and Kiesha doing the same.
“Don’t your feet hurt?” she asked Shannon.
Shannon held up the hem of her dress, revealing the dainty, slipperlike flats she wore.
“Bitch,” Shayla groused.
“And proud of it,” Shannon responded.
“You know, agreeing with me just takes all the fun out of insulting you,” she complained. Right then her stomach growled loudly.
Rory was suddenly by her side. He put a hand under her elbow. “Come on, let’s go get you fed.”
“Wait, let me grab my shoes,” she protested as he tugged, pulling her along behind him.
Rory went back and scooped them up. “You riding?” he asked his sister.
The reception was being held at a nearby community center. “I drove,” Shannon answered.
“We’ll see you there.” He rushed Shay out of the church.
At the top of the stairs, Shay pulled on his arm. “Stop. Give me my shoes. I’m not walking on that with bare feet.” That was the pebbled driveway leading to the front of the church.
He didn’t even pause. Rory swung her into his arms and kept walking.
“Put me down. My parents…”
“Will just have to deal.”
Shay subsided. It’s not like she wanted to walk anyway, not with the way her toes were throbbing.
“I can’t believe you wore those things,” he continued angrily.
“My mother made me.”
He glanced down at her in surprise. “Do you always do what she tells you?”
“No, but I didn’t figure Kiesha’s wedding was the time to get into it with her.”
He grunted in reply. His ground-eating stride rapidly ate up the distance to the truck. Rory opened the passenger door and set her on the seat. Before she could slide around, he reached down and massaged the toes and arch of her left foot. Shay fell back onto her elbows as a moan of pure pleasure left her lips. “God, that feels good.”
“Aren’t you supposed to have on stockings or something with those shoes?”
“I didn’t have any. I was supposed to be wearing my boots. The heels wouldn’t fit with the socks I had on,” she stated wryly.
He switched feet, and Shay let her head relax back, staring up at the ceiling. Now that her appendages didn’t hurt so much, she realized she was getting nauseated. Her mouth filled with saliva, and she swallowed repeatedly.
“What’s wrong?”
It continually amazed her how attuned Rory was to her every nuance. “Stomach.”
His gaze sharpened. “It pains you?”
She shook her head. “Sick.”