A Hollywood Shifters' Christmas: BBW Tiger Shifter Paranormal Romance (5 page)

But as he glanced at his tired friends who had both been hip-deep in hassles before their respective weddings, he thought to himself:
And if she says yes, I hope she wants to run away to get married.

“You’re staying with us, right?” JP asked when they reached the parking lot.

“Nah, you’ve got enough to deal with,” Dennis said. “We can bunk at my place.”

Jan turned from him to Mindy. “Are you sure? We have a room all ready.”

“Thanks,” Mindy said. “We’ll be fine at Dennis’s house.”

“Okay—see you tomorrow,” Jan said, which set off all the good nights.

Mick dropped them off at Dennis’s. He reached up above the rain spout for the key, and let them in. The place smelled like leather and pine cleaner and other less identifiable aromas that meant home, and he watched Mindy as she looked around the tiny living room with its shabby early eighties furniture, and beyond into the kitchen whose linoleum floor dated back to the fifties, much scrubbed since then.

She sighed. “Very homey,” she said, turning her smile up at him. “JP and Jan are super nice, but this feels comfortable. Not sure I’d feel comfortable in a house where people are trying to organize a wedding.”

“Yeah,” Dennis said, leading the way to his room. “My dad, who calls it like he sees it, says he hates to stay anywhere he can’t fart without causing a national incident, unless he’s under orders.”

Mindy giggled, then said, “I’d like to meet him.”

“I think the two of you would get along like a house on fire,” Dennis said, realizing it was so.

Mindy set her suitcase inside his door, and he watched her take in the plain room, with a few old movie posters he’d left up, the ancient computer-LP-speaker system he and JP had kludged together, the battered dresser that had belonged to his grandparents. “I love imagining a young Menace in here,” she said, turning to him.

“I love imagining Mindy naked in here, right now,” he growled, sliding his arms around her.

He slid his fingers along her ribs and thumbed her nipples through her dress, circling the nubs. He loved how responsive she was—and had just enough time to think how hot he found it—before she attacked him with fierce, wine-tasting kisses.

He kissed her back, each taking command and then surrendering. He sensed how keyed-up she had been, and realized how important this whole meeting was to her, how much she wanted to fit in.

She was so sophisticated about some things, like the way she’d researched yachts and arranged to buy one, then handled all the difficulties of foreign ports and finding places to stay and all the hassles that often took him an entire day. She did it in an hour and made it look easy—and it wasn’t merely her money.

He took pleasure in undressing her, taking it slow as if it were the first time, pausing to touch, and caress, and kiss and nip each beautiful curve as it appeared. When her eyes actually rolled in her head, he growled deep in his chest, and threw her on the bed to ravish her slowly, until her hair was sweaty, her eager nipples were a blushing red from his attentions, and she whimpered with utter abandon as he took possession of her core first with lips, tongue, and teeth, and then ramming himself in to the hilt, just the way she liked it.

Oh yeah, he thought triumphantly as he rode her hard, and she clenched around him, her nails digging into his back, this was going to take all night.

* * *

Mindy got up the next day pleasantly sore. They’d enjoyed wild sex not once but several times during the night, which was exactly what she’d craved most, because her mind had been spinning too much to let her sleep. As she leaned against the shower wall, hot water streaming down her, she felt boneless, all the worry and anxiousness drained out of her.

She thought about the impending wedding, which led right back to the familiar track she’d kept herself busy in hopes of avoiding: marriage.

She and Dennis hadn’t discussed it since she’d told him emphatically that she didn’t believe in it, offering her family as proof. The subject had come up once or twice since, but mostly as jokes, largely about her family’s spectacular lack of success.

But as she’d tried to be a good guest the night before, watching her hosts and Mick and Shelley carefully for social clues, the thing that distracted her the most were the little signs of a bonded pair.

She had only seen that kind of sign once in her life—with her great-grandmother. She’d been a little kid then, unobservant as kids are, or rather uncomprehending, but she kept getting memory flashes as she watched the subtle signs between Mick and Shelley, Jan and JP. No more than flicks of glances, a tip of the head, the touch of a finger, and they seemed to read each other’s minds.

Mick had known when Shelley’s dinner seemed to disagree with her, though Shelley didn’t say a thing. Jan had flicked one look at JP, who smoothly handled all the check-please and see-you-tomorrow.

She wondered if anyone saw those signs between her and Dennis.

Mindful of the time, she got out of the shower and began to dry her hair, so Dennis could have his turn and she could pay attention to her makeup. She’d finally found a simple, beautifully made dress of periwinkle blue, which could be turned into something formal with the addition of the right shoes and jewels. She’d noticed both times she met her that Jan favored Jimmy Choos, so she’d opted for the same designer, but a simple, classic design.

“Wow, you look amazing,” Dennis said, when he came out of the bathroom, self-consciously buttoning the third button of his jacket.

“And you look so good I want to rip that right off you,” she said. “But I shall restrain myself until later.”

“I’ll beat you to it, at least with this damn thing,” he said, grimacing as he gave a tug to his tie. “
Only
for a friend.”

She laughed, a question bubbling up,
Would you wear a tie to your wedding?

Where did
that
come from?

She bit back the words before they could escape, appalled at herself. Why would she go and spoil what they had, which was perfect? No strings, no expectations, and yet a total understanding that she fully expected would last for the rest of their lives. She regarded their relationship rather like fragile glass, and mentally tiptoed back from any baggage-laden words that could shatter it.

As they walked out to the garage, and his fired up his dad’s Jeep, she felt like she had escaped a landmine.

And was still thinking about it as they parked on a broad sweep before a garden whose beauty reminded her of her beloved Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. This garden was not only spacious, but had had generations to mature, and was impeccably kept.

Even more surprising, the wedding was to take place in a sound shell that looked both futuristic and fantastical. A young kid rather self-consciously played romantic piano music from nineteenth century composers on a baby grand as the guests filled into the chairs.

Down in front, a stylish brown-skinned woman who had to be Mrs. LaFleur seemed to be making painstaking conversation with another middle-aged woman whose frown lines looked carved in. She, like Jan, was a natural blonde, but her hair was faded, her attitude brittle as she sat close to an obviously bored man of about sixty, to whom a tall, silver-haired man was trying to engage with.

“Are those Jan’s parents and the LaFleurs?” she whispered to Dennis.

“Yeah. JP’s dad just flew in early this morning—his contract wouldn’t let him off but one day. He’ll be on the way to the airport as soon as the ceremony is over.”

“Geez, that’s kind of harsh.”

“Well, apparently no one can take his place in London. The blonde woman is Jan’s mom, and the guy next to her the current hubs, or maybe he’s a boyfriend. Don’t know which. All I know is, Jan’s mom expected him to walk Jan down the aisle, even though the guy moved in with Jan’s mother when Jan was like twenty-two. So Jan said nobody is walking her down the aisle, and her mother has been sulking since.”

So
, Mindy thought.
I’m not the only one with family problems
. But Jan was making this wedding work for her just the same.

“Mick’s grandparents are the old couple sitting over there. I’ll introduce you afterward. They came over from Russia when Mick was real small.”

“Are they . . .” She flicked her poodle hair to indicate ‘shifter.’

Dennis’s lips twitched. “Both. And mates.”

The piano music came to a halt, and Jan and JP entered the little stage from opposite sides.

Mindy took a moment to deeply appreciate Jan’s Galia Lahav wedding gown from the Twenties collection, as the kid left the stage. Jan was short, every bit as pear-shaped as Mindy, but she rocked those curves with confidence.

Then JP sat down on the piano bench, and softly ran his fingers up in an arpeggio. He and Jan didn’t even seem to look at one another as he played a brief intro from an opera Mindy had seen in Italy, the notes usually played by flute.

And Jan began to sing. Her voice was exquisite, so perfectly projected by the sound shell into the balmy afternoon air that the entire audience fell into a listening stillness, a different sort of hush from the usual polite boredom of most events like this.

The aria was over in three minutes—Mindy could have listened forever—and as she swallowed the lump in her throat, heady with emotion, a woman stepped up from the front row. Mindy realized she must be a rabbi from her clothes and the kippa on her head, but being a veteran of so many weddings, Mindy recognized as soon as the woman began to speak that this was not the regular Jewish ceremony.

It was something the two of them had written, but it was drawn from the old rituals, a blend of traditions.

Jan’s voice echoed, steady and strong: “ . . . to ha
ve and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

Mindy’s throat clogged. Her eyes stung. She discovered she was holding Dennis’s hand tightly, and made a conscious effort to loosen her grip.

This wedding was utterly unlike all those she had attended. Oh yes, the setting was beautiful as only money could afford—the flower bowers alone would have cost quite a bit, even using blooms from the extensive gardens.

But no one in that audience was looking at the decorations, or watching one another—there was no one-upmanship, and except for Jan’s mother (who was now dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, her pout apparently forgotten), no angry relations, bitter exes, or rivals smirking with cold, judging eyes.

Mindy was totally unused to this scenario.

JP made his vows, the rabbi made it official, and it was over. Simple, tasteful, heartfelt. Elegant. So why did Mindy want to cry?

Chapter Seven

For Jan, the wedding they had prepared for so long passed in the blink of an eye.

The aria went beautifully. JP’s smile over the piano meant more than anything to her, and she made a vow to herself that, no matter how busy they got, they were going to continue to make music together.

After, as the guests filed onto the terrace where the caterers waited for the signal to serve the buffet, she and JP posed for only two formal pictures. She had said she wanted natural shots, with people being themselves, and not standing stiffly, leering with fake smiles at the camera.

Then it was time to go around for the greet-and-smile, which JP handled with his usual grace. Mrs. LaFleur quietly oversaw the smooth operation of the party from a distance as Mick offered the wedding toast. “All our lives, JP has never been very far away from music, and I hoped if he ever got married, it would be to someone who loves it as much as she loves him. We can all see how happy they are—here’s to a lifetime of it for JP and Jan!”

“Hear hear!”

Jan raised her glass of ginger ale—if the baby really took, she might as well begin the baby diet now—and everybody drank.

Then it was Dennis’s turn. “Mick stole my lines—as usual. Trust a filmmaker for that.” He paused as people chuckled. “Here’s to a beautiful day, a beautiful ceremony, and two people who deserve beautiful lives. Jan and JP!”

Another cheer, another drink, and JP’s dad stood up. “I trust you’ll excuse me if I sound incoherent. I’ve been in the sky for the last fourteen hours—on a commercial flight.”

Some smothered laughter met that, and Jan thought of the secret shifters in town, who understood the real meaning.

“I have not yet had a chance to get to know my new daughter, but I look forward to that opportunity. I just want to say I am proud of them both. JP: well done, son. Jan: welcome to the family. Here’s to you both!”

A third cheer, Mrs. LaFleur signaled the caterers to start the trays around, and people turned to their own conversations.

Leaving Jan to her personal duties. She went to her mother’s table first, and was relieved to be greeted with a smile, even from the “stepdad” who had never given a damn about her. She chatted to them, and left her mother getting tipsy on the champagne, and bragging to a couple of local people about Jan’s singing awards in high school—as if she’d encouraged them instead of resenting them as reminders of her dad. Who hadn’t even shown up.

But, Jan thought as she slowly made her rounds, determined to talk to every person who had come, she had a new family now. She would never turn her back on her mother, but she had learned long ago not to depend on her. Now she did have people to depend on.

After a while her back began to ache, and her beautiful shoes to pinch unmercifully at her feet. She began to wonder if Cinderella’s glass slipper had been invented by a bride with aching toes.

That thought sent her looking for Shelley. People were beginning to leave as the shadows got long, and a cold breeze rose. It was time for phase two of her wedding plan: getting those thank you notes done and out the door, because she knew she would not want to come back to them after her honeymoon.

She crossed the terrace, scanning across all the tall people for Shelley. JP stood with Mick and Dennis, Shelley leaning against Mick, her fingers absently rubbing over her stomach as she sipped at her ginger ale.

Mindy stood near Dennis, wearing the polite smile people get when others are sharing reminiscences and you weren’t there. Jan recognized it at once. She’d been the outsider all through high school, until she met Shelley her first year of college.

Mindy was just like Jan remembered when first meeting her, bright and friendly, with those soulful brown eyes. She didn’t act the least bit like the rich snobs who had been so annoying at UCLA. She hadn’t overdressed to impress, or underdressed to insult—she looked pretty in a simple blue dress that flattered her full figure.

On impulse she walked up to her and said, “Want to get out of those shoes?”

Mindy turned her way, her expression going from that polite, fixed smile to a hint of relief. “Oh, would I.”

Jan caught Shelley’s eye and beckoned. Shelley betrayed equal relief.

The three women walked inside, and Jan led the way to the room that was now her office. There, she stepped out of her exquisite but painful heels as she said, “Go right ahead and de-shoe, if you want.”

Shelley’s shoes were sensible, low heels, but she usually wore boots, and so she gave a sigh as she kicked off hers and dropped into one of the waiting chairs.

“Okay,” Jan said to Shelley. “You know what comes next.” And to Mindy, “You can relax if you want, or cheer or boo or just chat. Don’t feel obliged to move a muscle. I roped Shelley a long time ago into helping me deal with these.” She nodded at the pile of wrapped wedding presents in the corner. “I knew some would ignore the NO GIFTS part. So I made a master plan.”

She sat down at her desk, uncapped the fountain pen, opened the box of cards, and nodded to Shelley. “Which do you want, list duty or present opening duty?”

“I’d be glad to help,” Mindy said. “Just tell me what to do.”

“I’ll take presents,” Shelley said. “I’m good at ripping and tearing. Mindy, if you want to write down names and what it is, in case we get ahead of Jan, that would be great.”

Mindy said, “Sure,” and Jan handed her a pencil and legal pad.

Shelley reached for the first present. “Your mom.”

“Set that aside,” Jan said. “It will be a quilt, and I know what to write to my mom. Next?”

Shelley put the quilt box to one side, and reached for a long, rectangular fancy box. “Obviously booze of some sort . . . and the card looks like something corporate.” And sure enough, she read off the name of a record company with which JP did business.

“Okay, book, how do you thank a business associate for booze for a wedding?” Jan said, opening the top one of the two etiquette books, and turning to Thank You Notes, Weddings.

Then she looked up, appalled. “These examples are awful. I can’t write any of these. They sound like Robot Wives from 1952.” She tossed the book aside, and opened the second one, which was specifically about wedding etiquette.

She flipped to the end, where Thank You Notes had a chapter, as she muttered, “I knew I should have looked at these, but the book store lady promised they were perfect. . . . Oh God. This one is even worse. ‘We look forward to drinking this in honor of you. Thank you for traveling all this way.’ Except they weren’t there, and does anyone drink in honor of a corporation? I don’t think so. Crap!” Jan slammed the book.

Then, to her surprise, Mindy cleared her throat, then said, “Um, may I make an offer here?”

Shelley glanced up from hunting among the boxes, and Jan said, “Offer?”

Mindy looked at them both, her frizzy hair fluffing around her face as she picked up the booze box. “It’s just that I’ve been to so many family weddings—including repeats—that I know all the ins and outs of competition gifts, corporate product gifts, hate gifts, homemade gifts, guilt gifts, and everything between. I’ve had to deal with thank you’s for charity events and fundraisers as well as corporate events masquerading as little kid birthday parties my whole life. Until I ran away from it all. But like riding a bicycle, you never forget. I still know exactly how to field these suckers.”

Jan sat back, staring at Mindy as if she’d seen a vision. “Oh, you are a life-saver. Please tell me what to write.”

“Okay, here goes,” Mindy said.

And she was as good as her word. She reeled off formal notes in three polite lines, more informal ones with variations so they didn’t sound alike, and how to phrase gratitude for the stemware that you knew was a “free gift” come-on for some sales pitch, the hideous orange place mats and table cloth set, (“so cheerful on gloomy days!”) and so on.

Between cards she told stories about wedding horrors she’d experienced, like the drunken best man who fell into the cake, the actual fight between a groom and an ex from only six months before, the cruise wedding when a storm hit, making everyone sick, and the one where the father of the bride was arrested for embezzlement as a squad of FBI guys swept in to lock down the mansion the wedding was taking place at. “I was twelve,” she finished.

The way she told the stories, as if she’d been a detached witness, soon had Jan and Shelley in stitches, which made the work go faster. But as the hour got late and they finished up, Jan began to wonder what the emotional cost really had been.

Maybe that explained the prenup that Shelley had finally told her about. With that kind of background behind her, asking for a prenup probably made all kinds of sense, in sheer self-defense . . . except wasn’t the proposal supposed to be a surprise?

Did Mindy have any idea what was going on?

Jan wrung her aching hand, then made herself address the last card. Rather than ask directly, she said, “If I’d been through all that, I think I’d be allergic to weddings.”

Shelley said, “I was just thinking that Las Vegas and Elvis impersonator officiates would begin to sound real good.”

Mindy said in a low voice, “It’s not
weddings
so much as
marriage
.” Then she blushed to her ears, and said, “Um, sorry, forget I said that. Not much sleep last night.”

Shelley said seriously, “You don’t have to answer this, but I thought you and Dennis are mates.”

“We are,” Mindy said in a small voice. “Both ways. Dog and tiger.”

Jan said, “Neither of us is a shifter, so we’re still learning about the whole shifter thing. But we thought mating was for life?”

“It is. I hope,” Mindy said. “I’m a shifter, but I never knew there were others until I met Dennis. So this bond thing . . . I feel it. I want to spend the rest of my life with him.” She blinked, her eyes gleaming with a sheen of tears. “But, well, I just spent a whole lot of time describing what I used to think of as our family wedding luck—and you haven’t even heard the worst ones.”

Shelley’s eyes rounded. “There’s a worse one than the FBI raiding the house?”

Jan added, “And people barfing over the side of the boat as it tossed in twenty foot waves?”

“Oh, yes,” Mindy said. “Like the 24-hour one. That wedding—marriage—whatever, it never got to the present-opening. It was my mom’s second,” she added grimly. “Wanted to get to the altar before Dad, so I think she ignored all the signs—until right after the ceremony, when she caught my would-be stepdad having drunken wedding sex with Mom’s step-cousin in the men’s dressing room.”

“Wow.”

“Holy shit.”

“I guess I’ve been afraid that the entire idea of marriage is a jinx. Then I was listening to you, today, and your vows, and . . .” She shook her head. “Sorry about core dumping!” She turned a bright smile at them, without meeting anyone’s eyes. “This is your wedding day, and here I am glooming it up. I’ll go find Dennis. It was a beautiful wedding. Thanks for inviting me.”

She shoved her feet into her shoes and slipped out the door.

“Wow,” Shelley said again.

“She has
no idea
what Dennis is planning,” Jan said slowly.

Shelley nodded. “That means all that prenup stuff is Dennis. Who I don’t really know well enough to ask him about.”

“Neither do I. Only met them that once. Should we say anything to our guys?”

Shelley sighed and leaned back on her elbows, rubbing her stomach again. “I could ask Mick, but I already know what he’ll say: butt out.”

“JP would, too. From what I’ve heard, Dennis is the most volatile of them all. So I think we better leave him to the guys who know him. But listen, we’re all getting together at your place in L.A. before the premier, right?”

Shelley nodded.

“I want to suggest a change in plans. Let’s make it a girls’ day. Invite her early, for lunch? In case she wants to talk it out.”

“We can’t spoil Dennis’s surprise.” Shelley sat up.

“No, but we could . . . talk around it, maybe.”

Shelley shook her head. “I’ll invite her, but weddings are off limits, unless she brings it up. Dennis made Mick promise, which he then passed on to me.”

Jan thought of those big brown eyes brimming with tears, and sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Shelley’s phone buzzed. “That’s Mick. He’s gotta fly back tonight. I’m going to go kiss him good-bye.”

Jan nodded and sank back into her chair, staring at the neat piles of finished thank you notes, and considered what she’d heard.

JP showed up a short time later. “Dad’s on his way back to London, and everyone else is gone. Including the caterers.”

“My mom?”

“Asleep, I suspect. She was pretty wobbly when her husband led her off to their room. Said to tell you she’d see you in the morning.”

“Okay, good. I’ll take them out to breakfast.”

“I talked to Dennis before they left. He wants me to help him arrange some music, if the Rose Garden Tea Room will let us.” JP grinned. “But I’ve got a better idea, and I happen to know the right person to talk to over there, as I’ve done a couple concerts over in the Chinese pavilion. And Mindy’s favorite music is eastern folk. I know just the group, if I can coax them on such short notice. I’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”