Beyond Promise (20 page)

“Now, I couldn’t forget my other daughter,
Gabby. How does that work? Let’s see…Aaron will marry Brandy and
since Aaron’s your brother, that makes you a sister-in-law to
Brandy, too, and that’s close enough to inheriting another
daughter, right?”

“It’s so wonderful to be gaining children
left and right without the tuition bills,” Brandy’s mom chuckled,
pulling out yet another box from her purse. “I couldn’t leave you
out either.”

Gabby started shaking her head. “You didn’t
have to do anything.”

“I know, but I wanted to. Unfortunately,
there’s no long and involved story with this gift, but it’s just as
special.”

Gabby took the small box from Brandy’s mom
and thanked her just as the appetizers were delivered. I noticed an
odd trade of glances between Aaron and Brandy, and my stomach
tightened. What were they hiding?

Once the server left the table, Gabby opened
the box, revealing a beautiful silver cuff bracelet.

“That was my mom’s bracelet. A funny story
about that bracelet was she thought it was too “show-offy” as she
put it. I, on the other hand, love it.”

“It’s gorgeous,” Gabby replied. “Absolutely
amazing.”

“Glad you like it.”

“I love it.”

Mason shoveled a few fried ravioli on his
plate, along with some olive tapenade. “Guys get the short end of
the stick, I see.”

His dad’s boisterous laugh filled the air.
“What do you mean? We get to marry these lovely women.”

“I guess that’s good enough,” Mason
retorted. “But my woman is going to be really sad she missed this
meal.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She’s on the dance committee and they’re
planning the Christmas dance,” he answered.

“They’re actually allowed to have a
Christmas dance?” Brandy asked.

“Perks of a small school on an even smaller
island.”

As we all enjoyed the amazing appetizers, I
glanced at Brandy who was, no doubt, hoping I’d forget my earlier
request.

Which I hadn’t.

“Gonna let me in now that we’re being fed?”
I whispered.

She let out a deep exhale and glanced at
Aaron. “Might as well. Everyone at the table knows except you.”

My blood froze at the admission and my
appetite took a nosedive.

“I can’t take it anymore. I’m horrible at
hiding things and Lily won’t stop pestering me. We need to tell her
what’s going on.”

Brandy’s mother gave a sideways glance to
her husband, who’d stopped eating, and Gabby glanced at Jason.

I glanced at Katie, who seemed equally as
oblivious as I was, and waited for someone to begin.

“Shouldn’t we wait until Ayden gets here?”
Mason asked nervously.

Mason was never nervous.

“Nope.”

“Maybe we should only tell Lily and wait
until we’re sure Ayden’s out of the woods,” Ayden’s mom
replied.

What was going on here?

“Would someone please just tell me?”

Aaron scowled and wiped his mouth with a
napkin before slapping it down on the table.

“Viktor went to the police,” Aaron
began.

My heart started hammering in my chest.
“So?”

“He’s attempting to press charges against us
all.”

My blood boiled. “What? It was
self-defense.”

“Yes…and…no,” Brandy’s mother responded.

“Viktor almost killed Ayden. How is that not
self-defense.”

“Ayden wasn’t the one who threw the punches
after the fact.”

“
After the fact
, Ayden was left to
lose consciousness, and if it hadn’t been for all of you, Viktor
would’ve continued to pummel him. This makes no sense.”

“Well, we probably didn’t need to all pounce
on Viktor as we did.”

My heart was thudding inside. “Like
hell.”

“That’s my daughter-in-law,” Ayden’s dad
muttered. “Love her fire already.”

“We’re hoping the prosecutor sees the
situation clearly,” Ayden’s mom continued. “But as of now there are
potential assault and battery charges.”

I couldn’t believe it. We’d gotten through
the nightmare of the event and were finally getting to focus on our
future, and then this horror of a human being wanted to act as if
he was the victim in all this?

“What about Ayden? He’s not pressing
charges.”

“Not yet, but we may need to go down that
path. Only time will tell,” Ayden’s mom responded. “We’re in a
wait-and-see situation, which was why we didn’t want to tell you
before your wedding.”

“We hoped it would all blow over,” Mason
jumped in.

“Is that a chance? A real possibility?” I
questioned.

“It is,” Ayden’s mom acknowledged.

Ayden didn’t need protecting anymore than I
did. But he’d been through so much. If there was the slightest
possibility this whole fiasco could blow over, maybe we didn’t need
to tell him. I didn’t want anything to interfere with his recovery
or our wedding.

“Wow. That wasn’t what I expected to hear. I
don’t do well with things being hidden from me, and I know Ayden’s
just as bad… But maybe we shouldn’t.” I stopped myself.

I looked at Brandy and saw something more
resting behind her stare. Aaron’s gaze flew to the entrance, and I
saw Ayden making his way over to the table.

Even though I thought about hiding it from
him, it didn’t take long for Ayden to figure out something was very
wrong as his eyes went from one worried expression to the next.

“What? What did I miss?” Ayden asked.

I felt guilty for wanting to keep it away
from Ayden, but we’d been through so much. I didn’t want something
to trigger amnesia or make his headaches come back. I didn’t even
know if stress could do that, but I didn’t want to chance it.

“We didn’t want you to wind up reliving
everything again so soon. We hoped it would either go away or
wouldn’t pop up until after the wedding,” Aaron began.

“Why would it matter? What’s going on?”
Ayden asked.

My eyes connected with Ayden’s, and my gaze
fell to the window behind him, shocked at what I saw.

“Ayden, was it snowing when you came
inside?” I asked.

All the heads at the table turned to face
the window as the snowflakes fell slowly to the ground.

He shook his head and glanced behind him.
“Whoa. Did anyone hear we were going to get snow?”

I shook my head and reached for my phone.
Every once in a blue moon, we’d get snow in November, but not this
early in November. I looked at my weather app as if that would tell
me, “No, it’s not really snowing outside,” and couldn’t believe my
eyes.

“Guys, we have a National Weather Advisory.
We’re getting a snowstorm,” I announced.

“What time does your plane leave tomorrow?”
Gabby asked.

“At night. Like ten o’clock.”

“Whatever snow we might get will be gone by
then,” she stated

“I don’t know. The weatherman didn’t even
predict this,” Ayden’s mom replied. “We were just supposed to have
cold temps, which made me all the more excited to get out of
town.”

I glanced at Ayden as he bent down to give
me a hug, and I knew this was a sign from above to keep this tiny
revelation from him for the moment. We needed to focus on the
future and the wedding and getting out of town.

“We’ll be fine,” he assured me.

We both glanced out the window again as the
snow quickly turned to a white sheet, and I couldn’t do anything
but laugh.

Because we both knew how the city of Seattle
handled snow. It shut down like we were in the middle of an
apocalyptic event.

Every.

Time.

“Do you realize in less than seventy-two
hours you’re going to be my wife?” Ayden murmured next to my ear.
He’d just come inside from putting the last of the luggage in the
car. Within hours we were going to be on our way to Bermuda. My
wedding dress hung on the front door, and I’d tucked Ayden’s ring
in my purse, along with both of our passports. So far everything
was going according to plan. Except for the once-every-hundred-year
blizzard that was laughing at us from the great beyond.

I hadn’t heard from my mom since I’d called
her from the hospital, and truthfully, that wasn’t a surprise, and
I was okay with the idea of them not showing up. At this point in
my life, I couldn’t imagine my parents showing a sudden interest in
me.

Ayden’s mom had provided a wonderful amount
of support the moment we’d gotten back from Paris. She helped with
contracts, picking out flowers, and going with me to choose my
dress. All things I hoped when I was a little girl I’d be doing
with my own mother, I’d done with Ayden’s mom. And then of all
things to be given a gift that was of such incredible sentimental
value, I knew I’d found my place in life.

“What I really can’t believe is that we’re
having a snowpocalypse, and it’s not even Thanksgiving. Then I’d
follow that up with I can’t believe in less than seventy hours I’ll
be a Rhodes. A real Rhodes. If we can get there.”

“Not even a blizzard is going to stop that
process. There’s no escaping us now.”

“I’d never want to.”

“I’ll go lock the windows upstairs, and then
I guess we should take off,” he said, sounding as amazed as I felt.
We’d finally made it to this moment. “I think we do have enough
time for one little—”

“Nope. Not gonna happen. We need every
second on that roadway to make it in time.”

Ayden climbed the stairs and groaned. “This
is crazy.”

“But you’re kind of intrigued by not getting
any, aren’t you?” I hollered after him.

“Only marginally.”

We were going to Bermuda before the others.
I wanted to make sure we had all the details finalized before our
guests arrived, and we both wanted some time alone before the
frenzy started. Although with the weather, it already felt like the
frenzy had started.

My phone buzzed, and it was Ayden’s mom
wondering if we’d gotten to the airport yet. No, but we probably
should have…

I quickly texted that we were about to leave
and received another text back that made me chuckle.

Did you remember to pack wedding dress,
garters, sandals, rings (both of them) curling iron, straightener,
aspirin, baby powder, swimsuit, hairbrush, and something old,
something blue and something new and something borrowed? See you
soon and lots of love to you and our son. Drive careful.

The garters! I forgot the garters. I texted
quickly back.

Thank you! I totally forgot the garters. See
you soon and love to you.

I jogged down the hall into the master
bedroom.

“I almost forgot the garters,” I
shouted.

“Where are they? I can go get them.”

“I got it. They’re in our bedroom.”

I rustled around in the second dresser
drawer until I found the two garters I’d decorated with beads and
tiny flowers. It was Gabby’s idea and I loved it. I glanced toward
the river and took a deep breath in. We’d made it. We were almost
to our wedding day. The blizzard had laid a thick, white blanket of
snow with only the river trail etched along the bank.

Perfection!

“We should probably get going,” Ayden said,
walking into the room.

We were taking a red-eye flight to JFK and
then a morning flight to Bermuda. Hopefully, everyone was heeding
the Mayor’s advice and staying off the roads, but if we weren’t,
I’d imagine others weren’t either.

“I am officially psyched. I can’t believe
it’s here,” I almost squealed.

“About time,” he laughed, ushering me down
the hall.

I shoved the garters in my purse, and Ayden
unhooked my garment bag, containing my wedding dress, from the
front door.

“Alright. Let’s hit it.” He turned on the
alarm, and we both exited our home into the brisk November air.

“I can’t believe I’ll be cooking the turkey
as Mrs. Rhodes.” He grabbed my elbow as I slipped on the porch.

“I can’t believe we’ll be eating a turkey
you cook as Mrs. Rhodes.”

“Hey now.” I playfully pushed him as we made
our way to the car, snow crunching underfoot. He hung up the dress
in the back seat, and I climbed into the front seat. It was
freezing outside. Only yesterday I was trying on a swimsuit, and
today I was bundled up like I was headed for a ski trip.

Just as he opened the front door and crawled
in, another flurry hit. He closed his door quickly, but still let a
crazy amount of snow into the car.

“Crap. I hope this doesn’t delay the
flight.”

“It’s Seattle,” he assured me.

“What does that even mean?” I teased.

We pulled out of the driveway and onto the
main road to get us to the airport. With the snow, a forty-minute
commute would probably be a two-hour drive, but we had plenty of
time before our flight took off so I tried to play it cool.

My phone vibrated, and I glanced down,
expecting it to be Ayden’s mom again, but my heart stopped when I
looked down and saw a text from my mom.