Beyond the Orange Moon (Mathews Family Book 2) (39 page)

“Thanks.” Lucy looked down at the light pink, strapless dress she had on. She would be lying if she said it wasn’t for Charlie. It wasn’t that she was under some idiotic notion that he would see her in pink and scoop her up in his arms, but it was a nice fantasy.

They pulled into Linda Mathews’ subdivision and Lucy turned into her cul-de-sac. She pulled into the driveway with all the other delivery trucks bringing flowers, linens, tables and chairs.
 

“It’s a madhouse in there,” Lydia said as she looked at the house.
 

Lucy chuckled. “Dylan must be so annoyed.”

She hadn’t known Dylan for very long, but this wedding was not her thing. That was obvious from the moment she’d met her. She imagined Dylan in a room somewhere trying to coax Ben into an escape at that very moment.
 

Lucy ran up to the door and stepped right in, since it was wide open. She looked through the sea of people setting up, and craned her neck when she thought she saw Brandon.
 

“Brandon!” she called, standing on her tiptoes.
 

Brandon raised his chin and gave her a pleasant smile. “Need help?” he asked over the crowd.
 

“Yes, please!”
 

“Let me grab my brothers and we’ll be right out!”

Lucy nodded and headed back outside. She couldn’t help but wonder which brothers he meant.
 

Back at the SUV, she pulled out the brand new cupcake stands they had purchased for all of their events, and carried them inside, leaving Lydia to deal with ordering the Mathews men around.
 

Inside, she slid to the back where she thought she heard Linda’s voice. She walked toward it, but ducked when a man turned the corner with a table on his shoulder.
 

“Sorry, miss,” the man said, and stepped outside.
 

Lucy exhaled and caught sight of Linda by the pool. She had curlers in her hair and was directing people to arrange the pink and yellow flowers. The minute her eyes connected with Lucy’s, her shoulders fell and a smile crept along her lips.
 

“Backyard wedding, right? Never again,” she said, and looked at the cupcake stands in Lucy’s hands. “I read about you in
The
Magic Spoon
.”
 

Lucy nodded and shrugged tightly. “It’s been a crazy week. We haven’t even started the expansion and already we are slammed with orders. I can’t keep up.”

“That’s fantastic, honey. You deserve this kind of success.” Linda looked out over the pool. “No, no! No tulle! My daughter will have a heart attack if she sees that!” She gave Lucy an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I have to make sure they don’t do anything that will make Dylan run for her life. You can put the stands in the kitchen.”
 

Lucy laughed to herself while she watched Linda run to the tulle and begin to remove it from the cement wall. She headed back into the madhouse and performed the same circus act as before, dodging tables and people to get into the kitchen.
 

“Beeeeeeeee!” she heard, accompanied by little footsteps.
 

She looked down and almost burst into tears at the sight of Jackson running toward her. He was dressed in a little tuxedo and his hair had been gelled up in the front. She dropped the cake stands and opened her arms for him to jump in.
 

“Look at you!” she said, and nuzzled his face. When he put his head on her shoulder, the soft hairs on the back of his neck touched her cheek; it was a feeling she’d missed so much in the past few weeks that she didn’t want to ever put him down again. “Hi, baby,” she said gently. “I miss you so much, Jack.”

“Bee,” he whispered, and patted her back.
 

His entire body relaxed in her embrace. It felt like home, until the realization hit her that it wasn’t home to her anymore. That she had no right to this little boy whom she loved with everything in her.
 

A tear escaped from her eye and fell onto his shoulder. Attempting to regain her composure, Lucy blew out a breath and pulled back to look at his happy face.
 

“You, sir, look perfect. Did you get a new suit?”
 

“Mon-key,” he said, pointing to himself and laughing.
 

Lucy giggled and shook her head. “Who told you that you look like a monkey in that?”

“Da-yee,” he said with a toothy grin.
 

Lucy pretended to scoff. “Your daddy is so silly.”

Jackson shook his head and giggled.
 

“Cupcake, where do you want these?” Wearing tan linen pants and a thin, white, collared shirt, Jonah had three boxes in his arms as he made his way toward her.
 

“Jonah, every time I see you lately you seem to be carrying cupcakes. Are you sure you don’t want me to just hire you?”

“Ha.”

“Just put them here,” Lucy said, pointing to a decorated table along a wall. “This looks cupcake-worthy.”

Brandon and Hugh trailed in behind Jonah with boxes piled in their arms, and followed their brother’s lead, setting them on the tables.
 

“Thanks, guys,” Lucy said, and nuzzled Jack’s face again. “There should be two more, though.”

“Right here,” she heard someone murmur behind her.
 

A chill ripped up her spine and Lucy’s entire body went numb as she latched onto Jackson. She turned her head and locked eyes with Charlie.
 

“Hi,” she said softly.
 

There he was. As if the universe wanted to give her another kick in the gut, he was also dressed to kill in tan linen pants and a white collared shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, exposing the muscles that used to hold him above her. He was tall, tan, devilishly handsome, and his green gaze seemed to penetrate her.
 

One of the Mathews men cleared his throat, and all of them disappeared.
 

Charlie set the two boxes down and faced her with a tight jaw. His pained eyes took in her pink dress and roamed down her legs before finding their way back up to her eyes.
 

“I, uh, can take it from here, and then I’ll be on my way,” she said as happily as she could manage.
 

“I’ll get him.” Charlie held out his arms and frowned when Jackson turned back into Lucy. “Lucy has to work, Jack.”

Lucy ran a hand through Jackson’s soft hair and tried to ignore the stinging in her chest. “You know what,” she said around the lump in her throat, “I can set these up with one hand. Lydia’s here to help, too.”
 

Charlie closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He ran a hand through his hair. “Are you sure?”

“Mm-hmm,” she answered, and tried to suppress the tears she knew were coming. “It’s fine. See?” She bent down to pick up a cupcake stand and set it up with one hand.
 

“All right.” Charlie looked around the room. “It looks like everything is pretty much set up here. I have to help with whatever my mom needs. I’ll be back to grab him, though, because we’re going to start soon.”

“Sure,” Lucy said, and opened up a box to examine the cupcakes inside.
 

“Jeez,” Lydia said, breathless. “The flower guy almost hit my car while he was backing out. I had to scream like a crazy woman to make him stop.”

“Can you grab those other stands?” Lucy asked over Jackson’s shoulder.
 

Lydia gave a warm smile as she took in the sight of Jackson in Lucy’s arms. “Somebody missed you, huh?”
 

Lucy kissed Jackson’s head, not wanting to talk about it. This very well could be the last time she saw him and she wanted to soak it in as much as she could. “Just set the stands up for me and I’ll put out the cupcakes.”

“You got it,” Lydia said, and got to work.
 

The stands were all the same size, three tiers, except for the main stand, which was higher than the rest with five tiers. Lucy thought that the Nutella and the toffee crunch cupcakes should go on the main stand because they were Ben and Dylan’s favorites. She very carefully arranged the rest of the cupcakes randomly on the smaller stands.
 

When she was just about finished, her arm was numb, but she wouldn’t have traded the feeling for the world. “How’s that, Jack?” she asked, as she took a step back to admire her work.
 

“It looks like they’re getting ready to start,” Lydia said as she peeked outside. “Everyone is sitting down.”

Lucy looked outside and saw the small group of about thirty people sitting in white chairs lined up along the pool. She spied Ben, who looked about as cool and calm as any man could ever be on their wedding day. He looked like a man ready to marry the woman of his dreams, and it made her heart turn to mush.
 

“I need him,” Charlie said in a low voice.
 

Lucy pulled back to look at Jackson. “You have to go with your daddy, okay, Jack?”

“No,” Jackson said, and shook his head adamantly.
 

Lucy looked up at Charlie with wide eyes. “That’s new.”

“Yeah, we say that word a lot now,” Charlie said, exasperated.
 

“Lovely,” Lucy said, and tried not to laugh. “Here, how about this.” She pulled the bracelet from her wrist and slid it onto Jackson’s before tightening it. “You can wear my bracelet while you go help Uncle Ben and Aunt Dylan get married.”

Jackson looked down at the pink bracelet made of leather and beads, turning his wrist to inspect it.
 

“Can you wear my bracelet and go with your daddy?” Lucy asked.
 

Jackson stuck out his bottom lip, but he bobbed his tiny head up and down in agreement.
 

“Good.” Lucy gave him one last squeeze and passed him over to Charlie.
 

“Thanks,” Charlie said, and headed outside without another word.
 

* * *

Charlie stepped outside and looked down at his son. Jackson was deep in thought as he ran a small finger over Lucy’s bracelet and sighed.
 

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Charlie said, and kissed the top of his son’s head. “I know you don’t understand this.”

Damn. He didn’t even understand it. There she was in all of her beauty; that dress could have killed him if he looked at it too long. And the way she held Jackson in her arms the entire time she set up the cupcakes … she really did love him.

God, this hurt. He was so tired of hurting.
 

Charlie walked over to his mother and handed off his son. “He’s not ready to get down yet,” Charlie said, and looked back toward the house. “I have to go get Dylan.”

Linda gave him a sympathetic look as she took Jackson into her arms. “I’m sure seeing her was difficult for the both of you.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” he lied, and headed back toward the house.

On his way, he spotted Mike and almost burst out laughing at the suit he was wearing. “Awww, you look so nice,” he teased.
 

Mike pulled at his collar and grimaced. “Shut it, kid, or I’ll have your ass back down to a laborer.”

Charlie threw his head back and chuckled. “You’d sink into bankruptcy.”

Mike scoffed and waved his hand. “Yeah, yeah.”

He continued to laugh as he approached Ben, who already stood next to the minister, and slapped him on the back. “Ready?”
 

Ben smiled and demanded, “Get me my bride.”

Charlie smirked. “She changed her mind.”

Ben grinned. “Hey, you know what I was just thinking?”

“What’s that?”
 

Ben looked around the yard and shrugged. “I met her in this yard and now I’m marrying her in this yard twenty years later.”

“Wasn’t that the point?” Charlie asked.
 

“I guess it was,” Ben said, and flashed him his white teeth.
 

Charlie stepped back inside, but was stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of his sister. “Dylan … wow.”

Dylan twirled around in her white dress and smiled. “I know, right?”
 

“Are you nervous?” Hugh asked Dylan.

“Absolutely,” she said, and shook her head, making her curls bounce. “Let’s do this!”

Charlie glanced around and saw that Lucy was gone. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint how that made him feel, though. Was he disappointed?
 

Yes.
 

Brandon, Hugh, and Jonah all crowded around their sister and tried to find the right spot to stand in. Charlie stepped into an opening and laughed at how crowded it felt with them all being so close.
 

“That’s music,” Jonah said, and grabbed Dylan’s hand. “Let’s go. It’s time to hand you over to Ben.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Brandon said, and turned to Dylan. He placed his hands on her cheeks and smiled as he stared at her beautiful face. “I don’t want to make you cry, but I was instructed years ago to say something to you right before you walked down the aisle. Are you ready for it?”