Wedding Survivor (32 page)

He looked at her lying next to him—all leg, strands of copper hair strewn across her face, the hint of a guileless smile on her lips even in sleep. She was beautiful to him. And honestly, did anyone look as sexy as she did in an old T-shirt? It was pretty damn hard not to think about how good she'd tasted and felt and how fantastic that ride in the storm had been.

Hence the enormous erection.

It left him feeling a little scarce of breath, so Eli got out of the tent for some air. Yep, he'd gone and done something stupid, just like he'd told himself not to do. But he was falling hard down a hole, he recognized all the signs of it, and it scared the shit out of him. After being paralyzed these last months by hurt gashed so deep that he once thought he'd drown in it, he was now feeling—and acutely so—a bitter conflict of emotions. It was fear, that gnawing fear of… what? Something. Bits of him were falling away every time he was with her, hard, thick bits—yet she hadn't reached the soft core, that hot, massive thing that kept him shackled.

He felt strangely hopeful, although that pissed him off and made him feel like the putz again. He felt what he thought might be love, too, although he wasn't certain, because he was confused as to what love truly was, but he was fairly sure those were the mewling sounds of it deep inside him. And he felt resentment, too, because he didn't want to feel love—he was too afraid of it. He was too afraid of needing it.

God, he was a mess. Thankfully, no one else was up, and he thought to clear his head with a jog down to the lodge for some coffee. He zipped up his jacket, ran his fingers through his hair with a yawn, then turned… and noticed Marnie's tent was gone.

Just
gone
.

He walked toward the ravine, looking around and behind rocks. When he reached the edge, he looked down and saw something gray. Well, shit. That had been some storm all right—that was Marnie's tent down at the bottom of the ravine. She must not have staked it very well.

He turned around, walked back up the meadow, and noticed for the first time that beyond the tents, there were two pines down that he could see, sprawled across the trail to the bridge. And another still smoking from where lightning had struck and knocked its top off. Even worse, he couldn't see that damn arch. He hurried up a rise in the meadow and stopped in the middle of it.

That damn plastic arch was lying on its back, half in the lake, floating peacefully. It would take them forever to get it up. The antique altar they'd struggled to get up here yesterday was gone, too. Eli suspected it was lying beneath the arch in the alpine lake, and began striding in that direction.

Just as he suspected—tipped over by the arch, just visible below the surface of the shallow lake.

When he turned around to face the cabin, he saw that the roof over the kitchen area had been damaged, and part of it seemed to be missing altogether. He'd need help to get it cleaned up, and walked on, past the cabin, climbing over the two fallen pines. But when he reached the bottom, he stopped. "Oh Jesus," he muttered.

Eli stood there, hands on hips, wondering how in the hell they were going to fix this. Another massive pine tree was dangling precariously across the bridge. Lightning had obviously struck the tree—not unusual at this altitude—but this tree was a monster. The bridge itself was damaged—the rope had come undone on one side, which meant that the bridge, which had seemed to him to be weakening yesterday with all the traffic across it, wasn't very stable at all today. It wasn't safe. It was impassable.

Eli moved closer; he could see parts of the bridge planking below in the river, already being pushed away by the rushing water.

Damn it all to hell, they were stuck until they could get this fixed. Even worse, a hot cup of coffee was on the other side.

This was the last damn thing they needed, the icing on the goddamn cake. He turned around to go back to the meadow and get his radio.

When he climbed hack up to the meadow, some of the natives were up and about. In particular, Rhys was ranting at Marnie, who seemed oblivious to the fat man as she peered up at the treetops as if she were looking for something.

"Ah, there you are!" Rhys shouted when he saw Eli. Marnie instantly turned toward him and her face lit up with a smile that got him right in the gut.

He tried to smile, too, but Rhys was suddenly in his face. "I've a rather nasty dilemma, sir! I seem to have lost my case of cooking utensils and I cannot
possibly
prepare the wedding food without it. I shall require a search party."

"A
search
party?"

"Yes! A search party! Those utensils and knives are very expensive and worth thousands of dollars!"

"Have you seen my tent?" Marnie asked as Eli calmly considered which planet to kick Rhys to.

"As a matter of fact, I have. It's at the bottom of the ravine… probably next to his utensils."

The fat man blanched. "Oh dear
Lord
, I think I shall be sick!" he declared dramatically, and went down in a heap, sitting cross-legged on the wet grass, staring in disbelief at the treeline.

"But… how will we get my tent back?" Marnie asked.

Eli looked at her. She blinked her big brown eyes and he could see the situation sinking into her head. Marnie did not pursue her line of questioning any further. "Wow," was all she said.

And then the pristine morning was rent by the wail of a screaming banshee when Olivia emerged and saw her precious arch floating serenely on the alpine lake.

"Calm down, Olivia!" he called out to her, and dipped into his tent to grab his radio. When he emerged, Vince had walked out onto the porch wearing pajama pants and a fleece jacket, scratching his bare stomach. "Damn," he said, looking around the meadow. "That was some storm, huh?" He looked at Eli. "It took part of the roof off the cabin."

"This is
a. fucking
disaster!" Olivia shrieked. "There is no way in hell we can get married in the middle of this fucking mess!" She whipped around and came marching down the steps of the porch, her blond hair flying, her eyes blazing. "Eli! You need to get someone up here right away! I don't care how many people it takes, but I will
not
get married in this meadow tomorrow afternoon until this place is cleaned up!"

"Olivia," Marnie tried, "we wouldn't dream of having you proceed until we—"

"I am speaking to Eli!" Olivia snapped.

"Olivia, calm down!" Eli responded sharply, despising her for being so rude to Marnie. "It's not like any of us got up in the middle of the night and did this to you. It was a bad storm, and we'll do all that we can to fix things."

"You'd
better
fix it!" she snapped again, her face going red.

Eli had seen her like this once before, on the set of
The Dane
, when she had brought production to a halt with a temper tantrum over a costume change that had made her look fat. As if it were possible to make anorexia look fat. But she'd been enraged, had stormed into her trailer and locked herself in until the producer and director agreed to her costume demands.

"Like I said, we'll do what we can. But at the moment, we've got a bit of a bigger problem than your goddamn arch. The bridge is impassable."

"Impassable? What does
that
mean?" Olivia demanded.

"It means there is a huge tree lying across it, it is unstable and impassable, and we can't cross it."

"Oh my
God
!" Olivia shrieked, and whirled around, grabbed onto Vince's fleece jacket, and glared up at him.

Vince stared at Eli, obviously confused. "Then… how do we get down?"

"Helicopter," Eli said. "I just need to talk to the guys. So everyone take a breath, all right? Everything is cool. I'll let you know what I find out."

"This isn't
cool
, this is un-fucking-believable!" Olivia yelled. She pushed Vince away. "Rhys, could you please come with me?" she asked tearfully, and half ran, half walked to the cabin. Rhys glanced nervously at the others before walking after a tearful Olivia.

"Pre-wedding nerves," Marnie said confidently to Eli and Vince as they watched Olivia run up the steps of the

* cabin porch and trip, falling to her knees. She shrieked, got up, and ran into the cabin, banging the door shut in Rhys's face. "She'll be fine," Marnie added unconvincingly.

Eli and Vince said nothing, but exchanged a look that suggested neither man believed Olivia would be fine. Re-gardless, Eli had better things to do than watch Olivia's temper tantrum, and buzzed Cooper. And he buzzed him again. And a dozen times more until he finally got him. "Yo," Coop said.

"Dude, we've got a problem," Eli said.

"You don't even know the half of it," Cooper replied. "We've got no power and half that giant tent is gone and the rotor blade on the bird is damaged."

That was definitely bad news. "So what's Jack going to do?" Eli asked.

"He's going to Denver to get a new blade and a chopper mechanic. And then he's got to get a crane up here so they can replace the blade. We're talking two or three days here."

Eli glanced from the corner of his eye at Marnie, who was standing a few feet away, still wearing his tee, her hair a sexy mess, her boots untied. She looked very appealing. And very hopeful.

"Ah, well… that sort of puts a damper on my plans," Eh' said, and turned his back to Marnie and walked away, out of hearing distance. "That goddamn bridge is about to be lying at the bottom of the ravine. Lightning knocked a pine right onto it."

"No shit?"

"No shit."

"Okay. Hold tight. I'll get Jack and Michael and we'll figure out what the hell we're going to do here."

"Just… do me a favor and hurry it up, will you?" Eli asked.

"Right," Coop said, and clicked off.

Eli forced a smile and turned around to Marnie. She had moved closer, waiting for him to speak. He was a little unnerved that he couldn't think of how to tell her the spot they were in. Not to mention any hope she had of a perfect" wedding pretty much shot to shit.

"So?" she asked with a smile. "What's going on? They're just sitting down there having breakfast while we are starving up here, right? Ha ha."

Eli shook his head. "Not exactly. They had a little damage down there, too." Did he wince? He hadn't meant to wince. He'd definitely winced, judging by how quickly Marnie's smile faded.

"What sort of damage?" she asked, frowning darkly now.

"Well… they don't have power, for one."

"Okay… and?'

"And, ah… well, it seems that part of the reception tent is gone."

She gasped. "
No
!"

"Yes."

"No, no, no, not the
tent.
¹
"
she cried, horrified. "All the china and the linens were in there. And the
chairs
! The chairs and the tables and ohmigod, ohmigod, the
Cristal champagne
!" She suddenly grabbed his jacket and yanked him close. "Three hundred bottles of Cristal champagne, Eli! I've got to get down there right away!"

"There's no way to get you down, coppertop."

She groaned loudly in agony, shoved two hands in her hair and dragged her fingers through, making it stick out even worse. "But if we can't get down, then how will they get up
here
?" she asked frantically.

Eli tried to smile. He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder. "Don't worry. We'll think of something. We're some pretty resourceful guys, right?"

"You mean we're
stuck
? We can't get out?"

"Hey, let's not jump to conclusions!" he said with a weak laugh. "Just hang tight, and Coop will get back to us. In the meantime, let's go get something to eat. I don't think the lodge is delivering this morning, and that storm caused me to work up a pretty mean appetite," he said with a wink.

Marnie blushed. "That makes two of us," she admitted. "But Rhys didn't bring food for us."

"We'll bribe him," Eli said, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulled her into his side, and led her up to the cabin.

* * *

THE morning, unfortunately, did not improve for Eli. Rhys was affronted that Eli would even ask about eggs.

"I have no eggs and bacon!" he all but spat as he withdrew two perfect quiches from the oven. "I did not bring my kitchen, sir—as you can see there are not proper storage facilities. I brought only what we'd need for six meals: two luncheons, two dinners, and two breakfasts. And tomorrow's breakfast is cheese and bread."

"Dude. You brought three enormous coolers up here," Eli argued. "Are you telling me you don't have a little bit of food to spare?"

With a
harrumph
, Rhys walked to one of the coolers and kicked it open with the toe of his shoe, then stood aside, his arms folded over his chest. Eli and Marnie inched forward to look inside. The cooler was filled with spices and various packages of sprouts.

"That's
it
?" Eli asked, peering in. "We carried up a cooler full of spices?"

"What do you think is the secret to my cooking? Now if you will kindly step out of my way, I will serve the quiches."

Eli looked over his shoulder. The lovebirds were sitting on the bed, cross-legged, facing one another. Vince was leaning forward, his hands on Olivia's knees, speaking low to her. Olivia was, predictably, crying, and words like
ruined
and
shattered
kept floating up. Eli turned back to Rhys, standing majestically beneath a small patch of blue sky where the roof had torn away. "Look," he said low, "I'll give you twenty bucks for one of those quiches. Give them one, sell us one."

"Are you insane?" Rhys whispered harshly. "Have you any idea how much one of these would bring in L.A.?"

"Make it thirty," Marnie whispered, nudging Eli in the side as she peeked back at Olivia and Vince.

"Thirty!" Eli complained as he pulled out his wallet. "That's highway robbery!"

"You are privileged to even
taste
the food of Rhys!" But the chef snatched the bills Eli held up and shoved the small dish at him in exchange.

"You're lucky I don't just take the damn thing," Eli groused. He grabbed Marnie's hand. "Come on," he said, pulling her out of the cabin, "let's eat."