Page 123 of Not Your Average Vixen
“Are you okay?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” he answered, sounding the exact opposite.
Maybe marriage made him uncomfortable. That would also fit into his narrative. Crummy parents, who didn’t love him or each other? That could put a dent in anyone’s perception of vowing to love and honor someone for all the days of your life, right?
“What about my perception?” he asked.
Dammit! She was doing it again.
She waved him off. “I’m just running through all thepreparationsthat need to be done before tomorrow. That’s all.”
He nodded. She was a terrible liar, and she expected him to call her out. But his mind was somewhere else.
They stood on the porch and waited for the gondola to make its way to the bottom, then hurried through the swirl of falling snow to enter the enclosed space.
“We’re the last ones up,” she said with a touch too much enthusiasm as she took the seat across from him, unable to think of anything else to say.
He must have sensed her apprehension because just as she was about to drop the upbeat Birdie persona and go full vixen and demand he explain exactly what had turned him back into the Tin Man, he leaned forward and took her hands into his. “Sorry, I’m just—”
“No, you don’t have to apologize,” she interrupted.
She needed to give him a break. He hadn’t done one damn thing to endanger this wedding. Strike that. He did send strippers, but that was before. Yes, he’d been a killjoy and had mentioned to Tom his concerns about the wedding, but he hadn’t acted on his fears. Not really. She’d prepared to go to war with the worst best man. She’d expected for him to try to undermine her at every turn. Instead, he’d helped her. In his curmudgeon way, he’d taken care of her.
She entwined her fingers with his. “You don’t have to explain anything. I get it.”
That had to be it. A terrible childhood plus a warped view of marriage would equal trepidation when witnessing one’s best friend’s nuptials.
But what did that mean for them?
Was he against marriage? Did he detest the entire institution?
Did she want to marry him?
Stop!
Their chemistry was off the charts, but they’d known each other for five days.
They hadn’t even had the boyfriend-girlfriend talk. It was hard to say much of anything after six orgasms.
She leaned forward, ready to shift gears and cash in on that missed promised kitchen kiss, when the gondola lurched. She gasped as the steel cables whined under the weight of the now swaying structure. The gondola rocked from side to side at the mercy of the wind as it dangled above the mountain.
“This just keeps happening! What are we going to do?” she cried, flying over to his side, weight distribution be damned.
He chuckled and wrapped his arm around her. “It’s all right. Dan said the gondola gets testy with the weather. Just wait a second.”
“Okay, one. That’s one second,” she counted.
“Wait twenty seconds,” he countered.
She raised her index finger. “One, two—”
“Are you going to count it out all the way to twenty?”
She balked at him. Of course, she was going to count.
“We cannot have the gondola out of commission. It’s the only way to the chapel. And I have a rehearsal dinner to put on and cake to retrieve and—”
The mechanical hum cut off her rant as the wobbly gondola continued its ascent.
