But I was walking toward her, stopping only when I was directly in front of her. Close enough to smell her over the city. For her face to fill my vision. “I’m sorry, Alice,” I said. “I’m so sorry. And I don’t know if I have to buy you an entire stable full of horses. Or do a thousand stupid things to make you laugh. But whatever it is, whatever you need from me to make this right, I’ll do it for you.”
She looked up at me, those brown eyes mysterious and unreadable. But then a smile slipped onto her face. She put a hand on my chest and said softly, “Oh Mac. All you have to do is kiss me.”
I didn’t have to hear it twice. I bent down a caught her mouth in mine, twisting my tongue against hers, cupping her face with my hand as I pulled her to me. It was deep and long and I inhaled her scent, tasted her, felt those soft hands clutching my body. I wanted it to last forever. But it couldn’t. Because we were still standing on the side of Seventh Avenue and questions were beginning to spring to mind.
So finally, I had to break away. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
Alice’s smile widened. “A lot’s changed. I’ll tell you on the way.” She stepped back and opened the limo door for me.
“On the way to where?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” she said. “But I hope you can change in the limo. You’re not exactly dressed for a wedding.”
“So Beck and Sam…?”
“Are waiting at the marriage bureau.”
“And the guests…?”
“Are still in Mexico.”
“And Jules?”
“Also in Mexico.”
I sat across from Alice in the limo (trying to ignore the fear I felt at letting Twain drive me anywhere) and processed everything she’d just told me.
Sam and Beck coming home for a quiet wedding with just their close friends. Alice coming to pick me up with my tux. Keegan breaking it off with his awful girlfriend. It all seemed too good to be true. I didn’t deserve this. Not after everything that had happened.
“It wasn’t just about you,” Alice said, reading my mind. “Okay, they probably would have just powered through the big resort wedding if you hadn’t gotten yourself thrown out, but neither of them really wanted such a large wedding.”
I adjusted one of my cuff links and grinned at the implication. “So you’re saying that, in a way, I really did save the wedding?”
Alice rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Mac.” But she sounded happy to say my name again.
“But if you think about it…” I pushed, grinning.
“Okay, fine. Yes. Through idiotic bumbling and a week of terrible decisions, you did somehow make the wedding better than it would have been.”
I smirked. “Luck of the Irish, love. It’s a real thing.”
She rolled her eyes again and shook her head. But then her smile faded. “I’m sorry too, Mac.”
I furrowed my brow. “For what?”
“Leaving,” she said, looking up to meet my eye. “Making assumptions. Not trusting you. Not giving you a chance.”
I stood and moved to the other side of the limo, sitting beside her and putting an arm around her shoulders. She fit perfectly against me, like it was meant to be.
“You don’t have to be sorry for anything,” I breathed into her ear.
“But I am.”
I used a finger to tilt her chin up to look me in the eye. “Then maybe we can agree those mistakes can live in Mexico. Both of ours. And we can start over from scratch in New York?”
Her mouth twisted in a half-smile. “I like the sound of that.”
I raised the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her and offered my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, beautiful. I’m Mac Walsh.”
“Alice Rhodes,” she breathed, putting her small hand into my large one.
“I think you’re going to be an important person in my life, Alice Rhodes.”
“I think I’m never going to forget you, Mac Walsh.”
Our eyes stayed locked, our hands linked, my arm still around her, silent, drinking each other in, examining all those beautiful little things and pretending it was for the first time.
When the limo stopped, I wanted to call to Twain to take us around the block one more time. But I stopped myself. Today wasn’t about me. And it wasn’t about Alice. There was a couple waiting on us and they mattered more to me than almost anyone else in the world.
“Shall we?” I murmured, nodding toward the door, still not looking away.
“Find me afterward, stranger,” she whispered.
Twain opened the door and the atmosphere got sucked out into the vacuum of the New York afternoon. I let her go first and followed, stepping out onto Tenth Avenue in front of the massive state building.
There, in front of the doors, stood our friends gathered in a group. They turned at Twain’s shout and a chorus of cheers erupted at the sight of us. I grinned, but only had my eyes on Sam. He broke away from the group and strode toward me, enveloping me in a crushing hug.
“Thanks, brother,” I said into his ear.
“Come on, Mac,” he said, pulling back and holding me at arm’s length. “I’d never get married without you by my side.” Then he faked a jab at my chin and pulled me into the group gathering around us.
I hugged Beck, muttering apologies in her ear, and then apologized again a dozen times to everyone, and got waved off by the lot.
“Thank you,” Keegan said, shaking my hand. “I don’t know how much more I could have taken of Jules.”
We headed inside to the room that Sam had reserved. It was small, simple. Just an aisle with pews on either side, empty. A minister at the front of the room.
All plans were forgotten. We paired up however we wanted. Twain danced Sarah down the aisle, spinning the country girl in circles. Kylie ran with Henry, laughing and shrieking. Keegan hoisted Mason onto his shoulders and they walked as a massive seven-foot-tall beast in great steps, Mason calling for help and hanging on for dear life, as the party dissolved into peals of laughter. I offered my arm and walked Alice, the one I was supposed to have, down the aisle, her beautiful brown eyes staring up at me as the wedding march played.
And at long last it was time. We gathered around the bemused minister in a group, nobody on anyone’s specific side, just together, and watched as Sam lifted Beck into his arms and carried her down the aisle.
He set her down in the right spot and lifted her veil back. The minister began to speak the customary words: “We are gathered here today—”
I barely listened to him. I kept an arm tight around Alice and watched the pure, blinding love in our friends’ eyes as they held each other’s hands. And when it came time to kiss the bride, Sam bent Beck backward, kissing her in a deep plunge as the photographer clicked away and we cheered them on.
In the instant that Beck and Sam’s wedding became final, I looked down at Alice and felt her looking back up at me. And for the first time in my life, I made an internal promise, to myself and to the woman I loved. One day, that will be us.
24
Alice
The line was long; it always was. But the Knights had their private booth at the Black Shade, and besides nobody was saying no to Beck and Sam, still dressed in their wedding finery, anyway.