Page 52 of Forever His This Christmas

“You how rumors are, especially around here,” Regan replied. “What brings you in here on a day like this?”

“A marriage license,” she answered, and he smiled. “This is my fiancé Corey and my daughter Abby.”

“Nice to meet you both, I’d say your mom wasn’t too much older than you the first time I saw her in the sheriff’s station. I hope you don’t give her the hassle she gave us,” Regan said looking at Abby.

“You were in the sheriff’s station? And you grounded me for a month for catching a bus to New York?” Abby asked lifting a brow at her.

“I was sixteen, you were barely thirteen and took a bus from LA to New York alone, there’s a difference there. I was only in there for a class assignment. Judge Henry here’s just joking around, I never was arrested or brought into the station in a cop car.”

“No but we expected it, we certainly weren’t expecting to meet a teenage daughter though,” Regan stated eyeing the group.

“No one was, I kept Abby away from this place for a reason. I wasn’t going to let anyone run her out of town.”

“I think you and I should have another discussion,” Regan said moving out of the way for a group to pass by them. “That one we had at sixteen certainly is bringing up questions now.”

“No reason for it to,” she said with a shrug trying to stick to her part of the agreement. “But…you could possibly help us out.”

“How’s that?” he asked, seeing the way Corey tensed slightly, and Abby turned her gaze away from him at her reply.

“We’re trying to find someone to perform the ceremony, and you could probably point us in the right direction of someone available for Christmas Eve,” she answered, and he smiled.

“Christmas Eve, huh? Let me guess you’re getting married at the lodge.”

“We’re hoping to, it’s a bit spur of the moment but we want to be together as a real family on Christmas. It’s Abby’s Christmas wish, and we certainly can’t deny our girl her Christmas wish,” Lisa told him as Corey smiled down at her daughter.

“No one does Christmas Eve quite like your mother, so I’d be more than happy to perform the wedding as long as it includes an invitation to dinner,” Regan said hoping it’d allow him to find out what was going on with her and her daughter.

“I guarantee Mom will put you at the family’s table. She wants me married more than anyone else. She would have had me married to Corey last year when we were here if she could have talked me into it.”

“So would have I,” Corey stated kissing her temple.

“Well, we’re here now and I cannot wait for Christmas Eve,” Abby said with a full smile. “I want Corey to be my dad, he’ll be the best one ever and I’m so happy for that.”

“Me too Abs,” Corey assured her with a kiss to her hair.

“Let me know what time you want to have the wedding. I’ll clear my schedule for the day,” Regan stated letting them head towards the office to file the license.

“Looks like we have two of the three things we need,” Abby said brightly as they filled out the paperwork.

“We’ve got the third right here,” Corey said glad that he’d grabbed his important papers before he came here. He’d been hoping that he could convince her to marry him, that whatever she’d wanted to talk about would lead them to this place and maybe even Vegas.

“This was the second, cause we all knew the wedding would be at the lodge,” Abby stated. “The third thing is your dress, Mom.”

“Right, well once we’re finished here, I know the perfect dress shop to head to, and while we look for dresses Corey can call his mom and brother,” she suggested, and Corey was glad to see a smile on her face as they walked through town.

He noticed a man in a wheelchair watching them and stepped closer to Abby, keeping her from sight until he could get her into the dress shop. He wasn’t about to let some monster harm his daughter.

That’s what Abby was to him. She was his daughter and if anyone began to hurt her, he would destroy them.

He kept an eye on him as Lisa moved Abby through the store towards the dresses for sale, realizing that the man was keeping track of how long they were inside as he kept glancing at his watch. He didn’t trust the man, knew it was the bastard that’d hurt Lisa, and didn’t want him to upset her or Abby.

He called his mother relaying the invitation to the wedding and laughed when she shrieked and yelled with happiness and questions. His brother kept asking if it’d been the hot girl from the bar that his bartender told him about, but he refused to answer.

“Come on man, Tony mentioned some hot chick you’d met last year that you took upstairs to the loft. After that Mom said you’d been seeing someone, so is it her?”

“Yes, Lisa and I met at the bar, we broke up for a bit but we’re back together, completely together now and we’re gettingmarried on Christmas Eve. If you can make it that’s fine, if not, I won’t argue too much. I’d prefer to spend time with my girls rather than keeping you from saying something inappropriate.”

“Wait…you just said girls. Is she pregnant?”

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