Page 73 of Axton

“You are marrying the best man in the world today, and I don’t care that it’s supposedly fake, you’re dating him and that’s very significant.” She put another curl in my hair.

“We are literally running in and out to get it done, then it’s business as usual when we get back.” I was sitting in a chair in my bedroom wearing a satin robe with a white pencil dress with sheer long sleeves laying on my bed. It was short, very short. Morgan sent it over with Kayla and told her she wore it in one of her movies that hit the box office like a storm, so it was a good luck charm. She also sent a pair of white very high heels that Kayla spent an hour just teaching me how to walk in them.

Kayla lifted my chin to look at her. “Do you honestly have no faith in your father’s prophecy?”

“Let me explain it like this, Kayla. Michael’s birthmark confirmed things for me in the beginning. But it’s just a coincidence, that has been proven to me. My papa said I would be a faithful servant to God’s soldier, and I had a duty to marry him. That’s not true. Michael wants me to have my freedom, and he doesn’t want a servant for a wife. If anything, when he looks at me, I feel like he worships me, not the other way around. He supports my dreams to have a career in teaching. He is not a soldier of God, and I think the only thing that matches my papa’s prophecy is the birthmark. I care for Michael because of the man he is, not because of the man my papa dreamed up. If he didn’t have that birthmark, I would still be infatuated with him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, that was a very good answer, but I like to think you are meant for my brother. He deserves a nice girllike you, and I like to think you’re his reward for all the hell he has been through.”

“Kayla, I don’t want my papa’s prophecy to be true. I have very intense feelings for your brother, and I don’t ever want to believe that’s only the case because he has a birthmark that matches mine. This is free will, there is nothing scripted here. Believing that would diminish what we are experiencing together. I’d like to believe we are being rewarded with happiness because we chose to follow a path that led us to each other.”

She pulled the curling iron and rolled my hair in for another curl. “My brother hung the moon. Most girls are daddy’s girls, but I’m my brother’s biggest fan. He means everything to me, and that’s why I left opportunities in Boston for a life in rural Indiana. I wanted to live close to him because I’ve missed him the way a girl would miss her parents. He might get grouchy sometimes and he is very stubborn, but I’ve seen a side of him I haven’t seen in years since he met you. I think Creed’s Lake is about to meet the real Michael Axton. The man he would have been if this world wouldn’t have been so cruel to him.”

“Today is just paperwork. If things work out, we can have a spiritual wedding someday. I think that would mean a lot to both of us, but we’ve just started dating and we need time.” I said.

She shook out my curls to make them loose. “Do you have any idea how much people would pay to have this hair? There’s so much brown but the red could be what they call balayage. That’s when a stylist brushes in just a splash of hair dye to make it look like their hair is sun-kissed, except yours is dark brown and red. I never knew natural hair like this existed. I’m obsessed.” She paused for a moment. “Are you going to sleep with him tonight?”

I froze. “Why?”

She walked around for me to face her. “Are you all natural down there?” She pointed at my private area.

“Um…”

“I take that as a yes.” She tapped her chin. “I wonder what kind of guy my brother is? Full bush? Maybe landing strip? Hmm…bald?”

“That’s sort of weird, and what do you mean?” He was her brother, and I never wondered that kind of thing about mine. Granted, some were old enough to be my grandfather, but still. Ewe.”

She waved it off. “Never mind, he will tell you what he likes, but most guys don’t like picking your short and curlies out of their mouths after oral sex.”

I gulped. “It needs shaved too?”

She laughed. “I started using Michael’s razor to shave mine when it first started growing. I knew right away I didn’t like how it felt when I got my full bush. The first time I did it, I caught him staring at his razor and he was so confused.”

I burst into laughter.

“He barely had any hair on his face, and it sure wasn’t short and curly.” We were both laughing. “You know as well as I do that he had no idea I had hair down there already.”

After the laughter died down, she did my makeup, and I got dressed. I wore a long lavender pea coat, so I was sort of warm when we left. The trick was not falling in heels or slipping on ice.

“What is that?” I pointed at it as Kayla parked her car.

“Morgan’s Uncle runs the SWAT team for the area. It’s an armored truck. It’s not an abnormal thing to see around here.”

I saw Creed walk around the front of it then I saw Michael and my heart grew. He was wearing a suit, and it made him look very handsome. In fact, Creed was also wearing a suit. Then I saw Travis and Wrenly, but they were dressed like cops.

“I guess Creed decided Morgan wouldn’t go into labor, that man usually refuses to leave Creed’s Lake without her, and I know she isn’t leaving during a lockdown.”

I watched as Wrenly opened the doors on the back of the truck.

“Let’s go make you family. We better leave before mom catches on, because that wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because she will be all dramatic and want involved. It’ll piss Mikey off, and it’ll start an argument.” She opened her door. “Ready?”

“Yeah, ready as ever.”

We got out of the car and walked toward Michael. He looked at me the way he always did, and it always made my heart race.

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