Page 51 of The Devil's Pair

“So what do we do?”

“Baby, we are getting married in just over two months. I don’t care if it’s up at Open Skies, or in a safe house living room that I’m blindfolded when I’m driven to. I don’t care if it’s just us and Keira and a justice-of-the-peace, or the whole MC shows up at the ranch in the Rockies. I don’t care if you wear a new dress or your oldest jeans. You get me? I just want to marry you in November, and how and where that happens, I’m not fussed.”

Zoe smiled a bit at that, then she noticed King lingering at the end of the hallway, and she gave him a quizzical look.

“Scars, Zee,” he said now. “I wanted to talk to you guys about your wedding plans.”

“Ummmm… you did?” she said.

“I did.” He padded over to Scars and Zoe, and once again, she wondered how such a huge man could move so quietly and almost gracefully. “I was thinking about something that you might find helpful. Well, actually, someone.”

“Ohhh-kaaay,” Scars said slowly. “Who?”

“Well, a couple of years ago, I had a similar situation: a group of women had to go into hiding for a little while, and one of them was planning a wedding at the time. She worked with a woman named Elise Jordan remotely.”

“Is she a wedding planner?” Zoe asked. “Because I don’t need one, King. Everything is organized – minister, location, food, reception and party – except for the dress.”

“And that’s what Elise does,” King said. “She owns a wedding dress shop in the city.”

“Oh,” Zoe said. “I’m not looking for the full-on wedding gown, King. I mean… I’d love something off-white, with a nice cut, and maybe some embroidery or even tiny diamonds sewn on the bodice, but I don’t want the whole ‘wedding dress’ thing.” She put air-quotes around the words as she spoke.

“Uh, well,” King said carefully. “That actuallydoessound like a ‘wedding dress’ thing to me, but I’m no expert.”

“To be fair, baby,” Scars added. “You’ve gone from buying a simple white dress on Amazon to thinking about diamonds sewn on… on something.”

“The bodice.”

Scars blinked at her. “OK, yes. On that. So – maybe my girl wants a ‘wedding dress’ thing after all?”

“Oh, man.” Zoe gazed at her future husband, suddenly panicked. “I do.”

“You’re jumping the gun a bit on saying that,” Scars teased her. “But I do, too. I mean… I want you to get married in the dress that you want, and if that’s the real deal – with lace, and a veil, and diamonds – then that’s what we do.”

“But it’s too late!” Zoe almost wailed. “Nobodycan get a real wedding dress in less than three months, andespeciallynot locked down surrounded by bodyguards! And I’ll never wear laceora veil!”

“Hey,” King soothed her. “Elise is the woman for the job, believe me. Like I said, she helped someone plan a wedding from our safe house. She’s ageniusat choosing dresses for a bride just based on a photo or a Skype call.”

“She is?”

“Yeah. I imagine she’ll pull a bunch of dresses that you point out to her while you guys are on the call, then courier them over to you, no problem. Once you choose the one you want, she’s happy to be taken to the safe house and do the alterations with you there, and take back the other dresses with her when she leaves. No hassle or stress. When I say that the woman is flexible, I’m dead serious.”

“Really?” Zoe stared at King. “She’s done this kind of ‘wedding dress in hiding’ thing before?”

“Thisexactthing, hon.” King smiled down at her from his massive height. “I know this isn’t how you want to do things, and I’m really sorry that my fuck-up is messing with your wedding plans. I swear thatallI’m working on is finding Crusher and Darryl.”

“Which means they’re as good as found,” Scars said. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want you looking for me,that’sfor sure.”

“OK, then,” Zoe said, suddenly feeling light years better as she followed the men back to the bar. “Wedding dress shopping in a safe houseit is… if nothing else, it will be memorable.”

**

Violet stepped out of the kitchen, clutching her plate of food. She’d been starving fifteen minutes earlier, but now she couldn’t choke down a single bite of food if you put a gun to her head.

Scars’ words were swirling around in her head, just going around and around in a jumbled mess, the same sentence echoing over and over again:

The last anyone saw Crusher and Michael – sorry, Darryl Webber – they were in Utah, in the MC clubhouse in Salt Lake City.

And just like that, Violet felt better than she’d felt in weeks, ever since she’d stupidly, thoughtlessly, left the Garden.

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