Zero Tolerance Policy In Effect

Copying this material in any way, shape, or form, without the express consent of the author will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including via civil suit.  The author has had enough.

Chapter One

“No, no, absolutely not, Kira.  Lilies could kill Aunt Thelma. You know she’s allergic.”

Kira sighed in response to her mother’s ruling out another element of her dream wedding.  Or at least, what she thought was her dream wedding.  She was really only guessing, at best.  But lilies had seemed right.

“Sit up straight, dear.  Now why don’t we go with something reasonable like roses.  Red and white roses.  Those stargazers as so tacky, anyway.  Practically hot pink.  We just don’t do hot pink, love.” 

Mother tapped the desk, to get the attention of the wedding planner, who was gazing at Kira with sympathy in his chocolate brown eyes.  “Pay attention Marshall.  We want red and white roses.  Perfectly elegant.  Write it down.”

“If your daughter wants lilies, Mrs. Shanahan–”

“We’ve already established that lilies could kill someone, Marshall.  We don’t want a beloved aunt dropping dead at this event, now do we?”   She blinked from Kira to Marshall and back again, possibly because Marshall was looking so intently at Kira.  So intently she got the feeling he was trying to read her thoughts.

She sighed. It was his job to figure out what she wanted.  He was her wedding planner.  Hell, he couldn’t know how little she really cared about any of this.

Mother glanced at her watch.  “I have to run.  Meeting with the caterer in ten minutes.  Come along, Kira.”

“You go ahead, Mom.”

Her mother blinked in surprise.  “You don’t want any input into the final decisions regarding menu, dear?”

“I’m not going to get any input whether I go or not.  So I’m opting out.”  The words came out harsh and laced with sarcasm.  Totally unlike her, so much so it surprised her to hear that tone in her voice instead of her usual, docile, soft tones.

Her mother pressed a hand to her chest.  “Kira?”

Kira softened her expression.  Her mother had swooped in and picked up the pieces of Kira’s life when it had been so torn apart she hadn’t thought she’d ever put it back together.  She had screwed up.  Everything.  Badly.  Oh, she didn’t know how, exactly, but she had. Her mother never judged, never condemned, just swooped.  And Kira had let her.  Let her go just as far as she wanted with the coddling, the babying, the taking over and directing of her life.  At first, she’d been physically unable to take charge for herself.  But then, it was just easier to let her mother continue.

She couldn’t hate her mom for doing it.  She was the one who had allowed it.  And she really care about the details of the wedding.  Just as long as she got to marry the wonderful man her mother assured her she loved deeply.  Peter was everything she had never known she had always wanted.  And she had her mother to thank for remembering for her.

“Go on, Mom.  I’m just a little overtired.  And the wedding’s only a week away.”

Her mother nodded, and pressed a palm to Kira’s cheek.  It was warm, soft, loving.  “If you really wanted lilies . . . . ”

“Not badly enough to make Aunt Thelma sick.”  She didn’t even know who Aunt Thelma was.  “Roses will be great.”

“All right, hon.  I’ll go on to the caterers and um–well, I’ll see you for dinner.  All right?”

Kira nodded, and watched her mother go.  The woman shot a few worried glances over her shoulder at her on the way out, but finally she was gone.

“So have you tried telling her that it’s your wedding, not hers?” Marshall asked.

Kira turned, having all but forgotten he was in the room.  No, that wasn’t quite true.  Marshall Waters had a presence that wasn’t easy to forget.  He looked for all the world as if he’d been scooped off the stage at a punk rock concert, stripped of his tight t-shirt and torn jeans, and dressed in a suit and tie.  He’d kept the short & spiky dark brown hair, the rock star physique, and the intense brown eyes.  He did not look like a wedding planner.

“Why bother at this point?” she asked, smiling.  “She’s already picked the dress, the bridesmaid’s gowns, the cake, the invitations–”

“The groom?” he asked. 

She shrugged, and sank into the chair in front of his desk. 

“Where is Peter today?” he asked, rolling a pen between his fingers.  “I thought he’d be with you for the final run through, and that long awaited floral decision.”

She drew a breath, sighed.  “He had an important meeting.”

“It’s Saturday.  He shouldn’t be working on Saturdays,” Marshall commented.

She got the feeling, and often, that Marshall didn’t much like Peter.  “Why not?” she asked.  “You’re working.”

He shrugged.  “Wouldn’t be, if I had a gorgeous bride-to-be waiting at home.”

She met his eyes even as the compliment hit her squarely in the chest and spread its warmth through her, then lowered them quickly because his were seeing a little too much.

“I should go.”

“Stay,” he said.   “You’re hungry.  Your stomach’s been rumbling since you sat down.  And I have a sandwich order due here any minute.”

“I have things to–”

“I know.  You have an appointment with the caterer, which you already wriggled out of.  Meaning you’re free.  Stay.   As your wedding consultant, I recommend a half hour of stress free relaxation and a meal.”

Before she could answer, he picked up the phone, told someone to double his lunch order, and to bring it “up” when it arrived.  Then he put the phone down and got to his feet, came around the desk and took her elbow in his hand.  “Come on.”

“To where?” she asked. 

But he didn’t answer, just ushered her out of his office through a side door she hadn’t noticed before, up a set of stairs that were not designed to impress, and finally out through the door at the very top–and onto the building’s roof.

Buildings in Syracuse were not terribly tall.  But this one was one of the tallest, and from it, the entire city’s skyline spread out–not to mention the rolling hills beyond it, all the way to the deceptively blue sparkle of Onondaga Lake. 

“Can you imagine it, a couple of centuries ago?” he asked her.  “Iroquois country.  Probably nothing as far as you could see besides smoke coming from an Indian village or two, and maybe the Fort at St. Marie.”

She smiled as she tried to imagine it as he described it.  The breeze blew bits of her hair free of its elegant French twist and she managed to draw her gaze in again, and focus on her immediate surroundings.

The roof was a garden.  Decorative concrete urns, pots, and man sized boxes lined it, all of them spilling over with greenery and flowers.  A small patio table with an umbrella for shade stood near a four foot tall fountain with cherubs playing harps.  He waved a hand at the chairs near that table.  “Sit. Be comfy.”

“This is nice,” she said, doing what he suggested, taking a seat.  She tucked the navy skirt under her as she sat, and unbuttoned the matching blazer.  “You bring all your harried brides up here?”

“Only the ones I’ve been dying to talk to without their overbearing mothers present.”

“She’s not overbearing.”

“No, no more than a bulldozer.”  He bit his lip.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have–”

“It’s okay.”  She held up a hand.  “I know how it looks.  But she’s only acting this way because I sort of . . . I sort of need her to.”

He lifted his brows.  “I gotta admit, I’ve been wondering.  You’re not a skittish seventeen year old, Kira.”

“Twenty-five,” she told him.  “But I wouldn’t know about the skittish part.”

He nodded slowly.  “It’s not that you’re not afraid to stand up to her,” he said.  “In fact, you seem to be forcibly restraining yourself from snapping her head off now and then.”

Kira tipped her head to one side.  “You’re pretty insightful.”

He shrugged, and said nothing.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.  The sun beamed down, the breeze blew, the traffic moved below and she became acutely aware that she had utterly nothing to do, nowhere to be, no one to answer to, for the next hour.  For the first time in what felt like days, she breathed deeply, fully, slowly.   “This feels good,” she admitted.

“Enjoy it, then.”

He didn’t make a sound to intrude on her.  Just let her sit there as the sun’s heat and the sense of peace seemed to make her muscles unclench, one by one, bit by bit.  Her body softened.  At some point she heard footsteps, and something being set on the table.  She smelled fresh bread and tomato and turkey and maybe mustard. 

When she got around to it, she opened her eyes only to find Marshall leaning back in his chair across from her, his gaze fixed on her face.  And she wondered if he’d been looking at her like that the entire time and got the feeling he had.

“Food’s here,” he said.  But he didn’t look away.

She did, focusing instead on the sandwich in front of her.  A pickle sat on the plate beside it.  There were also a miniature bag of potato chips and a diet soft drink.  “You eat up here every day?”

“Every day since I’ve been here.  Unless it’s raining,” he said.  “And sometimes even then.”

“I don’t blame you.  It’s nice.”

He nodded, still watching her.  When she looked back at him, he finally broke the intense gaze, and dug into his sandwich. 

They ate for awhile, neither one speaking.  Then finally, when he had finished, he said, “So why don’t you tell me when you decided to let your mother run your life?”

She smiled, and popped the last bit of her pickle into her mouth, then licked her fingers.  “Right after I screwed it up so bad I almost lost it,” she said.  Then she shrugged.  “I needed a break.  And hell, she’s doing a much better job than I ever did.  At least, I assume she is.”

He frowned.  “Details?”

She wiped her mouth with her napkin, shrugged her shoulders.  “Sure.  Why not?”

Then she leaned forward, reached out to clasp his hand in hers, and hesitated for a moment at the warm static that shot up her arm at the contact.  But she quickly shook it off, and drew his hand to the back of her head, pressed his palm there.  “Feel that?”

“I sure do.”

Something in his voice made her lift her eyes, and she realized they were leaning close, face to face over the table, in a posture that suggested they might be about to kiss. Her eyes locked with his very briefly, but she quickly closed them, and drew away a little.  “I meant the bumpy little ridge in my head.”

“I know.  Sorry, I was being a smart ass.  Yeah, I feel it.”  His fingers moved in her hair, either tracing the outline left by the surgery, or gently massaging her scalp.  She wasn’t sure which.

“There’s a steel plate in there.  Seems to be the result of me running my life my way.  It’s been a long, slow recovery.  Mom kind of took over.  So far, I don’t know, I’m just not compelled to take it back, you know?”

“You’re scared.” 

She nodded.  “Maybe I am.” 

He was still running his fingers over her head, and it was a little more than an exploration.  The injury didn’t even hurt much anymore.  Hadn’t, since the explosion that had nearly killed her.  At least, not since she’d regained consciousness.  Most people were slightly repulsed if they happened to touch the place where her skull had been pieced back together.  She’d stopped feeling hurt or angry over that a long time ago.  It didn’t do any good to get your skirt in a twist over what was basically a knee-jerk reaction.

He didn’t pull his hand away, though.  Instead, he slid it along the side of her head, then lower, until his palm rested on the curve of her neck.  He stopped there, his fingers caressing, a very brief stroke against her skin that left her shivering, then took his hand away.

“You want me to feel anything else?”

“The rest of me is still pretty much intact,” she said. 

He shrugged.   “So?”

Her lips pulled into a smile.  The first genuine one she’d felt in recent memory.  “You’re kinda cute, Marshall.”

“Hell, it’s about time you noticed.  So are you gonna tell me how that happened?”

“Nope.”  She picked up her soft drink, and started for the stair door.  “Maybe another time, though.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“You do that.”  She had reached the door and she looked back over her shoulder.  “Thanks for this Marshall.  I needed a break more than I knew.”

“Anytime Kira.  Anytime at all.”

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