It's Holy Matrimony, Baby_The Casey Brothers Series Read online

  “A little.” Enough to immediately wish I had asked her to leave. I put my glass down on the counter. “What are you doing here?”

  “A little birdie told me Nox had a new girlfriend. Didn’t realize you were the woman he married in Vegas though. Two years. You’ve been together a while.” She glances at the papers again. “You’re smart. Getting out. Nox is a sweet guy, but he’s going to be stuck in this town trying to resurrect his broken past for the rest of his life. The only way he’ll get anywhere is if he sells that building, or someone cuts him a huge check based on his looks.”

  “Someone cuts him a check?” Liv said the same thing just a couple days. That she would cut him a check if she thought it would help. But no, she wouldn’t actually do that. Would she? She’s been very invested from the moment she realized he was my husband. No, just no. It isn’t the first time these last few weeks that Liv’s suggested she’d stick her nose in if she thought it was worthwhile. But Nox...

  “I’m kidding. He is gorgeous though, isn’t he? And charming. Hard to resist.”

  Hard to say no to. Hard not to believe in. But we were strangers when I showed up here and he refused to sign the papers. His reasons for us staying together in the beginning didn’t make sense and nothing I did changed his mind. The path my brain is on makes my stomach hurt. Because it can’t be right. “I... think you should leave.”

  “Oh. I’m not interested in winning him back if that’s what you’re thinking. Although I thought you were separating.” She glances at the papers again. “I just thought, between us girls, you might be able to talk him into helping himself and selling the Casey Records building. He never would listen to me on the matter.”

  “Hey babe, I’m home,” Nox calls out as he enters the cabin.

  “Oh, isn’t that cute?” Lena smiles. “Like a 1950s sitcom.”

  “Who’s our visitor?” He comes to an abrupt halt as he spots us. “Lena. What are you doing here?”

  “Nox.” She glides toward him and kisses him on both cheeks. “You look well. Really great.”

  “Lena.” There’s a no-nonsense edge to his voice, and he growls under his breath as he removes her hands from his shoulders.

  She acts as though she doesn’t notice that the temperature in the room has dropped as she grins back at me. “Your wife is lovely. I’m so glad you’re doing so well after we... how long has it been? Two years? Almost two years?”

  “Right.” He walks around her to me. “Everything okay?”

  They were together almost two years ago? Just before we married? God, please don’t tell me it was after. No, it had to be before because Nox gave me the ring. But marrying me, was it because of her? Staying married because Liv made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Is everything between us all smoke and mirrors? “She took me by surprise, that’s all. She let herself in.”

  “You still keep the key in exactly the same place.” She lifts one delicate, angular shoulder. “It’s nice really. That you haven’t changed at all. You’re so rock solid and dependable.” She turns to me. “It must be nice to know you have a man like that in your corner. So unshakable. So determined to do whatever it takes.”

  “What do you want?” he asks her through gritted teeth.

  “You two really are so adorable,” she says.

  “Lena,” he warns.

  “Nothing. I don’t want anything.” She puts her palms out in front of her, causing her bangles to rattle. “I’m in town for a little bit, and I wanted to let you know in person. So it wouldn’t be too awkward. That’s all.”

  Nox questions me with his eyes, and I give an almost imperceptible shake of my head. My brain is on overload. Whether she meant it or not, Lena’s dropped bombs on me.

  “Great,” Nox says. “Well, you’ve warned me. Thanks for that. I think it’s time for you to go.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I should be on my way. Calvin’s waiting for me. He flew in from London this morning and decided to drive straight out to see me. He really is the best. I’m so lucky.”

  “Here.” Nox grabs her elbow and ushers her out of the kitchen to the back door. “Let me walk you out.”

  I top off my glass and down it as I pour myself onto a stool. I can’t jump to conclusions though my mind is joining thoughts together faster than that guitar solo by Dragon. Lena was trying to get into my head. That’s all. And I ran with it because I’m scared that if I open up anymore, if I let myself hope anymore, that I’m going to end up hurt.

  “What did she say to you?” Nox enters the kitchen, his hair a little wild on top like he’s attacked it with both hands. He comes straight to me, turning the stool until I’m facing him and then leaning closer. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” My hand trembles as I place the empty glass on the counter. “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know what she’s doing here,” he says. “She wouldn’t tell me what she wanted.”

  “She wants me to convince you to sell the studio.” My voice waivers. I don’t know why I’m so on edge. Lena wasn’t even that awful. It’s just the things that she said... “I don’t know why she would think I could do that. Or why I would.”

  “Christ.” His chest caves and his brow creases so deeply. “I guess I—”

  His phone rings.

  So does mine.

  And the house phone. Which never rings. I didn’t even know there was one until right now.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Love is losing everything

  And realizing that it doesn’t matter

  As long as you’re together

  NOX

  Casey Records is on fire. My world is burning down around me. Jack called Liv who gave him Beck’s number because my phone went straight to voicemail, since I was on it with Lou. Didn’t even bother with the house phone, because it would have either been Dean or Finn with the same news. My family are the only ones who know the number.

  Thick smoke drifts across the road long before we get close to the building. Sirens blare and lights flash as a fire truck speeds past us. Beck sits on the edge of her seat, staring out the windshield. She hasn’t said much more than “Oh no” since we left the cabin.

  I was this close to being able to fix everything. Even without Liv’s money I had enough to start repairs. It would have taken longer, sure, but I was ready to live with that. As long as Beck was with me.

  Why the fuck did Lena have to show up? Can’t shake the feeling she has something to do with this too, even though she was nowhere near the studio. No, it can’t be her. She might have put me through hell to get what she wanted in the past, but she always preferred a more snakelike approach. Causing damage that was so insignificant I had no idea what was coming until it was too late. Burning down a building is far too much of a statement for her.

  Can’t be certain it isn’t some kid doing something stupid either. Or simply the state of the building. Besides, if she was planning to do this she wouldn’t have shown up at my house and tried to recruit Beck into convincing me to sell it.

  I should have explained. Was going to tell her why Lena would focus on her as a way to get to me, but there wasn’t time.

  The wheels spin as I take the last corner too fast. I pull into the lot and park as far back as possible. Dirty billows of smoke spill through the broken windows. Flames too. The moment I push open the truck door I start to sweat from the heat. I can’t believe this is happening. Everything I was working toward. My Dad’s legacy. I can’t fucking fix this. It feels like I’m losing the old man all over again. Like I’m failing him all over again. Like I’ll lose Beck soon too.

  Beck shoves open her door and takes off running. She sprints across the parking lot, past the firefighter bellowing orders at the rest of them while they man hoses and set up a perimeter. She’s already in front of the building by the time I get out of the cab and take off after her. I scream her name, but she either doesn’t hear it over the fire or she doesn’t listen.

  She sprints up the concrete steps. The
paint is bubbling, the metal warping. She reaches for the handles. Cries out as she whips her hands away. Reaches for them again.

  “Stop it,” I yell as I wrap both arms around her waist and haul her back. “What the hell are you doing? The whole building is on fire.”

  “Let me go. I have to get in there.” She struggles against me. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you go. You’re not getting in there.” I drag her back as something crashes inside the building and the flames roar harder. Losing dad’s legacy kills me, but I couldn’t handle it if she got hurt. “There’s no one in there. There’s nothing you can do. Do you understand?”

  Someone yells, “The roof has collapsed.”

  “But I have to...” She sobs and falls against me.

  “No you don’t.” I turn her around.

  Tears are coursing down her cheeks. “Your furniture. I-it was in there. I thought it would be s-safe. What if it was my fault that the building caught fire? You’re going to lose everything, and it’s my fault.”

  Shit. The money. I’ve lost that too. Furniture I spent days, weeks, months of my life building with my father is gone forever. I’m losing so much of what connected me to the old man. Everything I’ve been fighting for these past couple years is being ripped out of my hands.

  I won’t let that happen with Beck. I can rebuild everything else. Somehow. Maybe. I’ll work that out later. “You’re a lunatic, do you know that? You scared the shit out of me and you’re worried about a building? Because that’s all it is, Beck. A building.”

  “It’s not. It’s everything to you.” She grimaces as she glances over her shoulder at the building as another crash comes from somewhere inside. Her knees buckle. “I know how much it means to you.”

  “Not as much as you do.” I take her wrists and flip her hands over. Her palms are blotched with red, the flesh shiny. “You’re burned.”

  She stares at her hands with wide eyes. “Am I?”

  “Come on. We’ll go to the ER. We need to get this looked at.”

  “No, please,” she whispers and her lip wobbles. Her whole body starts to tremble. “No hospital. No doctor. I can’t stand them.”

  “Fine.” Dragging her back to the truck, I yank open the door and bundle her inside. “Stay put.”

  Her lip quivers as she looks at me with watery eyes while I buckle her seat belt.

  “I mean it,” I say. “Don’t move.”

  “Okay,” she croaks.

  Closing the door, I race around and climb in the other side. Nothing I can do here except watch my family’s history burn to the ground. Don’t want to see it.

  I close my eyes while I sit behind the wheel. I feel empty. Numb. Except when it comes to Beck. She’s the only thing that means anything anymore. I start the truck up and pull out of the parking lot.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell her. Whatever happened it wasn’t her doing. She moved my furniture weeks ago. She didn’t start the fire. “It was an accident. Or stupid kids. It wasn’t you.”

  “It feels personal,” she says. “Feels like maybe...”

  She doesn’t say it. Doesn’t have to. She warned me about her bad luck, because as much as she hates it she believes in it. Believes that staying here with me is costing me the things that I love the most. But she’s wrong, because she’s the most important thing in my world. Anything else I can deal with. Somehow even Dad’s memory turning to ash isn’t as important as she is. She’s the only thing I can’t handle losing. I grip her knee as I steer toward home. Hold onto her. “It’s not the curse. Just an accident. No one got hurt.”

  “You did,” she says, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Your dad’s legacy is gone. Your possessions. Your plans. How can you be sure it’s not a sign? That things won’t escalate? I can’t bear the thought that it could get worse. That I could...”

  “What, Angel?”

  She curls into herself, hugging her knees to her chest and shaking her head. I spot Jack and Dean travelling in the opposite direction, lay on the horn and pull over.

  Jack jumps out of the car and comes to my window. “Have they got it under control?”

  I shake my head.

  “Any chance—”

  “Roof collapsed while we were there. It’s gutted.”

  “But we can—”

  “No,” I croak. “It’s over.”

  “There’s nothing we can do?” Dean asks as he joins us.

  “Can’t think about it right now.” I glance back at Beck, still curled up on the seat with her face pressed into the headrest. She’s gasping, almost hyperventilating. Her whole body is shaking, the seat shuddering.

  “Is she okay?” Dean frowns as Beck makes this god-awful broken sound.

  “Liv’s at the cabin. She said you might need her.” Jack claps his hand on the edge of the window. “She was packing the contents of her medicine cabinet into her handbag at the time. I think she has some Valium in there.”

  Can’t keep still. Beck was a hot mess by the time we got back to the cabin. Had to carry her inside. Liv was waiting for us. She took one look at her best friend, grabbed her handbag, and followed us into the bedroom while I put Beck to bed. Then she ordered me out.

  Twenty minutes later one of the local docs showed up. He stayed long enough to wrap Beck’s hands and explain to Liv and me how to treat them. Liv nodded and talked over what she’d already done and the amount of Valium she’d given Beck and how her dad is a doctor. Turns out between Liv and her old man Beck hasn’t stepped foot in a hospital or a doctor’s office since the accident. She’s damn near phobic about the idea.

  I prowl the length of the glass windows in the living room. My entire world has been turned upside down, bowled over, burned down. I have no fucking clue where to go from here. No idea how to keep my wife from leaving me when everything is going tits up. People say everything happens for a reason, but there’s no reason here. Just destruction. Maybe we are cursed. Maybe...

  I slam my palm against the window and the pane rattles. No, I can’t believe that. Don’t believe that. How many times had I wished for the orange grove to be destroyed? And now it’s a problem off my plate. But the studio... what would Dad think of what’s happening now? I’ve screwed up so many times, and now I don’t know how to fix things. Or if I can at all. Where am I supposed to go from here?

  Grabbing one of the photo albums from the bookshelf, I drop onto the couch and leaf through it. It’s full to the brim with pictures of my brothers, and Lou, and me. Of Dad running behind Jack’s bike while he learned how to ride without training wheels. One of the entire kitchen covered in flour while he and Lou baked a cake for our mother. Lou’s wearing this ridiculous ‘kiss the cook’ apron, her hair up in piggy tails. There are several of Dean and Dad and Sophie pulling faces.

  I swipe at the moisture that gathers in the corners of my eyes, even while I smile at the memories. Can’t help it when they were so full of hope and love and happiness.

  I find one of me and Dad in his workshop. We’re working on a piece of furniture. Think it might have been the dining table we gave Mom for her birthday that year. What I don’t find is a single picture of the studio.

  I get up and grab the other albums. Walk down memory lane. My memories are bittersweet things. Warm golden bubbles of happiness that make me miss him more. There’s one of Hollander. Lou has her arms around him and his feet are still on the ground. He wasn’t even fully grown.

  I’ve spent these past few years trying to atone for my sins. Thinking that rebuilding the past would somehow change it. But I can’t. I never could. And I’m not sure why I ever expected that it would be possible. My family legacy isn’t in bricks and mortar. It isn’t the strings of a guitar or the sound of a perfectly cut record. It’s in my family. It’s in the way Lou always fills my freezer because she needs to know I’m looking after myself. It’s in
the way Dean and Jack and Finn never once remind me of my failures but chip in at every turn to keep us all afloat.

  Closing the last album, I lay it down on the coffee table. Hideous, crappy piece of furniture, but it’s Beck’s. She’s infiltrated my life, mixing her new stuff with my old. Somehow I have to convince her we’re stronger together than we could ever be apart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  For better or worse

  In sickness and in health

  In fire and in loss

  BECK

  “Hey, baby girl. How are you feeling?” Liv asks when I open my eyes.

  My body feels numb, kind of floaty, strapped down to the bed by Liv’s arm around my waist and Hollander across my legs. I take a deep breath. Doesn’t hurt like earlier. My lungs were so tight, black spots danced before my eyes, and my heart felt like it was going to explode, spew out of my chest.

  “I gave you a Valium.” She rests on one elbow and strokes my hair out of my face. “You were completely freaking out. Your hands weren’t too badly burned. I paid one of the local doctors to make a house call while you were out of it. To be certain. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I ran toward a burning building,” I whisper. My throat is scratchy and dry, probably from the smoke I inhaled.

  “You did.”

  “I’m an idiot.”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “You didn’t want Nox to lose everything. That’s all.”

  “If I’d gotten too close. If I’d actually made it inside I could have...” I shudder.

  “It’s okay to say it, you know,” Liv continues to stroke my face. “You could have been trapped in the fire. You could have died. You could be dead.”

  My heart stutters. It hurts so much. “Nox lost almost everything today. This past week. Because of me. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “What happened isn’t because of you. You’re not unlucky, Beck. Bad things happen to all of us. Life happens to all of us.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. There’s truth to what she says. I know that. I do. But I’m more careful than that. Was more careful. Until Nox. And now his world is falling apart. My world is falling apart because somehow they’ve become one and the same. “It doesn’t happen to me.”