‘And what was the question you had for me?’
Yves leant over my pillow and kissed me softly. ‘Now that really does have to wait. You are under doctor’s orders to rest and I have to tell everyone that you’re awake and not too mad at us for that stunt we pulled on you.’
‘Not mad, but I am convinced you’re all crazy.’
‘You might well be right.’
I didn’t want him to leave just yet. ‘But I’ll rest easier if you ask me your question now. I hate waiting.’
‘OK, but remember you wanted this.’ Then, to my utter shock, he went down on one knee, right there by the bedside. ‘Marry me, Phee.’
‘What!’
‘I know it’s far sooner than either of us planned to get hitched, but it’ll make getting you into the States so much easier if you go as my wife.’
I clutched my chest, heart still pounding. ‘Crumbs, you know how to surprise a girl.’ I gave a choking laugh. My brain was finally catching up with what he had just said. ‘You want me to marry you so I can get a visa?’
He shot me an offended look. ‘No! That’s a side benefit that kind of brought it all forward. I want you to marry me because I love you—just that.’
‘But we’re only going to be eighteen in a couple of weeks. How can we possibly be ready to marry?’
‘You don’t want to marry me?’
‘It’s not you.’ Oh damn, he looked hurt. ‘I’m just not the kind of girl who gets married.’
He folded his arms. ‘Why not? It’s entirely legal and would solve a truckload of problems Stateside.’
‘Oh, Yves.’ I bit my lip. Who was I fooling? We’d already decided to be together for ever by our actions over the last few days. Marriage made perfect sense and I wasn’t so foolish as to turn down the one whom I loved more than life itself.
Except …
‘How many high school girls are married?’
He shrugged. ‘Not many—if any. But you are one of a kind already, so why not?’ He leaned closer. ‘We can have it as our guilty secret if you like. We are both good at keeping quiet when we have to be.’
I liked the sound of that: turning up at a school with what appeared to be a scandalous background when really I had become a respectable married woman. ‘OK.’
He looked puzzled. ‘OK what?’
‘Yes, Yves Benedict, I will marry you.’
He sprang up and joined me on the bed, noses together, taking care not to touch my injury. ‘That, Phoenix Corrigan, has made my day.’ His lips pressed gently against mine to seal the deal.
Somebody cleared their throat behind us. ‘Now, now, none of that.’
I peeked round Yves’s shoulders to find his entire family and Sky clustered in the doorway. It was Mr Benedict who had spoken but he didn’t look that upset to catch us in this way.
Zed looped his arm around Sky. ‘See, I told you she’d be fine.’
Xav tugged Yves off me and handed me the call button. ‘You’ll be needing this, Phee, when my irritating little squirt of a brother bothers you again. Just press and the nurses will come running. One of them looks like a pro-wrestler, so she’ll make short work of him.’
Yves cuffed Xav in the stomach. ‘I don’t bother her. I’m going to marry her.’
As Karla squealed with delight, Xav and Zed groaned.
‘You said the “M” word,’ Victor said with despair. ‘There will be no stopping our mother now.’ He approached my bedside. ‘Phoenix, I am very, very sorry for all you are about to endure at the hands of our parent.’ He bent closer and whispered in my ear. ‘She means well.’
Too late, Yves realized his tactical error. ‘Just a small ceremony—tomorrow. So Phee can come back with us as soon as possible.’
‘But that won’t give us time to get Trace, Uriel and Will over!’ wailed Karla, looking at Yves as if he had just shot her favourite puppy.
‘Phee won’t be up to a big event for some time yet, Mom.’ Yves tried to dig his way out but we all knew it was hopeless. ‘Tell my mom, Phee.’
I grinned, refusing to be drawn into the discussion. ‘I’m sure your mum knows best, Yves.’
Karla beamed at me then shook her finger at her son. ‘I knew I liked that girl, Yves. You treat her right or you’ll have me to answer to.’
I couldn’t stop a yawn, even though I was more happy than I’d ever been. I was fighting tiredness and the dull pain from my leg. Mother-radar fully functioning, Karla was on to me in a second.
‘Out, out, all of you!’ she fussed. ‘Phoenix needs her rest if she is going to be a bride so soon.’ She beamed at me. ‘And so young! Same age I was when your father hurried me to the altar.’
Saul looked a little embarrassed by the memory.
Xav laughed. ‘Cradle-snatcher,’ he teased his dad.
Karla landed a kiss on her husband’s mouth. ‘We snatched each other. Now, everyone out of here.’
Obediently, the Benedicts filed from the room. Yves looked as though he’d prefer to stay but his mother hooked him by the elbow to continue their ‘discussion’ in the corridor out of earshot. I fell asleep smiling.
Karla was persuaded to settle for a small civil ceremony in London to complete my visa requirements on the promise that Yves gave me a proper church wedding a month later in their home town of Wrickenridge, Colorado. The argument that clinched it—a rather brilliant one on my part, Yves acknowledged—was that no bride would want to hobble down the aisle. Sky was to be my bridesmaid, and Xav, Yves’s best man, and his other brothers, ushers.
I immediately took to the little town in the Rockies where the Benedicts lived, falling in love with the scenery and the people within five minutes of arriving. Even though we were technically married, Karla insisted that Yves and I live apart until after the ‘proper’ wedding, which was why I took up residence with Sky and her parents, Sally and Simon, for a few weeks in their Gothic clapboard house. Sally in particular was curious about me, sensing that my English background was unorthodox to say the least, but somehow Sky managed to keep them from asking too many questions. I think her secret was distraction: every time Sally embarked on an interrogation, Sky would ask her opinion on the wedding dress or the flower arrangements. I was going to have to learn how to manage mothers now I was gaining a formidable in-law to compensate for my glaring lack of relatives.
In this little interval of peace between the events in London and our wedding, I began to learn there was more to soulfinders than even my mother’s fairytales had promised. Though not in the same house, Yves and I were almost continually together through our telepathic link. This was not to say that we were chatting the whole time, just that we were aware of the other, like a mental holding of hands. My world had shifted on its axis, the magnetic poles flipped, because now I was never lonely. And, when combined, our gifts showed signs of blooming as Sky had described with her and Zed. I discovered I could use my mental freeze to act as a kind of fire break so Yves did not have to worry much about losing his cool (something I made him do all too frequently, I’m afraid—a new life had not completely reformed the old Phoenix). We were really more complete together than apart.
The night before our big day, Sky came up to the guest room to announce that I had some visitors. Quickly brushing my hair, I went downstairs with barely a trace of a limp to find all the Benedict brothers waiting for me in the lounge. They were quite a sight, including the three whom I had only just met: Trace, the burly cop from Denver whose looks were softened by his intelligent brown eyes; Uriel the thoughtful and intuitive academic with a mane of light brown hair; Will, the most laid-back, every boy’s buddy and every girl’s heart-throb. I looked to Yves, wondering what had brought them all out in force like this.
‘Scared I was going to do a runner?’ I joked.
Yves pulled me to a seat beside him. ‘Too late, Mrs Benedict: we are already married.’
‘Only technically, according to your mother. So why are you here? Not that I don’t like seeing you a
ll, of course,’ I corrected myself rapidly, not wanting to offend so many brothers-in-law.
Victor cleared his throat. ‘We have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?’
My pulse spiked. ‘Always the bad news. Don’t tell me, the minister has chicken pox?’
Victor smiled slightly and shook his head. He glanced at Trace but his older brother nodded at him to be the messenger. ‘The two men known as Dragon and Unicorn?’
‘Yes, my brothers. They died in the fire, didn’t they?’
Yves brushed my thigh, not liking the memories. I know he still carried the burden of feeling partly responsible for their deaths.
‘They weren’t—your brothers, I mean. The DNA test came back a negative on any family tie.’
I gaped.
‘Also, they weren’t brothers to each other. This made us curious and we checked a sample taken from Kevin Smith, known to you as the Seer. He is not the father of any of you. In fact, we very much suspect from other indications of the state of his health that he is infertile, though even a criminal is allowed his medical privacy so I cannot confirm this.’
‘What do you mean … ? All those women … ?’
‘Quite. I think we can assume they were purely decorative. He liked the fantasy of being father to their children without acknowledging that he was making it up. He probably even persuaded some of them that it was true, maybe even himself.’
I wrapped my arms around myself, deeply shaken. I’d only just reconciled myself to the notion I came from such bad stock, and now I had to revisit the entire matter. ‘He wasn’t my father.’
‘No.’
‘So who was?’
‘That only your mother knew.’
‘A man … in Greece, she said.’
Trace got up to examine me closely as if he was about to file a report on a suspect. ‘Seems plausible to me: you have the colouring—dark hair, olive skin, five-four. Mediterranean.’
‘OK, yes, I can believe in that, then. She didn’t lie to me after all.’ I turned to Yves, smiling through tears. ‘I thought she had.’
He rubbed away a droplet as it tracked down my cheek. ‘It didn’t matter either way, Phee.’
Trace returned to his seat. ‘You may wonder why we are all present to hear the news.’
I hadn’t been, but he was right. It was a bit odd to have such a private moment shared before so many. ‘You’re nosy?’
He laughed, a deep rumble in his broad chest. ‘Yeah, that too. But we realized at dinner that you have no father.’
‘Um … yes, well, we’ve just established that, haven’t we?’
‘No one to walk you down the aisle.’
Ah. Now I understood.
‘So we thought we’d give you a choice if you want to take it. Any one of us would be deeply honoured to be chosen.’
Yves grinned at his brothers, incredibly proud of all of them at the moment.
Sky bounced on Zed’s lap where she had been perched. ‘That is so sweet, guys! I don’t know how she is going to choose.’
Nor did I. Trace, Victor, Uriel, Will …
Xav shook his head. ‘Not me, I’m afraid. I’d better stick to that ring thing I have to do.’
So not Xav. That left Zed. Five amazing guys all queuing up to let me hold their arm tomorrow.
‘Dad would offer too,’ Uriel mentioned, ‘but we told him this was our deal. He has to stop Mom crying over everyone.’
‘Toughest assignment,’ murmured Will.
I turned to Yves. ‘Would you mind very much if I stole something—or some things—from you?’
His eyes crinkled in laughter lines. ‘My pleasure. What is it this time—phone, wallet, not the ring, surely?’ He patted his pocket.
I poked him. ‘No, of course not. I want to steal all your ushers. I want five stand-in fathers to give me away to make up for the fact I keep losing mine.’
Zed high-fived Sky. ‘See, I told you the wedding looked odd when I foresaw it yesterday.’
Delighted by the compromise, Yves kissed me until I was breathless. ‘Take them please. They wouldn’t allow me to live if I refused.’
So that was how they come to be still talking about our wedding in Wrickenridge: about the poor minister jumping out of his skin as five gruff voices answered when he asked who was giving away this woman, the wedding photos with the bride’s side strangely outweighing the groom’s even though I’m an orphan, the bizarre goings-on with fruit at the reception.
Yet they don’t know the really scandalous secret: that the bride and groom are both accomplished thieves. My claim to that title is already well established—though from now on I plan to keep my stealing on the right side of the law. Yves has now joined me in the Robin Hood Hall of Fame for, as he pointed out as he drove us away from the reception, he had stolen me out from under the noses of some of the toughest criminals in the world, and he was not planning on handing me back. Ever.
About the author
Joss Stirling lives in Oxford and has always been fascinated by the idea that life is more than what we see on the surface. She was born in East London but it has changed so much thanks to the Olympics 2012 that she decided it would be fun to return to the area for Stealing Phoenix.
You can visit her website on www.jossstirling.com
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