The Wedding from Hell
Part 2: The Reception
by
J. R. Ward
Available:
August 7, 2018
Gallery
Books | E-book Original
ISBN:
9781982105372 | Free
The
Wedding from Hell, Part 2: The Rehearsal Dinner is
the exciting second adventure in J.R. Ward’s three-part ebook
serialization: The
Wedding From Hell.
This exclusive prequel to her upcoming standalone suspense, Consumed
(available
in Fall 2018) takes us back to the night steamy arson investigator
Anne Ashburn and ‘bad boy’ firefighter Danny Maguire will never
forget.
About
the Book:
The
Wedding From Hell, Part 2: The Reception:
As the wedding from hell continues, Anne and Danny find themselves
walking the delicate balance between professional distance and
explosive attraction. Will the desire they feel last through the
night and change their lives? Or are they doomed to part after one
night of passion?
About
the Author:
J.R.
Ward is the author of more than thirty novels, including those in her
#1 New
York Times bestselling
Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than fifteen million
copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published
in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the
South with her family.
Buy the Book:
http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Wedding-from-Hell-Part-2-The-Reception/J-R-Ward/9781982105372
Buy the Book:
http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Wedding-from-Hell-Part-2-The-Reception/J-R-Ward/9781982105372
Video
from J.R. Ward:
Excerpt:
Saturday,
October 31
T
minus 2 hours ’til blastoff
St.
Mary’s Cathedral, New Brunswick, Massachusetts
Anne
Ashburn had never had veil envy, as they called it. As a young girl,
she had never pictured herself walking down an aisle in a white
dress, ready to be rescued by a knight-in-shining-armor groom who was
going to take charge and take care of her for the rest of her life.
Nope.
Anne had wanted to fight fires like her father and then her brother.
Even though she no longer respected the former, and had a strained
relationship with the latter, she’d wanted to pull on turnouts and
strap an air tank to her back and breathe canned air as she ran into
open flames dragging hundreds of pounds of charged line with her.
She’d wanted to rescue grandmothers, and children, and people who
had succumbed to smoke inhalation. She’d been ready to cut open
crumpled cars and drag broken bodies out of wreckage at the sides of
highways. She’d been determined that the extremes of cold winter
nights, hot summer days, physical exhaustion, and mental fatigue
would never keep her from doing her job.
So,
yup, the old fashioned Mrs. degree had never held any fascination for
her. There was no way in hell she was going to be like her mother,
living a derivative, nineteen-fifties version of life, nothing but a
pretty blow-up doll that was expected to cook, clean, and cut the
yapping.
On
that note, as she pulled into St. Mary’s parking lot and looked up
at the great cathedral’s stained glass windows and lofty spires,
she decided it made sense that not only was she not the bride, she
wasn’t even a bridesmaid.
Like
the rest of the crew down at the 499 firehouse, she was a groomsmen
in the impending nuptials of Robert “Moose” Miller and
Deandra—what the hell was her last name anyway? Cox. That was it.
Anne
was thinking groomsmen was a role she might as well get used to. Not
that Duff, Emilio, Deshaun, or any of the other men she worked with
were settling down anytime soon.
Especially
not Dannyboy Maguire.
Right
on cue, a Ford truck entered the parking lot, the late afternoon sun
flashing across its windshield.
As
Anne’s heart kicked in her chest, she was tempted to hustle in the
side door of the church—but she had never been one to run from a
challenge.
Danny
was more than just a challenge, though.
And
okay, fine. So maybe she had already run out of his way at least
once: Last night, at the rehearsal dinner, she’d positively bolted
after he’d made that speech of his.
I
never believed in love . . . I thought it was just a word, a title
folks gave to daydreams and misconceptions about destiny, a lie folks
told to themselves to make them feel solid in this imperfect,
unreliable, and mean-ass world.
Now
I know it can happen between two people. And it doesn’t have to
make sense because it’s not about logic. And it doesn’t have to
have good timing because forever is like infinity, without beginning
or end. And it doesn’t have to be defined because truth is like
faith—it just is.
So,
let’s toast to love.
He’d
looked at her while he’d spoken. He had been talking . . . to her .
. . in that slow, deep voice.
Everybody
else had toasted Moose and Deandra. But Anne had known it hadn’t
been about them. Danny, ever the ladies man, king of the one-night
stand, he who shalt never be tied down . . . seemed to be suggesting
not just that he’d had a change of heart.
But
that he might have given his own to Anne.
Unless
she was misreading everything? Then again, they had kissed the night
before that. In her living room. While riding an adrenaline high
after they’d saved a life in an alleyway.
And
lips-to-lips had been better than good, the rare circumstance when
reality had improved on a fantasy. After two years of attraction and
sizzle and unacknowledged heat, that which had been pushed under the
rug was exposed now. And there was no going back.
Especially
as she felt the same way.
So
hell yeah she had bolted out of that restaurant. The second she had
been able to get up from her chair, she had hit the exit and left
Danny without a ride home.
He’d
called two hours later. He’d been in a bar, probably
Timeout
where the crew always went, the noise in the background loud and
raucous.
She
had not answered. He had left a short message, but not called again.
Anne
just wasn’t sure what to do. Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
There were plenty of things she wanted to do to him, with him, on
him—all of which were naked and erotic and not necessarily only
horizontal.
Refocusing,
she watched Danny’s truck pass by. From behind the wheel, he looked
over at her.
She
waited for him to find a space and get out, and as he walked across
to her, she tried—tried—not to go sixteen-year-old girl at the
sight of him in a tuxedo.
#epicfail
He
was very tall, over six feet five, and he was built hard and
muscular, his shoulders so wide, his chest so broad, his waist the
point of the inverted triangle of his torso. His jet-black hair was
still damp, and what sunlight there was in the mostly cloudy sky
flashed blue in its depths. He was freshly shaven—his cologne
reaching her nose even before he stopped in front of her—and his
eyes were that brilliant blue that had always arrested her. Irish
eyes.
But
they were not smiling.
For
a man who was rarely serious, he looked positively grim, and she
frowned.
“You
okay?” Stupid question. “I mean—”
“Yeah,
no. I’m fine.”
Standard
answer for firefighters when they were in pain. And she wondered if
it had to do with that speech of his, and what she could have sworn
he had been telling her.
His
eyes shifted off to the side and then his mouth got thinner.
“And
here’s the blushing bride.”
A
stretch limo entered the parking area and made a fat turn toward the
back door of the cathedral. When it stopped, its driver got out and
went to the rear door.
Seven
all-in-pink, spray-tanned, body-glittered, and blond-streaked women
got out one by one, a clown car of bridesmaids who were such carbon
copies of each other, it was like they had been ordered out of a
catalogue.
And
then the white dress emerged.
Deandra,
Moose’s intended, had her blond-streaked hair—natch—piled up on
her head in an organized, sculpted waterfall of curls. Her veil was a
gossamer fall over her tiny waist and her big skirt, and the shimmer
of crystals across the bodice and down the front and sides of the
gown made her look like a princess.
Provided
you didn’t catch her expression.
She
was sour as an old woman with gout and shingles. In spite of the fact
that she was supposedly marrying her true love, she looked downright
nasty as she snapped at the driver, glared at her maid of honor, and
yanked her skirting up to march into the back of the church.
“Wow,”
Anne muttered. “That’s a happy bride.”
“Whatever.
They’re on their own with this dumbass idea.”
“Did
you happen to talk to Moose last night?” she blurted.
“As
in out of this? Or would that be considered tacky given it was less
than twenty-four hours before the priest hit the altar with them.”
Danny
rolled his eyes. “He’s bound and determined to ball-and-chain
himself. Personally, I’d be running in the opposite direction.”
And
then there was silence between them. Tension coiled up quick, and as
Anne’s temples started to pound, she decided it was going to be a
long night, just not for the reasons she’d assumed at the beginning
of the weekend.
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