Bury the Hatchet

Chapter Eight - Bury the Hatchet

TALLIE

We'd barely passed the You may now kiss the bride part—Hunter's lips were still on mine, actually—when all hell broke loose with the cameras still rolling.

It took the two of us a few moments to realize anything out of the ordinary was going on since we were still putting on a good show for the audience, both the ones in the auditorium and the others who'd be watching at home once it aired. Hunter recognized there was an issue before I did, breaking off the kiss and spinning toward the sea of faces behind us.

Even through the overwrought ordeal that had been the ceremony, I hadn't recovered from the verbal attacks on Hunter that Lance had been tossing around all the while my beauty team had been preparing me for the big day. The things he said when Hunter was present couldn't hold a candle to the language he used in private, and listening to the string of vileness had taken a physical toll on me, leaving me stunned and shaking. Needless to say, my head was still swimming from all of that, not to mention the toe-curling kiss Hunter had just planted on me, so it took me a minute to gather my thoughts and piece together what was going on around us.

And there was a lot going on back in the rows of seats. Mama would call it a commotion—shouting, maybe a tussle—but whatever name you put on it, it was big. And bad. My gut clenched as Hunter took off down the steps without a second glance at me, diving into the fray in a way that made me expect him to rip off his tux and reveal a Superman costume. Most everyone was on their feet, particularly the small group on Hunter's side of the aisle.

His mother was in the hub of it all, her face ghostly pale. "Call 9-1-1. Oh, God. Someone call 9-1-1."

Hunter was heading straight for her, pushing people out of his way like a man on a mission. It didn't matter how many of them there were, they weren't going to keep him from getting to his mother right now. Enough of the crowd cleared away that I could see Hunter's brother on the floor at Mrs. Fielding's feet. But then she passed out. Mr. Fielding caught her by the shoulders as she dropped. He lowered her into a chair, and the camera crew closed in on them and Hunter as he leaped over two rows of seats.

I couldn't just stand up here gaping. This was my husband and his family—whether the marriage was meant to last or not—and I ought to be by his side, whatever was happening. It didn't matter that I barely knew him and I'd only had long enough with the rest of them for a brief hello prior to the ceremony. Before I had an inkling as to what I could do to help, I was on my way to join him. I didn't know how to do anything. Nothing useful, at least. I didn't even have my cell phone with me to call for paramedics. It was in the dressing room along with everything else I'd brought to the church that hadn't been put on my person, which, considering how skimpy my gown was, wasn't much at all.

I'd barely gotten down the steps when Lance grabbed my arm hard enough to leave a mark and jerked me to a stop. "Stay right here," he demanded. "You'll mess up your hair or ruin your dress."

Tears sparked to my eyes from the pain of his grasp, and I tugged myself free. "It's just a dress. It doesn't matter." None of it mattered—the dress, my hair, my makeup, whether I could walk straight enough to keep a book on my head or answer pageant questions with enough polite but meaningless babble to satisfy the judges. I couldn't do anything with any of those pointless skills, but at the very least I could get over there with my new family and hold Hunter's mama's hand or something. Any buffoon could do that, unless that buffoon's name was Lance, it seemed.

He grabbed hold of my arm again. "Now you listen here—"

"No, you listen," I interrupted him, surprising even myself with the force of my conviction. I never interrupted him. Not ever, not for any reason. Mama would tell me it was rude and unseemly, and she'd smack my wrists and demand that I apologize. But I was done apologizing to him. I was done doing everything he wanted of me without question. There were no more pageants in my future, so there wasn't any more need for a pageant guru to run every facet of my life. One at a time, I pried his surprisingly strong fingers free and jerked my arm back to my side. "Today's it. The wedding is the end of your reign over my life. I get to decide what I want to do and how I want to do it."