I just want to thank EVERYBODY who has reviewed for me. You guys are awesome. It was so awesome, I decided to post chapter 2 before my regular posting date. Hope you enjoy it.
II. Abandonment and "Will You Marry Me?"
ONE WEEK LATER:
July 10th, 2010
"How could he do this to me RIGHT before the ceremony?" Lisbon asked Van Pelt, who was her Maid of Honor.
"I don't know," Van Pelt answered. "The last time I saw of him was at the rehearsal dinner last night. And he was with Jane."
"Of course!" Lisbon said. "This has Jane written ALL over it!"
"Maybe not," Van Pelt replied.
"Go and—"
"Lisbon?" Jane called through the door.
"Speak of the Devil," she muttered.
"Are you decent? There are a lot of people out here waiting for you. And you're running fifteen minutes late."
"Oh yeah?" Lisbon flung the door open. "Well, you probably already know why!"
"No!" Jane protested. "I actually just got here!"
She dragged him into the room and slammed the door behind her. "Why were you talking to Emmett last night?"
Jane looked confused. "Emmett? As in your fiancé Emmett?"
"Exactly my fiancé Emmett!" Lisbon grabbed him by his tuxedo lapels. "What did you say to make him not show up today? What did you do? Did you hypnotize him? Did you tell him that you were in love with me? Did you tell him that I was secretly in love with you? Or about my past relationships?"
"All I told him was that he better take good care of you! " Jane replied, trying to shake Lisbon from her death grip on him. "Good grief! Why do you always have to turn bad things on me?"
"Hey guys?" Kimball Cho asked through the doorway. "The minister's waiting for you. . . can I tell him that you'll be right there?"
"Give us five minutes!" Lisbon replied.
"Five minutes? You need five minutes to think of something to say to your wedding guests?" Jane asked. "I could get them to go away in two seconds. Then, I'll take you home, you can get changed, and we'll go out and get drunk—"
"Not so fast!" Lisbon said, tightening her grip on him. "I don't think I could—"
"My dear, you'll get a lot further with me if we can sit down and discuss this in a civilized manner. I'm about to die of suffocation."
"Oh. . . sorry." Lisbon let go.
Jane took her hand and led her over to a couch. "Now, what is that you wanted to say?"
"Jane, I don't want to go out there and tell everybody I was dumped. All of my friends and family will say that—"
"What they've been saying all along," Jane finished for her when he saw her hesitation. "Of course he broke things off with you. You always push away the men who want to be close to you. It's your own fault, really. You'll die alone—"
"Okay, that's enough!" Lisbon said, closing his lips. "Hearing it from you is even worse than hearing it from them. If you really have to know, yes, that's what they'll say. They've been saying it for years."
"So?" Jane smiled. "Do you want me to hypnotize them so they don't think that anymore? It might take a while, but for you. . . I'll do—"
"You can't hypnotize my wedding guests!" Lisbon answered, trying to look appalled, but smiling at the thought all the same.
"Then what?" Jane asked desperately. "Just ask, and I'll do anything for you!"
"Okay," she said, getting off the couch and kneeling down in front of him. "Patrick Jane, will you pretty, please with cherries and chocolate sauce on top marry me?"
Van Pelt's eyes widened and she covered her mouth with her bouquet to muffle her gasp.
Jane stood up. "I'll do anything but that."
"Please?" Lisbon pleaded, crawling after him and grabbing his leg. "None of my friends and family has ever met Emmett. They wouldn't know the difference—"
"But Hightower and the rest of the team would," Jane said, not exactly shaking her off, but trying for Van Pelt's sake. "They've all met Emmett."
"But they wouldn't care!"
Van Pelt shook her head, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. She had always thought that Jane would be the best man for Lisbon, and she had been disappointed when Emmett had come into the picture.
"Please Jane? Please?" Lisbon begged. "If you marry me, I'll. . . I'll see that you. . . that you get a pay raise! Please!"
"Guys?" Cho's voice came through the doorway.
"I'll see if Cho will agree to be my best man then," Jane said, losing all of his reasons for saying no, when Lisbon's pleading green eyes met his. He had always had a weakness for her eyes. "And forget about the pay raise, I'll just do this for you."
"We can get an annulment in a year or two," Lisbon promised, allowing Jane to help her to her feet. "Thank you so much!"
"Fine! And I won't tell anybody about your embarrassing proposal."
"What embarrassing proposal?" Lisbon asked.
Jane just smiled at her and brushed a gentle kiss on her lips, a kiss that sealed their deal, but didn't say anything about their feelings for each other. Then, he was gone before she could react to him at all.
"What's going on?" Madeline Hightower asked Wayne Rigsby when Jane came out of the back room with Cho. "Where's Emmett? Why's Jane up there?"
Rigsby shrugged. "I'm pretty sure that Jane and Lisbon have a good explanation for this."
"Of course they do," Hightower muttered. "They always have an explanation for everything. Even things that don't have explanations."
"There's nothing in the rule book about an agent getting together with a consultant. Is there?" Rigsby asked as Pachelbel Canon in D began to play and they got to their feet.
"No," Hightower whispered. "But Jane and Lisbon? I mean, am I missing something here?"
Again, Rigsby shrugged.
"I mean, yeah. . . I know they have some sort of strange connection, and that they really do like each other. And I did think that it was a mistake for Lisbon to marry Emmett. I thought it from the start, but. . . I thought it would be a while before the two of them made a match. Like—"
"Will you please be quiet?" Somebody behind them hissed.
"Sorry," Rigsby mouthed, throwing a pointed look at Hightower.
Hightower got the point and closed her mouth.
'
"Thank you for coming," Lisbon said happily. "Aunt Bea, this is my. . ."
"Patrick Jane," Jane came in quickly. He looked at Lisbon and added helpfully, "Her husband."
"Such a pleasure to meet you! And you're such a handsome young man! No wonder Teresa never brought you around to meet us. She always said you were too busy, but now the truth came out—"
"Aunt Bea!" Lisbon's cheerful attitude fading right away. "Look over there, it's Tommy and Liz!"
"I know. I came over with them on the plane." But Aunt Bea got the hint and wondered off.
"Emmett was always 'to busy' to go and meet your family and friends?" Jane asked.
"Be quiet," Lisbon replied, blushing.
"If I were really your fiancé, I would have made time to meet all of your friends and family—"
"Alba! I'm so glad you could come!" Lisbon said, cutting him off. "This is Patrick Jane, my husband. Jane. . . I mean, Patrick, this is Alba Roberts. She's my best friend from high school."
"It's such a pleasure to meet you," Jane said. "I'm glad to know that Teresa was close to somebody in high school."
"What's that supposed to mean Darling?" Alba asked, turning her attention over to Lisbon. "You were close to somebody in high school?"
"Oh, that's just Jane being Jane." Lisbon's eyes widened. "I mean, that's just Patrick being Patrick."
"Right. Well. . ." Alba winked at Lisbon. "If you want to get together when you get back from the honeymoon, I'm living in California now, so you and Patrick should give us a call."
"Us?" Lisbon asked.
"I got married, have three kids now actually."
"And another one on the way," Jane said.
"Yes, how'd you know? Are you psychic?" Alba asked getting excited.
Jane smiled. "No such thing, just a lucky guess."
"Hey, Teresa. . . this one, he's a keeper. Don't screw this one up again. Congratulations!" And then, Alba sashayed off too.
Jane looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't get a chance to because another guest, a pretty Asian girl was making their way over to them.
"I'm Violet Chung, Teresa's adopted cousin. It's so good to meet you. We never thought that she'd ever meet Mr. Right. Of course, we were all happy when she did." Violet took a deep breath. "So, anyways. . . how'd you two meet?"
"Well," Lisbon began uncertainly. "We met. . . we met—"
"At work," Jane finished for her. "You see. . . I was married before this, but my wife and daughter were killed—"
"Jane," Lisbon whispered. "You don't have to do this. Please—"
He shook his head and went on. "They were killed by a serial killer named Red John—"
"OH MY GOSH! You're the Patrick Jane!" Violet shouted. "OH MY GOSH! TERESA! OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH YOU MARRIED THE MAN WHO HELPED YOU CATCH RED JOHN! YOU MARRIED THE MAN WHO SAVED YOUR LIFE! OH MY GOSH!"
"Don't you want to hear the rest of the story?" Jane asked, trying to hush her because the other wedding guests were staring at him with a sense of awe and reverence.
"Oh right, right. It's just that we've heard SO much about you. Teresa does nothing but sing your praises, except sometimes she complains about you. But mostly what she says is all good. Anyways. . . go on."
"So, my wife and daughter were killed by Red John. After that, I tried to. . . well, you know. And then I got better. After that, I needed to do something with my life. So, I signed up to work at the CBI. And Lisbon signed up to work with me."
"Really?" Violet sighed dreamily.
"It wasn't because of anything romantic! I signed up to work with him because he closes cases!"
"Of course, we liked each other right from the start. She was easy to talk to, and I could tell her things that I couldn't tell anyone else. Things that I had never told anybody else. She really understood, and if she didn't. . . she tried to understand. Or she pretended that she understood. And, although she'll never admit to this, I knew her. . . and I understood her. And she liked that. But we wouldn't say so immediately. I mean, we seriously danced around the issue for five years. And then, last year. . . things changed. Things really, really changed."
"He asked me out, I said yes; six weeks later we were engaged!" Lisbon said quickly.
"What she said," Jane agreed.
"Wow!" Violet grabbed their hands.
"Yeah. . . wow," Lisbon said quietly.
"Tell me about the proposal! I want to know how he proposed, I want to know where he proposed, I want to know—"
"Hey guys! Are you ready for your first dance as husband and wife?" Van Pelt asked, coming up to them. "Rigsby picked the perfect song for the two of you."
"Will you excuse us?" Jane asked Violet, taking Lisbon by the hand and leading her to the dance floor.
More Than Words started to play, and Rigsby came up behind them, beaming. "Sound familiar?"
"Very," Jane replied, taking Lisbon into his arms and beginning to dance with her slowly.
TBC. . .
Author's Note 2:
You can look on my profile, I have a link posted to my YouTube account, where I have a playlist set up for this story.
Please, read & review. I really appreciate your feedback.