Not everyone’s thoughts, thank God, and apparently not his.At least, not all the time.Their minds had connected a couple of times when she was under severe duress, but it wasn’t as if she could dip into his brain whenever she felt like it.He didn’t know whether that was because his demon blood made him just enough different that her gift wouldn’t allow her to see into his mind, or simply because the talent was very new to her and she still didn’t have much control over it.
Either way, he was glad his brain mostly seemed to be opaque to Delia Dunne.While he’d been on his best behavior ever since he’d met her, Caleb knew there were quite a few incidents in his past he’d prefer not to explain.
Not right now, anyway.He knew at some point he’d need to come clean with her, but he preferred to put off that dreaded moment for as long as possible.
The last thing he wanted was to see the disappointment in her eyes when she realized he hadn’t always been quite as laid-back and friendly as he appeared to be now.
Instead of allowing his thoughts to dwell on that uncomfortable moment in the future, he got out his phone, found where the Angel’s Dream Wedding Chapel was located, and did a quick search for nearby eating establishments.The chapel seemed to be downtown, within walking distance of the Clark County Marriage Licensing Bureau — made sense — and therefore was also a quick walk or even shorter drive away from at least ten restaurants.
He narrowed it down to a Mexican place, a Greek restaurant, and a spot that seemed to specialize in Cornish pasties, and figured he’d let Delia choose from those options.As far as he was concerned, he didn’t really care where they went as long as it meant they were going out and exploring.
Just as he was returning his phone to his pocket, she came back to the kitchen, now wearing skinny jeans, some leather thongs, and a sleeveless embroidered top that looked vaguely ethnic to him.A pair of silver hoops hung from her ears, and again, he couldn’t help being struck by how absolutely gorgeous she was.
“Ever had a Cornish pasty?”he asked, and she blinked.
“No,” she replied.“Are pasties in our future?”
“They can be,” he said.“There’s a place about a five-minute walk from the chapel.Or there’s also a Greek and a Mexican restaurant nearby if that’s more your speed.”
“Pasties sound good,” she said at once.“Might as well do something different, right?”
Yet another thing he loved about her.She was almost always up for an adventure, and she never seemed to complain or try to poke holes in his ideas.Sure, if she disagreed with one of his suggestions, she’d tell him exactly why — and could produce the charts and graphs to prove her point — but she was one of the least “my way or the highway” people he’d ever met.
“Then let’s go check it out.”
He drove while she played navigator from the passenger seat.The Mercedes had a perfectly adequate navigation system, but Caleb still preferred to have Delia guide them in.She was the Las Vegas native, after all, and although she’d told him the Angel’s Dream chapel was fairly new and not a landmark like some of the other wedding venues in town, she still knew exactly where they were going.
There had always been the possibility that someone would be getting married right then, since weddings happened every day of the week and pretty much twenty-four hours a day in Las Vegas, but the parking lot looked relatively empty when they arrived.He had to admit the place seemed fairly low-key in person compared to the neon-lit kitsch his mind had conjured up, and was instead a simple, pretty building, all white with a small steeple and a cross on top.
The website had said the chapel was open from nine in the morning until nine at night, and in fact, the door to the lobby stood open to the warm evening air as they got out of the car.
“We’ll just peek inside,” he told Delia.
“Don’t you think the people working there will want to know why we’re doing that?”she asked.
“Probably,” he responded, choosing to ignore the dubious expression she continued to wear.“But that’s simple enough.You can just explain that Olivia is your cousin and she asked you to stop by and take a look at the venue in person for her since she’s doing all this remotely from Chicago.”
This utter lie made Delia’s lips pull into a reluctant smile.“You think of everything, don’t you?”
He could only grin in reply.“Just call me the king of bullshit.”
She chuckled then, although she appeared serious enough once they reached the front door and stepped inside.Cool air surrounded them, doing its best to combat the warm breeze coming in from the parking lot.
Once again, he was surprised to see that there didn’t seem to be anything overtly “Las Vegas” and over the top inside.Pale travertine beneath his feet, an electric fireplace surrounded by off-white stacked stone on the other side of the lobby, a couple of tastefully spare crystal chandeliers overhead.
A woman who’d been sitting on the other side of a white wooden reception desk near the front door stood as soon as they entered.“Can I help you?”she asked.She didn’t seem too surprised to have a couple of strangers come in off the street, and Caleb reminded himself that a lot of chapels in Vegas allowed walk-ins, even though he wasn’t sure if Angel’s Dream was one of them.“Are you interested in having a wedding here?”
“Oh, no,” Delia said hastily, then paused and sent an apologetic glance over at Caleb, as if realizing that she might have offended him by sounding so opposed to marriage.“That is, my cousin, Olivia Gunderson, is getting married here on the thirtieth.She asked me to stop by and check out a few things in person, since I live here in Las Vegas.”
“Of course,” the woman said.“We have a wedding scheduled for eight o’clock, but the chapel is empty right now.Go ahead and take a look around — just make sure you don’t take too long, since the wedding party for that group should be arriving in about twenty minutes or so.”
“We won’t take long at all,” Delia assured the woman.“Thank you.”
And then she looped her arm around Caleb’s and guided him out of the office/reception area and into the chapel itself.He would be the first to admit that churches weren’t really his thing, but a wedding venue like this didn’t have any overtly Christian iconography in its decor, just a few tall, stained-glass windows depicting stylized angels done in subtle pastels.
Once they were alone, Delia glanced around and then back over at him.“So…what exactly are we looking for?”
“Nothing in particular,” he said.“I just wanted to get the vibe of the place.It’s definitely not all Elvisified, so I guess I don’t have to worry about dressing like the King or anything.”
