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He raised his head to look around.
For eleven o’clock on Halloween night, the crowd had grown thin. Old Judge Crawford sat in his usual booth in the corner, and Betty and Bob Bristow, the county’s finest line dancers, two-stepped to a honky-tonk tune blaring from the jukebox. They made a cute couple in their alien costumes. Doc Walsh and her house husband wore hospital whites—Mr. Walsh wearing a not-too-flattering nurse’s cap and gown.
Though not a single patron currently held a cigarette, a thick haze clung to the renovated barn’s ceiling, accompanied by the smell of one too many grease fires.
Finn shook his head.
Yep, after today, he was supposed to have been living the good life. Eating plenty of home-cooked meals. Getting back rubs. Indulging in stimulating conversation and—
What the…
A woman—no, an angel—stood at the red vinyl door. Dressed in a gown of gossamer-white, carrying a bouquet of full pink roses, she looked ready to star in a wedding.
Even worse—or maybe better—she was headed his way.
“Excuse me?” she asked, her melodic voice about as loud as a marshmallow being dropped on a cloud. “But…are you by any chance…”
“Waiting to get married?” This had to be a joke. Mulligan had to have sent her.
“Yes, me too. I’m Lilly and you must be Dallas.”
Dallas?
She held out her hand. A tiny, white-gloved affair that when he briefly gripped it, felt lost in Finn’s palm. Lilly. Such a fitting name for this delicate flower of a woman.
A rush of protectiveness flooded his system.
But wait a minute…Since Mitch had obviously hired this woman to mess with Finn’s head, why should he feel anything for her, let alone protective?
Giving the blonde a cool appraisal, in his mind’s eye, Finn unfurled the enemy’s master plan. Mitch must have met this “bride” at a buddy’s Halloween party, then bribed her to feign interest in Finn. Hell, maybe he’d even paid her enough to pretend she was actually going to marry him, then, just when Finn wagged a marriage license in the mammoth’s ugly face, Mitch would drop his bomb that this angel was no bride, but someone he hired to cause Finn to lose the bet! To most folks’ way of thinking, Finn would have won by marrying, but Mitch wasn’t most folks. Mitch was crafty—wily enough to deduce that if Finn wed a bride who was lying about her name, then the marriage wouldn’t be legal. Thus causing Finn to lose on a technicality.
And trust Mitch to have not even thought his plan through well enough to tell the woman the name of the guy she was supposed to dupe. “Yep,” Finn said with a knowing smile. “I’m Dallas. That’s me.”
“Thank goodness. I’ve been driving for hours. I never thought I’d find this place.” Her shoulders sagged. “Even now, Dallas, I must say I’m surprised. When you described Luigi’s, I thought it would be a little more…”
Finn followed her sweeping, and maybe even a bit fearful, gaze as it flitted from face to face to land on old drunken Pete who sat half-asleep and mumbling at the other end of the bar.
“You thought this was Luigi’s?” That place was the swankiest restaurant for miles. Swallowing hard, Finn blocked the memory of how beautiful Vivian had looked the night he’d taken her there to propose.
“Well…yes. It is, isn’t it? I saw the L-U-apostrophe-S on the sign.”
“Sure. This is Luigi’s. I’m glad you found it.”
“Me, too.” She licked her lips. Kissable lips. Lips that on a good night could drive a man all the way to distraction.
After the day he’d had, did he feel like going for a ride? Hell, yes.
“So?” she said. “Shouldn’t we get going? I made all the plans. All we have to do is…exchange our vows.” She smoothed the front of her satin gown, looking up at him with impossibly wide, impossibly blue eyes.
He gulped.
Mitch had certainly done his homework in hiring this gal. She was a real pro to have almost had Finn falling for her—almost.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Lilly said, fighting the urge to flee. When Dallas had said in that morning’s e-mail that he was suit-and-tie handsome, he’d been way off in his description. Deliciously off.
She couldn’t really marry a man like him, could she?
Do I really have a choice? It wasn’t as if guys were lined up around the block waiting to marry a woman in her condition.
“Not come?” He snatched a French fry from a basket on the bar. She tracked his hand all the way to his mouth. A mouth with lips that looked chiseled from the most fascinating stone. “How could I have stayed away from our big day? Or—” another fry in hand, he waved toward a darkened window “—I guess that would be night.”
When he spied her gaze lingering on his mouth, he offered her his latest fry, but she shook her head, flushed with heat at the mere possibility of consuming food that had come so perilously close to his lips.
She cleared her throat. “I, ah, don’t blame you if you’ve changed your mind. I mean, this is kind of sudden.”
“Nonsense.” He swallowed his bite of fry.
“It’s okay. Really. I wouldn’t be too upset if you want to back out.”
“Nope. Not me.”
“Great.” Lilly released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. In the month they’d known each other via the Marriage of Convenience board on Singles com, this was what she liked more every day about Dallas. He was a man driven by convictions. Okay, so he wasn’t marrying her out of love, but his conviction to succeed in his ultraconservative law firm—the same firm that told him he needed a wife—but she was okay with that. All she needed was a husband—the rest would work itself out in time.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I set up the ceremony for ten tomorrow morning, but even driving all night, that doesn’t give us much time.”
“All night? I don’t get it.”
“Vegas. That’s where we’ll be taking our vows. Remember? How you told me your mother always wanted to be married there?”
“Oh.” He conked his temple. “Of course. Mom. The Elvis Chapel. How could I forget?”
“I thought she liked Wayne Newton?”
“Um…Wayne, Elvis, she liked ’em all.”
Lilly drew her lower lip into her mouth and nibbled. As relieved as she’d been only a minute earlier to have finally found her man, something now told her riding off into the night with this virtual stranger wasn’t one of her brighter ideas. It didn’t matter that she and Dallas had talked via e-mail for the better part of a month. His not remembering his own mother’s favorite recording artist concerned her. Where was the man who bragged of having a photographic memory? The man who cited countless statistics on the reasons why arranged marriages were infinitely better than the real thing?
The whisker-stubbled, bona fide stud seated before her surely didn’t give a flip about dry statistics, and he looked as if he’d be far more comfortable listening to a Garth Brooks song than to Aida, his supposedly favorite opera.
Should she ask to see his driver’s license?
No. Too direct. Yes, she needed to verify he was who he said he was, but surely she could think of a less combatant way. She cleared her throat. “I, ah, realize this may sound a tad off the subject, but could you please tell me what my favorite food is?”
His eyes narrowed, and he took a long time before saying in a sexy twang, “Aw, now, angel, you already know that I know what your favorite food is.” He reached for her left hand and rolled down the cuff of her satin glove, exposing the frantically beating pulse on her inner wrist. “Why don’t you ask me something a little tougher….”
Oh my gosh! He was actually drawing her wrist to his mouth! He was—oh no. Oh no, he did not just kiss her on the wrist. As an employee of Tree House Books, she read a lot, but in her favorite novel of all time, Whispered Winds, the hero, Duncan, kissed his bride’s wrist at their third wedding. True, it had taken them three times to get their relationship right, but oh, how right it had finally been. Favorite food be damned. The fact that Dallas remembered how much she adored that scene proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was not only who he claimed to be, but that first and foremost, he was the man destined to be her husband.
Closing her eyes, Lilly surrendered to the hot-cold champagne bubbles zinging through her body.
The white-haired woman keeping bar interrupted Lilly’s almost-wedded bliss. “S’cuse me,” she said to Dallas, “but what in tarnation do you think you’re doin’?”
“Mind your own business, Lu, this is my future bride.”
“Isn’t one bride per day enough for you, Fi—”
“That’s it. We’ve gotta go.” Finn nearly fell off his bar stool trying to slip his hand beneath his bride-to-be’s elbow while at the same time shooting Lu a would-you-please-hush look of desperation. By God, if she went and ruined this for him, he’d take her to court to cover the small fortune in cash and pride he’d have to fork over to Mitch. He might be able to handle a lot of bad situations, but voluntarily losing a bet to ornery old Mitch Mulligan wasn’t one of them. He knew it wasn’t neighborly, but he just plain despised the man, and he’d do anything to get the better of him. Even if it meant marrying this loco filly in the morning only to up and divorce her the next afternoon.
While all that sounded real good in theory, a pang of confusion rippled through Finn at the all-too-fresh memory of how badly Vivian had hurt him.
All his life he’d only wanted one thing—to once again be part of a family. So sure, by going through with this marriage, he’d make Mitch look like the fool he was, but in doing that, he’d also be making a mockery of his heart’s lifelong ambition. Was that wise?
A whiff of pretty-as-a-spring-meadow perfume wove its way like a love potion through Finn’s senses. He took one look at the vision in bridal white standing before him and decided what the heck?
He needed to lighten up.
Besides, what was the worst that could happen on a trip to Vegas?
Chapter Two
“Ready, darlin’?” Finn said, low enough so that hopefully Lu wouldn’t hear.
“I sure am.” Lilly waved to the still-gaping older woman. “Bye-bye.”
Lu might have been willing to let the whole incident slide if only Finn’s bride hadn’t—from out of nowhere—burst into tears.
“Now, now,” Lu crooned, zipping around the corner of the bar. “What’s the matter?”
“I—I’m so ha-ha-happy,” Lilly blurted in the same kind of hormonal, nonsensical, downright blithering sobs that had taken over Matt’s sister the day after she found out she was pregnant. “But I’ve waited so long for my wedding day, and Dallas, you’re even more of a gentleman than I’d imagined, but…I just remembered I locked my keys in my car, and…”
Lu’s eagle eyes bored into Finn’s forehead like twin laser beams. After pulling Lilly in close for a hug, she said, “Now, honey, ’round here folks lock themselves out of all sorts of things. Don’t you worry. Your groom knows just what to do.”
Never had Finn wished harder that he lived in a less nosy town.
After a few more minutes of what Finn considered award-winning acting, Lilly calmed down, her smile shining brighter than the chrome on Vivian’s boyfriend’s motorcycle. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t kn-know what came over me, especially when you had such great news about the keys.”
“Emotions’ll do that to a body,” Lu said, lapping up this rare opportunity to cluck over one of her patrons. “How about you visit the little girl’s room. Freshen up while your, ah, groom gets started on your car—if he’s sober enough.”
“That’d be great,” Lilly said through a watery smile. She looked Finn’s way. “You don’t mind the short delay, do you?”
Mind? Hell, yes, he minded. Not only didn’t he like the idea of spending the next hour or so outside with a coat hanger and flashlight, but once he got this human tear-bucket into her car, did that imply driving it and her all the way to Vegas? It was on the tip of his tongue to call off this whole charade when he caught sight of those wide-open skies his bride called eyes. Never had he seen eyes more blue. On manly autopilot, he said, “Ah, sure, I don’t mind. You go on and do whatever you need to and I’ll just be outside.”
“You remember what I drive?” she asked, her voice all breathy, as if his knowing such a fact guaranteed theirs would be a lifelong love.
“Sure, darlin’.” Simple logic tells me it’ll be the only spit-shined sedan in the lot.
More to prove to Lu that he had the woman’s best interests at heart than to satisfy his own blazing curiosity as to the feel of her petal-soft lips, he slipped his free hand about Lilly’s waist and kissed her hard—not too hard—just hard enough to let her know she was in the company of a real man. Mitch Mulligan might be signing her paycheck, but Finn Reilly was calling the shots.
When she seemed good and dazed by his prowess, with a quick pat to her satin-covered behind, he sent her in the direction of the ladies’ room.
But just as he was growing accustomed to the sight of his bride-to-be’s backside, Lu grabbed him by the ear and yanked for all she was worth—not an easy feat considering he was well over a foot taller than she. “You low-life, back-stabbin’, pitiful excuse for a yellow-bellied—”
“Ouch!” he complained, backing out of her reach. “That hurts.”
“Damn straight, it hurts. Almost as much as that alley cat Vivian hurt you this afternoon. Don’t you see what you’re doin’?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Look, son, and make no mistake, over the years you’ve been comin’ in here, I’ve grown to think of you as my own son. What you could end up doin’ to this girl is the same thing Vivian did to you. You’re gonna lead her on, then dump her. Only at least Vivian dumped you for love. You, on the other hand, will be freein’ yourself up for a truck named Abigail.”
“Slow down, Lu, you don’t know the half of what’s going on.” Challenging her steely gaze with one of his own, he said, “Shoot, Mitch put my bride up to this. That woman’s no innocent. I mean, come on, unless she was being paid darned good money, what would a gal like her be doing in a place like this? No offense.”
“None taken, but, Finn,” she said, sounding all too much like the aunt who had raised him—the same aunt who had been living in Miami, blessedly out of scolding distance, for going on five years. “I don’t know who this girl is, but one thing I do know just from lookin’ at her is that she’s not messed up with Mitch. Maybe she has amnesia or somethin’? All I’m sayin’ is be careful.”
“Lu, like you said, you know me. I’m not planning to hurt anyone.”
“No, I’m sure you’re not, but you be careful anyway, ’cause now that I think about it, the only one gettin’ hurt around here might be you.”
“Ready?” asked the angel in white.
“Yeah, I’m—” Finn looked up, only to have his heart lurch at the sight of her. He’d always fancied himself as preferring redheads, but this blond-haired beauty had brushed her curls into an adorable halo that looped and swirled about the heart-shaped contours of her face. She’d applied a light coat of lipstick that accentuated the faint swelling caused by his kiss. Whew, Mitch sure had improved his taste in women! “I’m ready,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to get the car.”
“That’s okay. Once you get the keys out, probably with what you’ve had to drink, it’s better that I drive. We wouldn’t want anything to further delay our trip to the chapel, would we?”
No. Hell no.
To Lu, his angel said, “Ma’am, it was sure nice meeting you, and thank you for—” she held up a wadded pink tissue “—for helping me see that Dallas is the only man for me.”
Upon hearing another man’s name in association with Finn, Lu’s eyebrows shot up like a pair of jack-rabbits scared out of their holes. She looked to him, then the woman in white. “You’re welcome, child. And the only thanks I need is the promise you two will share a lifetime worth of happiness.”
That did it.
His bride’s waterworks started all over again, but this time, she turned to Finn for her hugs. Never had he felt more masculine than holding this petite thing in his arms. Never had he felt more in control. This gal was a mighty fine actress, but no one fooled Finn Reilly. He could smell one of Mitch’s tricks from a mile away.
Once she broke her hug, Finn slipped his arm around her slight waist and led her out of the bar as fast as his black dress boots could scoot.
Outside, feet firmly planted on the pea gravel driveway, his gaze aimed at the stars, Finn gulped gallons of the crisp fall air. Had there ever been a luckier man than he? Yep, having Mitch arrange for this fallen angel to enter his life was just about the best damned shot of blind luck he’d ever had. Winning this bet was not only going to be easy, but a ton of fun.
Confirming that thought, his bride snuggled close, resting her head on his chest. Her soft curls tickled the bottom of his chin. He’d always liked it when a woman fit him—even a woman he was only pretending to like.
He and Vivian had stood eye to eye. She’d been a bad fit.
“Dallas?” Lilly said.
“Yeah?”
“I just want you to know, before tomorrow, that I really appreciate you doing this for me. And…and one day, I hope we’ll not just share a marriage license, but maybe even a special friendship.”
A special friendship? Ugh.
