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“You’re doing fine. By the way, our other minister Roach will be performing this evening’s ceremonies.”
He pressed his lips together then asked, “Did Cordelia give you a hard time about…us?”
“Not really. She’s just concerned about me, that’s all.”
“She seems very protective.”
Gracie nodded, then cleared her throat. “Speaking of which, I’m, um, missing an article of clothing and I wondered if you’d seen it.”
“Got it right here,” he said, reaching into his jeans pockets and withdrawing a handful of black lace. His face reddened as he handed it to her. “I wasn’t going to keep them or anything—I just didn’t want someone else to find them.”
“Right,” she said, not sure whether she believed him, but wanting to. She palmed the filmy thong, feeling like a complete idiot. “Thanks.”
She wheeled to go and the movement lifted the hem of her skirt slightly—just enough for a sudden gust to catch hold and send it straight up, baring her behind—and her befront—to the world. Gracie gasped in mortification and fought with her skirt while horns from passing cars honked in appreciation. In the process, she managed to let go of the thong, which promptly sailed airborne. She cried out and Steve, heretofore frozen, yelled, “I’ll get it.”
At last she got her skirt under control, holding the hem in her fist lest it get away from her again. Abject humiliation flooded her in waves as she imagined the spectacle she had presented. Worse, Steve had abandoned his camera and was chasing her underwear, which, being as light as a piece of paper, tumbled and rolled through the air and on the ground, always inches out of reach. H.D. lumbered behind, barking as if they were on the trail of wild game.
“This can’t be happening,” Gracie murmured to herself.
Oh, but it was.
Finally, the thong caught on a fence, allowing Steve to catch up. He plucked it like a flower and turned to hurry back to her, fighting an enormous grin and losing. By the time he reached her, he was struggling not to laugh. Between two fingers, he held out the thong, now dusty and peppered with bits of dry grass.
“Thank you,” she said, snatching the underwear and wishing the ground would open up to swallow her whole.
“It was my pleasure,” he said, then clamped down his jaw. His eyes, however, were dancing with laughter.
Gracie turned on her heel and, maintaining a firm grip on her skirt, marched back into the chapel with as much dignity as she could muster.
When H.D. started to follow Gracie, Steve snapped his fingers and called him back. “I know how you feel, buddy,” he murmured as he stared after her receding figure. The belly laugh he wanted to release was tempered by the rigid erection pressing against his fly at having witnessed what was undoubtedly the most erotic vision he’d ever seen.
If he lived to be one hundred, he would never forget the sight of Gracie Sergeant fighting her wayward skirt, her long, slender legs and curvy rear end perfectly outlined in the sun. And, if he’d had any doubts, the lovely woman was not a natural blonde—another gut-clutching sight. He closed his eyes and groaned. If only he weren’t on assignment. If only Gracie was willing to indulge in a quick fling, with no attachments. But he’d already been warned by Cordelia and by Lincoln that Gracie was looking for something he couldn’t give: commitment, longevity, happily ever after.
A dull pain radiated out from his breastbone. If only—
The ring of his cell phone split the air. He unhooked it from his belt and glanced at the screen—Karen. He pushed the connect button. “Yeah?”
“Just checking in, partner. Any developments?”
“Uh, no.” He rubbed stubbornly at the strange sensation in his chest. At least no developments relating to the case.
“Got those descriptions of everyone who works there?”
“I’m taking photographs. I’ll have them to you in the morning.”
“Great. I can’t wait to see this woman with the amazing eyes.”
He chose to ignore her. “Any more news from the informant?”
“No.” Karen sighed. “She hasn’t returned any of my calls—I’m starting to worry that maybe she’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“If someone close to Lundy found out that she’s a snitch, she could be in danger. If she told them what she told us, Lundy could decide not to show.”
“Or show up with firepower,” Steve said, his adrenaline kicking in. A sudden pain in his foot distracted him momentarily—H.D. had once again decided to park his fat butt.
“That’s not Lundy’s M.O.,” Karen said. “He’s more likely just to lie low. The last thing he needs is civilian casualties at a Vegas wedding chapel—if he did something to scare off tourists, the city’s business leaders would form their own posse.”
“You’re probably right,” Steve said, yet he pivoted his head to look all around—up and down the street, in the parking lot across the road—searching for anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary.
A wry frown worked his mouth. Such as a man and a hound running down the street chasing a woman’s thong?
“Still, I wanted to let you know,” Karen said. “Let’s not panic—our informant might simply be out of reach for a while. For now, we stick to the original plan. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay.” He disconnected the call with disturbing what-if scenarios tumbling through his head—all of them involving Gracie getting hurt. He winced. The discomfort around his breastbone was back. With much effort, he dislodged his foot from underneath H.D.’s behind and limped toward the chapel, rubbing his chest.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GRACIE PASSED the next couple of hours working on the costumes in between answering the phone, although her preoccupation earned her several pricks with the needle. She relived the degrading Marilyn-Monroe-standing-over-a-grate-gone-wrong incident over and over, until she was sure her face would be permanently flushed. To prevent an encore, she’d sewn curtain weights into the hem of her skirt. And she’d washed the bothersome black thong in the bathroom and used a hairdryer to dry it enough to put it on.
From now on, she would wear nothing but tidy whities.
“Oh. My. Gawd.”
Gracie looked up to see Lincoln in the doorway. His arms were full of flowers and today his sunglasses were pink. She angled her head. “What?”
His jaw dropped. “Steve is outside working on the Caddy.”
“I know.”
“Shirtless.”
She smiled. “Oh.”
“Gracie, the man is simply too gorgeous for words. You simply have to have sex with him.”
She gave a choked little laugh. “I do not.” Besides, she’d tried.
“You’re killing me,” he said. “If I were you, I’d wait to start looking for Mr. Right until after this guy left.”
She laughed and helped him to arrange the flowers in the chapels and store the bouquets and boutonnieres in the refrigerator.
When they were finished, he said, “I’ll see you tonight when I relieve Cordelia at the drive-through.” He grinned. “Want to follow me out to take a looky-loo?”
She smirked. “No. And stop trying to get me into trouble. He has a girlfriend.”
“Oh? You asked?”
“It…came up.”
“Still—no ring, will fling.”
“Goodbye, Lincoln.”
He left shaking his head. For her part, Gracie tried to tamp down the image of Steve, bare-chested, and get back to work. After a particularly frustrating bout with the sewing machine, she sighed and held up the black-and-white striped shirt of the inmate costume—so many pins had been dislodged during their frantic groping episode that she wasn’t sure she’d made the right adjustments. She checked her Betty Boop watch and stretched her arms overhead in a yawn.
A break sounded good, so why not check on Steve and ask him to try on the shirt? She had to face him sooner or later. Besides, she was dying to see if he’d made progress on the Caddy.
On the way, she stopped by the kitchen to grab two bottles of water in case he was thirsty. Her heart beat double time as she pushed open one of the doors leading to the back lot. Her breath caught in her chest.
Steve was indeed shirtless, leaning into the engine beneath the raised hood, working either to loosen or to tighten something, considering the way the muscles in his arms bulged with exertion. His back was slick with perspiration. He stood and wiped his hand across his brow.
If she lived to be one hundred, she would never forget the sight of Steve Mulcahy standing half-naked in the blistering sun, his developed pecs and six-pack abs glistening with sweat. He was simply the sexiest man she’d ever seen.
H.D., on the other hand, lay in the shade holding a wrench in his mouth, which he happily discarded when he saw Gracie, and lurched to his feet to greet her.
She smiled at Steve and lifted a bottle of water. “I thought you might be thirsty.”
He nodded and reached for it. “Thanks.” He opened the bottle, lifted it to his mouth, and proceeded to down it in one long drink, the column of his throat convulsing as he drained the bottle. She was mesmerized—more so when he grabbed a towel and wiped his chest and neck. “Wow, it’s hot.”
She couldn’t have agreed more. To derail her wicked train of thought, she opened her water bottle and poured half of it into a bowl for H.D. She resisted the temptation to douse herself with the rest of it.
“Have you ever thought of getting a real watchdog around here?” Steve asked.
Gracie pouted. “H.D. is perfect just the way he is.”
“Tell me something—what does ‘H.D.’ stand for?”
She grinned. “Hound dog, of course. What else?”
“Oh. I get it.” He looked mildly amused. “Is he yours?”
“He belongs to Cordelia, really, although we’ve all adopted him.”
“He needs to lose some weight. I’ll bet this morning’s run is the most exercise he’s had in a while.” His mouth twitched with humor.
She lifted her chin. “Let’s forget this morning happened, shall we?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Were they salvageable?”
“Yes,” she chirped.
“Good.” Laughter rumbled deep in his throat.
Flustered, Gracie gestured to the car. “How’s it going?”
He sobered and shook his head. “Slow. I replaced the battery and all the hoses, but there’s a lot more to do.”
“But she’s fixable?”
“Sure—eventually. But it’s going to take a lot of time.”
And he wouldn’t be around that long. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.
“I need for you to try this on again,” she said, holding up the striped shirt she had folded over her arm. “When you have time.”
“Sure, give me a couple of minutes and I’ll wipe my hands.” He leaned back into the engine and applied a wrench to a thingamabob. “By the way, would you mind if I took a shower here instead of going home?”
“No, that’s fine,” Gracie said, then wet her lips. “Where’s home?”
“Hmm?”
“Where do you live?”
He swung his head around, then looked back to his handiwork. “In an apartment a few miles from here. Nothing special. How about you?”
“Same,” she said. “How did you learn to work on cars?”
“My dad,” he said. “He always had a fixer-upper in the garage. There were five of us boys, so he said that the only way he was going to afford for all of us to have a car was if we all knew how to fix them ourselves.”
Her eyes widened. “You have four brothers?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are they?”
After a few seconds’ hesitation, he said, “All over.”
A sliver of disappointment sliced through her heart—secretly she had been hoping that Steve came from a big, boisterous, tight-knit family.
But there she went again—projecting.
Then a thought slid into her brain, one so shocking, she inhaled sharply: What if Steve Mulcahy was a criminal? An ex-con. That would explain why Cordelia was so worried about her getting involved with him, why she was so sure he would be moving on soon. Cordelia didn’t talk about her past much, but Lincoln had said once that he’d heard that Cordelia had been on the wrong side of the law when she was young. Maybe she was trying to repay her debt by giving an ex-con a chance.
Which would explain some other things—like why he would be willing to take the low-prestige job in the first place. And him being in the office this morning, behaving suspiciously. And the fact that he wouldn’t talk about his family or where he’d lived or what he’d done for a living. And that question he’d asked about the chapel having a guard dog—did he plan to rob them? That would explain why he’d been taking so many pictures!
Er, excluding the ones he’d taken of her.
“Gracie.”
At the sound of her name, she jumped and looked at Steve suspiciously. “What?”
He lowered the hood of the car, sending the muscles in his back playing beneath smooth skin. “I said I can’t do anything more here without a few parts. I think I’ll take that shower now.”
“Okay,” she said vaguely, wondering if he planned to steal the Caddy, and if she should share her theories with Cordelia. “What about…clothes?”
“I have a change of clothes in the SUV.”
