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“Look, I’m not one of your suspects.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tossed a long curl off her face with a flick of her head. “It’s obvious both of us had a few too many drinks last night. What exactly do you remember?”
“I asked you first.”
“I remember winning the challenge.”
Gage’s gaze shot to the trophy. Hers followed. A silent groan filled her chest as his eyes lingered on her panties still hanging there.
“What else?” he finally said, looking back at her.
She fought not to squeeze her thighs together beneath his dress shirt. “I remember celebrating, when a Mafia thug started hitting on me. I thought I could handle it, but then it got out of control and some guy stepped in—”
Gage’s left eyebrow rose into a perfect arch.
“You stepped in, played the hero, and I bought you a drink as a thank-you.”
“That’s it?” The familiar tic along his jawline told her he wasn’t happy. “That’s all you remember?”
Most of last night was still coming back to her in brief flashes, but the memories she’d awoken to earlier were quickly becoming clearer and brighter.
The two of them, laughing and talking, dancing and kissing. Years of feuding and smart remarks forgotten as together they explored the city. Then later, back here in this room … the almost desperate need to be together.
She couldn’t tell him.
Racy swallowed hard and forced herself to speak. “Yes, that’s all.”
Gage tossed the certificate to the bed and started to rise.
“What are you doing?”
He flexed tanned and toned muscles. “Trying to stand.”
“But you can’t! You’re—aren’t you naked?”
He pushed at the sheet. “What’s a little nudity between husband and wife?”
Racy spun away, her ears filled with the rustle of bed-sheets and heavy footsteps as he walked to the far side of the bed. The large, gilded mirror over the table gave her a clear view of a strong back, tapered waist and a backside so perfect it had to be a sin. Unable to look away, she watched him pull on a pair of boxer briefs that hugged his muscular thighs and glutes, before a pair of blue jeans covered her view. Not that they made him any less tempting.
Knock it off! This isn’t real. None of it.
She leaned over, grabbed the piece of paper that told her their farce of a marriage was very real, and saw him reach for the phone. “What are you doing?”
“Calling room service.” He punched a button and waited, keeping busy with something in the top drawer of the bedside table. “Yeah, this is suite 3011. Please send up an order of three eggs, sunny-side up, a double side of toast, and coffee. A lot of coffee.”
He bumped the drawer closed with his knee, then looked at her over his shoulder, again with the arched eyebrow. She shook her head. Food was the last thing she needed right now.
“Add a plain bagel, lightly toasted with butter on the side, and two large apple juices. Oh, can you throw in a bottle of aspirin? Thanks.” He hung up and turned around. “What?”
“How … how did you know what I like for breakfast?”
He shrugged one wide shoulder and brushed past her. “We both stop in most mornings at Sherry’s Diner. I notice these things.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom. Do you mind?”
He didn’t wait for her to reply, but disappeared through the double arched doors at the other end of the room. Racy eyed the rumpled sheets on the king-size bed. Flashes of wild, uninhibited lovemak—
No, she wouldn’t call it that. Last night was sex. Pure and simple and lusty and wonderful.
“He can’t know I remember. He can’t.”
She quickly made up the bed, then grabbed her panties off the trophy and shoved them, along with her scattered clothes, into the zippered compartment of her suitcase. Pulling out clean clothes, she dragged undies and leggings over her bottom half. She pulled Gage’s shirt over her head, then reached for the ratty gray zippered sweatshirt.
She stilled. No, she couldn’t put that on. Not with its previous owner about to walk back in. She doubted he’d remember, but she couldn’t chance it. She yanked a T-shirt over her head as the bathroom door opened, no time for a bra.
Gage walked out of the bathroom, the marble floor of the suite’s entry area cool against his bare feet. The memory of what he’d done to Racy last night—what she’d done to him, hell, what they’d done to each other—in the hot, foamy water of the huge tub took up every free corner of his still-foggy head.
But not so foggy that he didn’t notice the bed, its sheets, pillows and fancy patterned comforter, all neatly in place.
His gaze then found Racy, dressed in some kind of stretchy black pants that defined every inch of her mile-long legs. Her mass of red curls, rumpled and sexy at the same time, hung past her shoulders. She wore a familiar T-shirt with faded lettering inviting him to Drown Your Secrets, Sorrows or Sweethearts at The Blue Creek Saloon.
Great advice. The logo with its catchy phrase had been Racy’s idea as manager and head bartender at The Blue Creek. Most in town figured it came directly from her life experiences, Gage included.
So what did that make him? A secret or a sorrow? He sure as hell wasn’t her sweetheart.
“I figured you’d want this back.”
Racy’s voice cut through his thoughts, forcing his eyes from the worn cotton material of her shirt outlining the roundness of her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He buried that fact in his mind and focused on his shirt, which she held out at arm’s length.
He closed the distance between them, waiting until he stood directly in front of her to take it. He was crowding her personal space, but he didn’t care. Not after last night.
He broke eye contact long enough to pull the shirt over his head, not bothering to undo the buttons. It was still warm from her body. He had to bite back the groan that filled his throat.
Spotting the certificate on top of her suitcase, he jerked his head toward it. “You know, this might not be true.”
Her chocolate-brown eyes grew wide for a moment. Then she blinked and turned away, reaching for the curled paper. “What makes you say that?”
“That’s not a legal document. Hell, it could’ve been created on any computer. The marriage license from the bureau is the only official paperwork.”
Racy pushed back the mass of red waves from her face and looked around the room. “So where’s the license?”
“I remember putting it in—” Gage patted his jeans pockets. “Where’s my wallet?” He already knew his gun was stashed in the bedside table. He always knew where his gun was.
“On the table.”
Gage turned, relief filling him as he spotted the black leather wallet and his badge. He crossed the room and grabbed it.
“Wait a minute, you don’t remember last night, either?”
Racy’s voice caused him to pause.
No, he remembered.
He remembered the absolute joy on her face when she had taken first place. He remembered finding her in one of the hotel bars, and the way she’d latched on to his side when he’d stepped between her and that jerk hitting on her. He remembered how one drink had led to many more, then the two of them slow-dancing—and how it had felt to finally hold her in his arms again.
They never left each other’s side after that.
He’d gone from bar to casino to high-end boutique with her, not wanting the night to end. Then she’d appeared with the rings, insisting she had to make an honest man of him. He’d thought she was crazy, but they were both feeling so good he’d gone along for the ride. And after she’d insisted he prove his desire to still marry her, he’d done the one thing she’d never expect.
He guessed it worked.
“Gage, answer me. Do you remember us getting married?”
He tightened his grip on the wallet, turned around and found her standing directly behind him. “The actual ceremony? No. But unlike you—” he couldn’t stop from reaching out and brushing his fingers against her neck “—I can guarantee the honeymoon was fantastic.”
The faint bruising on her neck faded beneath the pink blush that tinged her skin. He remembered putting the mark on her—his mark—in the wee hours of the morning. He hadn’t meant to. High school was the last time he’d given a girl a hickey, but her taste, her scent and her response to what his mouth was doing proved to be his undoing.
And he liked it there. Obviously she hadn’t seen it yet and it bothered him more than it should that in less than a week’s time it’d be gone.
Racy stepped away from his touch and crossed her arms over her stomach. “I don’t remember a ceremony or a honeymoon. So, could you check and see if you have the license? Maybe none of this is real, maybe it’s just a big—”
“Mistake?”
“Yes, a mistake.” Her chin jerked upward and her hands fisted, but she didn’t look away. “A misunderstanding, a mix-up, a joke someone is playing—”
“I get it.” Gage cut her off.
Her words caused a sharp pain in his chest he didn’t understand. So what if he’d wanted to get his hands on Racy Dillon for the last fifteen years and when he finally had, she couldn’t remember a single moment?
You remember though, don’t ya, pal?
Yeah, in vivid detail. Every sight, sound and smell of their time together, both in and outside of this hotel suite, was etched in his mind.
He was so screwed.
Pushing away that thought, he opened his wallet and found the folded license he’d tucked there after leaving the bureau office, never really believing they’d use it. He shook it out, his eyes scanning the words.
“Well?”
Her one-word question held so much hope, a part of him hated to reply. His pride, however, was going to take a perverse sort of pleasure in it. “Sorry, Mrs. Steele. It seems as of two thirty-three this morning we’re actually hitched.”
Racy sank to the sofa, eyes wide with shock. His enjoyment of her distress drained away. He could see the idea of being married to him was turning her stomach.
She finally looked at him. “Gage, what are we going to do?”
“I can’t think straight without coffee and I’m hungry as a bear. We should concentrate on eating first.”
“How can you think about food at a time like this?” Racy shot to her feet and advanced on him. “This is crazy! You don’t want to be stuck with me and I sure as hell don’t want to be married to you.”
Okay, that was plain enough. “Racy—”
“We have to figure a way out of this. Can you imagine what the good citizens of Destiny would say if we showed up at home with matching rings?”
Yeah, it’d probably cover everything from “atta boy” to “I give it six months.”
“You hate me! You’ve felt that way since high school.”
“I don’t hate you.”
She snorted. “I’m not even worth that strong of an emotion, huh? Fine. Then you disapprove of me, of the way I live my life, of my family. Moonshining, drunk and disorderly, petty theft, drugs … first your father and then you took great pleasure in busting my brothers, making sure that last time they got the maximum jail sentence.”
“I was doing my job.”
“The night my father drove that rattrap pickup into a telephone pole, you were the first one to my place—”
“I didn’t want you to hear about it from anyone else.”
“No, you wanted to break me … again. You wanted to see me cry over the fact my sorry excuse of a husband and my daddy were so drunk it wasn’t the crash that killed them, but the both of them walking in front of an eighteen-wheeler an hour later.”
“Yeah, you were so brokenhearted you didn’t shed a tear.”
She paused and swallowed hard. “I don’t cry for anyone. Not anymore.”
Before he could respond, a discreet knock came at the door. Racy marched across the room. She flung open the door and waved the uniformed waiter and his cart inside.
“Any place you’d like this?” the young kid asked with a polite smile. “The terrace is a favorite among our guests.”
Gage glanced at the glass doors at the other end of the suite. Racy and him in the open air thirty stories above the ground? Not on your life. “Ah, here is fine.”
He opened his wallet, but Racy snatched the bill from the cart, scratched her name on the paper inside the leather case and handed it to the waiter. “It’s my suite. I’m paying.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The waiter retreated to the doors. “Thank you, ma’am.” He disappeared, closing the door behind him.
Gage grabbed two chairs from the nearby dining table and shoved them on either side of the cart. The aroma coming from beneath the silver domes made his mouth water. He still felt like crap, but a hearty breakfast the morning after always did wonders for him. “Come on, sit.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Fine.” Gage sat. He needed coffee. Strong, black and right now. “Stand and eat. I really don’t care.”
“Gage—”
“Look, we both agree we need to figure out a way to fix this—”
“And keep it a secret.” Racy cut him off. “I don’t want anyone to know how stupid I—how stupid we both were last night.”
The coffee burned on its way down his throat, but it was no more scorching than her words. Why it bothered him, he didn’t want to think about. He should’ve known last night hadn’t changed anything. The warm and fun-loving woman he’d held in his arms was an illusion.
Reality was standing right here in front of him.
