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Have Bride, Need Groom
Maureen Child
WILL YOU MARRY ME… TEMPORARILY?If Jenny Blake didn't marry in four days, horrors upon horrors would befall her, according to a legendary family curse. Yet standing in her polka-dot dress in the middle of the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel with hired husband "Jimmy the Lip" wasn't her idea of the perfect wedding. Luckily, a very handsome stranger came to her rescue!Bounty hunter Nick Tarantelli just couldn't let innocent Jenny be taken advantage of - especially by her crooked groom-to-be. He had to stop this marriage. But what he didn't expect was to step in as her temporary husband to save the desperate woman - or wishing for a lifetime of wedding nights with his beautiful blushing bride… .
“I’ll Pay You To Marry Me...” (#udde68831-2414-5b05-86dc-949e30e80927)Letter to Reader (#uc72dce2a-a82b-57c7-ac34-bb54bc9b23e4)Title Page (#ue32264fe-c43c-5be3-9037-139df1142c2c)MAUREEN CHILD (#u7c8c5f0e-be86-51ae-80d6-6cf0595337d1)Dedication (#u7b36f3f4-204b-543c-97a4-7232c5c2327a)Chapter One (#u68ab3bcf-25ff-5306-aef7-6957ea4b4b4e)Chapter Two (#u0f354369-106e-5bb0-923c-32bf0442b155)Chapter Three (#u9fca9758-9189-5ce9-a0d3-3a0df5827887)Chapter Four (#u88e71933-f288-5b1a-8e00-16260741ffdd)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I’ll Pay You To Marry Me...”
Jenny was getting desperate. “Five minutes. That’s all I ask. One little wedding. One hundred dollars? Two hundred?”
The stranger edged past her, gave her one last, regretful look and scurried away.
“Do I hear five?” a familiar deep, male voice asked.
Jenny spun around quickly and teetered precariously on her heels. Nick Tarrantelli grabbed her elbow and steadied her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You do know you could be arrested for soliciting?” Nick said casually.
Jenny gasped in outrage. “Soliciting? I don’t see how. I’m not asking anyone for money. In fact, I’m offering to pay them.” Suddenly a tear slid down her cheek. Then another one.
Nick tried to calm her down, to make her stop crying. Nothing seemed to work. Desperate, he heard himself whisper, “I’ll marry you, Jenny.”
Dear Reader,
I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting the next book from Mary Lynn Baxter—so wait no more. Here it is, the MAN OF THE MONTH, Tinght-Fittin’ Jeans. Mary Lynn’s books are known for their sexy heroes and sizzling sensuality...and this sure has both! Read and enjoy.
Every little girl dreams of marrying a handsome prince, but most women get to kiss a lot of toads before they find him. Read how three handsome princes find their very own princesses in Leanne Banks’s delightful new ministries HOW TO CATCH A PRINCESS. The fun begins this month with The Five-Minute Bride.
The other books this month are all so wonderful...you won’t want to miss any of them! If you like humor, don’t miss Maureen Child’s Have Bride, Need Groom. For blazing drama, there’s Sara Orwig’s A Baby for Mommy. Susan Crosby’s Wedding Fever provides a touch of dashing suspense. And Judith McWilliams’s Practice Husband is warmly emotional.
There is something for everyone here at Desire! I hope you enjoy each and every one of these love stories.
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo. NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3
Have Bride, Need Groom
Maureen Child
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MAUREEN CHILD
was born and raised in Southern California and is the only person she knows who longs for an occasional change of season. She is delighted to be writing for Silhouette and is especially excited to be a part of the Desire line.
An avid reader, she looks forward to those rare, rainy California days when she can curl up and sink into a good book. Or two. When she isn’t busy writing, she and her husband of twenty-five years like to travel, leaving their two grown children in charge of the neurotic golden retriever who is the real head of the household. She is also an award-winning historical writer under the names Kathleen Kane and Ann Carberry.
To Susan Mallery,
the once and future goddess,
with my thanks
One
The bride wore polka dots.
Elvis was in sequins.
The bounty hunter wore jeans.
And the groom was in handcuffs.
Jenny Blake gripped the hard plastic handle on her complimentary paper gardenia bouquet a little tighter and stared at her would-be groom. So close, she thought. If that bounty hunter had been only five minutes later, she would have been safely married.
But there was no chance of that now. She shifted her gaze to the man who had introduced himself as Nick Tarantelli, bounty hunter. A tall, lean man with night-black hair and eyes that seemed even darker, he had her bridegroom in a grip that told Jenny he had no intention of letting go any time soon.
Overhead, a set of speakers, hidden behind oversize paintings of The King on black velvet, sent strains of “Hunka-Hunka-burnin’ love” into the tiny, air-conditioned chapel. The Reverend Elvis Throckmorton signaled wildly for his wife, Priscilla, to turn off the tape player.
Elvis Presley’s voice was cut off mid-verse and the small group of people gathered in the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel stared at each other.
“Sorry, honey,” Jenny’s would-be groom finally said. “But I guess the wedding’s postponed.”
“For how long?” she heard herself ask.
“My guess...” The bounty hunter spoke up as he gripped the groom’s elbow. “About five to ten.”
“Years?” Jenny said, and stared into the black eyes.
“No,” he answered. “Minutes.”
She knew sarcasm when she heard it and ordinarily she would have tried for a quick comeback. But at the moment Jenny was much too busy feeling sorry for herself.
It was all her own fault, of course. As usual, she’d left everything for the last minute. If she’d taken care of things months ago, none of this would be happening. But who would have thought it would be so difficult to buy a husband?
“C’mon, T.,” the groom wheedled. “At least let me kiss ’er goodbye.”
Jenny took an instinctive half step back.
Tarantelli noticed and one black eyebrow lifted slightly. “I don’t think the lady’s interested, Jimmy.”
“Of course I don’t want to kiss him,” Jenny said shortly. “We only just met.”
Reverend Elvis shook his head slowly, clucking his tongue in disapproval.
The bounty hunter straightened, leaned one forearm casually on his prisoner’s shoulder and looked at Jenny. “You don’t know him?”
Her fingers plucked at the paper petals of her bouquet. Allowing her gaze to sweep quickly over the man she’d almost married, Jenny winced at the bright fuchsia sport coat covering the hot-pink shirt he wore unbuttoned practically to his navel. Five gold chains were caught up in the abundance of curly black hair that covered his chest like an old shag rug. There were three rhinestones missing from the pair of dice etched into his tarnished belt buckle.
Shifting her gaze to the groom’s thick, full lips and small green eyes, Jenny barely managed to suppress a shudder.
Know him? If she’d happened on the man in an alley, she would have hurled her purse at him and run screaming in the opposite direction. And she’d just come within minutes of marrying him.
“No,” she said finally. “I don’t know him.”
The bounty hunter tilted his head to one side and looked down at his prisoner. Shaking his head, he said, “Hell, Jimmy. I didn’t give you near enough credit. You’ve even got strangers wanting to marry you now. What is this? Wife number six?”
“Eight,” Jimmy corrected, tugging proudly at the lapels of his hideous coat.
“Eight?” Jenny echoed.
“Oh, yeah.” Nick Tarantelli glanced at her. “Jimmy’s what you might call a professional groom.”
“Oh, my.”
“The only problem is,” he continued, “Jimmy here doesn’t believe in divorce, do ya, Jimmy?” Tarantelli jerked the shorter man’s coat collar and Jimmy rose up on his toes.
“Divorce,” Jimmy protested, his voice strangled, “is the scourge of America. No one stays together anymore. I’m just doin’ my part, is all. Tryin’ to hold together the moral fabric of society.”
Tarantelli laughed.
“He’s a bigamist?” Jenny asked, stunned. Were there really that many women desperate to get married wandering around Las Vegas? She’d thought she was the only one.
“Among other things,” the bounty hunter said.
Without another word, Tarantelli turned and started for the arched doorway behind him, dragging a protesting Jimmy in his wake.
“That’ll be thirty-five dollars, young lady.”
Jenny tore her gaze from her retreating groom and glanced at the preacher.
Light flashed off the sequins on Reverend Throck-morton’s white jumpsuit as he held his right hand out, palm up.
“But there wasn’t a wedding.”
“Don’t matter to me,” he said, lifting his left hand to smooth the side of his slicked-back pompadour. “You’re payin’ for our time and the use of the chapel.”
There was a steely glint in Elvis’s eyes that Jenny was sure the real Elvis would never have approved of. Still, she didn’t have time to argue. Digging into her tiny, red vinyl purse, she came up with the right amount of money and slapped it into the reverend’s outstretched hand.
Before he could finish muttering “Thank ya vera much,” she was out the front door, hurrying after Nick Tarantelli and his prisoner.
A bounty hunter, she thought. Who would have guessed that such people really existed? The last time she’d heard the words bounty hunter spoken, she was watching a John Wayne movie.
Shaking his head, Nick opened the car door, helped a handcuffed Jimmy into the front seat, then closed the door, making sure it was locked. He’d already lost Jimmy once that day and he wasn’t about to do that again.
As he stepped around the back of his nondescript brown sedan, Nick heard the distinctive click of high heels approaching. Grimacing, he glanced at the watch on his left wrist—8:00 p.m. He’d been running all over Vegas since nine that morning looking for Jimmy “the Lip” Baldini, and he was tired. Too tired to have to listen to a jilted bride.
Especially one too dumb to know how lucky she was.
“Mr.,” she said, and Nick groaned,. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t remember your name.”
“Tarantelli,” he told her. “Nick Tarantelli.”
“Of course.”
She stopped right beside him and Nick looked down into her big blue eyes. Pretty, he thought absently. Too damned pretty to have to settle for a husband like Jimmy.
Even as that thought entered his mind, though, Nick backed off. It didn’t matter how pretty she was, he told himself. She was none of his concern and that was just the way it was going to stay.
“Lady,” he said, his voice gruff, “I’m tired, hungry and cranky.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “And in no mood to listen to tales of the lovelorn.”
“Then how about listening to reason?”
Nick’s eyebrows lifted. She wasn’t easily put off, he would give her that Quickly his sharp gaze swept over her in assessment. About five foot six, he thought, and every inch nicely packed. She had the curves of a Vegas showgirl, even if she didn’t seem to have much taste in clothes.
Her red dress with its giant polka dots didn’t do much for her, in his opinion, but he did like the way it clung to her impressive breasts. The hem of the dress stopped at midthigh, giving him quite a view of her short but shapely legs. Then he noticed the teeteringly high heels she wore on her feet and mentally adjusted her height accordingly. Without those ridiculous shoes, she was probably no more than five-two, tops.
“Have you seen enough?” she asked.
He slowly lifted his gaze to hers. “For now.”
Her lips pursed briefly, then she seemed to gather herself together and a forced smile curved her mouth. “Mr. Tarantelli...” she began.
“Nick.”
“Nick.” She nodded then folded her hands together tightly at her waist. “If I could just explain.”
“Lady, you don’t need to explain yourself to me.” As a matter of fact, he hoped she wouldn’t. He didn’t want to know any more than he already did. Determinedly, he stepped around her and slid his key into the driver’s side lock. “None of my business why you’d want to marry Jimmy the Lip.”
“The Lip?”
A half laugh shot from his throat before he could stop it. “You really don’t know him, do ya?”
“I’ve already told you that.”
A hot desert wind suddenly whipped up around them, lifting her short skirt high enough to make Nick start counting backward from fifty just to keep himself focused on the job at hand.
“Mr.—I mean, Nick,” she corrected quickly. “What I want to explain to you is exactly why you have to allow Mr. Lip to marry me before you take him away.”
“What?” Her ridiculous statement shattered his concentration and he stared at her blankly. He couldn’t believe it. Even knowing that Jimmy was a bigamist wasn’t enough to throw her off course?
Nick watched the desert breeze lift the chin-length, honey-blond hair off her neck and swirl it around her face. She lifted one hand to push it out of her eyes and he couldn’t help noticing how graceful—and fragile—that hand looked.
