The Prodigal Bride

“Uncle Gage!”

He pulled his address book out of a stack of bills on his desk and flipped through it, looking for Rani’s number. “We don’t have anything else until we go to the store. Eat the cereal.”

Pet gave a theatrical groan of discontent. Drama queen. Like someone else he knew.

Except this time. He’d heard real fear, real misery, real desperation in Zoey’s voice when she’d called.

Zoey needed him. Now. Time to act.

Punching Rani’s number into his cell, Gage set his plan in motion.

Zoey curled into a ball on the bed at the emergency shelter and tried to shut out the noise from the street. She’d cried so much in the past twenty-four hours that she’d wondered if her contacts might float away. Then she’d be blind as a bat on top of everything else. Her stomach growled, even though she’d had breakfast in the shelter’s dining hall. The baby apparently needed to be fed every two hours or her hunger and nausea returned. She’d gone out earlier today looking for a job—anything she could do for a few weeks, until she could earn enough money to get back to Lagniappe—but found nothing. She’d called to have her Visa account canceled so that Viper couldn’t run up charges on it, and because of her shaky credit history, a new account would take up to three business days to be approved. She was flat-broke until then.

Knowing Viper could come back to the motel room at any time and knowing she needed food and shelter, for her baby if nothing else, she’d swallowed her pride and headed to the address for an emergency-aid shelter she’d seen at a bus stop. Per the rules of the shelter, she could stay only two nights before finding another place to stay. But for at least one more day she had a place to regroup, a base from which she could look for work and a kitchen where she could get a hot meal. A charity shelter felt like a last resort, but because of her baby, she knew she needed nourishing meals and safe housing. She had that here. For now.

When she thought of going home, her tail between her legs, hoping her father would forgive her foolishness, a bubble of wounded pride swelled in her chest. Admitting she’d been wrong about Derek hurt. Letting her family see how low she’d sunk grated. But like the prodigal son of the Bible, if she didn’t find a job soon, she’d have to dig up some humility and face the I-told-you-sos. For her baby.

The last thing she wanted was to hurt her family. She hated the idea that her recklessness would bring shame to the Bancroft name and give her parents more reason to be disappointed with her. If she had other options, she’d jump on them. But she was at a dead end.

Her pregnancy reared its head with seesawing nausea, and she wrapped her arm around her middle and groaned. “Please, little one, Mommy’s got enough to deal with without you making me sick.” How could she be hungry and nauseous at the same time? Yet she was.

A loud pounding on her room’s door reverberated off the thin walls. Zoey sat up, holding her breath, her heart racing.

“Zoey?” a male voice called.

She froze. It sounded like—

Rolling off the bed and clambering to her feet, Zoey raced to the door and tore it open. Without hesitation, she launched herself at the man standing across the threshold.

“Gage!” Tears of joy flooded her eyes as she wrapped a tight hug around his shoulders—shoulders far broader than she remembered. In high school, he’d been downright spindly.

He stumbled back a step before catching his balance. “Oh, thank God, Zee! Are you all right? You’re not hurt or sick or—”

He squeezed her tighter, and she felt the shudder that raced through him. Wiggling free of his zealous embrace, she nodded and swiped at the moisture in her eyes. “I’m so glad to see you! I would have called you this morning, but they have some kind of block on the house phone so you can’t call long distance, and that cretin Viper smashed my cell phone,” she gushed without taking a breath. “I didn’t have enough money for a meal, much less a bus ticket home, so I had no choice but to come here. I’ve been so alone. So scared. But now …” Excitement spiked in her again. “Now you’re here and … ohmigod, I’m so glad to see you! But …” she paused and blinked her confusion, “… h-how did you find me here?”

Gage flashed his crooked grin and chuckled. “Take a breath, Zee. You’re gonna pass out if you don’t breathe between paragraphs.”

She soft-punched his arm, then took a hard look at him. He had a couple of days’ growth of dark brown beard. His mahogany eyes were rimmed with red. Lines of fatigue creased his face, and hair that hadn’t seen scissors in too long curled in rumpled disarray. He’d never looked better to her. In fact, he looked … sexy. She shook off the unexpected reaction and opted for the safer, familiar ribbing that had served her so well in high school.

“Jeez, Gage, you look like crap.”

He arched an eyebrow and grunted. “Gee, thanks.” He took her elbow and guided her inside, closing the door and frowning when he saw the dingy room. “You’ve been living here?”

“Only for the last day. Since Derek pilfered all my money for his gambling debts, free is all I can afford.” She crossed her arms over her chest and swallowed hard to loosen the knot of emotion in her throat. “I know what you’re thinking. Oh, how the mighty Bancroft princess has fallen.”

He stepped closer and brushed a tangled wisp of her hair behind her ear. “That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking it’s a good thing I came after you. I was thinking how grateful I am that you’re safe. That piece of conversation I overheard with the guy I can only assume was this Viper you mentioned scared the bejeezus out of me. For all I knew, you’d been beaten and were lying bleeding to death somewhere.”

Almost of its own volition, her hand lifted to her eye where Viper’s slap had left a small bruise. Mistake. Gage narrowed his gaze and pulled her closer to the bathroom light.

“Gage, it’s nothing. Don’t—”

He tensed, his mouth firming to a taut line. “Son of a—! He did hit you, didn’t he?”

“Gage, chill. I’m okay.”

Jamming a hand in his hair, he turned to stalk toward the bed where he dropped heavily onto the mattress. “It’s not okay, and you know it. A man never has the right to hit a woman.” His face paled, and his gaze shot back to hers. “Especially not a pregnant woman. Are you … Is it—”

She grinned at his obvious discomfort with her pregnancy. “If my morning sickness is any indication, the baby’s fine. And for the record, morning sickness is a grossly erroneous term. I’m sick all day. All. Day. Especially when I don’t eat.”

Gage dragged a hand down his stubbled cheeks, and the scratchy sound of his beard abrading his palms sent a tingle down her spine. Had his jaw always been that square? Zoey tilted her head and studied him. No, he definitely had a more masculine cut to his cheeks and chin now. And his exercise regimen with the fire department had helped his chest and shoulders fill out. Her breath caught in her lungs. Sexy filtered through her mind again before she could stem the absurd thought. This was Gage, for Pete’s sake.

He lowered his brow in a scowl. “Stop looking at me like that. I know I look like crap. You told me that already. But I haven’t slept in more than forty-three hours.”

Zoey straightened. “What? Why not?”

He made a face that said the answer should have been obvious. “Like I was going to sleep before I found you. After driving through the night to get here, I spent the last twenty-two hours visiting every damn motel in Sin City with your picture, trying to track you down. When I explained the situation to one desk clerk, she suggested I try the shelters, too … which is what led me here.”

A warm fuzzy feeling flooded her chest. “You mean you drove out here with no idea where I was and have been flashing my mug shot around all day to find me?”

He gave a casual shrug.

More tears pricked her eyes. Damn, but pregnancy made her emotional. “That is so Daniel Day Lewis from Last of the Mohicans. ‘Stay alive, whatever may occur. I will find you!’”

He snorted. “Whatever.”

Zoey laughed and rushed to his side, throwing her arms around him and pressing a kiss to his bristly cheek. “My hero!”

He scoff-laughed. “Give me a break.”

“You know that is my favorite movie of all time. You can’t tell me that scene didn’t come to you during the whole drive out here or anytime during your motel search.”

“No, Zee. It didn’t.” He faced her, his eyes a shade darker than normal. Under his piercing stare, her stomach performed a giddy flip-flop. “I was way too preoccupied with wondering if I would be too late to help you, deciding what to do once I found you, what to do if I didn’t find you …”

She squeezed his hand between hers and gave him her brightest smile. “You are the dearest, sweetest guy ever. I’m so lucky you’re my friend.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he shifted his gaze away. “Yeah, well …”

Shoving to her feet, Zoey tugged his arm and hauled him off the bed. “Speaking of which … if you want to help me, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to take me to the nearest restaurant that has cheeseburgers and buy me lunch. I’m famished!”

Gage rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Yeah, okay. But then can I nap for a while? I think I could sleep for a week.”

“Yes. You can sleep when we get back,” she said with a laugh. “Whatever you want. I’m so glad to see you, I’d French-kiss Wayne Newton if you asked me to.”

Gage staggered toward the door with a groan. “Please, don’t. I’m really tired of seeing you hook up with guys who are all wrong for you.”

Gage watched Zoey wolf down a cheeseburger and fries, and he listened patiently as she filled him in on the details of how Derek the Ass had used her and left her stranded.

“How am I supposed to face my family?” Her voice warbled as she dragged a French fry through mustard—that habit still turned his stomach—and sent him a look of misery. “My dad all but disowned me. My sisters have their perfect lives with men who actually love them, and my mom will want to fuss over me like I’m some errant child who can do nothing but mess things up,” she scoffed. “And maybe that’s who I am. The family screwup. The problem child. I can’t blame them for being ashamed of me.”

Gage sat straighter and scowled at her. “Your family is not ashamed of you, Zee. They love you, no matter what.” Just like I do. He bit his tongue. He’d almost said the last aloud. And wouldn’t that send her running for the hills, screaming?

“Maybe before. But this time … I really messed up. I’m knocked up and broke. Not a lot to be proud of there. My dad was right about Derek. So how do I go home with any dignity at all?”

“Well, maybe you don’t.” He jabbed at the ice in his glass with his straw, watching her expression carefully. “Maybe you go home with humility and a lesson learned.”

“If I didn’t have to put my baby’s needs first, I’d stay here and work as a topless cocktail waitress in some dive rather than be a burden and humiliation to my family.”

Gage knew her well enough to know she wasn’t serious, but he still pictured her delivering drinks topless … and his libido kicked hard. Then he imagined the grubby drunks she’d be serving ogling her, and his blood pressure spiked.

She gave a humorless laugh. “Can’t you just see that? Me, pregnant out to here—” she held her hand a foot from her belly “—and serving drinks topless?”

Gage gritted his teeth. “Not gonna happen, Zee. I won’t let it.”

She slumped back in the booth, and he mentally prepared to deliver the speech he’d prepared on his twenty-five-hour drive from Lagniappe. He rubbed his scratchy eyes, wondering if he ought to wait until he’d slept to launch into this discussion.

The very real possibility that she’d hate his idea and turn it down stirred a drumbeat of caution in his chest. The last time they’d taken their friendship in a new direction, he’d nearly lost her. Her rejection had cut a wide, deep swath that still ached on days like today. The plan he’d devised was risky, but he’d take the chance of getting hurt again if it would help Zoey.

He’d do anything for Zee, even put his heart on the line.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked, nodding toward his half-eaten pizza. The other half sat like a rock in his gut.

“I’m not hungry. I ate earlier.” Gage shoved his napkin under the edge of his plate and took a deep breath. “I have an idea, but before you answer me, I want you to hear me out. Okay?”

She wrinkled her nose as she munched a French fry, a mannerism he remembered from high school that meant she was skeptical but curious. “Okay. What?”

He pressed his palms on the table and met her gaze. Her bright jade eyes held such open trust and affection that he almost balked. What if he screwed this up and she got hurt?

“I’ve been thinking about your situation—and mine—and I think we can help each other.”

More nose scrunching. “Help each other how?”

“What if there was a way for you to go back to Lagniappe and face your family with your head high and your future secure?”

She arched a copper eyebrow and propped her elbows on the table. “I’m listening.”

“I need help with Pet.”

“Pet?”

“Elaine’s daughter. I told you about her, right?”

Zoey tipped her head. “Yeah. I thought her name was Magnolia or something.”

“Petunia. We call her Pet because Petunia is just … well, a ridiculous name. I have custody of her while Elaine deals with her alcohol problem.”

Zoey’s eyes widened. “You’re raising a baby? By yourself? Since when?”

“Well, she’s not a baby anymore. She’s five, but she’s still a handful. And yes, I’m doing it alone—well, except for the babysitter who watches her while I’m at the fire station. I’ve had Pet since August, so … about a month now.”

Zoey flopped back in the booth, grinning broadly. “You’re a father!”

He raised a hand and shook his head. “I’m an uncle just trying to help out.”

“Gage, that’s so … awesome. If I said I was proud of you, would you take it the right way? ‘Cause you must be the best brother ever to raise Pet for Elaine.”

He held up a hand. “This isn’t permanent. Just until Elaine gets her act together and can be the parent she should be.”

Combing her thick hair back from her face, Zoey shook her head. “Like that will ever happen. Elaine’s way too much like your mom. I’d be surprised if she ever gets her life in any shape to take care of a kid. Not without serious counseling.”

Gage’s gut tightened. Zoey’s brutal honesty cut close to the truth. She’d seen his family, up close and personal, throughout high school. After Zoey had nursed Gage’s injuries from one of his dad’s beatings in eighth grade, he’d seen no point in hiding the ugly truth from her. His family put the dys in dysfunctional. His parents might be gone now—his mother succumbing to illness right after he finished high school, his father killed in a car-versus-tree wreck just last year—but their warped legacy lived on. Zoey’s family, the hours, days, weeks he’d taken refuge in their pool house, had been his saving grace throughout his troubled youth.

Gage cleared his throat. “Yeah, well … that’s why Elaine’s in a clinic now, drying out. We’ll see if it sticks.”

“Okay, so back to your idea. This will save my pride, give me a future, give you help with Pet and—” She grinned. “What, cure cancer? How do you figure to do all that?”

Gage reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small box he’d brought with him from home.

Lifting the lid on the jewelry box, he showed her the small emerald ring. Emerald to match her eyes. What a sap he was.

Zoey goggled at the ring. “Leapin’ lizards! Gage?”

“So we’re in Vegas, right? Marry me, Zee.”

Chapter 3

Nervous jitters danced down Zoey’s spine, and she popped up from the chair in the waiting area of the I Do, I Do Wedding Chapel to pace. All of Gage’s reasoning sounded good in theory, but the reality of marrying Gage still left Zoey off balance. Wary. Terrified.

And her inability to quit staring at his five-o’clock-shadowed jaw line and buff fireman’s build left her just … confused. And flush-faced.

“Just so we’re straight on this,” she said, aiming a finger at her groom, who looked a little pale around the gills himself, “this isn’t permanent. When we both have our lives back on track—after my baby comes and I have a job, and when Elaine takes custody of Pet again—we get a simple divorce and go our separate ways, no hard feelings, no complications. Right?”

Gage’s jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep breath. “Right.”

She paced across the room and back, acid building in her stomach as she found the courage to lay out her number-one rule. She wet her lips and squeezed her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “And no sex. This isn’t really a marriage, and … well, we know how sex messed things up for us last time.”

His eyes darkened, and his gaze narrowed. He said nothing, but she knew he was remembering the last time, the only time they’d slept together … and the morning after.

The night of graduation filtered through her mind like an apparition, haunting her. She could still hear the cheers of her classmates as they tossed their caps, could still smell the beer and “jungle juice” Marty Haines served at his postgraduation party. But most vividly, she remembered looking for Gage, not seeing him at the party, but finding him later, waiting for her at her family’s pool house. With a black eye.

Though she’d been tipsy, she’d let him vent about his father, offered him comfort and … one thing had led to another. Zoey had compounded the drunken mistake of sleeping with her best friend with her impulsive gut reaction the next morning. In a panic and without a word to Gage, she’d fled Lagniappe for Europe—a decision that had nearly ruined their friendship.

“No sex,” she repeated. “We can’t repeat that mistake. Our friendship is more important than a night of doing the mattress tango.” She pressed a hand to her swirling stomach. “Agreed?”

Gage held her gaze, his dark stare unnerving. He cracked his knuckles, a sure sign that he wasn’t as cool and collected inside as his relaxed manner suggested. Finally, he turned a hand up in concession. “Fine. No sex. But we still respect our wedding vows. No infidelity.”

She jerked a nod. “Naturellement.”

His scowl reminded her how much he hated her speaking French, a too-raw reminder of her years away “finding herself” in Europe.

“But to keep the divorce simple, I think we should—”

Gage growled and surged to his feet. “Can we not plan every detail of our divorce now? It’s bad enough you’ve talked about nothing but how this won’t be a ‘real’ marriage—” glowering, he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers “—since the minute you put on my engagement ring. If you don’t want to marry me, just say so. Otherwise, can we try to be at least a little optimistic before we walk down the aisle?”

“Easy, Sparky.” She stepped up to him and patted his chest. His broad, hard, well-developed chest. She let her hand linger longer than she should have, and he arched an eyebrow. Leapin’ lizards. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page before we say ‘I do.’”

She savored the warmth of his skin that seeped through his shirt and felt the reassuring thump of his heart under her hand. Strong and steady, just like Gage. Reminded of all he’d sacrificed to help her, Zoey cupped his cheek with her hand. His unshaven jaw scratched her hand, and she marveled again at the changes in him since high school. Who was this calendar-worthy hottie she was about to marry? Sure, she’d seen him since graduation. Dozens of times. But in her mind, Gage would always be the quiet, skinny boy who didn’t shave until his junior year. The lanky track-team distance runner. The geeky guy no one noticed and whose name was misspelled “Gabe” in the senior yearbook.

But women noticed him now. At the restaurant alone, she’d counted five different women who’d looked ready to jump him if he’d shown even a hint of interest. Her best friend, the late bloomer, the fireman hunk. Who’da thunk it?

“Thanks again for coming to my rescue. Now I don’t have to go home to face my parents unwed, penniless, pregnant and deserted.” She quirked a wry grin. “Just penniless and pregnant.”

He shrugged. As if driving fifteen hundred miles without sleeping, as if putting his life on hold so her baby would have a name, as if saving her from being homeless were nothing.

He wrapped his fingers around hers and moved them from his cheek to brush a soft kiss across her knuckles. A sensation like tiny bubbles tickled down her spine.

“What are friends for? I wouldn’t have survived high school if not for you and your family. Consider this payback.”

The doors to the chapel opened, and a man wearing a sparkly suit that Liberace would envy called, “Powell-Bancroft?”

Gage and Zoey looked from Mr. Sparkles to each other. She saw the get-a-load-of-him grin Gage fought to hide and had to bite the inside of her own cheek so she wouldn’t laugh. “Are you sure this is the wedding chapel and not the Salute to Siegfried and Roy?” she whispered.

Gage’s cheek twitched, and his gaze lit with humor. “Just in case, keep an eye out for tigers in there, okay?” He offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

Her stomach swirled, and her burger-and-fries lunch rebelled. “Is this the right thing to do, Gage? I mean, the last thing I want is to do anything that will hurt our friendship.”

His dark eyebrows lowered, his expression cautious. “I’m sure. I thought about all the pros and cons driving out here. But if you’re not sure, if you need more time to think—”

“That would be so not me. Right?” She raked her hair back with her fingers and gave him a nervous laugh. “Impulsive is my middle name. Isn’t that what my mother says?” She hooked her arm in his and squared her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

A tinny organ played the Wagner wedding march, and Zoey squeezed Gage’s hand as they strode down the aisle to the vaudevillesque minister. Her stomach seesawed, her lip sweated and her knees trembled. This was hardly how she pictured her wedding day as a little girl.

She swallowed hard, forcing down the bile that rose in her throat when the minister, a show-perfect smile in place, intoned, “We’re gathered here today to join Zoey and Gabe—”

“Gage,” her groom corrected.

The pearly-white smile faltered. “Oh, uh … Zoey and Gage in the legal bonds of marriage.”

Her heart thundered, and she thought she might throw up. Maybe the hot peppers on her burger had been a mistake … but she’d had a strange craving for them and—

“Zoey, do you take Gage to be your husband? To love and cherish in sickness and—” The minister’s voice faded to a drone as she faced her groom. Her groom. Leapin’ lizards! She’d spent her whole life making rash decisions, screwing up, hurting the people she loved. How could she live with herself if, in trying to dig herself out of the hole she’d created with Derek, she was making matters worse by marrying Gage?

She was ready to turn and run when she met Gage’s eyes. Warm, genuine, encouraging. He flashed her one of his crooked grins and, as if David Copperfield had waved his hands and snatched away a silky veil, her jitters vanished. Poof! Gage had been her rock, her refuge, her home base for more than eleven years. With him, she was safe, anchored.

“—until death do you part?” the showman minister finished grandly.

A niggle of guilt poked her. Their marriage would be temporary, not until death, but the confidence in Gage’s eyes filled her with a calm assurance she was doing the right thing. Warmth filled her chest. “Yeah, I do.”