Reilly, but Matt here just gave me proof.”
“Can it,” Matt said. “My bud, Reilly, is no more prissy than your mother.”
“What’d you say about my mother?” Despite his size, Mitch scrambled to his feet in two-point-five seconds. “Nobody insults my mother without—”
A loud whistle came from behind the bar.
Finn winced.
Crazy Lu and her settle-down-boys banshee blast were landmarks in the small town of Greenleaf, Utah. She’d owned the burger and beer joint for as long as anyone could remember and while she put up with a lot of things, fights weren’t one of them. “Mitch Mulligan, either take it outside or take it up with me.” White-haired Lu couldn’t have topped five feet wearing heels and a tiara, but the row of ornery guys standing at the bar backed down as if their own mothers had issued the command.
Everyone, that is, except for the woolly mammoth. “Oh now, Lu, don’t go gettin’ your panties in a wad.”
“How do you even know I wear panties, Mitch? I agree with Matt. Just this once, give Reilly a break. Here,” she shoved a paper plate heaped with orange-rose-laden wedding cake across the bar. “Put some food in your belly. It’ll make you feel better. You prob’ly got gas from all that beer. It’s makin’ you nasty as a three-headed rattler.”
“I don’t want any cake and I’m always this nasty. The only thing I want a piece of is that punk sittin’ over there shaking in his boots.”
“Fine.” She winked Finn’s way. “Then make him a good honest bet. Just don’t mess up his pretty face for the next girl in line for his kisses.”
“Why, thank you, sweetheart.” Finn winked boldly. At least someone loved him, even if it wasn’t the stacked redhead he’d planned to be loving right about now.
“Sure thing, angel.”
Mitch snorted. “Angel, my—”
“Watch it,” Lu warned.
“Ha. All I wanna watch is how much crow Reilly here eats when he loses this bet.” Mitch pulled a wad of cash from the front pocket of his dingy jeans, peeled off ten hundred-dollar bills, then smacked them on the bar. “All right, pretty boy. I’ve got a thousand bucks—my entire payroll—says there’s no way you can find another woman stupid enough to marry you by the end of the week.”
“Mulligan,” Lu warned. “There’s families depending on that pay. Don’t go bettin’ away their suppers.”
With a wave of one of the massive paws he called hands, he brushed her off. “This here’s a sure bet. No one’s gonna lose but ol’ Reilly here. And seein’ how he just got the contract on that fancy new highway motel, he’s got plenty of cash to spare.”
Finn rolled his eyes. Was Mulligan ever going to get over the fact that Finn’s Custom Building consistently got more jobs than AAA Construction?
“Whatsa matter, pretty boy? Too chicken to take me up on a bet you know you’re gonna lose?”
That’s it. Finn slammed his bottle on the bar, then grappled to his feet.
Nobody called him prissy, pretty boy and chicken all on the same night—especially not when his own aunt had called him a poor, sweet thing just that afternoon. “By God, Mulligan, I’ll not only take you up on that bet—” he pulled honeymoon cash from the chest pocket of his tux, counting out a grand before smacking it beside Mitch’s “—but I’ll raise the stakes by throwing in my truck.”
“Finn,” Lu said. “You’re a bright boy. Be sensible. This is marriage we’re talkin’ about. A lifetime commitment—not to mention a brand spankin’ new black Chevy.”
“All respects, ma’am, but stay out of it—and I’m far from a boy.” He took another swig of beer. “I’m Grade A, genuine, M-A-N. And if it takes a stupid bet to prove any woman would be thrilled to marry me, then by God, bettin’ is what I’ll do.” He shoved the pile of money toward Lu. “Sweetheart, hold on to this until next Saturday night. If I’m not back wearin’ a ring by then…well, then you’d better give all that cash to old ugly over there.” He gestured to Mitch. “He’ll be needin’ it to pay for my funeral, ’cause one thing’s for sure…”
“What’s that?”
“If I’m not married by Saturday, I must be stone-cold dead.”
“NO, NO, NO,” Lilly Churchill cried, stomping her white satin pumps in frustration. Unfortunately, all that fussing raised a dust cloud, which caused her to sneeze, which in turn caused her to need a tissue—a tissue that was in her purse.
On the front seat.
Snuggled alongside her keys.
Keys to the car she’d just securely locked.
“Not now,” she said to an audience of a million twinkling stars. “Not when I was for once getting things right.” Hot tears threatened to spill, but she stoically held them back. This was not the time for a crying binge.
Hiking her heavy white skirts, she teetered across the restaurant’s gravel lot.
So, on the eve of her wedding she’d locked her keys in the car? Big deal.
It wasn’t an omen that her marriage was doomed. After all, look what’d happened at her big sister Mary’s wedding, and four years later, her marriage was still going strong.
Yeah, her conscience butted in, but don’t forget you were the cause of Mary and her three bridesmaids arriving over two hours late for her ceremony.
And how Robby the groom freaked out because he thought Mary had cold feet. And speaking of cold—remember how the delay caused the reception caterers to run out of Sterno to heat their hot wings, mini-pizzas, and quiches? Ick. To this day, Lilly could still taste the congealed grease.
Her brothers—and even Mary—assured their baby sister that running out of gas on the way to the ceremony hadn’t been her fault. That the old Nova’s gas gauge had always been cranky—especially below an eighth of a tank. But no matter how many times Lilly told herself the mishap could have happened to anyone, she knew that simply wasn’t true.
How? From the disappointment in her mom and dad’s eyes. From the looks that said how could such a rotten apple have landed in their perfect bushel?
The truth of the matter was that her sister’s wedding wasn’t the first time Lilly had seen those looks. They’d been there when she dropped out of the University of Utah after her first semester. They’d been there every time she’d lost her retainer, left the milk out, forgotten to take out the trash or feed the dog, bombed a high school final, missed curfew or lost a job. The list went on and on.
For Lilly’s whole life, her older, overachieving, straight-A brothers and sisters had done their best to cover up for her when she failed. They’d treated her like a pet they hated to see punished, but now that all of them were busy leading fabulous careers and marriages, she felt lost and alone in trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She thought she knew, but then this whole mess had happened with Elliot, and now…
Now all she wanted to do was make her troubles go away—a goal easily enough accomplished by marrying Dallas. But then what? Would her parents view her marriage as just another bandage? Or, as for the first time in her twenty-five years, her way of taking responsibility for her biggest ever blunder?
FINN CRADLED his forehead in his hands.
Ugh, had he truly drunk all six of the long-necks standing like a row of not-so-pretty maidens on the bar?
The queasy churning in his gut, not to mention the sour taste on his tongue, told him that, yes, not only had he downed all those beers, but he’d downed them in a hurry.
What was the matter with him? He knew better than to drink like that—especially over a woman,