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, but darn it all, he was ready to settle down. Seemed like he’d been ready ever since his parents and sister died when he was eight.
This afternoon he’d been damned close to making his dream of starting over with a new family finally come true, but then Vivian had pulled her disappearing act. Not only had she ruined their wedding by walking out right in the middle of it, but she’d stolen their honeymoon tickets to Cancun.
At the very least, he and Matt could have been toasting Finn’s sorrows beachside instead of in this stinkin’ bar.
He raised his head to look around.
For eleven o’clock on Halloween night, the crowd had grown thin. Old Judge Crawford sat in his usual booth in the corner, and Betty and Bob Bristow, the county’s finest line dancers, two-stepped to a honky-tonk tune blaring from the jukebox. They made a cute couple in their alien costumes. Doc Walsh and her house husband wore hospital whites—Mr. Walsh wearing a not-too-flattering nurse’s cap and gown.
Though not a single patron currently held a cigarette, a thick haze clung to the renovated barn’s ceiling, accompanied by the smell of one too many grease fires.
Finn shook his head.
Yep, after today, he was supposed to have been living the good life. Eating plenty of home-cooked meals. Getting back rubs. Indulging in stimulating conversation and—
What the…
A woman—no, an angel—stood at the red vinyl door. Dressed in a gown of gossamer-white, carrying a bouquet of full pink roses, she looked ready to star in a wedding.
Even worse—or maybe better—she was headed his way.
“Excuse me?” she asked, her melodic voice about as loud as a marshmallow being dropped on a cloud. “But…are you by any chance…”
“Waiting to get married?” This had to be a joke. Mulligan had to have sent her.
“Yes, me too. I’m Lilly and you must be Dallas.”
Dallas?
She held out her hand. A tiny, white-gloved affair that when he briefly gripped it, felt lost in Finn’s palm. Lilly. Such a fitting name for this delicate flower of a woman.
A rush of protectiveness flooded his system.
But wait a minute…Since Mitch had obviously hired this woman to mess with Finn’s head, why should he feel anything for her, let alone protective?
Giving the blonde a cool appraisal, in his mind’s eye, Finn unfurled the enemy’s master plan. Mitch must have met this “bride” at a buddy’s Halloween party, then bribed her to feign interest in Finn. Hell, maybe he’d even paid her enough to pretend she was actually going to marry him, then, just when Finn wagged a marriage license in the mammoth’s ugly face, Mitch would drop his bomb that this angel was no bride, but someone he hired to cause Finn to lose the bet! To most folks’ way of thinking, Finn would have won by marrying, but Mitch wasn’t most folks. Mitch was crafty—wily enough to deduce that if Finn wed a bride who was lying about her name, then the marriage wouldn’t be legal. Thus causing Finn to lose on a technicality.
And trust Mitch to have not even thought his plan through well enough to tell the woman the name of the guy she was supposed to dupe. “Yep,” Finn said with a knowing smile. “I’m Dallas. That’s me.”
“Thank goodness. I’ve been driving for hours. I never thought I’d find this place.” Her shoulders sagged. “Even now, Dallas, I must say I’m surprised. When you described Luigi’s, I thought it would be a little more…”
Finn followed her sweeping, and maybe even a bit fearful, gaze as it flitted from face to face to land on old drunken Pete who sat half-asleep and mumbling at the other end of the bar.
“You thought this was Luigi’s?” That place was the swankiest restaurant for miles. Swallowing hard, Finn blocked the memory of how beautiful Vivian had looked the night he’d taken her there to propose.
“Well…yes. It is, isn’t it? I saw the L-U-apostrophe-S on the sign.”
“Sure. This is Luigi’s. I’m glad you found it.”
“Me, too.” She licked her lips. Kissable lips. Lips that on a good night could drive a man all the way to distraction.
After the day he’d had, did he feel like going for a ride? Hell, yes.
“So?” she said. “Shouldn’t we get going? I made all the plans. All we have to do is…exchange our vows.” She smoothed the front of her satin gown, looking up at him with impossibly wide, impossibly blue eyes.
He gulped.
Mitch had certainly done his homework in hiring this gal. She was a real pro to have almost had Finn falling for her—almost.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Lilly said, fighting the urge to flee. When Dallas had said in that morning’s e-mail that he was suit-and-tie handsome, he’d been way off in his description. Deliciously off.
She couldn’t really marry a man like him, could she?
Do I really have a choice? It wasn’t as if guys were lined up around the block waiting to marry a woman in her condition.
“Not come?” He snatched a French fry from a basket on the bar. She tracked his hand all the way to his mouth. A mouth with lips that looked chiseled from the most fascinating stone. “How could I have stayed away from our big day? Or—” another fry in hand, he waved toward a darkened window “—I guess that would be night.”
When he spied her gaze lingering on his mouth, he offered her his latest fry, but she shook her head, flushed with heat at the mere possibility of consuming food that had come so perilously close to his lips.
She cleared her throat. “I, ah, don’t blame you if you’ve changed your mind. I mean, this is kind of sudden.”
“Nonsense.” He swallowed his bite of fry.
“It’s okay. Really. I wouldn’t be too upset if you want to back out.”
“Nope. Not me.”
“Great.” Lilly released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. In the month they’d known each other via the Marriage of Convenience board on Singles com, this was what she liked more every day about Dallas. He was a man driven by convictions. Okay, so he wasn’t marrying her out of love, but his conviction to succeed in his ultraconservative law firm—the same firm that told him he needed a wife—but she was okay with that. All she needed was a husband—the rest would work itself out in time.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I set up the ceremony for ten tomorrow morning, but even driving all night, that doesn’t give us much time.”
“All night? I don’t get it.”
“Vegas. That’s where we’ll be taking our vows. Remember? How you told me your mother always wanted to be married there?”
“Oh.” He conked his temple. “Of course. Mom. The Elvis Chapel. How could I forget?”
“I thought she liked