laughed, then winced. “If you have a headache like mine I’m pretty sure we both had something to drink last night.”
“I have a feeling last night contained more than one aberration.”
“Right.” He looked around the room. “How did you get into my room?”
She snapped her mouth shut. She was wearing the dress from last night, and, ever since he had been conscious, she had been standing. Which meant he didn’t realize... She considered, for a couple of seconds, allowing him to maintain the illusion. But, ultimately, she kind of wanted him to be horrified by his behavior right along with her.
Assuming they had behaved as badly as it had appeared when she had first woken up.
“I slept here.”
He didn’t say anything. In the dim light, she could make out a slow shift in his facial expression. “We left the wedding together.”
“Yes,” she said, speaking slowly and softly for both of their benefits. “Natalie didn’t show up, Colton.”
He nodded slowly. “Right.”
“And then we...” She scrunched her face. “Obviously we ended up here.”
She heard a loud, low vibration coming from the nightstand by the bed. “Text,” he said, picking up the phone.
Her phone. She needed to find her phone.
“I have to turn on the light. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to both of us.” She moved to the lamp next to the window and flicked it on, then she scanned the expanse of the room. “I had to have a purse, because it has my ID. And I couldn’t get on a plane without my ID.”
“Do you have to think out loud?” he asked, wincing.
“Right now, yes,” she said.
She was starting to remember why she and Colton didn’t often have conversations. He was so bossy and obnoxious. High-handed, irritating as hell.
Which was why she felt a little bit like her skin was too tight for her body when she was near him. And nothing else and no other reason at all.
She spotted her purse finally, shoved into a dark corner of the room. She never did things like that. She did not shove her possessions.
Everything had a place. Everything.
Just not in this room.
She growled and took a small amount of satisfaction when the sound made Colton flinch. Then she walked across the room and sank to her knees, grabbing her purse and frantically digging for her phone. Thankfully, it was there.
She picked it up and clicked the home button, her heart hammering hard when she saw the screen filled with texts.
So, some people knew she was gone. Great.
She entered in her passcode and for the first time noticed that something on her hand felt weird. She hadn’t noticed before because her whole body felt messed up. Her head, her balance, her mouth. And she was tingling. With some kind of strange, euphoric feeling leftover from the night before. One she’d certainly never associated with sex, but these were strange and interesting times, so really, how could she tell what it was from?
She looked down at her left hand and froze. There was a band there. White gold with diamonds. Or some cheap metal with cubic zirconia, for all she knew.
“No,” she muttered, unable to tear her gaze away. “No, no no no.”
“I think yes.”
She turned to face Colton. “What?”
He held his phone out, the bright screen facing her. “Apparently I spent some time texting Natalie last night about her failure to appear.”
She squinted from her position on the floor. “I can’t... Is that a picture?”
“Yes. Of us.”
She sprang into action then. She jumped up and crossed the room in three large steps, leaning into the screen. There she was. Her arms around Colton’s neck, with what looked like Ace’s bar in the background and a couple of empty shot glasses in front of them.
She couldn’t imagine putting her arms around Colton. And yet, clearly she had.
She had also undressed with him. And very likely...
She looked down at her hand. Right. At the moment sex was the least of her worries. She held her hand up so that he could see. “What. The hell. Happened last night?” she asked.
It was her phone’s turn to buzz, and that reminded her of the texts. She looked down at the phone. She had several from Sadie Garrett; a couple from Marlene at the Chamber of Commerce, where Lydia was president; and a couple more from coworkers.
She touched the line with Sadie’s first.
LYDIA I AM ALL CAPS YOU NEED TO RESPOND
Lydia blinked and scrolled up, to see Sadie had texted several times. Each time a little bit more frantic. It had graduated from what are you doing? to are you dead in a ditch? since last night. Or rather, early this morning.
And when she reached the top she saw exactly why.
There were texts explaining the photograph, but Lydia didn’t need to read them. Because a picture was worth a thousand drunk texts.
There she was with Colton, arms around his neck, but it wasn’t Ace’s in the background of this picture. Nope. It was a chapel. A tacky, Vegas chapel. She was in her bridesmaid dress and Colton was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
Picture Lydia was holding her hand partly in front of the screen, displaying the very ring that was on real Lydia’s finger, up close and blurry. She was grinning like—well, like an idiot. Colton’s eyes were half-closed, a big smile on his face, and his hand was resting high on her waist, perilously close to her breast.
“I guess...” She sat there, completely stunned, feeling dazed and more than a little confused. “I guess there was a wedding yesterday after all.”
As she stared at the picture, it all started coming back in a full color blur. They’d gambled, they’d drunk, and it had all gotten increasingly...hilarious.
They were in Vegas! She was supposed to be the bridesmaid in a wedding that hadn’t happened! He was a groom with no bride, and he had spent half the day in a damned tux—his words exactly—and that was just wrong.
So they’d thought the discrepancy should be remedied. And then...sometime, just before midnight, she had stumbled into a chapel on the Las Vegas strip, and she, Lydia Carpenter, front-running candidate for mayor of Copper Ridge, levelheaded community pillar and responsible citizen, had not been a bridesmaid for the third time. No, instead, she had been a bride. And she had married Colton West.
COLTON WEST COULDN’T remember the last time he had gotten blackout drunk. Maybe college? Maybe. It was hard to say if in those scenarios he had passed out because of the alcohol or because they were still awake at five in the morning after some ridiculous party.
Though at none of those ridiculous parties had he married anyone.
And, judging by the messages overflowing his phone, he had gotten married last night.
Which wouldn’t be that weird since yesterday was supposed to be his wedding day. The weird part about it was that he had married a bridesmaid. Not the bride.
And not just any bridesmaid.
Lydia Carpenter.
There were three other bridesmaids. All of whom he was more likely to get drunk and marry in Vegas than Lydia. Or at least, he would have thought so if asked prior to his hasty Vegas marriage.
Actually, had he been asked prior to