Читать книгу Automatic Proposal - Kelsey Roberts - Страница 8

Las Vegas, 2000

Hard to hide a gun beneath a wedding dress, Julia Garcia mused. She had a smile full of nerves as she strapped the weapon into its holster high up on her thigh, then let the bunched fabric drop to the floor. She smoothed the skirt in place. Could you tell?

Critically, she checked her image in the full-length mirror, turning this way and that. Not bad. Fortunately, the heavy cream-colored peau de soie dropped in a straight A line from the natural waist, covering a multitude of sins. And one Walther PPK.

Keeping her attention on the outline of her legs beneath the stiff silk, she walked a few steps back and forth, making sure that not even a hint of the handgun could be seen when she moved.

She made a pretty decent looking bride, she thought, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. Although this wasn’t even remotely close to how she’d imagined her wedding day, she still felt a lump of nerves clogging her throat. Not fear nerves, she told herself, more like stage fright nerves. Very appropriate, since this was all an act. Or it was supposed to be. Her heart thudded against her ribs just thinking about him. Which wasn’t part of the plan. She wasn’t supposed to have feelings for Luke. Not real ones, anyway. Julia dismissed her errant thoughts, chalking them up to stress, pressure, anything but the notion that love at first sight was real.

Luke seemed like a nice enough guy. And he was hot. Very hot.

They’d known each other for exactly one week, thanks to her assignment. Although “known” was a gross exaggeration. One couldn’t really get to know a person in seven short days. Hell, until she’d seen the application for the marriage license, she hadn’t even known his middle name.

All that was by design. Her assignment was to learn everything she could about Joe Esterhaus. Luke was collateral damage. Esterhaus was using Luke. She was using Luke. The only person who didn’t know either of those truths was Luke Young.

Julia guessed he’d be pretty pissed when he found out. Fortunately, she’d be long gone by then. She checked the time again, feeling a knot of impatience in her stomach.

“Where the hell are you guys?” she whispered. The small anteroom smelled faintly of flowers and stale perfume. Julia imagined how many real brides had stood here looking at themselves in the same full-length mirror. She guessed that they’d been filled with anticipation and a touch of fear, but most of all they’d been happy and excited about their bright new futures. Secure in the love of the men they had chosen.

Which was where her illusion shattered. My future is anything but secure, she thought, pacing for real now. Damn it. Come on, you guys, it’s hot in here, and this damn dress is starting to make me sweat. And while her weapon and harness wouldn’t show, sweat would, which would reveal her nerves. How many of those imagined brides had walked down the aisle dripping like Niagara Falls?

Stepping over to the door, she opened it a tiny crack, peering out into the chapel. Esterhaus was in the first row of chairs. On the groom’s side. He was a dapper guy in his late forties, with thick, prematurely gray hair. His shoes alone cost more than all four years of her college tuition combined. He might look like a successful entrepreneur, but Julia knew better.

She didn’t see Luke. On a personal level, she felt jilted. On a professional level, she was annoyed. This entire con required that the groom show up. “I’m losing it,” she muttered softly as she soundlessly closed the door.

Tension. Nerves coiled in every one of her muscles. Where the hell were the other agents? She was going to need backup. They knew that. They should all be sitting in those pews, dressed as wedding guests. Especially with a guy as slippery as Esterhaus.

He was normally surrounded by a half-dozen heavily armed men. But here, in the quintessentially Vegas wedding chapel, he was unguarded.

Perfect.

Just what they wanted.

Everything was in place. Everything but the groom, and the agents who were supposed to swoop in and arrest the son of a bitch seconds before she said “I do.”

If they didn’t take him now, they’d have no way of linking the drug shipment to him. The DEA needed to put Esterhaus in prison this time. Twice before, they’d been unable to make a case against the narco-trafficker. But this time, thanks to her efforts, they would finally get him off the streets. Until three hours ago, the DEA had no idea how Esterhaus was getting his product into the country. Julia’s assignment had been to get the information so that the government could find a way to shut him down.

Esterhaus was far from stupid. Three undercover agents had tried and failed to get close to him in the past. Julia had found a way to succeed where they hadn’t. That way’s name was Luke Young.

The most solid lead the DEA had was that Esterhaus used his custom home fixture business as a front for his drug trafficking operation. And that he’d been importing cocaine by the ton. But the DEA had rules to follow. Knowing what Esterhaus was doing and proving it were two different things.

So Julia had gotten close to the man by proxy.

Esterhaus had been spending a lot of time cultivating a business relationship with Luke both before and during the home improvement convention that had drawn them all to Vegas this past week.

Esterhaus had created a brilliant system. He hid his drugs in plain sight. According to what Julia had learned, Esterhaus had the drugs pressed, then encased in porcelain bathroom fixtures. All of this was cleverly and expertly done by a series of East Asian manufacturers. Then the components were run through a bunch of offshore shell corporations, making it nearly impossible for the DEA to connect the product directly back to Esterhaus.

Luke Young had unwittingly turned the tables. He had no idea about the drugs, but he was obviously a savvy businessman. His insistence that Esterhaus provide a sample of the custom fixtures before he placed a large order meant the DEA could finally get the proof they needed to put Esterhaus away for a very, very long time.

Agents were at the warehouse now, executing a search warrant. Another team was supposed to be standing by to arrest the drug lord the second they had the evidence in hand. Julia glanced at the clock again, her palms damp with nerves. If the agents didn’t show up soon, she’d have to go through with the ceremony. That was part of the arrest plan. Luke seemed like a nice enough guy, but Julia was a career agent, and she had no desire to marry anytime soon. There were a lot of things she’d do for her country, but she wasn’t sure marrying a stranger she’d known all of a week, just because her backup couldn’t get their act together in time, was one of them.

She whispered an impatient curse, feeling her stomach lurch. Part of her nervousness was normal, and due to the fact that her whole system was on high alert, as it always was before a sting. The other part was a result of trying to decide her next move should the arrest be delayed. Would she get fired if she chose not to say “I do?”

“I get married,” she grumbled. If she didn’t, she’d surely arouse the suspicions of Esterhaus. If that happened, there was no telling how long it might take for the DEA to get another foothold into the drug cartel.

“Get the lead out, guys,” she said under her breath.

But poor Luke. He really seemed like a decent guy. In another time and place, he was the kind of man she’d enjoy getting to know. Once he discovered he was nothing more than a pawn in all of this, he’d probably consign her to the depths of hell.

She drew in a deep breath to calm her pounding pulse. Again she went to the door and opened it, peering out into the small chapel. Esterhaus was still seated in place. Only now, Luke was at the altar.

Seeing him standing there in a dark tux caused her breath to catch in her throat. She hadn’t been jilted after all. He epitomized the cliché of tall, dark and handsome.

Julia was five foot six in her stocking feet, yet Luke towered over her by about ten inches. His shoulders were broad, his muscled body tapering down to a trim waist. He was very tanned, a testament to the fact that he was a hands-on kind of construction boss. Julia couldn’t see his eyes, but she didn’t need to—they were branded on her brain. Deep, rich brown, the color of Cuban coffee; rimmed in dark, inky lashes the same shade as his slightly too long hair.

Julia suffered another pang of guilt. Intellectually, she knew using Luke was the means to a righteous end. Emotionally, and she blamed this on the wedding dress, she didn’t want Luke to get hurt. It wasn’t like they’d professed their undying love for one another, right? This was just a job.

She adjusted the gown, tugging the strapless silk bodice to a more modest position. She smiled wryly. Stupid time for her Catholic school upbringing to rear its ugly head. Maybe it wasn’t her nun-induced sense of propriety. Maybe it was just that she didn’t want her fellow agents bursting through the door and getting an eyeful of her breasts.

If she had an hour and a sewing machine, she could alter the dress. Some people knitted to relax. She sewed, and she was damn good. Maybe an inch of lace across the bodice; she could take it from the hem, no problem.

What was she thinking about sewing for? Where the hell were those agents? She rolled her eyes at the idiotic turn of her thoughts.

She jumped when someone rapped gently on the door.

“We’re ready!” she heard the wedding assistant call.

Julia sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Depending on nothing more than hope that the agents found what they needed fast—like, before she turned into Julia Young—she grabbed up the pale pink roses tied with a satin ribbon, and reached for the door.

“Here Comes the Bride” was piped in through the speakers embedded in the ceiling as Julia began a slow walk down the aisle with her gun strapped to her thigh. She was ready.

She looked nervous. Terrified, actually. Luke shifted his weight from foot to foot and battled the strong urge to yank at the tight collar cinched around his throat.

Even looking as if she was walking into the path of an oncoming train, Julia was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was dark and exotic, inspiring all sorts of fantasies he felt certain were inappropriate in a church. Well, church was a stretch. The Chapel of Love was more like a matrimonial weigh station.

What in the hell am I doing? Luke wondered for the umpteenth time that day.

This wasn’t like him. He didn’t do things on a whim. He was not an impulsive kind of guy. Every decision, no matter how small, was approached with care and deliberation. A lesson well-learned by the age of seventeen.

But life’s lessons and pretty much every other rational thought zinged right out of his brain within seconds of laying eyes on his approaching bride.

She was close enough now for him to catch the scent of her perfume. Something unexpectedly floral. Sunlight glinted off the sheen of her dress. Well, it wasn’t a dress so much as it was a whisper of fabric outlining her shapely top half and hiding the just as shapely lower half in a mile of cream-colored material.

That was just one of the things he admired about his future wife. She had a woman’s body. Full and sexy as hell. Just seeing a hint of her deep cleavage sent his mind back into the gutter. He wasn’t alone, either. Luke noticed that his about-to-be new supplier had his eyes glued on Julia.

Luke suffered a surprising surge of jealousy. I’ve known this woman a week and I’m feeling proprietorial? his brain challenged. Either he was crazy in love or just plain crazy. His eyes met Julia’s as she approached and his heart skipped a beat, as it always did when he saw her.

She didn’t look nervous or unsure now. She looked like a serene and beautiful bride approaching the man she intended to spend the rest of her life with. Their love would grow, Luke was sure.

Keeping his eyes on her, he prodded his emotions. Was he sure about this? It was a hell of a commitment based on very little.

He needed to make up his mind now.

He considered turning on his heel and running, but then he looked into those incredible eyes of hers. They were a pale gray, the same shade as a storm cloud just beginning to gather strength.

The deep, rich caramel tinge to her skin set off the lightness of her eyes. She’d left her long, curly black hair loose, allowing it to fall freely over her bared shoulders.

Luke could imagine himself brushing aside the silken strands and kissing his way along her collarbone to the pulse point at her throat, then higher still until he was treated to the taste of her full, glossed lips.

He practically groaned aloud from the effect of his vivid mental image.

Julia took her place beside Luke, struggling to keep her smile in place. Where the hell was the arrest squad?

The music stopped and the Internet-ordained minister smiled up at her. “Let us begin.”

Julia swallowed and nodded, wondering if some strange quirk of fate was going to bind her to a stranger. Her hands were shaking as they gripped the bouquet.

Fixing her eyes on the knot of Luke’s tie, she struggled to keep from glancing over her shoulder to check on the focus of the sting.

“Do you, Luke, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

Impressive. Luke hadn’t hesitated at all. Julia wasn’t sure she could still speak English as her turn approached.

“Julia, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I—” The door at the back of the chapel burst open, letting in a stream of sunlight and a dozen windbreaker-clad agents. Relief and regret vied as Julia turned to the door, then back to face Luke. “Apparently,” she said apologetically, “I don’t.”