Читать книгу Oops...We're Married? - Susan Lute - Страница 13

“Ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to have a short intermission while we set up the wedding scene. Don’t forget to take a look at the silent auction at the back of the room.”

Eleanor wanted to scream at the top of her lungs at the turn Jake’s so-called “dating game” had taken. Hastily she tugged her foster brother away from Dillon’s frown and the excitement dancing in his little boy’s eyes.

“Jake. I am not going to marry that…man,” she whispered fiercely, turning her back on the tantalizing promise Dillon Stone represented.

“Of course you are. It’s perfectly safe, all make-believe. For charity, remember?”

Eleanor shook off Jake’s arm when he tried to wrap her in a smothering hug.

“He should have picked one of the others. Why didn’t he?” Eleanor didn’t like the feeling that she was losing it.

“Because you’re so sweet and wonderful? And, he couldn’t resist you?” Humor played across Jake’s face, only inching her irritation higher.

“You’re dead meat.”

“Thanks, El. I love you, too. Look out, here come the wedding props.”

Intent on getting as far away from Dillon Stone and his sweet little boy as she possibly could, Eleanor scowled her worst at Jake before moving out of the way of the stage workers who were exchanging the cubicles for an elaborate garden wedding scene.

“This isn’t going to work, you know,” Dillon told his friend evenly, while Jake fixed the bridal boutonniere in his jacket lapel. Covertly, he watched Eleanor across the stage, fidgeting tensely while a woman, presumably one of Jake’s assistants, placed a long, trailing, lacy veil over her flowing blond hair.

God, she was beautiful. She certainly wasn’t a shy tomboy anymore. Gone was the young girl he remembered. In her place was a gorgeous woman, but one who still lacked all the female graces.

“Sure, it’s going to work. The crowd loves this stuff.” Jake indicated the wedding arch that was being placed center stage.

“No. I mean Eleanor and me.” Dillon didn’t believe the picture that was being created of Eleanor as the perfect bride. Unexpectedly, a painful knot formed in his stomach at the fleeting, wistful look she cast at him. A look that was concealed behind indifference before it was ever fully formed.

Damn. Why was he even thinking about this? He wanted more children. Maybe, lots of them. And in his experience, career women did not want children. At least not right away. Anyone could see that Eleanor Rose was a dedicated career woman.

Even now, she was dressed in a gray pin-striped skirt and jacket as if she couldn’t wait to get back to the office. Surprisingly, the top button of her blouse was open, exposing a generous amount of her slender throat, slightly spoiling her perfect corporate image. But that didn’t change the fact that he’d met her type before.

“What about you and Eleanor?” Jake’s pseudo-innocent inquiry made the hairs stand at alert on the back of Dillon’s neck.

“We have absolutely nothing in common. After tonight we’ll probably never see each other again.” The ping that poked his heart at the thought of never seeing Eleanor again didn’t mean a thing. Suspiciously, Dillon watched his friend’s unchanging expression. Mary Towers was the more obvious choice for his list of possible wife candidates.

“Hey. No problem. But it wouldn’t hurt if you and El got together after this.”

Get together? With Eleanor Rose? The poster lady of corporate womanhood? No way.

“It’s not going to happen, Jake,” Dillon firmly informed his friend.

“All I’m saying—”

“Dad, how come she’s standing way over there?” Ryan pulled insistently on his hand, effectively derailing Dillon’s conversation with Jake—a conversation that had been going nowhere, anyway.

“Because the bride and groom are not supposed to see each other before the wedding ceremony, pal.” Jake answered for him, dropping on one knee to fix a matching boutonniere on Ryan’s lapel. “Everything seems to be ready. Why don’t we get your dad and El in place?”

Eleanor turned to face the man she’d worked so hard to keep out of her dreams. She couldn’t go through with this. She wasn’t going to pretend to marry the one man who had once had the power to rock her to her very soul.

“El, come stand over here.”

Jake’s instruction set her teeth on edge. Forcing stiff limbs to move, Eleanor slowly walked to the spot her foster brother indicated.

Why was she doing this? Because it was a fake ceremony…and for charity. Eleanor squared her shoulders. She had a fulfilling career and was just fine living on her own. She was not feeling sorry for herself or wishing for the impossible just because as a young woman she’d once wished she could be bound to this man for life.

A small hand nestled into hers. Unable to stop the feelings suddenly warming her, Eleanor looked down into shining green eyes and the biggest smile she’d ever seen on a child’s face.

“You’re going to be my new mom,” Ryan said, eyes twinkling at her. Eleanor’s heart sank. She didn’t need any new cracks to form in her armor.

“Remember, son, this is just make-believe.” Dillon’s determined words sealed those cracks shut with a lonely clang.

“Where’s the judge? Is there a judge in the house?” Jake demanded playfully of the audience.

In unison the audience began to loudly chant. “Judge…judge…judge…”

Keep your sense of humor. Don’t break your heart over this, Eleanor admonished herself as a sprinkle of laughter drifted through the room. Nervously, she adjusted her glasses on her nose. This mockery of a marriage was for charity. It didn’t mean anything more than that.

Taking a deep breath to settle the skittish alarm clanging in her stomach, Eleanor looked up as a new disturbance erupted at the door. Now what?

Causing the minor commotion was an elderly man in a western-style black frock and flat-brimmed black hat. Haphazardly, he was making his way toward the stage, patting his pockets as if he’d lost something. Finally, out of one deep side pocket, he pulled out wire-rimmed spectacles and pushed them onto his bulbous nose.

“So sorry I’m late,” the old man wheezed, out of breath as he stopped opposite Dillon.

Eleanor couldn’t believe her eyes. Jake couldn’t have gotten a more disreputable-looking judge if he’d tried, which he probably had, she decided, disgusted. The man looked as if he’d been pulled right out of an old-time western.

“Are you two young folks ready? I’m Jed Banta. This is my third wedding for the day and I’d like to get started,” the old man muttered as Jake attached a microphone to his once starched collar.

“Okay, young fella, what’s your name?”

Dillon couldn’t help smiling at the old man’s appearance. Where in the world had Jake found this decrepit old gent? He was perfect for the part of an old boomtown judge. Even down to the unkempt white hair poking out from beneath the wide brim of his felt hat and the thick white mustache that generously covered his lips.

“Uh…I’m Dillon Stone.” Dillon choked back a chuckle as the old man licked the end of a stubby pencil, then wrote his name on a slip of paper he’d pulled from the inside pocket of his coat.

The man’s act was perfect, Dillon realized, as the audience openly responded to his antics.

“Miss? What’s your name?”

For a moment Dillon thought Eleanor wouldn’t go along. Her face was as white as the paper the judge was poised over, and he was sure she was about to faint. What was she afraid of? Because from where he stood, Eleanor Rose was definitely afraid.

When he’d been a criminal lawyer, he’d seen the same look of sick fear on many a defendant’s face just before the verdict came down. Slowly, he laced his fingers with hers and was shocked by the bolt of electricity that raced from their touching hands clear down to curl his toes.

“Eleanor?” he prodded. Had she felt that electric zing, too?

Her pale face flushed with a pretty blush as she turned to look at him. The surprised look darkening her remarkable eyes heated the sizzle that was still blistering his fingertips.

“My name…” Finally she looked away, leaving Dillon with an uneasy feeling there was something important he was missing.

“Eleanor Rose Silks. My name is Eleanor Silks Rose.”

That brief moment of vulnerable emotion caused strange feelings of protectiveness to quicken Dillon’s heartbeat. The woman was so filled with contradictions. It didn’t make sense that he didn’t want to let her go when she pulled away from their connecting touch.

“Well, let’s get started,” the old man said. “We are gathered here…”

Eleanor was still trying to catch her breath from that moment when Dillon had held her hand. She’d been feeling so chilled, thinking about pretending to do something she would have given her right arm to do for real when she was nineteen.

But, of course, she didn’t want to marry Dillon Stone now. She’d made a perfect life for herself, resigned that her knight on a white charger had already been taken and his twin was not to be found anywhere. Then he’d intertwined his fingers with hers and consuming heat and hunger had licked at a loneliness she hadn’t known she’d lived with for too long.

Still reeling from the warm embers that scorched her, Eleanor looked up into her foster brother’s sympathetic smile. Before she could throw the tantrum she was thinking of and stick out her tongue at him, mischief-filled eyes dared her to go through with this farce of a pretend marriage.

Eleanor swallowed the fear crowding her throat. Her gaze moved from Jake’s satisfied expression to little Ryan’s equally excited face. Something long buried stirred near her bruised heart. How could she protect herself when such a sweet little boy persisted in staring at her with stars in his eyes? Eyes that exactly matched the older, more experienced ones of his father.

“Do you, Dillon Stone, take Eleanor Rose to be your wife, to love and to cherish, as long as you both shall live?”

Dillon’s deep “I do” made a pair of excited shivers somersault up Eleanor’s spine as she locked gazes with the man standing so calmly at her side. What was he thinking? Frantically, she fought a bubble of hysteria.

“Do you, Eleanor Rose, take Dillon Stone to be your husband, to love and to cherish, as long as you both shall live?” Unbidden, a very secret part of her heart surprised her with the wish that she could love and cherish Dillon, and that he would love and cherish her, for longer than the rest of their lives.

“I…” Eleanor cleared her throat. This is for charity. She tried again. “I do,” she whispered.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Young man, you may kiss your bride.” The judge’s pronouncement stretched Eleanor’s sense of the unreal.

“No,” she objected in a croaked whisper, earning a frown from Dillon that stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t like the sudden glint of determination that lit his searching green eyes.

Realizing his intent, Eleanor turned her head at the last minute so that his warm lips landed on the corner of hers. Instead of quickly kissing, then releasing her immediately, he tantalizingly stayed there a second too long…lingering…testing…nibbling…seducing.

Stunned by the feeling of his lips exploring her sensitive skin, Eleanor forced herself to push against the hard landscape of his chest. Somehow, she had to resist the feelings tumbling through her stomach and the heat attempting to warm her skin. Closing her heart off to any more temptation, she stepped back from Dillon, only to find his hands firmly clamped at her waist, preventing her escape.

“Here. If you young people will sign this, we’ll be all done.” Amid cheers from the audience, Eleanor watched Dillon sign the phony license, then added her name below his bold scrawl.

“How about a big round of applause for our winners.” Jake was at the microphone again. “Let’s see if we can get our newest couple to lead us in a dance. Come on, everyone. Let’s give them some encouragement.”

Dillon glanced at Eleanor, surprised by the panicked look that spread over her classic features, as the swell of goodwill and rhythmic clapping grew around them. Still stunned by the raw feelings racing through him from the brief brush of his lips across hers and the firm feel of her waist between his hands, he wondered what was going on in the woman’s head.

He thought about the vulnerability that occasionally flickered across Eleanor’s lovely face, the loneliness she tried so hard to hide. The unmistakably sensual way she moved pulled at Dillon despite his best efforts to ignore the alarming fireworks that went off every time he got too close to the woman. The way he was now.

As the demand of the dinner guests grew, he watched Eleanor struggle to recapture the cool reserve that pricked his normally nonexistent temper. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t relax and just go with the flow for the evening?

Frowning, Dillon decided he was going to have a talk with his friend. Jake shouldn’t have put his sister in such an uncomfortable position. He suspected his buddy had his own reasons for maneuvering them both into being here…together. But it wasn’t right.

“Let’s dance. It’s the only way we’ll get them to leave us alone.” Expressive eyes darted to Dillon’s, anger darkening them to a shuttered brown.

“Come on. I won’t bite,” he offered in reassurance, even as her tension sneaked into his body by way of the hand he’d never moved from the small of her straight back. Briefly, she leaned into his shoulder, causing annoying waves of hard-hitting awareness to leap through him. Then her back became rigid again, her delicate features wearing a careful, blank mask.

“Sure.” Eleanor couldn’t believe she’d almost melted into Dillon’s arms when the expression on his handsome face changed to bewildering concern.

She lifted her chin and sealed her heart. How long could one measly slow dance last, anyway? As Dillon pulled her close, his touch ignited unwanted tremors of excitement that began in her belly and spiraled out of control to the rest of her suddenly alert body. There was only one thing left to do. She had to take this bull by the horns and toss him out of her corral as soon as possible.

“So, what made you decide to pick me? Weren’t the other two ladies more to your liking?”

“They were. I didn’t pick you. Ryan did.” Dillon couldn’t bite his tongue quick enough to stop the rude words, peeved that the woman had maneuvered him into being so juvenile. When this dance was over he and Ryan were out of here as soon as he could make it happen.

“Do you always let your son pick your dates for you?”

Dillon didn’t miss the angry flush that spread over Eleanor’s porcelain skin or the way his body responded to the slender form he held close to him. If he wasn’t careful, the wasp would realize she ignited more than his temper.

“This isn’t really a date, so I figured this time it wouldn’t matter.” Whirling Eleanor to the tempo of the music, Dillon got tangled in the vanilla fragrance he’d noticed earlier when he’d kissed the stiff woman in his arms.

Telling himself he was not going to give in to the overwhelming desire to smell her long hair, Dillon stepped back slightly to escape the irresistible entrapment she seemed to weave around him.

Fortunately, Eleanor didn’t notice his withdrawal. She was too busy ignoring him…and watching Ryan, who was eating an ice-cream sundae with Jake and the fake judge. A rare expression softened her features. How could she be as prickly as a cactus one minute and soft with unspoken longing the next?

Before Dillon could pursue that thought, Eleanor muttered, “Now, what’s he up to?”

“Who?” But he already knew the answer as he saw one of Jake’s fellow U.S. Marshals lean close to his friend’s shoulder. Jake nodded briskly, changing instantly from the laughing mischief-maker he usually portrayed to the no-nonsense U.S. Deputy Marshal he really was.

“Looks like maybe we’re done here,” Dillon said cheerfully as he and Eleanor walked to the table where Jake was now standing.

“What’s up?” Dillon pulled a chair out for Eleanor to sit next to Ryan.

“I just got the orders I’ve been waiting for on a case I was assigned last week. I have just enough time to pack a bag and turn my house keys over to a friend I’m subletting to.”

“You’re subletting your house? To whom?” Dillon watched Ryan climb down from his chair to stand close to Eleanor’s shoulder as he seriously studied her. He was afraid to guess what was going through his son’s agile mind.

“Remember my buddy who just got married? Well, the closing on their house got delayed and their lease ran out, so he and the new wife are going to stay at my place until the deal on their house closes.”

Dillon knew better, but he asked, anyway. “Where are you going?”

Jake only shrugged his shoulders and smiled his most secret grin, not about to give anything away.

“You’re my new mom, aren’t you?”

Dillon glanced quickly at his son and groaned. Once the little guy got something stuck in his mind, it was so hard to convince him otherwise.

“Son, remember this is only make-believe. Eleanor and I didn’t really get married tonight—”

Suddenly spitting into his napkin, the fake judge jumped up from his seat. “What do you mean you’re not married? Of course you’re married. I just married you in front of God and witnesses.”

Dillon laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

Stunned, Dillon looked from the old guy to his excited son, then noticed the horrified look on Eleanor’s frozen features.

“No. This can’t be real,” she whispered, one elegant hand going to the frantically beating pulse at her throat.

Unable to believe what he was hearing, Dillon looked at Jake, suspicion starting to crawl up his spine as a delighted smile spread across his friend’s face.

“Yes, ma’am. I married ya. As a duly appointed judge in the State of Oregon, I’ve been marrying folks for nigh on forty years. Can’t think why it wouldn’t be legal now. You young folks signed the license, all right. We had witnesses. And I signed, too. That’s how it’s done.” Pulling his spectacles from his nose, the old gent squinted while he gingerly wiped the glasses with a snowy-white hankie he pulled from his breast pocket.

Legally married to Eleanor Rose? But she’s not even on my list…. She’s not what I’m looking for, was all Dillon could think. Freezing mid-thought, he glared at his good buddy.

Barely suppressing a desire to punch him in the shoulder the way she did when they were kids and he’d gotten her into one more mess, Eleanor hissed at Jake. “You did this.”

“No, I didn’t. I swear it. I wish I had.” Jake backed away, holding his hands up, palms toward her in surrender, his voice filled with as much surprise as she felt. “I admit, I did work to get you both here, but even I wouldn’t have the guts to deliberately plan a secret marriage between the two of you.”

“Then how did this happen?” Eleanor fired back at her foster brother, horrified to find tears gathering behind her eyes before the thought of murdering Jake rescued her.

“Maybe Cupid had something to do with it,” Jake offered, his expression suddenly soft with caring, before changing to pleased approval as he continued his retreat, his hands still lifted in total surrender.

Cupid? Did the brat have any brain cells left at all?

“Jake Solomon, don’t you dare leave now. You have to fix this. I can’t be married to him.” Eleanor watched her foster brother’s expression change to naughty-boy mischief, and her heart sank.

“I can’t stay, El. I’ve got an assignment. I have to leave. I’m sorry. I can’t fix this for you. Dillon will have to take care of everything. But if you want to know my opinion, I think this is the best thing to ever happen. I only wish I could claim responsibility, so I could take the credit and hold it over your heads for the rest of your lives.”

With a quick wave, a deep chuckle of delight and the parting words, “Dillon, take care of El for me, she’s very special,” Jake was gone, leaving Eleanor feeling very frustrated and suddenly more alone than ever.

Eleanor turned slowly, her mind working at top speed for a way out of the bizarre predicament Jake had left her in. Dillon and Ryan waited behind her; Dillon warily, Ryan not containing his wild excitement.

“Where’s that judge? We have to talk to him, get him to undo this, make us unmarried or something.” Eleanor couldn’t stop the panic that edged her babbling.

“He’s gone,” Dillon said. “Couldn’t stop him. Said he had another wedding to perform.” Still feeling as if his wits had been scrambled, he clutched their wedding license in one hand and Ryan’s hand in the other. “And, by the looks of this paper, unless I can find a loophole, I’d say we are legally married.”