Hitched Page 2

  I do know the alpaca. Apparently his fur—wool?—is top-notch.

  Sweet animal. Loves my sister-in-law.

  But the poor guy is going to have to find himself another savior, and Hope another sucker. “Sorry, you need to ask someone else.”

  “Who?”

  Well, shit. “Tucker,” I say, then cringe, because Tucker’s in a long-term relationship, and his girlfriend probably wouldn’t appreciate that. Hope clearly doesn’t either, because she gives me the hairy, what the hell is wrong with you? eyeball.

  “Okay, okay,” I mutter, “let me think.” But the next three names that pop up on my mental screen are all too odd or have chronic body odor issues.

  The four after that are old enough to be her grandfather. But maybe…

  “Don’t say it,” she orders as my brows lift in contemplation.

  “Say what?”

  “You were going to suggest Carl or Frank.”

  “Well, if it’s purely a fake marriage…”

  “I agree, but they already turned me down. I’m not kidding, Blake. I’m out of options. You’re it. My last chance.”

  “You asked Carl and Frank?” I ask dubiously, ignoring the voice in my head that’s a little hurt to be lower on the list than those two cranky old coots.

  “I. Love. That. Alpaca,” she says. “And the other animals too.”

  “You asked Carl.”

  She brings her bouquet to her chest, squishing it between her fingers as she threads them together in a pleading gesture that tugs at my conscience. “You give me three months of marriage, long enough to ensure I’m named Chewpaca’s legal owner and Kyle can’t touch any of Gram’s sweet babies. In exchange, you get your liquor license. And while we’re married, you can be a workaholic at your vineyard, and I’ll be a workaholic on the farm. We’ll barely have to see each other. It’ll be like the ‘I do’s’ never even happened.”

  “Except when you fry a toaster or a milking machine.”

  “Does that mean you’re on board?” she asks, hope lighting her eyes, making her look even prettier than she usually does. Which is too pretty.

  I can’t marry her. Not for all the liquor licenses in Georgia.

  I shake my head, lifting my hands into the air at my sides. “No, it doesn’t. I can’t, Hope. I’m sorry.”

  I start to back away, but she stops me with a threat. “If you don’t help me, I’m calling Olivia. She loves Chewpaca. What, exactly, do you think she’d do if she found out you were the reason he has to go to a horrible new home? If it’s your fault that her baby daughter will never get the chance to know the alpaca who saved her mother’s life?”

  I’d accuse her of being melodramatic, except I know both Hope’s cousin, the asshole who stands to inherit Chewpaca, and my sister-in-law. Olivia believes she has a cosmic connection with that damn alpaca, and Hope’s not exaggerating any of this.

  Plus, I need that liquor license. I’ve been denied three times already for stupid red tape reasons, and my latest application will expire if I can’t get the DOR to sign off soon.

  But Gary has been dragging his feet again. I’m starting to think this is a personal vendetta for him, not simply a result of being dedicated to crossing every t and dotting every i. I suspect I’m being denied my license because Gary’s pissed that my oldest brother, Ryan, helped put Gary’s brother in jail last year.

  Small-town life, small-town politics, small-town bullshit.

  And sometimes the only way out of the poo pile is to convince someone with influence to put in a good word for you.

  “Please, Blake?” Hope begs, and I feel myself starting to actually consider this insanity.

  Death by penis yanking does seem like a cruel thing to do to Chewpaca.

  And I need my liquor license.

  And Hope—just Hope. Shit.

  How can I hate her and want to be her hero at the same time?

  “If I agree to this,” my mouth says before my brain can object, “you have to say five nice things about me every day.”

  She blinks. “What?”

  “I don’t like being grumpy or angry, but you make me both, so you’re going to have to say five nice things about me every day. Help me keep my sense of humor intact until the madness is over.”

  She presses two fingers to her visibly twitching left eyelid. “Fine.”

  “Wait. What about Gordon?” I say, inspiration striking at the eleventh hour, right as the guillotine is about to fall. “Didn’t he break up with his internet girlfriend last week?”

  “He also turned me down.” She sighs. “And I think they’re already back together. Gordon doesn’t like to leave his house or put on pants after he gets home from work. An online girlfriend is the best kind of girlfriend for that particular lifestyle.”

  Shit.

  She asked the resident firebug taxidermist before she asked me too.

  Now I’m getting pissed, because I’m not that low in the pecking order in this town.

  Am I?

  Do I need to work out more? Put on something other than work clothes once in a while? Learn something about hair products and how to apply them?

  Or is it because she truly hates me that much?

  My blood burns hotter at the thought, and I suddenly realize that I’m going to do this.

  I’m going to marry the shit out of her.

  Just to torture her with my presence.

  Every single day.

  “And you have to come to poker night with my family,” I inform her.

  “Good. I like your family.”

  Just not you.

  That was the problem last time.

  And it looks like that’s going to be the problem all over again. But this time, I won’t walk away with a broken heart. This time, it’s all business, with a side of vengeful pleasure.

  Maybe it’s wrong to look forward to torturing my ex-wife with our second ill-advised marriage.

  But if it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

  Two

  Hope St. Claire

  (aka a desperate woman with too many animals and not enough options)

  * * *

  As I walk down the short aisle of the windowless green-carpeted courtroom where I’m marrying Blake O’Dell in approximately thirty seconds, I picture my grandma’s alpaca.

  Probably not what most brides picture on their wedding day, but Chewpaca is why I’m getting married.

  I don’t want my grandmother’s land. I don’t want her house.

  I just want to give her animals a good life, because animals are the best part of my family. They’re innocent and simple and they don’t have passive-aggressive psychological battles over who hired the wrong maid or use their kids as go-betweens when they have a fight and aren’t speaking to each other.

  Nor do they write wills demanding that their heirs be married.

  But hey, if I’m getting married, at least I’m doing it the St. Claire way.

  To a man who’s glowering at me like I’m his adversary on the field of battle as I join him in front of Judge Maplethorpe.

  With those bright green eyes, thick, unruly hair, and big, strong, perfectly rough hands, Blake’s exactly my type. Right down to the fact that he’s dressed for working in the field instead of for a wedding.

  Except that he wants forever, and I don’t believe in it.

  Not with the marriages I’ve seen up close and personal.

  Oh, and he hates me, mustn’t forget that tiny detail.

  I feel guilty about bringing him into my chaos, but I was out of options.

  Chewpaca can’t go to Kyle.

  Period.

  “You have a lovely bride,” Judge Maplethorpe murmurs to Blake as I come to a stop beside him in front of the bench.

  Blake grunts dubiously, but covers with a clearly forced smile. “Brides are always beautiful when a man’s in love.”

  I snort.

  The judge frowns at me. He’s in his sixties, with more hair coming out of his
ears and nose than sitting on top of his head. His oldest daughter used to babysit me when my parents had to go to Atlanta for gala fundraisers and black-tie dinners.

  She’d always sneak in the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, which my mom never kept on hand because empty calories are the devil’s handmaiden, Hope. Judge Maplethorpe is not the kind of man who would understand a marriage of convenience between two old enemies.

  We’re going to have to sell this. At least a little.

  I grab Blake’s arm, which is just as sinfully sexy as his hands—I am such a sucker for a man who works outside and isn’t afraid to get dirty—and say with a cheerfulness born of desperation, “Hitch us up, Judge.”

  “We have a honeymoon to get to,” Blake agrees dryly.

  The judge’s eyes light up. “And where are you taking this lovely lady on your honeymoon?”

  Blake winks at him. “That’s a secret, but it’ll be a trip neither of us will ever forget.”

  And now my belly’s flipping and things low in my body are unzipping and I make a mental note to cuff myself to my four-poster bed before I go to sleep every night of my impending marriage.

  In addition to blowing up electronics, I’ve also been known to sleepwalk, and the last thing I need to do is let my subconscious take control while I’m married to Blake. It might assume it’s okay to indulge the hunger he awakens inside me, and that would be bad news for everyone.

  But mostly me, since Blake would probably laugh me right off his front porch.

  Ignoring my inappropriate case of tingles, I subtly dig my elbow into his side. “Oh, you,” I say lightly.

  Through gritted teeth.

  Let’s move this along already. Time’s a-wastin’. Right now, Kyle thinks he has the upper hand because he met a girl on Tinder last week.

  But he underestimated me.

  I’m just glad I didn’t have to resort to full-fledged groveling.

  Or crying. I hate fake crying, though I’m pretty good at it after a childhood spent doing whatever it took to escape the magnifying glass of my parents’ disapproval. But these wouldn’t have been fake tears. Before Blake pulled up, I was on the verge of weeping on the courthouse steps.

  He’s saved the day, and I’m thankful for that, no matter how miserable I’m sure he’s going to make me until Gram’s will is legally executed and the animals are officially mine.

  “All right, let’s get you two hitched.” The judge beams at me. “I used to worry about you, sweetheart, but you’re getting one of the good ones here.”

  “Tell that to my parents,” I joke through a smile, already dreading the “I eloped with a guy who isn’t nearly as rich as you’d like for him to be” conversation I’m going to have to have with dear old Mom and Dad.

  It’s almost a relief that they’ve taken their chilly relationship to Europe for a summer getaway.

  Otherwise, they’d probably be here objecting to everything from Blake’s heritage to his work boots.

  “Your parents love me, boo-boo-cakes,” Blake grits out through his own smile.

  Doubtful—also, boo-boo-cakes?—but I beam at him.

  My cheeks hurt.

  My skin itches, because dresses and I don’t get along, but my mother would’ve double-killed me if I didn’t wear one to my wedding.

  The one that she’ll know about, anyway.

  My heart is achy and empty, like it’s hit that point in a good romance novel where all is lost, only the author died before she could finish the story. And now the two characters she left behind will live in limbo, in the land where happily ever after never comes.

  Kind of like Blake and me.

  “So good to see you so happy,” Judge Maplethorpe says again. He sighs, wipes a tear, opens a little black book, and starts the trial.

  I mean wedding.

  I cut a glance at Blake while the judge says his short bit about the sanctity of marriage. There’s a muscle ticking in his jaw, and his green eyes are as hard as the petrified horse poop I tripped over in the pasture last week.

  He’s going to bolt.

  Any minute now, he’s going to realize that I’m a walking disaster, he wants no part of this, and he’ll sprint for the door.

  And I won’t blame him.

  I am a walking disaster. And he already knows—intimately—that I’m allergic to commitment. The only place I like romance is bound inside a book with a cover where the good guys always win and it’s safe for anyone to fall in love, because it’s not real.

  But that hasn’t stopped him from kissing me a time or two since that incident in Vegas that we don’t talk about.

  I shiver, and not just because this dress is showing off my milky white shoulders over the deep tan from mid-biceps down. Actually, it’s pretty freaking warm in this room.

  Is the air conditioning broken?

  I fan myself with my flowers, weeds picked fresh from the pasture this morning to symbolize that even weeds have a moment of beauty before they wilt and die and go spread their weediness everywhere else.

  Like marriage.

  It wilts.

  It might not die—my parents are still together, even though they hate each other, and Kyle’s parents too, since St. Claires aren’t quitters—but it can get shriveled and sad as hell.

  “Do you, Blake O’Dell, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

  So freaking hot in here.

  “I do,” Blake grits, then adds under his breath, “again.”

  “Wonderful. And do you, Hope St. Claire, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

  “If I have to.”

  The judge chuckles. “You always were the funny one.”

  I was never funny, and this courtroom is the temperature of Hell’s sauna in August.

  “And now the vows,” Judge Maplethorpe says.

  “I’ve written my own,” Blake announces.

  “When?” I ask, then belatedly remember to smile through the panic, because if he’s written his, does that mean I have to write mine? “I mean, oh, pookie-pookie-poo, you shouldn’t have.”

  “So sweet to see you so in love.” Judge Maplethorpe wipes his eyes again. “Your families should be here for this.”

  “I’m getting it all on video,” Griselda, the county clerk receptionist, announces. She’s serving as witness, and the temperature in the room ratchets up another four degrees as I realize she’s undoubtedly planning to post this to the town’s InstaChat page as soon as we’ve sealed the deal.

  “Your vows, Blake?” the judge prompts.

  Blake turns to me with those angry dragon eyes and fire coming out his nostrils, and I’m suddenly less worried that he’s going to bolt and more terrified that he’s going to expose my plan to all of Happy Cat.

  “Hope,” he begins, and I stifle a squeak, because I’ve made my bed in asking him to marry me and now I have to take whatever comes.

  And also be ready to tackle Griselda and make her delete the video.

  “When I woke up this morning, I had no idea that in a few short hours my life would change forever,” Blake continues. “I vow to you, here and today, to be the kind of husband you deserve, to always give as much as I get, and to never, ever forget how I feel in this moment.”

  Judge Maplethorpe blows his nose and takes a steadying breath. “Beautiful, Blake. Beautiful. Hope?”

  The lights overhead start to buzz, and I realize I’m in trouble.

  Olivia mentioned that stress can make my natural energy field go wonky, and I’m absolutely on the high end of the stress scale today. So I open my mouth and blurt the first thing that comes to mind.

  “Blake, thank you for marrying me. I promise to try to make you as happy as you make me, so long as our marriage shall live.”

  The lights flicker, and I turn to the judge. “Could you get to the now pronounce you part before—”

  There’s a snap and a flash, and the room descends into total darkness.

  “—that,” I finish on
a sigh.

  “Oh well, we don’t need electricity to have love and marriage,” the judge’s voice says somewhere in the darkness. “You want to add anything to your vows? Either one of you?”

  “My phone died,” Griselda says. “I can’t get the screen to turn on so I can power up the flashlight feature.”

  “Of course not,” Blake mutters.

  “By the power vested in me by the state of Georgia, I now pronounce you man and wife,” the judge’s disembodied voice says. “You may now kiss the bride. Erm, if you can find her.”

  I make a kissing noise. “Good job, Blake! You found me. Now how about we—”

  Before I can finish saying get out of here so you can replace the fuses I just blew, two strong hands grip my bare shoulders, two firm lips press to mine, and I suddenly remember exactly why I proposed to Blake four years ago in Vegas.

  He kissed me on a dare from a blackjack dealer not long after we unexpectedly ran into each other that weekend. After one taste, I was drunker on him than I’d ever been on alcohol.

  I’d never been kissed by a man who knew what he was doing before.

  And this kiss?

  Today?

  In the blacked-out basement courtroom?

  He’s upping his game.

  Using those firm lips to remind me of all the things he did to me in our hotel room on our first wedding night. His thumbs brushing my shoulders while his rough hands slide down my arms, teasing my skin until my whole body aches.

  Pulling me tight against him, making my breasts heavy inside this stuffy dress, making me want his hands on my bare skin while his earthy scent floods my senses, taking me back to a fluffy hotel bed where he taught me that a talented man’s tongue is better than a bucketful of sex toys.

  Reminding me why I thought marrying him—the first time—was a good idea.

  He’s kissing all my memories out of the vault I’ve stored them in since we left Vegas.

  There’s a flickering and a buzz, and I realize it’s not coming from my whacked-out energy field.