“I could get in trouble.”
“You owe me. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I won’t see her hurt. I may not ever be able to tell her, but I care about her a great deal.”
The first voice was Gage’s and he was talking to Calvin, but they couldn’t possibly be discussing me. Nope. Not me. Because Gage couldn’t hurt me. I didn’t love him, and I wasn’t about to love anyone else, either. If I ever did get married for real, the man would have to prove himself beyond any doubt. Like that could ever happen. A man was a man after all. His entire gender was suspect.
Thanks to Julian.
Here I was all dressed up for a wedding, and my real fiancé wasn’t here. Funny how much it still hurt—like a fresh wound every time I thought about it.
“It wouldn’t take much more adjusting after,” Calvin said. “Just a few forms.”
“My name is sullied, and I won’t let that touch her.” Gage’s voice was devoid of expression now, except maybe a faint disgust.
Who were they talking about? Then I remembered the old women at the restaurant saying something about Gage once having a fiancée, the one who hadn’t spoken for a year after his supposed conviction. I felt relief that the conversation had nothing to do with me.
Avery was staring at my face with a frightened look as though she believed what we’d heard would make me change my mind about marrying Gage, but I had the paper he’d signed earlier, and I was going through with it. Lifting my chin, I smiled at Avery before sweeping into the room.
The conversation cut off, and I heard Gage draw in a swift breath. A real smile hovered on his lips, and his green eyes were brilliant. “You look—” He stopped and cleared his voice, which had gone hoarse. “You look amazing.”
No one had ever told me that before—especially not someone who was as drop-dead gorgeous as Gage was at that moment. The cut of the tux accentuated his broad shoulders and the squareness of his jaw. The black made him seem rich and mysterious.
“Do you have rings?” Calvin asked.
My eyes shot to Gage’s in consternation. “Ah, no, we haven’t had time.”
“No worries,” Calvin said. “We have these little bands we use in a pinch.” He proffered a small box filled with cheap gold-painted metal rings, a far cry from the lovely ring I’d left at home. “Each of you choose your size and then trade so you can put them on during the ceremony.”
Blindly, I did as he asked, passing the little band to Gage and taking his in return.
“Smile for the camera!” Avery had ducked behind a fancy digital camera standing on a tripod.
I smiled as Gage took my arm, a shiver sliding through me at his touch. This wasn’t going to be hard. I could handle it.
I was wrong.
Before I was ready, Calvin pulled out a book, rattled off a few words, and pronounced us man and wife. “You may kiss the bride.”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead, and now I tried not to panic. To my relief, we exchanged a chaste little peck that had Calvin smirking at me like he knew a secret.
Blame it on the late hour, the magic of the show we’d seen, the adrenaline from the dance and the subsequent attack—whatever the reason, I gave it another shot. Gage started in surprise, but he kissed me back. His lips were firm and yet molded perfectly to mine, and his arms wrapped around me like a familiar blanket. He smelled of spice and something uniquely his own. Emotion arrowed through my chest, though I’d been determined never to feel anything for a man again.
This close, I could see a pattern of thin scars covering his left cheek, the largest disappearing into his hairline. I wondered how they’d come about—but I couldn’t wonder long because the kiss was taking most of my energy. My heart pounded so violently, I wondered if Avery could hear it across the room.
When at last we separated, I felt stunned. Is that what a kiss was supposed to feel like? If so, Julian and I weren’t very good at it.
In a daze, I let Gage lead me to the door, where Avery handed me a CD of the pictures.
Then it was over and we were back in my room. No family, no wedding celebration, no exchanges of real vows, no more earth-shattering kisses or whispered endearments. I took shallow breaths so I wouldn’t cry. This was not how it was supposed to be. I felt as if something inside me had died just when it had started to live.
“Well.” Gage glanced at the door to his adjoining room, and I wondered if he wanted to escape.
“I’ll call the attorney in the morning,” I said.
“They have Internet here. You can send pictures to him and your family, if you’d like.”
“Good idea. I’ll do it right now.” I’d send them to my mother, but not to Lily. I needed to decide how much I would tell her. She might worry herself into a miscarriage if I said I did it for her.
“Need help?” Gage asked.
My hands were shaking as I tugged my laptop from my backpack, so I let him put in the disk and bring up the pictures. Most were bad, but Avery had succeeded in taking a few exceptional ones.
“Do you care which pictures?”
I shook my head and then almost changed my mind when he chose one of us kissing. It was one of the better pictures; Avery had waited for exactly the right moment, and we looked as if we were in love.
He studied my face when we finished sending the e-mail. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was, “Well.”
“Well,” I repeated. A sort of hysterical laughter bubbled up inside me as I thought of us staring at each other all night saying, “Well.”
“I guess we’d better change.” He strode to the adjoining door, yawning. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Okay.”
The minute I was alone, the tears started to fall. I hugged myself and cried until I was afraid I would ruin the wedding dress. Still sobbing, I went into the bathroom, and when I’d finally managed to unzip and rid myself of the gown, I stood staring into the mirror, crying.
I hate you, Julian! I hate you! I screamed in my head. This is all your fault. But in reality I hated myself. I’d been the one to trust him. I’d been the one to fall in so easily with what everyone had wanted for me.
What if now I’d made another huge mistake? Marriage wasn’t something to fool around with, especially with someone I didn’t know that well. What if he tore up our contract, and I disappeared in some remote place in the desert? How much money would he get then? I had no idea.
Oddly enough, the idea made me smile. Gage wouldn’t hurt me. I knew that much.
The fact remained that I’d looked forward to my wedding my entire life, and now I felt as if I’d lost something infinitely precious. The cheap ring still on my finger mocked me.
Too late now. Tomorrow, I’d be okay, but tonight I was going to throw myself on my bed and cry myself to sleep. Ripping the ring from my finger, I aimed toward the trash but stopped at the last moment, placing it instead on the sink. I might need it yet.
No sooner was I in bed than a knock came from Gage’s connecting door. “What?” I called, annoyed at the interruption in my pity fest.
“Can I come in?”
I knew my face was a red, blotchy mess, but it made little difference. I pulled on a pair of sweats and opened the door, leaving off the light in the hope that my grief wouldn’t be too noticeable.
Gage took one look at me and pushed his way into the room, flipping on the lights, but when he spoke, he didn’t mention my condition. “You said you were a night owl, so look what I found.” He held out a pack of cards, and I noticed he still wore his cheap band. “Wanna play?”
Suddenly I did. I nodded, squinting at him. “Prepare to lose.” My voice was low and unsteady, but maybe he didn’t notice.
“In your dreams.” He sat at the table and shuffled the cards like a pro. I was glad he’d looked away from my ruined face.
“I’ll be back.” I fled into the bathroom and gazed into the mirror. I looked worse than I’d thought, and I was glad Gage hadn’t ma
de any snide comments. Not only was my face red and blotchy, it was smeared with mascara, and the false eye lashes were half off. Turning on the water, I began washing my face. I felt a lot better when I emerged.
Playing cards wasn’t exactly the way I had planned to spend my wedding night, but it beat crying alone in that huge bed—especially when I didn’t feel a bit tired. Besides, by tomorrow or the next week, I wouldn’t be married anymore. This would all be over as if it had never happened, and I would have the money my grandfather would have already given me if he hadn’t died.
“It’s your turn.” There was a gentleness in Gage’s expression, a kindness that took me by surprise though it somehow seemed natural on his rugged face.
My mind drifted to that fabulous kiss.
Not good. Definitely not good.
CHAPTER FIVE
I was still in bed asleep when Gage knocked on our adjoining door the next morning. “Go away,” I mumbled. Light came in from the curtained windows, but I solved that by smashing the pillow tightly over my head.
We’d played cards until he fell asleep at the table at around four, and I’d had to prod him awake enough to get him back to his room. Surely I couldn’t have been asleep more than a couple hours. What was he thinking?
I heard footsteps into the room. “Tessa?”
He dragged the pillow off my face, and I moaned, pulling the blanket over my eyes instead. What kind of person was he to wake me up so early? No wonder they’d put him in prison.
That thought made me wake up in a hurry. I tentatively opened one eye. “What do you want? What time is it anyway? Five? Six?”
“Ten,” he said dryly.
“Oh.” I opened the other eye. “Checkout’s probably at eleven, isn’t it?”
“Don’t worry, I arranged with Calvin to check out late. They’re used to honeymooners.”
I pulled up the blanket again to hide the flush that crawled over my face. For a blessed few hours I’d forgotten about the wedding fiasco.
“Look, I know you were planning on going to your sister’s, but I have a favor to ask.” His words came so hesitantly that I came out from under the blanket and sat up. I was still dressed in my sweats from the night before. In fact, I hadn’t even brought pajamas. My backpack wasn’t very big, and I’d figured Lily could lend me a pair when I got to her place.
Gage looked like he’d been up for hours. His face was freshly shaved, his hair combed back, and he had on a red button-up shirt that was snug across the chest. Though he was standing near the edge of the bed, I could smell soap and aftershave.
“What favor?” Then I had a thought. “I can’t give you more money.”
“It’s not about the money,” he grated.
“Excuse me. And I thought you were a morning person.”
He clenched his jaw briefly before forcing out, “I’m sorry. It’s just that my sister wants to meet you.”
“What?”
“My sister wants to meet you,” he repeated. “She keeps calling and calling and calling. She’s rather persistent.”
“Didn’t you tell her it’s all fake?”
“What if the attorney asks her? We don’t know what we’re really up against legally at this point, do we? Besides, Mia wouldn’t approve of faking a marriage.”
“She’s not the only one.” Lily would be worse than upset if I told her.
“So I thought we’d go to Mia’s place in Kingman and stay a night. Let her see you. She has plenty of room, and her house is in a nice area. Peaceful. You’ll like it. Then I could take you to Lily’s in Phoenix, or get you a ride. I was able to take a few personal days off work, but I’ll have to get back soon. Mia won’t know we’re not going to Flagstaff together. She doesn’t visit me there. I usually go see her.” He rubbed his chin, and I wondered if he was thinking about his lost beard. “Sorry about the inconvenience. It would have been better if Mia hadn’t heard about this.”
“Uh, that might be my fault. Remember those ladies at the restaurant? Well, they didn’t want my autograph.”
“No kidding.”
“They were from Kingman. They recognized you.”
His brow furrowed. “What’d they say?”
Oh, no. I wasn’t going into that whole poker thing. If he didn’t know the exact rumor going around, I wasn’t going to be the one to enlightened him. “Nothing important, but I did mention we were getting married.”
He stared at me as if trying to read my mind, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“Sorry. I bet if you hadn’t shaved for the wedding, they wouldn’t have recognized you.”
“Probably not. My face is rather famous in Kingman.”
“Why?”
“I told you already. I served time.”
“You weren’t joking?”
He sighed, and the sadness in his expression hurt my heart. “Believe me, it’s not something I’d ever joke about. I’ve worked hard to put that all behind me, but some people won’t let it go.”
I was beginning to suspect he’d accidentally hurt someone in self-defense, and I wondered if he’d ever trust me enough to confide the details. Normally my mouth would ignore my brain and demand the whole story, but he was saved because I wasn’t yet fully awake.
“Please come to my sister’s with me,” he said. “We won’t see anyone else. I don’t have any friends there.”
“Okay.”
He blinked at me. “Okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, why not. You did me a favor, so I’ll do you one. I haven’t talked to Lily yet, anyway. She doesn’t know anything except what my mother may have told her.” I reached over to the night stand and retrieved my phone, pressing the on button. “I’m sure she’s called and e-mailed, and texted, and Facebooked, and probably even Twittered.”
“All that?”
“She’s bored since she had to quit her job. Yep, I have thirty-five missed calls. More than half are probably from her.” My mother, Julian, Sadie, and even my father would make up the remainder.
“I see.” There was a smile on his lips again, and I was glad.
Tossing down the phone, I stood and walked over to him. “I like you without the beard.” The light was bright enough to see the scars on his cheek. “Bet it itches less.”
“You got that right.”
Though there was no change of tone, I sensed unhappiness in the words. Was he thinking of Kingman and everything he’d left behind? I wanted to ask about his fiancée, but the hard line of his mouth forbade me. It’s none of my business, I told myself.
“What will we tell your sister?” I asked.
“I think sticking as close to the truth as possible will be best. You know, we were together with Serenity, and you realized you couldn’t go through with your wedding, and one thing led to another, and here we are.”
Somehow I didn’t think it would be that easy in practice. “Okay, give me a few minutes, and I’ll be ready.”
Gage headed toward the door. “How about I get you breakfast while you dress? Don’t worry about looking fancy. Mia’s not big on fashion.”
I hadn’t been worried in the least until he’d said something. Did that mean he wanted me to look nice? Was there something he wasn’t telling me? Did he have some secret rivalry with his sister? Why didn’t men just spit it out?
I glared at the door after it had closed. Well, I wasn’t getting all dressed up—so there! I would have to wear my nice black pants because my comfortable jeans were dirty, and the blue top with the black pinstripes only because it matched the pants, not because it made my waist look smaller and my hair less orange.
After I changed, I called Mark Carson, the attorney, to talk about my inheritance. “I received your e-mail a few hours ago,” Mark said, sounding a little stiff. “Your mother called me as well. Needless to say, I was a little surprised that you, uh, changed course so abruptly.”
“Me, too,” I admitted. “But yesterday I realized Julian wasn’t the right man for me. Better before marriage than a
fter, I always say.” The lump I’d felt in my stomach since the day before had turned bitter.
“Well, congratulations.” His voice warmed considerably. “Your husband is a lucky man. You make a nice couple, though I would never tell that to your mother.”
I laughed. Could it be this easy? “Thank you. What I need to know is how soon can I obtain my funds? I’d like to help my sister, and you know how my mother is. She’s not at all happy right now.”
“No, she isn’t, but it was your choice, wasn’t it? As for the trust fund, there are only a few formalities we have to go through. I’ll need copies of the marriage license and certificate and all relevant information. I can obtain all that on my own, which will take longer, or you can send me what you have.”
“No problem. I’ll send it right away. There isn’t a waiting period for the trust fund, is there?”
“Not unless someone contests the validity of the marriage, which is supposed to have been entered into in good faith. Your grandfather figured if you were old enough to get married, you’d be old enough to handle your own funds.”
That made me feel guilty, even though I would have come into the inheritance anyway if I married Julian tomorrow as planned. In my book, good faith could mean a lot of things. Thankfully, I wasn’t required to produce an heir.
“Great. I’ll send you what I have,” I told Mark. I hadn’t seen the marriage certificate, but Gage probably had it.
“You sure everything’s okay?”
I laughed. “Of course. I’m actually heading over to Gage’s sister’s house right now. Lot of catching up to do. She’s not happy about the eloping thing, but hopefully we won’t have to stay too long and can leave for our honeymoon.”
“Well, I’ll keep you apprised of how it’s going with the funds.”
“Thanks.” I hung up feeling happier than I had since Sadie had broken the news about Julian.
I’d almost repacked my few belongings when Gage came in with several Styrofoam take-out containers in a paper bag. “How do you feel about pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream?” He smiled as he hefted a drink container. “And hot chocolate.”
Tell Me No Lies Page 6
