FIANCÉ FOR HIRE

by Pamela Burford

  They sat like that for a long time, clinging to each other, letting the aftershocks roll over them. Amanda kissed Nick's neck and felt him twitch within her. She smiled, and deposited a trail of kisses up his throat to his jaw, rough with beard stubble.

  "Something tells me we're not through for the evening," she murmured.

  "Not by a long shot, honey."

  She kissed his smiling mouth. "Amazing, isn't it?"

  "That once isn't enough? How decrepit do you think I am?"

  "No, I mean that the scheme my Wedding Ring pals concocted was so spectacularly successful. I'm supposed to be the devious one! I don't know whether to thank them for giving me you, or to slap them silly for playing such a dirty trick on me."

  "Oh, I have a feeling that by the morning, you'll forget all about the dirty trick and only want to shower those ladies with your most profound, heartfelt and everlasting gratitude."

  "You mean once I've had a chance to sleep on it?"

  Nick gave her that megawatt grin, along with a little hip thrust that told her that once was, indeed, not enough. "Who said anything about sleeping?"

  * * *

  Epilogue

  «^

  Despite all the meticulous planning, Amanda's third and final trek down the aisle offered a bit more excitement than anyone had anticipated. The furnace in her basement chose that day to go on the fritz; the sound of clanging pipes competed with the Wedding March as the repairman worked to restore heat. Meanwhile, the fire blazing in the living room hearth did little to drive off the mid-March chill. Most of the guests kept their coats on during the ceremony.

  A blizzard the day before had shut down local airports and prevented a dozen out-of-town relatives from attending. The justice of the peace arrived forty-five minutes late, although he'd had to travel less than two miles over plowed roads. Then, just as the wedding was about to start, a seam opened in Amanda's gown, a belted, ankle-length column of wheat-colored jersey whose skirt was covered in clear sequins. Thank goodness Charli was so handy with a needle and thread.

  When things finally got under way, the flower girl, Jared and Noelle's four-year-old daughter, Janine, decided that the words "we are gathered" was the cue to throw a kicking, shrieking tantrum. This set off Raven and Hunter's two-week-old daughter, Annabel, who until then had been peacefully dozing on her father's shoulder.

  "Remind me never to do this again," Amanda groaned hours later, as she plopped onto her sofa and kicked off her high-heeled silver sling-backs.

  "You'll never get a chance to do this again." Settling next to her, Nick draped his arm around her shoulders. He lifted her left hand and kissed her ring finger. "Now that I've got you, I'm never letting you go."

  The last of their guests had departed, except for the members of the Wedding Ring and their husbands, who'd joined the bride and groom in the den for one last glass of champagne as the rent-a-maids cleaned up the kitchen and living and dining rooms. The heat was back on, thankfully, and all Amanda wanted to do now was relax with her new husband and her best friends, and decompress.

  Raven had just nursed her tiny daughter, who was now awake and alert, cradled in her mother's arms and avidly taking in her surroundings.

  Kirk said, "That's a beautiful name. Annabel. How did you choose it?"

  Hunter was sitting on the floor next to his wife's chair. He offered his daughter his finger and she grasped it firmly. "Raven and I are both fans of Edgar Allan Poe. She was named for his poem 'Annabel Lee.'"

  The gurgle Annabel emitted sounded so much like enthusiastic approval that everyone laughed.

  "Well, she's a beauty." Reverently Grant touched Charli's abdomen, gently swelling with their growing child. "In five months or so, she'll have a playmate."

  "You feeling okay?" Amanda asked Charli.

  "Terrific. A little morning sickness in the beginning, but I'm fine now."

  Hunter said, "How's the practice working out, Grant?"

  "Better than I'd hoped. I won't kid you. It's scary as hell hanging out a shingle when all you've known is a regular paycheck, but it was a choice between starting my own firm or going back to the D.A.'s office, and when it came down to it, there was really no contest."

  Grant's obsessive desire to become a partner in the ultraconservative law firm he'd worked for had led him to marry Charli for appearances' sake, a practical, platonic arrangement that had nothing in common with the warmly loving marriage they now shared. His recent failure to make partner might have devastated him if he hadn't had the emotional support and devotion of his wife. Rather than wallow in self-pity, Grant had responded by starting his own law firm, in partnership with a buddy of his. As tough and risky as that was, he felt it beat spending the next twenty or thirty years working his tail off for his old firm, only to retire as a senior associate.

  Two-year-old Ian was napping on Sunny's lap. Idly stroking his blond hair, she said to Raven, "Your pregnancy gave you some great material for your stand-up comedy routines at Stitches. What are you going to do now that you don't have the built-in hilarity of a gigantic belly?"

  "Never fear. Between the Chernobyl diapers, gnawed nipples and Night of the Living Dead sleep deprivation, caring for a newborn has more than its share of comic potential. It's one of those if-you-don't-laugh-you'll-cry situations, so I may as well laugh."

  Hunter said, "We keep a notepad handy to jot down ideas for gags, once Raven's up to performing again."

  "You can remind me of the laughing part about eight months from now," Sunny said. Every female in the room gasped, and she grinned like the cat that got the cream. "It happened during our belated honeymoon last month."

  Kirk kissed his wife. "She just took the test. It's positive."

  Sunny's friends were all over her, hugging her and crying happy tears. They knew how much becoming a mother meant to her. She adored her stepson, Ian, and had resigned herself to the fact that their family might not grow any larger. Then Kirk had had his vasectomy reversed in October, and apparently the surgery had been a success.

  Raven said, "Three Wedding Ring babies!" She winked at Amanda. "It's your turn now."

  Nick laughed. "You'll be the first to know."

  Amanda and Nick had been careless about birth control, and when her period was a few days late last month, Amanda had found herself actually hoping that she was pregnant with Nick's baby. That false alarm had led them to a frank discussion about children—and the decision to forgo contraception and let nature take its course. Her house—Nick's house now, too—was certainly roomy enough for a gigantic brood, but they planned to limit their family to two kids. Well, perhaps three.

  Amanda addressed her Wedding Ring pals. "I have a question. That guy you tried to set me up with, back in October. James Selden. The real estate developer. Does he really exist?"

  Sunny shifted Ian in her arms. Smirking, she asked, "What do you think?"

  Raven said, "I invented him on the spur of the moment to put pressure on you and provide incentive for you to hurry up and manufacture a fake boyfriend."

  "Which you were confident I'd do," Amanda said, with an incredulous head shake. She still couldn't get over how thoroughly these three had predicted her actions. It was eerie.

  "All you needed was a suitable fellow to dangle in front of us," Charli said. Smiling, she nodded toward Nick. "So we provided one ready-made."

  Grant said, "Amanda, I didn't have a clue who you were talking about that day in the orchard when you mentioned my golfing buddy James. Then you said something about these three trying to set you up with the guy, so I did some quick thinking and figured I'd better play along or I'd be eating TV dinners for a month. Was I convincing?"

  "You were all remarkably convincing," Amanda said. "I had no idea my best friends could be so cunning, so calculating, so incredibly underhanded. Gosh, you make me proud."

  Charli said, "We learned a few things from you over the years."

  "And it all ended happily," Sunny decreed.

  "Am
en to that," Raven said, giving her daughter a big, noisy kiss on the cheek.

  "The time has come to officially disband the Wedding Ring," Sunny said, as Ian blinked and yawned in her arms.

  Charli took her husband's hand. "That's so sad."

  "Not really," Raven said. "The Wedding Ring has done its job. It's accomplished what we wanted it to."

  Nick stood, champagne flute in hand. "I propose a toast. Gentlemen?" Hunter, Grant and Kirk came to their feet, glasses raised. "To four of the most accomplished practitioners in the history of matchmaking."

  "Not to mention sexy," Kirk amended.

  "And intriguing," Grant added.

  Hunter nodded. "And funny."

  Nick's dimple showed. "Let us not forget exasperating."

  "You can stop now," Amanda said dryly.

  The four men clinked their glasses in unison. "To the Wedding Ring!"

  * * * *