Chapter 1

by Unknown

  “Ace!”

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Please,” she whined.

  He brought her right up to the very tip of the climax and then fell over the top with her.

  He buried his face into the hollow of her neck and nibbled, whispering sweet words into her ear. The cool water, the warmth of his breath, and listening to him tell her just how beautiful and sexy she was sent chill bumps down her naked body.

  He started to roll to one side, but she wrapped both arms and legs around him and held on tightly.

  “Don’t go. I like the way you feel on my body,” she whispered.

  “But darlin’, we’re sinking into the sand, so it is either roll over and hold you or suck water up my nose,” he said hoarsely.

  She held on as he moved to his side, keeping her in his embrace. The water flowed around them again as they settled comfortably into the sandy creek bottom.

  “That was pure, unadulterated ecstasy,” she whispered.

  “Jazzy, you are better than drugs and even more addictive. And I don’t say that to all the girls,” he said.

  “Can we sleep here all night or do we have to go back to the house?” she mumbled as her eyes fluttered.

  “Come morning the children will come looking for us if we aren’t at the house,” he said.

  “Damn kids.” She giggled.

  Chapter 15

  “Good mornin’, beautiful,” Ace said when Jasmine opened her eyes on Sunday morning.

  She caught a whiff of coffee and bacon and looked around. A tray with two pieces of toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, and coffee was sitting beside her on the bed.

  She sat up carefully so she wouldn’t spill anything, picked up the coffee, and sipped.

  “Mmmm, thank you,” she said.

  Ace was already dressed in jeans, boots, and a football jersey with the number 13 on the front. He had a day’s worth of scruff on his face, and his hair hadn’t even seen a comb. And she thought he was sexier than ever.

  “I can’t believe you brought me breakfast.” She picked up a piece of bacon and nibbled on it.

  “It’s midmorning. Lucy said you have to get up because y’all are going to Pearl’s place for wedding shit.

  My brothers are all over at Momma’s so I’m goin’ over there to play Sunday football,” he said.

  “I never sleep this late,” she said.

  “Guess last night’s skinny- stretchin’ wore you plumb out.”

  She smiled. “I suppose it did. What would it take to wear you plumb out?”

  “Ain’t never been there yet. But if you want to give it a try, we could both stay home all afternoon,” he said.

  “Lucy would be beatin’ in the door.”

  “It’s that girl child causin’ the trouble,” he teased.

  “If I remember, the boy child beat on the door when your momma called a few nights ago,” she reminded him.

  Ace kissed her on the forehead and grabbed a piece of bacon from her plate. “So what time will you be home?”

  “Soon as I can get it all talked through. I’m sick of it, Ace.”

  “I know, darlin’, but it’ll all be settled and finished soon and then we can get on back to normal livin’,” he said.

  Yeah, right. Normal flew right out the window atCupid’s Wedding Chapel.

  “Hey, Ace.” Dalton knocked on the door.

  “See, rotten boys!” Jasmine grinned.

  “Got a fence down and two cows on the highway. We got to go get them in and fix the fence.”

  Jasmine waved him away. “Can’t have two cows gettin’ hit on the road. I know how to eat by myself. But, Ace,” she said as he was rushing out of the room, “thank you for breakfast.”

  “You are very welcome, beautiful lady.”

  She giggled.

  “What?”

  “You and your lines. They are so corny that they are cute.”

  “It’s not a line, Jazzy.”

  “Yeah, right. Go get the cows. I’ll see you later.” Q

  Jasmine turned on the truck radio as she and Lucy started toward Henrietta. Lady Antebellum was playing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Hillary Scott, female lead singer for the group, sang about the bridges she’d burned that left her with walls and scars. Jasmine kept time to the slow beat by tapping her thumb on the steering wheel. Hillary sang that she was falling fast and that she wasn’t scared all because he had climbed her walls.

  “Sounds kind of like you and Ace, don’t it?” Lucy said. “Y’all can’t take your eyes off each other. He walks into a room and you just automatically look at him, long and hot like. And he does the same thing.”

  “You’ve got romance on the brain.” Jasmine laughed.

  But her thoughts went back to the creek the night before and how she hadn’t been afraid as she’d cuddled up in his arms. Ace Riley had climbed her wall of defense.

  The one she’d worked so hard to construct after the fiasco with Eddie Jay. She’d put on an I- don’t- give- a-damn attitude and pulled it off with everyone. Knowing that he and Jadeen had been together the whole time he was with Jasmine, that they had a baby together, and still Eddie Jay let Jasmine believe that they had a future.

  She’d put herself on the wagon and hadn’t fallen off until Ace kissed her.

  Now she was defenseless, in a fake marriage, planning a fake wedding, and like Hillary said in the song, she couldn’t take her eyes off Ace Riley. And he had a barbed wire tat around his left arm to remind her daily and nightly that no matter how good the damn sex was, he was never letting a woman past the fence and into his heart. Lust, yes definitely. Love, hell no!

  On his way back to the house, Ace turned on the radio.

  Lady Antebellum was playing a tune they’d had out a couple of years before called “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” He waved at Jasmine and Lucy when he passed them turning out onto the highway when he turned back toward the ranch.

  The lead singer was female and she reminded him of Jazzy with her dark hair and full lips. The chorus said that she just wanted him to lay beside her, to hold her and never let go, and that the feeling was something she’d never known. And then it finished with saying that she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  “Turn it around to be a guy singer and it’s my song,” Ace said.

  Ace’s blood ran cold when she said that she was falling fast and the truth was she wasn’t scared at all because he’d climbed her walls.

  “I didn’t see it coming,” Ace muttered. “And now that it’s here I don’t know what to do. Two weeks ago you were my best friend, Jazzy. Looking back you’d already climbed the walls. I wish I could go back and start all over. Take you out on real dates.

  Have the boyfriend and then the sex experience. Not the marriage one first. But it can’t be undone and it’s ruined forever.”

  “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Lucy said when they were on the outskirts of Henrietta. “A wedding after a marriage.”

  “Me too. I wish it wasn’t even happenin’ and I’m already tired of the whole thing. Changing the subject, do you think you are going to get along al right working around so many men at the ranch?”

  Lucy answered with a grin. “If they leave my cat’s food alone, and I think they will now.”

  “I thought maybe you were flirting with Dalton,” Jasmine teased.

  “Those two remind me of a couple of my brothers.

  Girl don’t flirt with her brothers, not even in Kentucky,” Lucy said.

  Her deep southern accent had softened around the edges since she’d been in Texas, but not much. Kentucky came out “Cane- tucky” in four or five syllables even yet.

  “And the guys out in the bunkhouse?” Jasmine asked.

  “Sam is a sweetheart. He reminds me of my Uncle Cyrus. Not a lot of words and only opens his mouth when he’s got something to say. Dexter scared me at first. Lord, that man looks like he could tear a barn down in thirty minutes with his bare hands, but he’s got a he
art of gold. And Buddy is a teddy bear. His stuttering just makes him that much sweeter.”

  “What about Tyson?” Jasmine asked.

  Lucy squirmed in her seat enough that Jasmine shot a look her way.

  “Tyson has demons. His soul is haunted. He reminds me of the abused women I work with. He’s going to take some work,” Lucy finally said.

  “Like you did?” Jasmine asked. “I never did hear that whole story.”

  “It’s short. I married at sixteen. That’s not so unusual in the backwoods of Kentucky. I was pregnant and Cleet’s momma said that was the only reason he married me and she said it wasn’t his baby anyway. But it was because I’d never had sex with nobody else. He had a temper, a bad one, and anything could set him off. If I had chocolate cake for supper and he wanted peach cobbler, he’d jerk that belt off and whoop me with it. I lost the baby and was glad because she wouldn’t never have to grow up and make a big mistake like I did with Cleet. I saved my money, hoardin’ it back by pennies and dimes until I had enough to get out of Kentucky. I faked my death and used my money to buy bus tickets as far as it would go, and then I started walkin’ west from over in Gainesville. This sweet lady named Rosa gave me a ride and deposited me right in front of the Longhorn Inn. Pearl gave me a job and a place to live.”

  “Cleet never did come around?” Jasmine asked.

  “Nope. After Pearl married Will she got in touch with a lawyer who got me a divorce. When it was final I called my momma. She was glad I wasn’t dead but told me to stay out of Kentucky. If I ever came back, Cleet would probably kill me.”

  “Why? Because he didn’t get any insurance money if you weren’t dead?” Jasmine asked.

  “We was too poor to have insurance. Cleet worked with his daddy in the coal mines up there. I expect he was good at his job or they’d have fired him for as much work as he missed. He’d kind of tal y up what he had to make for a week and that’s how much work he’d do.

  Rest of the time he hunted and fished with his other worthless buddies,” Lucy explained.

  “Then why would he kill you if you went back?”

  “Because he lost his cook, his housecleaner, and his wife to beat on when he was mad. And because he’d take that as an insult. Cleet would shoot a dog for barking too much. Think what he’d do to me if I ever went back.

  Momma didn’t have to warn me though. I made a vow I’d never set foot back there when the Greyhound bus I was ridin’ on went over the Kentucky state line. If I die on the Double Deuce, you bury me in Henrietta, Texas.

  This is my heaven, right here.”

  The front yard at the O’Riley ranch looked like a used car lot for pickups. Ace parked at the end of the long row, got out, and shook the legs of his jeans down over his boots. Adam was sitting at the far end in an old straight- back chair. The chair’s back two legs leaned against the house, and the front two were jacked up in the air. Adam’s legs were propped on the porch rail and crossed at the ankle. He held a sweating bottle of beer in one hand and fanned his face with his straw hat with the other.

  Ace propped a hip on the porch rail. “Hot day.”

  “Yep. Don’t see any mention of any snow comin’

  our way. You and that woman of yours has stirred up a hornet’s nest. What in the hell was you thinkin’ runnin’

  off to Las Vegas? You knew your momma would pitch a hissy, and her fit ain’t nothing compared to Jasmine’s momma’s. Lord, them two women spend every waking minute on the phone. I’m so sick of hearing about weddings I could run away to Las Vegas myself and not come home until it’s over. Your momma wanted a girl baby so we kept on trying to get her one but I got to admit, I was always glad to see another boy. Know why? So we didn’t have to worry with weddings. And look what you’ve done.”

  “Sorry about that, Dad. We didn’t intend to cause a stir,” Ace said.

  “Your older brothers had weddings, but all we had to do was show up and smile for a couple of pictures. Your momma stewed around about a dress and how to fix her hair, but it wasn’t nothin’ like this hoorah. Eight men to stand up there with you. God, boy, are they expecting that maybe that many can keep you in the church if you decide to run? They damn sure don’t know an O’Riley, if that’s their thoughts. And besides, if you did run, what the hell good would it do? You’re already married,” Adam said.

  “Does seem like overkill, doesn’t it?” Ace said.

  “Damn straight, but then it’s makin’ them two women happy as a preacher at a baptism.” Adam grinned.

  Ace pointed to the beer. “Got any more of them out here, or do I have to wade through the groomsmen to get one?”

  “Get to wading, son. I only brought two with me and I done finished the first one.” Adam waved him toward the door.

  Jasmine stopped at the first traffic light in Henrietta.

  They’d driven right past the ashes of the Longhorn and neither of them had even looked that way. Jasmine made a right- hand turn at the far edge of town, and then a couple of miles further up the road she made another right onto Will and Pearl’s ranch.

  “There’s old Digger. I like that dog, but Delilah hates him so bad, I reckon she could claw his eyes right out of his head. Pearl says it’s because Will had him with him that night when they first met and the crazy dog bayed at Delilah like she was a coon. Guess she figures any sorry- ass dog that don’t know a queen from a coon don’t deserve his sight,” Lucy said.

  Jasmine laughed. “Looks like we’re the last ones here so let’s go plan my Texas wedding. I’m glad my parents stayed together and Daddy didn’t move off to Tennessee or Louisiana or I might have to get married three times.”

  Pearl met them at the door before Lucy had time to knock. Her kinky red hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she wore a flowing lime green sundress with a smocked top and spaghetti straps. “Y’all come on in.

  We’re in the living room. We’ve got iced tea and beer.”

  “Beer for me.” Jasmine tugged the bottom of her jean shorts down and adjusted the straps of her bright orange tank top. “I didn’t know we were dressing up.”

  “I’m not dressed up. It’s the only thing that will fit me that isn’t maternity and I’m so tired of those clothes that I gave them to Momma when she left to take to her church rummage sale next week,” Pearl explained.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Lucy said.

  “Why?”

  “You did what?” Liz yelled from the living room.

  “She gave al her maternity clothes to the church rummage sale,” Lucy answered.

  “Every single one. You didn’t even keep the one you wore to the hospital the night the twins were born?” Bridget asked.

  Pearl shook her head.

  Bridget shook her head seriously.

  “Why?” Pearl asked again.

  “Give all your maternity clothes away and you’ll be pregnant again real soon,” Bridget explained.

  “What?” Pearl blanched.

  “Old wives’ tale, but I’ve seen it work too many times to chance it. I’ll keep one thing in the closet forever if I ever have kids,” Lucy said.

  Jasmine pulled a folder from her purse and laid it on the table. “Don’t let them worry you. It’s superstition.” Pearl picked up her phone and called Tess. “Momma, you still got my maternity clothes at your house?” A pause.

  “Keep it. Don’t let anyone talk you out of it.” Another short pause.

  “You knew and you didn’t tel me! I may fire you from being a grandmother,” Pearl said. “You better hang on to that one last shirt or you are in big trouble.” Jasmine patted her on the arm. “You’re safe now.” Pearl wiped her forehead. “It’d just be my luck to have twins again. And besides, it’s your turn.”

  “Not mine. Liz got married before me!” Jasmine said.

  “I’m almost ready so save that one shirt for me,” Liz said. “I promise I’ll give it back when I’m done with it.”

  “Okay, here we go,” Jasmine said. “Dresse
s.” She spread out copies of the dresses that she’d printed off that morning in Ace’s office. Four colors: gold, pewter, silver, and bronze. All in Grecian style like her wedding dress but without rhinestone straps or a train.

  “You are changing the subject pretty fast. Come to think of it, this was a speedy wedding. You got something you haven’t told me?” Pearl asked Jasmine.

  “I’m not pregnant,” she said.

  Andotherthanthat, yes there is something I didn’ttell you but I can’t. I’m not sure what the statute oflimitations is on lying to your best friend, but that has toplay out before I tell you.

  Pearl laughed. “Well, that answers that question.

  Now show me the dresses. Do I get to really wear gold?”

  “Yes, you do. There’s two each of the bronze and silver, and three of the pewter. Pick your color and write your size on the sheet so Momma can get them ordered,” Jasmine said.

  “I want bronze,” Lucy said.

  “Me too,” Gemma said.

  Liz pointed to the silver. “That’s mine.”

  “I’ll go with Liz,” Bridget said.

  “Guess that leaves pewter for me and Colleen,” Austin said.

  “I’d wear turtle shit green to get to be in the wedding.

  That’s why I didn’t pick first because it don’t matter to me so if anyone wants to change it’s fine by me,” Bridget beamed.

  Jasmine tossed another printed sheet out on the table.

  “Flowers. One calla lily with the colors of all the dresses in satin streamers? Or a nosegay of white roses with the same steamers?”

  “What are you carryin’?” Bridget asked.

  Jasmine laid a picture on the table. “Momma says it’s magnolia blossoms in a bed of soft fern with long white streamers. The florist says the bouquet wil have to be kept in the refrigerator until the minute the wedding starts so the magnolias won’t turn brown.”

  “Then it should be the calla lily,” Pearl said.

  “Everyone in agreement?” Jasmine asked.

  “What would you carry?” Lucy teased Bridget.

  “Honey, I’d sashay down the aisle in my turtle shit green dress carryin’ a bouquet of stinkweed to get to be in the wedding,” Bridget said.