“And bad for the cupcakes, too,” she said. “Since cupcakes are so small and have no say over who gets to keep them.”
Caylee studied her half-eaten cupcake in a new light, then took another bite.
“So, you’re saying,” he began, slowly, “that the baker might be able to keep his cupcakes with the help of someone who had a fondness for his particular cupcakes.”
With an exaggerated nod, she handed him back his spoon. “Yeeess. A fill-in assistant baker, so to speak, to stand up for those cupcakes. Solely for their sake, of course. And only until she knew they were safe with the baker who had already worked so hard to make them.”
Finn leaned back in his seat, his heart in his throat. “But why would she do that—this assistant fill-in baker...for him?”
With a shrug, Kate said, “In the interest of fairness. And because she’s in between bakeries?” The waitress delivered her hot fudge sundae. She pulled the cherry off the top and popped it in her mouth. Around the delicacy, she added, “And because maybe she’s not really as nice as the first baker thinks. Her motives might have something to do with...well, payback for the third baker. For barging into her kitchen uninvited.” She smiled sweetly at him.
“Seriously?”
“Oh. She never jokes about dessert. Of course, that’s only if the baker truly wants her help. Through the front door.”
A disbelieving smile spread across his mouth. What she was offering, out of the blue, was nothing he could have imagined or anticipated and the reality of that stung his eyes. For the first time in days, he felt like he could breathe.
He leaned forward and braced his forearms on the table, knowing he was agreeing to venture into unknown waters by way of a questionable vessel. But he didn’t care. He’d take help any way he could get it. “I know for a fact that the baker would certainly and gratefully accept for the sake of his special cupcakes.”
“All right then. Done.” She took another bite of her sundae with a smile he couldn’t quite interpret. This Kate, this self-contained Kate who seemed to run hot and cold about him, was a mystery he wanted solved. He couldn’t get a handle on her or what her motives really were for helping him. Of course, he wanted to believe her willingness to help came from wanting to resolve their differences and find her way back to him. But simple had never been her M.O. And over time, she’d only gotten more complicated. Whether or not, in the short month he had, he could change her heart about him, one thing he knew for sure—his children would be safe with her.
Cutter, who had found the bottom of his sundae, suddenly shifted his gaze between the two adults with a questioning look. “Who is this baker, anyway?”
Chapter Four
Before she could think better of what they were about to do, or decide it was the craziest thing she’d ever done, she drove with Finn to the courthouse in Bozeman—far away from prying eyes in Marietta—on Friday morning.
After securing a marriage license, they were told to wait outside the judge’s chambers and, in between divorce proceedings, in-chamber arguments and basically, whenever he had time, he would marry them.
A crushing blow to romantics everywhere.
Except that Finn had secreted in white Calla lilies for her to hold. Elegant, white flowers that reminded her of that time in Missoula when he’d left them on her doorstep, the morning after a fight. She was touched and at the same time shocked that he remembered the Calla lily was her favorite flower.
She’d worn a filmy summer dress she’d pulled out of her closet and he’d put on a dark suit that looked like it had been tailored to fit his sigh-worthy shoulders and chest. Except for his too-long dark hair that curled around his collar, he didn’t look like a cowboy right now. In fact, if Tom Ford happened by, she suspected Finn would be snatched up to grace some billboard somewhere that would get city girls swooning.
She did her best not to stare, but found her gaze drifting back to the way his trousers hugged the muscled contours of his thigh where it brushed against her knee and the way his thumb wore a circle into the palm of his other hand. Despite the cool air conditioning inside the courthouse, Kate resisted the temptation to fan herself in response.
Just nerves. Or the smoldering hotness sitting beside her, trying hard to act like getting married on the spur of the moment under false pretenses was no big deal. For that matter, she was doing the same, less successfully.
They’d talked on the way up, setting the rules and agreeing that the children should know nothing of the upcoming hearing or about their mother’s part in it. Nor would they know about this marriage. For their sakes, Kate would pose as a nanny, there to temporarily care for them. Then, when she left, there would be no hurt feelings, no issues of abandonment, of which they’d already had more than their fair share. They’d agreed that this whole marriage farce was solely for that crazy-ass judge up in Missoula who had a prejudice against single fathers and to even up the unfair advantage Melissa had brought to the playing field.
As straightforward as the whole thing sounded, nothing was as uncomplicated as saying yes that afternoon in the diner had been. Marriage to Finn, phony though it would be, was going to be messy and risky. And she wasn’t even talking about legalities.
But here they were. For better or worse.
The courthouse was abuzz with activity. Jurors lingered nearby, attorneys walked in pairs, or alone, on their cells, discussing cases. Across the narrow hallway, a parolee sat with his mother next to the young couple that had been in line behind them for a license. Those two sat making eyes at one another and occasionally making out. They couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other.
Kate rolled her eyes at the ceiling. She felt old, just being in the same room with them, so she’d purposefully averted her eyes from them.
“Nervous?” she asked Finn.
He stopped rubbing his palm and pressed his hands together. With a reassuring smile, he answered, “You?”
“I won’t lie. I feel like I just swallowed the scales of justice,” she said, pulling her hair away from her face. “Co-mingling with all of these attorneys, I’m reminded that we’re about to perjure ourselves with the ‘until death us do part’ bit.”
“You can still change your mind....about that part. You could play nanny without the marriage certificate. Maybe that would be enough stability in the eyes of the judge.”
“You don’t believe that.”
He rubbed his palm again. “No.”
“And, just so we’re clear, we’re agreed to an annulment after the hearing. No arguments. No messy divorce.”
A shrug that looked more like a cracking of his neck shifted his shoulders. “I gave you my word. And you stay until after the hearing.”
She nodded and fidgeted in her seat. She tapped her foot on the smooth marble floor, then turned to him. “Do you think this is crazy?”
Turning those calm-in-a-storm eyes of his on her, he said, “Absolutely.”
Stricken, she said, “Really?”
“But for my kids,” he told her, “I’d do crazy all day long.”
Swallowing back a lump of something she could only identify as sentimentality, she said, “I know.”
Stick to the plan. The impulsive, very flawed plan. They were doing this for the twins. For their future good. Even as she’d reminded herself that she was marrying him partly to pay back Melissa for royally screwing with her life, now that she knew how wrong it had all gone, she gave less than two figs about Melissa. Shocking to discover that, except for feeling protective about Finn’s children—and about him—all she wanted from Melissa was to curl up and...disappear.
He had apparently watched all of these thoughts cross her expression and for the first time since they’d arrived, concern creased his brow. “No, really. You want to call the whole thing off?”
“No,” she answered quickly, so she wouldn’t change her mind. “Do you?”
He shook his head. “I’m grateful, Kate.”
“Maybe you shoul
d thank me after this is all over. If you still want to.”
“Finnegan Ray Scott and Katherine Louisa Canaday?” intoned the clerk from the judge’s chamber doorway.
Finn stood and she shot to her feet beside him, trying to conceal her twitching hand behind the lilies.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he whispered close to her ear.
She shook her head resolutely. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“Aw, Honey, that’s so romantic,” he said, loudly enough for the clerk to hear. He touched the small of her back with his hand, sparking a cavalcade of reactions up the column of her spine. Not the least of which involved her heart misplacing itself in her throat and every female nerve coming to full attention.
“Don’t call me ‘Honey,’ Finnegan,’” she warned quietly, scooting just out of reach. “And keep your tongue to yourself when they pronounce us married.”
He grinned as they entered the chambers. “As you wish.”
Judge Hiltern must have repeated this ceremony some 23,674 times and his delivery did nothing to disguise that fact. He dispensed with the formalities quickly in his black robe and wire-rims, holding his Bible beneath the photo of the late Ronald Reagan shaking hands with him. Absently, Kate wondered how much he’d had to pay at the plate dinner for that handshake. If he was in a rush, he’d learned to moderate his voice to hide it, but there was no shilly-shallying in the ceremony. No fluff. Just the facts.
After saying their “I do’s,” which they both managed without flubbing, he asked if there were rings to be exchanged.
“No, Your Honor,” Kate piped up. “We don’t actually believe in—”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Finn said, cutting her off as he pulled something from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I have a ring.” He produced a sparkling, radiant-cut diamond ring set in a platinum, diamond-wrapped band. A ring that looked all too hauntingly familiar.
Kate gasped. “Wh-what is that?”
“A ring.”
“I—I see it’s a-a—” she stammered, “but...is that the—?”
“Yup,” he answered, that dimple in his left cheek making an appearance. “It is.” He reached for her fingers. “Your hand?”
She felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, when Edward nearly snapped the blue velvet jewelry box on her fingers. Shocked. Surprised. Gobsmacked. She swallowed the nervous bark of laughter that nearly erupted from her.
This was the ring she’d thrown at him that day, the one that had made a sparkly, final sound as it found its accidental way into a ceramic bowl across the room and did a death spiral there. This was the ring she assumed had graced his wife’s hand after he’d dumped Kate. Because who could afford another ring like this one, for wife number two?
But he’d kept her ring. In its box. All these years. And he had a wedding band to match.
So unfair to ambush her this way. But she had loved this ring and every promise attached to it. So much.
This marriage is only temporary, she wanted to shout at him. I do not love this ring any more, and I do not love you!
But he watched her with that gaze that she’d once trusted, waiting for her to give him her hand. Make a choice. Say yes.
The judge had been witness to hundreds of such coupling, both good and bad, and she could almost imagine him anticipating the thud of failure in their future.
So, against every lick of common sense she owned, she proffered her hand and let him slide that once-upon-a-time ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, of course. And yet, it fit not at all.
“And having both exchanged solemn vows and exchanged tokens of your fidelity and affection, then by the power vested in me by the State of Montana,” Judge Hiltern said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Finn’s hands found hers across the ocean of distance between them and held them. Hers were suddenly cold and twitchy as fireflies trapped in a jar, but his firm, warm touch—against all reason—calmed her.
“And,” the judge urged, clapping his Bible closed, “you may now kiss the bride.” The witnesses, two court clerks, smiled patiently, waiting. She could demur, or turn her cheek at the last moment, but decided against it. They both had their parts to play.
He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. A mere brush, at first, warming her fractionally, and then he reached a hand behind her head and slipped his fingers into her hair, pulling her to him. The second kiss made her remember why she couldn’t forget him: his sweet taste, the heated softness of his lips and all the kisses they’d shared once. And, of course, the one on his doorstep.
He kept the kiss chaste and didn’t press her to open to him, as he had the other night, but he left no doubt—with that one heart-pounding slide of his mouth against hers—that if he had a choice in the matter, there would be more.
Off-balance by the kiss, Kate blinked and pulled away, only to find him smiling at her. She sent a nervous smile back thinking, What have I done?
The two witnesses politely shook their hands, offering them congratulations and the judge followed suit.
“You two look as if you could stand a chance in this lottery called marriage,” he told them. “See that you both put forth the effort required to succeed.”
“We will,” Finn said, blatantly lying to the face of justice. “Thank you, Your Honor.”
***
They couldn’t get out of that courthouse fast enough. Grabbing her by the hand, Finn pulled her with him toward the pick-up they’d parked in the lot. When they hit the road, he opened the windows and sped down the highway in the opposite direction from Marietta.
“Wait. Where are we going? Home is that way,” she pointed out, but he just smiled. She leaned back and braced an elbow on the door. “So, you’re kidnapping me?”
“Oh, yeah. But only temporarily.”
She studied his profile and the wicked little grin he couldn’t contain.
“I knew you’d be trouble.”
Early September heat bore down on the asphalt road and made the air simmer around them. From the flat prairie nearby, the wind carried the scent of summer-toasted sweet grass and whipped Kate’s hair in an auburn froth around her face until she caught it in one hand.
While Kate watched him like he’d lost his mind, he put on one of her favorite tunes, Richie Haven’s Woodstock acoustic anthem, “Follow” on his iPod and threw one arm out the window to catch the wind and sing along. “...and maybe you can sing to me the words I just told you...if all the things you feel ain’t what they seem... Then don’t mind me ’cause I ain’t nothin’ but a dream.”
She smiled back at him through a sweep of lashes, perhaps remembering, as he was, the days when music was a thread between them, when they used to lose their inhibitions on the backroads of Missoula together singing out loud. When even the worst of days could be made better with music. She’d introduced him to this song. Follow had been one of her parents’ favorites and then, the song became one of hers. After a moment, she leaned her head back and laughed, reaching out her window to catch the wind, too.
“Let your mind go reeling out and let the breezes blow you...” he sang. “...that maybe when we meet and suddenly I will know you...”
“....Then don’t mind me ’cause I ain’t nothin’ but a dream,” she belted out with him at the next chorus and the wind caught their voices and swallowed them. “And you can follow...”
When the song ended, she said ‘play it again,’ and he did. This time they both sang along with every verse. He loved the unselfconscious way she sang even when she didn’t hit all the notes perfectly. The way she laughed and stuck her head outside the window to shout the song into the wind. The ring on her left hand sparkled in the late afternoon sun as she danced in the seat beside him with her eyes closed. And the day’s tension seemed to leak out of them.
They hardly passed a single car on the road, but they weren’t going far. A few miles down the road to a place he knew. And by the time they’d sung that song and a couple
of others he pulled into the parking lot of a small place, tucked back away from the road called McConnells. If they were a little early for dinner, he didn’t care. He wasn’t taking her home without feeding her and lifting a glass to the wheel they’d set in motion.
Inside the small, converted roadhouse was an unexpectedly chic restaurant that he’d heard had a fabulous chef and a waiting list weeks long. But not today. Today, the manager, an elegant woman of fifty-something, welcomed them by name as they walked in and seated them in a private booth in the back, already set with two glasses of champagne, a bowl of exotic olives and a plate of bruschetta.
The rest of the place was packed with diners and the white-jacketed servers moved with soundless precision from table to table in pairs, upholding McConnells’s reputation for stellar service.
Dazzled, her body still visibly humming from their car ride, Kate just shook her head with a pleased smile, lifted her glass and clinked his.
“How did you do this? And on such short notice?” she asked. “This place is impossible to get into. I’ve heard this chef is incredible.”
“I told them I was coming here with you and they suddenly had an opening.” He grinned at her from across the table.
“Hunh. I think your nose is growing.” She glanced at her left hand. “And while we’re on the subject of sneaky...about this...ring...”
“It’s your ring. It’s always been yours.”
“Finn...” she began, shaking her head.
“Let’s not get bogged down with details. I wanted you to have them. Whether you wear the rings or not is up to you.”
She took a sip of champagne and the diamond sparkled in the light. “I don’t need to remind you we’re just pretending, right? And that this ring could pay for more than a few prize bulls on your ranch.”
He watched her over the rim of his glass. “Nope.”
The bruschetta was calling and after they took the edge off their hunger, ordered food and some good red wine, he began to relax.
“Question,” Kate said, drawing a circle on the tablecloth with her finger.
Choose Me, Cowboy Page 7
