by Lily Graison
“God fearing?” Roxy said.
Jessi nodded her head. “Faith’s father is a minister.”
The chorus of laughter that followed her statement grated on Mick’s already fragile nerves. A minister? His new father-in-law was a minister? “This is just great,” he said. “Like things weren’t bad enough.”
“Oh, that isn’t even the half of it,” Jessi said.
“What could be worse than that?”
Jessi grinned. “Her five, over protective, brothers?”
“You are so screwed,” Devin grinned. “If that isn’t enough for you to lay off the booze, I don’t know what is. I can recommend a nice little mountain retreat if you need a place to dry out.”
Mick sighed and rubbed a hand over the top of his head. How had his life gotten so fucked up? He’d done his best to stay away from women ever since Jennifer took him for a ride and stripped his bank account in the divorce. Two years later and he was finally getting his life back in order. Now this. Married to a woman he knew next to nothing about. No matter how much he liked Faith, he couldn’t go through that pain again. “How do I get out of this, Roxy, without the rest of the world finding out what an idiot I am?” he said, lifting his head to look at her.
Roxy sighed and leaned back in her seat. “Well, I can have divorce papers drawn up and sent to her. All she has to do is sign them and send them back. I know a few judges that will expedite the proceedings … for a price.”
Mick snorted a laugh. “Oh, for a price. I’m screwed either way, aren’t I? Either I pay a judge off or give what little I have left to Faith. Why don’t I just sign over my assets now and save us all a headache.”
“She’ll sign the papers, Mick,” Jessi said. “But you’ll have better luck getting her to sign them if you take them to her, especially if she doesn’t even know you’re married.”
Luke shook his head at Jessi. “He can’t do that,” he said. “We have non-stop tour dates for the next two months.”
“A small token of your gratitude might not hurt your case any,” Roxy said. “It may even persuade her to sign. Unless you were smart enough to ask for a pre-nup.”
“He doesn’t even remember getting married,” Luke said. “I’m sure he didn’t remember to get her to sign her rights away.”
“I figured as much,” Roxy said. She shook her head and gave him a grim look. “You’re best bet is to hope she’s a decent girl and doesn’t take you for half. And she can.”
“She won’t,” Jessi said.
“How can you be so sure?” Roxy asked, turning her head to look over her shoulder.
“I’ve known Faith my whole life. She isn’t a gold digger. Chances are she isn’t even aware she’s married.”
“What makes you think that?” Mick asked.
Jessi smiled. “Because her plane left early this morning,” she said, glancing down at her watch. “She’s been home for hours now and she hasn’t called me. If she were aware she was married, she would have called me already, out of her freaking mind. You think you have it bad? Wait until she has to tell the Reverend she married a rock star in Vegas.”
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Chapter 3
One month later
“Oh no. No, no, no.” Faith’s knees gave out and she sat down hard, missing the bed, and ended up sprawled on the floor. She stared in horror at the photos in her hand and felt her breakfast work it way back up as she flipped through every picture. “This can’t be happening,” she said as tears clouded her vision. “I can’t have been this stupid.”
A noise in the hall caused her to jerk her head up before she jumped from the floor and ran to her bedroom door, flipping the lock. The pictures were still in her hand and she glanced at them again before the tears came, spilling over her lashes and sliding down her cheeks.
When her brother, Jacob, had handed her the package that arrived in the mail, with a Vegas post mark, he’d almost opened it, teasing her about her wild trip to Sin City. Looking at the photographs that had been in the package, she was glad he hadn’t. She wished she hadn’t looked.
“Faith Weston, this is God speaking,” she said quietly to herself. “Do you need any more proof that you need to change your wicked ways?”
She laughed only to cry moments later when the reality of it hit her. What she had thought for the past month was some alcohol-induced dream in Vegas was real. She really had dressed up as a Vegas showgirl while Mick pranced around in a sparkling Elvis jumpsuit while some no-name minister married them. Her conversation with Jessi on the night she got home from her trip made more sense now. She hadn’t told Jessi a thing about her and Mick and she’d felt bad for keeping her friend in the dark. The minute she decided to come clean left her so stunned and grief-stricken, she’d hung up on her friend, laid the phone off the hook, and hadn’t called her back since.
The nauseating pain she’d felt when she asked Jessi how Mick was and having her friend laugh and say he was married had burned through her limbs like hot pokers to her flesh. The words had hurtled through her head and an accusing symphony of “you slept with a married man,” caused her heart to nearly break through her ribcage. She was immediately sick, and ashamed, and since that day she’d refused to take a single call from Jessi. Her family hadn’t asked questions and she hadn’t provided them with an explanation.
She was sure though, if she had waited, Jessi would have told her Mick had married her.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered. She looked up, raising a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes and sighed. Someone rang the doorbell and she turned her head, listening to her father speak to someone before the tears started again. She was going to have to tell him. There was no way around it. Dread and fear crawled up her throat until she felt ill. She was going to break her daddy’s heart and there wasn’t anything she could do to prevent it.
Unless I can get a divorce without him finding out, she thought, grimly. I need a lawyer first. She raised her hand, chewing on her thumbnail while trying to think of who to call. Ted Pritchard could do it but his busybody wife-slash-secretary would tell every person in town and that is the last thing I need. “I’ll have to go to the next town,” she said to herself. “There’s no way to avoid it.”
“Faith?”
Faith jumped several inches when her father knocked on her door and said her name. She reached for her chest, trying to calm her racing heart and took a deep breath.
“Faith, come out here a minute. I need to talk to you.”
“And I need to talk to you,” she whispered before looking at the pictures in her hand. She shook her head at them and stuffed them back into the envelope before stashing them under her mattress and walking to the door. A quick scrub of her face with the edge of her shirt and she opened the door. Her father wasn’t in the hall.
Walking into the living room she saw him by the fireplace. His back was to her. She could tell by his posture something was bothering him. His shoulders were near his ears. A sure sign of tension. “You wanted to talk to me,” she said, weakly.
He turned and the look on his face was a combination of disappointment, anger and total disbelief. “Sit down, Faith.”
Her stomach clenched painfully as she walked around the sofa and sat down. “What’s wrong, daddy?”
He sighed heavily while looking at her and it was then she noticed the papers in his hand. When he lifted them and walked to her, her heart skipped a beat.
“You know you can tell me anything, Faith,” he said when he stopped in front of her. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” He handed her the papers and the air in her lungs left in an audible whoosh when she scanned the document.
Divorce papers.
The lunch that had threatened to come up all day decided then to make an appearance and she dropped the papers and ran to the bathroom. When her stomach was empty, she felt a cold cloth on the back of her neck.
“It’s all right, baby. Talk to me.”
Faith looked
up at her father and did the only thing she had energy to do at the moment. She cried.
* * * *
“What do you mean she refused!”
Roxy sat down in the chair opposite him. “That’s what her lawyer said.”
“She can’t refuse to sign them,” Mick said. “She has to give me a divorce.”
“Actually she can refuse until you meet her conditions.”
“Which are?”
Roxy laughed but there wasn’t any humor in the sound. “Well, that’s the funny part,” she said, looking up at him. “She hasn’t asked for anything.”
“Then why the hell didn’t she sign them?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Your guess is as good as mine, Mick.”
Mick leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes, willing the pain drumming inside his head away. The past month had been a living hell. He’d smoked more than he ever had and the temptation to drink himself into a stupor was only a liquor store away but every time he made an attempt to walk into the store, he remembered drinking was what got him in this situation in the first place.
Then there was Faith.
If it weren’t for what Jennifer had done, he wouldn’t even be worried. His current wife hadn’t made any outrageous demands on him or his time. She wasn’t depleting his bank account or demanding anything from him. So far, his marriage to Faith was perfect. He was free to do as he wished and he got to keep every penny of his money. The only downside he saw was the fact he wasn’t getting laid. A month and he hadn’t even kissed a girl. It wasn’t like the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. It had. Daily. But every time he seriously thought about taking someone to his bed, he thought of Faith and found himself making up some lame excuse before hiding inside his room, alone. He realized then that Faith had ruined him and he spent a week trying to bed the first girl he saw but found the task nearly impossible. He turned down every woman he saw. They were too tall, or too blonde, wore too much make-up or had blue eyes. The minute he decided to just close his eyes and go for it, out of nowhere, a little voice in the back of his head asked—would his little bundle of sunshine hate him for fucking someone else when he was married to her? Probably. The thoughts of her with someone else left him feeling edgy and ready to lash out at the first thing he came into contact with so why wouldn’t she feel the same way?
Maybe she isn’t as hung up on you as you are her?
He scowled at his thoughts. Four weeks since he’d seen her and he still could not stop thinking about her. She haunted his dreams and every morning he woke with a hard-on and her name on his lips. He felt anxious most days and every night left him in restless fits of sleep. How the hell could she have wormed her way into his heart so quickly? Hell, he didn’t even know her! But damn him if he didn’t want her. Question was, did she want him? There was nothing to tell him she wanted him for the long run other than her not signing those papers and that gave him a little hope, but hope for what? What did he really want? Not to stay married, that was for sure. How could he? The only taste of married life he’d had still left a bitter tang in his mouth. Marriage didn’t agree with him but a few conjugal visits or ten did. He smiled. That idea was worth exploring.
Maybe he could go visit her, slake his raging hormones on her luscious little body and get her to sign the papers … or stay married to her.
He sighed.
Why did that crazy notion always pop up? What was he even thinking? He didn’t even know the girl. How could he even entertain the thoughts of staying married to her? He shouldn’t be. But he was.
You need to see her while you’re sober. When you see first hand that she isn’t the tiny little goddess you remember her being, the desire to stay married will go away.
“I need to go see her,” he said, opening his eyes. “Find out what she wants.” And spending a few days working off the tension from the tour wouldn’t hurt anything, either. He could have his fun, get her completely out of his system, and then get her to sign the divorce papers. Easy enough.
“You may have no other choice,” Roxy said. “Since she hasn’t asked for anything, there’s nothing I can do. Have you tried calling her?”
“Yeah,” he said. “The number Jessi gave me isn’t working and there’s no other listing for her or her family.”
“Well, I suggest you plan a trip to Georgia, then. We have a break before we head to Europe. It’s the only time you have to convince her to sign those papers.”
He nodded his head, already playing out their meeting inside his head. He’d show up and Faith would be so excited to see him, she’d jump him right where he stood. He hid a smile and grabbed his cell phone. “Any idea where Christian and Jessi are?” he asked.
“Locked up in their room last I heard.”
Mick grinned and dialed Christian’s number anyway. “That boy is going to break something off he’ll need later in life if he doesn’t slow down.”
Roxy laughed and stood up. “Well, you’re the one who created the little sex fiend. If his junk falls off, it’ll be on your conscience.”
To his surprise, Christian answered on the third ring. “Yeah.”
“I’m headed to Georgia to talk to Faith. Ask Jessi if she could help me find somewhere to stay while I’m there.” He waited and heard Jessi’s voice faintly in the background.
“She wants to know why you’re going.”
Mick rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. “Because I’m going to go see why Faith didn’t sign the divorce papers,” he said. “I’ll need somewhere to stay while I’m there. I’m not going to assume it’ll be as simple as asking her to sign them and her doing it. We already did that once and she refused.”
“She refused?”
“Yeah. Roxy got a call from Faith’s lawyer this morning. Faith refuses to sign the papers.” Christian and Jessi carried on a quiet conversation for several minutes and Mick’s frustration level grew by the second. Why Jessi still thought he was going to hurt Faith was beyond him. The girl had barely wanted to give him Faith’s phone number and now him going to see her was apparently going to be a problem.
The fragmented conversation he could hear through the phone continued for several minutes and Mick was clenching his teeth until Christian spoke again.
“Jessi said the only place she knows of is a Bed and Breakfast in town, if its still there.”
“Can she find out?”
“Yeah. She’s looking it up now.”
“Great. Call me the minute you find something out.” He hung up and called Curt, asking for the exact date of their break. When at last he knew when he’d see Faith again, he breathed a sigh of relief. Five more weeks and he would see her. Five more weeks until he got laid.
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Chapter 4
“This is it?” Mick asked, shocked. He walked to the front of the SUV and peered at what was supposed to be a town. A row of old buildings ran down the left hand side of the road they stood on, a train track on the other. A few people milled on the sidewalks in front of the stores and only a handful of cars littered the roads. The air was dry, dust covered everything in sight and he was almost positive he smelled cow shit.
“This is it,” Jessi said, grinning. “Welcome to the town of Barton. Population, 198.”
“This is where you grew up?” Christian asked, glancing down Main Street.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s the epitome of small town USA.”
“Where’s the rest of it?” Roxy asked.
“There isn’t any more,” Jessi said. “Well, not of town, that is.”
“You’re shitting me,” Mick laughed. “Hell, I can spit further than this stretch of road.”
Jessi grinned and pulled her hair back, pulling it up into a ponytail to get it off her neck. “It’s mostly farmland and I wasn’t joking when I said I lived in a small town.”
“I believe you now,” Devin said.
Mick shook his head and looked down the road in both directions. Somewhere in
this little piss-hole town was his girl. He held back a smile and said, “All right, enough of the tour. Where’s the place we’re staying?”
“Just down the street,” Jessi said. “Fifth house down.” She pointed down the road to the houses that lined the street beyond where they stood. “It’s the three-story blue one. You can’t miss it.”
Mick nodded his head and turned, looking behind him. The town wasn’t even marked on the map they’d used to navigate the roads from the airport a hundred miles away. The wide-open expanse of land he’d seen rolling in an ocean of green hills and valleys was so far from what he’d ever seen he couldn’t do anything but stare dumbly at it as they made their way here. Jessi had pointed out landmarks on the drive over but the others had sat in silence, watching the scenery with stunned silence. The homes dotted along the road were in poor condition, the fields looked hearty and the land was green and every person they passed on the road had a warm smile for them.
The residents of Barton were beginning to notice them and had started to stop and gape at them as they stood by the SUV. Mick could tell by their curious looks they hadn’t seen anyone like them before. The whole band came with him for various reasons and the large black SUV they pulled up in looked out of place in a town so dull and covered with dust. He was sure their appearance didn’t help matters either. Rock stars didn’t exactly blend in with their surroundings. They stood out no matter where they went.
“The diner is the last building if anyone is hungry,” Jessi said. “They have the best food in town and I’m not sure what time supper will be served at the Inn.”
“The diner is the only food, you mean,” Devin said, looking up and down the street. “This place is a ghost town.”
“It’s not the only restaurant. The Jody Burger is out by the highway but Helen’s is where most everyone goes unless you’re under the age of twenty.”
“Well, as hungry as I am, I just want to lay down,” Luke said. “I can eat later. Let’s head to the Inn and come back later for food.”
“Go on ahead,” Mick said. “I’m going to take a look around.” And see if I can find Faith. He left them on the street and started across the road, the people standing on the sidewalk watching him as he walked toward them.
