by Lily Graison
“How’s my baby girl?”
“I’m fine, daddy,” Faith said, forcing a smile onto her face when he hugged her.
“You don’t look fine,” he said, pulling away from her and holding her at arms length. “You look a bit pale. Was the flight bumpy?”
“Aren’t they always?” she said.
He grinned. “Most of the time. Come on, we’ll find your luggage and get you home. Mabel has been at the house all morning cooking up a storm. No matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t get that woman out of our kitchen.”
“That’s cause she’s sweet on you,” Faith said, grinning as they walked toward the baggage carrousel.
“Pftt. Now don’t go spreading that rumor around,” he said. “Half the congregation has been trying to get me to court her. I don’t have the time or inclination for such things at my age.”
Faith laughed. “Daddy, you’re not too old to date and Mabel is a lovely woman.”
He raised an eyebrow at her and grinned.
“Okay,” Faith said. “So she’s ten years older than you and has more chins than you and me combined, but she’s sweet. And she can cook.”
“Having a sweet cook isn’t enough to make me want to marry a woman. Especially Mabel. She’s too bossy and tries too hard and no, before you even say it, her weight doesn’t bother me. It’s what is in a person’s heart that matters, not the exterior, but I’m not interested in remarrying.”
“The fact you just said that makes me believe you’re trying to convince yourself you aren’t sweet on her, too.”
“Don’t even start young lady.” He found her bags and lifted them from the carrousel, groaning at their weight. “What do you have in here?” he asked. “An Elvis impersonator?”
She laughed. “No. He wouldn’t fit. I brought you a showgirl instead.”
“Oh, I can see me explaining to the church come Sunday what I’m doing with a Vegas showgirl on the front pew.”
“Just tell them what you always do. ‘Brothers and sisters, pray with me and help this child find her way from the sin that’s corrupted her life!’”
He stopped and turned to look at her, giving her that look that said she was getting too sassy for her own good. “I can already tell that trip has ruined you. I should have sent Jacob along to chaperone.”
Faith ducked her head and hoped he didn’t see how red her face was. She knew without being told her cheeks were glowing. She could feel them burning. “There wasn’t a reason for me to be chaperoned, daddy. I was a perfect angel.”
“And now I know you’re lying,” he said, grinning. “You’ll have to spend a week praying for your soul.”
A week? More like years, she thought with a grin. The things she’d done with Mick alone would buy her an express ticket to hell. She looped her arm through her father’s and laid her head on his arm as they walked out of the airport. “Don’t worry about me, daddy. My soul is perfectly safe,” she lied.
****
He was having a heart attack. He knew it as sure as the nose on his face. The pain in his chest grew, constricting until he felt dizzy and the room spun out of control. Someone was screaming and strong fingers were biting into his arm.
“Mick! Calm down, man. Look at me!”
Luke’s voice sounded miles away but the pressure on his arms increased until he finally looked down. The screaming stopped and he realized then it had been him making the noise.
The look on Luke’s face was one he’d never forget. He looked terrified. A glance around the room showed the same look on everyone’s face. They were all staring at him with a look of horrified fascination and curiosity. How long had he been screaming? How long since he’d seen…
“Breathe man. Nice even breaths.”
“His color doesn’t look so good,” Christian said. “He’s purple.”
“He’ll be fine if he just breathes,” Luke said, giving him a few shakes. “Come on, Mick. Take a breath.”
Mick did as told, the vice-like band of terror wrapping around his chest fading little by little. His breaths evened out and the room stopped spinning.
Christian and Devin were standing just behind Luke and he could see the girls by the bed. Curt and several security guards rushed into the room and he saw Roxy walk over to them, speaking in hushed tones before the room became deathly still.
“Sit down,” Luke said. “Devin, find something to cover him up with.”
He slid to the floor, his naked backside skipping along the wall until the carpet formed a solid cushion under him. A blanket was tossed over his lap and he wrapped it around his waist to hide his nudity from the girls.
“Here. Drink this.”
Mick looked up and took the glass from Christian. Water. Figures. What he needed was a bottle of whiskey. Maybe two. Getting real good and drunk was the only cure for the gut wrenching agony he felt.
“Better?” Luke asked.
He laughed. It was a small chuckle at first but grew until tears leaked from his eyes and he once again couldn’t breathe.
“Is he high?” Curt asked.
“No, he’s not,” Luke said, heatedly. “He doesn’t do that shit anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
“Man, if you aren’t here to help then get out.”
Luke turned back to Mick when Christian tried to get Curt out of the room and took the now empty glass from him. “Better?” he asked before saying, “What happened?”
What happened? Mick laughed again and said, “What the fuck didn’t happen?”
“Meaning?”
He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Flashes of memories came back to him in disjointed pictures. Meeting her for the first time in the hotel lobby, talking to her in the limo after the concert, fucking her damn near silly hours later and night after night of sneaking around. Only one night was a blur. Wednesday. He remembered asking her to meet him in the bar and her showing up looking sexy as hell. He remembered the casino and pushing her behind a tall potted plant in one of the lobbies and fucking her to a whimpering mess before….
He couldn’t remember. It was all a fuzzy haze after that.
“Mick? Come on man, talk to me.”
He opened his eyes and looked Luke dead in the face. “Kill me. If you’re my friend then just kill me. Do it quick. I’m so numb I’ll never feel it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Luke asked. “I’m not going to kill you. Now what happened?”
“I know,” Devin said.
Everyone turned to look at Devin. He was standing in the middle of the room reading the piece of paper in his hands. When he lifted his head, a smile so bright crossed his face, Mick wanted to slap him down.
“Someone has been a busy boy,” Devin said, looking down and waving the paper in his hands toward Mick’s face. “I hope like hell you took precautions this time, my friend.”
“I don’t even remember doing it,” Mick said, knowing what Devin held in his hand. “How the hell am I supposed to know if I took precautions?”
Devin laughed. “Then you’re screwed. You’re only hope now is that she isn’t a gold digger like the last one.”
“Who?” Luke said. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“This,” Devin said, holding the paper out to Luke. “Seems like Mick didn’t get enough of married life the first time. He’s gone and married another groupie.”
****
“The front desk says she checked out hours ago,” Jessi said.
“Does she have a cell phone?” Roxy asked.
Jessi shook her head. “No, not that I’m aware of.”
“Okay,” Roxy said, looking over at Mick. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”
Mick looked at Roxy over the top of his sunglasses and sighed. The sun wasn’t helping his hangover but the table on the pool deck was the only one large enough to sit them all and gave him the luxury of smoking, which he’d been doing non-stop since his paralyzing fear ha
d released his muscles and left him only slightly numb.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“I don’t remember ever sleeping with her,” he said, sarcastically. “I did a lot of other things though.”
“Was that night the only time you've been with her?”
He glanced at Faith’s best friend, Jessi. “No.”
“When was the first time?”
“The night of the concert.”
“You were sleeping with her all week?” Jessi asked, her eyes widening with shock.
He nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Every night this week,” he said. “I lost count after the first few days.”
“She didn’t say anything,” Jessi said. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Well, you weren’t exactly around for her to tell, now were you?” Mick said, giving a pointed look to Christian. “And she didn’t want me to say anything for some reason, so I didn’t.”
Jessi blushed and looked away.
“It doesn’t matter when or where,” Roxy said. “Do you remember actually marrying her?”
“No.”
“How can you not remember getting married?” Luke said.
“If you didn’t noticed,” Mick said. “I haven’t been exactly sober this week.” That fact alone should have been his warning bell. Past experience should have told him his luck was about to give out but like always, he never paid much attention to that little voice in the back of his head. No, he listened to the other. The head that pointed to the nearest wet hole that would let him close enough to sink into its warmth. Not remembering marrying Faith made the whole ordeal seem like a dream. Sure the girl was cute and sassy and he’d spent every minute of the past week either fucking her or thinking about fucking her but how had he gotten so blind drunk that he’d married her?
“Do you think she planned it?”
“No, she did not,” Jessi said, flashing a heated glare at Devin.
Devin held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just asking,” he said. “No one here knows Faith but you.”
“She’s not like that,” Jessi said. “She wouldn’t deliberately trap a man into marrying her. If anything, she’d fight it for as long as she could.”
“Why is that?”
Jessi snorted a laugh. “If you ever met her family, you’d know why.” Her eyes widened a moment later before she turned to look at Mick. “Oh man. Your death wish will be granted once they find out.”
Mick raised an eyebrow and leaned his head to one side. “Why is that?” he said. “They’re not like the Manson family, are they?
“Oh no,” Jessi said. “They’re the perfect, God fearing kind.”
“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, overprotective, 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.”
Three
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 its 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 t
hough, 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?”
