Hustled To The Altar

by Dani Collins

  “She’s not a hooker,” Spencer said.

  “Is there an epidemic of bad reporting where Con Burke is concerned? Because maybe he should stop blaming the reporters.”

  “Trust me, she’s not a hooker. You can ask her.”

  “No, I want to talk to Felix. I want to know where he’s going and what his M.O. is.”

  “He’s with Renny. She’ll be at the hotel.” He waved the pink slip he still held.

  It was tempting. She glanced into the rear-view mirror to consult with Murphy. “What do you think?”

  “Do whatever you want.”

  “What about Felix?”

  “I’ll watch for him,” Murphy promised.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a lot of faith in your ability to keep an eye on Felix.”

  “You’re not exactly batting a thousand there, either,” Murphy drawled.

  “Fine,” Laila said to Spencer. “I’ll give her ten minutes.”

  3:42 p.m.

  Mr. Laramie, ever the efficient manager, was waiting for Renny when she pulled up in front of the hotel. He took the Spitfire keys rather than allowing her to give them to the valet.

  “Mr. Burke asked me to keep the car ready. He’s waiting for you,” Mr. Laramie said.

  “Oh.” Renny had no idea what that meant and started into the hotel, then paused and said, “Mr. Laramie, about Con buying the hotel . . . .”

  “I told Mr. Burke I haven’t heard from Head Office yet and he said something else may have came up anyway.”

  “Right.” Was it wrong to feel profound relief? “I’ll just go up, then. Is Jacob there, too?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  Terrific. Intermission was over and act three of the opera could begin.

  She stalled once more by asking Mr. Laramie to arrange a room for Spencer, should he show up. If Darla gave him the message. Renny hadn’t had time to fork over her credit card again to ensure the woman would do it. She hadn’t had time to stick around and find out what Spencer had been doing with Laila Washington, either. Geez, she had expected the day before her wedding to be hectic, but this was ridiculous.

  The wedding. Her stomach knotted up and she considered losing herself in the crowds of people cluttering the lobby, but her feet, guided by her conscience, stepped onto the first available elevator.

  She didn’t notice the press of bodies as she contemplated the dream wedding that was further away now than it had been eight hours ago. But was it? Jacob seemed willing to forgive her tussle with Con. And he might have been in collusion with Mona, but her gut told her both of he and Mona genuinely cared about her. A girl could do worse. The real question was, how did he feel about her now that Con had yanked open her closet full of skeletons?

  Con. Oh, how she wished she could send him to Europe. She was quite sane and normal when he wasn’t around to drag her into grand adventures and confuse her with his we’re so good together siren song. If she tried, she doubted she could come up with a way for today to get any worse.

  The elevator pinged as it came to rest on the top floor. Apprehensively, she walked to the suite door and opened it. “Con? Jacob? I’m back.”

  Walking into the room was like walking into one of the boutiques on the main strip. Colors and shapes assaulted her. Luggage, she realized, as she absorbed the chaos with a glance. Her initial surprise softened to indulgent amusement. This bizarre clutter was so Con. It was one of the things she loved most about hi—

  Oh, hell. She still loved him.

  It was like being three spaces from winning and hitting the chute that took her marker all the way back to square one, where she landed on her butt. Hard.

  Okay, this was definitely worse than five minutes ago. The inside of her chest hurt and pressure built behind her eyes. Carefully she slipped off her shoes, bracing herself against the sofa back because she felt so shaky. No, no, no, she was screaming inside, I don’t want to love him. I want to love Jacob. He’s easy and undemanding. He wants to get married.

  Jacob stood on the other side of the sofa, a leather satchel in his hand. He dropped it self-consciously.

  At the bar, Con popped the cork off a bottle of champagne and smiled. “Hello, cookie. Where ya been? Where’s your jewelry?”

  “In my purse. I went to the health mine to meet Felix. I used your car.”

  “I noticed. How is it?”

  “Fine.” She nudged aside a gray polyester shoulder bag that lay near her feet, took a few more steps into the room, then paused because her knees didn’t want to hold her.

  She loved him and he knew she had a nasty past and that’s why he hadn’t wanted to marry her. Ouch.

  “It’s not being towed or repaired or searched by the police?” Con asked.

  “No.” A cowhide belly-bag, tackier than her behavior today, caught her eye. She picked it up and tried all the zippers. “Mona would love this.”

  “Hear that, Jake? When Renny borrows my car, she brings it back. Hand this to her, will you?” Con leaned out with a wide, shallow glass.

  “Problem with the Jag?” Renny asked.

  “It broke down,” Jacob said as he relayed her glass. “Con couldn’t find tall flutes,” he added, as if that crime equaled Jacob’s entrusting a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car to a small-town mechanic. He was such a fuddy-duddy.

  She couldn’t marry him, she realized. She liked him, but she didn’t love him.

  Profound relief eased through her despite all the trouble she was about to cause. Mona would have to be notified. All the plans would have to be halted. It was going to be an enormous mess, but Renny pushed all that to the back of her mind as she focused on what had to be done right now. She needed to offer Jacob an apology and a sincere wish that there be no bad feelings between them. And she would return his ring. Yes, returning his ring would be the right thing to do. She had failed to live up to his vision of her; the least she could do was end their relationship with dignity.

  Bubbles from the champagne bounced over the rim of the glass and pecked her wrist as she wondered how she was going to get the ring back from Con and then get rid of him so she could break up with Jacob in private.

  “Want to know what we’re celebrating?” Con asked.

  Jacob glanced at Con with uncertainty.

  Con handed a second glass to Jacob and poured one for himself.

  “A new game idea, I assume.” Renny turned around slowly, taking in the duffels, suitcases, attachés and carry-on baggage littering the room. Made of suede, nylon and shiny faux patent leather, they were stacked on the sofas, tumbled on the floor, leaning against chair legs and hanging off of doorknobs.

  She bit back a smile, finding his chaos exhilarating.

  Jacob, on the other hand, held his champagne like it was a baggie of dog poop.

  Another wave of amused understanding rolled over her, along with a pang of despair. If not today, she would have disillusioned Jacob very soon. She would have grown bored or he would have seen too much of her personality. They weren’t right for each other at all.

  She dreaded the awkward conversation to come, but tried to make him more comfortable. “Welcome to Con’s world, Jacob. He gets an idea for a game and this is what happens. What is it?” she asked Con. “Something to do with travel? Finding a spy? Or do the bags nest one inside the other? I know. A scavenger hunt, right? No?”

  “Renny.” Con smiled fondly and stepped over a carpetbag so he could cup her chin in his hand. His touch made her pulse trip. “You always say you don’t have the imagination for inventing games, but you’re a natural.” He kissed her lips, brief and hard, and let his hand linger at the side of her neck.

  That had tasted like good-bye. Her heart stalled with uneasiness.

  “Those are interesting ideas I’ll explore later,” he continued, “but, no, these aren’t part of a game idea. They’re my wedding gift to you and Jacob.”

  Her mouth, still damp and tingling from his kiss, dropped open while her stomach dropped onto the paisley-pri
nt drawstring bag tickling her ankle.

  Con seemed to force his grin.

  She stared at that grin for a long minute, feeling like a victim of a classic bait and switch. What had happened to the guy who had been jealous? Oh, why did she ever listen to a single word this man said?

  “See, Jake? I told you she’d be excited. I talked to him,” Con lowered his voice to add. “Totally smoothed over your misspent youth. He’s keen to get married anyway.” He tapped his cheek. “A kiss here will be thanks enough.”

  Aside from his yanking her feelings every which way from Sunday, she didn’t need his help patching up a relationship she was trying to sever, thanks. She wanted to toss her champagne into his face.

  “Obviously we don’t need all these bags on our honeymoon,” Jacob said. “Unless you’re planning to do a lot of shopping?”

  Trembling with hurt and anger, Renny brushed past Con, making sure to bump his arm on her way by.

  He jerked from the champagne that sloshed over the rim of his glass. “Hey!”

  Yup, she was ending her engagement with dignity, all right. Fighting for a neutral tone, she said to Con, “I need Jacob’s ring back.”

  Con looked surprised.

  Jacob’s head came up and a cautious smile warmed his expression.

  Oh, man. When Con had said Jacob was still keen to get married, she had assumed good manners had prevented Jacob from telling Con he’d rather submit to a full body wax in the town square. Jacob didn’t really want to marry her. He couldn’t.

  His hopeful expression told her he did.

  Oh, Con, she mentally groaned.

  “The ring? Of course.” Con frowned and dug in his shirt pocket.

  She held out her hand.

  He took his time picking his way around a rainbow of briefcases to bring it to her, then handed it over with something like reluctance.

  It didn’t feel right to slide it on properly, so she kept it curled in the first knuckle of her index finger.

  Con stared at her hand.

  “Problem?” she asked.

  “No.” Con excelled at poker because he bluffed so very well, but she sensed he wasn’t entirely pleased with the reconciliation he had arranged.

  Then why was he doing it? She didn’t know what Con was up to with the re-arranged marriage, but it felt an awful lot like a repeat of his rejection when she had asked him to marry her. Turning her mind from that fracture of her soul, she made a shooing motion.

  “What?” Con asked.

  “I’d like some privacy with Jacob.”

  “For what?”

  “Don’t be dense.”

  “I’m so relieved,” Jacob said. “Con said you would still want to marry me, but I wasn’t sure. I’m so glad you feel the way I do. Con said we can take the Spitfire.” Jacob found her purse and set her shoes out so she could step into them, head cocked hopefully like a dog that had just heard “walkies.”

  Con looked from Renny to the shoes Prince Charming was placing just so. What was with that guy and feet, anyway? And what was with Renny’s hurry? Con had been sure she would argue to stay and finish conning Felix. Her quick detachment from the game was almost as big a blow as her quick re-attachment to that putz holding the purse.

  Two minutes ago, her safety had been his primary motivation. He’d told himself that sending her back to Greenbowl with Jacob was the best way to accomplish that, but in the back of his mind, he had also thought sending her off with Jacob would somehow alleviate this oppressive emotion, love, that was compressing his lungs. The opposite was happening, though. She had curled her finger around Jacob’s ring and he had felt the bottom drop out of his gut.

  “What about Felix?” he heard himself ask and wanted to bite out his tongue. He had better discipline than this.

  With the flair for drama that he absolutely adored in her, she poured a fresh glass of champagne and lifted it to speak grandly against the rim. “Felix . . . is in.”

  The smug sweep of her eyelashes, the tilt of her chin and the energy that crackled off her like an electrical charge captivated him. Con took a mental photograph. That was her, the woman he loved. He couldn’t believe he was encouraging her to take off with the Moron from Minneapolis.

  Couldn’t believe she was going.

  A completely uncharacteristic tug of war pulled between his mind and his heart.

  “So Felix is in. Good girl. You’d better tell me what you planned before you take off with Jake.” There. Good. Keep her safe, get her out of town, deal with Felix and his thugly friends alone.

  “I plan to get him arrested.” Renny set down her glass.

  Here came the argument. Okay, nice to know he did know her, after all. Normally he would thrill to the challenge, but he also had the sense of a clock ticking on his ability to withstand a drawn out good-bye. Just get her in the car, Burke. Get it over with.

  “Con seems fairly bright. I’m sure he can handle it alone.” Jake moved toward her and urged her with a hand at the small of her back to come with him.

  Seeing Jake touch Renny made the tight feeling in Con’s vitals spread upward, putting tension in his chest. He didn’t want her meeting the Mountain of Muscle, though, so she had to go straight back to Gran’s.

  With Jacob. And Jacob’s ring.

  The pressure in his chest climbed higher to burn his throat. He couldn’t live with this kind of discomfort. The sooner she was gone, the sooner he’d quit obsessing about her. Con moved forward to hook his arm around her shoulders, easing her away from Jacob, steering her toward the door. Oh, man, did she feel good against him.

  “Cookie, I feel responsible for this whole mess,” he said, hearing a crack in his voice. He cleared his throat. “I never should have dragged you and Jake up here. You have things to do and I want you to go back to Gran’s to do them.” Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

  She narrowed her eyes like she knew it, too, making him shift uncomfortably.

  “Sugar, Jake is blind in love with you and he wants to get on with the life you planned. Right, Jake? You’re not about to wait around while she wastes time with her silly ex-boyfriend, are you? You expect her to leave with you now or not at all, right, Jake?” It actually hurt to speak.

  “I’m not usually one to issue ultimatums—”

  “Work with me, Jake. I’m trying to help you out here.” Jacob was a certifiable knot-head and Con felt like he was committing emotional suicide. It was necessary, he reminded himself, even if he was losing sight of the reason why.

  “He’s right about my being blind with love,” Jake said to Renny. “I don’t care what you did in the past, but I do feel strongly that you should leave with me now, rather than pursue that life again, even for a day.”

  Renny checked her watch, took her purse and slipped on her shoes.

  “You’re staying here,” she said to Con, motioning to the floor of the suite, more statement than question.

  Con watched Jacob hold the door for Renny, watched him follow her through it, and felt like his chest wall had been opened up and every possible good feeling was spilling into the wind, leaving a chill and a big, fat, hollow nothing. But he was fixated on his goal, on winning the game. Winners sacrificed one thing to gain another; winners had the discipline to remain composed when the stakes rose beyond their comfort level. He was going to behave like a winner, not like a man in love.

  “I’ll walk you to the car,” he blurted out, catching up to the lovebirds in the hallway. Buzzers and defeated groans went off in his head.

  “Not necessary,” Renny insisted, hurrying down the hall, painfully obvious in her desire to ditch him.

  He might have let her if Jacob’s ring hadn’t still been sitting on the knuckle of her index finger as she pushed the call button for the elevator.

  His heart rate picked up as he scanned for other clues that might give him an edge. An edge on what, he wasn’t sure. His goals, so well defined minutes ago, were splintering into a hundred thousand possibilities and he was struggl
ing to realign them, to figure out how everything fit together. To figure out where he wanted to go and how to get there.

  The elevator was crowded. Normally that wouldn’t deter him from saying whatever was on his mind, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Within seconds, they were on the ground floor and people were pouring out and he was still reminding himself that letting her go would keep her safe, and marrying Jacob was her decision to make, not his, and letting her go was his only choice, even though it made him sick with anguish.

  But as Renny stepped out, Con instinctively caught her forearm and tugged her to a stop, opened his mouth and—

  Something bounced off his wrist.

  Renny stiffened with panic and shot out her hand.

  A spark of light glinted off the stone in Jake’s ring just before it dropped down the crack between the elevator and the lobby floor like a ball through a net-less hoop.

  People started forward, trying to get on the elevator, no one seeming to have noticed the ring but he and Renny.

  Con held the doors open and stepped out of the way while Renny stood on the other side of the open doors, her expression of disbelief flashing at him between the gaps in the streaming bodies.

  Con chuckled, feeling light-headed.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “Problem?” Jacob had moved out of the elevator with the rest of the crowd, but now came back to where Renny and Con side-stepped out of the elevator to let the doors slide closed.

  “No,” Renny said firmly and sent Con a warning glare. “But I need to speak to Mr. Laramie. Right now.”

  3:55 p.m.

  Spencer was given the kind of suite Con’s name always seemed to make available, full of simply styled but high-end furniture and fancy accessories the hotel managers weren’t afraid of losing—or rather, believed they could collect on, if inventory went missing. The lounge area had it all: a cozy conversation area in front of the fire, a short bar with a kitchenette behind it, an oak table with straight-backed chairs and a desk approximately a quarter mile wide with an ergonomic executive chair tucked beneath it. There was a king-sized bed in one bedroom, two doubles in the other and the sofa likely hid a bed. The suite would have slept eight—nine if someone wanted to curl up on the sheepskin in front of the gas fire. Nice, but overkill, since Spencer anticipated waiting here about an hour before heading back to Greenbowl.