Married at Midnight

by Gerri Russell

  When Ellie accepted the glass and brought it to her lips, Blue Elvis turned to Connor and offered him the same concoction. Connor didn’t hesitate; he stepped aside, allowing the others to enter as he knocked the glass’s contents back. He would try just about anything to greet this moment with a clearer head.

  Blue Elvis remained beside Connor, while the other three removed the warming lids from the breakfast tray. Instantly the smell of bacon and maple syrup curled in the air.

  “What is all this? Did we have the foresight to order breakfast last night when we can’t remember much else?” Connor asked, surprised his stomach didn’t lurch. Instead, it grumbled.

  “Oh, no, young man. You had only one thing on your mind last night after we brought you both back to this room,” White Elvis said, smiling like a satisfied cat.

  Gold Elvis turned to a blushing Ellie and took her now-empty glass. “We were so honored the two of you asked us to be in your wedding that we wanted to come over today and make sure everything was all right.”

  “It was a beautiful ceremony,” White Elvis said with a flourish of his hand that sent the red gussets in his sleeves flapping. “You two were insistent that the wedding begin at midnight.” Glancing at Ellie, he said, “And all the little touches you added, like the crystals you laced through the flowers on the wedding bower, and the rose petals you arranged on the floor leading up to the altar, turned your wedding into a real classy event.”

  The color in Ellie’s cheeks faded, and she swayed on her feet.

  Rather than let her fall to the floor, Connor drew Ellie against his side, tucking his arm about her waist. She didn’t resist.

  Gold Elvis reached inside his jacket and removed a thin stack of photos. “Here’s the proof. Your commemorative Elvis pics.”

  The man handed the pictures to Ellie. Connor looked on as she flipped through the evidence of their union.

  Her face paled, and she stepped out of Connor’s embrace. “We got married at the Chapel of Burning Love on Las Vegas Boulevard?”

  “You were a handsome couple,” Red Elvis said, drawing out the words.

  “How did we get our wedding clothes?” she asked, her voice thin.

  “The chapel has dresses, tuxes, flowers, and rings right there. The two of you only took a few minutes deciding. It appeared you were in a hurry to get down that aisle,” Red Elvis said with a hearty laugh.

  “I stood in as your Elvis of honor,” Gold Elvis said, giving her a shy look as he took Ellie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “’Twas truly an honor.”

  Blue Elvis handed Connor an official-looking piece of paper from the cart. It was a wedding license bearing his own signature right next to what he assumed was Ellie’s. “If you still need proof about what transpired between you and Ellie, here it is.”

  Ellie remained perfectly still, her face as pale as Connor had ever seen. But he didn’t miss the temper building in the depths of her brown eyes.

  “As a licensed minister, I married you two,” Red Elvis continued proudly.

  “Why would I do any of this?” Ellie asked as her temper suddenly broke free. “The most important day of my life, a day I’ve dreamed about since I was twelve.” Her pitch rose with every word. “And I married him, of all people, in a themed chapel in Vegas with Elvis as my bridesmaid?” She threw the pictures of their wedding on the breakfast tray.

  “Why are you the one who’s pissed?” Connor objected as Ellie headed past him through the door.

  All four of the older men looked stricken. “We didn’t mean to upset either of you,” Red Elvis said as Connor rushed past him.

  “I told you we should have waited,” Blue Elvis muttered. “Hangovers tend to make people less rational.”

  Ellie kept moving down the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Connor asked, following her to the elevators in his bare feet. He reached for her arm, then stopped himself.

  She punched the “Call” button before turning to face him. Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ve got to figure this out. Why would I marry you? Why would you marry me?”

  This time he didn’t hold back. He reached for her, gently placing his hand on her wrist. “We need to figure this out. Together.”

  The elevator doors opened. She stepped inside. “You and I have caused each other enough pain already. What we need to figure out is how to get divorced in Vegas as quickly as we got married.” The doors shut, leaving Connor to stare at his reflection in the shiny metal.

  Get divorced? He hadn’t even come to terms with the fact they were married, and she was talking about divorce? He shook his head at the odd thought. Of course she wanted to be rid of him every bit as much as he wanted to be rid of her. He did want to be rid of her, right?

  Connor made his way back to Ellie’s room. As soon as he pulled on his socks and shoes, he’d go after her. In the past, Ellie would have returned to the place where they’d started down this path. The woman he’d confronted this morning would no doubt do the same, searching for a reason or a memory that might help her understand why they’d married.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Connor walked through the open hotel room door to find all four Elvises standing right where he’d left them near the breakfast cart. Each held one of the pictures of his and Ellie’s wedding in their hands.

  White Elvis looked up and gave Connor a sad smile. “We’ve seen a lot of couples come through our chapel. You two seemed genuine about tying the knot forever.”

  Connor moved past them, searching for his socks and shoes, finding them under the bed. He should probably change out of the tuxedo he wore, but all his other clothes were in his own room somewhere in this gigantic hotel. He’d look ridiculous wearing a tuxedo at ten o’clock in the morning. But then again, in Vegas pretty much anything was acceptable at any time of day. “Sorry, guys. I need to leave.”

  Blue Elvis smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You’re going after her, aren’t you?”

  Before Connor could answer, his cell phone chimed. He withdrew the device from the pocket of his pants. He looked at the screen, hoping it was Ellie even though he had no idea if she knew his cell number. Maybe they’d exchanged them last night along with all the other things neither of them could remember.

  Instead of Ellie, his father’s phone number appeared on the screen. Why would his dad call him now? He knew he’d be busy with the trials for his self-driving car. Or at least he would have been had the onboard computer not failed.

  Connor answered the call even though he had no time to talk. “Hey, Dad. Can I call you back in an hour?”

  “No time for that.” His father’s voice vibrated with urgency.

  A cold chill slithered down Connor’s spine. “What’s wrong?”

  “Your grandmother Viola had a heart attack last night. Things don’t look good,” Clark Grayson informed his son somberly. “She’s headed into bypass surgery this morning and asked to see her only grandson when she wakes up. Please come home. Your grandmother needs you.”

  Connor took a steadying breath. There was no time for emotion. He could fall apart later. Right now his grandmother needed him. “I’ll be there as soon as I can catch the next plane, Dad. Tell Grandmother I’ll see her soon.”

  “Everything okay?” Red Elvis asked when Connor ended the call.

  “I’ve got to go.” Connor looked around in a daze for a moment until it dawned on him that he was still in Ellie’s room. “Ellie,” Connor said, her name booming in the silence that had fallen.

  He had to get to the airport. He also had to go after his temporary bride.

  “Can we help at all?” Red Elvis asked. “Sounds like something at home isn’t quite right.”

  “My grandmother had a heart attack. I need to get back to Seattle.” Connor said the words, but his mind was already working on how to be in two places at once and how to deal with this awkward situation with Ellie.

  He heard the four Elvises mumble something to one another as he hurriedly pulled
on his socks and slammed his feet into his shoes. The last conversation he’d had with his grandmother before he’d left for Las Vegas played through his mind. She’d teased him, saying, “I want to live long enough to see you settled down.”

  In that moment, he felt a quiver of hope as a crazy plan began to take shape.

  Marriage was important to Viola. She’d be so happy to know he’d married. It was all she ever talked about when Connor visited her every Sunday. What if . . . he really was married? Maybe that would give his grandmother something to live for. He’d heard stories of people overcoming the greatest odds if they had a strong enough incentive.

  But what about Ellie? Could he convince her to fly back to Seattle with him? And then would she pose as his bride until his grandmother either recovered enough to handle the news that they would divorce or until she . . . Connor couldn’t finish the thought.

  His grandmother would live. That was the only eventuality he would focus on. And he was willing to do anything to see that happen, even if it meant staying tied to the one woman he’d vowed never to let into his life again.

  Lenny, George, Ernie, and Aaron waited in silence for Connor to leave the room. The moment he did, Lenny wilted onto the bed even though he knew his red costume clashed with the gold bedspread. You never knew when a photo op would occur, and he was usually hyperaware of putting himself to his best advantage. At the moment, though, he didn’t really care. “Oh dear, not Viola.”

  George paled, suddenly serious as his cheeks took on a similar pallor to the white costume he wore. “Our girl is sick.”

  “She’s not our girl anymore,” Aaron interjected, though worry hung in his words. “I wish she was.”

  “She’ll always be our girl,” Ernie said with a sigh.

  “You’re right,” the others agreed.

  Lenny’s thoughts moved to the past. Along with Viola, the five of them had been a late-night lounge act in the 1950s at the Sands Hotel alongside entertainment greats such as Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Judy Garland.

  The two years they were together had been the best of their lives. Then in an unexpected turn of events, Viola quit the group to marry a man she’d met the week before. The four of them had continued on as a musical act, but nothing was ever the same without Viola.

  It wasn’t until 1977 when Elvis Presley died that the four of them truly bounced back—this time as Elvis impersonators. Viola had stayed in touch and was thrilled that they’d made a comeback in the entertainment world. Yet not one of them had married, as each only had a place in his heart for one girl: Viola.

  Lenny pushed back his fear. He had to be strong for all of them—including Viola. “Remember that song Viola used to sing . . . ‘Nothing’s Going to Keep Me from You’?”

  Ernie’s lips pulled up in a sentimental smile. “That was her signature song.”

  “When she wrote that song, she wrote it for all of us, for everything we were together,” Lenny reminded his friends.

  “You’re right,” George agreed in an unusually serious voice. “Viola will be okay. She has to be, especially now that we finally helped her get her heart’s desire.”

  “I don’t know,” Aaron said with an Elvis shake of his false black hair. Beneath that wig he was the baldest of the bunch. “Ellie didn’t look too happy about her current situation. I heard her say the word divorce before the elevator closed.”

  George stomped his foot, sending the red gusset in his white pant leg flapping. “Connor’s marriage can’t end that way. What happened here in Vegas between them . . . it has to mean something.”

  Lenny looked at the men around him, his gaze going from face to face. “Ellie and Connor may need our help realizing what they’ve been given. We owe it to Viola.”

  If there was anything the four of them liked better than impersonating Elvis, it was helping the misguided find their way. Lenny’s heart beat a little faster. The cold that had settled inside him in response to the news of Viola’s condition faded, replaced by an overflowing warmth that filled the corners of his aging soul.

  Aaron tugged at the edge of his blue jacket as a flicker of pain crossed his face. “Viola’s been on her own for a long time now.”

  “She won’t be alone any longer. We have a new mission, my friends. We’re going to Seattle. We’ll make sure Viola knows we’re near, but we’ll also make certain our newlyweds don’t make a mistake they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.”

  Ernie plunged his hands into the pockets of his gold lamé jacket. “We can’t force them to stay together.”

  Lenny narrowed his gaze. “Who said anything about force?”

  “Have you learned nothing from playing Elvis for almost forty years?” George wiggled his bushy brows. “Some things aren’t meant to die.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Lenny exclaimed as they strode out of the hotel room and toward the elevator with their Elvis personas once again in place.

  Because of traffic on the Las Vegas Strip, the drive to the Chapel of Burning Love seemed to take forever. Connor parked his rental car around the back of the small white building. As he walked along the sidewalk to the arched front doors, the building suddenly seemed vaguely familiar.

  Memories tiptoed across his mind as he stepped into the foyer. He remembered sweeping Ellie off her feet and carrying her across the threshold. He’d had no idea which threshold he was supposed to carry her over, so he’d carried her over every single one from the chapel to the hotel to her hotel room.

  And he remembered her smile. At the start of their evening together as they took that first drink of tequila, her smile had been too stiff to be real, too forced. She hadn’t been pleased to see him, and he knew he certainly hadn’t wanted to see her despite their paths crossing once again.

  It was what he’d seen in her eyes after the second and third shots of tequila that had made him stay in the chair beside her—her desperate loneliness, her fragile self-worth. Those emotions had echoed in his own soul, had helped him set aside their past for the moment as he offered her his hand for a dance.

  Shaking his head to clear the memory, Connor stepped through the chapel doorway. He found Ellie in the small room, sitting at the altar, staring at a wooden bower covered in artificial white roses and strands of crystals where they’d said their vows.

  His heart hammered in his chest as he approached her, as he remembered the way she’d looked at him last night. The way her gaze had connected with his. The way her false smile faded as a real one took its place.

  At the altar he stopped and waited for her to register his presence. Slowly she turned toward him. He released his breath, not realizing he’d been holding it.

  “How did you know where to find me?” she asked with a fleeting smile. Definitely not the same one as last night.

  “It was the only logical place,” he replied, searching for a way to ask what he needed to ask.

  “I still can’t figure it out . . . why did we get married?” Ellie asked quietly.

  “We can blame it on the tequila. Or we can spend a little time figuring out the reasons,” he replied, moving closer to her.

  “You want to figure out why we got married?” she asked, not quite meeting his eyes.

  “Don’t you?”

  Ellie looked back at the wedding bower. It was a long minute before she spoke again, and when she did, her voice was strained. “I used to believe in happily ever after. I’m not sure I do anymore.”

  Connor frowned as he sat down beside her. “You’re a wedding planner.” He remembered at least that much of their conversation last night. “Isn’t believing in such things a requirement for you?”

  “I’m an event planner. I do more than weddings.” She turned back to him but didn’t meet his gaze. “Even so, I’ve planned so many weddings for other people that were exquisite—a fantasy come true for the bride and groom. Some of those couples are still together; some aren’t. It’s the ones who focused on their lives after the wedding an
d not on the wedding itself that made it as a couple.”

  “You had a fantasy wedding,” Connor said. “It’s not every day that Elvis marries a couple.”

  Ellie screwed up her face. “I’m pretty sure that happens in Vegas every day, especially in this chapel. Or do you not remember our wedding photos?”

  “I remember.” He allowed silence to slip between them before he continued. “The fact is, we are married. And before we do anything to change that state, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?” she asked. Her eyes filled with suspicion. “What could you possibly want from me?”

  “My father called me after you left the hotel. My grandmother has had a heart attack. She’s having surgery today. Even so, my father says her prognosis isn’t good. He asked me to come home quickly. In case she . . .” He couldn’t say the word.

  With concern in her eyes, Ellie faced him. “I’m so sorry, Connor. I only met your grandmother a few times, but I could tell she was someone special.”

  “Would you stay married to me for a little while longer?” he asked softly. He watched her face, waiting for a response. His heart beat a little faster. His palms grew damp. Time was of the essence here. He needed her to say yes.

  “Stay married? To you?”

  “Yes. Viola has said to me more than once that she wanted to live long enough to see me married. I can’t let her down.” He took Ellie’s hands in his own. “Will you come back to Seattle with me as my bride for my grandmother’s sake? Let’s pretend we’re happy together, at least while my grandmother recovers. Once she’s better, I’ll give you the divorce you want.” He couldn’t let his grandmother die without her at least believing he had found his one and only—like she had found his grandfather. If she recovered, he would find a way to explain what he’d done to try to keep her alive.