I Do, I Do...For Now (Harlequin Love and Laugher)

by JoAnn Ross

  Elvis turned toward him. “And do you, Mitchel Dylan Cudahy, take this woman, Sasha Mikhailova, for your lawfully wedded wife?”

  Her face, as she looked up at him, appeared concerned. Mitch straightened his spine and took a deep breath.

  “To love and to honor.” Little white spots began to dance in front of his eyes. “For richer or poorer.” Blinded by the sweat pouring from his brow, Mitch wiped his forehead with a quick swipe with the back of his hand. “In sickness and in health. For as long as you both shall live.”

  “I do,” Mitch managed.

  He’d barely croaked out the response before he pitched forward, landing facedown at Sasha’s feet.

  “Mitch!” As the King wrapped up the song to his movie bride, Sasha sank to her knees beside her groom. Heedless of the blood that was pouring from his nose, darkening his shirt, she gathered Mitch into her arms.

  Annie, apparently accustomed to nervous grooms passing out, calmly plucked the gladioli out of the vase, then tossed the water into Mitch’s face.

  Mitch sputtered, shaking his head like the ladder company’s Dalmatian who’d just had a fire hose turned on him.

  As he regained consciousness, he heard Elvis boomingly proclaim, “By the power invested in me by the State of Nevada—and the King of Rock and Roll—I now pronounce you husband and wife!”

  4

  “ARE YOU SURE you’re all right?” Sasha asked with concern as they walked out into the blinding sun.

  “I’m fine,” Mitch snapped from between clenched teeth. “Why wouldn’t I be? I was up nearly the whole damn night fighting a two-alarm blaze, I drove halfway across the damn desert, I practically maxed out my credit card to get married by some fat old Elvis impersonator and his crazy redheaded wife, and then, to top if off, I passed out and broke my nose.”

  “The doctor Elvis called to the chapel said it is not broken,” she reminded him quietly. Sasha had never seen Mitch so angry. Obviously he was already regretting this false marriage.

  “The guy was probably a quack,” Mitch growled as he opened the passenger door of the Mustang.

  Not wanting to risk angering him further by arguing that the doctor had seemed quite competent, Sasha didn’t answer. Every atom in his body was radiating with irritation as he came around the front of the red convertible, yanked open the door and flung himself into the bucket seat beside her.

  Tears stung behind her lids. Refusing to humiliate herself by crying again in front of him, Sasha bit her lip.

  He jammed the key into the ignition and turned it.

  Instead of the familiar purr of the engine coming to life, there was only a faint click.

  Mitch cursed.

  Then twisted the key again.

  Again, nothing.

  “Dammit!” He hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “This will definitely go down in history as the worst damn day of my life!”

  That did it!

  Sasha had tried to stay cheerful during the long drive to the desert gambling town, even when Mitch hadn’t bothered to say more than two gruff words to her.

  She’d ignored his less-than-enthusiastic response to a wedding, that while not exactly a fairy-tale dream caremony, was at least more colorful than the dreary civil procedure she’d been expecting.

  She hadn’t even complained about his blood stains all over her only decent suit.

  But to have him behave as if he was blaming her for his car not starting was the final straw!

  Bursting into the furious tears she’d tried to forestall, she flung open the passenger door and went marching off across the parking lot.

  “Aw, hell.” Mitch lowered his forehead to the steering wheel, ignoring the painful lump that was forming there. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, calling himself every kind of bastard, he took off after his bride.

  Despite her head start, Mitch quickly caught up with her and grabbed hold of her arm. “Dammit, Sasha—”

  “Let go of me!” She shook free and kept on walking.

  “Look, I’m sorry.”

  No answer.

  “It’s just that it’s been a lousy few days,” he tried again.

  “You think you have had bad days?” She spun around, her eyes shooting furious sparks. “Let me tell you, Mitch Cudahy—” she began, shoving her finger in his chest, then went off on a furious stream of Russian.

  Although he couldn’t understand a word she was shouting at him, Mitch suspected that she wasn’t being complimentary.

  “Would you mind very much speaking English so I at least understand you?”

  She glared at him. “This has not exactly been wonderful for me, either! I have been threatened with deportation by a dreadful man who would like nothing more than to send me back to Russia, made to believe that I’d been stood up at the altar when you did not arrive at the time you promised—”

  “I explained about that,” Mitch reminded her. “It wasn’t my fault that warehouse caught on fire ten minutes before the end of my shift. What was I supposed to do? Tell the captain that I was sorry, but I couldn’t climb on the damn truck because I had to get married?”

  She raised her chin haughtily. “I would appreciate it very much if you did not continually interrupt while I am speaking.”

  “I was just trying to make a point. And you’re not exactly speaking, sweetheart, you’re shouting.”

  Knowing he did not mean the word sweetheart as an endearment, Sasha let loose with another heated barrage of Russian.

  “And I am not shouting!” she finished in heavily accented English.

  Of course she was. Sasha paused and took a deep, calming breath.

  Watching her shoulders begin to shake, Mitch readied himself for another onslaught of feminine tears.

  “I am not shouting,” she said with a surprising giggle that lit up her eyes and moved something very elemental—and disconcerting—inside him. “I am a calm person. I never shout.”

  Mitch felt his own lips curving into a reluctant smile. “Of course you don’t. Just like I’m never in a bad mood.”

  Their individual anger cooled like flames bit with a stream of water from one of Mitch’s fire hoses. This time when he took hold of her hand, she did not pull away.

  “I’m sorry, Sasha. I overreacted.”

  “No,” she sighed, unhappy that she’d created such a scene when all he’d been trying to do was help, “it is I who should apologize. After all, you were kind enough to offer to marry me.”

  Mitch didn’t want to be reminded of his unfortunate tendency to rush into situations where any self-respecting angel would hesitate to tread.

  “How about we just start over?”

  “You want to go back and do our Elvis wedding again?” Her eyes twinkled with laughter, her smiling lips were full and inviting, suddenly reminding Mitch that by passing out, he’d missed the traditional ending to the wedding ceremony.

  Unfortunately, as memories of their earlier shared kiss flashed hotly through his mind, he decided kissing Sasha in a public parking lot was more of a risk than he was willing to take. Even in a town built on gambling.

  “We might as well get a hotel room,” he said. “Then I’ll call the auto club.”

  “A hotel room? But I thought you wanted to return to Phoenix right after the wedding.”

  “We can’t go anywhere until we get a new starter. It’s Sunday. There won’t be any place open that can put one in until tomorrow. Looks like we’re stuck here for the night.”

  “Oh.” The idea of spending the night in a hotel room with Mitch was as terrifying as it was thrilling. “This will cost more money, yes?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  With their fingers laced together, they walked back to the car, retrieved their things and walked to the hotel next door.

  “What do you mean, you’re all booked up?” Mitch asked incredulously.

  “Exactly that.” The man behind the registration desk shrugged. “All our rooms are taken.
”

  “Fine. We’ll just go to another hotel.”

  “Don’t think you’ll have much luck anywhere else,” the clerk said laconically. “There’s an international Shriner’s convention this weekend. And a championship boxing match at the Flamingo.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mitch assured Sasha as they walked out of the gilt and marble lobby into the blinding Nevada sunshine, “there’s got to be something available.”

  Thirty minutes later he was ready to concede defeat. “I’ll give you whatever you want if you will only find us a room,” he said, staggering up to the reception desk of the sixth hotel they’d tried.

  Sasha’s luggage, which had not seemed heavy in the beginning, now felt like a ton of bricks. “All my money, my credit cards, my firstborn child. Anything you ask for. It’s yours.”

  The sleek blonde behind the desk eyed Mitch with unsuppressed amusement. “You’re in luck. We’ve just had a cancellation.”

  “Bless you.” If the counter hadn’t been between them, Mitch would have kissed her. Right on her glossy pink lips.

  “A couple from Wichita booked the honeymoon suite six weeks ago,” the reservations clerk revealed. “Then apparently, they got in a fight over which Elvis song to play at the ceremony, and the bride stormed out of the chapel and took a cab to the airport. The groom just called to cancel the room.”

  Mitch exchanged a look with Sasha, who was struggling to keep a straight face. “They should have gone with ‘The Hawaiian Wedding Song.”’

  “It worked for me and my husband when Elvis married us last year,” the clerk agreed cheerfully. “But apparently when the groom-to-be insisted on ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ the bride took that as a metaphor for how he viewed their marriage, and blew up.”

  She began tapping on the computer keyboard. “The suite’s all ready. Will you be paying with a credit card?”

  “Why not?” Mitch said, pulling out the gold card yet again.

  Five minutes later they were alone in a vast suite that appeared to have been designed by a crazed cupid and cost him nearly two week’s pay. Mitch decided that whoever had said two could live as cheaply as one obviously hadn’t eloped to Laughlin, Nevada, during a Shriner’s convention.

  “Goodness,” Sasha said, staring at the round bed set on a burgundy fabric-covered platform, surrounded by gilded pillars, covered with a pink and velvet spread and strewn with pillows. “I had no idea they made waterbeds so large. Even in America.” In some of the apartments she’d been in St. Petersburg, entire families would undoubtedly be expected to share such an expansive bed.

  She glanced up at the ceiling. “And what a strange place for a mirror.”

  She looked a mess, Sasha decided regretfully. Her hair was windblown, her makeup had melted, she’d chewed her lipstick off and the blood on the front of her white blouse had dried to an unattractive rust color. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about Mitch kissing her again. Because, looking as rumpled as she did, she was definitely not the least bit appealing.

  “Not so strange,” Mitch said, putting her suitcases beside the bed. “Given the fact that this is the honeymoon suite.”

  “I still do not understand...oh.” Color flooded into her face as comprehension dawned.

  “Oh,” he mimicked with a quick grin, once again enjoying that soft pink color brightening her cheeks. She was so damn pretty. Her hair was a dark froth around her shoulders, and although she’d chewed off her lipstick, her lips were a rich rosy hue that, even though he knew it would be playing with fire, made him want to kiss her senseless. “I guess it’s a good thing that this wedding of ours isn’t real.”

  He tamped down an errant image of Sasba, lying nude on satin sheets, her hair spread out on the pillow, as she held her arms out to her lover, her husband.

  “A very good thing,” she agreed, having to force the words past the lump that had suddenly taken residence in her throat.

  Unbidden, a mental picture flashed though her mind, of Mitch’s muscular back and firm buttocks reflected in the overhead mirror as his lips blazed a hot trail down her naked body.

  Their eyes met in the mirror and held. Silence settled over them as each was unwillingly drawn into a sensual fantasy to which neither was prepared to admit.

  “Well.” Mitch cleared his throat and dragged his gaze away to the gilded dresser that looked like it could have come straight from Versailles. Atop the dresser, on a silver tray, was a bottle of champagne and a box of Belgian chocolates wrapped in gold foil paper and tied with a red satin ribbon.

  “I’d better call the auto club and arrange for someone to come out first thing tomorrow morning.”

  It was not Mitch’s first choice. What he wanted to do was to pop that cork, ply his bride with champagne and spend the rest of the day feeding her chocolates and making love.

  “Yes.” It was barely a whisper.

  “If you want, you can freshen up. Then we’ll see about getting something to eat. We can go out, if you’d like. Or maybe you’d rather call room service.”

  “They will bring our dinner to our room?”

  “All you have to do is ask.” And pay through the nose, Mitch thought but didn’t say. He’d already gone so far over budget, he wasn’t about to start quibbling about extra costs now.

  “That sounds very nice.” Sasha thought about the temptations of staying here so close to this ridiculously sensual bed with a man who’d played a starring role in her fantasies since she’d first seen him.

  “But, perhaps, if you don’t mind, we could go out?” she suggested. “I saw a coffee shop next to the lobby.”

  “Good idea.” Relief and regret flooded through Mitch; relief that she’d suggested getting them out of this gilded love nest, away from temptation, regret that he wouldn’t be making love to her on the terrifically sexy bed.

  Sasha might be able to resist the oversize waterbed, but the pink-tiled, heart-shaped Jacuzzi bathtub was another matter. Seemingly as deep as a lake, and nearly large enough to swim laps in, she decided American plumbing was one of the seven wonders of the world.

  “Mitch?” she called out through the open bathroom door, “would you mind very much if I took the time for a bath?”

  “Suit yourself,” he answered as the recorded message assured him that his call was important and thanked him for his patience. “I have the feeling I’m going to be on hold for a long time.”

  When she spotted the crystal jars of bath salts lining the pink rim of the enormous tub, Sasha considered that if the angry bride had known what she was passing up, perhaps she wouldn’t have been so quick to reject her groom’s choice of music.

  Thirty minutes later, the perfumed, bubbling water had soothed Sasha’s exhaustion and her nerves. As she wrapped the thick, terry bath sheet around her body, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so relaxed.

  Although she suspected dining in such a splendid hotel would require something equally dazzling, her luggage did not offer a plethora of chic outfits. That being the case, she opted for a short denim skirt and a red cotton blouse with handstitched embroidery along the peasant neckline, hoping she wouldn’t embarrass Mitch too badly.

  Then she brushed her hair in an attempt to subdue her wild waves. She was, as usual, unsuccessful. Her thick hair remained as unruly as ever, making Sasha envy the sleek blond bobs favored by Mitch’s usual women.

  Reminding herself that she was not one of Mitch’s women—nor was she likely to ever be one—she left the bedroom.

  Having spent the previous night fighting a fire had obviously caught up with Mitch. He was sprawled on his back on the sofa, sound asleep, giving Sasha the opportunity to study him undetected. Her gaze drank in the thick curly eyelashes that seemed such a waste on a man, the slightly pug nose, the full, firmly cut lips, the square, pugnacious chin.

  His chest rose and fell with each slow breath and as she remembered how it had felt against her breasts, hard as marble but so much warmer, a disturbing heat flowed through her. Her eyes cont
inued their stolen tour, taking in his lean hips, his long legs.

  When she found herself wanting to lie down beside him, Sasha knew it was time to leave.

  Not wanting him to think she’d run away again, she took the time to write a note on the hotel stationery. Then she quickly left the honeymoon suite.

  She was on the way to the coffee shop when the noise from an adjoining room made her realize she was passing the casino. Curious, she glanced inside. It was exactly like Honeymoon in Vegas!

  Hand-cut prisms on the crystal chandeliers sparkled from the ceiling, murals had been painted on the walls between gilded pillars, the carpet underfoot was burgundy and gold. Slot machines clattered and conversation hummed, punctuated periodically by shouts of excitement and cries of despair.

  Sasha found it all enthralling. So enthralling, in fact, she couldn’t resist venturing inside.

  “Here you go, little lady.” A man wearing a fez stood up and handed her a large silver coin. “I’ve been sitting on this stool for the past hour and haven’t won a blessed thing. Perhaps you’ll have better luck.”

  “Luck?” Sasha glanced down at the coin. She had been in America a year and had never seen such a denomination. “I do not understand.”

  “At the slots.” His dark eyes narrowed as he studied her closer. “You’re not from around here.”

  “No. I am from Phoenix, Arizona.”

  “Before that.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “I came to America from St. Petersburg, Russia.”

  It was his turn to nod. “That’s why you sound like Natasha.”

  “Natasha is a common name in Russia,” she said with another brief nod. “But I am called Sasha.”

  “Now isn’t that a right pretty name, too?” he said. “But I was talking about Natasha from the TV show. You know, the Saturday morning cartoons? Bullwinkle? Rocky? Moose and Squirrel?”

  He could have been speaking Transylvanian. She stared mutely at him, trying to decode the unfamiliar references.

  “Never mind,” he said. “It’s not important. So, Sasha, you want to try your luck?”

  “I’m afraid my luck has not been very good lately,” she admitted with a soft little sigh.