One Wedding Night... (10 page)

“They had several kids. Didn’t any of them want it?”

Russ walked up to the front door, which was in dire need of a coat of paint. He absently picked off a peeling gray chip. “His son got a job in the computer industry and lives somewhere in California, and both his daughters married and moved away.”

“Oh.” Lynn stepped onto the porch, then she waited for Russ to open the door.

“I decided to start doing repairs inside, but I hope to have it painted before winter sets in,” he explained as they stepped inside. “I’ve been working on it now and then when I have some free time.”

Looking around as she walked in, Lynn realized this was where Russ went on his time off. Had he come here the other night when she’d seen him leave the Bar M? The smell of fresh paint filled her nostrils as she walked through the rooms downstairs. She liked that he’d chosen a soft off-white color for the walls.

“Did they leave this furniture?” she asked, noticing that although the rooms weren’t completely furnished, there were a few pieces of furniture in each room.

“They said they didn’t have room to take it all and left some behind.”

“Did you put this in?” she asked, admiring the bannister as they walked up the wooden staircase. A couple of the steps creaked under her feet.

He ran his hand across the smooth, dark-stained wood. “I’ve got some equipment out in the barn,” he admitted a little reluctantly.

“You
built
this?” Fascinated, she inspected his work. “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed. Automatically her gaze went to his hands, the same hands that had intimately caressed her body. Of course, she’d known he was talented in
that
department, but she’d had no idea that he could create such exquisite woodwork. Realizing where her thoughts had turned, she gulped. “Is this where you go at night?”

Russ’s expression turned thoughtful. “Where I go?” he repeated.

Too late, Lynn realized what she’d asked. “I saw you leaving the Bar M the other night,” she admitted.

“And you wondered where I was going?”

Annoyed by the satisfied grin on his face, Lynn rolled her eyes. “Not exactly.”

“Yes, you did,” Russ said.

“Okay, so what if I did? You were the one so determined to make people believe that this engagement is real. I thought—”

“That I was going to see a woman?” he supplied, and appeared quite pleased that she’d been thinking about him and where he’d been going. “Well, I wasn’t. I’m not involved with anyone, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

Lynn frowned at him. “I wasn’t worried.” She stepped over a freshly painted piece of baseboard.

“Uh-huh.” He took her hand and pulled her along behind him, leading her though the rest of the upstairs, showing her the bedrooms.

Each room was in a different stage of repair, except for the master bedroom, which seemed to be finished. “You’ve done a lot of work,” she said.

“A little here and there. I’ve been concentrating on the kitchen, trying to get it up-to-date. C’mon, I’ll
show you.” He indicated for her to follow him down yet another staircase at the back of the house which led into the large kitchen. There was lots of cabinet space, and the range had been replaced. The sink was white enamel, and the cabinet beneath was open, the pipes taken apart.

“You’re doing the plumbing?”

“I’ve had quite a few odd jobs. I picked up a little of this and that along the way.”

Lynn nodded. Before he’d come to the Bar M, it seemed he’d been pretty much a drifter. She turned around in a circle. The room still needed a lot of work, but it was coming along nicely considering only one person was working on it. There was a sturdy wooden kitchen table in the corner, and most of the curtains had been left.

Suddenly, an idea took shape in her mind, and she spun back around to face him. “Oh my gosh, Russ, this is the answer to our problem!”

She had that look on her face that warned him he wasn’t going to like what she was going to say. “I don’t see how.”

Her mind began to churn even faster. “We can pretend to elope, live here a while until things cool down. After a while, we’ll pretend to get a divorce, and by then I’ll have figured out a way to start my own place.”

“We can’t do that!”

“I know it sounds kind of crazy, but it’ll work.”

“It won’t work, and I’m not going to go along with it so just forget it.” He admired her tenacity when it came to starting her own horse ranch, but all he could think about was that her future plans didn’t involve him. He started out of the room, and she grabbed for
his arm, but missed. She had to practically run to catch up with him.

“Wait! Listen!”

Russ abruptly stopped in his tracks and turned to confront her. Lynn’s momentum carried her smack into his arms. He tensed, then swiftly set her away from him. “No. End of story.” His hands went to his hips.

“Russ, just think about it!” she pleaded.

“I’m not going to play these games with you anymore, and I’m not lying to your family, either.” He was already in way over his head. If he went along with her latest scheme, Russ could just imagine that he’d be the laughingstock of Crockett when the truth came out.

And eventually it would, no matter how hard they tried to keep it quiet. He’d already lived through one bad experience. His wife’s infidelity was the reason he’d left his hometown. Now, ready to settle down and live his life in peace, he’d invested everything he’d earned into this land and this house. He wasn’t going to risk losing it by going along with her crazy plan.

“But, it’ll get Ashley and Catherine off my back, and Jake and Ryder will leave you alone. They’ll think we’re already married and quit expecting us to set a date. It’s the perfect answer!”

“It’s not even close to being the perfect answer. As a matter of fact, it’s damned near the dumbest thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth! It’s right up there with,
‘we’re engaged,’
which started this whole fiasco.” There was no way he was going along with it.

“All right,” she conceded. “Then you think of
something because I can’t take the pressure much longer!” she challenged, irritated that he wouldn’t even consider the idea.

Russ looked directly into her eyes. As he saw it, there was only one way out of the whole mess.

“Okay, let’s really elope.”

“What?” Realizing he was dead serious, Lynn stared at him wide-eyed and stunned.

“You heard me. Let’s elope. We can drive to San Luis and get married right there at the courthouse. We’ll tell your family the truth for a change, that we got married. The end result will be the same—they’ll leave us alone.”

“You want us to
really
get married?”

He nodded, not really understanding her surprise. He’d been telling her that he was going to marry her for days. Though she’d fought him all along, Russ still had every intention of following through on his word. Maybe now she would take him seriously. If he could get her to agree, he’d have lived up to his promise to her brother.

“And live together? Here?” she squeaked.

“It makes more sense than that cockamamy scheme of yours.”

Lynn backed up a step. “I don’t know.”

“It’ll also solve our problem if you’re pregnant.”

“I’m not pregnant!” she insisted. She’d assured him that being anxious could cause her period to be late. She didn’t want him to know that she was beginning to worry about it herself.

“So you keep saying. At least this way, we’ll be married if you are,” he reasoned.

“I guess it could work.”

“It’s the right thing to do. You can’t like keeping
the truth from your family. I have this house so we can live here for a while, then when things cool down and we know pregnancy is no longer a factor, we’ll call it off.”

Lynn hesitated a moment longer, then said, “Okay, I’ll agree on one condition.”

“Name it,” Russ said, ready to agree to anything if she’d just go along with him for a change.

“We don’t sleep together.”

“We don’t?”

“No. Neither of us wants things more complicated than they already are. You don’t really want to be married, and neither do I. If we don’t sleep together after we’re married, we could get an annulment rather than a divorce.”

Of course, she’d have to control her attraction to him, keep him at a distance. She’d already put her heart at risk by making love with him again. Any further intimacy between them could lead to her falling in love with him, and that was something she wanted no part of. She wasn’t going to fall in love with Russ. She wasn’t going to jeopardize her dream of running her own life and starting her own horse ranch. But marrying Russ
would
buy her time to make some new plans, she reasoned as she waited for his answer.

Russ regarded her with uncertainty. Though ready to agree to anything she asked, she’d caught him off guard with that one. He had to admit that it made sense. He’d do well to remember that he needed to keep his distance from her.

He didn’t like the idea of keeping their plan of getting an annulment from her family, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d wanted to protect her reputation, as
well as his own, and now she was willing to meet him halfway. “All right,” he agreed, knowing her condition was going to be hard to abide by, but determined to keep his word.

Well, hell, at least he’d have done right by her. It was a means to an end.

In theory, it would work.

So why did he feel like his heart was being ripped out of his chest?

L
ynn stared out of the blurry side window of the truck as Russ pulled to a stop in front of the courthouse in San Luis. Rain pelted the windows, and she shivered when a violent bolt of lightning streaked across the sky.

Not exactly how she’d pictured her wedding day.

Of course, it wasn’t like this was a
real
wedding. She and Russ weren’t going to be sharing the same bed, after all. Stealing a glance at him, a part of her regretted making that stipulation. They’d get married, and for the next few months, they were more or less going to live as man and wife—at least in the literal sense. Her desire for his touch was something she’d have to work on. She’d simply use mind over matter.

As if that’s going to work.

Okay, so maybe she’d gotten herself into yet another predicament, but she’d handle it somehow. A
loud crack of thunder boomed and Lynn jumped. The weather had provided them with the perfect opportunity to slip away from the ranch for the morning. However, if it cleared up, they’d have to try and catch up on things this afternoon, so they were under pressure to get this done and return home.

Since they’d decided to elope, they’d been sneaking away from the Bar M, using every free minute possible to make Russ’s farmhouse livable. She and Russ had actually managed to get along with each other through the fixing-up process. The Petersons had done what was necessary to keep it up, but the rooms hadn’t been painted in years. Russ had been determined to get as much done as possible before they moved in.

Lynn had thought it was a good idea until she found herself imagining what it would be like to live there permanently with Russ. Her heart was constantly in turmoil, confused by her desire to be with him, and her need for independence and control. She couldn’t sacrifice what she’d been fighting for, not even for a chance at winning Russ’s heart.

And a slim chance was all it would be. He was only marrying her out of honor, out of a sense of doing what he felt was right. He’d told her more than once he was protecting his own reputation as well as hers.

He didn’t love her. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that he ever could. He’d said little on the ride to the courthouse, and that had been fine with her. The whole thing seemed a bit surreal.

“Wait here. I’ll come around and get the door,” he told her as he reached for the handle.

Lynn nodded. He grabbed an umbrella from the
floorboard and got out, popping it open as he trotted around the truck. She opened her door as he came closer, then hurried out beside him. Russ tucked her next to him, and together they ran through the downpour to the entrance of the courthouse.

Their clothes were practically soaked from the knees down as they rushed toward the gray stone building. Lynn shivered as they stepped inside. Her heart hammered as Russ talked to a receptionist, then led her down a wide hallway to a wooden door. Opening it, he stepped aside for Lynn to enter, and together they approached the first desk they reached. A white-haired woman with glasses perched on the end of her nose looked up at them, her expression expectant.

“May I help you?” she asked, and her smile was welcoming.

Lynn felt her throat close, and she looked to Russ.

“Yes. We’re, uh, here to get a marriage license.” He reached for her hand and held it in his, wishing the whole experience was over.

Lynn nervously fingered the folds of her simple white dress as he took the papers to fill out. She’d felt a little silly when she’d chosen it from her closet, but Russ’s quick notice of it when he’d arrived to pick her up eased her anxiousness a little. She was equally glad that he’d donned black dress pants and a soft blue dress shirt.

“Oh, yes, I can tell. You have that look about you.”

Both Lynn and Russ looked at each other. She giggled at the way his brows came together.

“Well, now, you’ve come to the right place. There are a few forms to fill out.” The woman reached over and took some papers out of a folder. “Here they are.
Each of you will need to fill out information on this form, then we’ll need both of your signatures on this one.” She passed the papers and two pens to Russ, then indicated the empty table and chairs in the corner of the room. “You can fill them out right there if you like.”

Russ nodded, then steered Lynn toward the table where they both took a seat. He handed her a pen and one of the papers, then began filling out his information. When finished, he passed it to her to do the same. Lynn quickly filled out her information, then they signed where indicated and returned to the desk.

“All right. I’ll have your license ready in just a few minutes. You’ll be on your way in no time. You do realize there’s a three-day waiting period?”

Lynn glanced at Russ and saw he was as surprised as she was. “There is? You mean we can’t get married right now?”

“In a hurry, huh?” She chuckled. “Well, you can go before the judge and ask him to waive the waiting period,” she informed them.

“All right,” Russ replied, wondering why he hadn’t at least called to check out the process. “Where do we do that?” he asked as the woman gave him the license.

She gave him the directions to the judge’s courtroom. “You may have to wait a few minutes if he’s busy.”

Russ folded the paper and took Lynn’s hand again. “Is he the one who’ll marry us?”

“Oh, no, honey, he only does the waivers.”

Russ frowned again. How could getting married be so difficult? “Who do we see to get married today?”

“Well, I wish you’d have called before coming
here. District Judge Kinney can marry you, but he’s in court right now. You’re welcome to wait, of course.”

“Do you know how long it’ll be?”

The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, no. It could be fifteen minutes, or it could just as well be hours. There’s no way to tell about these things.”

Lynn turned toward Russ. “What now?”

“Let’s go upstairs and see about the waiver,” he suggested. “Thank you,” he called to the woman as they left.

After waiting over two hours, they finally saw the judge and received a waiver of the waiting period. That left deciding on who would perform the ceremony.

“We could wait. She said the other judge has been in court all morning and it’s already been another two hours. Maybe it won’t be much longer,” Lynn commented as they left the courtroom.

Russ glanced at his watch. “We’ve already been gone most of the morning from the ranch, and we really have to get back.” He forced a smile. He hated the idea of putting off the ceremony until they could get away again. He didn’t want to take a chance on Lynn changing her mind. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like they had much of a choice.

“We could check the yellow pages. There’s sure to be a justice of the peace listed.”

“By the time we find one, we’ll have wasted more time,” Russ told her, steering her toward the door. He popped open the umbrella again as they stepped outside the building and headed for the truck. “We’ll just have to get away again somehow.”

Once they were inside the truck and settled, he
started the engine and drove away from San Luis, heading toward the ranch. The windshield wipers worked furiously trying to keep up with the rain pounding the truck.

Shortly after they left town, Russ spotted a small church up ahead. “Look.” He pointed toward it. “That might be the answer. There’s a house next to that church. Maybe there’s a preacher living there.”

Lynn gulped air. “A preacher?” she repeated. “You’re not serious!”

But she discovered he was very serious when he pulled the truck into the gravel driveway of the church. “Wait here,” he commanded, then jumped out of the truck and left her before she had a chance to speak.

Sitting forward, her heart pounding, Lynn watched him run up on the porch and bang on the door of the house. Her stomach knotted when it opened and Russ began talking to a short, stout man. She saw Russ reach for his wallet, and her breath quickened as he handed the man some bills. Before she had a chance to find her breath, he was back at the truck.

“C’mon,” he said, opening her door. He reached across Lynn for the umbrella. “We’re getting married.” He opened the umbrella and held it for her.

Lynn scrambled from the truck. “Here?”

“Why not?” Russ grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

“Because…because it’s a church.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the thunder.

“So?” he whispered as he pulled her inside and closed the door.

He didn’t understand.

Lynn clamped her lips together as she looked
around her. Stained glass windows with biblical scenes lined the outside walls. Rows of pews made from pine faced the front of the church where there was a small platform with chairs for the choir.

She stared at the altar, and a tingle ran down her spine.

She’d prepared herself for marrying Russ. She’d gone along with the idea because they’d decided on getting married by a judge or a justice of the peace.

Not by a preacher.

She stared at the preacher as she and Russ walked down the aisle to the front of the church. The man was standing beside a woman Lynn assumed was his wife. The woman was just about as stout as her husband, and she was smiling warmly. The two looked like they belonged together.

After welcoming them, the preacher introduced them both, then instructed Russ and Lynn to stand before the altar.

This can’t really be happening!

Lynn’s heart slammed against her ribs as Russ held her hand tight in his and looked into her eyes.

The preacher held their license in his hand as he began speaking. He must have married a lot of couples because he knew the words of the marriage ceremony by heart. Lynn felt panic rise inside her as he talked about love and commitment. As he neared the end of the ceremony, her entire body stiffened.

“Do you, Russ Logan, take this woman—”

Their gazes locked, and Lynn couldn’t breathe. The tenderness in Russ’s voice, the solemnness of tone as he promised to love and cherish her brought a lump to her throat.

When it came her turn to speak, she swallowed
hard and willed herself to repeat her marriage vows. Her body trembled when the preacher asked God to bless their union. How could He, when she and Russ would part in the near future, when their union was out of necessity and not born out of love?

“Do you have a ring?” the preacher asked.

Russ held out his hand, and Lynn’s gaze fell on the two gold bands in his open palm. She hadn’t even thought about the wedding band that matched her engagement ring, believing it wouldn’t be used. And when had he bought a ring for himself? Before she had time to think about it further, Russ was claiming her hand and repeating after the preacher, then sliding the shining gold band on her finger.

Her hand shook uncontrollably as she took Russ’s ring from the preacher and placed it on Russ’s finger. Butterflies attacked her stomach. Her voice faltered as she tried to speak, then she managed to say the words expected of her.

Lynn heard the preacher pronounce them man and wife, and she knew what came next. She looked from the preacher to Russ. His eyes darkened as he drew her into his embrace. Suddenly, she was pressed against him, her body flush with his as he slipped his arms around her and dipped his head.

His mouth touched hers briefly, tenderly, and Lynn lost the ability to think. Her eyelids drifted shut, and the pleasure of his kiss reached out and stole a piece of her heart.

Panicking, she pulled away, careful not to look at Russ when she opened her eyes. She touched her mouth, still damp from his, and the taste of him lingered in her mind, crushing her determination to keep him at a distance.

As quickly and politely as possible, they thanked the preacher and his wife, then left the church. The rain had slacked a bit, but they were both quite wet from running back and forth in it. Russ opened her door for her, then got in behind the wheel.

“Okay, that’s done,” Lynn stated, making an effort to keep her tone even. She gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. For some silly reason, she felt like crying. But she wasn’t going to.

Not here. Not now.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at her closely.

“Of course.”

Russ’s lips twisted as he studied her. Her hands were clenched, her back was stiff and she was practically glued to the door. She was everything but all right, he thought. He ran his hand along her hairline, brushing her bangs away from her face. She turned toward him, and he couldn’t miss the shiny look in her eyes.

Touching her was a mistake.

Kissing her a few minutes ago had been an even bigger one. As he’d gazed into her eyes when she’d repeated her vows, he’d found himself wondering what it would be like if they were getting married for real. It was a foolish thought, he knew, wasted on something that could never be.

He didn’t want to be married. He had nothing to offer a woman, nothing of himself to give.

And Lynn didn’t want to be married, either. She wanted her freedom. She wanted to live her own life.

Gritting his teeth at the irony of their situation, he turned away, started the engine and headed for the Bar M. “I’m sorry about kissing you, if that’s what you’re upset about.”

“I’m not upset.”

“I know we made an agreement,” he continued, feeling the need to justify his actions despite her quick denial. “I mean to abide by it. I just thought it would seem suspicious if I didn’t kiss you.”

“Of course. I understand.” She didn’t look at him.

“So you’re okay about everything?” he pressed.

“As well as I can be. I’m not at all excited about facing everyone and telling them what we’ve done.”

“You were perfectly willing to
pretend
we were married.” He didn’t understand why she was having a sudden attack of conscience. It seemed to him that it hadn’t bothered her that much to intentionally mislead her family until now.

“Not because I want to deceive everyone. I just want my brothers to let me live my life the way I want. Is that too much to ask?”

“Hell, no, Lynn. I was pretty much doing the same thing until the night of Jake’s wedding.” Before he’d been trapped into this marriage fiasco.