Seducing Zeb (Tarnished Saints Series) (3 page)

“Why did she just call you Zeb?” came the girl’s voice from the
side of the bed. She pulled her dress on as she spoke.

“Because that’s his name,”
came another voice from the hall, and Zeb looked up to see James in the doorway with the look of murder in his eyes.

“James, what is this all about?” the girl asked, looking directly at Zeb.

“I’m James, he’s Zeb.” Zeb’s twin brother stood crossing his arms over his chest, blocking the doorway entirely with his body, prohibiting any kind of mad dash out the door on Zeb’s part. He greeted his aunt with a polite nod and a quick hello and then brought his attention back to the matter at hand.

Zeb felt not only a ball and chain around his ankle but the weight of th
e world on his shoulders, and his head throbbed harder. This whole thing had turned into a big mess and right about now he felt as if he hadn’t a friend in the world. There was no way he was getting out of this one, no matter how cutthroat of a lawyer he was. Because now he was married to a girl he didn’t know, and also to the woman of his brother’s lame dreams.

“Happy Birthday,” he said to himself under his breath, knowing this was going to be one birthday
that neither he nor his brother would ever forget.

Chapter 2

Catalina Rose Cordovano just stood with her mouth open, not believing that she was looking at identical twins.

“What’s going on?” she asked, feeling as if
her whole world just came crashing down around her.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” snapped the real James, barging into the room and giving Zeb a shove. “My no-good brother was supposed to just pretend to be me, but he obviously liked it more than he should have. Damn it, Zeb, you screwed me for the last time and I’m not going to le
t you get away with this.”

“You asked him to pretend he was you?” asked Catalina, not understanding any of this.

“Just until I got here, ma’am,” said James in his defense, taking off his cowboy hat and holding it against his chest and nodding politely to her.

“How dare you think you could play me like this,” she
spat, hating both of them right now.

“Are you weren’t playing him?” asked Zeb. “After all, you seem
ed to be in an awful big hurry to marry a man you didn’t even know nor have had any kind of intimate relationship with. So what’s your deal, Ebony? And while you’re at it, you may as well tell us your real name too instead of that stripper name you choose to hide behind.”

“What
makes you so sure I’m not Ebony?”

“Because I’m a lawyer, sweetie and I’ve seen this before. I can tell when someone’s lying.”

“You’re a lawyer? Not a rancher?” Her heart about beat from her chest at this announcement. She hated lawyers - ever since her seedy lawyer father deserted her and her mother, letting them fend for themselves and took her brother away forever. She couldn’t be married to a lawyer. This was a nightmare. She thought she was getting away from deceiving, backstabbing liars who only cared about themselves, and now she realized she had made the same mistake as her poor departed mother.

“
I’m the rancher,” shouted James thumping his thumb against his chest. “Not him.”

“Not any more,
you’re not,” Zeb reminded him, scratching the back of his neck and looking over at the far wall.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“Are you going to tell her you sold your ranch or am I?” Zeb grinned a crazy half-smile and she felt like hitting him over the head with her shoe again like she had last night when he’d basically tried to maul her.

“Well, she knows now, you idiot,” said James. “Ebony, I wanted to surprise you and sell the ranch and take you back to my family in Sweet Water, Michigan. I figured it would be a great place to raise a family.
I even bought us some nice rings.”

“You did
?” She almost choked on the words. He seemed so loving and caring. And so damned polite. He had all the qualities she’d longed for in a man her entire life. That’s one of the reasons she’d asked him to marry her in the first place. Oh, why couldn’t she have married him instead of his asinine, pompous lawyer brother?

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?
Get caught in your own little manipulative, flirtatious game and now you’re scared you’ll have to pay the price?” asked Zeb.

“What’s the matter is that you two have played me.
I had no idea of whom I was really marrying or I never would have gone through with it. How could you do such a thing to me?”

“Where’s the marriage license?” asked Zeb, and Catalina knew she was about to be busted.

“What marriage license?” she asked, stalling for time, wondering if she’d put it in her purse, because she really couldn’t remember.

“You know,” said Zeb. “That little piece of paper with both our real names on it
and signed by the drive-thru minister. And by the way, how did you get the license issued without me being present in the first place?”

“Oh
, I can answer that,” said the crazy old woman who Zeb had called Aunt Cappy. She stepped forward with her head down and eyes squinted, digging through her purse that looked more like Mary Poppins’ carpetbag than a handbag. The purse was huge and made from some kind of woven material that looked to her like a rug. “I took your driver’s license from your wallet when you took your pants off to strip last night, Zeb. Catalina asked me to.”

“Catalina?” both the boys said together and Cat just closed her eyes and shook her head, knowing
because she trusted the old woman to do her dirty work that she’d now be exposed at the wrong moment. She’d hoped that information wouldn’t come out til later – not in the middle of this mess right now. The woman hadn’t told her that she was the boys’ aunt last night or Cat would have found another lackey to bring their drivers licenses to the county clerk and obtain the papers to get married. She knew Bill at the county clerk’s office right next door to the casino, and she’d slipped the old woman a twenty for her trouble and one for Bill as well so she could get the marriage license fast and with no questions asked.

“Well, Catalina is the name
on her driver’s license and that’s what the marriage license says too. Oh, here it is,” Cappy said, digging out a crumpled piece of paper and pulling it out from the depths of her purse.

“Let me see that,” said James walking over and snatching it from his aunt’s hand. He looked at it and just shook his head
and then glared at Cat. “You really did lie to me about your name, just like Zeb said.”

“Just like I said,” repeated Zeb, “
if a woman wants to marry you without seeing your family jewels first than she’s not in it for the long run.” Zeb pulled the paper out of his brother’s hand and glanced down at it, then he looked up at Cat. “If you’d taken the time to know who the hell you were marrying in the first place, sweetheart, you’d have seen it wasn’t who you thought.” He pushed it in front of her nose and she snatched it from his hand.

She
glanced down to the marriage license and read the name aloud. “James Zebedee Taylor.” Then she looked up to both the boys. “How would I have known you fools were both named James? Who does something like that? What kind of crazy parents do you have, anyway?”

“We’re sons of a minister who named his twelve boys after the twelve apostles,” said Zeb with a smile. “If you spent any time looking at the Bible in all the hotel rooms you’ve probably occupied, you’d know there were two Jameses.”

“That’s right,” Cappy piped in. “And my brother, bless his poor departed soul, had his hands full with these boys. Zeb here for instance, knows all about the Bible because he spends more time in hotel rooms bedding girls than any of his brothers.”

“Huh?” Zeb’s smile turned to a frown at that announcement, and it only made Cat smile in return.

“You really did make a fool out of me, Catalina Rose Cordovano,” said James, pulling a small box out of his pocket and opening it and holding up two gold and diamond wedding rings. “And I thought you really wanted to marry me.”

“Oh, those rings are gorgeous,” she said,
her hand reaching out for them, but when Zeb cleared his throat, she let her hand fall to her side. She now felt very bad about what she’d done.

“
Those are some fine rings my brother bought for your wedding,” Zeb told her. “And nothing like these that you probably got out of a box of crackerjack.” Zeb held up his hand to prove a point, showing the plain gold band around his finger. “So why’d you do it, Catalina? Just to hustle my brother out of everything he owns?”

“
It’s Cat,” she corrected him, telling him what she preferred to be called. “And no, it’s nothing like that.” She felt her throat tightening as if both the men were strangling her with just their eyes. “And don’t make me sound like the only one who was deceiving anyone around here. After all, James told me he only wanted to get married to get some kind of inheritance. He said we only had to be married a year and then we could split up if we wanted to.”

“And why the hell would you agree to something like that?” asked Zeb, knowing she was hiding more than she was letting on.

“Maybe I just wanted to get away from this hell-hole and start a new life,” she told him.

“A new, cozy life on a ranch that was far from here and in the middle of nowhere. Are you run
ning from someone, Ms. Cordovano?” asked Zeb, drilling her like she was on a witness stand. “That’s why you wanted someone to marry you and take you far away from here, isn’t it? And that’s why you were calling yourself Ebony. You are hiding from someone, although it’s beyond me why you’d work in one of the busiest places in the world if you didn’t want to be noticed.”

“You’re wrong!” she shouted.
“And I only used the name Ebony to deter all the guys in the casino always hitting on me.”

“That’s right,
you are wrong,” said their aunt.

“Thank you,” Cat said with a nod, thinking the women in the room were going to stick together, until she heard the crazy old woman’s next words.

“You shouldn’t call her Ms. Cordovano, Zeb, after all she is your wife now and her proper name is Catalina Taylor. That has a nice ring to it,” she said, taking the marriage license out of Cat’s hand. “I think I’ll take this down to the courthouse and have it filed right away. James, be a darling and give me a ride, will you? I’m still a little shaken from having to drive these two drunkards around all night.”

“
It was your moonshine that got us in that condition in the first place, Aunt Cappy, so don’t go making us out to look like we can’t hold our liquor,” said Zeb. “And no, you’re not going to bring that marriage license anywhere. I’m going to take care of it. We’re getting an annulment as soon as possible. Here, give it to me.” He held out his hand to his aunt.

“No,” said James, “you’re not going to pull your strings and get out of this mess
that easy. If you want out of your marriage, than do it like everyone else and without paying someone off. Come on, Aunt Cappy, I’m taking you to the courthouse and this is going to be filed. See you later, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor.” He put his arm around his aunt and guided her quickly out the door.

“Well? Aren’t you going to do something?” Cat asked frantically as the door closed with a thud from behind them.

“Yeah, I’m going back to bed,” said Zeb rubbing his sore head. He stripped off his pants and made himself comfortable in a lounging position. “May as well make the best of it until the annulment goes through. Now come here, wife,” he said patting the bed beside him.

“What for?” she asked, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Because, I believe there is the little issue of consummating the wedding that we have to address. Now take off your clothes and scurry on over here and I’ll give you a little taste of what you’re going to be missing out on once we’re no longer married.”

Cat just looked at hi
m lying on the bed with his six-pack chest and bedroom eyes. Her eyes dropped down to his nether regions and she gasped when she saw the biggest hard-on she’d ever seen on a man. He chuckled and grinned like a Cheshire cat and she felt the strong desire to touch him and press her body up against his.

“No!” she said. Part of her
wanted to stay, but she had to go. He enticed her and disgusted her at the same time, and confused her more than she’d ever been in her life. “Zeb Taylor, you are the biggest jerk to walk the earth,” she said, snatching her purse from the bedside table and shoving her feet into her six-inch heeled shoes. She headed toward the door and pulled it open and only stopped briefly when she heard his response from behind her.

“That’s right
, Catalina Rose Taylor. I may be the biggest jerk to walk the earth, but you are the biggest liar. And whether you like it or not, until the annulment goes through, I’m all yours.”

She looked back over her shoulder and he had the audacity to wink. She felt the heat flushing her face and also a tingling sensation in her groin area that was obviously only responding this way because he was lying there naked and she hadn’t had sex in so long that eating a banana got her excited lately.