Shotgun Vows (11 page)

God, he hated topping the first jerk to hurt her. “I'm sorry, Mattie. If I could change things, I would. But I have to ask, and I want you to really think about this. Will you marry me?”

“Don't think I'm an ungrateful wretch, but my answer has to be no.”

Strike two for honesty.

The door opened and Griff stuck his head in. “You two have been talking in here for an awfully long time. What's the verdict, Dawson?”

He gave her brother a thumbs-down. “No go.” It was time for reinforcements. “Griff, if you want to take a shot at convincing her, I wouldn't be offended.”

“Well, I would,” Mattie said. “Don't you guys know how to take no for an answer?” she asked.

“No,” they said together.

For good measure, Griff stood in front of the door to his room, cutting off that escape route. Glancing over his shoulder, Dawson gauged the distance to the hall door and took two steps back to position himself so that she couldn't slip around behind him.

Dawson folded his arms over his chest. “Have at it, Griff.”

The other man nodded. “Mattie,” he began, “your brothers and I consider ourselves open-minded men.” He ignored her rude, disbelieving sound and continued, “We understand that this sort of thing—”

“Define ‘this sort of thing.'” There was a gleam in her eyes as she watched her brother squirm.

Dawson noted and admired Mattie's tenacious streak. She might be backed into a corner, but she wasn't going down by herself.

“You know. Sex,” he mumbled. “It happens all the time with no strings attached.”

“Since when are the lot of you understanding about me having sex?” she asked. “You guys have made it your mission in life to keep me pure as the driven snow.”

“Until the right guy came along,” Griff qualified.

“Or until I slept with one automatically qualifying him as Mr. Right,” she shot back, sliding Dawson a look.

“Okay,” Griff said, hands on hips as he nodded angrily. “I tried to reason with you, but it's time to get down and dirty.”

More reinforcements?
Dawson thought.

“What will your Mom and Dad think about this? Have you given that any thought?” Griff asked.

She looked stricken. It was the first chink in her armor that Dawson had ever seen. Some of the spirit seemed to drain out of her, and he hated being responsible for it. Apparently, there were some hurdles that stopped even Mattie Fortune dead in her tracks. He admired her devotion to family, while at the same time despising himself for going along with this to get what he wanted. To salve his own conscience. On his mental spreadsheet, he noted it in the Doing the Wrong Thing for the Right Reason column.

“Griff's right, Mattie. What do you think this will do to your parents?” he asked.

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and worried it as she thought. Finally she said, “They don't have to know.”

“Do you really think they won't find out?” Griff asked.

“You wouldn't tell them,” she scoffed.

“I will if I have to,” her brother threatened. “Even if I didn't, your mother doesn't miss much. Halfway around the world as she is, she'll smell something fishy. She has a radar that would give air traffic controllers a run for their money.”

Dawson thought about his own mother. He loved
her, but he couldn't say that she was particularly intuitive about him. Too bad. It might have been nice.

Mattie paced the room like a caged tigress. At one point, Dawson thought she was eyeing the window as an escape route, and he tensed, ready to stop her if need be. But she turned around and faced them both, head held high.

There was anger, hurt and violation in the stormy look she leveled at her brother and then at him. “If it were just to quiet the likes of you two, I would never in a million years agree to this. But you hit below the belt, Griff. Maybe that's why you're so good at whatever it is that you do on your secret trips.”

“Mattie, I'm—”

“Stuff a sock in it. When you're right, you're right. Mom
will
know. Damn it.”

Dawson didn't blame her for lashing out. This obviously hurt her a lot. The look in her eyes tied his gut in knots. If he could rewind the tape and fix things, he would do it in a flash. Since he couldn't, there was a part of him glad that she was weakening.

“I would rather die than do anything to cause my mother and father pain or worry or embarrassment. All right,” she said looking at Dawson. “If the offer's still good, I'll marry you.”

“The offer's still good,” he said.

“Don't bother going down on one knee. We both know this isn't about me or what I want. It's not about love. It's about your overactive sense of honor. More's the pity,” she said sadly.

From the moment he'd met her, Dawson had been trying to treat her as a child. Tonight she'd admitted to having girlish fantasies. But it gave him no satisfaction to discover that. He felt like the muck on the
underside of a rock at the bottom of a lake. Not even a river where the garbage washed away. He was stagnant slime.

He'd singlehandedly been responsible for the death of her dream.

 

After a sleepless night, Mattie met her brother and his fiancé at the front door the following morning. She sent Brody to talk to Dawson and her uncle Ryan in the great room. With little or no coaxing, Mattie took Jillian on a tour of the outer courtyard where wedding preparations were under way. As they surveyed the outer adobe walls surrounding the stone patio, the fragrance of roses drifted to her. She breathed in the perfume, finding a small bit of comfort. This setting was idyllic: a garden filled with purple sage plants, ornamental grasses in shades of green and blue, roses and jasmine.

Mattie thought this a perfect place for her wedding. If Jillian agreed. Now it was time to broach the subject with her soon-to-be sister-in-law. She, Griff and Dawson had agreed to keep the reason behind the hurriedness of the marriage secret.

“I have an announcement to make,” she said, nervously twisting her fingers together. Before Jillian could make a comment or even ask what, Mattie blurted out, “Dawson asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”

Jillian's jaw dropped. She blinked a couple of times and finally said, “You and Dawson?”

“Yeah, I know it's sudden,” Mattie answered, her cheeks burning. “But—”

“You and Dawson?”

“Strange, huh? I'm not sure I understand it myself. It just sort of happened.”

“You and Dawson?”

Mattie glared at her. “Will you stop saying that?”

“I need to sit down,” Jillian said. She lowered her pregnant fanny into the cushy pad on a wrought-iron chair that had been pushed to the side, making room for reception paraphernalia. She shook her head. “I knew you were up to something when you reinvented yourself.”

“I what?”

The other woman waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, it's the politically correct term for getting a makeover. But I never in a million years guessed that you'd set your sights on Dawson Prescott. Or that you and Fortune's financial wizard had gotten so serious, so fast.”

Numbers weren't the only thing he was a wizard at, Mattie thought, shivering at remembered pleasures from his gifted hands. How she wished she could tell her friend the truth. That she'd been pressured into this decision and was emotionally blackmailed into the marriage because she and Dawson had slept together. But she decided it was best to keep that detail to herself. She knew Jillian told Brody everything. Somehow it would get back to her mother and father. As soon as she worked up the courage, she would call home and tell them she was getting married. But she would spare them the ugly reality of why she was doing it.

How had the most wonderful night of her life landed her in the biggest mess of her life?

She plastered a sunny smile on her face and felt the ache start in her cheeks. She figured she'd best get
used to it, since the next couple of days would be a repeat of what she was going through now. “It was love at first sight.”

“Have you set a date?”

“Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Since Dawson's sister and my brother Reed are going to be here for your wedding before going on to live in Australia, I was wondering—”

Jillian clapped her hands. “A double ceremony!”

Mentally, she breathed a sigh of relief that she was spared the asking. “I don't want you to feel you have to say yes.”

“Of course not.”

“We just thought it might be advantageous—”

“Convenience shouldn't be a consideration when you're talking about love,” Jillian scolded good-naturedly.

If they were talking about love, Mattie would have agreed with her. But this whole thing came under the heading of Suffering the Consequences of Your Actions. And
suffering
was the key word.

She just couldn't quite figure out why Dawson was doing it. Griff was intimidating, but the instincts she relied on with her horses told her that her fiancé wasn't afraid of her brother. So what was his reason for going through with this farce of a marriage?

“I think it's a great idea,” Jillian said.

“Really? You wouldn't feel as if you're having to share the limelight?”

“I love the idea of sharing the limelight with you.”

“You're sure you wouldn't hate me forever?” Mattie met her gaze squarely. “Before you answer, think very carefully.”

“I don't have to think carefully. My answer is that
it will be twice as wonderful for Brody and me if you and Dawson join in our happiness.”

Mattie breathed a sigh. “All right. Then it's settled—”

“I just thought of something. We'll have the same anniversary.”

Mattie's head was spinning from everything she'd thought about. “That's true.”

“Oh, no,” Jillian said. “I just thought of something else. And this is a potential problem.”

After what she'd been through, Mattie couldn't take another problem—potential, implied or real. “What?” she asked, tensing.

“You're supposed to be my bridesmaid. How can you be a bride at the same time?”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Mattie shook her head. “I don't see any problem. We'll just stand up together and take vows one at a time.”

“But your bridesmaid's dress is green velvet for my ceremony. Don't you want to wear traditional white for yours?”

Nothing about this was traditional, Mattie thought as profound sadness and anger twisted together inside her. She almost blurted that out to Jillian, but kept it to herself. The last thing she wanted to do was spoil her friend's happy day. She and Brody had waited a long time and gone through a lot finally to be together. No way would Mattie rain on their parade.

She sat on the brick step beside her friend and rested her hands on Jillian's chair arm, her chin on her linked fingers. “How about this?” she asked. “You and Brody take your vows first. We'll go through the whole ceremony, take pictures, everything. I'll disappear to change into my…traditional wedding outfit.
While I'm doing that, my uncle can make an announcement that there will be another wedding. It will be like two separate ceremonies, but we'll share guests and a reception.”

“That's a wonderful idea,” Jillian said.

“Are you sure it's all right with you?”

“I'm positive.” Jillian's face brightened even more as she spotted Brody and Dawson approaching. “Look who's here. Speak of the devils.”

“You got that right,” Mattie said under her breath as she watched her fiancé walk toward them.

“What did you say?” Jillian asked.

“I said, ‘What a sight we'll be.'”

When the men joined them, Mattie noted the sparkle of anticipation in Brody's eyes as he leaned down to kiss his wife-to-be. He caressed her rounded belly tenderly. “How are you?” he asked.

“Fine and dandy.” Jillian smiled lovingly at him.

Mattie looked at Dawson and wondered what he was thinking as he watched the devoted couple. His look gave nothing away. “So how did it go with Uncle Ryan?” she asked as brightly as she could.

“You mean, when I asked him for your hand in marriage?” Dawson said.

“Is that what you did?” she asked.

Studying his expression, she did not find even a trace of humor. He was completely serious. There was something so old-fashioned and courtly about the gesture of asking permission from the senior male in the family that it warmed her heart. The whole affair seemed so passionless and she needed so badly to discover some hint of warmth, spirit, meaning—soul.

“You asked Uncle Ryan for permission to marry me?” she repeated.

“He sure did.” Brody grinned. “Said that since Dad and Mom are so far away, Ryan is the next in line, and he asked permission to make you his wife.”

“And?” Mattie asked.

Brody shrugged. “You're over twenty-one. What was he going to say?”

“It's about darn time.” Mattie threw up her hands. “I've been trying for ages to make everyone recognize that I'm a mature woman.”

“He also said that he will pull strings and call in favors if necessary to push through the paperwork for a marriage license,” Dawson replied.

Brody kissed her cheek. “Congratulations, sis. Dawson's a good man. This is pretty sudden, but when it's right, it's right. No point in fighting it. Jillian and I tried that and it didn't work.”

Mattie narrowed her gaze on Dawson and wondered what he'd said to her brother. How had he convinced him it was right? Somehow she had a sneaking suspicion that it was practically word for word what she'd told Jillian. And for the same reason—to preserve the happiness of their day.

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “Three days from now we'll all be saying, ‘I do.'”