Million-Dollar Bride

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  He lifted his hand to rub his forehead and had to bat the ruffled sleeve away from his nose and mouth. With a low groan, he swung his feet to the floor and fought off a sudden wave of dizziness. “What is this?” He plucked at a flannel rosebud. “And how did it get on me?”

  “Miz Vangie is a maiden lady, you know, and you gave her quite a shock. So yer wife took care of cov-erin’ you up before me and Tim arrived.” The twins chuckled again, a kind of guffaw in stereo. “She said she’d already seen you naked so it was all right.”

  “My wife?” he repeated through a haze of aches and pains. “Did I get married?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  He shook his head and massaged his temples. “I thought I was kidnapped.”

  “Marriage can feel like that, but it usually takes more than a few hours.”

  “I need a drink.”

  “Miz Vangie’s cookin’ up some cocoa now.”

  Cocoa. Oh, terrific. “Would you ask her to add about half a bottle of Scotch?”

  Tim—and Jim—looked properly aghast at the idea. “We can’t drink on duty.”

  Mack rested his head in his hands. “Don’t worry. I’ll drink yours.”

  One of the men leaned down and patted Mack on the back. “Alcohol won’t solve nothin’. You got to face your problems and sock ‘em in the nose.”

  Mack eyed the burly sheriff and his equally burly deputy, noting that the only obvious difference between them was the size of their badges. “Easy for you guys to say. You’re not wearing a nightgown.”

  The deputy grinned. “Well, now, it looks right pretty on you. And it fits you a sight better than one of those gowns you’ll be gettin’ when you check into the county hospital.”

  “Hospital?” That was a scary thought. “I am not going to the hospital.”

  “Well, now,” Deputy Tim said. “We’ll just have to wait an’ see what Doc says, won’t we?”

  “Is there some reason you don’t want to go to the hospital?” the sheriff asked.

  He could think of several reasons to stay out of this county’s hospital, but he didn’t think stating them would win him any brownie points with “the law.” “I just want to go back and start this day over.”

  “There you go, wishin’ your life away.” Deputy Tim smiled and scratched behind his ear. “And your wed-din’day at that.”

  The sheriff frowned as he propped one shiny black boot on the edge of Miz Vangie’s sofa and leaned closer to Mack. “What I want to know is, if you could go back, what would you do that’d be different?”

  “What I want to know, Jim Cooper, is what your nasty old boot is doing on my good furniture.”

  Sheriff Jim got his boot on the floor in a flash and looked as guilty as a kid with a slingshot. “Sorry, Miz Vangie. I was questionin’ our boy here and forgot where I was for a minute.”

  The little gray-haired woman in the doorway nodded a stern acquittal before she entered the room and set the tray she carried on the coffee table in front of Mack. “So,” she said. “You’re awake.”

  “No thanks to you. You tried your best to kill me.”

  “I was protectin’ my property as the United States Constitution says I have a right to.” Miz Vangie gave him a dour look as she chose a coffee mug off the tray and held it out to him. “Drink this. I put somethin’ in it for your headache.”

  He took the mug and eyed it suspiciously. The steam curled off the cocoa like a crooked finger, beckoning him to take a sip…just a sip. He wondered if arsenic had an aroma. “Where’s Eliza?”

  “I left her in the kitchen.”

  “What’s she doing in there?”

  “Huntin’ for somethin’ to eat.” Miz Vangie settled on the edge of a rocking chair, looking remarkably like a parakeet about to fall off its perch. “She asked me if I minded and I told her she should just make herself at home, so I reckon that’s what she’s doin’.”

  It figured. He got shot, knocked unconscious and possibly poisoned, while Eliza got to “make herself at home.” “Look,” he said. “If I can just borrow a car, I’ll get out of here and—”

  “You had just as well forget that idea.” Deputy Tim edged closer to the coffee table as the aroma of hot chocolate wafted up. “You’re not goin’ anywhere until the doc says you’re able. Boy, this sure smells good.” He picked a mug off the tray. “Don’t you want a cup of Miz Vangie’s cocoa, Sheriff Jim?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” The sheriff picked up the last mug with a nod of appreciation to Miz Vangie, who made room in her lap for a surly looking Mr. Silk. “Tim’s right, Mack, and even if Doc says you’re able, you couldn’t drive anyway ‘cause you don’t have a driver’s license. Me and Tim—bein’ the law and all—we’re honor bound not to let you get behind the wheel of a car unless you have a valid license.”

  Mack’s head continued to pound and he decided it really didn’t make much difference what Miz Vangie had put in his cocoa. “I’m a licensed driver,” he said after the first sip. “Can’t you call up my DMV record or something?”

  Deputy Tim licked a cocoa mustache off his upper lip. “Could, but wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, you don’t have a speck of identification. For all me and Jim know, you could be a notorious criminal usin’ a fictitious name.”

  “Eliza will vouch for me.”

  Sheriff Jim shook his head. “For all we know, she could be a notorious criminal, too.” The twins traded grins. “She wasn’t exactly carrying much in the way of identification, either.”

  Mack didn’t like the way they were grinning, and he certainly didn’t like the hint of lechery in their expressions. “Our clothes were stolen,” he said pointedly.

  “Yeah.”

  “We heard.”

  The men chuckled and raised their mugs as if they had choreographed and timed their response.

  “Look, I’m sure Eliza told you about the dress and being kidnapped and—”

  “Kidnapped?” Miz Vangie tilted forward in the rocker, forcing Mr. Silk to poke out his head like a joey in a kangaroo’s pocket. “She didn’t tell me you kidnapped her!”

  “Kidnapped?” Sheriff Jim frowned.

  “That would be a serious offense.” Deputy Tim set his mug on the table. “We’d have to put you in jail for that.”

  “Deputy Cooper…” Mack set his mug beside Deputy Tim’s “…I was the victim.”

  “She kidnapped you?” Miz Vangie whisked the rocker into motion and the Yorkie slid off her lap. He shook himself and jumped onto the sofa next to Mack. “That is not what she told us,” Miz Vangie continued. “She said today was your weddin’ day.”

  Sheriff Jim’s frown tightened with suspicion. “He said he doesn’t remember gettin’ married.”

  “Well, that’s an odd thing not to remember.”

  The three of them looked at one another, then turned to eye Mack, clearly suspicious.

  “I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “Today was my wedding day, but I was kidnapped.”

  Miz Vangie pursed her lips. “This is beginnin’ to sound mighty peculiar to me.”

  “Me, too.” The sheriff hooked his thumbs over his belt. “It sounds to me like someone is lyin’.”

  Mack frowned. “Why would I lie to you?”

  “To get out of going to jail, maybe?”

  “Mack! Darling!” Eliza rushed into the room, a blue flannel nightgown plumped with air from her movements, her arms outstretched as if she’d been searching for him half of her life. “You’re all right!” She flung herself onto the sofa and into his arms, accidentally trapping Mr. Silk in the folds of Mack’s nightgown. The dog nipped him on the thigh.

  “Ow,” he said…except Eliza was kissing him, and his discomfort got swept away under the warm, sweet pressure of her mouth. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and used his other hand to push the Yorkie off the couch. Then he concentrated on Eliza’s kiss, deciding he should savor whateve
r moments of pleasure dropped into his lap.

  She stroked his hair, his face, and kissed her way to his earlobe. “Let me do the talking,” she whispered before her voice rose to a normal speaking tone. “Oh, my precious darling. I was so worried. Are you sure you don’t want to lie down? You look so pale. Do you feel all right? Did you drink your cocoa?”

  He stared at her, unable to fathom what she was up to.

  “Eliza?” Miz Vangie said sternly as she picked up Mr. Silk and dropped him in her lap. “You told us you and Mack eloped.”

  “We did.” Eliza kept her arms looped about his neck and looked over her shoulder at Miz Vangie and the twins. “We eloped this afternoon. Didn’t Mack tell you?”

  Sheriff Jim crossed his arms over his badge. “He says he was kidnapped.”

  Eliza was silent for a moment, and when she turned to look at Mack again, he could see her eyes and mouth were rounded with false alarm. “Oh, my darling,” she said. “You can’t have forgotten our wedding… unless—unless that blow on the head gave you…” she paused for effect “…amnesia!”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I remember you,” he said distinctly.

  Her shoulders sagged. “But not the ceremony at that little chapel outside of Lawrence? Oh, Mack, it was so beautiful. I can’t believe you’ve forgotten.”

  “Are you sure I was there?”

  She gave him a quick frown before she sighed—deeply and very audibly. “Oh, Mack, Mack, Mack, Mack.” Then she laid her head on his shoulder and whispered fiercely, “Back me up. I’ll explain later.” Her head came up, almost clipping him on the chin, but he was too quick for her. “Oh, Sheriff Jim and Deputy Tim,” she said. “What am I going to do? I’m afraid my husband has lost his mind.”

  “Memory,” Mack corrected, but no one paid any attention to him.

  “Amnesia, huh?” Deputy Tim stroked his chin. “Did you hit him that hard, Miz Vangie?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not near as strong as I used to be. And I wasn’t tryin’ to really hurt him, you know.”

  In a glance, Mack assessed Miz Vangie’s fragile appearance and felt grateful he hadn’t met her in her prime.

  “Well, now, me and Tim know that for sure, Miz Vangie.” The sheriff stroked his chin in exact and unconscious imitation of his twin. “But you musta packed more of a wallop than you meant to, ‘cause he was still unconscious when we got here.”

  “But that wasn’t from me hittin’ him with the skillet,” Miz Vangie said. “That was from Eliza bangin’ his head on the door facin’ when we carried him inside.”

  Mack looked at Eliza.

  “It was an accident,” she said.

  “I’m not surprised,” he replied.

  “Well, as the sheriff, I am just gonna have to get to the bottom of this.” Jim hitched up his trousers. “Now, were you kidnapped or weren’t ya?”

  “Yes,” Mack stated firmly.

  At the same moment, Eliza said a clear and definite, “No.”

  He looked at her with growing irritation. “Tell these people the truth, Eliza.”

  “I already tried that, Mack.”

  “Then tell them again.”

  She shrugged. “You really should have let me do the talking.”

  “Uh-oh.” Tim rubbed the back of his neck. “I think we got ourselves a little problem.”

  “Someone sure does.” Sheriff Jim looked from Mack to Eliza and back again. “Because if one of you was kidnapped and one of you is lyin’ about it, then somewhere there’s been a crime committed, and I got no choice but to lock one of you up until I can figure out what really happened.”

  “I just told you what happened,” Mack said, ignoring Eliza’s warning frown. “Eliza, please, just tell the truth. That’s always the best policy, trust me.”

  She sighed and scooted off his lap. “We aren’t married,” she said. “There wasn’t a wedding. He doesn’t have amnesia. His shirt cuff got tangled in my sleeve and he left the woman he was supposed to marry on the church steps because Chuck kidnapped the million-dollar dress.”

  Miz Vangie stopped rocking and turned her myopic, but commanding gaze on the sheriff. “Jim, I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on here.”

  “Yes, Miz Vangie. You’re right.” Sheriff Jim’s barrel chest expanded as he made another adjustment of his khaki pants. “And I’m gonna put a stop to it right now. Tim, get ahold of Doc and tell him to meet us at the jail.” He reached down and grasped Mack’s arm. “Come on, Mack, I’m placin’ you under arrest.”

  Chapter 9

  “Now, you just get on in there and keep him company for a while. I’ll be back to get you when everything’s ready.” Sheriff Cooper gave Eliza a wink as he closed the door, shutting her into the walkway between a double row of jail cells. She wrinkled her nose at the unsavory smell and blinked in the dingy light, but with a show of confidence, she straightened her shoulders and approached the first enclosure. Pressing her palms against the cool iron bars, she looked in at Mack, who was stretched out on a too-small cot in the six-by-nine-foot cell.

  He had his arm draped over his eyes and was so still he might have been asleep. Except he wasn’t. She knew no one could sleep through all the sheriffs bolt clanking, key jangling and very vocal instructions-even if Mack hadn’t given any sign as yet that he was awake and aware of her presence. He just lay there, probably too angry with her to speak.

  She sighed. Auntie Gem had always told her that one day she’d learn the value of staying out of trouble in the first place instead of trying to explain her way out of it afterward. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and bravely lifted her chin. “One day” had arrived.

  “Let me guess. You baked me a cake, but forgot to put the file inside.”

  She jumped a little at the hollow echo of his voice against the concrete-block walls. “I’m glad your funny bone is still in working order,” she said with forced cheerfulness. She wished he’d get up off the cot or at least sit up and look at her. “Sheriff Cooper said the doc gave you a clean bill of health. No concussion or broken bones or anything major like that. How do you feel?”

  “Like I was whacked off at the root and shoved headfirst through a hay baler.”

  His arm remained across his face…and she figured it was because he wasn’t any too eager to set eyes on her again. “I see you got rid of the nightgown. You must be more comfortable in that.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said dryly. “It’s hard to understand why these state-issued jumpsuits aren’t more popular with the general public. Do you think it could be the color?”

  She pressed her lips together, reminding herself that he had not had a good day and was understandably not in the best of moods. “I find it hard to imagine that you look better in orange than you did in rosebud flannel, but if you’ll get up and sashay around the cell a couple of times, I might change my mind.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Eliza. It’s going to take genuine groveling.”

  “How about a pardon?”

  “As in you beg my pardon?”

  “As in I think you’re about to be reprieved.”

  His arm came away from his eyes, and she felt the impact of his questioning frown. “The charges have been dropped?”

  “Mmm…that’s what I understand, yes.”

  He stood up slowly, first swinging his legs off the cot and putting his feet on the floor, then bracing his hands on the thin edge of the mattress and pushing himself up. The jail-issue jumpsuit fit him better than Miz Vangie’s nightgown had, but orange wasn’t really his color. Or maybe it was the wary expression in his dark eyes that clashed with the clothes. Not that it made any difference. He was easily the most attractive man she’d ever seen…in jail-house orange or rosebud flannel.

  Holding her gaze by sheer force of will, he took one solid step away from the cot and stopped a bare two inches from the cell bars she was standing in front of. “Okay, what’s the catch?”

  “Catch?” she asked, as if she
couldn’t imagine why he thought there might be a loophole.

  “Come on, Eliza, give me the bottom line.”

  “I don’t know, Mack. Really. Miz Vangie and the sheriff are being kind of secretive, whispering to each other and scurrying in and out. I can’t say for sure what they’re doing.”

  “Then how do you know they’re going to release me?”

  “I’m not sure they’re going to release you…exactly. I think it’s gonna be more along the lines of a, uh, custody transfer.”

  He placed his hands over hers on the bars, sending a quicksilver awareness flashing through her. “But Miz Vangie is dropping the indecent-exposure charge, right?”

  “She feels just awful about what happened, Mack. Really. She wants to make it up to you.”

  “I’ll just bet she does.”

  Eliza wished she could touch the corner of his mouth, ease the lines of tension there, explain to him that she hadn’t meant to cause so much trouble. Or maybe she only wanted to distract him for a moment or two. “She let me borrow this outfit.”

  His gaze slid over her, taking in the ill-fitting pink shirtwaist, the lace-cuffed white anklets, the no-nonsense, laced-up shoes and the modest tint of pink on her lips. “Beautiful.”

  “Don’t be patronizing. I know I look like I belong on the set of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’”

  “But you combed the hay out of your hair.”

  She shrugged. “Miz Vangie insisted.”

  “She’s crazy. I thought the hay was a nice touch.”

  Eliza met his gaze for an instant, feeling a sweet, wistful warmth at the memory of being with him in the haystack. She thought she could see a hint of intimacy in his eyes, as if he remembered, too. But if it was there, it would vanish the moment she told him…“I think she is, actually. Crazy, I mean. Truly, Mack, I tried to talk her out of this ridiculous idea, but I think she’s going ahead with it, anyway.”

  His wary expression took a turn for the worse. “All right, what do I have to do to get out of here? Make a contribution to the twins’ reelection campaign? Recommend Miz Vangie for a job with the CIA? What?”