The ring was valuable. Shock made Piper drop her keys. She stooped and picked them up. Why had Zach spent so much money on her? He’d claimed she could keep the ring, as a gift, whether she’d accepted his offer or not.
Did he like her?
No. It couldn’t be. He didn’t even know her.
“You’re fading in and out, like an AM radio station, young lady.” Birdie leaned closer. “Did somebody give you that ring?” She popped her head up. “I’m guessing it has something to do with your love trance the other night, and that it has nothing to do with Floyd the Steroid, who’s out of the country, if I heard right.”
“Chad’s gone.” Confirming his absence was all Piper could say. She had no idea what to say to any of these accusations. Much as she longed to divest herself of the burden of her situation, she couldn’t drag Birdie into the web of secrecy any more than she could involve Mitzi. “But yes. Someone gave it to me.”
“That ring means something. That’s a serious ring.”
“I know.” Piper’s eyes filled up again. “It’s a serious situation.” Far more serious than she’d like to admit.
“Hand me those.” Birdie took the keys from Piper, but she didn’t open her door for her, she led her across the landing to her own apartment and sat her down on the couch. She handed her a tall, sweating glass of lemonade. “Now, spill. All of it. Who is this guy, and what is going on that you’re wearing his ring?”
Piper let the lemonade slide cold down her throat in sour sweetness, while she calculated how much to tell and how much to conceal.
“His name is Zach Travis. We met this week. He’s pretty…incredible.” As she used the adjective, she knew she meant it. “And I—I think I’m going to marry him.”
Birdie clapped her hands and threw back her head.
“Hallelujah!” She sang halfway through the Handel chorus while doing an awkward, disco-version of a victory dance around the cowhide chair. Finally, she calmed down and sat on the edge of the coffee table.
“You seem a lot more thrilled than I would have expected.” Consternation made Piper’s teeth clench a second. “Is there something wrong with Chad that I missed?”
“Oh, darling.” Birdie waved away the question. “I’m just glad you found someone to start a life with. You met him this week and are already wearing his ring?”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Pshaw! When you know, you know. No sense waiting around. You should marry him today.”
“Today.” This response took Piper off guard. “Can’t I wait until Monday?”
“Oh, fine. But not longer than a week. Please. Long engagements are the stuff the underworld is made of.”
“What if it’s…actually on Monday?” Piper’s throat constricted as she said it, her eyes starting to tingle. She couldn’t cry.
“You’re being serious.” Birdie nearly fell off the table. “This Monday? As in day after tomorrow?”
To this Piper just nodded, a sheepish shame crawling in her. But Birdie didn’t bat another eye, as a slow smile broke out over her wrinkled face.
“Let’s just say if it was Neil Diamond asking me to sprint to the altar, I’d teleport to be there instantly.”
Now Piper let the tears fall in earnest, tears of relief and gratitude for an understanding friend who didn’t think the worst of her.
“Thank you, Birdie. You can’t know how much this means to me.” She embraced Birdie, who patted her back, a soothing comfort, one Piper needed like oxygen right now.
“You’re a special girl, Pipe. More special than you know. I hope he’s realizing what a favor you’re doing for him.”
The phrasing couldn’t be more apropos. Piper chuckled. “It’s more like he’s the one doing me the favor.”
Birdie gave her a last squeeze. “If your opinion of him is that high, then I’m sure this fast-tracking is fine.” She sat back and steepled her fingers, drumming them together. “Wait right there. If you really did meet him this week and are marrying him Monday, you have a problem.”
Boy, did Piper ever have a problem. A bunch of them.
“Luckily, I have something for you. A solution!” Birdie sprang from the coffee table and swept from the room.
Waiting, Piper drank some more lemonade and swiped at her cheeks. Birdie’s approval meant almost as much to Piper as her parents’ blessing.
Wait. Zach isn’t asking for my dad’s blessing. That thought lodged in her craw—but she shook it free. It wasn’t like this was real, anyway. They’d probably divorce as soon as he got his promotion and the ICE dogs were called off Piper’s scent.
Well, wouldn’t they? They hadn’t discussed how to dissolve the relationship when the hoopla died down and the problems were solved. They had a lot to talk about. She wished she knew what time he would be done working today so she could talk these things out, but he’d seemed rushed to return to his office.
She couldn’t interrupt him.
Divorce. Piper had always said she would never divorce. The idea of a scheduled divorce stuck in her craw, too, a chunk twice as big as the father’s blessing chunk already taking up lodging in there.
The lemonade suddenly tasted a lot more sour.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be as slick as Zach had made it seem. It might be an all-business arrangement to him, but there were going to be other consequences, whether they liked it or not.
“Do you like it?” From her bedroom, Birdie emerged with a flowing, pale candlelight-colored dress in her arms. “It used to be a stark white, of course, back in the day. Made it myself.”
Piper reached out and fingered the brocade. “You made this?”
It was intricate, silk with floral designs, interweaving one with another, perfect and elegant and sweet. It made Piper think of a garden she once saw right after a snowstorm, each branch and vine whitened with frost, naturally intertwining. This dress transported her there.
“Sixty-two years ago.” She placed it in Piper’s arms, and the weight of it rested on her. “I miss him every day.”
Every day? The words came as a check when she thought about Chad. Chad had been gone a few days. Or—two? She wasn’t sure. And I don’t—I haven’t missed him.
They accused her.
“You can wear it, if you like. I’ll alter it tomorrow if it needs, but you and I are close to the same height. My curves have rearranged themselves since then, the top one sliding to my middle, sadly, but I think this should be about right for you. I worked in clothing, too. I have a seamstress’s eye.”
Birdie never ceased to amaze.
“Thank you. It means the world to me. Otherwise I might have shown up in jeans and my Du Jour apron.”
“Really! To your own wedding? Please. It’d be like you thought nothing of it.”
“Well, you never know.”
“I do know. I know you. And you value marriage.” Birdie leaned in, her eyes wise and incisive. “I saw the way you sent Roidy Floydy home when he dropped you off after dates. Aha—you didn’t think I was watching, but I happen to know: you’re a good girl.”
Whoa. How had Birdie noticed something like that? She’d never been open about her standards—except with Chad, and a few other guys she’d dated.
“I try.”
“Which is why I didn’t ask the obvious, glaring question of the speedy-marriage.”
“What question?”
“The one other people will ask—whether you’re pregnant.”
The word came with an exclamation point into her head. Or maybe a dagger.
“No, not me. Not possible.”
“See, I know. I knew that. And that’s why I’m sure you’re taking this seriously.” Birdie dropped her voice and mumbled, “And why I’m so glad it’s this Zach Whoever, and not Chad.”
“What did you say?” Piper had heard her, but she still needed to get clarification. What could be so objectionable about Chad, who had a good, steady job as an accountant, and who supported her standards and did
n’t push them, and who…she ran out of reasons right there.
“Never mind. Do you want me to come and be a witness? Or take photos? I have a good camera on my iPhone. Better than my old Nikon, actually. Can’t believe what they can do these days. I want to own and try all the technology before I kick off.”
“Birdie. You’re not kicking off anytime soon.”
“Not if I can help it. Never mind that I’m eighty, I haven’t met Neil Diamond yet.”
“Thanks for the offer of support, but I’m guessing Zach would want it to just be us and the judge.”
Birdie’s face fell.
“Not a church wedding? I figured you for a church wedding girl.”
Piper shrugged. She’d figured herself for a lot of things that weren’t going to come to fruition, it would seem, at least not until she had this immigration problem solved.
“I’ll be honored to wear this dress. Thank you, Birdie. Thank you to the moon and back.”
∞∞∞
Of all the days of the week, Zach hated working Sundays most. Back when he was a kid, Mom insisted on church Sundays—pressed cotton shirts, zip-up necktie, and all. Sure, he’d complained as much as the next pre-teen boy about the tight collar and the stiff clothes, the hard bench and the boring sermons, but it was a front. He’d quietly loved it. Dad sitting by Mom, who was holding baby Libby, who was cooing beside Zach. The family day.
And now because of Crockett, Bowie, and Houston’s treadmill, there was no chance of him ever going back to that good Sunday life.
Resigned, he stuck his nose back down to the grindstone and rewrote the argument for the Karlovy v. Taylor case.
Two hours later, he came up for air when he overheard Fuller Eisenhower’s voice from over near the water cooler. Fuller came in on a Sunday? And who was he talking to? Zach’s ears tuned in.
“Don’t be surprised if you see me there.”
The voice of some other associate Zach didn’t recognize followed. A woman’s.
“You? At the spouses’ potluck at the Crockett mansion? But you’re not married.”
“Yet.”
“It’s next weekend. You’re just going to show up with a date? They won’t even let you put your tinfoil-covered Jell-O down on the table if you’re not supposed to be there. There will be bouncers checking marriage certificates. I know these people.”
Aha. This must be Eisenhower’s informant. Zach didn’t know anything about a spouses’ potluck. Never invited, he’d been kept in the dark.
“I never had the incentive before, Sylvia. And neither did you.”
Sylvia. Nakamura? Wasn’t she the associate he’d sat beside in the meeting yesterday? She’d been here a lot longer than Zach, by six or seven years, maybe, but she always kept quiet in client conferences and staff meetings, so he hardly knew her.
“Well, they’re not going to consider me for partner,” she said, with a sour note.
Well, Sylvia wasn’t wrong about that. Zach might not have certainty about how married or unmarried status played into the promotion decisions, but he did know quiet lawyers didn’t advance at CBH.
“You’re not hearing me, Sylvia.” Eisenhower lowered his voice, but not so low Zach had trouble listening.
Really, he shouldn’t be listening. But this was the part he needed to know the most. Then he would quit putting his ears where they didn’t belong, go back to Karlovy.
“You and I—we both need a shot at this. With Crockett leaving, he’s the last of the old guard, and now all the rest are new, destined to work another twenty years as partners.” Eisenhower’s assessment fit Zach’s. “They will fill the slot, and you’re the one who told me the unwritten requirements.”
So Sylvia had been his source. Skepticism about that theory still made up the bulk of Zach’s opinion on that.
“Yeah, they’d never write that one down. Discrimination up the wazoo.” Sylvia paused. “So what are you suggesting?”
“Come on. It’s obvious. We get married. It’s the only way—you’re the one who said so.”
There was silence for a minute. Sylvia asked, “Are you even attracted to me? That’s just wrong.”
“Well, I’ve never seen you look at me with wanton eyes.”
“What are wanton eyes?”
“Come on. You know this would be nothing more than a façade. Short term. It would put both of us into the running, and may the best associate win.”
Zach’s ears burned. He’d finally heard the thing he shouldn’t have: Eisenhower, too, intended on setting up a sham marriage in order to put himself into the running for partner. And he was dragging his informant into it, too. Stupid move, unless Eisenhower was fully confident he could beat her out.
Which he could—with all that bombast as capital—if he could ever once contribute to the CBH coffers. Considering that eternal Bingham v. Kempton case, such an event looked unlikely.
Sylvia didn’t sound convinced yet, either.
“So you’re doing this even though you know I’d probably clean your clock in an interview?”
“We can’t let this opportunity slip away.” Eisenhower hadn’t answered the question.
“I’ll think about it.” And with those words from Sylvia, Zach heard footfalls going either way down the hallway.
The girl had to think about it. I know how you feel, Eisenhower.
But then again, that rat. First he’d told Zach what to do to get a foot in the door, and then here Eisenhower went shoving him aside to go after the same job—in the same way.
Zach surged to his feet, marching toward Sylvia’s office. He’d tell her just what kind of a double-dealing lout Eisenhower was, and she’d drop the idea like a hot coal.
But as he lifted his hand to knock, he heard her on the phone already. “Eisenhower? That’s fine. Meet me at the courthouse at eight tomorrow morning. Uh-huh. Okay, seven-thirty.”
Argh! Not only were they playing Zach’s game, they were intending to beat him to the punch by a half an hour.
Well, forget that.
The second the lights went out at CBH, Zach headed out. He’d meant to go home, rest up for his wedding day, but it was Sunday night, which meant his truck was on autopilot. Instead of weaving through town to his place in the city, it took him west—not to the Double Bar T, but to a biker bar on a deserted road.
∞∞∞
Sunday night at about eleven forty-five, Zach’s truck crunched the gravel parking lot of the lone biker bar along the mostly abandoned highway west of San Antonio. Despite its remote location, the lot still teemed with motorcycles and bandana-headed guys with beards, even at this late hour. Mosquitoes swarmed the flood lamp above the attached garage and repair shop, and night birds swooped to take their evening meal.
Zach knew Hog Wild didn’t pull the chain on its neon OPEN sign until after last call at one a.m., so he’d still be fine dropping in on Grandma Vada at midnight like this.
By this time tomorrow, Zach would be a married man, lying in bed beside the luscious Piper Quinn. Make that Piper Travis. Nice. Except, reality check: there were no guarantees that sleeping in the same bed would be part of the bargain.
It had better be part of the bargain.
Zach cursed himself as his shoes crunched across the rocks. Stupid idiot for being the one who’d insisted on solely a business arrangement. Fool country boy. Because if it was all business, he was going to be hard pressed to keep his hands off her. She’d hooked him like a large mouth bass, and whether she knew it or not, she was playing him on her line.
“Norm!” Everyone in the bar yelled when he walked in. This was no ordinary biker bar. It was an 1980s-throwback bar, too. They yelled Norm every time any lone drinker walked in, a nod to a TV show that aired before Zach’s time. Then the patrons laughed until they fell off their barstools, like it was the most original joke in the world, even though it replayed itself every few minutes all night.
Zach tipped his imaginary hat to the crowd and bellied up to the bar.
/> “I’ll have what Phil’s having,” he said, his favorite bartender’s favorite line. “How are you, Grandma?”
“Zach, my boy. It’s about time. I was looking for you starting at ten. They’re keeping you later every week and you’re looking wan. Time to fatten you up.” She slid him a bowl of unshelled peanuts and hunkered down across from him. “Eat. And talk.”
He shelled his first peanut and popped it in his mouth.
“I’m getting married.”
“About time. What are you, thirty?”
“Close.” Thirty-two. Shouldn’t grandmas know that kind of thing?
“Burning daylight.”
That’s what everyone told him, although usually with more tact and less kindness. But he was doing something about it now. Sort of.
“It’s not as ideal as it sounds.”
“Why not? She imperfect? Because no girl is perfect. I mean, I’m the least perfect, and I have four husbands to testify to that.”
Zach shook his head. It wasn’t like Grandpa Huey or Grandpa Julio would be testifying to her imperfections, either. Julio had died in Viet Nam, and she’d buried Huey just before Zach came along. She was still with Grandpa Blaze. In all three of those marriages, she’d only been divorced once, years before, from a car salesman out of Waco named Iago, about which she’d only ever say, Never trust the handsome Italian.
“Actually, this girl’s pretty close, as perfect goes.”
Grandma Vada slapped the bar.
“Now that’s what I like to hear. I want to meet her.”
“All in good time.” The idea gave him pause. The arrangement was supposedly business only, and yet, to be convincing, family would have to be involved. Feelings might also come into play. What if Grandma Vada, and Libby, and Mom and Dad all saw how great Piper was and then found out he was using her to get a job promotion?
They’d kill him.
They’d bury his body next to the burned out house on the Double Bar T Ranch. They’d park an old, defunct tractor on his grave. One with a leaky oil pan.
Legally in Love Boxed Set 1 Page 50