The Bride Said, I Did?

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  And she had known, even if the impossible happened and they did manage to become friends when they went off to Mexico together, that would continue. Dani did not do favors for people she knew in the business; her professional reputation was much too important to her.

  Which made what had eventually happened—the two of them ending up married and in bed together—even more puzzling. Not just for her, but for him.

  “And what else do you remember?” Beau prodded.

  Dani spread her palms helplessly on either side of her. “I remember arguing with you in sort of a flirtatious way all afternoon and into the night, and that’s it.” Dani paused, aware they hadn’t actually gotten married until the next day if the date on the marriage certificate he had shown her was correct. That left a very big blank in her memory. A thirty-some-hour blank she found very dismaying, especially after all the bantering and teasing that had been going on prior to that. Like it or not, from the moment they stepped on that plane, her defenses had been going down. And apparently so had his.

  Reminding herself not to be too trusting, Dani asked cautiously, “What about you?” Up until this afternoon, she had assumed he was the mastermind of this whole folly. That he had designed the whole thing as payback to embarrass her and throw her for a loop for the not-so-glowing reviews she had given his movies and the way she had deliberately held him at arm’s length, refusing to let him work his movie-star charm on her. But now, given the stunned and curious way he kept looking at her, she couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t as much an innocent victim of whatever had happened to them as she was. And if that was the case, she had no reason at all to be mad at him. And that was a notion she found even more unnerving. Because it was her anger, their mutual resentment, that she had been counting on to keep them apart and prevent them from doing whatever it was they’d done down in Mexico again.

  Beau frowned, stroked his jaw and continued filling her in matter-of-factly. “When it comes to that night, I draw a complete blank. I’d like to think it’s because the whole evening was so traumatic,” he teased, beating her to the punch with a wink.

  “Har-de-har-har, cowboy,” Dani responded, determined not to let him joke his way out of anything when it came to the two of them. “And if that evening was traumatic,” she asserted stubbornly, “it was traumatic for both of us.”

  “True.” Beau paused, stroked his jaw again. As the thoughtful moment drew out, his eyes sparkled wickedly. He rolled his weight onto his toes and leaned toward her conspiratorially. “And yet there must be some reason we got married that night and made a baby,” he said.

  “Complete utter insanity?” Dani quipped drolly. The only reason she would ever have gotten married—knowingly anyway—was for love. Her heart quickened its pace as she feared where this line of questioning was leading. Deftly she stepped back.

  He stepped toward her. “That, sweetheart, goes without saying.” He laced his hands around her waist and tugged her against him until they were touching breast to chest, tummy to tummy, thigh to thigh. “The truth is,” Beau continued resolutely, looking down at her with soft serious eyes, “whatever happened that night had nothing to do with where we were or what we were doing at the time or even what we were arguing about. Instead—” his velvety voice dropped another compelling notch “—it had everything to do with what has been going on with us since the first day we met.”

  He sounded so sure. So smugly certain! “And that is what exactly?” Dani prodded, afraid from the amorous gleam in his eyes she already knew precisely what he was going to assert.

  “Desire,” Beau whispered softly, sifting a hand through her hair, watching it as it fell in silky copper strands across her cheek. “Pure unadulterated desire.”

  Dani laughed uneasily and tried, unsuccessfully, to step out of the warm confining hopelessly erotic circle of his arms. “Now I know you’re insane,” she claimed as she splayed both hands across his chest and felt the strong heavy thudding of his heart, so like her own. “I have never, not for one day, not for even one second, desired you!” Dani fibbed as his gaze traced the parted contours of her lips.

  Beau’s sexy smile widened. He slid a hand beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. “Sure about that now?” he asked as his head slowly lowered.

  “I’m positive,” Dani whispered. Trembling at his nearness, she drew in a jerky breath. This was not going to happen. He was not going to kiss her.

  Beau touched his lips lightly to hers once, and then again. “Okay, let’s see,” he murmured seductively. The next thing Dani knew her eyes were closed and his lips were on hers, nudging them apart. It was the kind of kiss you saw in the movies. Tender, evocative, erotic. Sensitive, searching. It was the kind of kiss you never really expected—in real life—to get. But getting it she was, and she had to admit that, even as she stood on tiptoe and let herself be drawn into the seamlessly sexy kiss, it was rocking her to her very soul. Making her tingle all over. Making her want. Need. Desire. Oh, heavens, she had never felt such desire. Or experienced anything so wonderful and dangerous and right. And it was then, just as she should have suspected, that Beau let the soft kiss come to a slow effortless conclusion.

  Still holding her in his arms, Beau searched her eyes. “Now do you remember?”

  Chapter Two

  Suddenly Dani knew what was happening and why. She couldn’t believe she had been such a fool. Worse, she had almost—almost—bought the I’m-head-over-heels-in-love-with-you look in his eyes! Only her common sense had saved her from admitting something equally foolish to him. But thank heaven she was one woman who was firmly rooted in reality. She knew—better than most—that this life did not come with happily-ever-afters. Especially ever-afters that good. She might wish one of the most famous movie stars in the world was totally enthralled with her, but it wasn’t happening. No matter how hard the Texas lothario was currently pushing to convince her otherwise.

  “Now I get it,” Dani said as she shoved away from him.

  “Get what?” Beau studied her with highly exaggerated confusion.

  Dani scowled and planted her hands on her hips. No way was this handsome cowboy running a scam on her. “So where is it?”

  Beau quirked an eyebrow and continued to regard her with confusion. “Where’s what?”

  “The hidden camera.”

  “Camera?” Beau repeated, doing, Dani thought, a fine job of acting perplexed.

  But she wasn’t buying it. Not for one red-hot instant. She waved her hands excitedly. “We’re on the Celebrity Hoaxes TV show, aren’t we?” Stepping forward, she pointed an accusing finger at his chest. “This is all a practical joke. On me. And everyone in Laramie is probably in on it. My sisters, Lacey McCabe and the people right here at the hospital.” Which meant, of course, she wasn’t really pregnant, either, since they hadn’t really made love or gotten married in Mexico. So she could stop worrying about that right now, Dani concluded with relief. Since this was all part of a giant joke on her.

  “Come on, where are the cameras?” Dani began to search the examining room.

  Beau followed her, looking even more nonplussed as she searched behind the cabinets, beneath the sink. “What cameras?”

  Dani whirled to face him. “The ones that are taping us for the TV show, of course.”

  Beau placed his hands on her shoulders, then said very quietly and very calmly, “Dani, there are no cameras.”

  She smiled thinly, aware that she had never wanted to haul off and slug him more than she did at that minute. “Of course you would say that.” He wanted her to make a fool of herself in the worst way!

  Beau’s eyes darkened. “I mean it, Dani. There are no cameras,” he repeated firmly. Hands slipping back to her waist, he lifted her up and onto the examining table. Trapping her with his body, bracing a hand on either side of her, he leaned in close, “We are not being filmed.”

  Dani ignored him as another flare of mistrust swept through her. “If you say so, but for the record—�
� she looked straight into his midnight-blue eyes “—this is all a colossal waste of time. Since I will never in a million years give you permission to air what is taking place right here and right now.” That said, she leaned back and neatly folded her hands on her lap.

  “That’s good.” Beau looked pleased as he stepped between her knees and pulled her close. “Because I don’t think I’d want what is taking place right now aired anywhere.” He angled his thumb at his chest, winked facetiously. “I don’t want to be made a fool of, either. I have a reputation to maintain, you know.”

  Speaking of reputations, they had been in here—alone—an awfully long time, Dani thought. Enough to get the local gossip mill going, big time. “Too bad you didn’t think of that before you convinced me to go off to Mexico with you.” Dani pushed him away with both hands, hopped off the table and exited the examining room. Dashing to the front desk, she paid her bill, then headed out the doors into the shimmering late-afternoon heat.

  Beau caught up with her just past the entrance and steered her toward his vintage pickup. Made in 1960, the cherry-red truck was in mint condition inside and out, the only change to it modern safety belts and a topnotch stereo system. It was not exactly the kind of vehicle Dani would ever have expected a Hollywood star to drive. She figured he’d drive something expensive and strictly for status. But the cherished old pickup, so sturdy and reliable and masculine, suited him just the same. Maybe because it was the kind of truck a real cowboy would drive.

  “Too bad we didn’t think of a lot of things before we flew off to Mexico together.” Beau opened the door and, still holding her elbow, gallantly helped her inside.

  A prickle of uneasiness moved through Dani as the next thought hit. She watched as he circled the truck and slid behind the steering wheel. “Were there cameras in Mexico, too?” she asked, aghast, noticing without wanting to the way his white cotton shirt delineated the sexy contours of his shoulders, chest and abs. Was it her imagination or could she actually remember the way it had felt to be held against that rock-solid chest, with nothing between them but heat and bare skin?

  Beau turned the key in the ignition and shot her an astonished look. “I sincerely hope not!” he said, thrusting the truck into reverse. Sliding one arm along the back of the seat behind her, he pulled out of the space, then put the truck into first. His large capable hands on the wheel, he guided the truck toward the exit and onto the street.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier,” Dani said, incensed she had been such an idiot. She shook her head as Beau stopped at the light at the corner of Johnson Drive and Main Street and turned her eyes to the people coming in and out of the businesses in the center of town. A group had gathered in front of the courthouse and were talking animatedly. A mother and two children were carrying a cake out of Isabel Buchanon’s bakeshop. Men were lined up in Tom’s barber shop, awaiting haircuts and shaves. The afternoon edition of the Laramie Press was being loaded into trucks for delivery. Comforted by the homespun familiarity of the scene, Dani turned back to Beau and continued matter-of-factly, “This is all payback for our feud.”

  Beau’s jaw set as he drove down Main Street and then onto the street where she lived. He turned into her driveway and parked behind Dani’s car. He cut the engine with a snap. Released his seat belt and faced her. “For the last time,” he said quietly, “I am not playing a prank on you.”

  Dani wished she could believe him. Her feelings in turmoil, she glared at him emotionally. “I want to call a halt to this, Beau. Right now.” She wanted not to be pregnant and not to be married.

  “I just bet you do,” Beau said sarcastically as he reached over and released the catch of her safety belt. “Unfortunately, my darling wife—” the words were pushed through gritted teeth, and his hot gaze glided over her from head to toe, before returning with heart-stopping accuracy to her face “—it’s not that simple.”

  Wasn’t it? Dani wondered. And darn it all, anyway, why did he keep insisting on calling her his wife, never mind his darling wife? Couldn’t he see she hated that? How uncomfortable it made her? Of course he could! That, she supposed, as the word continued to echo in her head like a mantra, was precisely the point.

  She knew what the evidence said, but the two of them couldn’t be married. They just couldn’t be! She wouldn’t—couldn’t—have been that foolish. No matter how secretly attracted to him she was or what movie-star moves he’d put on her! No, this was all a bad joke or a bad dream. And it would be over soon enough. All she had to do was take a page from the exasperating cowboy’s book and kick a little butt. His.

  “Okay,” Dani retorted slowly and succinctly, letting him know with a glance this…whatever it was could not and would not go on. “If you won’t call a halt to this lunacy now, then when exactly will you?”

  BEAU KNEW DANI would never believe it, the way she was feeling now, but he wished this lunacy was a practical joke every bit as fervently as she did. Heaven knew he’d initially had the same suspicions she was harboring.

  Never before had he blacked out anything, let alone awakened in a bed with a beautiful woman having no idea how he’d gotten there, or when or why. But that it had happened was indisputable, Beau reminded himself sternly.

  Making matters worse, kissing her at the hospital had brought back a snippet of lovemaking with her that was so incredibly spectacular it might have been a dream. And yet he knew instantly from the startling clarity of this snippet—the image of Dani naked and in bed beneath him—that it was no fantasy he was having, but a memory. Otherwise, how would he know she had a beauty mark on her left breast, right next to the nipple? How would he have such a clear image of the creaminess of her breasts, the lissome lines of her spread thighs and the sweet triangle of coppery curls the exact shade of her hair? How would he know, even as he took her in his arms tonight, that the sassy cynical-to-the-max Dani kissed with a mixture of innocence and enthusiasm that was daunting in the extreme? How would he know about the soft sexy sounds she made in the back of her throat when they made love, or how much she liked making love in the missionary position? But he did know all that. Just as he knew when he took her in his arms tonight that when they started kissing, that when they were together like that, it was all either of them could do to stop.

  As for the rest, the marriage and baby part, he just couldn’t imagine it. Yes, she had been a burr in his side for years now, and for one reason or another constantly on his mind, but they’d never been lovers or even close to romantically involved. Maybe they should have been, though, Beau reasoned as Dani jumped out of the truck and walked toward the house, leaving him to follow at will. Maybe if they had kissed back then, before all the trouble started, the way they had today, maybe Dani and he never would have feuded at all.

  Dani paused at the top of the steps and rummaged around in her purse for her keys. Finally finding them, she unlocked the door and led the way into her house, full of moving boxes and extremely disorganized furniture. She switched on the overhead light in the foyer and whirled to face him. “You didn’t answer my question, Beau,” she snapped impatiently. “How long do you plan to let this scam continue?”

  Beau shrugged. “As long as it takes.” He didn’t want to be saddled with a marriage he couldn’t even remember entering into, but he was. And so was she. Like it or not, until he and Dani figured out exactly what had happened in Mexico, they were in this together.

  “As long as it takes for what?”

  For us to really get to know each other, he thought. For us to be, if not loving partners, at least friends. Because he had much preferred the idea of being Dani’s friend to being her enemy. Certainly it would be much easier to bring up a baby that way.

  Unable to take his eyes off Dani and the delectable picture she made in her trim linen slacks and sleeveless blouse, her bare feet peeking out beneath the strappy sandals, he edged nearer and replied, “For me to put an end to this feud between us once and for all.”

  “I’ve g
ot news for you, Beau Chamberlain,” she informed him in a soft sweet voice that set his teeth on edge. “This is not the way to do it!”

  “Then what is?” Beau countered as Dani swept past him into the shadowy living room. “Reason didn’t do it.”

  Stepping around the sofa and two club chairs, Dani began reading what was written on the tops of the moving cartons, which were stacked, one on top of the other, all over the place. Finally finding one that said “lamp,” she made a soft aha sound and attempted to lift it down. Beau strode over to help her before she could pick it up. He set it on the floor beside her.

  “There’s been nothing reasonable about anything you’ve said to me for the past two years,” Dani said. She slammed her hands on her hips, looking peeved rather than pleased by his help.

  Guessing what she wanted, which was to get lamps set up around the house before darkness fell, Beau ripped open the top of the box, removed the lamp and began assembling base to shade. “There was nothing reasonable about your reviews, either!” Beau shot right back. It bugged him she hadn’t liked his work. Not because he thought her reviews were inaccurate, but because they had been accurate. He’d known he wasn’t doing his best work in the two-year period after his nasty divorce from Sharon. It annoyed the heck out of him that Dani had easily recognized what other reviewers had failed to see—that a part of him had lost heart. Dani’s fair but kick-butt reviews of his work had been a wake-up call to him to put the past behind him. Now he was back at the top of his craft again. And soon Dani would know it, too.

  “So that’s what this is all about,” Dani pronounced grimly as she found another box labeled lamp. “The fact that you, cowboy, have a movie opening next week. So what’s the deal?” she asked stormily as Beau ripped open the box. Her chin angled up. “I write something nice about Bravo Canyon and no one ever sees the film of me acting like a blooming idiot, believing we got married and are expecting a baby?” Temper flashing in her amber eyes, turning them a darker prettier hue, she pulled both shade and base from the box. She shook her head, silky copper strands flying in all directions. Then proceeded to rip the protective wrapping from the lamp base and shade with quick angry motions. “Blackmail will not get a good review from me, Beau.”