“This is a special instance.” He wasn’t sure how much to tell this woman. Nothing about her screamed out that he could trust her. At all.
“Your letter requests an expedited schedule.” She cleared her throat and looked him up and down. “We only rarely make exceptions for expediting cases, as in when it is merited.”
Zach’s collar tightened like a noose. This woman held Piper’s fate in her hands, and even if she made his skin prickle, he had to remember the power she held over both of them.
“That’s why I came down here—to see about that possibility. I’d appreciate your careful review of the situation.”
“Well, an attorney from Crockett, Bowie, and Houston wouldn’t take a case like this unless it was very special. I’d be glad to do as you suggest, make a careful review of the situation, working closely with you, of course, and…” Her voice trailed off.
“Something wrong?”
“I must have misread something.” Her eyes scanned the letter again. “It says here that Ms. Quinn is not only your client, she is your wife.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not wearing a wedding ring.” Agent Valentine’s temperature toward him plummeted a good sixty degrees.
Zach winced inwardly. They’d overlooked that detail.
“A lot of men don’t wear wedding rings.” Now he was just fumbling lamely. It wasn’t like him to go on the defensive like this. He’d better come back from the ropes fast.
“Sure, men who work with heavy machinery skip the ring, but you’re a white collar worker, Mr. Travis. An attorney, at a prestigious firm. White collar workers without rings aren’t worried about safety.”
Zach had been worried about his safety a minute ago. Now he was worried about Piper’s. He scrambled for a reply, but this Valentine person came rapid fire.
“It’s a sign of a lack of commitment.” Her eyes narrowed. She’d gone from being on the prowl to on the hunt in a flash. She suspected them. Zach had to fix this, and fast.
“That’s hardly—”
“Fine. Let’s say for the sake of argument you are married to her.” The barracuda’s tone became imperious. “Since when?”
That was the sticking point.
“We were married yesterday.”
She would be looking it up during her review anyway, so there was no sense lying.
A low, rueful laugh rumbled up from the chest of the arbiter of Piper’s fate.
“Oh, ho-ho. So that’s how it is.” The laugh died. “Are you aware, counselor, of the consequences of entering into a falsified marriage to aid an illegal alien in avoiding deportation?”
Hot lead landed in Zach’s stomach from Agent Valentine’s fired shot. He said nothing. How could he have overlooked the fact that by coming here to expedite the immigration process, he’d opened himself and Piper up to immediate scrutiny? Brainless move.
“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Miss Valentine.” He gave it the most high-credence tone he could, but she clearly wasn’t buying it.
“There’s not just the $250,000 fine, there’s also a sentence of up to five years in prison.”
Prison. Five years! That hot lead now exploded inside him.
“I can see this bothers you.” Miss Valentine showed her fangs. “Imagine how much it would bother the State Bar of Texas. You’d lose your law license in about three seconds flat. Wouldn’t that be a shame, Mr. Travis?”
He glanced up, wondering if this session was being taped, and why there was the camera up in the corner. If so, he’d be much better off exercising his Miranda rights. The room had suddenly transformed from a meeting area to an interrogation room in a police station.
“If she’s a client, there are other considerations for the Bar, as well. I’m not new to this situation. Happens all the time. But what the ethics committee overseeing your future as a lawyer will want to know is whether you initiated an intimate relationship before or after she became a client.” Miss Valentine’s eyebrow lifted at the juicy accusation.
Zach’s jaw set. These were Piper’s morals this Valentine woman was denigrating.
“Of course,” her voice softened, becoming cloying, “if the marriage is that new and hasn’t been consummated, it could still be annulled easily today.”
“There won’t be an annulment.” He clenched his fists beneath the table. She had no right to accuse him or to pry into his private life—even if he’d been fool enough to ask her to. Meanwhile, Zach wasn’t admitting to anyone that their marriage hadn’t been consummated—for a lot of reasons.
Enough was enough. His spine straightened, and he shifted into lawyer mode, cold and calculating, expelling her from the spot where she’d nearly burrowed beneath his skin like a Lyme Disease-ridden tick.
“What are the methods used by ICE to determine a marriage is valid?”
Miss Valentine pressed away from the table. She shook her head at him, pity and scorn mixing in her face.
“Well, for one, it should have been entered into before deportation procedures were initiated. That’s clearly not the situation here.”
“Regardless of that, Miss Valentine.” He kept his voice a calm timbre, despite the uptick in his blood pressure. “What are the criteria?”
She started pacing and resumed a more professional demeanor. “The marriage must be verified: license, witnesses, signatures.” They had that paperwork. Check. “And then it must be shown that the marriage is of regular standard.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, for one, that parties must live together on the same premises.”
“As in, including proof of the utilities being in both names, mail received at the same location, etcetera.” Zach spewed this line as a follow up, but his mind was racing to what Piper was going to say when he dropped this bomb.
“Naturally. Plus, proof that the marriage is a marriage in the full sense of the word.” She raised a suggestive eyebrow, and he knew she’d gone back to her earlier topic.
Zach rolled his eyes.
“How on earth do you prove something like that?” Without being kinky, that was.
“I know you think this is a throwback kind of a question to when morality was different.” Valentine sat down on the edge of the table and examined her fingernails. “And it is. But we’re dealing with laws here, old-fashioned or new-fangled not being the point; laws that have to be obeyed or enforced. I’m sure you’re well aware of the power of laws, Mr. Travis.”
He locked eyes with her, both of them challenging each other. He wasn’t going to back down. Maybe he and Piper had gotten married under false pretenses, but it had been his idea, not Piper’s, and Piper didn’t deserve to be hurt—so he’d never let Valentine win.
“I can see you’re hiding something, Mr. Travis.” Agent Valentine’s voice dripped with a new venom. “Call it years of experience in this job, working with liars.”
Liars! His hackles went up, but he kept his tongue.
“You and Piper Quinn are lying. In a lawyer’s lingo, I’m declaring you guilty until proven innocent.”
“Is that so.” He didn’t intonate it as a question.
“Yes. And let me tell you.” A red-tipped finger tapped his chest.
Please say this is being recorded. “I’m listening.”
“I will not sleep until I’ve exposed the fraud you’re committing. Expect a visit from me. I declare this investigation open.”
∞∞∞
Piper startled when the knock came at the back door of Du Jour. She’d expected Zach twenty minutes ago, but when he hadn’t come, she’d gone back to menu planning and shopping lists. Mitzi’s perfume wake still hung near the door from her exit five minutes ago. The door now swung wide.
“We’ve got to talk.” Zach bustled in at speed.
“This is new. You all right? Here’s some sausage and peppers.” She handed him a plate of food she’d set aside under the warming light for him, and he looked longingly at it for a second, but then he set it on the table,
pushing it to the side, clearly intent on whatever his problem was.
“It looks great, but this is urgent.”
“Okay. Sit down. Let’s talk.” She pulled out a chair for him.
Zach, however, looked right and left.
“We’d better walk and talk. Come on.”
“What’s with the sudden paranoia?” Nevertheless, she whipped off her apron and snagged her keys, following him out the door that she locked behind her.
“I’m assuming you haven’t had time to go to Social Security and change your name yet.”
“I’ve been working all day since six.”
He muttered, “Okay, we’ll head there first, then the Department of Motor Vehicles, then,” he looked at her, “how many square feet is your apartment?”
She stopped dead in her tracks. “Uh, no. Don’t even go there.”
He was not going there.
“What, is it condemned?”
Condemned!
“No, it’s great. It’s local, it’s classic, it’s even got air conditioning. Great neighbors. You saw it.”
“Oh, right.” Boy, was he jenky right now. When Zach started walking again at full stride, she had to jog to keep up. “Well, mine’s not going to work.”
“Zach, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on is we have to move in together.”
Piper’s mind went on three Six Flags Over Texas rides in quick succession. She’d caught his hint a minute ago, but she’d assumed he was just thinking out loud.
“Uh, that was not part of the deal.” She tugged him over to a bench looking over the San Antonio River, bougainvillea branches trailing all around it, and the soothing water of the river going by. It was cooler here by the water. He’d think better, and come out of this stupid-stupor.
“You’ve got to slow down and explain.”
Zach closed his eyes and clenched his jaw a moment before speaking.
“There’s a federal immigration agent, an Agent Valentine.”
Piper’s mouth went dry. “How did you meet him?”
“Her. I went to serve legal papers in person, and we met. She was the caseworker assigned to your file.”
“I have a caseworker?” Her brain went back on the amusement park rides, but this time they’d been cranked up to super-speed by a fiendish carnival worker. “Look, just give it to me all in a chunk.”
In a few words, Zach told her he’d written a legal letter on her behalf—nice—and had gone to deliver it in person to get things expedited; however, at ICE he got blindsided by an angry agent with a split personality, and now she’d made it her life’s mission to prove their marriage was a fake.
“But the marriage is a fake.” Piper wrung her fingers. “You know that. I know that.”
“I’m not arguing that point with you right now.”
“Oh, heavens. Not to be a quitter, but I don’t know how I dragged you into this. We’ll just get it annulled. You can marry some other girl real quick. It should be easy to find someone for you, considering. And I’ll figure out a different way to stay here.” Or she’d just leave.
But…Mitzi’s parents’ retirement money. And the ad campaign with Piper’s face on the billboards. This was more complex than simple staying or going, and she knew it. But she had to let Zach out of this. He’d done enough.
“You didn’t drag me into anything. This was my idea, remember?” Zach didn’t seem afraid. Rather, he looked determined. That fact sent a thread of hope to Piper’s soul. “And we’re not getting it annulled.”
He didn’t want to annul it? Why? She didn’t let her mind consider the fleeting, intrusive idea that he might have growing feelings for her. That was too far-fetched, especially after less than a week, and she brushed it away fast. Even if that would be the ideal reason for him to want to stay married.
Then again, he wasn’t too bad himself…
“It would be the easiest solution, though.” She gave him one more chance to opt out of her crazy life.
“We can’t. Not now. We’re in too deep.”
“Oh, please.” Check the melodrama. Lawyers weren’t normally melodramatic like this, were they? Well, maybe when arguing trials in front of a jury. “We’ve been married less than forty-eight hours. It’s not going to get disputed.” Maybe they should’ve gone to Vegas for this.
“No, I mean—” Zach looked away as he spoke. “The penalty for a citizen for entering into a fraudulent marriage to prevent deportation is a huge fine and possible prison time.”
“How much of a fine?” Piper gulped. She’d give him the full amount. He could have all her savings. “How much prison time?” She’d…go as his proxy. He didn’t deserve prison, not for being helpful and sweet and trying to save her friend’s business—and her from life as a hobbit’s house chef.
“Two-hundred fifty thousand dollars and five years.”
Piper’s head lurched backward with the G-force of that revelation. “No!”
“Yes.”
She had a savings account, but nowhere near that amount. That amount could get you a nice house on five acres outside of town. Except you’d be in prison and couldn’t enjoy it for the first five years.
“So, what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to be the most convincingly married newlywed couple this Valentine person has ever seen.”
Piper stared at the water, flowing by so peacefully, mocking the chaos that raged in her soul.
“Okay,” she finally managed. “What exactly will that entail?”
“Name change, address change, change of living quarters, giving up old addresses, utilities signed together, rings, appearances in public, social media togetherness, all of it.” Zach looked at the sky. “Plus we need to create our back story, get it straight. I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but they are going to be watching us. Even if there isn’t some Big Brother government out to get us, this Agent Valentine is the equivalent of Big Sister, and if you’d seen her, you’d know she wasn’t blowing smoke.”
“Fire-breathing dragon, eh?”
“With red talons.”
“Moving in together.” The elephant in the Riverwalk came and sat on Piper’s chest. “It can’t change how I stand on that other issue.” She said it softly, but she knew it still had a powerful force.
“I know that.” Zach’s tone was firm and grave. “But you should also know—it’s something Dragon Lady asked about specifically.”
“Seriously? She asked about sex?”
“She did. And, uh, she said though it’s a law from a different time, it’s still used as a litmus test for whether a marriage is valid.”
A dry wind blew through Piper’s chest. All this time she’d stayed committed to her decision.
I’m married. It wouldn’t be something wrong. In fact, it’s a mandate—God told Adam and Eve to procreate, and he gave that commandment to all His other creations, too. It’s natural. It’s right.
Unless the marriage was fake. Then it was wrong.
Frankly, this whole thing was wrong.
Zach sat forward.
“Hey, you look upset. Don’t think that A, this is some ploy of mine, or B, that I’m going to let this investigator pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do. It’s none of their business.”
Piper exhaled for the first time, and the dry wind inside her ceased raging. She turned to Zach, relieved.
“Thanks.”
“You okay?”
She nodded. She was.
“Then, we should get started. This has got to be the realest-looking fake marriage this woman has ever seen.”
∞∞∞
Piper loaded the last of the cookbooks into the crate. She’d only lived a year in this pre-furnished apartment, and in that time hadn’t accumulated much due to being so busy with Du Jour, so moving was traveling light—except for the cookbooks. She’d amassed far too many of those.
Zach should be back any second for the
last load. He’d insisted on being the one to carry the crate with the books. More power to him. That thing was heavy.
Two raps came on the door, and in walked Birdie, a sad frown on her face.
“Oh, hon. I can’t believe you’re up and leaving. I mean, after the wedding, I should have expected it, but—” Birdie sniffled. “I’m just sorry we didn’t get any photos of you in that dress.”
Piper got a sick feeling. Real weddings had pictures. They hadn’t taken a single one. They had no photographic proof, should that ICE woman come snooping around their new place.
“Me, too.” Her mind raced. “Really sorry.” They needed to fix that. Pictures were vital. “And your dress looked lovely.”
“I mean, these young folks with their cameras.” Birdie waved her phone around. “If it doesn’t show up on Instagram it didn’t happen.”
Way to rub salt in the wound! ICE would probably see it that same way.
“I tell you what, Birdie. When Zach gets here, I’ll put that dress back on and you can snap a couple of pictures of us.” Her hair still smelled of sausage and peppers, but there wasn’t time to get washed up, and they were in the middle of moving, and yeah. This would have to do.
Birdie brightened from glum to gleaming.
“Really? I’d love to!” She headed for the door at full trot. “I’ll go get it right now.”
A second later, Zach’s footsteps echoed on the stairs.
“Piper? Oh, wow. The flowers.” He had zeroed in on the wedding bouquet she’d left on the counter in a vase, still fresh and blooming as they’d been on Monday. Wait, that was yesterday. It felt longer. Would after always feel longer than before?
“They’ll be the last item in the car. And the first item in the new house.”
“So you like them, I take it. I never asked. Do you like bluebonnets?”
“What Texas girl doesn’t?” She said this and then recalled that her true nationality might not be Texan, according to her parents, who probably would be the most likely to know the truth. “Some people say they have no scent, but I think they’re sweet.”
Zach leaned in and took a deep whiff of them.
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