Tall Tales and Wedding Veils

by Jane Graves

  And just like that, she was sold on crazy.

  They waved and shouted to people on the sidewalks. Some waved back; some looked at them as if they were nuts. Some pretended not to see them at all, although how they could have missed two weirdos sticking their heads out of a stretch limo, Heather didn’t know. In some still-sober, still-sane part of her mind, she knew she was behaving like a lunatic, but the insane part of her mind told those other parts to shut up.

  Finally they collapsed back down onto the seat together, laughing, and Heather couldn’t seem to wipe the grin of delight off her face. Tony was right. Crazy was good. Crazy was fun. She couldn’t believe she’d gone through her whole life driving straight down the freeway when there was so much fun to be had on the side roads. Then Tony leaned forward to talk to the limo driver.

  “The woman of my dreams,” he said. “And to think she was right under my nose the whole time. Can you believe it?”

  “No, sir,” the driver deadpanned. “That is indeed unbelievable. I’ll drive straight to the courthouse so you can get a marriage license.”

  Heather giggled. “Well, that’s Las Vegas for you. Instant riches, instant weddings.”

  “But you’re not a spontaneous person?” Tony said.

  “Me? Nope. No spontaneity here. I used up all my spontaneity sticking my head out the top of the car.”

  His hand crept over to her thigh. “You sure about that?”

  At that moment, a lightning bolt could have zapped Heather, and she wouldn’t have felt the pain. Locking his eyes with hers, Tony inched his hand upward, slowly and tantalizingly, teasing his fingertips along her inner thigh. She tensed, and a tiny shudder shook her whole body. Just when she was about to jump out of her skin, he smoothed his hand back down again until it rested just above her knee.

  Angling his body toward hers, he shifted his hand from her leg and draped it along the seat behind her head. Leaning in, he brought his other hand up to cradle her face.

  “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, his thumb stroking her temple. “And such soft, soft skin.” Then he teased his fingertip along her bottom lip. “And look at this beautiful mouth.”

  And then he leaned in and kissed her. It wasn’t anything like the spontaneous I’m-twenty-thousand-dollars-richer kiss he’d given her in the casino. It was a long, slow, hot kiss that made her muscles liquefy and her mind turn to mush.

  Still cradling her in his arms, he leaned away a little and touched her collarbone, then dragged a single fingertip all the way to her cleavage, his gaze following it. She felt a glorious, swoopy sensation in her stomach, her breath coming faster.

  “Do you really live in Plano?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I really do.”

  “And you go to McMillan’s?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you believe me?”

  “So why do I not remember seeing you there? Shouldn’t I have noticed if an angel had dropped straight down from heaven?”

  He’s drunk. He’s delirious. He’s deluded. He’s anything but serious.

  “I’m no angel,” she said.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he said, stroking his hand up and down her arm and then kissing her neck. “Have you seen that Jimmy Stewart movie? The one they always play at Christmas?”

  “It’s a Wonderful Life? I wouldn’t have taken you as somebody who likes sentimental movies.”

  “Ah, sweetheart, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He kissed his way along her neck, then swirled his tongue over her earlobe. “There was that guy who was Jimmy’s angel. He came down from heaven, fixed what was wrong in his life, and then when Jimmy turned around, he wasn’t there anymore.”

  “So I’m an angel who’s out to get my wings?”

  “Hope not,” he said, his breath tickling her ear. “I don’t want to turn around and find you gone.”

  Tonight did seem like the kind of miracle that only the presence of an angel could explain. And what else but a miracle could explain her being in a limousine right now with Tony’s arms around her?

  As he drew her into another kiss, all coherent thought left her mind, and Las Vegas became just one big swirl of light and sound and fairy-tale possibilities.

  Tony had never felt more exhilarated in his life.

  From the moment he’d met this woman in the elevator lobby, he felt as if he’d been on a roller coaster, swooping and turning, up and down. And now—finally—he was on a straight shot all the way to the top. For years now, he’d been waiting for an opportunity that would get his life going in the right direction. Careerwise, that was going to happen. He was going to buy the perfect business. Had he lucked out and found the perfect woman at the same time?

  She felt so good beneath his hands that he couldn’t stop touching her. She was hardly a wisp of a woman, but the longer he held and kissed her, the more enticing she became. He wanted more of her. All of her. Right here, right now, in the back of this limousine.

  But from their first kiss in that elevator lobby, he knew he wasn’t dealing with the kind of woman he usually dated—party girls who provided breathtaking sex with no strings attached. Any one of those women would have been ripping her clothes off the second the limo door shut behind them. This one, though, had sat down and looked around, her eyes wide with wonder, and when he so much as put his hand on her leg, she’d practically jumped out of her skin.

  Take it easy, he’d told himself. This one is different.

  She wore a loose-fitting blouse, a skirt that was a respectable length, and shoes that were way too sensible. And even though she had breasts that would turn any man’s head, she didn’t flaunt them. She wasn’t trying to be sexy.

  Maybe that was what was so damned sexy about her.

  Not only that, but she was smart too. He’d dated enough dim bulbs to know the difference. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been with a woman who had more going on upstairs than he did. That should have done some serious damage to his male ego, but for some reason, it just drew him to her even more.

  The excitement of winning that money combined with the alcohol that had gone to his head in conjunction with kissing this wonderful, wonderful woman in the back of a darkened limousine made him feel on top of the world. This was good. This was very good.

  This was extraordinary.

  As he kissed her, he slid his hand to her breast, and when he found her nipple with his thumb, it was already hard and swollen. When he stroked it, she moaned against his mouth and pressed her breast harder against his palm, asking for more. It was all he could do not to rip open her blouse, hike up her skirt, and take her right here on the seat of this limo.

  No. You can’t do that. Not with this one.

  He pulled away, took her face in his hands, and stared at her. She looked back at him, her breath coming in soft little gushes, her pale blue eyes blinking dreamily.

  “What?” she murmured.

  “You’re different than other women I know.”

  “Good different or bad different?”

  “For where I am right now in my life, sweetheart, you couldn’t be better.”

  She smiled at him with those full lips and perfect white teeth, and he thought, This woman. She’s the one.

  The women he’d dated over the years had been just for fun. They’d been out for a good time, and so had he. But this was different. Suddenly he was experiencing the kind of mental clarity he was sure most men never did, that indescribable feeling that he’d finally found his direction in life. Come Monday, he was entering into a whole new phase. He was going to be a responsible businessman, maybe eventually even a pillar of his community, and it was all because of the woman he held in his arms right now, the one with the clear blue eyes and the generous heart and the quick mind and the soft, full mouth that begged him to kiss it. Under normal circumstances, he’d have passed right by her as if she were just an extra in the story of his life, but tonight she’d taken center stage, the spotlight swinging around to pick her out of a crowd
of thousands.

  Suddenly he needed this woman in a way he’d never needed one before. There were women you had casual sex with, and there were women you married.

  Married?

  As he drew her into another kiss, his mind went into a pleasant fog. He thought about the future, about this woman in it, and the luck that had followed him all the way to Vegas. . . .

  When Tony opened his eyes the next morning, shafts of sunlight stabbed through the window, penetrating his eyeballs and lodging directly in his brain. He snapped his eyes shut again and rolled away, which evidently was the cue for a jackhammer to start pounding away at his head.

  He’d died and gone to hell.

  But a few minutes later, when flames didn’t seem to be lapping around the bed, he tossed the hell theory and decided he just had a hangover.

  Just a hangover. That was like saying he had just a brain tumor.

  Slowly he eased his eyes open again. For several seconds, he wasn’t even sure where he was. Not home, that was for sure.

  A hotel room. But where?

  Vegas. Okay. Yeah. Vegas. Now it was coming back.

  He turned over, only mildly surprised to find a woman lying next to him. Wasn’t the first time that had happened. His head was so foggy, though, that he wasn’t sure which woman it was.

  Then he remembered. A woman with clear blue eyes who had turned a ten-dollar chip into twenty thousand. Even with his head pounding and a case of dry mouth for the record books, he smiled at the thought of all that money and how it was going to change his life. He’d have to do something very nice for her. Something to show just how much he appreciated everything she’d done for him.

  Just as soon as he could remember her name.

  He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed with a soft groan, his head feeling like a clogged-up drain somebody was beating on with a wrench. He looked down at himself. He’d taken off his shirt, but he was still wearing his jeans. He’d slept with a woman and hadn’t gotten laid?

  Red flag. You’re getting too old for this.

  After a night of drinking, he used to be able to bounce back from near-comatose to a somewhat functional state in a matter of a few minutes, but he could tell functionality was still a long way off.

  Bathroom. Water. Shower. Coffee. Repeat as necessary.

  He rose from the bed and staggered toward the bathroom, only to stop short when he saw something unfamiliar on the dresser. A piece of paper he didn’t recognize. He picked it up, blinking his eyes into focus.

  No. He had to be hallucinating.

  His gaze slid down the page. Two names. Tony McCaffrey and Heather Montgomery. Together.

  On a marriage license.

  For at least ten seconds, Tony stood there motionless, clutching the page, panic buzzing inside him like a swarm of angry bumblebees. It couldn’t be the real thing.

  Could it?

  Then all at once, he had a fuzzy, dreamlike memory of being someplace last night that looked remarkably like a courthouse. And somewhere in his head were stars and cherubs against a nighttime sky—what was that all about? And he vaguely remembered two people saying “I do,” and one of them just might have been him.

  No. No way. Impossible. He could not have done this.

  But there it was in black and white. He, Tony McCaffrey, who, to avoid inadvertently landing in that lifelong trap, rarely had more than a few dates with any one woman, had gotten married? What the hell had he been thinking?

  Well. At least now he knew her name.

  He took a deep breath to ward off the feeling of suffocation, telling himself that this was fixable, that people got divorces every day. He fully intended to be one of them. Surely the woman he’d married would feel the same way. Anyone who did something as crazy as this would want to take it back.

  Wouldn’t she?

  He turned around and looked down at her.

  Maybe not.

  She lay on her side with one arm tucked under her pillow and her other hand beneath her cheek, her hair spread out across the pillow. She looked sweet and kind and trusting, like Mother Teresa without the advanced age and the religious overtones. He remembered thinking last night that she was a member of that species of woman on the endangered list: a nice girl. Last night, that had seemed like such a good thing. This morning it meant he was in trouble.

  Big trouble.

  Right now she was probably dreaming of a white picket fence, a pair of SUVs with car seats for the kids, and family vacations to her grandparents’ farm in Iowa. She was going to wake up like a bride on her honeymoon, all sweet and smiley and assuming all was going to be well until their golden wedding anniversary. When he told her he wanted to spend their first day of their marriage getting a divorce, she’d be in tears. She’d helped him win twenty thousand dollars last night—hell, she’d essentially given it to him—and now all he had to say about their wedding was . . . oops?

  She might even want the twenty thousand back. He didn’t even want to think about that.

  He laid the license down and went to the bathroom to slap water on his face to wake up his brain so he could find a way to deal with this situation, because the last thing he wanted in this life, and maybe in the next couple as well, was to be a married man.

  Just please, God, don’t let her cry.

  When he came out of the bathroom, he was surprised to find her awake. Her brown hair was sleep-mangled, and she had mascara rings under her eyes. She was sitting up with her back against the headboard, one hand holding the covers to her chest, the other holding the marriage license.

  She knows. And now you have to tell her you want out.

  But before he could say anything, he realized the gooey smile he’d expected to see on her face was strangely absent. Her sweet slumbering serenity was nowhere to be seen. He’d been afraid of tears. Now he was praying for them, because anything would be better than the homicidal look on her face right now.

  She held up the marriage license. “What the hell is this?”

  Chapter 5

  Heather’s mind was so hangover-fuzzy that she could think of only one explanation for the piece of paper she was holding. Somewhere in Vegas they sold fake marriage licenses you could take home and show your friends. Ha, ha, ha! Look! We got married!

  “This is a joke, right?” she said sharply. “Tell me this is a joke.”

  She waited for Tony’s face to break into that million- dollar smile so they could both have a good laugh over it.

  It didn’t.

  Panic shot through her. “Are you telling me this is the real thing? We actually got married?”

  Tony squeezed his eyes closed. “No shouting, sweetheart. If you shout, my head is going to explode.”

  No kidding. If she shouted again, her head was going to explode.

  “Why are you in my room?” she asked.

  “Uh . . . we’re married?”

  She swallowed convulsively. “Did we . . . ?”

  “Have sex? Don’t think so. I woke up still dressed.”

  Wincing a little, she lifted the covers and peeked beneath them. Clothes, thank God. Relief gushed through her.

  “Tell me what you remember,” Tony said.

  She bowed her head. Closed her eyes. Bits and pieces gradually came back to her, a jumble of images fading in and out. It was hard to make sense of them, though, when little guys with battering rams were trying to get out of her head.

  “I remember winning the twenty thousand dollars,” she said.

  “Good,” he said on a breath. “I was afraid I’d made that part up.”

  Heather remembered driving up and down the Strip in the limousine. Lights flashing. Neon blaring. And champagne.

  Lots and lots of champagne.

  “I remember the stuff in the limo,” she said, hoping her face wasn’t as red as it felt.

  “How about after that?”

  Then they were standing on the seats, poking their heads out of the sunroof, waving to other cars, to people o
n the street, to stray dogs, to inanimate objects. And then they were back down in the seat together, and . . .

  Just thinking about what came next made her face heat up. She’d found out last night what it felt like to be with a man who was charming and sexy and really knew how to kiss, whose hands were gifts from God, whose smile shone brighter than the neon on the Sunset Strip.

  She closed her eyes. Like a film going from fuzzy to sharp focus, she saw an office of some kind. Bright lights. People at desks. She and Tony filling out forms. Then they were in the limousine again. There were stars and moons and little flying cherubs. What had been up with that?

  “There was a courthouse,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “Then a wedding chapel. It’s all kinda vague, but . . .”

  Slowly the images coalesced. Came into focus. Organized themselves into a discernible timeline. And when they did, they led her to one horrible, undeniable conclusion. She put her hand to her throat, gasping out the words. “My God. We’re really married, aren’t we?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But why did they let us do it? We were in no condition to know what we were doing!”

  “If they refused to let drunk people get married in this town, half the wedding chapels would be out of business.”

  Panic was setting in. Heather wasn’t used to panic. She hated the muscle tension. The crawly feeling in her stomach. Panic was for people whose lives were disorganized messes. Who didn’t know how to plan ahead. It was for people who were spontaneous.

  Then she thought about those stars and moons and flying cherubs against a canopy of a night sky, and suddenly she realized where she’d seen that. She closed her eyes in humiliation. “Please tell me we didn’t actually do it at a drive-through wedding chapel.”

  “If I remember right,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “they called it ‘The Tunnel of Love.’”

  Good Lord. Not only had she gotten married in Vegas, but she’d done it in the most tasteless way imaginable.

  “This can’t be happening. This isn’t me. I’m the sane one in my family. I’ve never done anything like this before!”