“I’m not considering options.” Quinn’s voice was flat. Just because options had been swimming in his head since he’d woken up in a hospital bed with half his body in bandages didn’t mean he’d seriously considered them.
Isn’t Penny an option?
He focused harder on his plate of food. He’d lost nearly twenty pounds since being injured. He didn’t need to bulk up for bulk’s sake, but he needed to regain some of the muscle he’d lost. Even more important, he needed to get his stamina back up. Hauling hundred-pound bags of mulch around Vivian’s “tiny” backyard the other day had left him feeling whipped. It wasn’t the weight that had gotten him. It was the endurance of hauling them up and down hills and around the acreage.
Which was piddling compared to what he used to be capable of doing.
“We could’ve lost you in that attack, Quinn.” His father stood. “You’ve put in a career’s worth of time. You’re an honest-to-God hero. You’ve earned a Silver Star. When is it going to be enough?”
Quinn looked up at his dad. “When I know I’m no good to my team.” It was the easy answer. The answer he’d known ever since he’d made it through the grueling two-year training pipeline and been awarded his maroon beret.
His mother returned and handed David a wrapped sandwich and a travel mug that Quinn knew would be filled with hot coffee. Like Quinn, his dad drank the stuff around the clock, rain or shine. “Thanks, hon.” David kissed Season’s cheek, gave Quinn another serious look, then strode out the door.
Season turned her attention back to Quinn’s plate. “Is there anything else you would like to pretend to be eating?”
He sighed and pushed aside the plate.
He should have known he wouldn’t fool her.
She picked up the plate and brushed his hair back from his forehead as if he was still four years old. “Coffee?”
He nodded.
She smiled faintly as she headed out of the dining room once again. “I thought so.”
* * *
Penny was mowing the lawn.
Quinn wasn’t sure why that surprised him as he pulled up at the curb in front of her small house. It was a normal enough chore for a sunny Saturday in August. Half the town’s residents were probably doing the very same thing.
If he was a homeowner himself, he’d be right along with them.
But he wasn’t a homeowner. He was a pararescueman who still couldn’t para, much less rescue.
Penny’s long legs and toned arms were shown off by the pair of fraying denim cutoffs and faded flag-patterned tank top she was wearing. Her long, wavy hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail on the top of her head.
She looked sweaty and young and healthy and if he could have just sat there watching her for the pure pleasure of it, he would have.
Instead, he was going to have to go over there and bring up the matter of their marriage. And he was going to have to watch her expression turn distant and dismayed.
She hadn’t noticed him sitting there on the motorcycle he’d borrowed from Archer, yet. Quinn was pretty sure he’d be able to tell if she had and was trying to ignore him. Because if there was one thing he knew for certain about Penny Garner, it was that she had zero ability to hide her emotions.
She just steadily continued working the noisy mower back and forth across the wide front yard that looked out of proportion compared to the small yellow and white house.
Even though he could have sat there enjoying the show for quite a while, he couldn’t put off the inevitable. So he killed the engine and got off the bike. He pulled the square envelope he’d brought with him out of the saddlebag before crossing the yard. He knew the second she spotted him.
She didn’t stop pushing the lawn mower. But all of the natural grace in her movements went stiff. Resistance seemed to scream at him from the set of her shoulders.
She wasn’t stiff and resistant when she woke up in your arms.
He blocked out the memory. Just because it had been a memory plaguing him all that week, it was nevertheless a useless one.
And a frustrating one, ending in too many cold showers for a man his age.
He cut across her path. Only then did she stop mowing.
She let go of the handle, and the noisy motor instantly went silent. “What’re you doing here?”
“Good afternoon to you, too. I know what was in the vial Lansing used.”
Her lips parted. “And?”
“Nothing toxic. Nothing leaving lasting harm.” If one didn’t count Quinn’s and Penny’s behavior in Vegas. He held out the envelope. “I also got that in the mail today.”
Her hands remained at her sides. Suspicion glimmered in her eyes. “What is it?”
There was no way to soften the facts. “A certified copy of our marriage certificate.” He hesitated, in case she reacted like she had at his grandmother’s house. He didn’t particularly want her passing out on her front lawn since things like that tended to attract the very attention he knew she wanted to avoid. “And a DVD of the actual wedding ceremony.”
Her translucent eyes fastened on his. “How on earth did you get that?”
“I was finally able to locate Marvin Morales.”
“How?”
“Talking to about a hundred wedding chapels over the last few days.” It was an exaggeration, but as he’d worked his way through the listings of the chapels nearest the club where they’d started out that infamous night, it hadn’t felt like much of one. He’d called at least twenty before he’d finally hit pay dirt. Not only had he obtained a phone number to talk to Morales directly, but the woman at the chapel had been happy to inform him that he and his beautiful bride had neglected to take home their complimentary wedding DVD recording. “The wedding chapel overnighted it.”
Her lips twisted. “How kind of them.”
“The lady I spoke with seemed to think it was necessary.” Penny still hadn’t taken the envelope he was offering and he lowered his hand.
“Did you watch it?”
“I thought it was only right if we watched it together.” He flipped the stiff envelope between his fingers. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll be so obviously incompetent to enter a legal contract that the marriage police’ll declare the whole thing void.”
He regretted his flippancy the second hope entered her expression. “Can that actually happen?”
“From what I understand, it’s a little more complicated than that. So...” They were both looking at the envelope. “You want to watch it? Beat it into pieces with a hammer? What’s your pleasure?”
She rubbed her hands down her cutoffs. “I, um, I only have a DVD player on my laptop.”
He dragged his attention away from her shapely hips where she’d rubbed her hands. “Do you have the laptop here?”
She brushed her hands down her thighs again. “Yeah. It’s inside.”
“I didn’t think you were mowing the lawn with it,” he said wryly.
She rolled her eyes. Then finally turned toward the house. “Fine. Come in, then.”
She couldn’t have made her reluctance more obvious.
He stifled a sigh and followed her across the lawn and through the front door.
Inside, the house’s cheerful yellow and white attitude was continued, only in a vaguely nautical blue and white.
She went through the cozy living area, through the galley-style kitchen and into the dinky dining room filled by a small round table on which her laptop sat, and two chairs situated opposite each other. “Here.” She gestured at one of the chairs.
He automatically ducked his head as he went through the doorway toward the table. The house was probably fifty years old, which accounted for the low door headers. He’d learned as a teenager how to keep from conking his head in similar doorways. He pulled out the chair wh
ile she turned on her computer. When he scooted the chair closer to hers, though, she gave him a quick look.
“Be easier to watch if we’re on the same side.” The words were true in more than one sense.
Her lips pressed together but she focused on her computer when he sat down next to her. He set the envelope on the table, and his shoulder brushed against hers.
He felt her faint shifting away.
The envelope crinkled loudly in the silent room as she tipped out the DVD case. On the front of it was a white and silver label, emblazoned with the wedding chapel’s information.
“Happily Ever Chapel?”
“So it says.”
She made a soft mmming sound and opened the case and lifted out the round disc inside. She pushed it into the slot on the side of her laptop, and a moment later the video blossomed on the computer screen, showing the same logo as the DVD label. She turned up the volume, and piano music started playing.
“Minuet in G Major,” he murmured.
“More Bach?” Her voice was sarcastic.
“As a matter of fact.”
“Still find it relaxing?”
He let it go. Because the musical piece was barely a half minute long before it looped and began again, and because the chapel logo on the screen had morphed into an image of Penny. She was dressed in a dark purple dress and carrying a round bouquet of white flowers as she walked up a short aisle between two rows of empty white pews. She had a goofy smile on her face and eagerness in her steps.
He felt, more than heard, Penny’s long exhale as she watched the screen.
Then the camera smoothly panned to Quinn’s face. Which held an equally goofy smile as Penny stopped beside him in front of a wizened little man with a thick shock of black hair.
“That hair,” Penny murmured. She shifted on her chair and her shoulder brushed against Quinn’s again. “I remember that hair. It was so obviously—”
“Dyed,” Quinn finished. He remembered the man, too.
On the recording, Marvin Morales had a distinct Spanish accent. “Dearly beloved,” he began. “We are gathered here today—” He looked past Penny and Quinn at the empty pews and gave a shrugging smile before continuing. “To join into marriage Quinn David Templeton and Penelope Ann Garner—”
Penny pressed a key and paused the video. “Shouldn’t there be a witness?” She wriggled in her seat, looking at him. “If we didn’t have a witness, it can’t be legal!”
He pulled the folded copy of their official certificate out of the envelope. “We had a witness.” He tapped the signature. “Don’t know who the hell it is.”
She turned the paper around to peer at the signature. “What’s that? Susan? Sandra?”
“Pretty sure it’s Shawna. Shawna Smith.”
She made a face. “Could be a made-up name.”
“Who’d bother? This isn’t some conspiracy, Penny. It’s a wedding certificate. Our wedding certificate. Shawna Smith probably works for the wedding chapel. She’s probably witnessed hundreds of weddings.” He reached over her and hit Play.
The video rolled on, zooming in on their faces as they said a few traditional vows and panning out again on the entire tableau just often enough to see the way Quinn slid the ring on Penny’s finger, and then the way they melted together as they kissed.
And kissed.
And kissed.
Her hands clasping his head. His hands running down her back. The amusement on Morales’s face as he cleared his throat and told them that their wedding night didn’t need to take place right there in the chapel.
Penny cleared her throat now, looking red. She shut the laptop, effectively ending the playback.
Then she tucked her hands under her legs and stared at the closed computer.
“Remember anything besides Marvin’s dyed hair?”
She chewed her lip. Avoided his eyes as she shook her head.
He knew she was lying. Maybe she remembered now. Maybe—like him—seeing the video had dredged loose the memory of nearly the whole thing.
The way Penny had stared up at him with those luminous blue eyes as she’d promised to love and cherish. The way he’d felt choked up when he’d slid the gleaming band on her finger. He’d bought it for Penny right there at Happily Ever. But they hadn’t had a ring large enough to fit his finger and she’d made him promise they’d get one the very next day.
Then they’d said their vows, and Marvin Morales told him to kiss his bride, and Quinn had.
It had felt more exhilarating than diving out of a plane.
Hell. Just watching that kiss had made everything inside him stand up and take notice more eagerly than he’d ever wanted to parachute.
She suddenly stood. “I need something to drink.” She went into the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door hard enough to make the stuff inside rattle. “Lemonade. You want some?”
He felt in need of a drink, too. And one a lot stronger than lemonade. “Yeah. Thanks.” He restlessly got up and pushed the chair into the table. He ducked his head as he went into the kitchen, which really was only big enough for one person.
Her elbow bumped his when she set two glasses on the counter and filled them. She nudged one toward him before turning back to the refrigerator to replace the pitcher. Then she wrapped her hand around the glass.
“Cheers.” He softly touched the rim of his glass to the rim of hers. “To marriage.”
The corners of her lips twitched, but it seemed more bittersweet than amused. “Cheers.” She took a sip and went into the living room where she curled her long legs under her as she sank into the corner of the couch. A moment later her tennis shoes fell to the floor and she lowered her head onto her arm.
He looked away from her long neck and collected himself as he wandered around the living room, stopping to glance at the items arranged on the shelf next to a small flat-screen television. She had several paperback novels ranging from Tolstoy to Rowling. Considering how dog-eared they were, he figured they got more attention than the television.
She always had liked to read.
The middle shelf held a few framed photographs. He recognized the Bennetts in one. “How long did you live with George and Susie?”
“Four years.” Her voice was muffled. She still had her head buried on her arm, the glass of lemonade in her hand apparently forgotten.
“Who’s the soldier?” The light-haired private in the picture didn’t look like he was old enough to vote. But then that was the way most people looked when they first enlisted in the military. Even Quinn.
He heard her sigh. “Andy.”
He waited.
She finally lifted her head. “My fiancé.”
He let that rattle around for a moment. “Past or present tense?”
Her gaze slid to his.
“Past,” he surmised. The fact that she still displayed a picture of the guy was also telling. He set his lemonade on the shelf. “What happened to him?”
She gave him a tight smile. “Since you’re my ‘husband—’” she air-quoted the word with one hand “—I suppose you might as well know.”
He waited.
“Improvised Explosive Device.” She drew out the words. “A week before our wedding.” She drained her lemonade and set the glass on the painted-white footlocker that was serving as her coffee table. “Instead of marrying him, I buried him.”
Chapter Eight
Penny’s words seemed to echo around her living room and she wished she could pull them back in.
Particularly considering the way Quinn was looking at her now as if she were some sort of piece of breakable china.
Not because she didn’t feel breakable. She’d been feeling that way since she woke up in bed with him.
She just didn’t
like him knowing it.
It was too intimate. Knowing something like that about someone else.
He rounded the footlocker and slid her glass to one side so there was room for him to sit.
She would rather he sat on the other end of the couch than right there in front of her, where she couldn’t avoid his eyes so easily.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize.”
She lifted her shoulder. Why would he? “You weren’t here.”
“How long ago?”
There was an ominous stinging behind her eyes. “Eleven years ago.”
He smiled gently and took her hand between his. “That explains Andy’s wet-behind-the-ears look. He looks like he was a good guy, though. Steady. I can see it in his expression.”
She was surprised by his observation. “He was a good guy.” Not much more than a boy. Like she’d been not much more than a girl. Andy had been so good, he’d made her want to be good, too.
“What were you? Kids right out of high school?”
Considering the obvious youthfulness of Andy’s photograph, it was an easy guess on Quinn’s part. But it still felt like he was reading her mind and she looked down at their hands.
He had a complicated-looking black watch strapped around his wrist. For such an oversize man, Quinn’s wrists were surprisingly narrow. Not delicate in any way. But...sinewy. Sexy.
Manly.
She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering to nod in answer. “He was a year ahead of me,” she said huskily. “He enlisted right after he graduated. We were supposed to get married the following summer once I’d graduated. Susie planned the biggest wedding in history. At least that’s the way it felt to me.”
Now that she’d started, the floodgate had opened a torrent of memories. All those wedding details that Susie had loved had overwhelmed Penny. “The only thing I wanted to do was marry Andy and finally have my own real family. But there’d been dozens of dress fittings with a seamstress who lived in Weaver.” She glanced up at him with realization. “Maggie Clay, actually.”
Vegas Wedding, Weaver Bride Page 9