Hook, Line and Shotgun Bride

by Cassie Miles

  What was he talking about? “Business?”

  “Pre-nup,” he said with a scowl.

  She and Neil had already discussed the need for a prenuptial agreement. They would both keep the assets they brought into the marriage. That part was simple. After that, the finances got complicated, and she’d left the details to her accountant and Neil’s attorney, who also handled his finances.

  While Prentice and Benjy went outside to play, Neil and his father escorted her toward the den which served as a home office for Neil. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves held row upon row of medical and virology texts, including a book that Neil had coauthored and was being used in his classes. Afternoon light slanted through multipaned windows and shone on Neil’s antique mahogany desk. The den always intimidated her, reminding her of how very little she knew about Neil’s area of expertise.

  She was glad that Shane had ambled along beside her—not insisting that he be a part of this proceeding but there to support her just the same.

  Roger stood at the door. “This is a private matter, Shane.”

  Instead of leaving, Shane lowered himself onto the long sofa behind the coffee table. He rested his ankle on his knee, and leaned back. “I won’t be a bother. Don’t mind me.”

  “I most certainly do mind.” Roger’s jaw tensed. His dislike for Shane was obvious. And unreasonable, in her opinion. Neil’s father was as slimy as a toad. He sputtered, “My son’s finances are none of your concern.”

  “I want him here.” Angela surprised herself by speaking up. “Shane is one of my dearest friends. I have no secrets from him.”

  “It’s all right, Dad.” Neil stepped behind his desk and opened the top drawer. “This should only take a minute.”

  Grumbling, Roger seated himself on a chair near the window. His crossed leg mimicked Shane’s pose.

  Neil centered a stack of legal-size documents on the desk and turned them toward her. “The attorney marked all the places we need to sign and initial. Then dad will witness, and we’re done.”

  She picked up the closely typed sheets. “There must be thirty pages here.”

  “More or less.” He handed her a pen. “Some pages are nothing more than listings of property. The attorney thought it was wise to make everything crystal-clear. To avoid misunderstandings.”

  When she sat in the armless chair on the opposite side of his impressive desk, she felt more like an applicant for a loan than a bride-to-be. As she looked down at the pren-up, the legal language swam before her eyes in an array of “whereases” and “heretofores.” She flipped through a couple of pages. “Can you give me a summary?”

  “What’s mine stays mine. What’s yours stays yours. And there’s a whole other category of what becomes ours after the wedding.”

  Though she didn’t want to make a fuss, some of these details might be important. “I really should read this.”

  “By all means,” Roger said. He bolted from his chair and hovered beside her. “If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask me.”

  “Angela,” Neil said, “look at me.”

  His voice compelled her. She stared across the desk. This was the man she intended to marry and spend the rest of her life with. “I’m sorry to be so difficult.”

  Neil’s dark gaze linked with hers. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” Trust was the most important part of any relationship.

  “Just sign the papers. Then we can spend the rest of the day relaxing. It’s a sunny afternoon. Not too hot for August. We can sit in the backyard and watch Benjy play.” His voice lowered to an intimate level. “Maybe go to bed early.”

  It had been weeks since they made love. “What about your colleagues in town? I thought you’d have to go back to the virology lab.”

  “You’re more important. Our marriage is more important.”

  Somewhat reassured, she looked down at the pre-nup. Reading through these clauses was a daunting task, but she was a businesswoman, and she knew better than to put her signature on anything without knowing what it said. “I could have my attorney check it over.”

  “You could ask him,” Neil said. “But there isn’t much time. The wedding is the day after tomorrow.”

  Roger snatched the papers from the desktop. “I’d be happy to help you. We can go real slow, page by page, so you can understand every comma.”

  She reckoned that he was trying to be kind, but she despised the note of condescension in his voice. She wasn’t a complete idiot, after all.

  “Excuse me,” Shane said as he left the sofa and approached the desk.

  Angela compared the three men standing around her. Roger was a former general and JAG lawyer, certainly a powerful man. Neil’s standing in the international medical community gave him an aura of gravitas. But Shane was a lawman, accustomed to taking charge of uncomfortable situations. Though his manner was easygoing, he easily dominated the other two.

  “Seems to me,” he said, “that Angela needs her own legal representative to review the documents.”

  Roger bristled. “Are you questioning my competence?”

  “Not a bit. But you’re Neil’s dad, which puts you in his camp. She needs somebody who’s on her side.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Neil said. “There’s nothing contentious in these papers.”

  “Fine,” Shane said. “Then there shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll take Angela to see her attorney and—”

  “I’ve had it with you.” Neil came around his desk to confront Shane directly. “Last night, I found you with my fiancée in your arms. Now you’re stirring up trouble over a simple signature. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Angela’s friend.”

  Those two simple words rang with truth. Shane cared for her. He’d stood by her.

  “Friends come and go,” Neil said. “In less than forty-eight hours, I’ll be her husband.”

  “Maybe so,” Shane drawled. “Right now, you’re just a guy with a pen and a stack of unsigned documents.”

  Neil took a step closer to Shane. His fingers tightened into fists. The tendons on his throat stood out. “She doesn’t need friends like you—an ignorant, low-born cowboy who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together.”

  Angela surged to her feet. “That’s enough, Neil.”

  “Oh, please. You’re not taking his side, are you?”

  “Shane is my friend,” she said. “Nobody—not even you—talks to my friends like that.”

  “His behavior is intrusive and unwanted. This agreement is between you and me.”

  “Then why is your father here?” she demanded. “Why did your attorney draw up these papers? Don’t I have a say?”

  “Of course.” He gave her a hard, cold stare. His eyes were as black as a starless night. “You didn’t have a problem with these arrangements before.”

  “I never thought the pre-nup would be so complicated.”

  “Dammit, look around you. The artwork in this house is worth more than you’ll earn in a lifetime. Did you think I wouldn’t protect my investments?”

  “I have something to protect as well,” she said.

  “What?”

  “My self-respect.” She took the documents from Roger’s hands. “My attorney will be advising me on whether or not to sign the pre-nup.”

  “Wait,” Neil said harshly. “You’re not leaving. You wouldn’t dare.”

  The hell I wouldn’t. “Watch me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Shane was glad to see Neil’s house in the rearview mirror. If he had his way, he’d never return to that oversize mansion with the two chimneys and the perfect lawn. But that choice wasn’t his to make. Unless Angela said goodbye to Neil, Shane had to figure out how to face her fiancé without tearing his head off.

  Kneeling on the passenger seat, she was turned around, tending to Benjy in the back. The kid was having a minor meltdown.

  “Not tired,” he shouted. “Wanna play.”

  The plan ha
d been to leave Benjy at Neil’s while Shane took Angela to her attorney’s office. But her son had a different idea. As soon as his mom stepped into the backyard, he’d run toward her. “Home,” he’d shouted. “I wanna go to my house. Wanna play with friends.”

  Prentice, who had been babysitting, had gestured helplessly and said, “I don’t know what’s got into him. We were playing catch, talking and laughing.”

  Shane knew. Benjy was a smart little guy, sensitive as all hell. The boy must have sensed that his mom was upset. And he reacted.

  Right now, Angela was doing her best not to show emotion as she talked to her son. “Were you and Dr. Prentice playing?”

  “He’s old.”

  “Yes, he is. What kind of games did you play?”

  “I wanna go to Lisa’s house.” Lisa was the four-year-old daughter of his babysitter. “Lisa. Lisa. Lisa.”

  Angela prepared a juice box with a straw for him. “Do you like Dr. Prentice?”

  “Mommy,” he whined, “didn’t you hear me? He’s very old.”

  “But nice. Right?”

  Shane figured that she was trying to find out if Prentice had done something to set off this tantrum, and he was pretty sure that she wouldn’t succeed. Getting a coherent answer from a grumpy three-year-old was like asking a trout to sing.

  She handed Benjy his juice, turned around in her seat and buckled herself in. Her gaze focused straight ahead, through the windshield. Her nostrils flared. Breathing heavily, her breasts rose and fell.

  She looked as if she was on the verge of her own tantrum, and he would have been glad to see her express her anger. She had every right to kick and scream. “Where are we headed?”

  “I should call my attorney before we go to his office,” she said. “Get on the highway and head south.”

  He didn’t know his way around Denver too well, and her van lacked a GPS directional system, but he didn’t mind driving aimlessly if it meant putting distance between her and Neil. The disrespectful way he treated her was just plain wrong. When Neil talked about the pre-nup, he made it sound as if he was an aristocrat who had to protect himself and all his possessions from a gold digger. What a crock!

  Though Shane didn’t know the details of Angela’s finances, she owned her home and her restaurant was successful. She wasn’t rich, but she was doing well. Not that dollars and cents mattered to her. She was less interested in accumulating wealth and more focused on bringing joy to the people around her.

  She finished her phone call and groaned. “This is one of those days when everything goes wrong.”

  “Your attorney?”

  “He’s in court today and tomorrow. And his associates are a married couple who are on vacation until next week. One of the paralegals in his office could read the pre-nup, but if there’s a need to negotiate, I feel like I should have somebody with legal weight on my side.”

  Or she could postpone the wedding. That was Shane’s honest opinion, but he didn’t want to add to her burden of stress by pointing out that Neil had ambushed her. “Why did Neil wait until the last minute to give you the pren-up?”

  “Well, it took a long time to inventory his various holdings. And he wanted his father’s advice.” She didn’t sound convinced by those reasons. “This has turned into such a mess.”

  He glanced over his shoulder into the backseat. “On the plus side, Benjy’s already asleep.”

  She reached back and took the juice box from her son’s limp fingers. “He was tired. That’s why he was so cranky.”

  “You seemed to think that Prentice got him riled up.”

  “Which is ridiculous,” she said. “Dr. Prentice is a nice, grandfatherly person.”

  Shane wasn’t so sure. “What’s his relationship to Neil?”

  “He’s a close friend of the family.” She rubbed at the parallel worry lines between her eyebrows. “Prentice told me something that it’s going to take a while to understand. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. But unexpected.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Absolutely. But not right now.”

  He reminded himself to check out Dr. Edgar Prentice’s background and current problems. “I have a solution for your lawyer problem. Earlier today, I talked to my new boss at PRESS.”

  “PRESS?”

  “Premier Executive Security Systems,” he said. “The head of the company, Josh LaMotta, has a law degree. He’s not currently practicing, but I’m guessing that he’s a heavy-duty negotiator—a five-hundred-pound legal gorilla.”

  “Let’s go see him.”

  He merged onto the highway. The PRESS offices were at the south end of town in the Tech Center near Centennial Airport, where they kept the company helicopter. Shane made a quick call on his hands-free cell phone to confirm that Josh was in.

  After driving a few minutes in silence, he became aware that she was watching him. “Something on your mind?”

  “You must get tired of always having to ride to my rescue.”

  “Much as I’d like to take credit for being a hero, it’s not true. You’re too strong and capable to be a damsel in distress. You do a fine job of taking care of yourself and Benjy.”

  “It feels like I’m falling apart. I had a physical not too long ago, and there’s nothing wrong with me. But I’ve been having these dizzy spells.”

  “Is that what happened to you on the staircase?”

  “Could you tell?”

  Standing on the second step from the upstairs landing, she’d been hanging on to the banister with a white-knuckle grip. “You looked like hell.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Your eyeballs were rolling around in your head. Your knees were knocking. I thought you might just crumple up and fall over.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” she said.

  “Seriously, Angela, how often do you have these spells?”

  “Usually at night when I can’t sleep. I get hot, then cold. The room starts spinning around.” She fidgeted in the passenger seat. “Here’s the weird part. I’ll look at the clock and see that it’s ten twenty-three.”

  “The time when Tom died.”

  With only two days before she remarried, she must be thinking about him, remembering what it had been like the first time she walked down the aisle. She was taking a big step in her life; a certain amount of tension seemed natural.

  He changed lanes. At three o’clock in the afternoon, it was close enough to rush hour that all four lanes on the highway were clogged.

  She leaned forward to adjust the air-conditioning. “Neil gave me a prescription sedative to help me sleep. Sometimes, it works.”

  He was drugging her. “What kind of pill?”

  “I don’t know. It’s robin’s-egg blue.”

  “Did you take one this afternoon?”

  She nodded. “It didn’t help.”

  As a general rule, Shane was opposed to taking any kind of medication that wasn’t strictly necessary. “Your dizzy spells might be a side effect.”

  “I already talked to Neil about that. He didn’t think it was likely. These pills are supposed to calm me down, and my symptoms are the opposite of that. My pulse starts racing, and I get burning hot.” A sigh puffed through her lips. “I’m just stressed out.”

  Still, he wanted to find out what was in those pills. PRESS had a forensics department, and they might be able to give him a quick answer. The problem would be to get his hands on the prescription without telling her that he was suspicious of Neil. Why would he drug her? It didn’t make sense for him to give her something that made her agitated. It was to his benefit to have a smiling, agreeable bride.

  She heaved another sigh. “I can’t believe I blew up at Neil like that.”

  “He deserved it.”

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  Not one bit. But he didn’t want to make her life more difficult by criticizing her fiancé. “My only concern is that he’s a good husband for you and a good stepfather for Benjy
.”

  “He adores Benjy.”

  From what Shane had seen, that was true. Neil doted on the kid. “But you’re not too happy about the way he treats you.”

  “Today wasn’t a good example. He’s usually calm and understanding. When we go out in public, he treats me like a princess. A couple of months ago, we went to a black-tie fundraiser for the hospital, and he rented an emerald and diamond necklace for me. I looked at the receipt, and that jewelry was worth more than my house. Neil thought I needed something to jazz up my plain black dress.”

  “You must have been real pretty.”

  “I guess.” She gave a little laugh. “But it’s not me. Not my style. It felt like I was playing dress-up at this big, sparkly, gala event. I would have been more comfortable in the kitchen with the caterers.”

  He’d always thought she was at her best when cooking. Whether stirring a fancy cream sauce on a burner or frying up freshly caught trout on a campfire in the mountains, she took on a glow of happiness. Humming to herself, she’d lift a tasting spoon to her lips and give a smile of pure pleasure. Emeralds and diamonds weren’t needed to make her beautiful.

  He wanted to believe that Neil appreciated her, that he knew what an amazing woman she was. “Have you done much cooking for Neil?”

  “He’s a big fan of my strawberry salad. He’s conscientious about his weight, so he can’t really appreciate French cuisine. Most of the recipes start with a pound of butter and heavy cream.”

  Shane’s mouth began to water. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  “Neil is a man who knows what he likes. And I respect that. Also, he was telling the truth when he said that we discussed the pre-nup.” Leaning over, she dug into her shoulder bag on the floor between her legs and took out the stack of documents that were held together by a metallic clip in the top left corner. “I might as well start looking through this stuff.”

  Traffic in their lane had slowed to a crawl, and he maneuvered to the left. At this rate, they wouldn’t make it to PRESS for another half hour.

  While she read, Angela hemmed and hawed. Her long hair fell forward in a shining brown curtain. She flipped from the first page to the next and the next without removing the clip.