I Do, I Do...For Now (Harlequin Love and Laugher)

by JoAnn Ross

  “Mitch?” Jake finally entered into the discussion. His expression, Mitch noted with consternation, was suddenly as serious as Glory’s.

  “Dammit!” He took hold of Sasha’s shoulders again and spun her around. “Tell them,” he demanded as she lowered her hands from her face and stared up at him through glistening dark eyes, “tell them we’ve barely said two words to each other the entire time you’ve worked here.”

  “That doesn’t prove a thing,” Glory insisted. “My first three husbands never said all that much, either. In bed or out. Which is one of the reasons I divorced them. But that didn’t stop the jerks from leaving me with five babies to raise.”

  “Sasha.” Although it took a herculean effort, Mitch managed to draw in a deep breath that allowed him to inject a note of almost reasonable calm into his tone. “We both know that whatever is bothering you has nothing to do with me.”

  He gave her an encouraging smile and ran his palm down her dark hair, then jerked his hand away when he saw Glory’s eyes narrow even more and realized the caress, meant to soothe, might, under the circumstances, look like something far more intimate.

  “So why don’t you do me a great big favor and get me off the hook by telling Glory and Jake that I’m just an innocent bystander here.”

  That wasn’t true. Not really. The fact of the matter was that Mitch was, if not the cause, at least the trigger for her tears. But seeing the naked distress written all over his handsome face, and honestly appalled at how Jake and Glory had misunderstood the situation, Sasha dragged in a deep, shuddering breath that had the unfortunate side effect of drawing Mitch’s rebellious eyes to her breasts, a movement that did not go unnoticed by Jake, who continued to frown at his brother-in-law.

  “M-Mitch is r-right.” She forced the ragged words through trembling lips. “He did nothing.” She felt the strong fingers on her shoulders relax ever so slightly.

  “See?” He shot the skeptical pair an I-told-you-so look over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” Glory mused grumpily. “Maybe she’s just covering up for you.”

  When his fingers tightened again, digging painfully into her shoulders, Sasha shook her head. “No.” She hitched in another deep breath that threatened to pop a button. “It’s not Mitch’s fault. And I apologize for upsetting everyone.”

  Sasha tried to force a wobbly smile and failed miserably. “It is nothing,” she insisted. Her lips began to tremble again. “Really.”

  Although Mitch was ready to leave, relieved to escape the uncomfortable emotional female scene, Jake wasn’t about to let the matter go so easily.

  “Obviously it’s something.” He added the foam cartons he was still holding to the ones Mitch had left on the table and pulled out a chair covered in cracked red plastic. “So why don’t you sit down and tell us all about it, honey?”

  “You are very kind, Jake.” Sasha rubbed at her shining, red-rimmed eyes with the backs of her hands, reminding Mitch of how that unhappy little cat owner had looked when he’d first arrived on the scene. “But it is not necessary.” She looked past the two firemen to Glory. “I was late today. It is past time I began working.”

  “You see any customers around here?” Glory asked. Her eyes swept the small storefront diner, taking in the empty tables and the row of red booths along a wall decorated with brightly colored posters touting Louisiana hot sauce. “Sit down, girl. And spill the damn beans before they get you all choked up again. Besides,” she added, when she got the impression Sasha was about to continue arguing, “a bawling waitress tends to spoil customers’ appetites.”

  She turned to Mitch. “Get the poor girl a drink of water.”

  After the way Glory had attacked him without provocation, Mitch was tempted to suggest that, since she owned the place and be was merely a customer, it was her damn responsibility to get her crazy, overwrought waitress a drink.

  However, ever since the fire, a grateful Glory had insisted on supplying the meals whenever it was his turn to cook for the crew of the fire station located down the street. Since Mitch’s culinary repertoire consisted of hot dogs, hamburgers and a very pedestrian spaghetti utilizing canned sauce, both he and the rest of the fire fighters were more than a little grateful for the meat loaf, barbecue chicken and ribs Glory provided. That being the case, he held his tongue.

  He crossed the room, went behind the counter and poured ice water from the pitcher into a green plastic glass. When he returned and held the glass out to Sasha, the blatant appreciation in her dark brown eyes reminded him uncomfortably of a cocker spaniel he’d had as a kid.

  “Thank you, Mitch.” When she felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment, she looked away and concentrated on the steady flow of traffic out the window.

  Embarrassed at receiving such a degree of gratitude for such a simple gesture, Mitch merely shrugged in response. But as he watched her lift the glass to her mouth, he found himself wondering, not for the first time since Glory had hired her, if those lush, rosy lips were as succulent as they looked.

  All too aware of Mitch watching her as she took a sip of the icy water, Sasha dragged her attention back to her less-than-ideal situation.

  Glory, Mitch and Jake knew that she was searching for her father, but she hated the thought of having to tell them more of her private family problems. Glory, however, had treated Sasha more like a daughter than an employee, and knowing that her employer would just keep after her until she revealed what had her so upset, Sasha slowly, painfully, related the details of her afternoon interview with the horrid Mr. Donald O. Potter.

  “That damn weasel,” Glory said, right on cue.

  “That’s not fair,” Jake said. “Sending you back to Russia just because you haven’t been able to find your father.”

  “Unfortunately, laws are not always fair,” Sasha murmured.

  It was a lesson she’d learned early in life. Which was another reason that the stories her mother had told her about life in America—where supposedly the people themselves made the laws—had seemed almost like fairy tales. She lifted the cool glass to her temple, where a headache was pounding with unrelenting force, and sighed.

  “Well, it’s obvious that we can’t let them send you back,” Jake declared.

  He was such a nice man, Sasha considered. Always ready with a smile for her, always asking about her day, showing her new photos of his baby daughter. He routinely overtipped and whenever she’d complain that he’d left far too much beside the empty white coffee cup, he’d invariably wink and tell her to put the money into her search fund.

  Still, as nice as Jake was, Sasha knew he did not possess the power to solve this dilemma.

  “I don’t think I have a choice.”

  “Hell, girl, everyone has a choice,” Glory insisted. “That’s what America is all about.”

  The loyalty of these people she’d known only a few weeks moved Sasha tremendously. As she thought about how much she would miss them, once she was deported, she felt a renewed threat of tears. Not wanting Mitch to think her a complete idiot, she managed to keep the floodgates closed this time.

  She twisted her hands together in her lap. “I was thinking of running away,” she admitted in a voice that was little more than a whisper. Still, hearing the words out loud made them suddenly seem almost possible.

  Her mind began to whirl, considering the possibilities. She’d heard Seattle was nice. And, of course, there was Los Angeles. In a city so large it should not be difficult to disappear.

  Perhaps Montana. She could get a job on a ranch, far away from civilization, cooking for cowboys. Upset as she was, Sasha conveniently overlooked the fact that she was a terrible cook.

  “Running away is never the answer,” Jake said, interrupting her agitated thoughts. He shook his head. “Especially in this case. You’d have broken the law and immigration would eventually catch up with you.”

  “Which would mean immediate deportation,” Glory pointed out. “You can’t give that squinty-eyed, chin
less weasel the satisfaction of getting rid of you that easily.”

  Mitch, Sasha noticed, had not joined in the conversation. He was standing there, absently rubbing his jaw as he stared out the front window of the diner, his thoughts seemingly a million miles away.

  “The law is the law.” She repeated what Mr. Donald O. Potter had told her. “I have four days to find my father. If I cannot locate him in that time, I will be sent back to Russia.”

  “We could hire a private detective,” Jake suggested. “Granted, four days isn’t all that much time, but—”

  “I’ve already hired many investigators,” Sasha interrupted glumly. That was how she’d ended up in Phoenix. It had cost her one-hundred and fifty-five dollars to learn that her father had supposedly moved from Springfield, Missouri, to the desert town to work on a suburban weekly newspaper. Unfortunately, the lead had proven to be a dead end. One more in a very long string.

  “Besides, I don’t have the money necessary—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jake said. “We’ll take up a collection at the station. All the guys will be glad to pitch in.”

  “A P.I. isn’t the answer,” Mitch said suddenly, breaking into the conversation for the first time.

  “You don’t know that,” Glory snapped. “That detective I hired last year to track down my second ex managed to get me five years back child support.”

  “It also took two months,” Mitch reminded her. “And you had your ex-husband’s social security number, which made it a helluva lot easier.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, Sasha’s right. There’s not enough time.”

  Glory’s face was a stony mask. “We can’t let them send her back. Her mother’s dead. She doesn’t have any family there anymore. She’ll be all alone.”

  “I wasn’t talking about letting her be deported.”

  Although Sasha was mildly annoyed that they’d begun talking about her as if she were no longer in the diner, she couldn’t help being curious.

  She slowly lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t understand.”

  “The answer’s obvious. And simple.”

  Glory lifted a dark brow. “So why don’t you share it with us, hotshot?” she said, calling him by the name that had appeared in all those newspaper headlines.

  “Sasha needs to marry a U.S. citizen. That way, she’ll get her green card.”

  Sasha’s hopes, which had soared when Mitch had suggested he had the solution to her dilemma, plummeted. Her shoulders sagged. He might as well have suggested she discover the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine that was supposedly hidden somewhere in the nearby Superstition mountains while she was at it.

  “As much as I appreciate your suggestion,” she said with a tired sigh, “there is one little problem. I do not know anyone who would marry me.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Mitch heard the fatal words come out of his mouth and knew he was sunk. Although he’d tried to resist the idea as he’d listened to Sasha’s painfully told story, he could feel himself about to take yet another headlong plunge into trouble.

  Mitch wondered what deep-seated inner flaw he possessed that made it impossible for him to resist putting on his tarnished suit of armor.

  He remembered a serial killer a few years back who wrote letters to newspapers all around the country that always began “Stop me before I kill again.”

  Perhaps he should have little cards printed to hand out at times like this; cards that read “Stop me before I help again.”

  Knowing he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, but unable to resist, Mitch flashed the smile that had graced the cover of Newsweek and had so charmed Kathie Lee—the cocky male grin that had the power to melt Sasha’s heart.

  Leaning down, he rubbed his fingertips lightly along the lines furrowing her brow, a gesture Sasha found wonderful and unnervingly intimate at the same time. “You know me,” he said.

  3

  SASHA COULDN’T SPEAK, couldn’t think. She was certain that what she’d heard was a joke. Or a wild hallucination born of stress and her subconscious desires.

  “Well?” Mitch said when she didn’t immediately answer. “What do you say?”

  Sasha stared at him. Hope fluttered its delicate hummingbird wings in her breast, even as her mind assured her she must have misunderstood.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, looking desperately at Jake and Glory for assistance.

  Jake shrugged and continued to stare at his wife’s brother, while Glory burst out laughing. “It may not have been the most romantic proposal in the world, Sasha, honey, but I do believe hotshot here just asked you to marry him.”

  “Marry?” She turned back to him, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “This is true, Mitch? You wish to marry me?”

  “It wouldn’t be a real marriage,” he said quickly, ignoring Glory’s easily heard muttered grunt of disapproval. “It would only be a legal maneuver to buy time for you to find your father.”

  “Now that’s being real gentlemanly.” Jake shook his head in disgust.

  Mitch turned on him. “At least I came up with a solution. Which is more than you managed to do.”

  “Gotta point there,” Jake agreed. “Of course, gettin’ married to your sister kinda took me out of the matrimonial sweepstakes.” The laughter left his eyes as he looked from Mitch to Sasha, then back to Mitch. “You know,” he murmured, rubbing his square chin, “it could work, I suppose.”

  His gaze was warm and encouraging as it moved slowly over Sasha’s tearstained face. “The hardest part, the way I see it, would be living under the same roof with you, hotshot.” He winked at Sasha. “Not many women consider Jockey briefs hanging on the doorknob a decorating plus.”

  Sasha was more confused than ever. If she’d understood correctly, and she believed she bad, Mitch was suggesting nothing more than a legal ploy to keep the nasty immigration officer at bay until she could find her father and prove her citizenship.

  These things were done all the time. She knew of girls from St. Petersburg who had entered into similar agreements with men from Europe and the United States. Such marriages had nothing to do with romance. Or with love.

  “We would live together?”

  “No!” Mitch shouted.

  “Yes!” Glory said at exactly the same moment.

  Jake chuckled, seeming to enjoy his brother-in-law’s discomfort and said nothing.

  “If you two kids do try to pull this off, you’re going to have to make it look like a real marriage,” Glory warned. “I saw a report on ‘20/20’ a couple weeks ago, showing how, because of the upcoming election and all the illegal alien arguments, the government is starting to crack down on green card marriages.

  “That weasel Potter down at immigration isn’t going to be satisfied with any convenient piece of paper signed by some Phoenix justice of the peace. He’s going to want to make sure you two are actually living as man and wife.”

  Hell, she was right. Mitch had seen the same report himself. He’d been over at Meredith’s, and although it certainly wasn’t the way he’d planned to spend an intimate Friday night with the sexy reporter, she’d appeared briefly in the segment anchored by John Stossel, so of course they’d both had to watch.

  Meredith. Mitch cursed inwardly as he wondered what Meredith was going to say when she discovered her man of the moment had run off and gotten married. If only he’d taken the time to run the errant thought through his brain before letting it come out of his damn mouth. But, no. Once again, he’d gone charging into the breach, the same way he’d rushed into that burning building and ended up a media hero.

  One of these days, Mitch told himself glumly, he really was going to have to learn self-restraint.

  Sasha had never seen Mitch do anything but smile. Even after fighting a blazing, four-alarm fire in the blistering desert heat, when he was covered with soot and sweat, he could still flash her a devastating grin designed to turn any woman to butter.

  But at this moment his h
andsome face was grim, telling her that he was already having regrets. In fact, she thought, he looked a great deal like a Siberian wolf who’d just stumbled into a trap and would be willing to chew his leg off, if necessary, to escape.

  That being the case, although she desperately longed to say yes, if only to forestall her deportation to Russia, Sasha knew what she must do. Mitch had done a gracious and generous thing, a heroic thing, by asking her to marry him. Now she must be equally as honorable and refuse.

  She swallowed her disappointment and tried to keep her lips from trembling. “As much as I appreciate your offer, Mitch, I can’t allow you to ruin your life for me.”

  There it was, Mitch told himself. The escape hatch. All he had to do was walk through it and he’d be home free.

  But then Sasha would be on her way back to a homeland where she had no home.

  “I wouldn’t be ruining my life.” Terrific, Cudahy, he blasted himself. Why don’t you just dig the hole even deeper? She was willing to let him off the book, so why couldn’t he just wiggle free? Like any sensible, sane person would do?

  “Sure, marriage might prove a bit inconvenient, but it isn’t going to last all that long. Just until we locate your father and you can prove your claim of citizenship.”

  Sasha turned toward the others, seeking advice. “Jake-Glory? What do you think of Mitch’s idea?”

  “I think you should do it,” they said together.

  She bit her lip and stared out the window again at the shiny red fire truck, remembering how wonderfully dashing Mitch had looked leaping down from the back of the truck with that lethal-looking ax in his strong dark hands, come to save her by stopping the diner from going up in flames.

  To be married to this man would be a dream come true. Even if it wasn’t a real marriage, what could it hurt to pretend? Just a little.

  And it would definitely solve her problem with Potter. When the image of the sour-faced government official popped into her mind, Sasha made her decision.

  “All right, Mitch.” She turned back toward him, her expression as grave as her thoughts. “I will marry you.”