After high school, the Scott sisters had followed separate paths. For Janet, it was a stint as a backup singer with a band no one outside of the musicians themselves and a few of their close friends had ever heard of. She’d capped that with marriage to the drug-addicted bass guitarist, whose lack of talent was matched only by his absence of anything approaching a sense of responsibility to Janet and the child he’d fathered with his long-absent girlfriend.
Meanwhile Alex had parlayed a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design and Merchandising into an apprenticeship with one of Las Vegas’s premier costumers. It didn’t matter that most of the costumes she worked on consisted of rhinestone-studded G-strings and star-shaped pasties. She’d loved the vibrant, tawdry, behind-the-scenes action of casino showrooms. The fact that her roommate was a chorus girl in the Flamingo’s glitzy troupe had only added to the fun.
Then, just a little over a year ago, Janet had called with the devastating news that she’d been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. She’d also admitted that her scuz of a husband had deserted her and her stepdaughter. In what seemed like a heartbeat, Alex’s life had veered in a different direction.
She’d never intended to assume guardianship of Maria after her sister’s slow, agonizing death. That was a father’s responsibility, after all. But by then Eddie Musgrove was in prison and there was no one else to take charge of his daughter.
Now Maria’s life was taking another unexpected turn. One Alex knew the girl couldn’t help but view as a threat to her shaky security. Aching for her, she tried again to soften the blow.
“Ben won’t be around much, sweetie. Like I told you, he’s in the air force and has to go where they send him. That’s why we’re getting married on such short notice. He’s leaving early tomorrow morning. So you’ll have to wait a few months before you even meet him.”
By which time, God willing, the adoption would be finalized and Alex would be planning a divorce as quick and painless as the wedding.
“Is your backpack ready?” she asked Maria. “Dinah and her mom will be here to pick you up any...” The tinkle of the door chimes cut her off. “That’s probably them now. Go get your backpack, Kitten.”
The door chime rang again and Alex hurried down the tiled hall of their rented casita. The two-bedroom adobe unit was part of a new complex just a few blocks from Albuquerque’s picturesque Old Town Plaza. The prime location meant a higher rent than Alex wanted to pay, but the complex was within walking distance of Maria’s school and close to a warehouse where Alex rented operating space for her business.
She opened the door expecting Maria’s cheerful, chubby, freckle-faced friend and her mom. Instead, she found her groom standing under the portico of woven piñon branches. Flustered, Alex ran a quick eye over his dark slacks and crisply ironed blue oxford shirt to the carryall he toted in one hand.
“Are you early or am I late?” she asked.
“I’m early, but I thought I’d better bring a few things over while I could.”
“What things?”
He hefted the leather carryall. “You might want to have some evidence of a husband around the house. For those unannounced home visits.”
“Oh,” she said stupidly. “Right.”
She stood aside so he could move out of the blinding morning sunlight into the shady cool of the entryway. Although her small bungalow looked like a square adobe box on the outside, Alex had unleashed her creative juices on the inside.
“Nice,” Ben commented as he ran an appreciative eye over the sand-colored floor tile, the ochre walls and the antique wooden hall stand painted a bright turquoise. Alex had added a hand-painted border of colorful cactus blossoms around the mirror and replaced its plain brass hooks with whimsical coyotes wearing a variety of cowboy hats and sombreros. Maria’s book bag hung from one howling coyote, Alex’s purse and car keys from another.
She’d continued the Southwestern motif in the living room framed by a wide arch and visible from the entry hall. The hues were muted desert tans and golds splashed with jeweled accents in mauve and turquoise and sunset orange. The combination kitchen-dining room was just as colorful. Ben murmured his appreciation of the decor as Alex led the way down the hall to her bedroom.
“I have no idea how long this deployment will last,” he told her. “But I’m up for reassignment when I get back, so I moved out of my apartment a few days ago and put my stuff in storage. All I have here are a couple changes of clothes, some underwear, a pair of sweats and—”
“Is that him?”
The belligerent question flew at them from the doorway of Maria’s bedroom. They turned to find her standing with feet planted and arms crossed.
“Yes,” Alex answered with a determined smile, “this is Major Kincaid. Ben, this is my niece and soon-to-be daughter, Maria.”
The “niece” was honorific since she and Maria shared no actual blood tie, but they both hoped to eliminate the “soon-to-be.”
“Hi, Maria. Alex said you were smart and a whiz at spelling. She forgot to mention how pretty you are.”
The ploy was only partially successful. The arms remained crossed but the lower lip retreated a little.
“I’m sorry we won’t be able to spend any time together before I leave tomorrow,” he told her, unknowingly echoing Alex’s attempt to soften the impact of a stranger dropped suddenly into her life. “Maybe we could get to know each other a little by email. I’ll send you pictures of my crew and the places we fly into and you can tell me about school and your friends. Would that be okay?”
“I guess,” the girl said sulkily. “Except Alex only lets me on the computer when she can watch what sites I go to.”
“That makes sense. There’s some real scary stuff on the internet.” He unzipped his carryall and fished out a tablet encased in hot pink. “That’s why the iPad I brought you comes with strict parental controls. If it’s okay with Alex, you could use this to keep me posted about what’s happening here.”
The sulk disappeared, and the girl’s eyes went wide with excitement. “Oh, wow! My very own iPad! I’ve been wanting one.” In almost the next heartbeat, she zinged from excited to dejected. “But Alex says I have to wait for my birthday to get one.”
“When’s that?”
“September 9.”
“Hmm.” He scraped a palm across his chin and pondered the dilemma for a few moments. “How about we consider it a wedding present instead? From me to you. That okay with you, Alex?”
She could have kissed him. In one smooth move he’d eased a little of Maria’s uncertainties and given her the expensive gift she’d been angling for ever since her friend Dinah got one last Christmas.
“It’s okay with me.” She turned a warning glance on her ward. “But only after I put on a code restricting access to the app store.”
“I already engaged it,” Ben assured her. “I’ll give you the passcode later. She’s good to go.”
“Can I play with it now? Please, Alex. Please!”
“I guess. Do you want Ben to show you how to work it?”
The seven-year-old gave her a look of utter disdain. “Dinah and I play on hers all the time.”
“Okay, if you’re sure you know what you’re doing.”
“Aleeeeex.”
With that parting shot, she whirled, took her prize to her bed and belly flopped onto her Princess Elsa comforter.
“Pretty slick,” Alex murmured as she escorted Ben to the master bedroom. “But how in the world did you find time to buy an iPad and download those applications?”
“I hit a twenty-four-hour Walmart. Then I had Swish and Dingo test fly the apps while I set us up for Vegas. They congratulated me on our upcoming nuptials, by the way, and sent you their heartfelt condolences.”
“Did you tell them our arrangement is only temporary?”
“No. Did you tell Maria?”
“No.” At his questioning look, she shrugged. “I said we’d reconnected last night after two years and rekindled a hot romance.”
“Close enough.” The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “We did reconnect and the romance was pretty hot.”
Dammit! That lopsided grin should come with a warning label.
“Give me a sec,” she said, pulling herself together, “and I’ll empty a drawer for you.”
His neatly folded underwear didn’t take up even a fourth of the drawer. Similarly folded socks, gym shorts and sweats barely filled the rest of the empty space. He arranged the three shirts he’d brought over knife-pressed slacks and squeezed the hangers into her jam-packed closet. His one pair of sneakers and one pair of boots looked lost amid her racks of slings and mules and wedges and jeweled flip-flops.
She caught him eyeing the colorful array and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I can’t help it. Shoes are my comfort food.”
“Whatever works. I’m into Game of Thrones myself.”
“The HBO show?”
“The books. But I’ll admit I’ve watched the video of Cersei walking naked through the streets of King’s Landing more than once.”
“I don’t know,” she mused. “I kind of liked Daenerys Targaryen’s hunky husband.”
“How come I didn’t discover that you’re a Game of Thrones devotee during our weekend together? Wait. Scratch that. We were pretty much otherwise occupied, weren’t we?”
“Pretty much,” she agreed with a flutter just under her ribs.
She’d have to think about that jittery sensation. Later. After they got back from Vegas and Ben was on his way to wherever.
Right now she had all she could handle with her prospective groom propping a baseball bat in the corner of her bedroom and hooking a ball cap emblazoned with 2014 Badger Bash on a corner of her dresser mirror.
“A little extra touch,” he explained. “In case you have to spin the tale of where we met.”
“Good thinking.” She eyed the almost empty carryall. “What else is in there?”
“Just a few challenge coins.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a challenge coin?”
“A sort of unit patch. Every squadron or wing has its own. Then we trade with other units. Like baseball cards from the ’50s.” He rooted around in the bag and produced a handful of disks decorated with various designs. “You have to carry a coin on you at all times or you might get stuck buying a round of drinks for the house if challenged.”
When she moved in for a closer look, he shuffled a coin out of the small pile. The enameled surface showed a four-engine aircraft painted a dull gray. “This is my bird, the MC-130J Commando II.”
Another featured a fierce-looking eagle on a field of blue with an olive branch clutched in one claw and thunder bolts in the other. The lettering around the seal widened Alex’s eyes. “Is this from the president?”
“Yeah, we hauled POTUS for a couple classified missions.”
Impressed, she fingered a colorful coin displaying an orange-and-blue-striped lizard surrounded by lettering in an unfamiliar script.
“Where’s this one from?”
“A little island off the west coast of Africa nobody’s ever heard of.” Wry amusement flickered across his face. “That was one of the hairiest approaches I ever made. A short, unimproved dirt airstrip that ended in a fifteen-hundred-foot drop to the ocean. I’d just as soon not fly in there again anytime soon, even if the locals did brew up one helluva brand of fermented guava juice.”
And Alex thought her brief stint as a Vegas costume designer had been exciting! She’d rubbed elbows with a few stars, none of them A-listers but still glamorous in their own way. She’d never hauled a president around, though, or landed on a remote African island.
But suddenly, inexplicably, she couldn’t wait to get back to Sin City. She’d only be there a few hours. Just long enough for them to pick up a license and say “I do.” Yet for those few hours in that fairy-tale land of fake pyramids and Italian castles, she could be her old self again.
Impatiently, she checked her watch. Their flight would depart in a little over two hours. Plenty of time at an airport that didn’t see anything even remotely resembling the crowds at LAX or JFK. Still, they needed to be sure to make both the outbound and the return flight later this evening so Ben could report for his deployment processing early tomorrow morning.
Worried that Dinah and her mom had been delayed by the orange road-construction cones that sprouted all over the city like mushrooms, Alex slid a hand in the pocket of her slacks to retrieve her phone. Thankfully, the Madisons pulled in to the drive just as she was keying their number.
“Sorry we’re a little late,” Pat Madison huffed when Alex opened the door to her and her daughter. “Rio Grande Boulevard’s down to one lane north of Mountain Road. Some kind of accident.”
“No problem. Thanks for keeping Maria today. I’ll pick her up around eight thirty this evening, if that’s not too late.”
“That’s fine.”
“Dinah! Look what I got.”
Maria skipped out of her room hefting her iPad, and Dinah cooed in delight.
“Cool! Now we can play Crazy Farm together. But you said you had to wait for your birthday before you got one.”
“Ben brought it for me. He’s...uh...” She swiveled to face the man who emerged from the master bedroom. Her lips pursed as she tried to decipher their connection. “When you ’n’ Alex get married, will you be my uncle?”
“I guess so.”
“Even if she’s not really my aunt?”
“Well...”
“What about when she adopts me? She’ll be my mom but you can’t be my dad ’cause I already have one.”
“How about we figure all that stuff out as we go?”
Dinah’s mother followed the exchange with considerable interest. She knew about Maria’s deadbeat dad. A single mom herself, she’d been a fierce advocate and trusted advisor in Alex’s adoption campaign. Still, she’d expressed both surprise and concern when Alex called and explained why she needed her friend to keep Maria for the day.
Pat’s concern seemed to lessen appreciably at meeting Ben. She took his hand in a no-nonsense grip and ran a frankly approving glance over his tall, lean form.
“So you’re the phantom major from Alex’s past. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical when she called last night but what the hay. The woman’s lived like a menopausal nun ever since she moved back to Albuquerque. If she’s going to discard her habit, it might as well be for someone who looks like he could make it worth—”
“Pat!” Hastily, Alex cut her off. “We have to catch a plane.”
“Okay, okay. C’mon, girls. Let’s go.”
* * *
Mere moments later Ben shoved the key in the ignition of his midnight-black Tahoe, pulled out of the drive and aimed for the airport. As he wheeled through the light Sunday morning traffic, his gaze cut to his prospective bride.
Alex hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words since she’d kissed Maria and hustled her out the door. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was having serious doubts about this shotgun wedding. God knew, he was. But he waited until he’d joined the traffic heading south on I-25 to comment on her obvious nervousness.
“There’s still time to back out.”
“I know.”
She didn’t look at him, just stared out the windshield as they cruised past the towers of downtown Albuquerque.
“It’s your call, Alex. You don’t have to do this.”
That shook her out of her funk. She angled to face him and pulled on a smile. “Yes, I do. And in case I forget to tell you later, I’m more grateful than I can say. I owe you, Cowboy.”
For some reason, that irritated the heck out of Ben. He didn’t want her thanks any more t
han he wanted her to owe him. The fact that he didn’t know what exactly he did want from her irritated him even more.
Oh, hell. Who was he kidding? He knew precisely what he wanted. The memory of this woman naked and languorous and stretched out in bed had kept him awake and aching for most of last night.
The plain truth was that he wanted her naked again. Sated and smiling and sleepy amid a tangle of sheets. Preferably in a luxurious suite similar to the one he’d taken her to their last time in Vegas. Instead, he was going to zip down to city hall, fork over fifty bucks for a marriage license, participate in a hurried ceremony and hustle his new wife aboard a flight back to Albuquerque almost before the ink had dried on their marriage certificate. Not exactly the wedding of any woman’s dreams, even if she insisted that’s exactly what she wanted.
* * *
Give the time change, they landed at McCarran Airport a mere thirty minutes after their Albuquerque takeoff time. To Alex’s surprise, a uniformed driver was waiting when they walked out into the arrivals area. The chauffeur escorted them to a stretch limo half a football field long. Alex folded herself into the decadently luxurious back seat and hiked a brow when she saw the label on the champagne bottle nested in a silver ice bucket.
“Veuve Clicquot?”
“You only get married for the first time once.”
“True.”
“Too bad I don’t have my dress uniform and sword,” he said as he peeled off the foil and unscrewed the wire cage. “Badger learned the fine art of sabering champagne while serving a stint at the US Embassy in Russia. He taught a few of us the trick during some downtime on a rotation to a former French colony that shall remain nameless.”
“He was real, this colonel of yours?”
“Oh, yeah.” Ben got the cork out smoothly despite the lack of a saber and filled two crystal flutes. “Here’s to that first time.”
It was as good a toast as any, Alex thought, given the circumstances. With a nod, she tipped her glass to his.
Marry Me, Major Page 3