Unexpectedly His: A Contemporary Marriage Mistake Romance, page 1
Unexpectedly His
By
Maren Smith
To Todd, the man I simply cannot
imagine my life without.
Titles by Maren Smith:
Black Light Series:
Unbroken (Black Light: Valentine’s Roulette, Book 3)
Shameless (Black Light: Roulette Redux, Book 7)
Fearless (Black Light, Book 10)
Determined (Black Light: Celebrity Roulette, Book 12)
Masters of the Castle Series:
Book 1, Holding Hannah
Book 2, Kaylee’s Keeper
Book 3, Saving Sara
Book 4, Sweet Sinclair
Book 5, Chasing Chelsea
Book 6, Owning O
Book 7, Maddy Mine
Book 8, Seducing Sandy
Witness Protection Program Box Set
A Few Other Titles:
B-Flick
Build-A-Daddy
Daddy’s Little
The Great Prank
Jinxie’s Orchids
Life After Rachel
The Locket
The Mountain Man
Something Has To Give
Unexpectedly His
by
Maren Smith
Copyright © 2019 by Maren Smith
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including, but not
limited to, photocopying or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the author. authormarensmith@yahoo.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, locales, and
events are either a product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons,
places, and events are purely coincidental.
Originally published as Rent-A-Bride. However
this version has been completely re-written and
expanded. It is almost nothing like the original.
Cover Artist: Tugboat Designs
Editor: Maggie Ryan
Formatting: Rayanna Jamison
Chapter One
Daniel lay his cards face down on the green felt table. In Texas Hold-Em, it was important to know when to quit, and he had just reached that moment. He covered his disappointment with a smile and scooted back his chair as his opponent raked the pot to his side of the table.
“You’re not leaving already, are you?” another of the table’s five players asked.
Daniel did not make the mistake of thinking it was his fond company that would be missed. He tucked his wallet into the inner pocket of his dress jacket as he stood to go. “I’m sure you’ll find a wealthy fifth eager to be plucked back to poverty before my seat has cooled. Have a good night, gentlemen.”
Stopping in at one of the Stratosphere’s many casino bars, Daniel salved the sting of his losses with two fingers of whiskey. As he stood waiting, he glanced up at the TV above the bar, catching only the tail end of the news report being broadcast.
He shook his head. “They found another letter? What does this make now, six?”
“Yup. Killed a congressman in Missouri this time.” Passing Daniel a clean glass, the balding bartender half-filled it with strong Tennessee Jack. “At least now they think they know something about whoever’s sending them. They’re not saying too much, except they’ve found evidence that suggests it’s someone in government. Some sort of telltale thing in the stationery. I don’t know forensics, but maybe they’ll catch the bastard soon.”
“You’re kidding.” Daniel snorted in grim disbelief. “Another government employee?”
“Or an official, maybe.” Wiping out a tray of clean glasses fresh from the kitchen, the bartender arched an eyebrow meaningfully. “Republican, democrat, independent, who knows. I guess some people will do anything to climb that ladder ahead of everyone else.”
“Just what we all need—another lunatic waging biological warfare through the U.S. mail.”
“You know it.”
Knocking back his whiskey, Daniel tipped the bartender and paid for his drink. He walked out of the Stratosphere into the hot Las Vegas sun. The news sucked, but out here—out here, everything was awesome.
The Strip was packed. According to his cousin, it was always packed, day or night, even at the far end where the Stratosphere Tower stood sentry between all the other high-rolling casinos that made up the pulse line of Sin City’s busiest entertainment row, and the smarmy end, where porn shops and massage parlors did not differentiate, and the hotels and numerous wedding chapels did a brisk side-by-side business. Although dressed in a tuxedo, Daniel was not rich. The tuxedo was borrowed. So was his room for the night—a seedy little place about half a mile further up the Strip, just past the world’s biggest tourist trap of a souvenir shop and a tiny white church.
Being as his cousin was safely married and off on his three days of non-stop gambling honeymoon, and having spent twenty minutes at the poker tables himself, Daniel now knew everything he needed to about life in Vegas: it was expensive. Having spent all the money he cared to lose, he was done. He was going home. Or, rather, he was going back to his hotel where he planned to enjoy a burger for supper, a slightly pornographic movie or maybe Die Hard on a vibrating bed, followed by an early bedtime and an equally early start on the long drive home first thing tomorrow morning.
“Looking for company?” a brunette in a red sequined cocktail dress paused on her way into the Stratosphere to ask.
“No, thank you,” he declined with a smile.
That was another thing he now knew about Vegas. One had to be careful; it was really hard to tell the difference between the working girls and the other tourists like himself. Straightening his coat, Daniel started walking.
It was hot. Middle-of-the-summer, six-at-night-but-the-sun-hadn’t-yet-set kind of hot, and loud as only a city that hosted 41 million tourists a year could be. Right now, it felt like every one of them was on the Strip with him. Most were walking, but the traffic was heavy as well. Car engines, cranked radios, laughing, drinking, shouting, cheering in time with the blasting alarm of winning machines going off in every direction. It was as much a cacophony of sound as it was of sight; the Strip lights were famous for a reason, but Daniel admired them on the move. Nothing like coming to a big city to make a small-town boy appreciate the quiet, laidback lifestyle waiting for him back home.
A flashing billboard lit up the entire side of a building, advertising the world-class acrobatics of a show playing now at the MGM Grand. A truck, lugging another flashing billboard sign drove past him, only that one advertised scantily clad girls, desperate to meet him, were just a phone call away. Three screaming kids ran past him, followed by a group of sauntering adults on their way to M&M World, and Daniel was just passing the massive souvenir shop when a boisterous laugh pulled his attention to a very young couple. Thoroughly intoxicated and decked out in fancy wedding regalia, they staggered arm-in-arm through the fake-flower-covered trellis that crowned the front door of the smallest of Vegas’ wedding chapels he’d yet seen on this trip. Simply called Reverend Love’s Wedding Chapel, it was sandwiched between two seedy hotels and within sight of at least four other churches, and yet it stood out. It was the only one built to look like an 1800s prairie church, complete with narrow steeple and pull-chord bell, and it was the only one with a giant display sign that boasted of a 24-hour drive-up wedding window around the back. Holding onto one another, the couple disappeared inside.
Another bachelor bites the dust, Daniel thought and continued on. He was almost home-sweet-away-from-home. His hotel lay just on the other side of that church, with an alley accessway that fed into a narrow parking strip where he’d left his car and where the door for his registered room could be reached just inside the gated pool’s side entrance.
Sadly, he never made it that far. Just as he passed the flower trellis, mere steps from turning into that shadowy alleyway, a lacy, white blur shot around the corner and slammed into him. Her shrill shriek met his grunt of impact, and they both fell. He landed on the sidewalk; she landed on him. Though he managed not to crack his cranium against the hot concrete, he did smack cloth-swaddled foreheads with the woman on top of him when an entire landslide of white, frilly material washed over the top of her, smothering them both in lace and sequins and the somewhat alluring scent of vanilla.
“Ow,” the woman on top of him panted.
Stunned, Daniel couldn’t find his head to cup it. Every movement was hampered by yards of white organza. He swam through it, finding sunlight just as somebody’s runaway bride thrashed her way up out of that mess of frillery and, with one final push, both sat up and unwrapped herself like a present, right there on top of him.
Brilliant green eyes stared down at him in surprised dismay. Bright red hair, captured in a bun that might once have been elegant, now hung off the back of her neck by twist of a curl, a miracle, and two bobby pins. She was as lovely as the blush stealing over her cheeks, although that was probably due more to running in this heat than embarrassment. “Oh my goodness gracious, I’m so terribly sorry!”
“Not a problem,” he demurred, rather suavely too considering he was lying on the ground with the hot sidewalk scalding through his clothes into his butt and his back.
Scrambling to gather as much dress as her arms could hold, she fought to stand. “Oh my God!” She stumbled twice, her every movement tugging at the trapped cloth beneath him.
“Here, let me help.” He started to move and something tore. He’d have apologized for that, but her wide-eyed attention wasn’t as focused on the struggle to free her dress as it was on the faint echo of hard-sole shoes against pavement coming up the same alley from which she’d just launched herself.
She was the first bride Daniel had ever known to willingly, deliberately rip the hell out of her underskirts, but there was quiet panic all over her face when she did it. And then she was free, scrambling up off him with four feet of fabric trailing behind her as she threw herself into a full circle, looking up and down the street.
“Careful.” He was slower to stand back up, but only because he was also grabbing for that torn cloth before she wound it around her feet. “You’re going to trip.”
He tried to hand it to her, but she paced past him without noticing. For a moment, he thought her about to dash across the street, but she must have changed her mind. The traffic was dense and moving fast, and instead of stepping off the curb, she changed directions. Her eyes were huge as she came back to him. Her hands were wringing too, and it was tickling the back of his mind that this situation might not be as amusing as he’d first thought when she blurted, “Hide me!”
“What?” He almost laughed, except the fear on her face was anything but funny. From who? Where? It was the middle of summer and broad daylight, but even if it were the middle of the night, it wasn’t like she could tuck up into the shadows of a building somewhere. The lights lining the Strip illuminated everything and everyone who walked along it. Hide her, how? Daniel looked around, but the hotel was too far away, the church was right on the sidewalk, and those running footsteps were practically upon them. And did he really want to get caught up in the middle of whatever this—
Seizing Daniel by the tuxedo, the red-head yanked him out of the middle of the sidewalk. She slammed herself back into the artificial flowers twined up through the wedding chapel’s latticework. It wasn’t a hiding place. The only thing blocking her from whomever was about to erupt from the side alley behind him was him.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” she whispered, her tiny hands clutching the folds of his lapel and that luscious vanilla scent teasing his nose. Suddenly switching her grip from his coat to his head, she both arched up and yanked him down, and somewhere in the startled middle, their mouths met.
Her eyes were huge, green as hell and so full of panic that he couldn’t even begin to enjoy this. Or so said his head. The lower half of him had its own ideas on how to react, but that was instantly tempered by the two men who shot from the mouth of the alley.
Daniel had nothing but himself with which to shield both her and the bulk of her frilly dress. Tiny hairs prickling on the back of his neck, he did the best he could, but could hear them, turning one way and then the other. They must have looked right at them at some point, but after only a brief pause, both men took off running again down the street. The only reason he could think for why they’d done so was that they were looking for a bride. Not a bride and a groom, locking lips in the shadows of a church.
“This is going to make for a very interesting story when I get home,” Daniel said, just as soon as they were gone and her soft lips abandoned his. “Also, I don’t think this is going to fool them for very long.”
“I have to hide,” she whispered in agreement. Twisting, she peeked through the lattice and fake flowers.
If she was trying to see where the men had gone, he could have told her it wasn’t far at all. Only about thirty feet—past the white chapel and a hotel even more seedy than his on the opposite side of this trellis. They were pacing the sidewalk at the ass end of the same alley that circled behind both buildings, feeding the drive-thru wedding window, and which eventually led right back to Daniel and his (sort of) disheveled bride.
“How do we get out of this?” she hissed, more to herself than him. “How?”
He didn’t know how he’d gotten ‘in it’ in the first place. Why was he hiding at all? This wasn’t his marriage mistake.
“You could always just say you don’t,” Daniel offered. “It’s embarrassing. Nobody likes to admit they made a mistake, but at some point in the ceremony, they will give you that option.”
With the aroma of vanilla sugar cookies tickling his nose, his lips in tingling agreement with some lower parts of him, he patted her shoulder and put some distance between them.
He’d been in this long enough. He still had a burger, a vibrating bed and a long drive tomorrow morning, but just as soon as he got back to the hotel, this whole encounter was going straight to Facebook. Pictures or it didn’t happen, as his friends were sure to reply. Fishing his cellphone from his jacket pocket, he ducked in close enough to her to snap a selfie. His smile was exaggeratedly cheesy, she looked shell-shocked, and his screen was cracked. Damn it, it must have happened when he fell.
A lesser gentleman would have added to her troubles and demanded compensation; Daniel settled on giving her a look and put his phone away. “Seriously, nobody’s going to kill you for changing your mind.”
“Not for that, no.” She didn’t look at all comforted, and it was all that troubled worry in the green of her lovely eyes that finally cut through his last remaining ties of amusement and suggested maybe he take this seriously.
Slipping his phone into his tuxedo pocket, Daniel peeked through the flower-filled trellis and stole his first real look at the two men who had been chasing her. “Okay, I’ll bite. Which one’s the groom?”
They were both in business suits—one gray, one brown, although neither seemed quite nice enough to wear to a friend’s wedding, much less their own. In fact, were he in California, he’d almost have mistaken them for extras, cast straight off some locally-shot mafia movie set. But this wasn’t California. This was Vegas, home of the drive-thru wedding where, for a nominal fee, Elvis could officiate. So, that really didn’t mean a whole lot.
“I don’t know them,” she confessed. “This isn’t my wedding dress, either. I work at a bridal boutique a few streets over. I’m an actress, sort of. A living display window mannequin, or I was until about forty minutes ago, when those two walked into the store with their boss and started threatening me. They’re going to kill me.”
And suddenly just like that, this didn’t seem quite so Facebook post-able.
Daniel offered her his cellphone. “Want to call the police?”
The somber desperation on her face did not ease. “That will kill me even faster.”
A hot summer breeze picked up around them, rustling through the fake roses and tugging at the stray wisps of fire-red curls that had escaped from her bridal coiffure. She was, every inch of her, as tussled as the organza of her gown.
Glancing through the lattice holes, Daniel eyed the two men, now standing back-to-back still thirty feet away. Waiting and watching. Full of holes, the lattice archway offered nothing in the way of shelter, but there were enough flowers and a wide enough sliver of shadow, tucked as they were up close to the chapel, that his dark suit might have blended them. Unfortunately, that sparse cover would be gone if he moved a step in any direction.
He looked at them. He looked at her. He didn’t know this woman. How much of what she was saying did he even believe?
“Please,” she whispered. The blush of her earlier exertion had died away, leaving her face quite pale. Her wide-eyed stare was very green and very expressive. Right now, he believed all of it.
For all the good that did. If he couldn’t call the police, then what could he do? This wasn’t his city. He knew how to get to the Stratosphere because he’d followed the rest of the wedding party, and he knew how to get back to his hotel because he remembered the way he’d come. That was what he knew of Las Vegas. Also, the thirty feet of straight sidewalk that separated him from the suited goons on the other side of this lattice was nowhere near far enough to convince him he could outrun anybody. Especially in these rental shoes and with nobody’s bride in tow.
