Текст книги "Her Accidental Husband"
Автор книги: Ashlee Mallory
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 16 страниц)
Chapter Ten
Bright, blinding light seared into Payton’s eyeballs no matter how tight she squeezed them shut against the unwelcome intrusion.
Why does my head feel like it’s being smacked against a wall?
Tentatively, she opened one eye, trying to get her bearings.
Crap. She felt like she was going to die.
The sudden twisting in her belly immediately became her most pressing concern as she jerked upright in bed and swung her legs to the floor. She raced to the bathroom, making it just in time.
Oh. Crap.
Exactly how much tequila did I drink last night?
The tiles under her knees were cold and welcoming as she laid her head on her arm, waiting for the next spasm to start.
Another minute passed, though, and nothing came, but her stomach ached. She breathed slowly, hoping she’d rid the worst of the contents from her belly. What on earth had possessed her to drink so much last night? Even more importantly…
Why am I completely naked?
Wait. She was in that hotel room in Tequila. A room she’d shared with—
An image of a naked torso moving above her, of dark eyes staring into her own as they shared the closest intimacy two people could have.
Oh. My. Gosh..
She raised her head. She needed to clear this fog clouding her brain. Because there was no way she’d do something so idiotic just days after breaking it off with her fiancé.
Although…for some reason, the faintest blurry memory of last night didn’t seem like something to be ashamed of. No, the memory seemed to bring her a feeling not just of obvious pleasure but something more.
Of happiness. Excitement. Tenderness.
Coming to her feet, she turned the faucet on and let the water trickle into her hands before patting some on her face. She scooped the water, ready to bring it to her mouth when she remembered where she was. No, she couldn’t risk getting a parasite. She already felt like she was dying. What she needed was some bottled water. The bottled water from her purse outside the bathroom.
Was he out there?
In her rush to get out of bed, Payton hadn’t processed if she was alone in the bed or if someone else had been next to her.
Sneaking to the bathroom door, something she’d somehow found the will to shut before kissing the porcelain throne, she pulled it open far enough to look out.
The bed was empty. No. The whole room was empty.
Maybe it had all been a dream. Something she’d thought about one too many times in her waking hours that took over in her drunken stupor.
Although it didn’t quite explain her nakedness now.
Where was he then?
Grabbing a towel in case he returned, she wrapped herself in it and scurried across the room to grab the water before barricading herself back in the bathroom.
She turned the bathroom light on and for the first time got a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped in horror. Her hair was ratted in the back and fell limply around her green-tinged face. Dark raccoon-like rings appeared around her eyes, a combination of mascara, dehydration, and too little rest.
Lord. She was a mess.
What she needed was a shower. A long, hot shower to wash away all the stink and then maybe she’d be able to remember things more clearly.
And it wouldn’t hurt to look human again.
She started the water and tested it before climbing in. Her stomach roiled at the steamy moisture, and she turned it down before letting the water sink into her skin and hair. Giving herself the freedom to pick at her memories. To try and remember how she’d landed herself naked in that bed out there.
The tour of the agave fields and the distillery. That she remembered. A shot of tequila. Dinner down in the cavern beneath the distillery. A second shot of tequila. Candlelight. Conversation. More tequila. Later, dancing with Cruz under the stars. Tequila. The hypnotic gleam in those dark eyes of his, and—
A kiss.
A kiss like she’d never had before, one that made her toes curl and her insides turn hot and squishy. A kiss that had made her hunger for more.
More images started coming to her.
Of Bev and Lenny and Pat and the rest, smiling and teasing them as they caught their kiss. Another shot as they toasted the happy couple. A late night tour of the old church in the town-square. Of several couples making their vows to God and each other before the crowds and a slightly inebriated priest. Of—
She froze. No. Not possible.
But the memory of standing face to face with Cruz, her hands in his as she stared into those dark eyes that promised so much. Seeing him smile, something she’d been determined then and there he would do each and every day as they said the words. Familiar words. Promising loyalty and fidelity. Love. Of promising to take care of each other…
All the days of their lives.
She let out a strangled cry and ripped the shower curtain away and stumbled back out of the tub. Trailing water she slipped her way across the floor and into the bedroom where she studied every surface of the room. She stopped as her gaze fell on a piece of paper tossed carelessly on the nightstand.
Her legs trembled as she walked to the stand, praying it wasn’t true. Her wet fingers lifted the paper and she took a breath before processing the words.
It was in Spanish, but it wasn’t hard to miss her signature below. And Cruz’s. And a few others.
Not even able to understand the words on the document, she knew without out a doubt what it said.
She and Cruz were married. They were husband and wife.
Cruz busied himself filling two cups with coffee at the hotel lobby. He didn’t know how Payton took her coffee, so he grabbed a handful of sugar and sweeteners and creamers and stuffed them in his pocket.
She was going to need the sharp hit of caffeine when she remembered everything from the previous night.
Memories that were still sweeping over him.
He couldn’t believe he’d done something so foolhardy. So spontaneous. So…stupid. Because how else would you qualify marrying someone you barely knew while both people were heavily intoxicated?
See. This was exactly why he went with the expected.
When he awoke this morning, the insides of his skull pounding about, he’d been more than a little stunned to find Payton draped across his chest. It had taken three point four seconds for it all to come back to him.
The kiss.
The special moment of watching other couples making that commitment to each other, of feeling so hopeful and excited at the promise of a future with the woman next to him. Of thinking it could be forever.
The moment she brazenly asked him if he wanted to get up there before God, their new friends, and everyone else who had crowded into the church, and make whatever was happening between them the real deal.
Forever.
God help him, in that moment, he was a goner. He’d said yes.
And then the long night of discovering each other, finalizing their newfound marital bliss. Of her under him, on top of him, of her giving herself to him in every way that he’d been so humbled and proud and filled with such affection he’d lost his breath.
Still did.
Only, the future that had seemed so possible for them both, so attainable last night, somehow in the light of day and without the powerful influence of alcohol seemed like a silly fairy tale. Women like Payton didn’t end up with guys like him.
They ended up with guys like Brad.
And as soon as Payton woke up and remembered everything, she was going to realize that. Realize the mistake she’d made in asking him to be her husband. Maybe she’d even been teasing him, not expecting he’d say yes. Then again, she was drunk and vulnerable. And he should have said no.
Any decent guy, no matter how much his head was clouded with his emotions for the woman, would have said no.
Meaning when he walked into that room, she just might try to kill him.
He took the stairs up, balancing their coffee in his hands along with some aspirin from the front desk, trying to think of what he was going to say.
Then he was at their door and there was no putting off the inevitable.
With the coffees stacked and balanced between his chin and his left hand, he slid the key in and pushed the door open.
She was awake.
And standing naked in the middle of the room, a puddle of water spreading around her feet.
Her eyes lifted from the paper in her hands to meet his, wide and shocked. It was safe to assume she had figured out some of the events of last night.
“Please tell me that this is a trick? That this document doesn’t say what I think it says.”
This was going to take some time. And as much as he enjoyed staring at her lovely naked body—a body he’d become quite familiar with over the past few hours—he was going to need to be thinking clearly. He headed to the bathroom and turned off the water she’d left running before grabbing a towel.
She barely acknowledged his overture, as he tucked it around her. A naked Payton made it hard for him to concentrate. Period.
“I have coffee. Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll try and figure this out.”
“What’s there to figure out?” Her voice was a couple of octaves higher than usual. “Not only did I spend a drunken night in a hotel room in Mexico with a man I barely know, but I decided to pile on the craziness and marry that man too. I’d say with my track record over the past few days, I might be certifiable. How on earth could you let this happen?”
He sighed and took both coffees and sat down on the bed. He raised one up in her direction. “I seem to recall I wasn’t the one who actually proposed.”
At that, her eyes shifted to the side and she paused, almost like she was replaying a movie in her head. Realization seemed to hit her and she met his gaze again. “But you didn’t have to accept,” she practically screeched.
He took a sip of his coffee. He couldn’t even respond to that. Mostly because he had been asking himself the same thing.
“My mother is going to kill me.”
She began pacing the floor in front of him, one hand on the towel—barely keeping it around her, giving him an enticing reveal of her backside mid-step—the other hand waving the paper about.
“The one thing she’s made clear to me since I could remember is that she’s been planning the minute details of my wedding since I was born and that under no circumstance was I ever to even consider the possibility of elopement or she’d skin me from head to toe. And I did it. Not only did I go out and marry some guy I barely even know in a Mexican church with the proof in a language I can’t even read, but I did it practically on the eve of my marriage to another man.”
“After last night, I wouldn’t exactly say you barely know me,” he couldn’t help adding.
But she didn’t appear to hear him as she stopped and her hand went to her mouth. “I haven’t even officially broken off my engagement with my fiancé. Haven’t canceled the caterers or flowers or church—even though I told my planner to do it I knew that there was no chance she would have the guts to do it without getting my mother’s approval and that she would never get—”
“Payton,” he said a little louder this time, figuring her monologue had gone on long enough.
But she paid him no mind, only resumed the pacing again. “My father will be horrified, having to face Dick Eastman, the man he’d been ecstatic to call family…”
And that was when Cruz heard the other shoe drop.
He hadn’t even begun to consider the consequences to himself for this little indiscretion. Cruz would guess that hearing the news that the man he’d asked to watch over his future daughter-in-law had gone and married that very woman would probably not sit well with the man. Not when Dick Eastman was under the impression she was still going to marry his son. If Dick found out, Cruz could kiss their business agreement good-bye as well as the hopes he’d had for the company.
This time his voice was firm but sharp as he broke into whatever ruminating Payton was still doing. “You need to calm down and think about this rationally.” She stopped and turned to him, suddenly hearing him for the first time. “This mistake…we can fix it. I’ll call my assistant and have her track down an attorney who specializes in foreign marriages and divorces. We can get this taken care of, quietly. No one but us will ever have to know.”
She blinked a few times and nodded. “A mistake. Right. That’s what this is, and I’m sure once we explain everything to whoever we need to, a judge, a city clerk, we can get this annulled or dissolved or whatever. My mother doesn’t have to find out.” At that last bit, she exhaled loudly and plopped herself down on the bed next to him. “Can I have that coffee now?”
He handed the other cup to her and dug into his pockets for the condiments that he tossed on the covers. “I didn’t know how you took it so I brought everything.”
She glanced down at the stuff and sorted through it, grabbing a sweetener. “Your own wife and you’re not sure how I take my coffee,” she muttered.
He smiled. Sounded like she’d started to regain her sense of humor. “Yeah, well there are a few other things I’ve learned that you like over the past few hours. Let’s just call it even.”
More silence followed and he hazarded a glance in her direction, finding her cheeks were pink as she likely was remembering a thing or two about what took place on this very bed. Something he fortunately was able to remember in detail. It would have been a shame for those memories to be hazy.
His back pocket began buzzing, and he pulled his cell phone out and stared at it for a minute. “It’s Kate.”
Payton’s stare fixated on the screen too. “I can’t talk. Not just yet.”
Well someone was going to need to speak with them. Assure everyone they were still safe and on their way. He took in a breath. “Hello, Kate? And how is the blushing bride-to-be?”
He looked up and met Payton’s gaze. His bride’s gaze, technically, as Payton was that.
His bride.
She seemed to pick up on it, too, as her eyes bulged even wider. Her hands went to her mouth and he barely heard her whisper, “What am I going to tell Kate?”
“I’m managing,” Kate was saying, unaware of her best friend’s new dilemma, “but your brother is getting a little anxious. I told him that there’s nothing on this earth that could keep either of you from being here and that you’re probably on the road now.”
“Yeah.” Shit. What time was it? The clock said eight-thirty. “We got kind of a late start but we’re checking out of the hotel soon and then we’ll get the car. Payton’s in the shower but I can have her call you later.”
There was a considerable pause as Kate took that in. “No. No, no rush,” she said finally but he could hear puzzlement in her voice. And here he’d thought he sounded completely relaxed but apparently she’d read something into what he’d said. “The ceremony isn’t until five. If you’re here in time for lunch, great, but it’s not the end of the world.”
“We’ll be there. Who else is going to hold my brother up when he sees the vision of you walking down that aisle toward him? We’re only three and half hours, four tops, away from you, and I already have assurances from the guy at the garage the car is ready to go.”
She sighed in relief. “Good to hear. Okay, I’ll talk to you both soon. Drive safely.”
Cruz hung up and looked over at his wife. My freaking wife. It was a surreal thought.
“I guess I’d better get dressed if we’re going to get out of here,” she said and stood, revealing the delectable creaminess of an inner thigh. A few more memories from the previous night hit him and he caught his breath.
The weight of this woman in his arms. The taste of her skin as his tongue trailed down her lovely body. The sigh she gave later, after they’d both spent all their energy and lay in each other’s arms.
He cleared his throat, relieved she wasn’t looking at him. “Good idea. I’ll call my assistant and get the ball rolling on our little…legal fiasco.”
Only, when she looked like that, with the memories of last night stirring in his mind, it didn’t sound like such a fiasco anymore. It sounded like a dream. A fantasy come true.
He really should get his head examined.
Their departure wasn’t as quick or as unremarkable as they’d hoped. Apparently notified by the front desk of their imminent departure, the whole busload of square dancers headed them off in the lobby and Bev just about tackled her to the ground in a hug.
“You didn’t think you two were going to take off without giving us a chance to say good-bye.” She reached over and gave Cruz a similar hug and then beamed at them both. “Come on. Follow me. I know you’re in a hurry but we have a little surprise for you two.”
They followed Bev outside and into the blinding morning sunlight. Payton shielded her eyes with her hand and tried to process what she was seeing. A garishly decorated car, covered in art and cans dangling from the… She blinked her eyes a few times, certain that the little car looked more than familiar.
She was almost certain it was theirs. This time she read the words smeared along most of the tiny car’s windows. Just Married, with swirly cues and hearts in pinks and purples adding unnecessary pizzazz.
A glance over at Cruz told her he was as surprised, his expression near shock before setting into something akin to a smile. She couldn’t help it; she laughed and leaned forward to grab her belly. Especially as it roiled the tiniest bit from the motion.
Collected again, she turned around to the well-meaning group surrounding them and threw her hands out, going around and hugging them and accepting their wishes for a long and happy future together. Even if their engagement had been fabricated from the beginning, the joke was on Payton. There wasn’t anything pretend about it now.
She was, in fact, married to the guy.
And in that moment, as they continued to speak all at once, pounding Cruz on the back and a few of the women sneaking kisses, she felt a bit of wistfulness.
What if this were real?
What if she and Cruz were departing here today with the prospect of their whole lives together before them? Of being able to return to those arms any time she wanted, arms she had vague recollections of as they held her close to him, of feeling she was with someone real and solid and who made her feel special.
Bev stepped forward again, this time with a small package in her hands and handed it to Payton. It was a book—a photo album, she realized as she flipped it open. Her stomach dropped as she saw the featured topic.
Staring out at her was a picture of her and Cruz, in front of the priest, sharing what had to be their first kiss as husband and wife. The next page had a picture of her and Cruz smiling for the photographer, holding hands as they smiled with such happiness, even if their faces and eyes were bright and unfocused from the butt-load of alcohol they’d consumed, that she felt a sense of warmth and longing.
“We managed to get the front desk to print those pictures for us as a little wedding present,” Bev was saying as Cruz came to stand next to her, looking down at the gift.
Tears formed as Payton turned page after page and saw photos with her and Cruz, clearly under some lovesick spell, and a few other photos with their new friends. She couldn’t remember most of what had happened in those photos but it was evident she and Cruz were having a good time. And the way they looked at each other…it sent goose bumps down her arms.
She looked up to Cruz, who was studying the photos quietly, no expression on his face. She ached to know what he was thinking. He lifted his gaze to hers and something passed in those dark eyes that she couldn’t comprehend before he finally broke into a smile. He winked at her, and she nearly fell back in surprise.
Bev still had the floor as she continued, “I put our addresses and phone numbers in there as well as the website for our little troupe. We’d love it if you would stay in contact with us.”
“We will. Thanks everyone. This is such an incredible gift.”
“It was our pleasure.”
She and Cruz stood there almost awkwardly as all the beaming faces stared at them with such good will. Cruz’s hand slipped around her waist and brought her against his side in surprising ease, sending her heartbeat racing. It touched a memory of the same arm wrapping around her as they danced, as they embraced, as they kissed, many times the night before. It didn’t feel foreign to her, though. It felt right.
They finally said their good-byes and climbed in the car and buckled up, Payton almost trembling with the rush of emotions she was feeling. Cruz slowly inched the car down the street, the loud sound of tin cans in their ears. She turned around in the seat and waved to everyone who still stood in front of the hotel to watch them go.
The loud banging of the cans against the road made it impossible to hear her own thoughts, and she cringed as her headache that had abated thanks to the caffeine and aspirin Cruz had provided, threatened to return. “I hope we’re not planning to travel the rest of the way with those cans on the car. I don’t think my head can take it.”
“I figure we’d let them get their show. As soon as we turn at the next block, I’ll stop the car and clean up.”
Payton sat in the car a few minutes later, sipping some hot water with lemon she’d managed to snag from the hotel to help her belly, trying to figure out why she felt like crying. It was crazy, this sudden melancholy washing over her as she watched Cruz remove the last of the group’s well wishes from the car.
Kind of like he was wiping all proof that it had even happened. Just as he would when he reached an attorney who could handle their “mistake.”
He climbed back in the car. “All set?”
“Absolutely,” she said with an enthusiasm she didn’t feel. She looked out the window of the town, watching it disappear as they put the miles in between it and their destination. Just another memory to look back at with bittersweet tears.
She set the tea in the cup holder and picked up the photo album. Unable to help herself, she opened it and studied the pictures. She came to an image of Bev and Lenny attempting to teach them how to square dance. Lenny was swinging Payton around, and she had the faintest memory of him calling out the next step and looking over to see Cruz and Bev dancing together like they’d been doing it for years. Payton hadn’t been as sure-footed and had laughed anyway, a moment now captured on the page before her.
“I remember that one,” Cruz said and she looked up to see him glancing down at the page. He chuckled. “You danced like you had two left feet while I was busy keeping Bev’s hands…above the waist. She definitely wasn’t shy in offering her congratulations.”
“Bev? You’re kidding.” She laughed and studied the photo a little more carefully. Sure enough, in what looked like a moment when Cruz and Lenny were about to hand off the women to each other, Bev’s hand was planted directly on Cruz’s buttock.
Payton dissolved into giggles. Tears slipped from her eyes, happy tears, the tension of the past few days all but forgotten. Cruz looked at her uncertainly.
She grabbed his arm, trying to explain. “When my mother envisioned her only daughter’s big day, she planned for twelve-piece orchestras and Champagne. A professional photographer and a six layer tiered cake. Not mariachi bands and tequila or Kodak instant cameras and churros—which were delicious, now that I can remember them.” She paused and took in a breath. “Then again—neither did I.” Her stomach quivered with more giggles and she gave into another belly laugh.
This time, Cruz actually joined her. Her body seemed to be relaxing under the endorphins flooding her, a euphoric feeling of calm settling over her.
Cruz nodded to the album. “Let’s see some more.”
For the next few minutes, with Cruz keeping his attention on the road in between glimpses of their wedding album, they studied memories from a night that neither one of them seemed to be able to remember in full. Cruz shook his head at one where he was on his knees in front of Payton, his hand under her skirt. “What am I doing in that one?”
A rush of heat warmed her face as she remembered and explained, “I think Patty had tied a handkerchief in place of a garter around my leg and was insisting you…remove it. This was taken just before you, uh, used your teeth to pull it down my leg.”
“Now that should be a memory I have emblazoned in my mind,” he said in a decidedly wistful tone.
She smacked him and laughed again. “Well, you weren’t the one mortified by the gazes of all the lecherous old men trying to catch a glimpse of more than I wanted to give them.”
Reaching the end of the book, she closed it, her hand resting on the cover. That same melancholy feeling hit her.
For a night that Cruz had summarized as nothing but a mistake, memory holes and all, it was one of the best nights of her life.
An image of Cruz tickling her under her rib as they lay together, tired and spent, in the early morning came back to her.
Maybe even the best night of her life.
