Have Bride, Need Groom
Autor:in
Maureen Child
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Chapter 1
The bride wore polka dots.
Elvis was in sequins.
The bounty hunter wore jeans.
And the groom was in handcuffs.
Jenny Blake gripped the hard plastic handle on her complimentary paper gardenia bouquet a little tighter and stared at her would-be groom. So close, she thought. If that bounty hunter had been only five minutes later, she would have been safely married.
But there was no chance of that now. She shifted her gaze to the man who had introduced himself as Nick Tarantelli, bounty hunter. A tall, lean man with night-black hair and eyes that seemed even darker, he had her bridegroom in a grip that told Jenny he had no intention of letting go any time soon.
Overhead, a set of speakers, hidden behind oversize paintings of The King on black velvet, sent strains of “Hunka-Hunka-burnin’ love” into the tiny, air-conditioned chapel. The Reverend Elvis Throckmorton signaled wildly for his wife, Priscilla, to turn off the tape player.
Elvis Presley’s voice was cut off mid-verse and the small group of people gathered in the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel stared at each other.
“Sorry, honey,” Jenny’s would-be groom finally said. “But I guess the wedding’s postponed.”
“For how long?” she heard herself ask.
“My guess...” The bounty hunter spoke up as he gripped the groom’s elbow. “About five to ten.”
“Years?” Jenny said, and stared into the black eyes.
“No,” he answered. “Minutes.”
She knew sarcasm when she heard it and ordinarily she would have tried for a quick comeback. But at the moment Jenny was much too busy feeling sorry for herself.
It was all her own fault, of course. As usual, she’d left everything for the last minute. If she’d taken care of things months ago, none of this would be happening. But who would have thought it would be so difficult to buy a husband?
“C’mon, T.,” the groom wheedled. “At least let me kiss ’er goodbye.”
Jenny took an instinctive half step back.
Tarantelli noticed and one black eyebrow lifted slightly. “I don’t think the lady’s interested, Jimmy.”
“Of course I don’t want to kiss him,” Jenny said shortly. “We only just met.”
Reverend Elvis shook his head slowly, clucking his tongue in disapproval.
The bounty hunter straightened, leaned one forearm casually on his prisoner’s shoulder and looked at Jenny. “You don’t know him?”
Her fingers plucked at the paper petals of her bouquet. Allowing her gaze to sweep quickly over the man she’d almost married, Jenny winced at the bright fuchsia sport coat covering the hot-pink shirt he wore unbuttoned practically to his navel. Five gold chains were caught up in the abundance of curly black hair that covered his chest like an old shag rug. There were three rhinestones missing from the pair of dice etched into his tarnished belt buckle.
Shifting her gaze to the groom’s thick, full lips and small green eyes, Jenny barely managed to suppress a shudder.
Know him? If she’d happened on the man in an alley, she would have hurled her purse at him and run screaming in the opposite direction. And she’d just come within minutes of marrying him.
“No,” she said finally. “I don’t know him.”
The bounty hunter tilted his head to one side and looked down at his prisoner. Shaking his head, he said, “Hell, Jimmy. I didn’t give you near enough credit. You’ve even got strangers wanting to marry you now. What is this? Wife number six?”
“Eight,” Jimmy corrected, tugging proudly at the lapels of his hideous coat.
“Eight?” Jenny echoed.
“Oh, yeah.” Nick Tarantelli glanced at her. “Jimmy’s what you might call a professional groom.”
“Oh, my.”
“The only problem is,” he continued, “Jimmy here doesn’t believe in divorce, do ya, Jimmy?” Tarantelli jerked the shorter man’s coat collar and Jimmy rose up on his toes.
“Divorce,” Jimmy protested, his voice strangled, “is the scourge of America. No one stays together anymore. I’m just doin’ my part, is all. Tryin’ to hold together the moral fabric of society.”
Tarantelli laughed.
“He’s a bigamist?” Jenny asked, stunned. Were there really that many women desperate to get married wandering around Las Vegas? She’d thought she was the only one.
“Among other things,” the bounty hunter said.
Without another word, Tarantelli turned and started for the arched doorway behind him, dragging a protesting Jimmy in his wake.
“That’ll be thirty-five dollars, young lady.”
Jenny tore her gaze from her retreating groom and glanced at the preacher.
Light flashed off the sequins on Reverend Throck-morton’s white jumpsuit as he held his right hand out, palm up.
“But there wasn’t a wedding.”
“Don’t matter to me,” he said, lifting his left hand to smooth the side of his slicked-back pompadour. “You’re payin’ for our time and the use of the chapel.”
There was a steely glint in Elvis’s eyes that Jenny was sure the real Elvis would never have approved of. Still, she didn’t have time to argue. Digging into her tiny, red vinyl purse, she came up with the right amount of money and slapped it into the reverend’s outstretched hand.
Before he could finish muttering “Thank ya vera much,” she was out the front door, hurrying after Nick Tarantelli and his prisoner.
A bounty hunter, she thought. Who would have guessed that such people really existed? The last time she’d heard the words bounty hunter spoken, she was watching a John Wayne movie.
Shaking his head, Nick opened the car door, helped a handcuffed Jimmy into the front seat, then closed the door, making sure it was locked. He’d already lost Jimmy once that day and he wasn’t about to do that again.
As he stepped around the back of his nondescript brown sedan, Nick heard the distinctive click of high heels approaching. Grimacing, he glanced at the watch on his left wrist—8:00 p.m. He’d been running all over Vegas since nine that morning looking for Jimmy “the Lip” Baldini, and he was tired. Too tired to have to listen to a jilted bride.
Especially one too dumb to know how lucky she was.
“Mr.,” she said, and Nick groaned,. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t remember your name.”
“Tarantelli,” he told her. “Nick Tarantelli.”
“Of course.”
She stopped right beside him and Nick looked down into her big blue eyes. Pretty, he thought absently. Too damned pretty to have to settle for a husband like Jimmy.
Even as that thought entered his mind, though, Nick backed off. It didn’t matter how pretty she was, he told himself. She was none of his concern and that was just the way it was going to stay.
“Lady,” he said, his voice gruff, “I’m tired, hungry and cranky.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “And in no mood to listen to tales of the lovelorn.”
“Then how about listening to reason?”
Nick’s eyebrows lifted. She wasn’t easily put off, he would give her that Quickly his sharp gaze swept over her in assessment. About five foot six, he thought, and every inch nicely packed. She had the curves of a Vegas showgirl, even if she didn’t seem to have much taste in clothes.
Her red dress with its giant polka dots didn’t do much for her, in his opinion, but he did like the way it clung to her impressive breasts. The hem of the dress stopped at midthigh, giving him quite a view of her short but shapely legs. Then he noticed the teeteringly high heels she wore on her feet and mentally adjusted her height accordingly. Without those ridiculous shoes, she was probably no more than five-two, tops.
“Have you seen enough?” she asked.
He slowly lifted his gaze to hers. “For now.”
Her lips pursed briefly, then she seemed to gather herself together and a forced smile curved her mouth. “Mr. Tarantelli...” she began.
“Nick.”
“Nick.” She nodded then folded her hands together tightly at her waist. “If I could just explain.”
“Lady, you don’t need to explain yourself to me.” As a matter of fact, he hoped she wouldn’t. He didn’t want to know any more than he already did. Determinedly, he stepped around her and slid his key into the driver’s side lock. “None of my business why you’d want to marry Jimmy the Lip.”
“The Lip?”
A half laugh shot from his throat before he could stop it. “You really don’t know him, do ya?”
“I’ve already told you that.”
A hot desert wind suddenly whipped up around them, lifting her short skirt high enough to make Nick start counting backward from fifty just to keep himself focused on the job at hand.
“Mr.—I mean, Nick,” she corrected quickly. “What I want to explain to you is exactly why you have to allow Mr. Lip to marry me before you take him away.”
“What?” Her ridiculous statement shattered his concentration and he stared at her blankly. He couldn’t believe it. Even knowing that Jimmy was a bigamist wasn’t enough to throw her off course?
Nick watched the desert breeze lift the chin-length, honey-blond hair off her neck and swirl it around her face. She lifted one hand to push it out of her eyes and he couldn’t help noticing how graceful—and fragile—that hand looked.
Deliberately, he ignored the thought.
“Are you nuts, lady?”
“It’s Jenny. Jenny Blake.” She held out her right hand.
He took it instinctively and tried not to notice how his own grip seemed to swallow her much smaller hand. Nick released her quickly and shoved his hand into his pocket.
“Well, Jenny Blake,” he started, telling himself to keep his eyes safely away from the swell of her breasts and his mind off the fact that his right hand still tingled from her touch. “Instead of making such a stupid request, you ought to be thanking me for stopping that wedding.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, Jenny Blake,” he countered, leaning one elbow on the dirty roof of his car, “you don’t understand.” Jerking his head toward the direction of the front seat, he said, “Ol’ Jimmy in there would’ve married you, stuck around for the wedding night and then been gone by first light, carrying anything of yours that was worth ten cents.”
She flushed and even in the half-light of a Vegas twilight, Nick saw the telltale red creeping up her neck and cheeks. Unbelievable. A woman who actually blushed! And she wanted to marry Jimmy of all people!
“There isn’t going to be a wedding night,” she insisted.
“You’re damn right there isn’t.”
“Mr. Tarantelli, you don’t understand.”
“Right again, honey. I surely don’t.” He straightened, reached for the door handle and opened his car door. “Even better, I don’t want to understand.” Glancing back at her over his shoulder, he added, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to turn Jimmy over to the cops, then take myself home for some sleep.”
“But you can’t take him.”
Nick told himself it wasn’t any of his business. It wasn’t his fault that this crazy woman actually wanted to marry a louse like Jimmy. And it most certainly wasn’t his fault that the look on her face reminded him of all the desperate kids in every Lassie movie he’d ever seen.
Gritting his teeth, he deliberately looked away from her, climbed into the car and shut the door firmly. The sooner he got home, the better. Rolling down the window, he rested his left forearm on the door top and said quietly, “Goodbye, Jenny Blake.”
Then he slipped the gearshift into reverse, half turned to look over his shoulder and started backing up.
“Uh, T....” Jimmy said quietly.
“You shut up,” Nick told him. “If you hadn’t escaped from me this morning, none of this would be happening.”
“But T.—” the other man ventured again.
“Enough, Jimmy.” Nick shot a quick look at his prisoner. “God knows, I can’t figure out how you keep getting women to marry you, but I am not one of your fans. So stick a sock in it for a while, okay?”
Jimmy shrugged but kept quiet.
Nick sighed and finished backing out of the parking slot. Turning around, he slipped the gearshift into drive, looked through the windshield and cursed.
“I tried to tell you.” Jimmy laughed, but stopped quickly enough when Nick glared at him.
Slamming the shift into park, Nick threw the car door open wide and stepped out. The fast-idling engine rumbled dangerously, and Nick’s temper was boiling at the same rate. Balled fists at his hips, he stared down at the woman sprawled across the hood of his car.
