Susan Lute - Oops...We're Married?

In unison the audience began to loudly chant. “Judge…judge…judge…”

Keep your sense of humor. Don’t break your heart over this, Eleanor admonished herself as a sprinkle of laughter drifted through the room. Nervously, she adjusted her glasses on her nose. This mockery of a marriage was for charity. It didn’t mean anything more than that.

Taking a deep breath to settle the skittish alarm clanging in her stomach, Eleanor looked up as a new disturbance erupted at the door. Now what?

Causing the minor commotion was an elderly man in a western-style black frock and flat-brimmed black hat. Haphazardly, he was making his way toward the stage, patting his pockets as if he’d lost something. Finally, out of one deep side pocket, he pulled out wire-rimmed spectacles and pushed them onto his bulbous nose.

“So sorry I’m late,” the old man wheezed, out of breath as he stopped opposite Dillon.

Eleanor couldn’t believe her eyes. Jake couldn’t have gotten a more disreputable-looking judge if he’d tried, which he probably had, she decided, disgusted. The man looked as if he’d been pulled right out of an old-time western.

“Are you two young folks ready? I’m Jed Banta. This is my third wedding for the day and I’d like to get started,” the old man muttered as Jake attached a microphone to his once starched collar.

“Okay, young fella, what’s your name?”

Dillon couldn’t help smiling at the old man’s appearance. Where in the world had Jake found this decrepit old gent? He was perfect for the part of an old boomtown judge. Even down to the unkempt white hair poking out from beneath the wide brim of his felt hat and the thick white mustache that generously covered his lips.

“Uh…I’m Dillon Stone.” Dillon choked back a chuckle as the old man licked the end of a stubby pencil, then wrote his name on a slip of paper he’d pulled from the inside pocket of his coat.

The man’s act was perfect, Dillon realized, as the audience openly responded to his antics.

“Miss? What’s your name?”

For a moment Dillon thought Eleanor wouldn’t go along. Her face was as white as the paper the judge was poised over, and he was sure she was about to faint. What was she afraid of? Because from where he stood, Eleanor Rose was definitely afraid.

When he’d been a criminal lawyer, he’d seen the same look of sick fear on many a defendant’s face just before the verdict came down. Slowly, he laced his fingers with hers and was shocked by the bolt of electricity that raced from their touching hands clear down to curl his toes.

“Eleanor?” he prodded. Had she felt that electric zing, too?

Her pale face flushed with a pretty blush as she turned to look at him. The surprised look darkening her remarkable eyes heated the sizzle that was still blistering his fingertips.

“My name…” Finally she looked away, leaving Dillon with an uneasy feeling there was something important he was missing.

“Eleanor Rose Silks. My name is Eleanor Silks Rose.”

That brief moment of vulnerable emotion caused strange feelings of protectiveness to quicken Dillon’s heartbeat. The woman was so filled with contradictions. It didn’t make sense that he didn’t want to let her go when she pulled away from their connecting touch.

“Well, let’s get started,” the old man said. “We are gathered here…”

Eleanor was still trying to catch her breath from that moment when Dillon had held her hand. She’d been feeling so chilled, thinking about pretending to do something she would have given her right arm to do for real when she was nineteen.

But, of course, she didn’t want to marry Dillon Stone now. She’d made a perfect life for herself, resigned that her knight on a white charger had already been taken and his twin was not to be found anywhere. Then he’d intertwined his fingers with hers and consuming heat and hunger had licked at a loneliness she hadn’t known she’d lived with for too long.

Still reeling from the warm embers that scorched her, Eleanor looked up into her foster brother’s sympathetic smile. Before she could throw the tantrum she was thinking of and stick out her tongue at him, mischief-filled eyes dared her to go through with this farce of a pretend marriage.

Eleanor swallowed the fear crowding her throat. Her gaze moved from Jake’s satisfied expression to little Ryan’s equally excited face. Something long buried stirred near her bruised heart. How could she protect herself when such a sweet little boy persisted in staring at her with stars in his eyes? Eyes that exactly matched the older, more experienced ones of his father.

“Do you, Dillon Stone, take Eleanor Rose to be your wife, to love and to cherish, as long as you both shall live?”

Dillon’s deep “I do” made a pair of excited shivers somersault up Eleanor’s spine as she locked gazes with the man standing so calmly at her side. What was he thinking? Frantically, she fought a bubble of hysteria.

“Do you, Eleanor Rose, take Dillon Stone to be your husband, to love and to cherish, as long as you both shall live?” Unbidden, a very secret part of her heart surprised her with the wish that she could love and cherish Dillon, and that he would love and cherish her, for longer than the rest of their lives.

“I…” Eleanor cleared her throat. This is for charity. She tried again. “I do,” she whispered.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Young man, you may kiss your bride.” The judge’s pronouncement stretched Eleanor’s sense of the unreal.

“No,” she objected in a croaked whisper, earning a frown from Dillon that stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t like the sudden glint of determination that lit his searching green eyes.

Realizing his intent, Eleanor turned her head at the last minute so that his warm lips landed on the corner of hers. Instead of quickly kissing, then releasing her immediately, he tantalizingly stayed there a second too long…lingering…testing…nibbling…seducing.

Stunned by the feeling of his lips exploring her sensitive skin, Eleanor forced herself to push against the hard landscape of his chest. Somehow, she had to resist the feelings tumbling through her stomach and the heat attempting to warm her skin. Closing her heart off to any more temptation, she stepped back from Dillon, only to find his hands firmly clamped at her waist, preventing her escape.

“Here. If you young people will sign this, we’ll be all done.” Amid cheers from the audience, Eleanor watched Dillon sign the phony license, then added her name below his bold scrawl.

“How about a big round of applause for our winners.” Jake was at the microphone again. “Let’s see if we can get our newest couple to lead us in a dance. Come on, everyone. Let’s give them some encouragement.”

Dillon glanced at Eleanor, surprised by the panicked look that spread over her classic features, as the swell of goodwill and rhythmic clapping grew around them. Still stunned by the raw feelings racing through him from the brief brush of his lips across hers and the firm feel of her waist between his hands, he wondered what was going on in the woman’s head.

He thought about the vulnerability that occasionally flickered across Eleanor’s lovely face, the loneliness she tried so hard to hide. The unmistakably sensual way she moved pulled at Dillon despite his best efforts to ignore the alarming fireworks that went off every time he got too close to the woman. The way he was now.

As the demand of the dinner guests grew, he watched Eleanor struggle to recapture the cool reserve that pricked his normally nonexistent temper. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t relax and just go with the flow for the evening?

Frowning, Dillon decided he was going to have a talk with his friend. Jake shouldn’t have put his sister in such an uncomfortable position. He suspected his buddy had his own reasons for maneuvering them both into being here…together. But it wasn’t right.

“Let’s dance. It’s the only way we’ll get them to leave us alone.” Expressive eyes darted to Dillon’s, anger darkening them to a shuttered brown.

“Come on. I won’t bite,” he offered in reassurance, even as her tension sneaked into his body by way of the hand he’d never moved from the small of her straight back. Briefly, she leaned into his shoulder, causing annoying waves of hard-hitting awareness to leap through him. Then her back became rigid again, her delicate features wearing a careful, blank mask.

“Sure.” Eleanor couldn’t believe she’d almost melted into Dillon’s arms when the expression on his handsome face changed to bewildering concern.

She lifted her chin and sealed her heart. How long could one measly slow dance last, anyway? As Dillon pulled her close, his touch ignited unwanted tremors of excitement that began in her belly and spiraled out of control to the rest of her suddenly alert body. There was only one thing left to do. She had to take this bull by the horns and toss him out of her corral as soon as possible.

“So, what made you decide to pick me? Weren’t the other two ladies more to your liking?”

“They were. I didn’t pick you. Ryan did.” Dillon couldn’t bite his tongue quick enough to stop the rude words, peeved that the woman had maneuvered him into being so juvenile. When this dance was over he and Ryan were out of here as soon as he could make it happen.

“Do you always let your son pick your dates for you?”

Dillon didn’t miss the angry flush that spread over Eleanor’s porcelain skin or the way his body responded to the slender form he held close to him. If he wasn’t careful, the wasp would realize she ignited more than his temper.

“This isn’t really a date, so I figured this time it wouldn’t matter.” Whirling Eleanor to the tempo of the music, Dillon got tangled in the vanilla fragrance he’d noticed earlier when he’d kissed the stiff woman in his arms.

Telling himself he was not going to give in to the overwhelming desire to smell her long hair, Dillon stepped back slightly to escape the irresistible entrapment she seemed to weave around him.

Fortunately, Eleanor didn’t notice his withdrawal. She was too busy ignoring him…and watching Ryan, who was eating an ice-cream sundae with Jake and the fake judge. A rare expression softened her features. How could she be as prickly as a cactus one minute and soft with unspoken longing the next?

Before Dillon could pursue that thought, Eleanor muttered, “Now, what’s he up to?”

“Who?” But he already knew the answer as he saw one of Jake’s fellow U.S. Marshals lean close to his friend’s shoulder. Jake nodded briskly, changing instantly from the laughing mischief-maker he usually portrayed to the no-nonsense U.S. Deputy Marshal he really was.

“Looks like maybe we’re done here,” Dillon said cheerfully as he and Eleanor walked to the table where Jake was now standing.

“What’s up?” Dillon pulled a chair out for Eleanor to sit next to Ryan.

“I just got the orders I’ve been waiting for on a case I was assigned last week. I have just enough time to pack a bag and turn my house keys over to a friend I’m subletting to.”

“You’re subletting your house? To whom?” Dillon watched Ryan climb down from his chair to stand close to Eleanor’s shoulder as he seriously studied her. He was afraid to guess what was going through his son’s agile mind.

“Remember my buddy who just got married? Well, the closing on their house got delayed and their lease ran out, so he and the new wife are going to stay at my place until the deal on their house closes.”