Vegas Wedding, Weaver Bride

Chapter Three

The clerk at the county marriage bureau was polite, friendly and adamant.

It was entirely likely that Penny Garner really was his wife.

And the pain inside Quinn’s head rose to a new level.

“The officiant—” the clerk deciphered the signature on the marriage certificate “—Marvin Morales, has ten days to file your certificate. We often get them within a few days of the wedding, though. Once the marriage is recorded, a certified copy is typically available after a day or so.” She handed him back his crumpled paper. She’d already told him it was merely his keepsake certificate versus the official document. If she had any personal opinion about the state of the piece of paper, she kept it to herself. “You can get certified copies in person, via regular mail or order them online.”

Even though it was Sunday afternoon, there was a long line of people waiting behind him for their turn at the counter.

The Las Vegas wedding business was clearly in fine form.

“And this Morales guy. He’s legit?”

She turned to her computer and tapped on the keys. “Certainly is,” she assured. “I’m not showing any address or organizational affiliation for him, though.”

That didn’t sound overly legitimate to him. “Is that normal?”

“It’s a little unusual, but not unheard of.” She smiled. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Templeton?”

Right next to his elbow a large sign was posted, indicating the bureau would not issue marriage licenses to individuals who were clearly intoxicated. He nodded toward it. “You really enforce that?”

For the first time the clerk looked a little miffed. “Of course, sir. We take our responsibilities here quite seriously.”

“I’m sure you do.” He folded the certificate. “I appreciate your time.”

“Certainly. I wish you and your bride every happiness.”

He managed a smile as he turned away from the counter. He had barely vacated the spot when it was replaced by a young couple who were practically bouncing out of their shoes with excitement.

Outside the building, the sun was bright and hot. A good twenty-five degrees hotter than it was back in Wyoming. He didn’t particularly mind the heat, though. He’d served all over the world. He was used to temperature extremes.

He wound his way through the wedding-chapel vendors hawking their services outside the building and even though there were plenty of cabs he could have hailed, he walked back to the hotel.

The moment he entered, cold air and piped music engulfed him. If he went one direction, he could head toward his hotel suite. If he headed the opposite direction, he’d end up in one of the endless casinos. Another direction and it was one of the hotel’s several pools.

He wasn’t one for indecision, but he just stood there on the sea of gleaming marble tile, feeling the artificially cooled air blowing down over his head while he ran his thumb along the folded edges of the marriage certificate.

“Looks like you survived the fun last night, Sarge.”

At the greeting, Quinn looked up to see Mike Lansing a few feet away. Even if the trips hadn’t mentioned him from the night before, Quinn still would have recognized the other man. He had one arm looped over the shoulders of a bored-looking blonde and held a drink in his other hand.

“I did.” Quinn slid the folded square in his back pocket. “You?”

The blonde pursed her lips and looked up at Mike. “Are we going to the shops or not?”

Mike pulled out a wad of cash and pushed it into her hand. “You go, baby. I’m gonna grab another drink with my old buddy, here.”

The woman’s boredom visibly brightened as she tucked the money down her bra. She pulled Mike’s head down and gave him a noisy kiss. “See you later in the room.” Even though her voice was loaded with innuendo, she still ran her eyes up and down Quinn when she turned and walked away.

“Nice girl,” Quinn commented blandly.

Mike laughed. “Better be, considering how much she’s costing me.”

Since that could be taken a couple of ways, Quinn refrained from comment.

“C’mon.” Mike gestured with his half-full glass. “There’s a sweet little cocktail waitress I’ve been eyeing.”

“What about Miss Shopper?”

Mike just grinned and led the way toward the casino. “What about her?”

Quinn shook his head and followed. He didn’t care at all about Mike in a general sense, but the guy had evidently been around the night before. Quinn was willing to put up with most anything if it helped jog his memory of what had occurred.

They went straight to the lounge and had barely settled at one of the high-tops before a shapely redhead in a short black dress came over to take their orders. Mike ordered another whiskey and the waitress turned her smile toward Quinn. “And for you, sir?”

“Ginger ale.”

Mike gave him a look. “Dude.”

“Ginger ale,” Quinn repeated drily to the waitress.

She smiled at him, ignored the leer in Mike’s eyes and walked away.

“Talk about a fine-looking pair of legs,” Mike murmured, watching her go. “Not as good as those hot cousins of yours, but still fine.”

Quinn’s jaw tightened. “Can’t remember if you said last night what you’re doing here in Vegas.”

Mike laughed as if it was uproariously funny. He clapped Quinn on the shoulder. “I’ll bet you can’t remember.” He sat back and finished off his drink just in time to exchange it for the fresh one the redhead returned with. “Thanks, sweetheart. What time you get off work?”

“Soon as my husband picks up our twin babies,” she replied with a sweet smile. She set Quinn’s glass of soda on a round coaster. “I’ll be back to check on you boys.”

“Babies.” Mike shuddered. “God forbid. Least we’ve both been smart enough to avoid that nightmare. Remember Rollie? The way his old lady was always harping on him? Deployments keeping him away from her and those kids she kept poppin’ out? Ask me, I bet more than one of them wasn’t even Rollie’s. Always said the smartest guys are the ones who don’t bother putting a ring on it.”

Quinn didn’t entirely disagree. The divorce rate among special operators was astronomically high. He also knew many of the guys kept trying anyway. Maybe it was the hope to keep something normal in a world that was anything but normal.

Some succeeded.

More didn’t.

For his part, Quinn had always figured that if he’d ever met a woman he wanted to marry, he’d expect to put as much commitment into that marriage as he had into his career.

He’d just never met a woman that special.

The folded marriage certificate inside his pocket felt like it was burning a tattoo into his butt.

He shifted. “You got out a long time ago,” he reminded Mike, skirting the actual facts of the guy’s discharge. “What have you been doing since?”

“Contract work.” Mike grinned. “Money is really good, dude. Still get to make bad guys dead, but the bennies are a lot better than Uncle Sam ever coughed up. You decide you want to make some real dough, say the word. You think the uniform is a chick magnet, you should see what a bankroll can do. I’ll make some introductions.”

“If money had ever been my goal, I’d have become an officer like you were,” Quinn drawled. His first impressions of Mike Lansing had held up over the years. The hot five-mile walk from the marriage bureau building hadn’t made him want a shower as badly as sitting there with Mike did.

Mike laughed again. “You’re a master sergeant now. Good reason to feel uptight right there. Must suck being stuck running the action from the ground.”

Quinn hadn’t been stuck running things from the ground, but it was a definite possibility facing him. Even though every single member of the combat rescue team was valuable, running things from the ground wasn’t a role he relished. He’d spent too long in the action. Too long as a team leader.

“Just say the word and I’ll hook you up with another hit that’ll have you loosening up again in no time.” Mike grinned, mimicking dropping something into his drink.

His attention abruptly targeted on Mike. “Another hit. Of what?”

“A little something I keep handy.”

Quinn’s fists curled. “Exactly what little something?”

“Nothing that’ll pop in a blood test,” Mike assured, as if that made everything all right. “Just an herbal cocktail I learned about last time I was in India. Makes life a little...brighter. Your sister thought it was pretty hilarious. She switched drinks with yours—” He broke off when Quinn stood and started walking away. “Hey, Sarge. Where’re you going?”

Anywhere other than there.

Quinn didn’t stop. Didn’t even bother looking back. If he did, he was afraid of what he’d do to the other man.

Mike was a worm. Always had been and it seemed nothing in the intervening decade had changed.

But the last thing Quinn needed was to be caught grinding his fist into a worm’s face. He didn’t need an assault charge haunting him, no matter how well deserved his actions felt.

He strode through the casino until he located the elevators and went up to Delia’s hotel suite. Banged on the door. “Delia!”

Relief hit him when she finally yanked open the door. She was clearly dressed for the swimming pool in a bikini and a flimsy cover-up that didn’t cover up a damn thing. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you, obviously.” He sounded annoyed and didn’t care. Because he was annoyed. Not only at Mike’s stunt, but also with her. “What the hell are you walking around like that for? You’re practically naked.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she propped her hand on her hip. She was dark-haired like him but that was about the end of the similarities. “I’m a long way from naked and I’m not exactly sixteen anymore, so can the protective growl!”

He would always feel protective where Delia was concerned. Mostly because she was the baby of his family. But also—and he ordinarily said it with love—she was kind of a ditz.

Their father was a pediatrician. Their mother was a retired psychologist. Their other sister, Grace, was doing her residency at Duke. Much to his father’s chagrin at the time, Quinn hadn’t taken the educational route, but he’d still made a career out of his military service and gotten a hell of a lot of education along the way.

Delia, though? She seemed entirely happy coasting through life, never settling on anything or anyone for any length of time.

“Did you see Lansing doctor my drink last night?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe.”

God help him. He wanted to shake her. “Yes or no?”

“Good grief, Quinn. Keep your shorts on.” She picked up an oversize shoulder bag sitting on a chair. A floppy hat and a rolled towel were sticking out of it. “Of course I saw. He put some drops in Penny’s drink, too.”

“And you switched drinks.”

“So?”

He wanted to yell at her. But Delia never responded well to shouting. She just crumpled up in tears and shut down. “Are you crazy? I suppose you just drank it, too. Did he spike anyone else’s?”

She glared. “No, I did not drink it,” she snapped. “I dumped them both in a plant by the table! And no, I didn’t see him do anything else.”

“Did it occur to you to say anything? He could have been putting anything in our drinks. I can’t even remember coming back to the hotel last night.” But that wasn’t entirely accurate, either. Because already he had images hovering on the edges of his pain-addled brain. Vivid city lights. Penny’s blue gaze. A glossy limousine interior...

“When was I supposed to tell you, Quinn? When you were busy feeling up Penny on the dance floor? Besides, the guy was all hands! By the time I got that dealt with, you and Penny had already disappeared!”

“You could have found a way,” he said through his teeth. “You have no idea what a mess this has caused.”

“Well?” She spread her hands, clearly waiting. “What mess?”

He clenched his jaw, remembering his promise to Penny. “Lansing’s been a lost cause for ten years. But you’re my sister. You’re twenty-seven years old. You see something wrong, you speak up!”

“At least I was more aware of what was going on than you were.” She snatched a small vial from her pool bag and thrust it at him. “I stole it from his jacket while he was trying to stick his tongue down my throat. You’re welcome.”

He exhaled roughly, rubbing his hand down his face as he swore. At her. At Lansing. At the fact that he’d found himself married to a woman who was more appalled at the idea than he was. But mostly at himself. Because Delia was right. If he’d been more aware, none of this would have happened. “Thank you,” he muttered.

Delia sniffed, clearly unimpressed as she shoved past him with her pool bag and strode away.

“Perfect.” He opened the nearly empty vial and took a sniff, which told him nothing. He twisted the cap back in place and pocketed it.

He realized he didn’t know the number of Penny’s room as he headed toward the elevator. He used the house phone to call the front desk and, thanks to the beauty of dropping his granny’s name, received the information he needed.

He took the elevator down to Penny’s floor and knocked on the door. Given the way the day had gone so far, he didn’t expect her to be there, so when the door opened a second later, he couldn’t hide his surprise.

At least that was the excuse he used while he adjusted to the sight of her. She was wearing a black swimsuit with an opaque black scarf tied around her hips. The sleek one-piece was a lot less revealing than Delia’s bikini had been, but disturbed him a hell of a lot more.

It wasn’t easy to believe he’d wedded Penny, but it was all too easy to understand why he’d bedded her.

No amount of artificial stimulants needed on that score.

“I see you went shopping for a swimsuit.”

Her hair was still pulled back in a ponytail—dry now—and she had a pair of sunglasses hiding her eyes. “Yes.”

“Can I come in?”

She hesitated.

He led with what he considered the most critical info. “The guy Maddie mentioned at lunch—Lansing. He drugged our drinks last night.”

Her lips parted. She slowly pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head.

“With what?” She backed away, pulling the door open wider so he could enter.

Her hotel room was just a regular hotel room. Nice, yeah. But nothing at all like the fancy-dancy suites the rest of them had. It was also neat as a pin. The bed perfectly made because she hadn’t even spent the last night in it. “Supposedly it’s some herbal crap.” He showed her the vial.

She paled. “What kind of herbal crap?”

I don’t know, but I know someone who can test it. He pushed the vial in his pocket again and put his hand on her forehead. The skin was cool. Velvety smooth. “How are you feeling? A headache? Any nausea? Problems breathing?”

She shook her head, pulling away from his touch. “No. Well, a headache. But I just attributed that to...you know.” She turned away from him.

The back straps of her swimsuit were comprised of an intriguing series of strings crisscrossing over the small of her spine in a way that only emphasized her hourglass figure. And even though he couldn’t see beneath the scarf, he had no problem imagining her long legs and curvy butt being shown off to perfection...

He cleared his throat and looked away.

She was pacing in the space between the bed and the window. “We’ve all heard to watch out for that sort of thing, but to have it actually happen—” She plopped on the side of the bed. “Has this happened to you before?”

He sighed and went to sit beside her. “No.” He folded her hand in his. “I’m sorry.”

“Because your friend is an ass?”

“He was kicked out of the service ten years ago. And he was never my friend. But yeah.”

She looked at him. Her brows were pulled together over those oddly luminous eyes. “You didn’t know. None of us knew.”

“Except Delia.” He let go of her hand, pushing off the bed. “She saw him do it. And if she’d said something—” he yanked the marriage certificate out of his back pocket and tossed it on the bed beside her “—maybe we wouldn’t have that to deal with.”

She got off the bed as if she didn’t want to be anywhere near the certificate. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? No, I didn’t tell her. I told you I wouldn’t say anything to anyone yet and I haven’t.” He gestured at the paper. “The guy who signed it is registered with the county to perform marriages. I’ll have to keep checking back to get proof it’s legal, but we’ll know that within ten days. That’s how long he has to file the paperwork.”

“Ten days!”

“Could be sooner.” He told her everything the marriage bureau employee had told him.

“So we were lucid enough to apply for a marriage license. Presumably get through a ceremony of some sort and sign our names on the marriage certificate. Then pass out in bed. It doesn’t mean we can’t get an annulment.” Her cheeks were red. “We don’t know that...that...anything physical happened.”

“Don’t pretend you’re that naive. I can’t see us being in bed together and not being in bed together.” The way they’d woken all tangled together was proof enough for him. He’d been hard as a rock and she’d been warm and wet.

She’d pressed her hands over her ears and was shaking her head. “I’m not listening.”

He went over to her and gently wrapped his fingers around her wrists. Her pulse rate was off the charts. “Like it or not, Penny, it’s a given that you and I consummated whatever vows we exchanged.” He exhaled heavily and admitted the worst. “But I can’t even be certain that you were willing!”

Her lips parted. She swallowed. “Quinn—”

He let her go and shoved his hand through his hair. “If you want go to the hospital, I can take you. Or arrange for someone else to, if you’re more comfortable that way.” His voice was gruff. The thought that he might have coerced her was nauseating. “You can get an exam. If you were forced—”

“Oh my God!” She looked horrified. “I don’t need an exam to prove what I already know. You were just as much a victim of this as I was. Maybe you were the one who wasn’t, you know...on board.” Her cheeks turned red. “That’d be more in line with our history.”

“Trust me.” His voice was dark. “I would’ve been more than willing back then if you’d have been legal. And now—” He broke off because her face was nearly scarlet now. He exhaled. “You’re a beautiful woman, Penny. Let’s just leave it at that.”

She cleared her throat, not looking at him. “And you’re a handsome man.” The words seemed to come reluctantly. “Anyway, it’s all moot,” she continued abruptly. “I don’t care what sort of influence you were under. You’d never do something against a woman’s will. You wouldn’t even be worried if not for what that scum of a man did. So just stop thinking about it and talking about...about tests and stuff.”

His chest felt tight. Trust like that was more than a little humbling. And he still wasn’t sure it was merited. How could he ever be truly sure?

“Promise me, Quinn.”

It was the second promise she’d asked of him that day. “Fine.”

Fortunately, she accepted the answer. She put a few paces between them, busying herself with retying the knot in the silky scarf. “And maybe we didn’t. It’s possible,” she insisted at his look. “Maybe we both just passed out before we could—you know.”

“Have sex?”

“Yes.” Obviously, the very idea of it embarrassed her. “Regardless, we’re the only ones who would know. And if we say we didn’t...consummate things, we could still get an annulment.”

“You mean lie.”

“It’s not a lie if there’s any room for doubt.”

He made a face and she huffed. “Neither one of us wants to be married to the other. This is just one big fiasco from start to finish. And the only way to rectify it—if there’s anything to actually rectify—is to get an annulment. Everything’ll be right back to normal.”

“You’re forgetting one thing.”

She raised her brows, waiting.

“When we had sex—”

“If we had sex.”

“When we had sex,” he repeated over her interruption, “we didn’t use anything.” No condom. No condom wrapper. No evidence of any sort of protection had been in his hotel suite. “Now, I’ve had every medical test known to man over the past few months. You don’t have to worry about catching anything from me. I’m assuming you’ve always been careful in the past?”

Her cheeks had gone red again. After a moment she gave a stiff nod.

“Then there’s just one question left. Are you on birth control?“