Going To The Chapel

By Alice Sharpe

VALENTINE BRIDES

ALWAYS PLANNING A WEDDING, BUT NEVER HER OWN

For jilted bride Elinor Bosley, romance was strictly business. Her days were spent running the Lakeside Wedding Chapel, marrying impulsive strangers in quickie ceremonies. But Elinor had sworn off "happily ever after" for herself or so she'd thought.

Then she met Tom Rex. Suddenly this sexy single dad had her hearing wedding bells of her own. Too bad Tom believed marriage was for fools. Could Elinor find a way to change this reluctant hunk into a willing husband?

VALENTINE BRIDES: When Cupid strikes, marriage is sure to follow!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460881019

Alice Sharpe

I was born in Sacramento, California where I launched my writing career by “publishing” a family newspaper. Circulation was dismal. After school, I married the love of my life. We spent years juggling children and pets while living on sailboats. All the while, I read like a crazy woman (devoured Agatha Christie) and wrote stories of my own, eventually selling to magazines and then book publishers. Now, 45 novels later, I’m concentrating on romantic suspense where my true interest lies.

Book preview

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Dear Reader,

Romance is a matter of serendipity at our house. My husband brings me flowers in the middle of the week, I put love notes in his sandwiches—this kind of spontaneous show of affection is an art form we’ve mastered. Valentine’s Day, however, that day when cupids fly, has never quite worked out for us.

With the purchase of our hot tub, we thought this might change. Last February 14 we were ready: chilled champagne, stars overhead, warm water, him, me…it was brilliant in its simplicity. He came home, we stripped down, took our wine and plopped into the tub. It was overcast, so there were no stars—no problem, we had stars in our eyes. Thirty seconds later, it began raining. Really raining. Pouring. Out came the golf umbrella and we toasted our resourcefulness.

About the time we heard our neighbor hail us, we finally noticed the puppy was missing. An automatic light switched on as the neighbor stepped on our deck. I dove underwater as my husband hit the jet button. The neighbor was carrying our muddy puppy, who had wandered down to his house to chase his cats. For some reason this man stood in the rain and visited with us as we bobbed around with only bubbles for cover. By the time he left, our champagne glasses were filled with rainwater. We exchanged meaningful glances, dashed back inside the house and called it a night.

This year we’re going for a romantic getaway—on March 14!

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Chapter One

"Daddy?"

Tom Rex looked across the width of his truck to where his son was securely buckled into his seat and said, Yeah, Andy?

" ‘Bout this Parasaurolophus."

This statement made no sense to Tom, who was distracted anyway because he couldn’t find a simple house number. He was seldom late for an appointment, but this morning had been absolutely unbelievable. He’d finally herded Andy into the truck and now was headed north, looking for the number 333, aware there was no way he was going to be on time.

What about it? he asked, as he slowed down and scanned a lone house. Why didn’t people display their house numbers more prominently? Would it kill them to—Aw, there it was, under the eaves—589, way off.

Is this thing here on his head a horn?

Tom spared his only child a quick glance. Besides the fact that this para-something-or-the-other was a dinosaur, he didn’t have the slightest idea what the kid was talking about. No news flash there. He mumbled, I—I don’t know, sport.

Andy nodded philosophically and then suddenly erupted into growls and snarls as he chose a couple of specimens from the pile of plastic dinosaurs heaped in his lap and began what Tom knew would be a protracted fight. This event was invariably accompanied by a bevy of high-decibel screeches and a juicy smack of the lips. Even though Andy was barely four years old and the dinosaurs were fluorescent colors, he always knew the herbivores from the carnivores, and the carnivores always won.

Sometimes Tom wondered if he was raising a maniac.

If the boy’s mother had stayed around, maybe she’d have been a calming influence. Tom smiled at that thought. Deidre hadn’t been merely calm, she’d been darn near comatose. In fact, the most ambitious thing the woman had ever done besides the actual act of giving birth was to leave her husband and young son, and then she’d only had the energy to make it twenty miles.

Good riddance had been Tom’s reaction, until he considered what it meant to Andy. Abandoned was the word and it wasn’t a pretty one.

Back to scouring the numbers that too rarely appeared over the doors of the small businesses that littered this side of the street. Beyond the rattrap rabble of fast-food restaurants, real-estate offices, laundries, apartments and cheap motels shimmered Lake Tahoe, which had apparently read all its publicity and taken it to heart. The Chamber of Commerce called it the jewel of the Sierra Nevada and Tom agreed, especially on a June morning like this one, when the air was warm and the lake a translucent blue gem, too pretty and too pristine to be so close to people and traffic.

Where the heck was 333? For what seemed the fortieth time, Tom checked the paper he’d scribbled the numbers on but they were still the same and he still couldn’t find it. There were very few private dwellings on this four-lane road and the prospect of finding the right one seemed dimmer by the second.

Too bad Hank hadn’t given him a name or something more to, go by; but then again, a guy being prepared for surgery doesn’t usually even remember that much. Hank was a conscientious contractor, however, and took his obligations seriously. Besides, Tom owed him one for helping with Andy after Deidre plodded off—how long ago now? Six months? Seemed more like six years.

He pulled the truck off to the side of the road and hit the wheel with his fist.

What’s wrong, Daddy? Andy asked, taking time out from the great dinosaur wars.

I can’t find it, Tom said irritably.

Can’t find what?

He started to say, Nothing, but thought better of it. It wasn’t Andy’s fault that the live-in baby-sitter had woken him up at three o’clock in the morning to announce that her sister’s husband had walked out on her sister and would he mind if she left right that minute to drive up to Idaho to help out? He’d told her that actually yes, he would mind, what about Andy? She’d said, Sorry, and quit a microsecond before he was finally awake enough to fire her. Then three hours later Hank had called and there’d been the hospital and now this fool’s errand.

He looked at his young son and said, There’s this lady who wants a gazebo built behind her house and it should be right here but its not.

Tom stared out through the dusty windshield and studied the three businesses that ringed the turnout. One was a gas station, one was a small café, and the other, according to Tom’s personal code, was the blight of Nevada.

Lakeside Wedding Chapel, the sign read. Beneath the sign was a dingy white building with two big windows and lots of lacy-looking curtains. A fake green plant sat squarely in the middle of the first window, like a phony sentinel guarding a bogus institution. Tom had driven past this place a hundred times and never looked at it twice.

That’s it, Andy said. He’d unbuckled his seat belt and was now on his knees leaning forward, peering out the windshield, one hand propped on the dashboard. He was pointing at the wedding chapel.

No, that can’t be-

Look, Daddy, the boy said, shoving the paper toward his father and then pointing at the door of the chapel.

Well, I’ll be darned, Tom said. In peeling paint, right there on the glass door, were the numbers 333. Good work, kid, he added.

Andy started bouncing up and down on his knees, working the old springs until they creaked in protest. In gratitude for his son’s help, Tom kept his mouth clamped shut. Let the kid expend some of that energy, he thought, before I turn him loose in a wedding chapel, of all places.

Damn Hank. He knew how Tom felt about these blasted chapels. No wonder he’d managed to stay conscious only long enough to mumble a few numbers and a street name. "Now you owe me one," Tom muttered as he pulled the truck up in front of the chapel and turned off the ignition.

By now, Andy had stopped bouncing and was busy throwing all the dinosaurs against the dashboard. While Tom stood by Andy’s door, the boy plucked them from the floor where they’d fallen and stuffed them into the pockets of his shorts. Then Tom lifted him out of the truck, warned him to be good, and slammed the door, which was decorated with six-inch letters spelling out T. Rex Construction. Beneath the words, painted only recently and at Andy’s insistence, was a picture of a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Little did the boy know that it was in a building very like this one that his parents had tied the knot—a very loose knot, Tom reflected. Not even a knot; more like a loop in the rope, a loop that would be completely untangled in a little over a month, when the divorce was final.

Tom wondered if the same kind of faded blonde would be behind this desk, luring temporarily insane people to their fate with her promise of three-minute weddings and free champagne with the purchase of etched glasses. Etched with the words Bride and Groom, he remembered. What else? How could they possibly know the names ahead of time of the poor dolts who stumbled in off the streets?

We’ll only be a minute, Tom assured his son. "This can’t be the right place. There isn’t even a yard’

But the numbers—

Must be a mistake, Tom repeated, looking down into brown eyes that echoed Deidre’s. Her eyes had been her best feature; only fair her son should walk away with something of his mother. The rest of the kid resembled him with identical long legs, floppy sun-bleached brown hair, generous mouth, the tendency to tan easily. In time, Tom thought, the round face would get longer, squarer; the nose would grow a bit, the brows would darken. Then he and the boy would look alike. Poor kid.

Tom hesitated before opening the door because he really didn’t want to take Andy into a sleazy joint like this. He thought of putting him back in the truck, but that was hardly safe with a kid as imaginative as Andy. Heaven knows what he’d manage to do in a truck all by himself. Besides, he’d only be a minute; he was just checking.

In one glance, enhanced by his foreknowledge of such establishments, Tom took in the furnishings of the room he entered. Tattered, faded, overstuffed furniture—a lot of it-sat around the perimeters of a green rug. There were floor cabinets filled to the brim with silk flowers to tuck in a woman’s hair, thread through a man’s buttonhole, function as a timeless wedding bouquet or mother-in-law’s corsage. A circular case of wedding bands sat on a scarred end table. Lace hats hung on the walls along with Just Married bumper stickers, certificate books, garters, shelves of champagne glasses, information on videotaping the event, and, of course, a handwritten price list for all of the above. The only thing that differed between this place and the one he’d foolishly entered five years before with Deidre—one step ahead for the first and only time in her life—was that this place was clean. Tacky, but clean.

Toward the back there was a desk, and behind the desk was a pleasant surprise. It was a woman, all right, and she was blond, but she wasn’t faded—no way, not at all. She glanced up from the papers on her desk with a pair of eyes as blue as the lake outside, eyes so large and so startling they practically jumped off her face and raced across the room to greet him. The eyes were set in a nice oval face and the rest of the features were absolutely fine. He could detect no makeup; heck, she didn’t need any. The whole affair was framed with light blond hair so smooth and shiny that it looked like sunshine spun into silk. He thought she looked in her early twenties, seven or eight years younger than himself.

May I help you? she asked.

Tom reached down his throat for his voice, found it, dragged it into his mouth and blurted out, I think I’ve made a mistake.

The woman nodded patiently. Lots of people feel that way at first, she said softly. Is the bride with you?

She looked behind Tom toward the open door, and for one awful second, he almost expected Deidre to shuffle up behind him. He shook off the shiver that thought produced and said, You don’t understand.

She rose and walked around the desk. There was nothing whatsoever wrong with the rest of her, Tom observed, almost sorry he had to set her straight and get back in the truck, She was wearing a long, pale yellow skirt that almost touched a pair of nicely turned ankles, and a matching silk shirt, open at the neck, rolled up at the sleeves and belted at the waist with a small gold chain. Her hands were slender like the rest of her. She wore no jewelry except a gold watch. She looked totally out of place in this dive, like a daffodil in a dump.

I do understand, she said, smiling. Tom had the feeling it was a practiced smile, a business smile. He suddenly yearned to tickle her, to see her face light up with the genuine article. This was getting ridiculous. She was still talking.

So there’s nothing to be nervous about.

I’m…I’m not nervous, he said, but the stutter betrayed him. He wasn’t nervous about what she thought he was nervous about, but he couldn’t tell her that. For a second she stared at him with her wide blue eyes and he was reminded of the lake again, all cool and remote and infinitely deep. Her lips parted to speak and he realized he was anxious to hear what she had to say.

Is this your son? she asked, glancing away from him.

Tom turned. Andy had scrambled onto a threadbare sofa, which was next to the circular case of wedding bands. He’d tossed a few dinosaurs on top of the case and was happily spinning it while the dinosaurs, one by one, flew off and hit the window. Jeez, the kid had perfect timing.

Andy! Tom barked, which earned him raised eyebrows from the woman and absolutely nothing from his boy. He scooped the kid up in one big arm, holding him horizontal but facedown, his arm around Andy’s stomach. Andy began wailing about his dinosaurs, thrashing his legs and arms like a wild animal. So much for making a good impression, Tom thought.

Be quiet, he bellowed, raising his voice to be heard over the screams. How could one forty-pound package produce so much noise? Since his command produced no discernible decrease in decibel level, Tom began backing out the door, which apparently scared Andy into calming down.

Tom set Andy on his feet. Now you get over there and gather up your prehistoric friends and we’ll go find the lady who needs the gazebo, he said. And don’t touch that case again, and don’t yell.

Andy scooted back onto the sofa. His face was bright pink, whether from screaming or being held half upside down, it was hard to say. He hastily began fishing his dinosaurs off the windowsill. Tears streaked his flushed cheeks and he wiped them away with a bare arm, staring balefully at his father. His nose was running. Tom dug around in his back pocket for a tissue. He couldn’t believe what a scene Andy had created, right here in front of this pretty lady, probably ruining any chance Tom might have had to entice her with his boyish good looks and abundant charm.

I’m the lady who needs the gazebo, the woman said. She sounded less than excited about it.

Oh, jeez, it just got worse and worse. He said, You’re kidding.

No, I’m not kidding.

But you don’t have anywhere to put it, unless you want it out in the parking lot, Tom said logically. He held the tissue against Andy’s nose and said, Blow. Andy blew, Tom wiped and tossed the tissue into a garbage can.

I have a back area, the woman said.

Tom, up to this point, had been nursing the hope that this woman didn’t actually own this sordid little business. He had her pegged as a nice neighbor filling in in a time of need, or an out-of-work model picking up a few bucks between assignments. She was pretty enough to be a showgirl at one of the casinos, but that scenario didn’t wash with him. She didn’t look as though she peeled off her blouse for a roomful of strangers. Hell, he didn’t care what she did as long as her life’s work didn’t entail actual ownership of this—place.

Wait a second, his internal buzzer warned. You were in a wedding chapel once before with a woman you barely knew and look where it landed you. What about your vow to stay away from joints like this and the women who haunt them?

But you’re not Hank Dover, she said.

And you’re not Deidre, he thought, but the buzzer had slowed down his libido a bit. This woman looked like a cool customer, all right, and that’s just what she was, a customer. Hank’s customer. For that matter, given the fact that chasing women came as a reflex to Hank and that he’d called from the hospital to make sure this one