Lawfully Wed

By Shawn Lane

Edgar Lopez and Scott O'Hara from Shawn Lane's best-selling story Unobtainable are back! The duo are long time partners in the Haydon Cliff Police Department's homicide division. And romantic partners as well. But now, even though they know it will split them up in the department, they want to take their relationship to the next level ... marriage.

Planning a wedding ends up being more complicated and costly then Edgar imagined, until his mother proposes the perfect solution, her backyard. With Scott on board with the wedding plans and the honeymoon cruise, it's only a matter of time before the now former partners are Lawfully Wed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Feb 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646563098

Shawn Lane

Shawn Lane is a multi-published author of gay romance. She lives and works in Southern California. She has been published by Loose Id, Amber Quill Press, Evernight Publishing, MLR Press, JMS Books, and Ellora’s Cave. For more information, visit smlgr8.blogspot.com.

Book preview

8

Chapter 1

I’d had no idea what was involved in getting married when I asked my boyfriend to get hitched. I figured it was simple enough. A civil ceremony. Neither of us were particularly religious, though I guessed my family was. Given that we were two guys marrying, the church wouldn’t exactly cooperate anyway.

But even though I wanted and anticipated a civil ceremony, I also wanted to do it up right. With flowers and champagne. Maybe a sit-down dinner. The fancy cake. I didn’t want to do the quickie wedding at a drive-up Las Vegas chapel. That wasn’t my style.

Planning a real wedding, though, wasn’t so easy. I wanted to hire a planner, maybe, but those are pricier than you might think. And then you gotta order the flowers and the booze and the dinner.

Maybe the quickie wedding my lover wanted wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

It occurred to me, belatedly—in other words, after I’d asked Scott O’Hara, my partner in the homicide department, as well as my lover, to be my husband—that I probably should have mentioned my intentions to Rivers, our captain, first.

But see, if we’d been a guy and a girl, I probably wouldn’t have even worried about that aspect, although, yeah, I guess being partners on the squad was still a big deal for those romantically involved, but there was still a particular element with us both being males, and I was aware of that, even if it caused more than a little bristling.

Still, I supposed even a heterosexual married couple would have to give up their work partnership.

Scott had accepted, as I was sure he would—I really was, sweaty palms notwithstanding. We’d kept it quiet at first, because Haydon Cliff was dealing with the second serial killer case within a year, but once that had been solved, by another detective pair, Scott and I began to plan our wedding and married life together with renewed vigor.

Or, you know, perhaps that was just me. He still seemed a little less than enthused about the bigger ceremony.

One of us needs to tell the brass, Scott said one morning as he came out of the bathroom, brushing his teeth.

"One of us?"

Well. He smiled. Which looked kind of ghastly with the toothpaste foam coming out of his mouth. "It was your idea."

He returned to the bathroom, presumably to spit and rinse, and came back shortly, toothpaste-foam free.

I still lay in bed, leaning against the headboard, arms crossed behind my head as I eyed him with displeasure.

You said ‘yes.’ You don’t want to marry me?

Of course, I want to marry you, Edgar.

He was using his patient voice. The voice he used when he was trying to show me I was being unreasonable or insensitive or whatever. It generally annoyed me. It did especially now.

Good. Because for a second there, I thought you were putting this all on me. I paused. We’re partners, Scott. In every way. And that means telling the captain together.

Scott sighed and went to the closet. Yeah, okay. I know that, I guess. You know it’s going to mean exactly what we told Callahan and Mantegna at the diner before they cracked their case.

Sean Callahan and Andy Mantegna were the detective team who’d had the second serial killer case after ours.

Rivers is going to split us up, I agreed.

Scott came to sit on our bed. Yeah. Are you ready to face that? Accept that?

"Scott, we’ve been fortunate Rivers has allowed us to remain partners as long as he has, given our personal relationship. I thought he’d split us when you moved in.