One Hot Cowboy Wedding (5 page)

Ace followed her lead again, landing beside her so close that their entire sides were plastered against each other. “Guess we’re goin’ to have to pretend to be married for a year. I’m sorry I got you into this mess, Jazzy.”

“I’m the one who proposed to you, if I remember right, so you don’t get to be sorry about that.” She jumped up like a windup toy and paced back and forth across the floor again, mumbling and cussing alternately.

His phone played the first bars of Blake Shelton’s

“Hillbilly Bone,” and he picked it up.

“Hello.”

She stared right at him and he grinned.

“Yep, that was me, all right. I guess she did get past the barbed wire tat. Nope, honey, I guess I won’t be seeing you again. I’m sorry that you are disappointed, got a call coming, ’bye now.” His voice was low and sexy.

She glared.

He poked a button and said, “Yes, ma’am. That was me and yes, ma’am, I’m married. No, it’s not a joke. Yes, I guess we are canceling our date for the rodeo. Sorry that you think I’m a sorry bastard. Got another call.” OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 33

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Jasmine glared harder.

“Hello. Don’t think so, darlin’. I hear that rotting in hell involves sitting in flames and I really don’t like that.”

He laid the phone down after that one and said, “She hung up on me after she told me to rot in hell.”

“Shit storm, Ace. We’ve stirred up a big old shit tornado! What in the hell are we goin’ to do? I don’t have an extra bedroom.”

When Ace shrugged she went on, “Damn! Damn!

We might as well have gotten married at the Montague County Courthouse and put it on the front page of the Bowie newspaper. Momma is going to pass little green apples.”

Ace chuckled.

She pointed her finger at him and narrowed her eyes. “It’s not funny. It’s
not
a secret after all and what happens in this town isn’t supposed to be broadcast on national television. We are married and you, darlin’, are going to have to be celibate for a whole year!” Ace groaned. “Oh my God! Jazzy, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. But I do know if you cheat on me, Pearl and Gemma will kill you.” She threw herself back on the sofa for the second time, keeping a foot of space between them. “Why in the hell did you pick that chapel?” Ace threw up his palms defensively. “Hey, it looked like the least known one in the whole town. How was I supposed to know it was having a contest? You can live at the ranch. I’ve got four bedrooms. Three are empty right now. You can take your choice.”

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and it’s convenient above the café. And you said nothing else could go wrong. Guess what, cowboy?”

His phone rang again. “I will never utter those words again, Jazzy. I promise. That’s my mother.” She pinched the top of her nose. The headache was coming on strong. “There’s no getting around it now that it’s been on television. You’re going to sleep on my sofa for a year, boy!”

Ace sat up straight and shot her a dirty look. “I’m not sleeping on a damn sofa when I’ve got a king- sized bed.

And don’t call me boy! I’m a full grown man, and if you doubt that I can prove it right now.”

“No thank you,” she said.

“
You
can live at the ranch. You don’t have to do jack shit in the way of cooking or cleaning. You can go to your café every morning and come back at night when you get finished. Sleep in one of my guest bedrooms and pretend to be my wife. It’s no big deal!”

“No big deal!” she squealed. “That’s what you think, buster!”

He shook a finger at her. “Stop being dramatic, Jazzy.” She dropped her hand and glared at him. “Me, dramatic? I’m barely scratching the surface of drama.”

“Oh, really?” he said coldly.

“You don’t have any idea what you are about to walk into. My mother will plan a big party and may even make us repeat our vows in front of a Texas preacher so it will be legal in her eyes. And dear Lord, what about Gemma and Austin and Pearl! God Almighty, shit tornado doesn’t begin to cover what’s going to hit you!” He ran a hand down his face, but it didn’t erase the worry. “If we tell them it’s a farce, then Cole will figure OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 35

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out some damn loophole way to take the ranch and all this will be for nothing.”

Both phones continued to try to outdo each other. The room sounded like two country western concerts in one bar at the exact same time.

Jasmine took a deep breath. “Okay.” She sighed.

“Okay what?” Ace asked.

“That sumbitch ain’t takin’ the ranch. We’ll just have to suck it up and endure each other. I’ll stay at the ranch but only from bedtime to dawn. Story is that we’ve been seeing each other for a couple of months on the sly and decided on Thursday that we’d fought our love long enough and we decided to get married. Simple but almost true,” she said.

“A whole year!” he groaned.

“Ace Riley, you will be celibate for a year. And before you roll your pretty blue eyes, yes, I have mommy issues and no, they are not resolved, and you will understand when you meet Kelly King that she gets her way, so you might as well let her have it to begin with.” He moaned loudly and rolled his pretty blue eyes anyway.

Blessed silence filled the room for all of five seconds then her ring tone told her that her mother had fished her phone from her purse. If a ring tone could sound angry, it did.

She answered cautiously. “Hel o, Momma. It’s awful late for you to be callin’. Everything all right?”

“Jasmine Marie King, don’t you play dumb with me.

I’ve been callin’ you every two minutes for half an hour.

Have you seen the news? That is you, isn’t it? Marryin’

that blond- haired cowboy?”

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“Yes, ma’am, it is. I married Ace Riley at Cupid’s Chapel tonight. You want to meet him?”

“I’m damn cussin’ mad right now, girl. Are you pregnant?”

“I am not!” Jasmine choked out the words.

“Well, why’d you go off and do a damn dumb stunt like that? We’ve been saving for thirty years for your wedding.”

“Take the money and go on a cruise.”

“I hate boats and your dad refuses to sleep anywhere but in his own bed. I knew when you went off on that fool notion to buy a café that nothing good would come of it. We
will
have a wedding and a reception in Sherman. One of those fly- by- night things in Las Vegas can’t be legal and binding. Besides, I don’t give a damn if it is. It’s not legal and binding in my eyes until the marriage license says Texas across the top, so you will redo it, Jasmine. There’s no room for argument, so either you pick out a dress or I will. That’s all you get to choose since you and your groom decided to elope off to Las Vegas. What in the hell were you thinking? I’m planning it for one month from today. We’d do it sooner, but it’ll take at least that long to line up a caterer and get things arranged. It’ll be a true Texas wedding with all the trimmings and I’m spending every dime we’ve saved for it. The guest list is going to be huge and I’ve already called Marcella.”

“Four weeks from today is Saturday and I’m not closing Chicken Fried.” Jasmine’s headache approached a full- blown migraine.

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my reception on Tuesday morning at ten o’clock you’ll close that damned restaurant and come to it, young lady. And you’d better have a decent dress for the wedding. Not some hooker dress like you had on in that wedding tonight.”

Jasmine shut her eyes. She had a month to come up with a decent dress to wear to another farce or her mother would pick out a ridiculously fancy dress with a train that stretched from Amarillo to Beaumont.

Ace chuckled and she snapped her eyes open long enough to give him a go- to- hell look that meant to leave nothing but a silver belt buckle and pearl snaps on the fancy velvet sofa.

“Did you hear me?” Kelly King said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jasmine barked then softened her voice and said with sugary sweet sarcasm, “Momma, could we have the wedding on the first Sunday afternoon in July? You choose the place and the hours. We’ll come home to Sherman Saturday as soon as I close Chicken Fried and stay ’til the last dog’s dead at the reception.

I’ll bring the dress.”

“I’m looking at a calendar and Sunday, July 1 is out of the question. Your father is scheduled for a confer-ence in Boston. We’ll have it on July 8,” Kelly huffed.

“What’s done can’t be undone. Tell my new son that I’m lookin’ forward to meeting him. And I will have a backup dress on hand in case you show up with something too plain.”

Jasmine rolled her eyes and said very slowly with gritted teeth, “I will tell Ace, Momma.”

Ace threw an arm around her shoulder. “That sounded horrible.”

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“It was. In one month we are having a wedding reception that will straighten every blond curl on your head, and we will be getting married again in the great state of Texas because if the marriage license doesn’t have Texas across the top then it’s not good for anything but to put out in the outhouse to use when you run out of toilet paper.”

He groaned. “Dammit! Jazzy, I’m sorry. Just tell her no, that we’re already married and it is legal.”

“It’s complicated and she is right. I do know how long she’s waited for this and how important this wedding is to her. I’m her only child and she didn’t have a big wedding, so she’s always said mine would make up for hers. I told you it would be hell to pay!

Momma will invite everyone in the state of Texas including the governor if she can get Daddy to make the call. And if you think this is a mess, wait until we file for divorce.”

“Your Momma goin’ to put out a hit on me?” Ace groaned.

She pointed. “Probably. She might even hire Cole to do the killin’. And you can bet your sexy little ass that she wil start in on me the week after the Texas wedding about my biological clock ticking and wanting a grandchild. She’ll say I owe her one because Pearl got married the right way in Texas and she’s already giving Tess twin boys so we’ll have to deal with that too.” He wiggled an eyebrow and glanced at the king- sized bed. “Does that mean?”

“It means you can sleep on your side and I’ll stay on mine. It means nothing has changed,” she said. “I don’t do booty calls for friends.”

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“Well, at least you are still calling me a friend and you said my ass was sexy.” He laughed.

His phone rang and he rolled his eyes.

“Your turn,” she said.

“Hello, Momma,” he said.

“Ace Thomas Riley!”

“That’s me, Momma, all three names and in the flesh.

Right here in the fanciest hotel in Vegas in the honeymoon suite with Jasmine King Riley, my new bride. I’ll bring her by tomorrow evening when we get back to Ringgold so you can meet her as my bride. I’m sure you’ve run into her at the café, but I’d like to introduce you formally.”

“I would have liked to have talked to her and met her formally before you married her. I didn’t recognize that name. You say she works in a café?” Dolly Riley’s voice was two octaves higher than normal.

“She owns Chicken Fried and she’s the cook.”

“Dear God, Ace! Did you draw up a prenup?”

“Never crossed my mind.”

“I’ll talk to you when you get home. Any other surprises in store?”

He chuckled. “Momma, are you askin’ me if we’re going to make you a grandmother real soon?” Ace went on. “The answer is no. We did not get married because Jazzy is pregnant. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Disappoint! Praise the lord for that small favor!” She snapped her phone shut.

Jasmine laid her head on his shoulder and it felt right, proving that friends were a helluva lot better than lovers.

“We’ve eaten our horny toads. The rest of the calls can’t be that bad.”

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“Horny toads?” he asked.

“Granny Dale, that would be Momma’s mother who lives in west Texas, says that if you get up every morning and eat a live horny toad, nothing the world can throw at you the rest of the day is so bad.” He laughed, letting out the pent- up tension. “I am imaginin’ both our mothers with horns on their heads.”

“Well, the cat’s definitely out of the bag and we can’t put it back inside,” she said.

“Not without getting clawed all to hell,” he answered.

“Let’s turn our phones off, unplug the room phone, and let them all think we’re usin’ that bed for something other than sleepin’.” He patted her arm.

She promptly pushed the button on her cell phone. “I wish I’d have thought of that before the news.” OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 41

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The bed was so soft and Jasmine was so worn out physically and mentally that she wished she could slip beneath the duvet and sheets bare- butt naked instead of wearing plaid boxer shorts and a gray tank top. She’d worked until two that day, flew from Dallas to Vegas on a nonstop flight, and gotten married that evening, then dealt with the fallout all evening. She picked up the tiered server and carried it to the bed. Ace was already on his side of the acre- sized bed, his hands laced behind his head and his eyes on her.

She set the goodie tray in the middle of the bed and settled down, cross- legged, beside it. “You guys cheat.

It’s all right for you to go to bed naked from the waist up. Girls don’t get to do that.”

“Hey, I got no problem with you coming to bed naked all over.” He grinned and chose a bite- sized turtle cheesecake from the server.