Leanne Banks - Trouble in High Heels

“ Virginia?” Lori said.

The woman looked up and immediately smiled, sliding the accounting book to the side. “Well, hello, girl. I didn’t expect to see you here so early. Are you already finished cleaning the cabins and the stalls?”

“Already done,” Lori said. “I’m getting a little faster, although I doubt I’ll ever get Maria’s approval.”

Virginia reached over to pat Lori’s hand. “You’re a big help. Don’t let Maria bother you. That chip on her shoulder is all self-defense. Her father always told her she wasn’t good enough. It’s a darn shame, but she’ll probably be fighting those words the rest of her life.”

“That is a shame,” Lori agreed. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Virginia shook her head. “Heavens, no. That would just make it worse. Let her work it out. She’ll come around.”

“Okay,” Lori said, not sure she agreed but not willing to push the matter. She cleared her throat. “Something has come up, and Jackson and I need to leave for a couple of days. It’s business,” she said and swallowed an ironic laugh, because she was telling the truth. She and Jackson were getting married for business purposes. “We won’t be gone long, but I was wondering if you would mind watching Kenny while I’m gone?”

“Of course I will,” Virginia said, reaching for Kenny, who willingly curled into the older woman’s arms and licked her chin. “Me and your little Pom are buddies. I won’t sneak him too many treats, but he’s so sweet it’s hard not to spoil him.”

“I know. It’s hard to believe something that weighs under five pounds can offer so much comfort.” It was silly, but Lori couldn’t help wishing she could take Kenny with her. Her little dog had always had a calming effect on her, and she was about to take a giant leap of faith. She just hoped this leap wouldn’t send her careening over a cliff.

“You should give the prenup agreement I asked my attorney to draw up to your own attorney before you sign it,” Jackson said.

“I trust you,” Lori said, her red-high-heel-clad foot vibrating in a staccato rhythm as she sat beside Jackson in the SUV. She wore designer jeans that molded to her every curve and some kind of red top with pink lace that showed just a hint of cleavage. Enough to keep him glancing at her every third second.

Jackson rolled his eyes at the same time his gut tightened. He was driving toward the nearest airport to catch the next flight to Vegas. Or to Insanityville. Or both. Once Jackson made up his mind, there was no going back. This time, however, even he’d had second, third, fourth, and fifth thoughts. Ultimately, he knew the agreement was more than fair, and some part of him was dead-ass certain he could help Lori. Unless he was just using that harebrained idea as some kind of crazy justification for marrying her.

“You shouldn’t trust anyone,” he told her. “Not with that amount of money.”

“I can always sue you if you do something dishonorable, because you’re still my accountant,” she said, her foot still pumping.

He had to restrain the urge to put his hand on her thigh for her to stop, but Jackson knew touching her thigh wouldn’t be enough. He knew he could get totally sidetracked thinking about her thighs and how good she would feel if he…

Focusing on the road, he shook his head and tried a softer approach, even though it went against the grain. “It will make me feel better if your attorney reviews this before. I already instructed my attorney to e-mail a copy to yours. You can call your attorney and tell him to review it during our flight.”

She sighed. “Okay, okay. I’ll call him.”

Jackson listened as she took a moment to go through the contact list on her cell phone, placed the call, and talked with her attorney.

After she finished, she turned to Jackson. “Happy now?”

“I’ll be happy when you’re more responsible with your inheritance.”

“Is that why you put that clause in there about consulting with you if I was planning to spend anything that hit six digits?”

Surprised she’d actually read the agreement, he shot a quick glance at her. “Partly,” he said.

“I noticed the agreement didn’t give you the power to veto my spending. I would have told you to take a flying leap if it had.”

His lips twitched at the heat in her voice. “I don’t want to stop you. I just want to help you… pause.”

“If I’m really determined, discussing anything with you won’t make a bit of a difference.”

“I know that,” he said. “And if you’re not really determined?”

A long silence followed. “Okay. I may not follow all my impulses.”

“Is that bad?”

Another silence followed. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out, won’t I?”

He felt her gaze on him. “You may find out after your attorney looks at the agreement and you sign it and we both make it to the justice of the peace,” he said. This was such a wild card that he still wasn’t counting on anything.

“Is that why you’re making us fly commercial?”

He nodded. “Until we’re married, you’re still broke.”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and shook her head. “That’s an exaggeration. I’m not broke.”

“Unless you want to slash your budget, you’re broke,” he said bluntly. “If you want to give up your job as philanthropist to every imaginable cause on God’s green earth and get a real job, then you’re not broke.”

Her toe started to pump again, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Just drive, please,” she said.

Six hours later, Lori stood in front of the concierge at the Bellagio Hotel, feeling as if she were going to jump out of her skin. The flight had seemed interminable. As soon as the jet landed, she talked with her attorney, who began the conversation by telling her not to do anything rash. During the drive from the airport, she boiled down all his concerns about the premarital agreement to essentially none.

Luckily Tim, the concierge, was also a notary. He witnessed her and Jackson ’s signature on the agreement. “There you go,” he said. “I’m happy to be of service.”

“Can we get married now?” she asked him.

“I’ll have to check availability,” Tim said. “We’re usually booked. If we can’t accommodate you, I can help you find a chapel.”

“For tonight,” she said.

“I’ll try to find something,” he said and picked up the phone on his desk.

“You’re tapping again,” Jackson murmured into her ear.

She curled her toes inside her shoes. His closeness only made her feel more jittery, but she didn’t want him to know that. “I just want to get it done.”

“If you’re this nervous about doing it-”

“I’m not nervous about being married to you.” She bit her lip, trying to compartmentalize her thoughts and feelings. “I know you’ll keep your end of our agreement.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to get a dress or pick out some flowers? I thought women spent their whole lives dreaming of being dressed like a princess on their wedding day.”

“The princess thing is way overrated. I’ve been doing that most of my life.” Without invitation, a vision of what she had pictured for her wedding day slid through her mind. In her fantasy world, Harlan had walked her down a garden aisle, and her mother, visiting from the hereafter, sat in the first row of white chairs with her half brother. Lori’s two sisters would be bridesmaids.

Lori had always been so infatuated with the idea of having all her loved ones alive, in the same place, and not screaming at each other, that she hadn’t spent much time thinking about her Prince Charming.

This wasn’t a real marriage, she told herself. She couldn’t deny, however, that the notion of making lifelong promises with no intention of keeping them seemed creepy.

She couldn’t let sappy, emotional thoughts stop her. She needed to think like a man about this. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to meet his gaze. “What we’re about to do is business. I understand-”

Tim lifted a hand as he held the phone against his ear. “I can get you an Elvis wedding in thirty minutes. Will that work?”

Elvis was just over five feet tall and appeared to be approximately three hundred years old. Lori hoped he’d make it through the ceremony. He wore a jet black toupee and a white suit that hung on his skinny body as he warbled “Love Me Tender.” Lori quickly walked down the aisle, carrying a bouquet of artificial white roses. Based on Jackson ’s grim expression and her own sense of facing the gallows, Lori thought “Jailhouse Rock” would be more fitting, but she hadn’t been given a choice. Apparently this Elvis had a very limited repertoire. The hired witnesses, an older woman and young man, sat on the front row of the chapel. The young man was texting on his cell phone.

Clutching the white rose bouquet in her hands, she tapped her foot as she waited for Elvis to finish the song. Jackson moved closer and put his arm at her back, startling her. He lowered his head. “You’re tapping again.”

She tried to stop. She really did. But tapping was better than wrapping her hands around the skinny throat of Elvis and asking him to get on with it.

Elvis finally finished. Adjusting his thick eyeglasses, he looked at Lori and stretched his mouth in a denture-filled smile. “You’re a beautiful bride,” he said, then turned to Jackson. “Isn’t she a beautiful bride?”

Jackson met Lori’s gaze, and she felt an odd dipping sensation. “Yes, she’s beautiful.”

“Every bride needs to hear that she’s beautiful,” Elvis said, pretty much negating the compliment. “We’re gathered here to unite this couple in joyous matrimony. If anyone can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

“The credit card went through just fine,” the older woman said.

Elvis nodded and pulled two sheets of paper from his inside breast pocket. He paused a moment as he appeared to study the paper. “ Jackson,” he said. “Is that right?”

Jackson nodded.

“ Jackson, do you take…”

After that, everything was a blur. In a detached way, as if she were watching herself from the back of the room, Lori heard Elvis officiate and she responded appropriately, but the scene became more surreal than real. Was she really pledging her troth to Jackson? And what exactly was a troth? Some corner of her mind took in the slight snore of the older woman sitting on the front row and the nonstop pecking of the young man texting. Looking into Jackson ’s eyes, she wondered what he was really thinking. She wondered if he secretly wanted to run screaming from this place. Of all her fears, that one was the biggest. Lori wanted to get the wedding done before he reconsidered and backed out.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Elvis said, the words snapping Lori out of her fog. “You may kiss the bride.”

She and Jackson stared at each other for a frozen moment of incredulity. Omigod, they’d done it.

“Go ahead,” Elvis urged. “I have one more song for you.”

Slowly and deliberately, Jackson slid his hand behind her back and pulled her toward him. He lowered his head, and she lifted her mouth. To the sound of Elvis butchering “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” they sealed the deal.

Twenty minutes later, she’d returned the faux bouquet and the faux rings they’d borrowed for the ceremony, and she and Jackson climbed into the limo that was part of the ceremony package.

Jackson exhaled and rubbed his face. “That’s over,” he said, then sat up and glanced at the bar. “There’s a bottle of cheap champagne. Do you want any? I think I want a scotch.”

“If it didn’t taste so bad, I’d want some scotch, too,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and chuckled. “Then what will it be, my beautiful bride?”

“Cheap champagne,” she said, her stomach knotting at the word bride. “This is going to sound horrible, but it felt like a funeral.”

Jackson poured a glass of scotch and tossed back a gulp. “There were a few times I was worried Elvis might not survive the ceremony.”

She watched him open the champagne and pour the bubbly liquid into a flute. “It’s hard to believe that people deliberately choose that kind of ceremony.”

“I think we got the second string.”

“Or third,” she said, accepting the glass as he handed it to her.

“Or fourth,” he said and laughed again as he clinked his glass with hers. “It’s done now, Lori. You can spend money.”

She nodded, fighting a sudden hollow feeling. Glancing outside the window as she took a sip of champagne, she stared at the lights. “I’ve never been to Vegas without my father,” she said.