Have Bride, Need Groom

“I’ll Pay You To Marry Me...” Letter to Reader Title Page MAUREEN CHILD Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

“I’ll Pay You To Marry Me...”

Jenny was getting desperate. “Five minutes. That’s all I ask. One little wedding. One hundred dollars? Two hundred?”

The stranger edged past her, gave her one last, regretful look and scurried away.

“Do I hear five?” a familiar deep, male voice asked.

Jenny spun around quickly and teetered precariously on her heels. Nick Tarrantelli grabbed her elbow and steadied her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You do know you could be arrested for soliciting?” Nick said casually.

Jenny gasped in outrage. “Soliciting? I don’t see how. I’m not asking anyone for money. In fact, I’m offering to pay them.” Suddenly a tear slid down her cheek. Then another one.

Nick tried to calm her down, to make her stop crying. Nothing seemed to work. Desperate, he heard himself whisper, “I’ll marry you, Jenny.”

Dear Reader,

I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting the next book from Mary Lynn Baxter—so wait no more. Here it is, the MAN OF THE MONTH, Tinght-Fittin’ Jeans. Mary Lynn’s books are known for their sexy heroes and sizzling sensuality...and this sure has both! Read and enjoy.

Every little girl dreams of marrying a handsome prince, but most women get to kiss a lot of toads before they find him. Read how three handsome princes find their very own princesses in Leanne Banks’s delightful new ministries HOW TO CATCH A PRINCESS. The fun begins this month with The Five-Minute Bride.

The other books this month are all so wonderful...you won’t want to miss any of them! If you like humor, don’t miss Maureen Child’s Have Bride, Need Groom. For blazing drama, there’s Sara Orwig’s A Baby for Mommy. Susan Crosby’s Wedding Fever provides a touch of dashing suspense. And Judith McWilliams’s Practice Husband is warmly emotional.

There is something for everyone here at Desire! I hope you enjoy each and every one of these love stories.

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo. NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3

Have Bride, Need Groom

Maureen Child

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAUREEN CHILD

was born and raised in Southern California and is the only person she knows who longs for an occasional change of season. She is delighted to be writing for Silhouette and is especially excited to be a part of the Desire line.

An avid reader, she looks forward to those rare, rainy California days when she can curl up and sink into a good book. Or two. When she isn’t busy writing, she and her husband of twenty-five years like to travel, leaving their two grown children in charge of the neurotic golden retriever who is the real head of the household. She is also an award-winning historical writer under the names Kathleen Kane and Ann Carberry.

To Susan Mallery,

the once and future goddess,

with my thanks

One

The bride wore polka dots.

Elvis was in sequins.

The bounty hunter wore jeans.

And the groom was in handcuffs.

Jenny Blake gripped the hard plastic handle on her complimentary paper gardenia bouquet a little tighter and stared at her would-be groom. So close, she thought. If that bounty hunter had been only five minutes later, she would have been safely married.

But there was no chance of that now. She shifted her gaze to the man who had introduced himself as Nick Tarantelli, bounty hunter. A tall, lean man with night-black hair and eyes that seemed even darker, he had her bridegroom in a grip that told Jenny he had no intention of letting go any time soon.

Overhead, a set of speakers, hidden behind oversize paintings of The King on black velvet, sent strains of “Hunka-Hunka-burnin’ love” into the tiny, air-conditioned chapel. The Reverend Elvis Throckmorton signaled wildly for his wife, Priscilla, to turn off the tape player.

Elvis Presley’s voice was cut off mid-verse and the small group of people gathered in the Love Me Tender Wedding Chapel stared at each other.

“Sorry, honey,” Jenny’s would-be groom finally said. “But I guess the wedding’s postponed.”

“For how long?” she heard herself ask.

“My guess...” The bounty hunter spoke up as he gripped the groom’s elbow. “About five to ten.”

“Years?” Jenny said, and stared into the black eyes.

“No,” he answered. “Minutes.”

She knew sarcasm when she heard it and ordinarily she would have tried for a quick comeback. But at the moment Jenny was much too busy feeling sorry for herself.

It was all her own fault, of course. As usual, she’d left everything for the last minute. If she’d taken care of things months ago, none of this would be happening. But who would have thought it would be so difficult to buy a husband?

“C’mon, T.,” the groom wheedled. “At least let me kiss ’er goodbye.”

Jenny took an instinctive half step back.

Tarantelli noticed and one black eyebrow lifted slightly. “I don’t think the lady’s interested, Jimmy.”

“Of course I don’t want to kiss him,” Jenny said shortly. “We only just met.”

Reverend Elvis shook his head slowly, clucking his tongue in disapproval.

The bounty hunter straightened, leaned one forearm casually on his prisoner’s shoulder and looked at Jenny. “You don’t know him?”

Her fingers plucked at the paper petals of her bouquet. Allowing her gaze to sweep quickly over the man she’d almost married, Jenny winced at the bright fuchsia sport coat covering the hot-pink shirt he wore unbuttoned practically to his navel. Five gold chains were caught up in the abundance of curly black hair that covered his chest like an old shag rug. There were three rhinestones missing from the pair of dice etched into his tarnished belt buckle.

Shifting her gaze to the groom’s thick, full lips and small green eyes, Jenny barely managed to suppress a shudder.

Know him? If she’d happened on the man in an alley, she would have hurled her purse at him and run screaming in the opposite direction. And she’d just come within minutes of marrying him.

“No,” she said finally. “I don’t know him.”

The bounty hunter tilted his head to one side and looked down at his prisoner. Shaking his head, he said, “Hell, Jimmy. I didn’t give you near enough credit. You’ve even got strangers wanting to marry you now. What is this? Wife number six?”

“Eight,” Jimmy corrected, tugging proudly at the lapels of his hideous coat.

“Eight?” Jenny echoed.

“Oh, yeah.” Nick Tarantelli glanced at her. “Jimmy’s what you might call a professional groom.”

“Oh, my.”

“The only problem is,” he continued, “Jimmy here doesn’t believe in divorce, do ya, Jimmy?” Tarantelli jerked the shorter man’s coat collar and Jimmy rose up on his toes.

“Divorce,” Jimmy protested, his voice strangled, “is the scourge of America. No one stays together anymore. I’m just doin’ my part, is all. Tryin’ to hold together the moral fabric of society.”

Tarantelli laughed.

“He’s a bigamist?” Jenny asked, stunned. Were there really that many women desperate to get married wandering around Las Vegas? She’d thought she was the only one.

“Among other things,” the bounty hunter said.

Without another word, Tarantelli turned and started for the arched doorway behind him, dragging a protesting Jimmy in his wake.

“That’ll be thirty-five dollars, young lady.”

Jenny tore her gaze from her retreating groom and glanced at the preacher.

Light flashed off the sequins on Reverend Throck-morton’s white jumpsuit as he held his right hand out, palm up.

“But there wasn’t a wedding.”

“Don’t matter to me,” he said, lifting his left hand to smooth the side of his slicked-back pompadour. “You’re payin’ for our time and the use of the chapel.”

There was a steely glint in Elvis’s eyes that Jenny was sure the real Elvis would never have approved of. Still, she didn’t have time to argue. Digging into her tiny, red vinyl purse, she came up with the right amount of money and slapped it into the reverend’s outstretched hand.

Before he could finish muttering “Thank ya vera much,” she was out the front door, hurrying after Nick Tarantelli and his prisoner.

A bounty hunter, she thought. Who would have guessed that such people really existed? The last time she’d heard the words bounty hunter spoken, she was watching a John Wayne movie.

Shaking his head, Nick opened the car door, helped a handcuffed Jimmy into the front seat, then closed the door, making sure it was locked. He’d already lost Jimmy once that day and he wasn’t about to do that again.

As he stepped around the back of his nondescript brown sedan, Nick heard the distinctive click of high heels approaching. Grimacing, he glanced at the watch on his left wrist—8:00 p.m. He’d been running all over Vegas since nine that morning looking for Jimmy “the Lip” Baldini, and he was tired. Too tired to have to listen to a jilted bride.

Especially one too dumb to know how lucky she was.

“Mr.,” she said, and Nick groaned,. “I’m sorry,” she went on. “I can’t remember your name.”

“Tarantelli,” he told her. “Nick Tarantelli.”

“Of course.”

She stopped right beside him and Nick looked down into her big blue eyes. Pretty, he thought absently. Too damned pretty to have to settle for a husband like Jimmy.

Even as that thought entered his mind, though, Nick backed off. It didn’t matter how pretty she was, he told himself. She was none of his concern and that was just the way it was going to stay.

“Lady,” he said, his voice gruff, “I’m tired, hungry and cranky.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “And in no mood to listen to tales of the lovelorn.”

“Then how about listening to reason?”

Nick’s eyebrows lifted. She wasn’t easily put off, he would give her that Quickly his sharp gaze swept over her in assessment. About five foot six, he thought, and every inch nicely packed. She had the curves of a Vegas showgirl, even if she didn’t seem to have much taste in clothes.

Her red dress with its giant polka dots didn’t do much for her, in his opinion, but he did like the way it clung to her impressive breasts. The hem of the dress stopped at midthigh, giving him quite a view of her short but shapely legs. Then he noticed the teeteringly high heels she wore on her feet and mentally adjusted her height accordingly. Without those ridiculous shoes, she was probably no more than five-two, tops.

“Have you seen enough?” she asked.

He slowly lifted his gaze to hers. “For now.”

Her lips pursed briefly, then she seemed to gather herself together and a forced smile curved her mouth. “Mr. Tarantelli...” she began.

“Nick.”

“Nick.” She nodded then folded her hands together tightly at her waist. “If I could just explain.”

“Lady, you don’t need to explain yourself to me.” As a matter of fact, he hoped she wouldn’t. He didn’t want to know any more than he already did. Determinedly, he stepped around her and slid his key into the driver’s side lock. “None of my business why you’d want to marry Jimmy the Lip.”

“The Lip?”

A half laugh shot from his throat before he could stop it. “You really don’t know him, do ya?”

“I’ve already told you that.”

A hot desert wind suddenly whipped up around them, lifting her short skirt high enough to make Nick start counting backward from fifty just to keep himself focused on the job at hand.

“Mr.—I mean, Nick,” she corrected quickly. “What I want to explain to you is exactly why you have to allow Mr. Lip to marry me before you take him away.”

“What?” Her ridiculous statement shattered his concentration and he stared at her blankly. He couldn’t believe it. Even knowing that Jimmy was a bigamist wasn’t enough to throw her off course?

Nick watched the desert breeze lift the chin-length, honey-blond hair off her neck and swirl it around her face. She lifted one hand to push it out of her eyes and he couldn’t help noticing how graceful—and fragile—that hand looked.

Deliberately, he ignored the thought.

“Are you nuts, lady?”

“It’s Jenny. Jenny Blake.” She held out her right hand.

He took it instinctively and tried not to notice how his own grip seemed to swallow her much smaller hand. Nick released her quickly and shoved his hand into his pocket.

“Well, Jenny Blake,” he started, telling himself to keep his eyes safely away from the swell of her breasts and his mind off the fact that his right hand still tingled from her touch. “Instead of making such a stupid request, you ought to be thanking me for stopping that wedding.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No, Jenny Blake,” he countered, leaning one elbow on the dirty roof of his car, “you don’t understand.” Jerking his head toward the direction of the front seat, he said, “Ol’ Jimmy in there would’ve married you, stuck around for the wedding night and then been gone by first light, carrying anything of yours that was worth ten cents.”

She flushed and even in the half-light of a Vegas twilight, Nick saw the telltale red creeping up her neck and cheeks. Unbelievable. A woman who actually blushed! And she wanted to marry Jimmy of all people!

“There isn’t going to be a wedding night,” she insisted.

“You’re damn right there isn’t.”

“Mr. Tarantelli, you don’t understand.”

“Right again, honey. I surely don’t.” He straightened, reached for the door handle and opened his car door. “Even better, I don’t want to understand.” Glancing back at her over his shoulder, he added, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to turn Jimmy over to the cops, then take myself home for some sleep.”

“But you can’t take him.”

Nick told himself it wasn’t any of his business. It wasn’t his fault that this crazy woman actually wanted to marry a louse like Jimmy. And it most certainly wasn’t his fault that the look on her face reminded him of all the desperate kids in every Lassie movie he’d ever seen.

Gritting his teeth, he deliberately looked away from her, climbed into the car and shut the door firmly. The sooner he got home, the better. Rolling down the window, he rested his left forearm on the door top and said quietly, “Goodbye, Jenny Blake.”

Then he slipped the gearshift into reverse, half turned to look over his shoulder and started backing up.

“Uh, T....” Jimmy said quietly.

“You shut up,” Nick told him. “If you hadn’t escaped from me this morning, none of this would be happening.”

“But T.—” the other man ventured again.

“Enough, Jimmy.” Nick shot a quick look at his prisoner. “God knows, I can’t figure out how you keep getting women to marry you, but I am not one of your fans. So stick a sock in it for a while, okay?”

Jimmy shrugged but kept quiet.

Nick sighed and finished backing out of the parking slot. Turning around, he slipped the gearshift into drive, looked through the windshield and cursed.

“I tried to tell you.” Jimmy laughed, but stopped quickly enough when Nick glared at him.

Slamming the shift into park, Nick threw the car door open wide and stepped out. The fast-idling engine rumbled dangerously, and Nick’s temper was boiling at the same rate. Balled fists at his hips, he stared down at the woman sprawled across the hood of his car.

Two

Jenny’s fingers curled around the windshield wiper as she held on tight. Her right hand was cupped over the front of the car, her fingers digging into the hood latch. Her back was arched over the hump in the hood and her head shook in time with the hot, vibrating engine beneath her.

She stared up at Nick Tarantelli and swallowed heavily. Even though his image wavered with her shaking head, he looked furious. Well, she told herself, this wasn’t how she’d planned to spend her evening, either.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

“Stopping you.”

“way?”

“I have to get married!”

He didn’t answer right away and she chewed at her lip nervously. A thoughtful, almost sympathetic expression crept into his brown eyes. A flare of hope burst into life in Jenny’s chest. Perhaps everything would be all right after all. Maybe the bounty hunter wasn’t completely without a heart. Surely he could see how important this wedding was to her.

Oh, heaven knew Jimmy the Lip wasn’t anyone’s idea of a wonderful husband. But she was out of time and out of options.

Although, a voice in the back of her mind whispered, did a marriage to a bigamist count?

Jenny frowned and pushed the annoying voice aside. A marriage was a marriage. The rules didn’t say it had to be a good marriage.

Nick Tarantelli reached a decision then and walked back to the driver’s side of the car. A moment later the engine stopped and Jenny sighed in relief. She didn’t move, though, reluctant to give up the hold she had on his car until the bounty hunter promised not to drive away with her groom.

Then he was back, staring down at her, and Jenny felt her mouth go dry. Strange, she hadn’t noticed before just what a lovely shade of brown his eyes were. In the chapel they’d simply looked dark. But here, in the uncertain twilight, they looked more the color of fine brandy.

She shook her head and told herself she was being fanciful. It was probably nothing more than the weird desert light playing tricks. Besides, what difference did it make what color his eyes were?

“Why didn’t you say so?” he asked suddenly.

“Hmm?”

“You should have said something about the baby.”

“Baby?”

“Hell, you shouldn’t be crawling onto moving cars,” he said, and reached out to pull her off the hood. “You could get hurt.”

When her feet hit the gravel parking lot, she wobbled uncertainly for a moment. She grabbed his forearms to steady herself, then released him and straightened. He smelled of Old Spice and something else she couldn’t quite identify.

Old Spice. She’d always loved that scent but she hadn’t thought there were any men left who appreciated the old-fashioned cologne. Most men these days were more into buying French fragrances that battled with and usually overpowered ladies’ perfumes.

But the Old Spice seemed to suit Nick Tarantelli. Maybe it was just the brainwashing of those old commercials, but he reminded Jenny of the swashbuckling type of male she’d always associated with that cologne.

Now she was being fanciful, she told herself and dismissed her wayward thoughts.

“You probably shouldn’t be wearing those high heels, either,” Nick told her.

“Why not?” she asked, glancing down at the three-and-a-half-inch heeled sandals she’d bought the week before.

“The baby, of course. Everybody knows pregnant women should wear flats. That way they don’t lose their balance.”

How ridiculous, Jenny thought. As if footwear had anything at all to do with a pregnant woman’s health. Then her brain lurched, stopped and backed up.

Pregnant?

“What baby?” she asked.

“Yours.”

“Mine?” Jenny’s palm slapped against the open V of her neckline. “I’m not going to have a baby!”

“Of course you are.”

“I think I would know if I was pregnant, for heaven’s sake.”

“Then what was all that stuff about you have to get married?”

He loomed over her. Jenny’d never had occasion to use that word before, not even to herself. Yet there was no other way to describe what the tall, angry-looking bounty hunter was doing. But then, she decided, he probably couldn’t help looming. He was awfully tall.

She tilted her head back slightly in response, but didn’t lower her gaze one fraction. “I said I had to get married. I didn’t say it was because of a baby.”

“Well, why else?”

“Because of my grandmother.”

One second passed, then two, then three. Jenny waited.

Nick threw his hands high in the air in mock surrender. “Forget it, lady, I don’t want to know.”

“But you have to listen,” she said, and followed him as he started for the car door again.

“No, I don’t. And don’t try crawling back up on the damned car. This time, I might just take off anyway.”

Hurrying in those heels was a mistake. Jenny realized it just before her foot caught in a hole and she pitched forward to land on the hot, dirty asphalt. She managed to break her fall with her hands instead of her face, but sharp, stinging pains stabbed at her knees and palms.

“Oh, for...”

She felt rather than saw him move. Then his hands were at her waist and he was lifting her up from the parking lot and setting her on her feet again. He didn’t release her immediately and Jenny deliberately ignored the warmth soaking into her body from the press of his fingertips at her waist.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I think so.” She took a step back from him, glanced down at her knees and groaned. Through the torn, black, diamond-patterned stockings, she saw that her flesh was scraped raw and bloody. Bits of gravel clung to her knees and the palms of her hands looked no better.

Before she knew it a sheen of tears had welled up in her eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to keep them at bay. Nothing was going right. Absolutely nothing. And it was all her own fault.

Nick sighed and asked, “Where’s your car?”

“I don’t have one,” she answered, rubbing the back of her hand across the tip of her nose.

“Perfect.” He paused, then asked, “Where are you staying? I’ll get you a cab.”

“I don’t want a cab. I want to get married.” Her knees were beginning to throb and the palms of her hands felt as though she’d taken a cheese grater to them.

“Your groom has other plans,” he answered. “What hotel are you in?”

She sniffed, bent over and plucked at her ruined stockings, pulling them away from her battered knees. “Sinbad’s.”

“Jeez!”

Jenny straightened abruptly. “What is it now?”

“You want to marry Jimmy Baldini and you’re staying at Sinbad’s?” He shook his head slowly. “Lady, you’re asking for trouble.” Grabbing her elbow firmly, he dragged her to the rear door on the driver’s side, muttering to himself with every step. “I ought to just let you go on back to that dive. Take your chances. None of my business where you stay-Hell, I don’t even know you!”

Jenny winced as pain stabbed at her knees.

“But then I’d probably see you on the news tonight,” he went on, still talking to himself. “‘Tourist with scraped knees murdered in her bed at Sinbad’s Sin Shop.’ Nope. Can’t let you do it.” Nick shrugged. “Guilt would keep me awake all night and I already told you—I’m tired.”

Yanking at the latch, he pulled the door open and gestured for her to get into the back seat.

“Sinbad’s Sin Shop?” Jenny asked, standing her ground, however wobbly it felt.

“Worst place in Vegas,” he told her solemnly.

“It looked perfectly respectable to me this morning.”

“Sure it did. Cockroaches come out at night.” He jerked his head toward the car. “Just look at ol’ Jimmy here.”

“Hey!” A clearly insulted, disembodied voice floated out to them.