Married One Night

When Gerald told her he’d be driving west toward Mobile and farther into the possible cone of impact, the woman had eyed him balefully and reluctantly handed over the keys.

The inclement weather didn’t faze Gerald too much. The rain was coming in bands and though the wind did slap the rain against the car at a sideways angle and tug at the wheel a bit, it was all spotty at best. Nor did the fact that he’d lost his way worry him too much. He grabbed the map from the passenger seat and flipped on the cab lights to scan it. He’d gone on drives in the New York countryside with the purpose of getting lost—lost in the scenery, lost in his head. Getting lost was nothing new to him.

What did give him pause was the fact that he had just driven through the downtown area and Fairhope appeared to be a ghost town. As he drove farther and farther away from the Florida-Alabama line and toward the bay, he had come across fewer cars on the road. By the time he got to his destination, the streets were all but deserted.

He wasn’t the worrisome sort, but he would be glad for a familiar face right about now, as well as the warm, homey lights of companionship.

What better place to find it than Tavern of the Graces where he had finally tracked down Olivia Lewis, the woman who had so captivated him in Las Vegas three weeks ago. Nearly a month had passed and Gerald still couldn’t get her out of his head. It might have been foolish to go flying off impulsively to Alabama when he had a manuscript due to his editor in New York very soon.

But he’d needed to see her. Something had driven him here to this small Southern town he’d never heard of, and he wouldn’t rest, much less write, until he got to the bottom of it.

Gerald brought the map closer. If he was reading it right, the tavern Olivia owned and operated on South Mobile Street was only a few blocks to the south. All he had to do was turn the car around, go back up the hill, then turn right and drive a half mile. He had made the mistake of going down the hill, which led into a park and a long pier overlooking the moody bay.

Brows raised in interest, he peered over the steering wheel, squinting through rain and wind, trying to see beyond the roadblocks. The rain was down to a light patter now. He pulled on the long wool coat he’d brought from New York and grabbed the emergency flashlight from the glove compartment. Led by that foolish, towering impulse that had brought him here to begin with, he fought the wind to open the driver’s door and left the car running. He curled one arm over his forehead and bent over slightly as he walked into the brunt of the wind.

Gerald squeezed between two roadblocks. He could see why everyone had been chased into the stillness of their homes. The hungry gale wolfed off the bay, the balmy breath of Mother Nature itself. The water that he imagined was usually calm, presently chopped and slapped the eastern shore of the bay in whooshing crests. The rain seemed to slacken off as he neared the entrance to the pier and the edge of the seawall that dropped straight into briny waters. Even without the rain, the air kissed the skin with salty residue. Licking his lips, Gerald tasted it on himself already.

The wind whipped at his coat, grabbing and tugging. A gust hit him in the middle and pushed him back from the edge of the long plunge into the bay—a fair warning. El Niño was bitter and hungry and, despite the fact that it was now getting on into fall, it wasn’t giving up its hold of the Gulf Coast quite yet.

A particularly large gray wave came rolling toward the seawall and him. Gerald took several quick steps in retreat but the water sprayed up and drenched him as the wave pounded into the wall below.

Gerald laughed, rubbing a wide-palmed hand over his wet face. “Bloody marvelous,” he murmured, grinning like the fool he was.

Yes, he had been right to come here. He hadn’t seen it in the light of day yet, but Gerald knew without a doubt that he could write in this sleepy little bay town. Turning regrettably away from the storm’s impressive display, he walked back to the rental car.

Now, to find Olivia and get the answers he’d been desperately scrambling for since she left their honeymoon suite in Las Vegas.

* * *

BLENDERS BUZZED, BOTTLE tops sucked and hissed, and glasses clinked. Speakers blared, pool balls clacked and hearty conversation all joined the tavern chorus to drown out the wind rattling the windows facing the listless bay. Only a handful of days away from Halloween, the wooden walls of the tavern were strewn with faux cobwebs.

“Jimmy Buffett, eat your heart out,” Olivia announced with a wink to the gentleman on the other side of her bar who’d ordered a tall margarita.

“Hold on to your hat, newcomer,” one of her regulars, Charlie, muttered, giving the gentleman a supportive pat on the back.

“How much do I owe you?” the newcomer asked her.

Olivia beamed. “On me. Didn’t you hear? That storm is headed for N’Awlins. We’re celebratin’.”

“Though God bless all those poor Cajuns,” Olivia’s part-time waitress Monica Slayer said. “First Katrina. Then Gustav. Now this. They can’t ever seem to catch a break.”

Charlie snorted. “It’s what they get for living below sea level.”

“Careful, Charlie boy,” Olivia warned. “We’re not too far above sea level ourselves. Another beer?”

“Still nursing this one, sweetheart.” Charlie’s eyes twinkled. “You’re pretty as your wildcat mama, you know that?”

Olivia shook her head. “You’re shameless as a hound dog, old man.”

“You tell Rosa I’m still waiting for her,” Charlie advised before tipping his bottle back and gulping deep.

Monica nudged Olivia with an elbow. “If that Freddie character comes on to me again, I’m gonna show him what it’s like to have a three-inch heel shoved up his ass.”

Olivia eyed the gangly giant in question. “Oh, come on. He’s harmless. What’s he doing to harass you?”

Monica rolled her eyes. “His lips are moving.”

Olivia belted out a laugh. “When you first started working for me little over two years ago, you said he was pretty hot stuff.”

Monica snorted. “That was before he went and married Elaine.”

“You’re still sore about that?” Olivia chided, brow quirked. “It’s been eight months.”

“Well, yeah, I’m sore! The few decent guys there are in this town get hung up in seconds...usually with the worst women.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Olivia said with a doubtful glance around the room. Fairhope was as peaceful as small Southern towns got. It might be the quintessential place to retire or raise kids, but like most small towns there was a deplorable lack of good, unattached men to go around. “Don’t sweat it. She’ll get bored with him, and you can be the first to lick his wounds.”

“I don’t do seconds.” Monica brooded before chugging down the shot of Jack Daniel’s the wizened man across the bar had bought her. Her lips curved into a practiced simper. “Thanks, Pete.”

“Hey, Liv!” someone called from the other side of the bar.

Olivia laughed fondly at the baby face of Skeet Bisbee. “Hey, cutie. I haven’t seen you since you left for Tuscaloosa. What are you doing here?”

Skeet grinned, radiating collegiate charm as he sat on the vacant stool next to Charlie. “I came to order a drink.”

Olivia narrowed her eyes and angled her head in scrutiny. “Does your mama know you’re here?”

Skeet beamed. “I mean it. I want a black jack.”

“As pretty as that face is, I’m gonna have to say no,” Olivia told him.

“All right, all right.” Skeet reached for his billfold and held it out to her. “Check this out. I turned legal just a few hours ago. I was lucky the DMV was open. You know, with the storm and all.”

Olivia scanned the temporary license. “Hell, that ain’t even in plastic yet. That can’t be legal. What do you think, Monica?”

Monica glanced at the ID, then up at the hopeful, handsome face before her. “Come on, Liv. Give the man a drink.” The waitress poured a jigger of Jack herself and sent it sailing across the bar with a wink. “On me.”

Skeet blushed to the roots of his hair.

Olivia cackled, grabbed Skeet’s face in her hands and pressed her lips to his. A chorus of catcalls went up around the tavern, and Skeet bloomed from pink to cherry-red.

“Happy birthday, Skeeter baby,” Olivia said before raising her voice over the music. “Hey, everybody, it’s Skeet Bisbee’s birthday and I want you all to buy him a drink!”

Obliging volunteers pushed their way toward the bar and the two tavern-keepers got busy quickly.

Though Fairhope wasn’t as exciting as...say Vegas, the town and the tavern had been Olivia’s one and only home for twenty-nine years. It was practically her lifeblood. The minute her adventurous parents handed the reins of the business to her seven years ago to fulfill their cross-country traveling dreams, she’d found a deep sense of purpose in keeping the family trade alive and strong. Her mother and father had built it from the ground up. It was her job to nourish and sustain it. And that she had, even through the worst downturn of the local, small business economy.

For seven years, her life had been a chorus line of late working nights. It’d take more than a hurricane to break that chain and her love of it.

“Oh, my,” Olivia heard a stunned Monica say over the jukebox crank of Boston’s best. The waitress’s hands were frozen in midair and her eyes were locked on the tavern doors. “What have we here?”

Olivia looked around, up over the heads of her patrons to the big, heavy, distressed-wood-panel doors. She took one look at the man who had just blown in from the windy outdoors, running a hand through his wet golden hair, his long wool jacket soaking wet, and her heart struck a drumbeat.

No. It couldn’t be.

His kind, intelligent eyes scanned the shiny wood carvings on the walls and the web-strewn lights overhead before settling on the long bar. They passed over the heads of her customers and snagged on her. That drumbeat inside her kicked into a cadence as he grinned wide, knowingly, his gaze warming on hers, and inclined his head.

Monica gasped. “You know that piece of man candy?”

Olivia opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. So few times in her life had she been truly speechless. But seeing Gerald Leighton walk into her tavern on the most unlikely night of the year might have been the shock of her lifetime. Shaking her head, she gawped like a fish as she and Monica both watched him walk the rest of the way to the bar and take up one of the few empty stools on the far end.

“Liv?” Monica said, snapping her fingers to get Olivia’s attention. When Olivia blinked and focused on the waitress’s face, Monica narrowed her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Olivia said, glancing back at Gerald, who had eyes only for her. “Just...handle the bar for a bit. I’ll be right back.”

Monica looked from Olivia to Gerald and back. Then she shrugged. “All righty, then. I’d ask you to get me his name and number...but it seems he’s already taken.”

Olivia opened her mouth to deny it, then decided not to when Monica quickly went back to work. Clearing her throat, Olivia took off the apron at her waist and left the bar, rounding it to meet Gerald on the other side.

He smiled at her approach, those laugh lines digging in and charming her all over again. Three weeks. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in three weeks. She’d counted on not laying eyes on him ever again. And here he was, having the same effect on her that he’d had the morning after in Vegas. As he stood up for her, she slowed her steps and licked her lips. “Gerald,” she said simply.

“Olivia,” he said with a nod and a widening grin. Those green eyes washed over her like a head-to-toe caress. “You can’t know how relieved I am to see you.”

“Yeah, about that.” Olivia cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest, shifting from one black-heeled boot to the other. “How did you find me exactly?”

“I had to call in a few favors,” Gerald admitted. “In the end, it was my publicist who was able to nail down your current address. You’re not an easy woman to find, Olivia Lewis. Particularly in the middle of a hurricane.”

She looked toward the glass doors leading onto the veranda. Nobody had dared to brave Mother Nature and sip their drinks outside this evening as they did most other nights at the tavern. Seeing the sturdy wooden chairs being whipped about by the wind and the soaking wet, weathered planks of the floor, she frowned at him. “You drove through this to get to me?”

“Yes,” Gerald confirmed. And there was that hint of sheepishness crawling into his eyes. He blinked and interest filled them, chasing away the momentary embarrassment as he jerked his thumb toward the bay. “Is it always like this?”

“Only occasionally, during the latter months of hurricane season. I’ve seen way worse,” Olivia told him. “Why?” When he looked at her in question, she added, “Why were you so desperate to track me down that you couldn’t wait for the storm to pass?”

Gerald cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to the floor. “Perhaps we’d both better have a drink.”

She stared at him a moment, the muscles tightening around the smile on his mouth. “Yep,” she agreed with an answering nod. “You might be right about that.”

* * *

OLIVIA STILL COULDN’T get over the fact that he was here. The man who, despite Olivia’s best efforts, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for three weeks. Particularly when she was in bed, alone. Or making coffee in the morning. She’d hardly been able to shower without thoughts of him rising with the steam in the bathroom.

Monica had brought their drinks to a table in the corner of the tavern, farthest away from the bustling bar and the two pool tables and televisions broadcasting sports and the weather radar. Gerald had taken off the wool jacket as well as the sports jacket he wore beneath it. The sleeves of his crisp, green, button-down shirt were rolled up over the muscles of his forearms.

Olivia watched those muscles flex as he gripped the pint of Sam Adams. Gerald brought it to his lips, tipped it back and made a sound of assent. “Bloody good draft.” Shooting a glance at her over the rim, he added, “Have you always been in the tavern business, Olivia?”

She pursed her lips. “You’re the one who had your publicist track me down. Shouldn’t you know that already? Stalkers usually do a background check, right?”

Gerald chuckled, his shoulders moving under the shirt. What kind of material could look so soft yet be able to fold on a knifepoint as his did at the collar? It looked pricey. Olivia wondered if it had cost as much as a man like Gerald could potentially cost her. “Details aside, love, I’m not stalking you,” he explained. “I actually had a very practical reason for tracking you down.”

“And that is...?” Olivia asked.

Gerald jerked his chin toward her untouched pint. “You should drink first.”

She gestured to the bar. “I’m a busy woman, Gerald. I don’t have much time.”

He leaned forward in his chair and braced his elbows on her table, those nice, solid shoulders settling over his bent arms. “What memories do you have of our time in Nevada?”

“Our one-night stand, you mean?” Olivia asked.

He grinned. “Precisely.”

She sighed, lifting a hand. “Oh, I don’t know. Not much, to be honest. Tequila has a debilitating effect on my ability to retain information.”

“As it does for all us mere mortals,” Gerald acknowledged with a thoughtful nod. He turned serious, almost grave. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out and covered her hand with his free one. “I hope you don’t take this too hard, but it seems on that night in Las Vegas somewhere along the line we happened to find ourselves embedded in a wedding chapel.”

Her lips twitched in wry humor. “A wedding chapel. You’re kidding me, right?” When those grave green eyes neither smiled nor strayed from hers, she fumbled. “You’re...you’re not? Kidding?”

Gerald took a breath. “No. Apparently, Elvis presided over the ceremony. It’s a bit hazy to me, too. Two ladies by the names of Roxanna Honeycutt and Adrian Carlton—who, I’m assuming, were the friends you were in Vegas with—served as witnesses. By all accounts, the entire wedding party was inordinately pissed.”

“No,” Olivia said. She snatched her hand out from underneath his. Her heart plummeted down to her toes. She shook her head in automatic denial even as dread crawled over her. “You’re wrong. We didn’t. I didn’t.”

“We were drinking, love,” Gerald reminded her gently, as if he were treading on eggshells. He watched her face closely. Concern rose through the gravity as her dread became apparent. “There’s no shame in it.”

“No shame?” Olivia muttered, disbelieving. Damn it, how had she gotten herself into this situation? Hadn’t she learned enough the first time? It didn’t matter that she’d gone several rounds with Señor Cuervo. She’d gotten married. In Las Vegas. To a complete and total stranger.

“Olivia,” Gerald said. He uttered her name again, reaching out to touch her shoulder and bring her back to him. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she snapped, then checked herself and cleared her throat. “I’m fine.” It wasn’t his fault. If he was right, everyone involved had been plastered. There was no way her cynical friend Adrian in her right mind would have let her elope with a stranger. And Olivia liked to think, without the influence of alcohol, Roxie wouldn’t have allowed her to do something that stupid, either.

She took a deep breath and gripped the edge of the table in front of her. “So...what do we do about it?”

Gerald trained his gaze on some point over her shoulder. “Well, I’ve already spoken to my attorney. He’s assured me that he will take care of it with little fuss if we decide to go the route of separation.”

“Okay, good,” Olivia said, relieved. But that relief dissolved little by little as she watched him take another long sip from the pint. “Wait. You said ‘if.’ Why is there an if?”

Gerald pressed his lips together, either savoring the Sam Adams or bracing himself. She had a very frightening suspicion it was the latter. He planted his elbows on the table again and leaned toward her, smile warming the lower half of his face. “I have a wee bit of a suggestion.”

“If it’s not related to annulment or divorce, you might not be walking out of here in one piece,” Olivia pointed out, trying to smile. He couldn’t be crazy enough to suggest that they actually remain married, for heaven’s sake.

Could he?

Gerald made a thoughtful noise in his throat. “Well...”

Olivia’s smile fled and she looked at him as if he were crazy. “Okay, now you’re scaring me.”

“Just hear me out,” Gerald advised, lifting a hand in plea.

“No,” she said and snorted out a mirthless laugh. “No,” she said again just to get her point across. “I have no idea who you are. You don’t know anything about me, despite what your publicist or whoever might have told you. The only thing we have in common is one drunk night in Las Vegas.”

“How do you know that, love, when, as you say, we don’t know each other yet?” Gerald challenged.

Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “Because this is me,” she told him, lifting her arms to encompass the tavern. “And you’re...well, you’re expensive shirts and tailored suits and spicy aftershave, which I have no doubt costs more than our sham wedding. We’re clearly from different parts of the world as a whole. How could you possibly think there’s anything there?”

Gerald’s eyes locked on hers and sobered once more. “Because of what I felt, the morning after.”

Olivia fell silent. “What you felt?”

“Yes,” he acknowledged with a dip of his head. “I...” He sighed, shook his head and narrowed his eyes on the windows next to the table as if trying to see the squall beyond the weeping, wind-buffered panes. “Well, suffice it to say, I felt more in that one morning than I’ve ever felt during any one of the lengthy relationships I’ve had throughout my entire adult life. And I think that’s worth something.”

Olivia’s mouth opened, then closed and opened again. “It was the drinks, like you said.”

Gerald gave her a baleful stare. “We both know we were clean and sober the next morning, Olivia. Can you honestly tell me that night or what was shared between us the following morning meant nothing to you?”

She chose to ignore the fact that she’d been thinking of little else since her flight back to Alabama with the girls, and simply lifted her hands and shoulders in a helpless gesture. “It couldn’t. There was nothing. It was nothing.”

Gerald studied her carefully for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, a slow grin crept over the lower half of his face, warming his eyes. The smile was like a sucker punch to her resolve. And damned if he didn’t know it, Olivia thought. He took another sip of beer, leaned back in his chair and hooked one loafer-clad ankle over the opposite knee. “I’d like you to prove that.”

“What?”

“A wager, if you like,” he told her. “Come now, Olivia. You’re a small business owner. Small business is a gamble at one time or another. And you strike me as a woman who enjoys a challenge.”

“So what if I am?” Olivia asked. “How would that change anything?”

He lifted his finger and pointed at her discerningly. “There’s a lovely bed-and-breakfast next door to the tavern. If my publicist’s sources are correct, it’s your cousin who owns it. I’ll stay on there for three weeks, just long enough for you to prove to me that what we shared in Vegas was indeed nothing.”

Olivia frowned at him. “If I were to agree, you realize you’re betting on a losing hand, right?”

“Maybe,” Gerald said with a considering nod. “But my gut is usually right. And it tells me that the place I need to be, at least for the time being, is right here in your charming little hometown.”

She narrowed her eyes as she considered him. Damn it. She did love a good challenge. Especially one where all the odds were in her favor. “Hmm. What are the stakes?” When Gerald’s brows arched, she added, “What’s a wager without stakes?”

“Oh, right.” He grinned, lifting a hand to scratch his chin in a pensive manner that made her stare a moment too long at his wide-palmed hand with its narrow, creative fingers. “If you win, I will humbly admit defeat and hand over the divorce papers. And I’ll pay whatever legal costs filing them incurs.”

“And if you win...?”

Gerald’s eyes shined anew with the light of promise. “Then what do you say we give this a shot, aye? You and me. I have a feeling it’ll be worth it. And on a hunch I’m rarely wrong.”

Olivia weighed him and his challenge. When he extended a hand for her to shake in agreement, she sighed and lifted hers to take it. “What the hell? You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Leighton. I hope you’re not a sore loser.”

Gerald didn’t shake her hand. He squeezed it warmly and leaned forward until his green eyes yawned before hers and that aftershave of his washed over her in a splendid wave she was sure never to forget. “I rarely make wagers, Mrs. Leighton. But when I do, I play to win. And I’ll be damned if I don’t win this one.”

Olivia swallowed, then released his hand and lifted her pint to take a gulp of Sam Adams. She had a feeling she was going to need it—and perhaps a few more—if Gerald was indeed sticking around.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS CLOSE to midnight, but Olivia got in her old burnt-orange 1980s-model Ford pickup she liked to call Chuck and drove through the rain band currently battering the shoreline. By morning the storm would not only have made landfall but be sweeping its way west toward Texas, hopefully bringing the sun back out to dry this part of the coast.

However, Olivia didn’t want to wait until then to confront her friend Adrian Carlton. The florist and single mother lived a few blocks south of the tavern in the old fruit and nut section of Fairhope. It was a quiet neighborhood, particularly at this late hour. Olivia pulled the truck into Adrian’s driveway and ran to the small porch underneath the gable that crowned the front of the snug but well-kept cottage.