Have Bride, Need Groom. Maureen Child

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.

      “You shut up,” Nick snapped.

      Jenny looked up at him and watched as the desert wind ruffled his dark hair. In his U.N.L.V. T-shirt, blue jeans and battered cowboy boots, he looked completely at ease.

      A sharp stab of envy sliced through her as she realized that she’d never once felt that comfortable in her surroundings.

      Maybe, she told herself, she should simply give up on the wedding. At least for tonight A quick glance at her still-bleeding knees reminded her that things didn’t seem to be going her way at the moment.

      Still, a small voice in the back of her mind whispered. Would you be any safer getting into a car with a total stranger?

      Humph! Only half an hour ago, she was going to marry a total stranger. And Nick Tarantelli certainly looked more trustworthy than Jimmy the Lip Baldini!

      “Well?” he said impatiently. “Are you going to get in? Or would you prefer to ride on the hood?”

      “Shouldn’t your prisoner be in the back seat?”

      “I was here first,” Jimmy reminded her hotly.

      “Nah,” Nick said, ignoring the other man. “He’s harmless. Besides, I want him where I can reach out and grab him if he decides to make a run for it.”

      “I never run,” the prisoner snapped.

      She held on to the car door tightly. “Where are you taking me?”

      A soft glimmer in his eyes told her that he understood her hesitation.

      “Don’t worry, Jenny Blake,” he said, a smile briefly touching his face. “I’m taking you to the best volunteer nurse in Las Vegas.”

      “A nurse?”

      “Are you hungry?” he asked as Jenny slid into the back seat. “She’s a helluva cook, too.”

      

      After dropping Jenny’s erstwhile groom off at the local police station, Nick steered his car back onto the crowded “Strip.” In the bumper-to-bumper traffic, they were forced to move slowly, which gave Jenny plenty of time to take in the sights. As twilight deepened into night, the casinos lining the street seemed to leap into life. In daylight they were nothing more than ignominious buildings crouched behind busy sidewalks. But at night their neon souls exploded into the darkness, banishing shadows and lighting up the sky like some electrified rainbow.

      Jenny stared openmouthed through the car windows at the throngs of people crowding the sidewalks. As the traffic shifted and moved, she caught her breath several times as pedestrians bailed off the curb without so much as a glance at the oncoming cars. Coin cups clutched in their fingers, their gazes locked on the next casino, they crossed the street, darting between cars and trusting luck to see them safely to the other side.

      Shaking her head, Jenny tried to ignore the people and concentrate instead on the incredible casino hotels they passed. From Caesar’s Rome to a man-made volcano to a pirate ship complete with firing cannons, Las Vegas was a living, breathing amusement park for grown-ups.

      “First time in Vegas?”

      Jenny’s gaze snapped to him. “How did you know?”

      He laughed quietly. “A wild guess.”

      A few minutes later Nick turned the car off the main road onto a darker, quieter side street. Here the businesses were well lit but without all the garish displays the big casinos boasted.

      When he pulled into a driveway, Jenny stared at the huge, two-storied structure in front of them. Designed to look like an old Victorian mansion, the restaurant’s parking lot was nearly full. But it wasn’t the beauty of the place that caught her attention. It was the simple white sign hanging over the latticework archway leading to the front door. The sign read Tarantelli’s Terrace.

      She shot Nick a quick look. “Yours?”

      He shook his head.