Marianne's Marriage Of Convenience. Lynna Banning

in a church or anything ’cuz I’m half Cherokee. My wife, she was full-blooded Cherokee. Anyway, she died before I came to Smoke River, and when I met my Sarah I was mighty leery about gettin’ hitched up again.”

      “What changed your mind?”

      “Well, hell, I went and fell in love. Sarah, now, she didn’t feel that way about me fer a lotta years. So...I waited.”

      Lance nodded. “What do you think changed her mind?”

      Rooney slapped a gnarled hand on his knee. “Son, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be a rich man.”

      Lance could think of nothing to say to that.

      Rooney stuck an elbow into his ribs. “Chances are you’re not gonna understand a whole lotta things about yer wife, even if you both live to a ripe old age. But that’s not what’s important, see? Understandin’ her, I mean. What’s important is real simple. Just keep on lovin’ her.”

      “That’s it? That’s all?”

      “Yep, that’s pretty much it. And,” Rooney added with a chuckle, “don’t ask too many questions.”

      Lance nodded his head. “Thanks, Rooney. I’ll remember that.”

      “And remember them real smart words ‘for better or worse.’”

      At that moment Lance made himself a solemn promise. For better or worse, no matter what came, he would do everything in his power to be a good husband to Marianne.

       Chapter Seven

      By the time Lance and Marianne made their way back to the hotel, the entire day seemed like a dream. A good dream, Lance thought. Unexpectedly satisfying, even sweet, a word he never thought he’d use in regard to Marianne.

      “You hungry?” Lance asked when they reached the foyer.

      Marianne looked up at him. “After all that wedding cake and lemonade?”

      “And whiskey,” he reminded her.

      “Actually,” she said with a soft laugh, “I am starving. I hope Rita hasn’t taken steak off the menu tonight.”

      They walked to the restaurant, and the beaming waitress headed across the dining room toward them, waving her order pad. “Coffee?” she inquired. She sent a surreptitious look at Lance.

      “Oh, yes, please,” Marianne murmured. “I need lots of—”

      “Sure,” Rita quipped. “Comin’ right up.”

      “You, too?” Lance whispered.

      “My temples feel like squashed biscuits,” she confessed as they sat down.

      “I’d laugh,” he said, “but it would make my head hurt too much.”

      “Oh, Lance, this entire day seems unreal.”

      “Yeah, that’s what it feels like to me, too. Guess it’s because neither one of us has gotten married before.”

      “Imagine,” she said with a giggle, “getting pie-eyed on your wedding day!”

      “Your wedding day, too,” he reminded her.

      “Are we really married?” she whispered. “It feels like I’m having a dream.”

      “Yeah, we’re really married. Since three o’clock this afternoon. Unless we’re still dreaming,” he added.

      Rita brought two steaming cups of coffee and discreetly melted away. Marianne raised her cup to him. “Happy Anniversary.”

      “It’s too soon for that, don’t you think?”

      “Not at all,” she murmured. “We’re old married folks now. We’ve been married for a whole three hours.”

      “Four hours,” Lance corrected.

      Rita popped up again. “Steak?”

      They both nodded.

      “Fried potatoes?”

      Another nod.

      “Peach pie?”

      “Oh, yes,” Marianne murmured.

      “My stars,” Rita blurted out, “you two are predictable as blackberries in the summertime. Oughtta have a long and happy life together.” Humming, she headed toward the kitchen.

      Marianne downed a gulp of her coffee. “Lance, I—”

      “You don’t need to say anything, Marianne. I understand.”

      “Say anything about what?”

      Lance wished his head would stop spinning. “About...well, about tonight.”

      Marianne looked blank. “Tonight? I wasn’t going to say anything about tonight, Lance. I was going to thank you again for my wedding ring. It truly is lovely.”

      Now his heart was pounding right along with his head. That ring really meant something to her. Not in a month of Sundays would he have thought Marianne Collingwood would be sentimental about anything except an oven full of baking apple pies and a full wood box. Women were sure surprising.

      Correction, Marianne was surprising.

      They ate in almost total silence because Lance couldn’t think of a single sensible thing to say to his bride. Once, she requested that he pass the salt, and later he asked if she wanted chocolate ice cream on her peach pie. Then they lingered over coffee until her eyelids began to droop, and by the time she had drained her cup down to the shiny bottom, he was about ready to jump out of his skin.

      He kept remembering Rooney’s question about a honeymoon, and whether he and Marianne would be having one. Now the big fat question that kept bumbling around in his brain was different. Would he and Marianne be having a wedding night? In the same hotel room? In the same—he gulped—bed?

      He’d bet a stack of shiny gold bars she didn’t remember that tonight he would be moving into her hotel room. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became she wasn’t thinking about tonight. The next problem was how to get from here, in the dining room, to there, her hotel room.

       Just ask her, I guess.

      “Marianne, if you’ve finished your coffee, shall we, um, go back to the hotel?”

      She glanced across the table at him. “Yes, let’s,” she said, her voice drowsy.

      All the way across the hotel foyer to retrieve the key from the desk clerk his nerves felt jumpy as a roomful of grasshoppers.

      “We moved your luggage from your old room to Miss Collingwood’s room, Mr. Burnside,” the clerk said.

      “It’s Mrs. Burnside now,” he corrected. “We were married this afternoon.”

      “Oh, I know, sir. Everybody in town’s been talking about the big doings over at Rose Cottage. Congratulations!”

      “Thanks, Hal. And thanks for moving my luggage to her room.”

      Now Marianne was wide awake. “What did you say?”

      “Excuse me, ma’am. I understand you two got married this afternoon.”

      “Yes,” she said, her voice unsteady. “We did.”

      The clerk reached over and dropped the room key into Lance’s open palm. “Mr. Burnside, Mrs. Burnside. Congratulations again. And sleep well,” he added with a smile.

      Marianne looked up. Oh, my Lord, we are married, she thought. And tonight we will be sleeping in the same room together.

       Of course “together,” you goose.