The Marriage Pact. Linda Miller Lael

      I now pronounce you husband and wife.

      They were well past the danger point, but, in spite of that, Tripp shuddered at the thought of Hadleigh as Mrs. Oakley Smyth.

      The marriage could have been annulled, of course, but only if the wedding night didn’t happen first. Even then, Hadleigh would have needed some serious convincing, and there’d still be a lot of legal wrangling once she’d seen the light. In the interim, Oakley might just be able to charm her down the aisle all over again.

      Squinting through the dust-coated windshield, Hadleigh blinked, her expression one of baffled disbelief. “Bad Billy’s?” she asked, as Tripp swung the truck into the lot. “What are we doing here?”

      “I’m starved,” Tripp replied affably, gliding into a parking spot near the entrance. The lot was nearly empty, a good sign. “And I believe you wanted a few answers?”

      “I am wearing a wedding dress,” Hadleigh pointed out, pushing the words out between her perfect white teeth. Not so long ago, Tripp mused nostalgically, she’d been a “metal-mouth,” as Will used to put it, reluctant to smile, lisping through so much steel grillwork that she could have moonlighted as a blade on a snow plow.

      “So I noticed.” Tripp shut off the engine, setting the brake.

      “Can’t you just take me home?” Hadleigh’s voice was small now; her batteries were running down. A temporary condition, for his money. In another minute, unless Tripp missed his guess, she’d be trying to claw his eyeballs out of their sockets.

      “Think of your reputation,” he counseled benevolently. “How would it look if we were alone at your place after what happened? What would people say?”

      “As if you cared what anybody says,” Hadleigh said, rolling her eyes as she spoke. “Anyway, I’m trying not to think of my reputation,” she lamented. “Since it’s been thoroughly trashed.”

      Tripp grinned, got out of the truck, came around to Hadleigh’s side and opened the door while she was still searching, he supposed, for the lock button, probably planning to shut him out. In her state of mind, it might not occur to her that he could use his key to get in.

      “Do you want to walk,” he asked her with exaggerated politeness and a slight bow, “or shall I carry you?”

      Hadleigh sort of spilled out of the cab and onto the running board, in a shifting, glimmering cloud of fuss and fabric, and stepped awkwardly to the ground, refusing to let Tripp assist her in any way. The glittering hem of her resplendent gown dragged in the unraked gravel surrounding Bad Billy’s place, swishing among cigarette butts and discarded gum wrappers and drinking straws squashed flat.

      “Don’t you dare touch me,” she commanded loftily, every part of her bristling visibly. That said, Hadleigh swept regally past Tripp, like a queen about to make a grand entrance at court—or go to the guillotine with the dignity of the righteously innocent. Her veil dangled down her back, caught precariously on one of the hairpins threatening to slip and send her glorious brown hair tumbling from its once-graceful chignon.

      “I wouldn’t think of it,” Tripp said with another grin. “Touch you, I mean.”

      He quickened his pace to get ahead of Hadleigh, who was covering a lot of ground with every stride, opened the heavy glass door and held it until she glided through.

      Hadleigh gave him a poisonous look over one shoulder, then walked straight past the please-wait-to-be-seated sign with her shoulders back and her head held high.

      As Tripp had hoped, there were only a few waitresses and carhops on the scene, along with the fry cook and some guy plunked on a stool at the far end of the counter with a cup of coffee and a slice of cherry pie in front of him.

      Tripp’s stomach rumbled.

      Hadleigh, meanwhile, proceeded majestically toward the nearest booth and slid onto the vinyl seat, making a comical effort to contain her surging skirts and whatever was underneath them as she did so. Her face was pale now, a mask of quiet decorum, and Tripp felt yet another pang of sympathy for her. Or was it regret?

      A little of both, probably.

      He took the seat opposite hers.

      A waitress—her name tag read Ginny— sashayed over to their table, wide-eyed. Folks might wear a getup like Hadleigh’s in greasy spoons out in L.A., or down in Vegas, but it just didn’t happen in Mustang Creek, Wyoming.

      Not until today, anyhow.

      “What’ll it be?” the fiftyish woman asked, as calmly as if she served food to women in full bridal regalia every day of the week. “The special’s a meatloaf sandwich, salad on the side, your choice of dressing.”

      Half expecting Hadleigh to announce that she’d been kidnapped and demand that the police be called immediately, Tripp was a touch surprised when, instead, she said decisively, “I’ll have a cheeseburger, medium rare, and a chocolate shake, please. With whipped cream.”

      “I’ll try the special,” Tripp said, somewhat hoarsely, when it was his turn to order up some grub. “Blue cheese dressing on the salad.”

      Ginny—she didn’t look familiar, but then he’d been away from Mustang Creek for a long time—made careful notes on her order pad and hurried away.

      “I haven’t had a milk shake in six weeks,” Hadleigh confided, rather defensively, Tripp thought, as though she’d expected him to criticize her choice. “There’s no room inside this blasted dress for a single extra ounce, even after months of exercising like a crazy woman and living on lettuce leaves and water.”

      Tripp stifled a grin. “I reckon you can afford to take a chance,” he said. She looked fine to him, better than fine, actually, given the way that dress hugged her curves with sinful perfection.

      She made a face at him. “Thanks so much,” she answered, her tone as sour as her expression.

      He chuckled. “Well, now, why not look on the bright side? Since the wedding’s off, you can pig out all you want.” He paused. “Long as you don’t bust a seam before you get home, it’s all good.”

      She narrowed her expressive gold-flecked eyes. Even with her face in need of scrubbing, she was beautiful, in an unformed kind of way.

      “You do realize,” she purred tartly, “that my entire life is completely ruined, and it’s all your fault?”

      “You’re eighteen, Hadleigh,” Tripp reminded her. “Your ‘entire life’ hasn’t actually started yet.”

      “That’s what you think,” she retorted. “Besides, I’m mature for my age.”

      “The hell you are,” Tripp countered.

      “In your opinion, maybe,” she said. “Anyway, in case you’ve forgotten, it’s perfectly legal for a woman to get married at eighteen.” A pause, coupled with a scowl, and even that looked good on her. “And if Gram doesn’t object, why should you?”

      He leaned in a little. “Your grandmother probably does object—she’s just not strong enough to carry you bodily out of the church. And don’t try to tell me she didn’t talk herself blue in the face trying to convince you to wait awhile before you got hitched, sweetie pie, because I know Alice Stevens too well to believe that for a nanosecond. You were too hardheaded to listen to her, that’s all.”

      Hadleigh blushed again, averting her eyes—obviously, Alice had disapproved of the match—then sliced her gaze straight back to Tripp’s face, sharp enough to draw blood. “Was it Gram? I mean, did she ask you to come back here and...and do what you did?”

      “No,” he said. “I follow the local news online. That’s how I found out you were getting married. Your grandmother had nothing to do with it.”

      Hadleigh ruminated for a few minutes, then colored again and said accusingly, “You never liked Oakley. Neither did