One Hot Cowboy Wedding (2 page)

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to a personal shower for a friend, but they’d changed their minds, decided to have the shower at a honky tonk, and everyone wore jeans. It had hung in her closet until that morning when she went looking for something to wear to her wedding.

Ace tucked her arm into his again. “Love the hat thing,” he said.

“Spur of the moment. Pearl was going to use it for her wedding and Tess pitched a fit, so she told me to do something with it. It’s my something borrowed,” she said.

“What’s blue?”

She hooked a finger under her skirt tail, raised it a notch, and showed him a blue garter.

“Old?”

“Bra and underpants.” She giggled.

“New, the dress?” Ace asked.

“Yes, it is. Never worn so it’s still new,” she said.

“Then we’ve got it covered.” He slung an arm around her shoulder. It wasn’t the first time Ace had hugged her or even walked across the café floor with his arm around her, so why did steamy little hot tingles dance up and down her spine?

The door opened at the exact time they stepped through the archway onto the porch, and a smiling woman motioned them inside. “You’d be Ace and Jasmine. You are right on time. I’m Harriett and I’ll be acting as your wedding planner tonight. My, don’t you both look beautiful.”

Ace cleared his throat.

Harriett laughed. “Handsome, then. Does that work better for you, cowboy?”

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“Yes, ma’am, it surely does.”

She picked up a nosegay of red roses with streaming satin ribbons that matched the roses perfectly. “Hold them at waist level and loop your arm though his. It makes for prettier pictures and gives me time to get to the front of the chapel before you start down the aisle so I can get pictures of you walking down the aisle.” Jasmine nodded. Harriett didn’t look a thing like Marcella, her mother’s cousin and most sought- after wedding planner in Sherman, Texas, but the authority in her voice sure reminded Jasmine of Marcella.

The lady hurried across the small foyer to swing open double doors into a tiny chapel with twenty white folding chairs on each side of the short center aisle. The traditional wedding march started playing softly from speakers attached to the pulpit at the front the moment the doors opened.

Jasmine wondered if they were on a timer— kind of like a clock wired up to a bomb. If so, what detonated the bomb? The words “I do”?

The preacher motioned them forward. Harriet rushed down the aisle in front of them, turned around, and started snapping pictures. Cole wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if he contested the marriage with all the pictures the woman took between the back of the chapel and the pulpit.

Jasmine was amazed to see that the chapel was completely full of people but figured they must be waiting for the next wedding, the one with the bride and groom waiting in the white limo out front. She wondered if they were movie stars or celebrities who had snuck off from Hollywood for a quickie marriage, and if the people OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 8

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were paparazzi from every ragtag gossip paper in the whole country.

They barely made it to the front when the preacher intoned in a loud voice, “We are gathered here this day to unite”— he looked down at the marriage license on the pulpit— “Jasmine King and Ace Riley in holy matri-mony… Hand your flowers to Harriett,” he whispered.

Jasmine looked around to find Harriett reaching for the flowers. She laid the bouquet on an empty chair and went back to taking pictures.

“They’ll send them to my computer via email. Be there when we get home. I wasn’t expecting so many, though,” Ace whispered.

The preacher went on, “Now, Ace, take her hands in yours and face each other.”

When they were facing each other the preacher smiled and a flash went off behind Jasmine. These people really took the business of quickie marriages seriously.

“In this time- honored tradition of a wedding ceremony, Jasmine and Ace have come before me to repeat their vows to each other and to exchange rings. If there is anyone who has a reason they shouldn’t be married, please step forward now and state your cause or forever hold your peace.”

He paused for a minute, wiped his sweaty face with a white handkerchief pulled from behind the oak pulpit, and used both hands to slick back his thick black hair.

The smile never left his face, and Jasmine heard several clicks behind her. Surely, those crazy people didn’t think she and Ace were the celebrities. Granted, she’d been asked before if she was kin to Dr. Cuddy on
House
.

Maybe she should stop the wedding and tell them that OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 9

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the real celebrities were hiding in the limo outside, and they were wasting their batteries on a cowboy and a café owner from Ringgold, Texas, population less than a hundred.

“No one to protest?” the preacher asked again.

Jasmine bit back a giggle. Her four best friends, Liz, Pearl, Austin, and Gemma, would be stampeding through the chapel like a herd of longhorn heifers if they had any inkling what was going on that minute.

But they didn’t and wouldn’t ever. Maybe someday when they were all sharing a room in a nursing home she’d tell them about the year she was married to Ace Riley. The vision that popped into her head was five old ladies sitting around a domino table. Pearl was the one with lightly frosted, red kinky hair and shooting daggers at the old man winking at them; Austin and Gemma would have gray streaks in their dark hair, but Liz, gypsy that she was, wouldn’t have changed all that much.

“Yes, well, apparently no one wants to object so we will continue,” the preacher said. His smile was plastered on as if he expected it to get him through the pearly gates of heaven that very night, and the cameras all over the chapel kept up a steady clicking noise.

Jasmine was giddy with nerves over repeating vows right there before a certified preacher, and even God, that she had absolutely no intentions of keeping. Why didn’t he tel those people behind her that they were photographing the wrong wedding and why was he smiling like he’d just won the lottery?

She wasn’t the only one with a case of jitters. Ace was rubbing her palm with his thumb because he couldn’t OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 10

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be stil . She wished he’d stop because it was shooting so much sexual energy through her body that she could have jumped him right there in front of the pulpit before the vows were said. The white dress and veil didn’t make her a real bride, but evidently her hormones thought it did. Maybe all brides felt like that when they were about to say vows before a grinning preacher and in front of a bunch of crazy people with cameras.

“Okay, Jasmine, repeat after me,” the preacher intoned.

Jasmine repeated with a heavy dose of guilt.

The preacher turned to Ace. “Repeat after me.” Ace repeated without a single bit of guilt.

“Rings?”

Ace dug in his pocket and brought out a set of match-ing plain gold bands he’d picked up at the Wal- Mart jewelry counter on his way to the airport. He handed them to the preacher who blessed them and told everyone in the chapel their meaning before he handed the smaller one to Ace.

“Repeat after me as you put this on her finger. With this ring…”

“With this ring…” Ace said.

Jasmine kept expecting lightning to zip down through the cathedral ceiling, shatter the crystal chandelier, and fry poor old Ace deader’n a roadkill skunk for vowing things he had no intention of doing.

The preacher handed her the larger gold band.

“Jasmine, you repeat after me as you put this ring on Ace’s third finger.”

“With this ring…” She slipped the ring on his finger.

Her chest constricted like a two- hundred- pound sack of potatoes had been slammed against it. Maybe God OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 11

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and all the angels had long since given up on Las Vegas and let Lucifer have it.

“And now I pronounce you husband and wife. Mr.

and Mrs. Ace Riley. Go forth and be happy! But first, Ace, you may kiss your bride.”

Jasmine looked up and he looked down into her aqua- colored eyes. She hadn’t planned on this part. The preacher would say they were husband and wife and that would be that. But from the look in Ace’s sexy eyes, he was going to seal the deal with a real kiss.

She shut her eyes and moistened her lips. Lights started flashing and wedding music began playing, this time louder than before and with lots more jazz. Lord, a kiss had never affected her like that before.

Holy
shit! That wasn’t supposed to happen!
Jasmine thought.

But when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t just the sparks of a kiss set ing off music and stars. All the people in the church were holding cameras and talking all at once. Someone with a video camera and a microphone on a long stick shoved chairs to one side so they could get closer. Red dots danced in front of Jasmine’s eyes and she wondered if it was the result of flashes and bright lights or if Ace was really that damn good at kissing.

“Hells bells, Ace, does this come with the package too?” she asked.

“I have no idea what this is all about,” he said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Ace Riley from Ringgold, Texas, you are the winners! You are the five thousandth couple to get married in my chapel,” the preacher announced in a booming voice full of excitement. “We’ve been OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 12

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advertising for weeks and you’ve won the prize! Today is mine and Harriett’s twenty- fifth wedding anniversary, so it’s perfect.”

Cameras lit up the whole state of Nevada and suddenly the preacher’s perpetual smile made sense. He wanted to look good for the cameras. He had his arm thrown around Harriet and they were posing for pictures.

He talked out the side of his mouth as the flashes kept going off from different directions. “This service will be credited back to your charge card. The prize includes a limo for the rest of the evening complete with champagne and the honeymoon suite at the Bellagio where dinner will be served in your room. Keep smiling. I’m a lucky man that you are both so photogenic.

Your picture will look beautiful in my foyer and in the morning papers.”

A reporter shoved a microphone near Jasmine’s face.

“Why did you come to Vegas to get married?” She swallowed hard but nothing came to mind other than
shhh, it’s a secret
.

“It’s so romantic,” she said.

“And we only had the weekend so we wanted to plan a short honeymoon as well as a wedding,” Ace said.

“I hope to hell this never goes any further than a picture in the foyer,” she whispered to Ace.

Someone yel ed from the back of the chapel, “How long have you known each other?”

Ace hugged Jasmine up to his side. “A long time. We were friends first and we fell in love.”

He tipped her hat back, kissed her again for the cameras, and whispered. “Play along. We get the honey moon suite and a limo. And it’s just a local contest thing.” OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 13

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A petite lady in a cute blue suit with a multitude of support cameras asked, “When are you going back to Texas?”

Ace ran a hand through his blond curly hair then settled his Stetson on his head. “We have to fly home tomorrow. So if y’all will let us get on with our honeymoon, we’d be much obliged.”

Jasmine turned around when one of the reporters asked, “Isn’t she the doctor that plays on that television show
House
?”

Another one answered before she could assure them that she was not a movie star, “No, that’s not Cuddy, but she does look like her. Hey, Mrs. Riley, are you any kin to Cuddy on
House
?”

Jasmine shook her head. She couldn’t see a bit of resemblance. It must be the full mouth and the dark, shoulder- length hair. Nothing else looked a bit like the television actress.

“Wel , she’s damn sure got an ass like Cuddy,” another one said.

Jasmine shot him her best drop- dead- go- to- hell- do-not- pass- go look.

“Okay, guys, make an aisle for the bride and groom so they can get on with their honeymoon. Thank you for accepting my invitation to be here for this momentous occasion tonight,” the preacher said.

They separated for the newlyweds but kept shooting picture after picture. So many lights went off when Ace scooped Jasmine up in his arms that she saw big red streaks behind her eyelids. The limo was waiting and the driver opened the door when he saw them coming out the door.

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“Who is that?” a lady in a long white dress asked the man in a tuxedo beside her as they were going into the chapel.

The groom answered, “Must be movie stars or something for that much publicity. I told you we were getting married at the right chapel.”

Ace put Jasmine inside the limo and then crawled in beside her. One reporter stuck his head in the door and held up a small recorder. “Have you ever been in a limo before?”

“Limo? Honey, this is a limo! I’ll be damned. I thought it was that Pallatio suite that preacher man was talkin’ about,” Jasmine said in her best Texas redneck drawl. “I’ll be damned, Ace. This is just the car. Wonder what that other place is?”

Ace guffawed. “I think it’s Bel - a- gio, darlin’, not Pal- la- tio. It’s a fancy hotel.”

“Well, how about that? Are you going with us?” she asked the reporter.

When he started to get inside the limo, the driver quickly shut the door.

“Damn, Jazzy, you are a hoot!”

“Hoot nothing. This is a holy mess we’ve gotten our-selves into, Ace! Now what? Does the paparazzi follow us all the way to the hotel? Or do they come right into the honeymoon suite and take pictures of us in our jammies? Dammit! All I brought was boxer shorts and a tank top. If I’d known I got to be a star I’d have bought a black lacy teddy,” Jasmine said.