Accidentally Kidnapping the Cowboy (Accidentally Kidnapping)

12. Zane

CHAPTER 12

ZANE

We do the best we can, but we look rumpled, flushed, and very fucking happy when we tumble out of an ancient taxi in front of the Sheriff’s office ten minutes before we’re due in front of the judge.

“Daisy, these are my brothers,” I say with bold confidence—the only strategy to get one through a situation like this. “Trick, Noah, Drew… this is my bride. Daisy Marie Vincent.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she squeaks, her gaze not quite meeting their eyes.

They take a long look at me, then another at her, and finally exchange a wordless communication before grinning in unison.

“Welcome to the family,” Trick says.

“We’ll kick his ass if he doesn’t treat you right,” Drew growls.

Noah smiles. “I think he’d kick his own ass.”

That’s the fucking truth.

Daisy tucks in behind my arm and hugs me tight. “I know he’ll be a good husband,” she says, and maybe it’s so quiet that only I can hear it, but that’s okay.

She’ll find her voice with them once we’re on the ranch.

A car pulls up and our lawyer steps out.

“Good morning,” she says brightly. Her gaze slides briskly over our outfits. “The clothes look good.”

Noah coughs and Drew barely manages to muffle a laugh. Trick thumps them both, then points them at the door. “Inside,” he says gruffly. “I want to get back to my wife.”

As they lead the way in, I ask the lawyer for our marriage license and the other items I’d tasked her with buying for me.

We announce ourselves at the counter, and our voices must carry because from the cell in the back, we hear Daisy’s mother screech a protest.

“Who’s that?” Trick asks.

Daisy’s cheeks turn pink. “My exhausting family.”

He grunts. “Don’t sound like family to me.”

I wrap my arm around her. “They aren’t anymore. We’re your family now.”

The deputy who showed up two hours ago and arrested them gives us a friendly greeting, the fact he arrested us just yesterday apparently forgotten. “Howdy, folks. Here to see the judge?”

“Yes, we are,” Daisy says, her voice louder now than before.

On this point, she’s very confident, as she should be. Her plan has worked out better than she even hoped it would.

He gestures for her to follow him, and I stay close, with my brothers right behind me, and the lawyer completing the train.

Luckily, he takes us away from the cell, to a small hearing room.

A stern-looking judge is behind a raised desk, and he gives us a fierce look.

“This is the truck theft case?” he asks his clerk.

“Yes, sir.”

“Hmm.” He looks at us, then at the folder in front of him.

This guy is a diehard romantic?

I’m glad we have a good lawyer as a backup.

I can feel Trick staring at me, thinking the same thing.

“Young lady, step forward.”

Daisy doesn’t hesitate. She approaches the bench. “Yes, Your Honor?”

She’s so beautiful. Back straight, head held high. Through the thin layers of her sundress, I can see the faint outline of a clean pair of white panties that I helped her step into right before we left that seedy motel room where I made her my wife in spirit and in my soul.

Right now, my seed is soaking those panties. If this hearing takes too long, it’ll start to spill down her pretty thighs.

My cock twitches, ready to breed her for the third time this morning.

Daisy, though, is all business.

She hands over the keys to the truck she borrowed. “I know it was wrong to take the truck without asking,” she says. “But I was scared of what I might face in the morning. They thought I’d made eyes at their ranch hand, sir, and I didn’t, I swear.”

I grunt and take a step forward, because I didn’t know that part of it, and I’m furious all over again at her so-called parents.

But Daisy just gives me a soft smile and continues talking. “I’ve never been tempted by a cowboy, not until…”

When she trails off, the judge leans forward, his gaze softening. “Until what, young lady?”

“Until I stopped driving, just long enough to figure out where the heck I was, and the most handsome man I’d ever seen stumbled out of a road house and landed splat on the hood of the truck.”

“You don’t say.” The judge relaxes and waves his hand. “And then what happened?”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Fuck.

Good, maybe the old man is a romantic after all.

She explains the entire story, all of it, leaving out only the dirtiest parts, and glossing over some other points to make them more court-appropriate.

But she doesn’t leave out any part of our unexpected chemistry. She tells him how she tried to wake me up repeatedly when we got to the motel. How she finally took getting the license into her own hands because time was running out.

How I held her when she was scared in the jail cell.

How I stood up for her.

And through all of it, she doesn't have to lie.

When he asks her to go back to the roadhouse, and the choice she made then to cross state lines, she doesn’t hesitate before saying that it was an easy decision to make in that moment to save my life. Even knowing it would get her into more trouble, and then hoping that she could ask him for leniency if she managed to get us to jackpot and secure a marriage license. He listened to her until she finished with this morning, and how we told each other that we love each other, and how poignant it was, given everything that had happened.

Finally, the judge looks at me. “Son, you don't need to be a part of this, even if her heart was in the right place.”

I interrupt him.

It's probably bad for him to interrupt a judge, but I don't care.

“Your Honor, I love this woman. I cannot imagine the rest of my life without her. Yes, I've only known her for two days, but in that time, she has taught me so much about just believing in the goodness of other people, and I hope that I have, in turn, shown her the righteousness of defending our own. Because her family was never kind to her. They abused her and took advantage of her, and I will never do that. I will build a loving family with her. Hell, I’ve already got our kids’ names picked out!”

“You do?” Daisy blinks at me in surprise.

“Of course I do,” I mutter. “I was dreaming of them while you were kidnapping me, angel.”

“Oh, Zane.” She wipes her eyes. “But don’t say hell in front of the judge.”

I scuff my toe and nod. “Sorry, Your Honor. So if that’s not clear enough, let me say this: I don't need to be relieved of my commitment here. Nothing would make me happier than if you today, right now, could make me Daisy's husband legally, as I already am in my heart.”

He glances past us to my brothers, and then to his clerk, and then to the sheriff's deputy who arrested us only yesterday. “Is there anyone here who would object if I performed this marriage service?”

No one says a word, which is good, because I would hate to have to wrestle one of my brothers to the ground if they did.

The judge rises from the bench and comes around to stand with Daisy and I.

“Do you have the license on you?”

“Yes, sir.” I hand it over, and he passes it to his clerk.

“Do you have rings?”

“No, Your Honor,” Daisy says.

But she’s wrong. “Actually, we do.” I clear my throat and pull them from my pocket. They’re just simple gold bands, the best the lawyer could find me overnight, but that’s all we need. “No promises they fit.”

“Zane, they’re…” Her eyes go big. “I love them.”

“You deserve diamonds, Daisy.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want that. I only want you.”

“Well, then.” The judge wipes a tear from his eye. “I can’t think of a better way to start a wedding ceremony than that. Folks, we’re gathered here today because Fate decided to intervene on an otherwise ordinary night. Zane Andrew Lowry and Daisy Marie Vincent, do you bring yourselves freely to this moment?”

“I do,” Daisy says.

“I do,” I say, and my voice catches.

Daisy finds my gaze and holds it, beaming at me as the judge continues, talking about the commitment of marriage and what it will mean to be spouses for life.

“Do you, Zane, take Daisy to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“Do you, Daisy, take Zane to be your lawfully wedding husband?”

“I do.”

He presses the smaller ring into my hand. “Repeat after me.”

My pulse pounds, but my heart feels like it’s flying as I recite the words. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

Daisy’s little hand holds completely still as I slide the slim band onto her ring finger. Then she squeezes my hand and turns it over, more than ready to seal our vows.

“And this one is for you, young lady.”

“I’m not that young,” she says to him, making him laugh. Then she puts the ring at the tip of my finger and holds it there as she looks up at me. “With this ring, I thee wed,” she whispers, those words just for me. And then she mouths Daddy, and I’m a goner.

I pull her into my arms.

“By the powers vested in me by the State of Nevada, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the— Well, you already are. Congratulations.”

Laughter circles around us, but all I can feel is my wife’s hot little mouth opening for me.

I kiss her until someone clears their throat, and then I set her back on her feet—but I don’t let her go.

I’m never letting her go again.

“Mr. Lowry, you can take your bride home if you’d like. I suggest the next time you come to Jackpot, you do it in a vehicle you own properly. Maybe for a fun anniversary trip.”

“Yes, sir. We sure will.”

“Thank you,” Daisy says. “Thank you so much.”

“Congratulations again. Now get out of my courtroom.”

We return to the motel just long enough to pack up, then it’s a very short drive to a small airport on the edge of town.

“I didn’t even know that towns this small had airports,” Daisy says as she stares at my brother’s sleek white jet, parked near the terminal.

“They sure do.”

I’m going to show her all sorts of interesting things in our life together. They won’t all be as fancy as a private jet, but being able to put that look on her face is pretty damn motivating.

When we get on board, my brothers all rise as one to greet Daisy again, this time as their sister.

She immediately peppers Trick with questions about the flight.

“How long will it take to get to the ranch?”

“An hour and a half in the air, then another half hour on the road.” Trick gives me a grin. “We rescued your truck from the roadhouse, by the way. So you can drive your bride home.”

I’m already looking forward to the privacy.

But as we buckle in for takeoff, I’m also thinking about what we can do once we’re in the air. An hour and a half is plenty long enough to get inside my wife and properly consummate our marriage with her third breeding of the day.