12. Not Amused
Chapter 12
Not Amused
After Reece filled Neve in on Elvin and Alma’s sudden departure, he stood stock-still and stared at her with that infuriatingly bland expression of his. Like he was waiting for her head to explode so he could pick up the pieces. The whole time, calculations seemed to stream behind his moss-green eyes.
She was racing through a reckoning of her own, trying to figure out how two logical, mature adults let themselves get here and how soon they could untangle this quicksand they had run into willingly. Drunk on their asses, maybe, but with eyes wide open nevertheless.
“Doesn’t appear we’re going to be able to resolve this today,” he ventured. “But I think there’s a more urgent question here that we need answered.” She gave him an encouraging nod, and he rushed ahead. “Are we officially married?”
“I’m pretty sure we are. I mean, didn’t you see the video? And there’s the license. We did this, Reece! I don’t know what possessed us, but that’s irrelevant at the moment. It’s done. And we need to figure out how to un do it.”
He held up his hands. “Why don’t I make a call to the clerk’s office and find out what the rules are?”
Neve threw out a frustrated hand. She needed to do something to dispel the tension crackling in her bloodstream. “It’s Thanksgiving. They’re closed!”
His hands went to his squared-off hips. “You’re right. I guess that means I won’t be able to get hold of an attorney today either. Wait a sec.” His eyes lit up. “How did we get a license last night if we didn’t go to the county courthouse first? Maybe it’s not legit.”
Her shoulders drooped. “Great thought, but I just remembered something Elvin said when Charlie asked him the same thing. He talked about commercial chapels in Nevada having the right to issue licenses.”
“I take it their chapel is considered commercial.”
“Yep.” Strange how Neve couldn’t remember saying “I do” or that passion-packed kiss, but she could remember Charlie and Elvin discussing state laws around licenses.
Good Lord! Was she blocking out the entire episode?
Reece whipped out his phone. “I’m looking up the chapel right now.” He scrolled, and she held her breath. His shoulders sagged. “They include a license processing service with their wedding packages. Sounds like that license is the real deal after all.” Reece’s voice had been emotionless, a flat monotone, but now it climbed a little higher, grew a little louder as his level of panic seemed to rise.
Neve had been leaning on his calm demeanor to keep her own freak-out-o-meter in check, and she didn’t need him falling off the edge of rational right now. If he did, they would go over the precipice, and there would be nothing soft about their landing.
Without thinking, she grabbed hold of his steely biceps. “We need to stay calm. We’ll figure this out. It just might not be today. Are you with me?”
Clouds that had been lingering in his eyes seemed to clear. “That’s my line.”
“What is? ”
“‘Are you with me?’ That’s what I say when someone is verging on hysterical, like the woman who sprained her ankle.”
Neve released her hold. “Then I guess I’m borrowing a page out of your book because you usually do this so well.”
“Usually,” he deadpanned. Without another word, he loped to his room and began packing.
She peeked through the open doorway. “Did you, uh, ever remember what we did to mess up your bed?”
His back was to her, and he paused and looked to one side. “I sort of remember jumping up and down, like when we were kids and we’d try to see who could jump the highest. I used to beat you then, and I’m pretty sure I beat you last night too.”
“Yeah, because you have nearly a foot on me.”
A small smile quirked his lips. “Do you remember that one time? My mom came in and yelled at us. You cried, and she felt so bad she gave us cookies.”
“It figures you’d remember. Cookies were involved.”
He wheeled toward her. “Are you saying I’m cookie-motivated?”
“You were back then, that’s for sure.”
With a chuckle, he turned back to his task. Crossing her arms, she leaned against the doorframe and watched him, like she’d done countless times before. She knew so much about this man, yet so very little.
A looming suspicion told her she would soon know him in ways she never would have dreamed.
The flight home was short and uneventful. Of the six of them, she was the only one who stayed awake, her mind churning through next steps and creating list after list. She dreaded two eventualities the most: one, facing Leo and telling him what she had done; two, facing her fellow townies.
She ran through a list of excuses. “We thought it was a great idea at the time,” or, “We got drunk and had no clue what we were doing.” While the latter was the truth, it wasn’t going to put her in the best light. “Trust me with your pets! I’m responsible” would no longer ring true. How would this escapade affect her bottom line? People were judgmental and reacted in unpredictable ways, so she could totally imagine them making the trek to Dr. Bunting’s. Just when it felt as though Neve was climbing out of a hole too.
Damn it! If Leo was her clinic’s benefactor, and she was still convinced he was, he was going to pull that funding right out from under her! Was she a mercenary for letting her mind go there?
And if Leo wasn’t the guy who’d been depositing money into her account, then it was probably an anonymous client who would also withdraw their generosity.
She was hosed. No doubt about it.
“What?” came Reece’s soft voice from beside her. He leaned his arm against hers, as if he was trying to prop her up.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, but your grinding brain woke me up.” His gorgeous mouth twitched with a smile. Why couldn’t she remember that kiss?
His brows rammed together. “Do I have something on my lip?”
His question snapped her out of her dazed state, where she’d been staring at his mouth, her mind wandering down inappropriate paths. “Um, no. Sorry. I was just thinking. I know I have to face the music when I see Leo, but what do we tell everyone else? They’re going to want details. Dixie? Shane? Oh my God, I forgot about your folks!”
“Why do we have to tell them anything?”
“Hello, this is Fall River we’re dealing with. And we have four witnesses who aren’t going to keep it to themselves forever.”
He stretched a muscular arm above his head and yawned. “But we asked them to. They’ll keep it quiet.”
“Not forever. They think we’re deliriously happy with this whole charade.”
“Then we set them straight and let them know we made a mistake, that we’re deliriously un happy, and that we’d appreciate them keeping our unplanned trek into married life to themselves until we can sort it out. In the meantime, we go back to the separate lives we were leading before this trip, with none the wiser. Easy-peasy.”
Easy-peasy? Who was he trying to fool, besides himself? Her, apparently .
At least one thing ended up going in her favor. When they touched down at Silver Summit’s private airstrip, Leo was nowhere in sight. Thank God for the fire that was probably still taking up all his time! Well, no, not thank God, Neve. Nevertheless, she was thankful he was too busy to meet her.
After a round of hugs, everyone split up and clambered into their vehicles. When she’d driven Reece and herself to the airstrip yesterday, they had chatted easily about stuff she couldn’t even remember, and she hadn’t felt the least bit of discomfort. Now her mind was full of bristly, poky things, and she didn’t want to face the half-hour drive home with him in the seat beside her.
She could do this, she told herself. She could suck it up until she reached the Miners Tavern, where she would leave him at the back door and finally have time alone with her reeling thoughts.
He walked around to the driver’s side—to open the door for her, or so she thought—and opened his palm. “I’ll drive.”
Who the hell did he think he was? “Oh, I don’t think so,” she bit out.
His brows pulled down. “You didn’t get any sleep on the plane, so if you want to catch a nap …” His eyes fixed on hers expectantly.
She glared back. “What, you think I can’t handle the drive back to town?”
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Tell you what. Let’s throw down for it.”
“What do you mean, ‘throw down’?”
A devilish gleam lit his mossy-green eyes. “Rock, paper, scissors. You know, like when we were kids.”
“No way,” she scoffed. “I may as well mail it in if it comes to that. Besides, it’s my car.”
“We’ll do best out of three,” he insisted. “Then you have a more than even chance of winning.”
She knew better than to take the bait, just as she knew not to get into a rock, paper, scissors duel with him—especially when she was already in control of the keys—but the distressed girl inside her was pissed off and ornery enough to rise to the challenge. Plus, over the years, she’d figured out they had a pattern, and she wanted another go at him with this newfound knowledge. She always led with a rock, anticipating his scissors, but somehow he always got her with paper or a matching rock. This time she would lead off with a bold move: scissors first. Yeah, she wanted to put it to the test.
“Three out of five, and I get to count down.”
“Deal.” He held up his fist.
“And your eyes stay on mine.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes.
His gaze locked on to hers. “Got it. Get your fist up where I can see it.” She complied. “Ready? This is throw number one.”
“I’m ready.” She pulled in a silent breath. “One, two, three!” Their hands came down at the same time, hers with the scissors. His with a rock. “Damn it! You cheated!”
His eyes and mouth went round. “How the hell could I cheat? My eyes were on yours the entire way. I even saw you blink when you made your move.”
“Okay,” she grumbled. “Lucky guess. Let’s go again.” They got ready, and she counted down once more. She led with scissors again—just to throw him off—and somehow he came up with the same damn rock!
“How do you do that?”
“Do what? Read your mind?”
“How do you know what I’m going to throw down just in time to change yours?”
“I didn’t change mine! Again, my eyes were on yours.” He made a stabbing motion with his fingers at his eyes. “Admit it. I’ve known you long enough that I know your next move, and I can read your mind better than you can read mine.”
“Bullshit.”
“Because mine is a steel trap, I might add.” Yeah, he just had to go poke the bear, didn’t he? Asshole.
They went again and tied with rocks. She won the following round, beating his scissors with a rock.
“Ha!” she cried in triumph and turned in a circle with happy feet.
He rolled his eyes. “Knock it off. You won the battle, not the war.”
“Not yet!”
Her triumph was short-lived. In the next round, she led once more with the rock—knowing, of course, he’d never guess she’d go with a rock three times in a row—and his hand was flat as a pancake—or a piece of paper.
“Damn it! That’s not fair. ”
“What’s not fair, Doc? I beat you, clean and square. But if you’re going to be all pissy about it, I’ll give you one more shot. Winner takes all.” He leaned back and folded his muscular arms over his carved chest.
“It’s my car!”
“That’s my final offer.”
God, he was infuriating! “You’re on, Mountain Goat.”
He smirked. “Get that fist up.”
“I will. So I can clobber you with it when I win.”
“Does that mean I get to clobber you with mine when I win?”
“Funny man. Ready? One, two, three!” This time, she led with paper. When she realized he showed two extended fingers, she groaned. Then the jerk had the audacity to make a snipping motion with those fingers before throwing his head back and laughing.
“Gotcha!” he crowed.
“I hate you,” she growled.
“You know you don’t. You love me.”
Unfortunately, he spoke the truth—which made her curse him even more.
He nudged her shoulder with one of those stupid scissor fingers. “I was just trying to lighten things up with a little humor for the drive home, Neve. To show what a good sport I am, I’ll let you drive.” His eyebrows bounced up and down.
She refrained from ripping her hair out by the roots—or his.
The ride down to Fall River began in awkward silence, with Reece pinning his gaze to the wintry landscape outside the passenger window while Neve’s temper settled into simmer mode. Dirty ice sheeted the road, and dark pines stretched toward steel-gray clouds that carried a promise of more snow. The world outside the Tahoe was cloaked in ominous afternoon shadows.
Before long, her troublemaker of a passenger was asleep, and Neve pushed out a relieved breath. In a bid to clear her mind, she turned her attention to the only other car on the road. She kept her speed steady at a little under the posted limit, while the vehicle ahead seemed to be putting more distance between them. Probably an impatient local exceeding the sixty-mile-an-hour limit on this deserted stretch of highway, but their choice of vehicle was odd for these parts—a silver Accord or a Camry, she wasn’t sure. She lost sight of the vehicle around a curve, and just as it came back into view, something big and dark streaked out of the woods straight for it. Next came a thumping crack , and the car jerked to the side, spun wildly, and disappeared over an embankment, leaving an obscuring cloud behind.
Oh no, oh no, oh no!