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“Which is where I come in,” Ben drawled, enlightened.
“Right.” Her eyes were dark pools in the flickering light. “I don’t want a husband, but I need one. Temporarily.”
“I guess I can see that. But why me, for God’s sake? We barely know each other. Surely you have better candidates to pick from.”
“No, you’re perfect.”
He gave a snort of laughter. “I must have performed better in Vegas than I remember.”
The quip didn’t raise an answering laugh, and her total lack of response told him she really meant this absurd proposition.
“I’ll admit the sex was pretty good...” she said with a shrug.
“Thanks.”
“Okay, extremely good. But I’m going to be up-front with you. Sex can’t play in any deal we work out. Our marriage has to be in name only. I can’t risk getting emotionally involved. Not with Maria to consider. And you don’t want any entanglements. You made that clear in Vegas.”
Damn! He must’ve come on like a complete jerk. At least he hadn’t lied to her. Still, her blunt assertion that all he’d been interested in was getting her horizontal hit too close to the mark.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he countered drily, “but sex was the only thing we had in common in Vegas. With that off the table, I’m having a little trouble seeing why you think I’m the perfect choice.”
“Because you’re military. That’s a plus in this city. With such a large percentage of the population either working on or associated with the base, Albuquerque is nothing if not pro military. A husband in uniform has got to play in my favor with the judge.”
She hunched sideways, her shoulder wedged against the door and her face dead serious in the dim light.
“As an added bonus, you’re Special Ops. That means you’re gone more than you’re home. Your absence is a built-in excuse if the court orders an unscheduled home visit and finds no husband in residence.”
“Convenient,” he drawled.
“Yes, it is.” She must have sensed she hadn’t convinced him. Her voice took on an urgent note. “I won’t make any demands on you, Kincaid, or tie you down. I promise! And you’ll be helping a little girl who’s lost almost her entire world.”
Still Ben hesitated. The scheme edged too close to fraud in his mind. He was tossing possible legal ramifications around in his mind when she fumbled her phone out of the little purse slung over one shoulder.
“Here.” She opened the phone and jabbed the photo icon. “This is Maria.”
The lit screen displayed a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with an impish smile and a doll cuddled up to her cheek.
“She’s a great kid. And really smart. She downloads a new book from the library every week. And...” She broke off, her voice thickening. “She helps in my business. I use her to model my line of kids’ clothing.”
When she feathered a finger over the sparkly red heart on the girl’s T-shirt, Ben caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away and scrolled to another photo.
“This is my sister, after her loving husband lit into her about the mounting medical bills.”
The face in this photo was older, painfully gaunt, and sporting a vicious black eye.
“That slime is capable of doing the same—or worse—to his daughter,” Alex said, her voice low and vibrating. “Which is why I’ll do whatever I have to, to keep him away from her.”
She clicked the phone off, shoved it in her purse and locked her gaze on Ben’s face. “So will you? Marry me?”
She’d played him. Ben knew it. She’d shown him those pictures, hoping they would kick his protective instincts into high gear. Counting on it!
No matter. The ends in this case appeared to justify the means.
“Yeah, I will.”
She blew out a long breath. “Thank y—”
“On two conditions.”
Her face closed in, turned wary. “Which are?”
“First, if you mention paying me again, the deal’s off. No way I’m going to take money you’ll probably need for the legal battles still ahead.”
She didn’t try to hide her relief. “I can live with that. Second?”
“If we’re going to do this, we have to do it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow! Why?”
“Remember those pluses you just enumerated? Particularly the one about me being gone more than I’m home? My unit’s heading across the pond. We’re going wheels up at o-dark-thirty Monday morning.”
“But tomorrow’s Sunday! The country clerk’s office won’t be open to issue a license.”
“Then I guess we’d better make a quick trip to the scene of the crime.” He had to grin at her blank look. “Vegas, sweetheart. Vegas. I’ll take care of the details. Just give me your address, phone number and email. I’ll let you know what time I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
* * *
Alex exited the Cactus Café’s dusty parking lot and drove home in a swirl of emotions. This was what she wanted. This was the scheme she’d paid her high-priced lawyer to help her devise. It didn’t do a bit of good to remind herself that she’d resisted putting that scheme into play until she’d discovered this year’s Badger Bash would take place at the Cactus Café.
She’d known for months that Major Ben Kincaid was stationed right here, in Albuquerque, at the vast, sprawling military installation dominating the south part of the city. Kirtland Air Force Base was home to a dozen or more military units, including the premier training squadron for Special Ops aircrews and pararescue personnel. It hadn’t taken much sleuthing to confirm he was one of the instructors assigned to the 58th Special Operations Wing.
Alex hadn’t acted on that knowledge, however, as much as she’d wanted to. Her life was complicated enough with her rapidly expanding business, taking care of Maria, and trying to ramrod an adoption through a confusing and complicated legal system.
Then Eddie Musgrove, damn his putrid soul, had appeared in court. In restraints and an orange prison jumpsuit, no less. Despite the fact that he was a deadbeat dad and convicted felon, he’d convinced the doddering, dyspeptic, misogynistic judge that a single working woman wasn’t a suitable parent for his daughter. He’d also convinced the judge that the photo of his wife with that black eye was a result of a misunderstanding. He’d never laid another hand on her, or so much as touched his daughter in anger.
Furious and more than a little desperate, Alex had brainstormed the next course of action with her lawyer. After discussing and discarding several options, she and Paul Montoya had decided on the one—the only one!—that seemed doable.
Then she’d hit the computer. She was searching for a contact number for Major Benjamin Kincaid when she saw a flash about the Badger Bash. It was here this year. At the Cactus Café. Central Avenue. Starting tonight. And sure enough, Kincaid had been there. Her one-time lover and prospective groom.
She still couldn’t quite believe he’d accepted her desperate proposal. Now all she had to do was go home and dig through her closet for something to wear to her wedding.
Chapter Two
“Why can’t I go, too?”
Alex swallowed a sigh and gave Maria the same answer she had the previous four times. “Because this is a quick trip. I’ll be home in time to pick you up at Dinah’s before bedtime.”
“But you promised to take me ’n’ her to the BioPark today.”
“I know, Kitten. We’ll go next weekend. Cross my heart!”
Raising the scrubber she’d used to rinse the breakfast dishes, Alex air-sketched an X on her cream-colored tunic. Swarovski crystals danced along the tunic’s hem and sweetheart neckline. Paired with palazzo pants in the same clingy fabric, it was as close as she’d been able to come to wedding white.
Maria remained as unimpressed by Alex’s sartorial efforts as by her heart crossing. Her lower lip jutting mutinously, the girl took a just-rinsed plate and jammed it into the dishwasher.
“I want to go,” she said again. “I haven’t seen Aunt Chelsea in a long time.”
The “aunt” was an honorary title for Alex’s former Vegas roommate and best friend. The two women had kept in touch since Alex jettisoned her life in Vegas to move to Albuquerque. Laughing, vibrant Chelsea visited whenever she could get away from her job performing in the chorus line at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino’s flashy review.
“Chelsea was here last month,” Alex reminded Maria. “This trip will just be me and Major Kincaid.”
“I don’t like him.”
“How do you know? You haven’t met him yet.”
“But you’re gonna marry him!”
“Yes, I am.”
Alex had spent long hours last night trying to decide what to tell Maria about Ben Kincaid. After much agonizing, she’d decided to stick as close to the truth as possible.
As she’d explained over breakfast this morning, she and the major had met two years ago and had a wonderful time together before going their separate ways. Still clinging to the truth, she related that she’d lost touch with him until she saw a notice of his old squadron’s reunion on Facebook. On a whim, she’d gone to meet him last night, and they realized they were in love and decided to get married.
Maria hadn’t bought it. Still wasn’t buying it. Cutting off the tap, Alex wiped her hands on a dish towel and sagged the girl’s hands in hers.
“I told him all about you, Kitten. How you love to read. How you aced your spelling test last week. How you help me with my designs. Ben can’t wait to meet you.”
With a pout that had her lower lip jutting out ominously, Maria jerked her hands loose and crossed her arms over her thin chest. “He can wait all he wants. I don’t want to meet him.”
Alex bit back another sigh. Every website she’d pored through about seven-year-olds warned that this was a touchy transition period. They weren’t yet adolescents, but they no longer needed constant supervision. Yet they still hovered between that budding independence and clinging to their trusted anchors. For Maria, that anchor was Alex.
Unfortunately, Alex couldn’t risk explaining the real reason for her quickie Vegas wedding. The marriage had to look real. Feel real. Even to Maria.
Especially to Maria. Alex didn’t doubt for a minute that the girl’s scumbag dad would try to use her fake marriage to undermine Maria’s tentative sense of security.
“You’ll like Ben, Kitten. You will. He’s...”
Sexy as hell? Beyond amazing between the sheets? Desperate, Alex glommed on to one of the few nonbedroom activities she and Ben had shared during their brief weekend together.
“He’s a pizza freak. Just like you.”
“Does he like the pineapple, green olives and barbecue chicken combo?”
“I don’t know. But I bet he will if you get him to try it.”
Maria’s lower lip did its thing again. Elbows tight, black eyes stormy, the girl was a fifty-two-pound bundle of not happy.
As ferocious as it was, the scowl sent a wave of hot, liquid emotion pulsing through Alex. God, she loved this stubborn little person! Surprising, really, since Maria seemed to exasperate her as often as she melted every corner of her heart. Where had this confusing, conflicting, swamping love come from? Not through any blood ties, certainly. And not just because of her promise to her dying sister.
Janet’s death had left Alex riddled with guilt. It was several months before she could admit the truth. She’d loved her sister but hadn’t really liked her.
Janet was two years older and their father’s acknowledged favorite. Secure in that superior position, she’d ignored her younger sibling for most of their childhood. That changed in middle school, thanks to Alex’s swan-like emergence from gawky prepubescence to curvy preteen. Suddenly, the little sister got all the attention, and the gap between the two had widened even more.
After high school, the Scott sisters had followed separate paths. For Janet, it was a stint as a backup singer with a band no one outside of the musicians themselves and a few of their close friends had ever heard of. She’d capped that with marriage to the drug-addicted bass guitarist, whose lack of talent was matched only by his absence of anything approaching a sense of responsibility to Janet and the child he’d fathered with his long-absent girlfriend.
Meanwhile Alex had parlayed a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design and Merchandising into an apprenticeship with one of Las Vegas’s premier costumers. It didn’t matter that most of the costumes she worked on consisted of rhinestone-studded G-strings and star-shaped pasties. She’d loved the vibrant, tawdry, behind-the-scenes action of casino showrooms. The fact that her roommate was a chorus girl in the Flamingo’s glitzy troupe had only added to the fun.
Then, just a little over a year ago, Janet had called with the devastating news that she’d been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. She’d also admitted that her scuz of a husband had deserted her and her stepdaughter. In what seemed like a heartbeat, Alex’s life had veered in a different direction.
She’d never intended to assume guardianship of Maria after her sister’s slow, agonizing death. That was a father’s responsibility, after all. But by then Eddie Musgrove was in prison and there was no one else to take charge of his daughter.
Now Maria’s life was taking another unexpected turn. One Alex knew the girl couldn’t help but view as a threat to her shaky security. Aching for her, she tried again to soften the blow.
“Ben won’t be around much, sweetie. Like I told you, he’s in the air force and has to go where they send him. That’s why we’re getting married on such short notice. He’s leaving early tomorrow morning. So you’ll have to wait a few months before you even meet him.”
By which time, God willing, the adoption would be finalized and Alex would be planning a divorce as quick and painless as the wedding.
“Is your backpack ready?” she asked Maria. “Dinah and her mom will be here to pick you up any...” The tinkle of the door chimes cut her off. “That’s probably them now. Go get your backpack, Kitten.”
The door chime rang again and Alex hurried down the tiled hall of their rented casita. The two-bedroom adobe unit was part of a new complex just a few blocks from Albuquerque’s picturesque Old Town Plaza. The prime location meant a higher rent than Alex wanted to pay, but the complex was within walking distance of Maria’s school and close to a warehouse where Alex rented operating space for her business.
She opened the door expecting Maria’s cheerful, chubby, freckle-faced friend and her mom. Instead, she found her groom standing under the portico of woven piñon branches. Flustered, Alex ran a quick eye over his dark slacks and crisply ironed blue oxford shirt to the carryall he toted in one hand.
“Are you early or am I late?” she asked.
“I’m early, but I thought I’d better bring a few things over while I could.”
“What things?”
He hefted the leather carryall. “You might want to have some evidence of a husband around the house. For those unannounced home visits.”
“Oh,” she said stupidly. “Right.”
She stood aside so he could move out of the blinding morning sunlight into the shady cool of the entryway. Although her small bungalow looked like a square adobe box on the outside, Alex had unleashed her creative juices on the inside.
“Nice,” Ben commented as he ran an appreciative eye over the sand-colored floor tile, the ochre walls and the antique wooden hall stand painted a bright turquoise. Alex had added a hand-painted border of colorful cactus blossoms around the mirror and replaced its plain brass hooks with whimsical coyotes wearing a variety of cowboy hats and sombreros. Maria’s book bag hung from one howling coyote, Alex’s purse and car keys from another.
She’d continued the Southwestern motif in the living room framed by a wide arch and visible from the entry hall. The hues were muted desert tans and golds splashed with jeweled accents in mauve and turquoise and sunset orange. The combination kitchen-dining room was just as colorful. Ben murmured his appreciation of the decor as Alex led the way down the hall to her bedroom.
“I have no idea how long this deployment will last,” he told her. “But I’m up for reassignment when I get back, so I moved out of my apartment a few days ago and put my stuff in storage. All I have here are a couple changes of clothes, some underwear, a pair of sweats and—”
“Is that him?”
The belligerent question flew at them from the doorway of Maria’s bedroom. They turned to find her standing with feet planted and arms crossed.
“Yes,” Alex answered with a determined smile, “this is Major Kincaid. Ben, this is my niece and soon-to-be daughter, Maria.”
The “niece” was honorific since she and Maria shared no actual blood tie, but they both hoped to eliminate the “soon-to-be.”
“Hi, Maria. Alex said you were smart and a whiz at spelling. She forgot to mention how pretty you are.”
The ploy was only partially successful. The arms remained crossed but the lower lip retreated a little.
“I’m sorry we won’t be able to spend any time together before I leave tomorrow,” he told her, unknowingly echoing Alex’s attempt to soften the impact of a stranger dropped suddenly into her life. “Maybe we could get to know each other a little by email. I’ll send you pictures of my crew and the places we fly into and you can tell me about school and your friends. Would that be okay?”
“I guess,” the girl said sulkily. “Except Alex only lets me on the computer when she can watch what sites I go to.”
“That makes sense. There’s some real scary stuff on the internet.” He unzipped his carryall and fished out a tablet encased in hot pink. “That’s why the iPad I brought you comes with strict parental controls. If it’s okay with Alex, you could use this to keep me posted about what’s happening here.”
The sulk disappeared, and the girl’s eyes went wide with excitement. “Oh, wow! My very own iPad! I’ve been wanting one.” In almost the next heartbeat, she zinged from excited to dejected. “But Alex says I have to wait for my birthday to get one.”
“When’s that?”
“September 9.”
“Hmm.” He scraped a palm across his chin and pondered the dilemma for a few moments. “How about we consider it a wedding present instead? From me to you. That okay with you, Alex?”
She could have kissed him. In one smooth move he’d eased a little of Maria’s uncertainties and given her the expensive gift she’d been angling for ever since her friend Dinah got one last Christmas.
“It’s okay with me.” She turned a warning glance on her ward. “But only after I put on a code restricting access to the app store.”
“I already engaged it,” Ben assured her. “I’ll give you the passcode later. She’s good to go.”
“Can I play with it now? Please, Alex. Please!”
“I guess. Do you want Ben to show you how to work it?”
The seven-year-old gave her a look of utter disdain. “Dinah and I play on hers all the time.”
“Okay, if you’re sure you know what you’re doing.”
“Aleeeeex.”
With that parting shot, she whirled, took her prize to her bed and belly flopped onto her Princess Elsa comforter.
“Pretty slick,” Alex murmured as she escorted Ben to the master bedroom. “But how in the world did you find time to buy an iPad and download those applications?”
“I hit a twenty-four-hour Walmart. Then I had Swish and Dingo test fly the apps while I set us up for Vegas. They congratulated me on our upcoming nuptials, by the way, and sent you their heartfelt condolences.”
“Did you tell them our arrangement is only temporary?”
“No. Did you tell Maria?”
“No.” At his questioning look, she shrugged. “I said we’d reconnected last night after two years and rekindled a hot romance.”
“Close enough.” The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “We did reconnect and the romance was pretty hot.”
Dammit! That lopsided grin should come with a warning label.
“Give me a sec,” she said, pulling herself together, “and I’ll empty a drawer for you.”
His neatly folded underwear didn’t take up even a fourth of the drawer. Similarly folded socks, gym shorts and sweats barely filled the rest of the empty space. He arranged the three shirts he’d brought over knife-pressed slacks and squeezed the hangers into her jam-packed closet. His one pair of sneakers and one pair of boots looked lost amid her racks of slings and mules and wedges and jeweled flip-flops.
She caught him eyeing the colorful array and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I can’t help it. Shoes are my comfort food.”
“Whatever works. I’m into Game of Thrones myself.”
“The HBO show?”
“The books. But I’ll admit I’ve watched the video of Cersei walking naked through the streets of King’s Landing more than once.”
“I don’t know,” she mused. “I kind of liked Daenerys Targaryen’s hunky husband.”
“How come I didn’t discover that you’re a Game of Thrones devotee during our weekend together? Wait. Scratch that. We were pretty much otherwise occupied, weren’t we?”
“Pretty much,” she agreed with a flutter just under her ribs.
She’d have to think about that jittery sensation. Later. After they got back from Vegas and Ben was on his way to wherever.
Right now she had all she could handle with her prospective groom propping a baseball bat in the corner of her bedroom and hooking a ball cap emblazoned with 2014 Badger Bash on a corner of her dresser mirror.
“A little extra touch,” he explained. “In case you have to spin the tale of where we met.”
“Good thinking.” She eyed the almost empty carryall. “What else is in there?”
“Just a few challenge coins.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a challenge coin?”
“A sort of unit patch. Every squadron or wing has its own. Then we trade with other units. Like baseball cards from the ’50s.” He rooted around in the bag and produced a handful of disks decorated with various designs. “You have to carry a coin on you at all times or you might get stuck buying a round of drinks for the house if challenged.”
When she moved in for a closer look, he shuffled a coin out of the small pile. The enameled surface showed a four-engine aircraft painted a dull gray. “This is my bird, the MC-130J Commando II.”
Another featured a fierce-looking eagle on a field of blue with an olive branch clutched in one claw and thunder bolts in the other. The lettering around the seal widened Alex’s eyes. “Is this from the president?”
“Yeah, we hauled POTUS for a couple classified missions.”
Impressed, she fingered a colorful coin displaying an orange-and-blue-striped lizard surrounded by lettering in an unfamiliar script.
“Where’s this one from?”
“A little island off the west coast of Africa nobody’s ever heard of.” Wry amusement flickered across his face. “That was one of the hairiest approaches I ever made. A short, unimproved dirt airstrip that ended in a fifteen-hundred-foot drop to the ocean. I’d just as soon not fly in there again anytime soon, even if the locals did brew up one helluva brand of fermented guava juice.”
And Alex thought her brief stint as a Vegas costume designer had been exciting! She’d rubbed elbows with a few stars, none of them A-listers but still glamorous in their own way. She’d never hauled a president around, though, or landed on a remote African island.
But suddenly, inexplicably, she couldn’t wait to get back to Sin City. She’d only be there a few hours. Just long enough for them to pick up a license and say “I do.” Yet for those few hours in that fairy-tale land of fake pyramids and Italian castles, she could be her old self again.
Impatiently, she checked her watch. Their flight would depart in a little over two hours. Plenty of time at an airport that didn’t see anything even remotely resembling the crowds at LAX or JFK. Still, they needed to be sure to make both the outbound and the return flight later this evening so Ben could report for his deployment processing early tomorrow morning.