Chapter One
“Mitch, you’re just as dumb as you look. Why, I could find another bride just like that.” Before taking another swig of his long-neck beer, Finn Reilly snapped his fingers to emphasize just how easy the task would be.
Good Lord, hadn’t he already been through enough today by being jilted at the altar? So why was Mitch Mulligan, his biggest contracting competitor and pain in his neck still giving him grief? Maybe if he closed his eyes, the three-hundred-pound genetic throwback to the woolly mammoth would vanish. Just in case, Finn blinked.
Damn, his bad luck hadn’t changed.
“Oh yeah?” Mitch said—and his beer breath—in Finn’s face. “Well, I’m gettin’ sick and tired of you thinkin’ you’re so hot with the women ’round here, Reilly.”
“That’s ’cause you’re jealous.”
“Ha! Jealous of what? The way your pretty little filly practically galloped out of that church to get away from you?”
Finn rolled his beer bottle across his throbbing forehead. Why did everyone keep bringing up the speed with which Vivian had left the church? While she’d vroomed into the sunset with that leather-wearing, motorcycle-riding bandit she met at the Department of Motor Vehicles, Finn had stood abandoned at the altar. Now honestly, did it seem as if he’d been at fault for their troubles?
Why couldn’t everyone at Lu’s Bar remember he was the injured party?
“Well, Reilly?” Mitch said. “What’ve you got to say for yourself?”
“Look, Mulligan.” Matt Marshall, Finn’s best friend since junior high, hollered above the dart-throwing, off duty firemen. “Give the guy a break. Can’t you see he’s in pain?”
“Pain? Pain?” Mitch laughed so hard he spouted beer all over the bar. “Oh, now that’s ripe. I always knew you were the prissy type, Reilly, but Matt here just gave me proof.”
“Can it,” Matt said. “My bud, Reilly, is no more prissy than your mother.”
“What’d you say about my mother?” Despite his size, Mitch scrambled to his feet in two-point-five seconds. “Nobody insults my mother without—”
A loud whistle came from behind the bar.
Finn winced.
Crazy Lu and her settle-down-boys banshee blast were landmarks in the small town of Greenleaf, Utah. She’d owned the burger and beer joint for as long as anyone could remember and while she put up with a lot of things, fights weren’t one of them. “Mitch Mulligan, either take it outside or take it up with me.” White-haired Lu couldn’t have topped five feet wearing heels and a tiara, but the row of ornery guys standing at the bar backed down as if their own mothers had issued the command.
Everyone, that is, except for the woolly mammoth. “Oh now, Lu, don’t go gettin’ your panties in a wad.”
“How do you even know I wear panties, Mitch? I agree with Matt. Just this once, give Reilly a break. Here,” she shoved a paper plate heaped with orange-rose-laden wedding cake across the bar. “Put some food in your belly. It’ll make you feel better. You prob’ly got gas from all that beer. It’s makin’ you nasty as a three-headed rattler.”
“I don’t want any cake and I’m always this nasty. The only thing I want a piece of is that punk sittin’ over there shaking in his boots.”
“Fine.” She winked Finn’s way. “Then make him a good honest bet. Just don’t mess up his pretty face for the next girl in line for his kisses.”
“Why, thank you, sweetheart.” Finn winked boldly. At least someone loved him, even if it wasn’t the stacked redhead he’d planned to be loving right about now.
“Sure thing, angel.”
Mitch snorted. “Angel, my—”
“Watch it,” Lu warned.
“Ha. All I wanna watch is how much crow Reilly here eats when he loses this bet.” Mitch pulled a wad of cash from the front pocket of his dingy jeans, peeled off ten hundred-dollar bills, then smacked them on the bar. “All right, pretty boy. I’ve got a thousand bucks—my entire payroll—says there’s no way you can find another woman stupid enough to marry you by the end of the week.”
“Mulligan,” Lu warned. “There’s families depending on that pay. Don’t go bettin’ away their suppers.”
With a wave of one of the massive paws he called hands, he brushed her off. “This here’s a sure bet. No one’s gonna lose but ol’ Reilly here. And seein’ how he just got the contract on that fancy new highway motel, he’s got plenty of cash to spare.”
Finn rolled his eyes. Was Mulligan ever going to get over the fact that Finn’s Custom Building consistently got more jobs than AAA Construction?
“Whatsa matter, pretty boy? Too chicken to take me up on a bet you know you’re gonna lose?”
That’s it. Finn slammed his bottle on the bar, then grappled to his feet.
Nobody called him prissy, pretty boy and chicken all on the same night—especially not when his own aunt had called him a poor, sweet thing just that afternoon. “By God, Mulligan, I’ll not only take you up on that bet—” he pulled honeymoon cash from the chest pocket of his tux, counting out a grand before smacking it beside Mitch’s “—but I’ll raise the stakes by throwing in my truck.”
“Finn,” Lu said. “You’re a bright boy. Be sensible. This is marriage we’re talkin’ about. A lifetime commitment—not to mention a brand spankin’ new black Chevy.”
“All respects, ma’am, but stay out of it—and I’m far from a boy.” He took another swig of beer. “I’m Grade A, genuine, M-A-N. And if it takes a stupid bet to prove any woman would be thrilled to marry me, then by God, bettin’ is what I’ll do.” He shoved the pile of money toward Lu. “Sweetheart, hold on to this until next Saturday night. If I’m not back wearin’ a ring by then…well, then you’d better give all that cash to old ugly over there.” He gestured to Mitch. “He’ll be needin’ it to pay for my funeral, ’cause one thing’s for sure…”
“What’s that?”
“If I’m not married by Saturday, I must be stone-cold dead.”
“NO, NO, NO,” Lilly Churchill cried, stomping her white satin pumps in frustration. Unfortunately, all that fussing raised a dust cloud, which caused her to sneeze, which in turn caused her to need a tissue—a tissue that was in her purse.
On the front seat.
Snuggled alongside her keys.
Keys to the car she’d just securely locked.
“Not now,” she said to an audience of a million twinkling stars. “Not when I was for once getting things right.” Hot tears threatened to spill, but she stoically held them back. This was not the time for a crying binge.
Hiking her heavy white skirts,
