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
