However, Olivia didn’t want to wait until then to confront her friend Adrian Carlton. The florist and single mother lived a few blocks south of the tavern in the old fruit and nut section of Fairhope. It was a quiet neighborhood, particularly at this late hour. Olivia pulled the truck into Adrian’s driveway and ran to the small porch underneath the gable that crowned the front of the snug but well-kept cottage.
Balling her hand into a fist, she pounded on the door, then hugged her arms around herself, huddling as close to the door as she could to keep from getting whipped to death by wind and sideways rain.
It took several moments, but she heard the small sound of several locks clicking before the door opened and dim light silhouetted the small, redheaded woman who peered out at her in disbelief. “Liv? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “Let me in, will you?”
“Jesus,” Adrian said as she stepped back and let Olivia stride into her tidy, shabby-chic living room. She took a moment to lock all the doors again and then turned to frown at her impromptu guest. “Why the hell are you pounding on my door at midnight? Is something wrong at the tavern? Is water getting into the shops?”
Olivia waved off the suggestion impatiently. “Never mind that. Remember when we were in Vegas?”
Adrian rolled her eyes and groaned, crossed to the sofa and had a seat. “Are you kidding? I’m still trying to live it down.”
Olivia not only remained standing, she chose to pace from one wall to the other, gesturing in jerky, sweeping motions as she spoke. “Do you happen to remember the hot blond British guy who I spent the night with?”
“Yeah, we talked about him on the flight back,” Adrian reminded her, placid in the face of Olivia’s franticness. “You two met at the club. You danced. We all drank and you two wandered off for a night well spent from what you told us.”
“It was more than that,” Olivia said. She stopped in the middle of the room and spread her arms. “We’re married.”
Adrian raised her brows. “Married. As in...”
“As in white gown, black tie, bouquets and corsages.”
“Boutonnieres,” Adrian, the florist, corrected her.
“Whatever,” Olivia said, waving that off, too. “Only it wasn’t any of that. No, for me it was a red clubbing dress. My groom might have been wearing a black tie. Though I’m not quite sure because I was one shot of Cuervo shy of drooling on Elvis’s gold lamé cape. And for all I know you and Roxie, who served as witnesses, by the way, carried shiny silk flowers.”
Adrian winced. Whether it was from the image of shiny, silk bridesmaids bouquets or from being told she’d served as a witness, Olivia couldn’t be sure. “Wow. That’s...something.”
“And get this,” Olivia said, lifting a finger. “My hot British stranger of a husband is here, in Fairhope.”
Adrian shook her head slightly as if dazed. “Wait. Now you’ve got to be jerking me around.”
“Nope. He popped by the tavern this evening and is at this very moment checking in to one of Briar’s suites at the inn. When she called just a few minutes ago, she said, ‘Um, Liv? Do you know there’s an Englishman here renting a room who says he’s your husband?’ He’s telling people, Adrian.”
“Get out of town.”
“And as if that weren’t enough...” Olivia laughed a sour laugh “...he wants to stay married.”
Adrian frowned. She raised her hands to stop the fast flow of shocking information. “Okay. Now you’ve lost me.”
“That’s what he said,” Olivia informed her, pacing once again. “He says he wants to give it a go. He wants to see if what he felt that one night in Vegas is enough to sustain a bond everlasting. I didn’t know whether to pat his head and coo over his eight-year-old-worthy idea of married life or call up the deputy and have him hauled out of the bar for lunacy.”
“Huh.” Adrian fought a smile. “Interesting.”
“So...” Olivia stopped pacing to face Adrian, and lifted her shoulders helplessly. “What do I do?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Do you see anybody else here?”
“No, but if we don’t keep our voices down, there might be.”
Olivia glanced toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms where Adrian’s seven-year-old son, Kyle, was down for the night. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”
“I don’t know, Liv,” Adrian said, rubbing her eyes. “I’ve never been in this situation. Or anything quite like it.”
“I don’t know too many people who have.”
“You’ve got that right.” Adrian sighed, dropping her hands into her lap. “How long does he plan on sticking around?”
“Three weeks.”
“Does he strike you as...all there?” Adrian pointed to her head.
Olivia nodded slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes. Despite the frightening optimism and the fact that he braved tropical storm conditions to tell me all this, he seems pretty lucid.”
“What’s your impression of him?”
“He’s...” Olivia stopped, thinking of the man who’d sat across the table from her tonight. She lowered into a cozy armchair. “He’s...sexy.”
Adrian nodded approvingly. “Uh-huh. Go on.”
“He’s intellectual, but in a sexy way. Very Tom Hiddleston. Proper and upper-crust but not at all haughty. He’s accessible, down-to-earth and so damned charming he can make your toes tingle just by smiling at you....”
“I’m intrigued, and also slightly confused.” Adrian licked her lips. “What you’re saying is...this Tom Hiddleston-esque, sexy, intelligent man-hunk walks into the tavern and has decided to stay next door for three weeks so that he can, basically, try and woo you into staying married to him. Correct?”
Olivia nodded, thinking it through carefully. “In a nutshell. Yes.”
“And you, Olivia Lewis, who has no problem letting men woo her is freaking out because...”
Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “He and I are married.”
Adrian shrugged. “In my experience, marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But, hey, some people like it. Look at Briar and Cole. Look at your parents.”
Olivia made a thoughtful noise as she gnawed on her thumbnail. Her parents’ partnership, which had spanned three decades and the hell-raising teenage version of herself, was a lot to live up to. From an early age she’d known that it was the ultimate ideal—the kind of love she’d once ridiculously envisioned for herself.
As a young adult, however, she’d learned the hard
