Knox sat down in the booth bench opposite his fiancée. He took off his hat and placed it on the table. From the pocket of his T-shirt he took out a folded check, unfolded it and slid it across the table.
Genevieve, who seemed to be stiff as a statue, her hands seemingly glued to the sides of her steaming coffee mug, stared at the check for a second before she snatched it off the table and put it in her jeans pocket.
“You’re early.” She stated the obvious in a harsh whisper.
“So are you.”
“Do you really think that it’s a good idea for us to be seen together like this?”
He caught her drift. There were some town gossips in the diner who stared curiously in their direction.
Feeling happy, Knox smiled at her. “May as well start giving them something to talk about.”
“I can feel them staring at us,” his bride-to-be said under her breath.
“They sure are.”
The waitress swung by their table with her order pad and a pen. “What can I get you folks?”
“Are you hungry?” he asked Genevieve.
“No.”
He took the menu out from behind the salt and pepper shakers. “Really? Suddenly I’m famished.” He winked at the pretty, frowning blonde sitting across from him. With a teasing, private smile, he asked, “What do you suggest for a man who’s about to eat his last meal?”
They had decided to take his black decked-out GMC truck for the thirty-minute trip to Kalispell. Was Knox bluffing or was he truly pleased that they were on their way to get married? She had watched the man put away scrambled eggs, bacon, three biscuits with butter and honey, grits and two large glasses of orange juice. She had no idea how he could eat at a time like this! Her stomach felt like a washing machine on a spin cycle; the coffee she had drunk at the diner was just adding to the acid backing up in her throat. She felt miserable while he hummed contentedly behind the wheel.
“You played me pretty good, Knox. I have to admit it.”
For two people who normally had a lot to say to each other, the first half of the ride to Kalispell had been a quiet one.
“How do you figure?”
“You knew I wouldn’t be able to turn down a wager. You knew my weakness and you exploited it.”
“That’s true. I did.”
“That’s a move right out of my own playbook. I don’t like it but I have to respect it,” she admitted grudgingly.
After a moment of silence she added, “I’ve never lost a wager before.” She had her arms crossed in front of her body as she stared out at the pastureland dotted with grazing cows on either side of the highway. “It galls me to lose to a Texan of all things.”
“You didn’t lose,” Knox said with an easy smile turned her way. “I’d call this one a draw.”
“Draws are for losers.”
“That’s not how I see it. We’re both winners, as far as I can tell.”
“The only way I win is if you back out. I can still win. There’s still time.”
He laughed. “I’m not backing out of this wedding wager, Gen. If someone’s gonna back out of this deal, it’s gonna have to be you.”
Genevieve glanced over at Knox’s profile; she took in the strong jawline and the straight nose. Had she finally met her match? Was this cowboy crazy enough to really elope today? Was she so pigheaded that her ego wouldn’t let her back down for a bet? She suspected the answer to her first two questions, but she absolutely knew the answer to the last. Her ego wouldn’t ever let her back down—not when she was racing, not when she was bungee jumping and not even when she was about to elope with one of the Crawford cowboys on a dare.
“Then,” she said with a pensive frown, “I guess we’re really going to get married today.”
“Darlin’, that’s music to my ears.”
“Quit being so darn cheerful,” she snapped at him. “And quit calling me darlin’.”
* * *
Genevieve had hoped for a long line to apply for their marriage license. There was a line, but it seemed to be the swiftest moving line she had ever seen. How did it even make sense that two people could just walk up to a counter and get a license to get married? But that’s what they did. They went to the third floor of the Flathead County Justice Center, showed their driver’s licenses, paid fifty-three dollars and left with a state sanctioned “permission slip” to become husband and wife.
“This is why there’s so much divorce in this country,” Genevieve complained as they stepped out into the sunshine with their marriage license in hand. “They make it too darn easy for just anyone to say I do.”
“Lucky for us.” Knox carefully folded up their marriage license and tucked it into his wallet.
Genevieve had stopped waiting for the cowboy to back out—she could see that he was full-steam ahead on this deal while her mind was whirling with a thousand consequences. What were her parents going to say? What was his family going to say? Of course, she could hear her mother now. Genevieve, when will you ever learn to look before you leap?
“We aren’t exactly dressed for a wedding, are we?” Knox asked as they walked to the sidewalk outside of the Kalispell courthouse.
“I didn’t expect you to show up,” she admitted. In fact, she had only stuffed some things into a backpack at the last minute before she headed to the Gold Rush on the off chance he did show. In her backpack she had a toothbrush, a hairbrush, her laptop and a Swiss Army pocketknife. Not exactly the most practical of wedding trousseaus.
“Well, I did.” He kept on smiling at her like the cat that ate the canary. “So, why don’t we find some wedding duds? There’s got to be a place where a man can get a suit and a bride-to-be can find a dress.”
She wasn’t quite sure why Knox wanted to make such an event of a civil ceremony for their marriage-in-name-only, but the thought crossed her mind that her family, particularly her two sisters and her mom, would want to see pictures. Her family would totally buy her eloping in her barn clothes—they almost expected that kind of behavior from her—but what about Knox’s kin? Would they believe their elopement was the real deal if they didn’t look like a head-over-heels couple sneaking off to make their secret romance official?
“I suppose,” she said, looking up the main street of Kalispell to a row of shops. “If we’re going to convince your father that we eloped because we’re crazy in love, we had better look the part.”
After a quick search on her phone, they headed toward the Kalispell Center Mall on North Main Street. They found their way to Herberger’s department store for one-stop shopping.
