Because if there was...
More looks. These seeming to tell Rand to keep her in the dark, at least for a little while longer.
Rand placed a protective hand at her back and turned Ginger toward his truck. He leaned down, his warm breath brushing her ear and muttered, “We only wish that were all this was.”
* * *
“YOU WANT TO tell me what’s really going on?” Ginger asked when the caravan had headed down the highway, in the opposite direction from which they’d come.
A mixture of resentment and resignation warred on his handsome face. “I’d rather not speculate,” he said finally.
Okay. Next question. “Do we even have to go with them, then?” The three lawmen had made it clear, as they were getting in their patrol cars, that they weren’t currently “on duty” with the sheriff’s department. Colt had just gotten off shift, Rio hadn’t yet started his and Kyle was on break. So, it was clear that whatever this was, it wasn’t exactly official.
“No,” Rand returned in a low voice. Having come to terms with their predicament, though, he was resigned to handling it with his usual good humor. “But we’d just be putting off until later what we may as well handle now.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “Well, that clears things up.”
Rand reached over, put his hand on her knee and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Want my advice?”
Making no effort to hide her growing frustration, she plucked his hand from her leg as if it were an odious insect. “No, but I guess you’re going to give it to me anyway.”
Rand chuckled. “I suggest you relax and enjoy the peace and quiet, because it sure as heck won’t last for long.”
Turned out, Rand was right about that. The minute they passed beneath the wrought-iron archway announcing the spread owned by Wade and Josie McCabe, and headed down the tree-lined path to the big stone-and-cedar ranch house, they saw the catering trucks and the big white tents on the back lawn. Musicians were already setting up. Acutely aware of their casual attire, Ginger shot Rand a startled look. “Please tell me your parents are having a party.”
“It would appear so.”
She added the important caveat, “One that doesn’t involve us.”
“That, I can’t say one way or another. I can tell you all four of my brothers are already here. As well as...”
Ginger’s face fell. She recognized the white Cadillac sedan with the vanity plate #1TXMOM. Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh, no. My mother.” A litany of frustrated words followed.
Rand mirrored her feelings with a groan of his own as the front door to the ranch house swung open and a bevy of McCabes and Rollinses poured out.
Ginger’s mother was dressed in a beaded knee-length suit suitable for a mother of the bride. Perhaps because they were the ones throwing the bash, Josie and Wade were still in jeans, boots and loose-fitting cotton shirts. All three parents looked as privately exasperated and publicly determined as Rand and Ginger felt.
Rand and Ginger got out of the pickup, waved goodbye to the departing lawmen and met their families midyard. “How did you find out?” Rand asked.
Josie McCabe scowled at her youngest son. “A reporter from the Summit Journal-News called me three days ago to ask me how I felt about my environmentalist son marrying a rival lady wildcatter. From there it was easy enough to find out a marriage license had been issued, so I called Cordelia Rollins to find out what she knew...”
Ginger’s mom picked up where Josie left off. “And lo and behold, I knew nothing.”
Wade added, “We all talked and decided if you two were going to get married, you were going to do it with friends and family present.”
Josie nodded. “So I called the justice of the peace in Summit and asked him to hold off.”
That explained the mysterious family matter that had kept the court official from marrying Rand and Ginger. “We already knew you were coming home this evening, so it was...well, not easy—” Josie frowned “—but possible, with Cordelia’s help, to get a wedding set up here.”
Rand quirked a brow. “What if we had canceled our trip north this evening?”
Josie shrugged. “I would have invented an emergency to get you here anyway.”
“And what if we were already married when we got here?” Ginger asked her mother.
“Then you would have been married again, by a proper minister, in proper wedding clothes,” Cordelia replied, shaking her head in reproach. “Honestly, Ginger, you are my only daughter. Were you really going to deny me the chance to see you pledge your love to the man of your dreams? Even if I haven’t yet had the opportunity to even meet him, never mind give my blessing!”
If there was anything Ginger hated more than interference in her personal life, it was melodrama. “Well, as long as you put it that way,” she quipped, raking a hand through her hair.
“You, too, young man,” Josie scolded, stomping closer. “You know better!”
To Ginger’s relief, she wasn’t the only one taking exception to their public dressing down.
“Look,” Rand was saying to his mother, “it’s not as if I haven’t done this once before. I had a proper wedding the first time around.”
Rand had been married before? To whom? Ginger wondered, a tinge of jealousy trickling through her. But there was no time to delve into it. She could see that both mothers expected her, at least, to want the big, ultra-romantic wedding they had painstakingly organized, in lieu of the quick, no-frills elopement she and Rand had been hoping to have. Hence, Ginger had no choice but to set the record straight.
She sighed in exasperation. “I also had a big fancy wedding the first time.” A fact her mother well knew. Consequently there was no need to go through that circus again. Even if the union she and Rand were planning had been a real marriage, which it wasn’t.
Both mothers seemed stunned by the twin revelations.
Rand and Ginger turned to look at each other. Belatedly she realized she didn’t know much about Rand, except how he felt about the environment and how great he was in bed. He knew very little about her, as well.
Abruptly aware they had overlooked a very important part of the marriage process, Ginger looked at Rand. “I think I need a moment alone with my, uh, fiancé.”
“Good idea.” Rand took Ginger by the arm and they headed down the driveway, not stopping until they were well out of earshot of everyone. Pivoting so no one would be able to read her lips, Ginger said ruefully, “We probably should have written a prenup.”
* * *
LEAVE IT TO Ginger, Rand thought, taking in her soft, kissable lips and too vulnerable green eyes, to bring a highly emotional situation right back to cold, hard business. It was something she always did when she felt backed into a corner in any way. Something, in the end, that always drove him away.
Not
