As soon as Felicity woke, she wished she were still sleeping. Everything hurt, especially her head, and each beat of her heart seemed to send a pulse of dull pain to every corner of her body. She made a sound of misery but then broke off her groan halfway through because it made her hurt even more. Without opening her eyes, she lay very still, hoping if she didn’t move, the pain would go away.
As she lay there unmoving, a deep groan filled the air around her, and her eyes flew open, her misery forgotten as her memory kicked in, reminding her why she was in a strange bed with Bennett Green.
They’d followed her skip to Las Vegas, spent most of the next day sitting in her car in a parking garage, staring at Clint and Dino’s pickup truck, and then followed them to a dive bar.
Bennett rolled over onto his back. “Please shoot me.”
“Me first.”
He cautiously opened one eye. “You okay, Fifi?”
“Really?” She gave a huff, but it was a small one so it didn’t move her aching head too much. “You too with the Fifis?” She reached over to pinch him—nothing too hard, just enough to remember it the next time he considered using her dreaded nickname.
He rolled off the bed in an effort to get away from her. As the sheets were pulled from his body during his fall, she was relieved to see that he still wore boxer briefs. He was partially naked, but at least he wasn’t fully naked. She tried to convince herself that she wasn’t the tiniest bit disappointed the important bits were covered.
Belatedly, she looked under the covers. With mixed feelings, she regarded the unfamiliar oversize T-shirt that went almost to her knees. When she checked, she found she did have her own underwear on. There’s that at least, she thought before turning her attention back to Bennett. While she’d been distracted assessing her clothing situation, he’d found some pants and pulled them on. She felt that same pang of disappointment that his muscled legs were hidden, but she comforted herself with the thought that she could still ogle that gorgeous chest of his.
“To answer your question,” she said, trying to get her brain off Bennett’s pecs and back on how they’d ended up in this situation, “I’ll live. Well, unless I chop off my own head to stop the pounding.”
“Yeah, me too.” He rubbed his face with both hands, his stubble rasping against his calluses.
“Any idea how we ended up here last night?” Felicity felt her face warm, but she pushed through the embarrassment, cleared her throat, and continued. “All I remember is the stakeout and following Dino into the dive bar.” As she talked through it, more flashes of memories were returning. “We didn’t see Dino or Clint, but there was a fight? Maybe?” That part seemed hazy. “Was I in the fight?”
“No.” The line of his mouth was grim, and she had a feeling he was recalling even more than she was. “It was a distraction.”
“Distraction for…?” Even as she asked, the memory of stumbling out of the bar came to her. “Someone drugged our drinks.”
His nod was so stiff she thought his spine might shatter with the movement.
“Were Clint and Dino chasing us at one point?” she asked tentatively. The more she strained to remember details, the more they slipped out of her grasp. “And maybe…pancakes?”
His expression softened slightly. “Yes. To both.”
Pushing herself up into a sitting position, she dropped her head on her knees and breathed through a fresh wave of nausea. “Guess that explains why I feel like overcooked meat loaf.”
“Overcooked meat loaf?” The amusement in his tone made her look up, risking the movement in order to catch one of his rare smiles.
“Leave me alone,” she said, trying and failing to sound stern. “I’m in no state to come up with good metaphors. At least we ended up here, generally intact. If the only consequence to our being roofied and chased by Clint and Dino is a hangover from hell, we got pretty lucky.”
When he remained silent, she lifted her aching head and found him staring at the desk across the room.
“What is it?” she asked, unable to read his expression.
“That…” He cleared his throat. “That wasn’t the only consequence.”
Her stomach dropped. “What else?”
He gestured toward a small desk, but all she saw on it was a blush rose bouquet. “What’s wrong? It’s pretty, although a little too bridal for a not-honeymoon suite…”
He flinched at the word “bridal,” and a terrible suspicion rose in her blurry mind.
“That’s not… We didn’t…” She didn’t even want to say the words out loud, as if speaking them would make them true.
Giving her a hooded look, he strode over to the desk. Ignoring the too-bridal-for-a-not-honeymoon-suite bouquet, he examined the paper lying on the desk next to it. Unable to stand the suspense for another second—while also wanting to remain in blissful ignorance for as long as possible—she got out of bed.
Bennett’s gaze immediately shot to her legs. Even though she was covered almost to her knees, she still blushed.
“This your shirt?” she asked, wanting to ignore whatever was causing that strange look on his face.
He looked at her too seriously for a question about a T-shirt and nodded solemnly. Swallowing hard, she moved closer to the desk and the answers it held. The first thing she saw was a five-by-seven photo. It was her and Bennett, and she was holding the too-bridal bouquet. Not only that, but what looked suspiciously like a veil was draped over her hair. The most incriminating part of the photo was the way Bennett had his arm wrapped around her, tucking her into his chest like he did when they slept together. She was cuddled up to him, carefully keeping the bouquet from getting squashed between them. They wore huge sappy smiles and huge blown-out pupils for the camera.
Felicity made a small sound, a sort of whimpering squeak, and looked at the other item on the desk. “A marriage license?” she said, as if Bennett couldn’t see that documentation right in front of both of them. “Are we… We’re married?”
Before Bennett could answer, a happy knock sounded on the door of their suite. They both jumped, whirling around to stare at the door as if a zombie were the one asking permission to enter. The knock came again, and Bennett was the first one to move, crossing the room to look through the peephole.
He grimaced but opened the door.
“My favorite newly married couple!” Ronan greeted, his voice much too loud for Felicity’s current state. “Congratulations!”
“Um…thank you?” Felicity rubbed her forehead, wishing her headache would ease so she could absorb all this wild news that was tumbling over her like an avalanche. “You knew we got married last night?”
“Of course, my fabulous Felicity.” Ronan swept over and gave her a side hug as Bennett swung the door closed with a little too much force. “I was honored to be your witness for the ceremony.”
“Ceremony?” Her voice was a bare whisper, and she gave Bennett a frantic look. She was the one who needed to get pinched now. Everything seemed surreal, especially the fact that she now had a husband. PI B. Green, no less.
Bennett must’ve interpreted her look as the panicked plea for help it was. Crossing the room, he side hugged her from the other direction, gently detaching her from Ronan, who smirked and relinquished his grip. Her head spinning, she leaned gratefully against Bennett, borrowing his strength and warmth for a few moments. She just needed a little time to regroup and make a plan, and then she could stand on her own two feet again.
“What exactly happened last night?” Felicity asked, sick of getting spare bits of information and brief flashes of memory.
Ronan’s eyes went wide. “You don’t remember? I knew you were intoxicated, but I didn’t realize you were blackout drunk.”
“If you knew we weren’t in our right minds,” Felicity said, putting the whole spiked-drinks situation on the back burner for the moment, “why did you let us go through with it?”
To her surprise, Ronan laughed. “As if I could’ve stopped you. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Green could bench press a Subaru, and I have a feeling you’re a tough little scrapper yourself, as harmless as you look.”
Felicity couldn’t argue with that.
“Once you got the idea in your heads, you were determined to get married. If I hadn’t driven you to the Clark County building to get your license, you would’ve walked—or stolen a car or hijacked a bus or who knows? You were both blissfully in love.”
“Wait.” Felicity held up a hand, trying to wrap her brain around what Ronan was telling them. “It would’ve been too late last night. The license bureau wouldn’t have been open.” A rush of relief flooded her as she picked up what must be a fake marriage license and waved it at Ronan. “We’re not actually legally married.” Even as she said it, though, a hollowness opened up in her middle. She couldn’t be…disappointed, could she?
Her inner turmoil distracted her, so it took a moment to realize that Ronan was shaking his head. “This is Vegas. They’re open until midnight. We got there just in time.” He was beaming at them, looking so proud to be part of their sudden marriage. “The chapels are open twenty-four hours, of course.”
“Of course,” she echoed faintly.
“Your wedding was just beautiful. You went with the romantic package, had a unity ceremony where you lit each other’s candles…”
“We lit each other’s candles.” Felicity felt unable to do anything but repeat Ronan’s words as the fog around her memories slowly began to clear. She recalled their exasperated server at the diner and how Bennett admitted he dropped his case to help her chase after Dino. The clerk at the license bureau had been surprisingly jolly, presenting them with their official marriage license with the glee of a successful matchmaker. Everything had seemed to shine at their tiny wedding: the blush-pink flowers, the woman who’d officiated—not dressed like Elvis, thank goodness—and Bennett. Bennett hadn’t taken his eyes off her the whole night, and happiness had radiated from him.
The drugs. It had to be the drugs.
A polite rap on the door made her jump, and Bennett wrapped an arm around her again. She let him, telling herself she’d lean on him for just another few minutes. Then they could start talking about unpleasant things, like annulments.
“That’ll be our mimosas,” Ronan said, heading for the door, seemingly unaware of the bomb he’d dropped on them. “It’s a bit early for a straight champagne toast, but mix some orange juice in there? Perfect.”
Still a bit shell-shocked, Felicity accepted her mimosa, lifted it for Ronan’s lengthy toast to their happiness and long marriage, and automatically took a sip. The touch of the juice on her tongue brought her raging thirst to her immediate attention, and she slammed back the rest of her mimosa.
“Okay,” she said as Ronan blinked at her, his glass halfway to his lips. “We have a drug-dealing, drink-spiking, bail-jumping militia member to run to ground. Thank you so much for your hospitality, Ronan. It was a pleasure to meet one of Bennett’s friends, and I hope next time we stay here, it’ll be for pleasure, not for work.”
Ronan stared at her for another moment before he barked out a laugh and knocked back his drink. “Have I mentioned how much I adore your new bride?” he said to Bennett, who must’ve finished his drink as well, since he placed the empty glass down next to Felicity’s. “Best of luck on your search, happy hunting, and all that.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a set of familiar-looking keys, handing them to Felicity. “I had a couple of the valets retrieve your car from that unpleasant bar’s parking lot. Come see me again soon. We’ll have dinner, and you can tell me all about your adventures.”
He shook Bennett’s hand, gave Felicity one of those double-cheek kisses that she hated but didn’t mind so much when it was Ronan, and swept out of the room.
Realizing that she hadn’t looked at Bennett during Ronan’s entire description of their wedding, Felicity braced herself and turned, her gaze finding his. His expression was one of the rare ones she still couldn’t decipher, and that made her worry.
“Are you okay?” she asked, annoyed with herself for her selfishness. All this had happened to Bennett too, and she’d been so wrapped up in her emotions that she hadn’t even checked how he was feeling.
That inscrutable look went soft, and he stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I’m good. Ready to get Dino?”
Shaking off the daze that look and tiny touch had caused, she shoved all the wedding stuff into a corner of her brain and nodded. “So ready. Give me five minutes, and then I’ll be physically ready too.” She gave him a grin that she hoped wasn’t too wobbly around the edges and then went into the bathroom.
As she guzzled glass after glass of water straight from the tap, she stared at her cell phone on the side of the counter. She knew she needed to check in soon, or Charlie and Molly would send in the cavalry. The last time she’d texted them was during the stakeout the day before, and in her drunken haze, she’d forgotten to charge her phone overnight. She almost didn’t want to plug it in, since she had no clue what she was going to tell her sisters.
Mentally dumping that worry into the soon-but-not-right-now bin, she took a shower. The side of her calf stung, and she saw a shallow graze her hazy memories told her was from one of Dino’s bullets. After scrubbing the small wound, she allowed herself to think only about how amazing the hot water felt and how indulgently luxurious the whole bathroom was. She and Bennett really had to come back for a real vacation soon.
When the thought registered, she gave a laugh that was a little too close to a sob for comfort. Bennett. My husband. How wild is that?
And why does the thought make me so weirdly happy?
By the time they’d both showered and packed their few possessions, Ronan sent up a huge breakfast of eggs Benedict, fruit, and incredible, melt-in-her-mouth sticky buns. Felicity’s earlier nausea was gone, and she stuffed her face as if she hadn’t eaten a whole stack of pancakes the night before. Bennett ate even more than she did and then watched her hungrily after his plate was empty, so she didn’t feel self-conscious about her gluttony.
The food and all the water she’d drank earlier banished the last of her brain fog and most of her headache. Some ibuprofen took care of the rest—as well as the renewed ache in her ankle from all the running the night before. As they climbed into her car, she was feeling surprisingly perky for someone who’d unknowingly drank a spiked beverage, been shot at, and gained a husband the night before.
Settling in the driver’s seat, Felicity reached to start the car but then dropped her hand and turned to Bennett. “What’s the plan?”
“Let’s check their hotel, see if they returned last night.”
She doubted that Clint and Dino would do that, but Bennett was right—they should check, just in case. “Okay. Then back to that dive bar, so I can punch that bartender in the throat?”
“Balls, maybe?” Bennett suggested, looking doubtful. “Throat punch makes it hard to answer questions.”
“Good point, but the throat is extra satisfying.” She considered her options with grim satisfaction. “I’ll decide when I see him. Either way, we’ll see if he knows where the two drink-spiking jokers headed.”
“If we don’t find them here, we know where they live.”
Felicity grinned at him. “I love how casually brutal you can be.”
He actually blushed, sending her a bashful look from beneath those thick lashes, and her smile faded as she studied him. “What?” he asked, fully focused on her again.
“Nothing.” With a shake of her head, she paid more attention than was necessary to starting the car. “I just thought of something.”
About how we probably kissed last night…and I don’t remember it.
He gave a skeptical grunt so Bennett-like that it made her smile again, the unexpected sting of their forgotten first—no second, although the first didn’t really count because it’d just been a ruse to get out of a trespassing charge—kiss fading. Instead she focused on finding her skip. She’d allowed herself to get distracted, but that was done. Everything—her unexpected marriage, her felonious mom, her longing for a pause to just relax—was put aside until the job was successfully finished.
“Watch out, Dino,” she said as she shifted into drive. “We’re coming for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Felicity said half a day later, after a long, silent length of I-70 had disappeared under her car wheels.
Bennett gave her a questioning look.
“If we’d just stayed in the car last night like you wanted to, we would be back in Colorado by now, a cuffed Dino in the back seat.” And unmarried, she thought but didn’t say out loud.
“Maybe.”
It was her turn to give him a look.
“They knew we were following them.”
“Right,” she said, “but we still could’ve taken them by surprise—if we hadn’t been drugged.”
“Maybe.” This time, the word sounded even more skeptical as he studied the desert landscape around them. “They were armed and knew we were there. More likely we just would’ve gotten shot.”
“I did.”
“What?” He whipped his head to stare at her, his gaze raking up and down her body as if he could see through her clothes to wherever the gunshot wound was.
“Minor.” She patted the air in a soothing gesture, although he didn’t seem very soothed. In fact, he looked positively frantic. “It barely broke the skin.”
“Where?”
“I can’t remember all the details, but we were running toward the diner, Dino and Clint were chasing us, and then there was a clunk sound and the side of my calf burned. I cleaned it in the shower, and it’s barely a graze.”
He faced forward again, his jaw muscles working. “I want to see it when we stop next.”
“Uhh…” She looked down at her skinny jeans. “Not sure that’ll work. I’m not stripping down to my underwear at a rest stop. I’ll show you tonight.”
Although he gave a tight nod, he didn’t look happy. Felicity decided it’d be a good idea for his stomach lining if she changed the subject.
“How much do you remember about last night?”
He didn’t answer.
She kicked herself for mentioning the bullet wound. It was so minor, he wouldn’t have ever needed to know, and now she had to entertain herself for the rest of the drive. It had been an especially frustrating last few hours in Vegas. There was no sign of the old pickup in the parking ramp of the hotel where Clint and Dino had stayed the first night, and all the front desk attendant could tell Felicity—when she pretended to be a friend of Dino’s looking to meet up with him—was that they’d checked out that morning.
They didn’t have any better luck at the dive bar. The greasy bartender from the night before had walked off the job, according to the bar owner, who wouldn’t give them their main suspect’s name or any information about him. The owner hadn’t been in the night before, and he claimed to not know Dino Fletcher or Clint Yarran.
Which meant that they were driving back to Simpson, Colorado, with nothing to show for their trip to Vegas…well, nothing except a brand-new marriage license. Her brain wouldn’t stop running and rerunning all her mistakes from the previous night until she pulled into a gas station and parked.
“Everything,” Bennett said as he got out of the car.
“What?” Felicity got out as well, looking curiously at him over the vehicle’s roof. They hadn’t said a word for almost an hour, but now he was talking like they were midconversation.
“I remember everything.” Turning away, he walked into the gas station, leaving her open-mouthed next to the car.