The flight to Las Vegas with Del’s mother hadn’t gone as badly as he’d feared. Aurelia Parker Caminito Haller Lyon Bahnsen could carry a conversation with minimal help from another person just fine.
She had told them all about the movie she’d just made, and the recent parties she’d attended. She’d talked about who was rumored to be doing illegal substances and who was currently in rehab. She’d talked about Del’s father, the Italian race-car driver who’d died in a frightful, fiery accident on a track in Europe in front of thousands of horrified onlookers, and about husbands two and four. Husband Number Three, Robert, sat across the cabin from them with a laptop open in front of him, oblivious to his former wife’s chatter. He’d called his wife, Evvie, before they’d left and she was catching a flight, planning to meet them at their hotel before the service.
A Vegas wedding had been Del’s mother’s idea, largely because the lack of preplanning wouldn’t alert the media. That held some appeal. But it had appealed to Sam because he didn’t want to wait one day longer than necessary to marry Del.
He couldn’t imagine his life without her now. Not waking with her in his arms in the morning, not watching TV at night with her nestled in his lap, not bumping into each other in her small kitchen as they made a meal. Not ever feeling her smooth, silky skin again, never parting her legs and finding her warm and ready for him, never sinking into her so deeply he felt as if they were one.
Thanks to the vows they’d just exchanged, he never would.
Holding Del’s newly ringed hand in the small, amazingly tasteful chapel Aurelia had found, he glanced down at his bride yet again, feeling the familiar shock of love, attraction and tenderness welling up within him.
She was radiant in a simple white-satin gown that caressed her curvy body and swept to the floor to trail behind her. A circlet of pearls and shining beads crowned her loose, flowing hair and a sheer white veil floated down from it to kiss the hem of the gown. Her mother had worn the ensemble when she married Del’s father—the only white gown she’d ever worn, she pointed out—and when they’d announced their plans and the idea of the Vegas wedding had taken shape, Aurelia had had the dress overnighted to the hotel. It was there when they arrived, along with a seamstress who did some minor alterations so that it fit Del like a second skin. He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the advantages that truly amazing amounts of money could provide. Thank God, Del didn’t seem to care about it.
“Right over here,” the minister said, interrupting Sam’s preoccupation. “If you’ll just sign the marriage license, we’ll be through here.”
Oh, boy. He took Del’s elbow and steered her toward the table. “You first.”
His new bride signed her name in the firm, rounded script with which he was so familiar. Then she straightened and handed him the pen.
He bent over the legal contract. He blinked as he looked at Del’s signature and started to chuckle.
She glared at him, balled her fist and hit him solidly in the shoulder. “It’s not funny.”
“Oh, but it is.” Laughing even harder, he bent and signed his own name, then laid the pen down. “Don’t those look nice?” he asked her.
The Eyebrow rose at the inane question. “Lovely,” she said dryly.
“Look closer,” he suggested.
She shot him a puzzled glance, then focused again on the marriage license. “What’s the big deal?” She glanced over the form, then her gaze drifted down and she read their names. “Are you kidding me?” She was already starting to laugh.
He shook his head. “My parents named all their children from the Old Testament. It’s my given name.”
Del was shrieking with laughter and the minister was regarding them as if they might need to be hauled away in straitjackets. Robert, Evvie and Aurelia hurried over to examine the license, and a moment later they all were laughing like a pack of hyenas.
“What are the odds…?” Del was still chuckling.
He shook his head. “No way could this happen again in a million years.”
And as he took his new bride’s hand and they started into the rest of their life together, he cast one final glance at the marriage license in his hand.
Delilah Aurelia Smith, it read. And on the line for her new spouse to sign: Samson Edward Deering.