Christine Rimmer - Marriage, Maverick Style!

She turned her gaze to the beautiful beamed ceiling above. Staring at it really hard, she whispered, “No, Carson. I am not okay.” Panic rose. Breathe. She did, slowly, and exhaled with care. “I’ve...got nothing. I have no idea what we did for a least half of last night. I don’t know how we got here.” And then she went ahead and confessed the awful truth. “This is exactly like what everyone said happened to people last July Fourth. I’ve had a blackout, I think. Last thing I remember, we were in the park sampling Homer’s moonshine.” She gulped and stared even harder at the ceiling overhead. “Do you, um, happen to know where we are and how we got here?”

“Hey. Look at me. Come on. Please?” He spoke so gently. As though her ears were tender and wounded—like her heart right now, like her self-respect and her very soul. She made herself face him again. He captured her gaze. “I didn’t know—I promise you. I didn’t believe that a jar of moonshine could really—”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Carson, what I mean is I didn’t believe it, either. Just...would you answer my question, please? Where are we and how did we get here?”

“We’re in my suite at Maverick Manor. But as to how we got here, I don’t have a clue. I remember we drank the moonshine. And there are...flashes of memory after that. Us laughing on the blanket, staring up at the stars. I kissed you. And we danced.”

“That was earlier.”

“Yeah, and then we danced again, later. And...well, it all starts to go hazy after that.”

“But did we...?” It seemed silly to even ask the question. They were here, together, naked. Almost certainly, they had.

He reached out a bare, beautifully muscled arm and scooped some bits of foil off the nightstand. “Looks like it.”

“What do you mean?”

He opened those long fingers to reveal three empty condom wrappers. They crackled on his palm as the foil relaxed.

“Omigod.” How could she? She didn’t even know this man. And yet here she was naked in bed with him, staring at empty condom wrappers with no recollection of using them. It was awful and embarrassing and not the kind of thing she would ever do—well, except with Miles. She’d fallen straight into bed with Miles the night she met him, too. But at least she was conscious when she did it. At least it had been her choice, and she’d loved every minute of it.

This, on the other hand...

No. Just...no.

This was all wrong. She didn’t remember making a choice. She couldn’t recall anything after those first few sips of moonshine.

Okay, she’d been attracted to him from the instant her eyes met his. Wildly so. But falling into bed with him? Uh-uh. No way.

“God. Tessa. Your face is dead white. Are you sure you’re all right?” He was watching her as though he feared she might shatter.

Well, she wouldn’t. Not a chance. She was tougher than that. Yeah, she’d messed up royally. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t hold it together. She let out a shaky little sigh. “I just can’t believe that this is happening, that’s all.”

“At least we were safe about it,” he offered sheepishly.

She played along, because she was not going to lose it right here in front of him. “Yeah. I guess that’s something, right?”

“Right.” He pushed himself to a sitting position.

She did the same, careful as she scooted up against the headboard to keep the blankets close. They leaned against the headboard side by side. She stared hard at the far wall and wished that the floor would just open up beneath her and swallow her whole.

The silence, weighted so heavily with regret and embarrassment, went on forever.

Finally, she murmured shakily, “I want to go home.”

He looked at her again then. His eyes were so sad. “Tessa, I’m so sorry...”

She showed him the hand and aimed her chin high. “Don’t. It’s no more your fault than mine. I don’t blame you. I drank that moonshine of my own free will.” It had tasted so good. And she’d never really believed the stories about it. Until now. Slow fury rose in her. “I might have to kill Homer Gilmore, though.” She spoke through clenched teeth. “Seriously. It’s like we were roofied.”

He made a low sound of agreement. “So much for my big plans to get the formula for Drake Distilleries. That stuff is way too dangerous.”

She pressed a hand to her queasy stomach. “I may never drink anything with alcohol in it again.”

“Believe me, I understand.”

They shared a wry, weary glance, and she said, “I really do want to go now.”

“All right.”

She looked away, toward the balcony and the snowcapped mountains in the distance. The covers shifted as he left the bed. More fabric rustled.

He said, “I’ll just use the bathroom.” Footsteps padded away.

As soon as she heard the bathroom door close, she jumped from the bed, grabbed her wrinkled clothes from the bedside chair and put them on. Once she was fully dressed, including her socks and red boots, she went looking for her hat.

She found it on the coffee table in the sitting room—next to a sketch pad and a bunch of pastels and colored pencils. “What in the...?” She picked up the pad and turned the pages slowly.

The drawings were her own, though she had zero memory of creating them. And as to where she got the pad and pencils, who knew? But apparently, not only did she and Carson use three condoms last night; she’d also whipped him up an ad campaign for Homer’s magic moonshine.

For the first time that morning, she almost smiled.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Clean, clear, imaginative and well executed, if she did say so herself. Even her domineering, tough-as-nails former boss, the legendary Della Storm of Innovation Media in New York, would approve. Tessa especially liked her rendering of a frosty-blue bottle with a sliver of silver moon on it and the words Blue Muse in a retro font. She also thought the sketch of a golden bottle with a lightning strike on the front was really good. That one was called Peach Lightning in bold copperplate Gothic. And the way she’d managed to work the Drake Distilleries logo of a rearing dragon into both designs? Damn good.

Glancing up from the pad in her hand, she stared into the middle distance, remembering how much fun she and Carson had had in the park, how they’d bantered back and forth over whether the ’shine was blackberry or peach. She’d loved every moment with Carson yesterday—at least, every moment that she could recall.

She heard the bathroom door open. With a hard sigh, she tossed the sketchbook back on the low table.

He appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, fully dressed in jeans, a knit shirt and a different pair of high-priced boots than he’d worn the day before. Dear Lord, he was a fine-looking man. Regret dragged at her heart that there couldn’t be more between them.

But no. It had all gotten way too complicated too fast. She didn’t need complications with a man, not until she had her own life figured out. She needed him to take her back to her grandmother’s boardinghouse. After that, she never wanted to see that amazing face of his again.

Across the room, he stared her somberly. Probably trying to think of something to say to her.

She knew exactly how he felt. “I’ll just use the bathroom and then I’m ready to go.”

* * *

Carson found his car in his usual space in the parking lot. He’d had his keys in yesterday’s jeans, so he must have driven them there. It freaked him the hell out to think that he’d gotten behind the wheel so drunk on moonshine he had no memory of the trip.

The ride back to town was a silent one.

Carson despised himself the whole way. And he couldn’t stop thinking about the condom wrappers, couldn’t stop asking himself if they were fools to depend on those empty wrappers as proof that they’d played it safe.