Joanne Rock - Love So Tender - Taking Care of Business / Play It Again, Elvis / Good Luck Charm

As he strode toward the chapel, he noticed the abundance of neon on the sign and the building itself—in the daylight, the little white chapel looked out of place on the garish Las Vegas strip, but after sundown, this place would probably outshine its flashy neighbors.

It was a one-story building, narrow along the street front, but deep. Cordelia Conroy was the owner of the place, early sixties, a former showgirl who once had ties to the mob. She owed the FBI a favor for helping her out of a jam years ago, so she’d agreed to let Steve come in undercover as an employee to keep an eye out for Lundy, on condition that the arrest wouldn’t take place at the chapel and that her employees wouldn’t be in danger. In return, the FBI had demanded confidentiality—none of the regular employees could know Steve’s real identity or why he was there.

So, dressed in casual clothes, having purposefully missed his regular haircut last week and sporting two days’ worth of beard, he would be Steve Mulcahy, scruffy photographer. If the undercover position were in any other place, he might actually be happy for some downtime, but being surrounded by flowers and music and gushing couples—damn. Not counting the oddballs he’d likely be working with in an Elvis wedding chapel. Steve tucked his sunglasses into his shirt pocket, then inhaled and opened the front door. He was looking forward to cuffing Lundy, but this would definitely go down as his worst assignment ever.

He stepped inside a foyer of sorts, immediately enveloped by the strains of “Love Me Tender” floating from mounted speakers. Spin-racks of postcards and Elvis Presley memorabilia occupied every available space, leaving a narrow path to a counter surrounded by poster-sized menus of wedding packages and bulletin boards full of photos of happy couples.

The willowy woman standing behind the counter glanced up, her violet-colored eyes wide, her pink lips open in a welcoming smile. Her hair was platinum-blond and short, sticking up at spiky angles. Her unusual pixie beauty hit him like a punch to the chest, and he suddenly was feeling a little better about the um…the um…

Oh yeah—the assignment.

Steve took a step forward, tripped over something solid and went down hard. The hidden gun in his waist holster stabbed into his diaphragm, driving all the air from his lungs.

The blonde gasped and ran around the counter to where he fell. “H.D., are you okay?”

Steve rolled over onto his back and panted for air. “My…name…isn’t…H.D.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

She knelt and pulled the wrinkly face of the world’s fattest basset hound close to hers until their noses touched. “Are you okay, H.D.? Are you okay, sweetheart? You were sleeping in a dangerous place—you might have been hurt.” She scratched the dog’s elephantine ears, murmuring mommy-to-dog nonsense, then seemed to remember he was in the room and turned toward him. “Are you okay, mister?”

Having dragged air back into his collapsed lungs and determining that nothing was broken, Steve sat up, then pushed himself to his feet and retrieved his camera bag, embarrassed as hell. He looked down at the woman crouched on the floor and pointed to the droopy blob of spotted hound that seemed to have melted into the red carpet. “That dog is like an anvil.”

The woman frowned, then stood and crossed slender arms over surprisingly full breasts. “May I help you?”

Momentarily distracted, he glanced up to find her eyes piercing him like a laser. Getting off on the wrong foot wouldn’t help matters, he realized. He extended his hand. “I’m Steve Mulcahy, the new photographer.”

Her pink mouth rounded in surprise. “Oh…yes, Cordelia said that she’d filled the position. I just didn’t expect…” She straightened and put her hand in his. “I mean, welcome to TCB, Steve. I’m Gracie Sergeant, the wedding director.”

He noted her white eyelet sundress, rhinestone flipflops, blue nail polish, black velvet choker and the tiny mole on the crest of one fine cheekbone. She looked…eccentric…and oddly appealing. He shook her hand, wondering idly if all of her was as soft as her long, slender fingers. His chest expanded with satisfaction as he noticed her assessing his build as well.

She abruptly withdrew her hand and looked at her Betty Boop watch. “You’re just in time. We have a 4:00 p.m. booking—they’ll be here in an hour. That will give us just enough time for me to show you the ropes.”

Since she was already walking away and talking over her shoulder, he trotted to keep up with her. He looked over and saw that, to his chagrin, the basset hound was also scampering behind her. Steve glared at the dog and swore the squatty beast glared back. Despite the pleasing view of Gracie’s backside swishing the white dress back and forth, Steve stepped up the pace and caught up to her as she walked through a door behind the counter and down a hallway.

“So, Steve, what do you know about Elvis?”

The question caught him off guard. “I don’t know. The usual stuff I guess—he sang, he made movies.”

She stopped so suddenly, he almost passed her up. Her brow wrinkled. “He sang? He made movies?”

Steve glanced from side to side. “Didn’t he?”

Her chin went up. “The man is an icon.”

Steve started to smile, then swallowed it when he realized she was dead serious. “Right,” he said solemnly.

She gave him a suspicious look, then continued down the hallway, her sandals flapping against her heels. “The Burning Love chapel is on the right,” she said, pointing to a set of white double doors. “It seats fifty. The Graceland chapel is on the left—it’s smaller and our most popular venue, the one we’ll be using this afternoon.” She tilted her head. “You do know how to take photographs?”

He gave a little laugh. “Yeah—that’s the job, right?”

“And you can operate a video camera?”

He nodded—he’d certainly filmed enough crime scenes. A wedding couldn’t be too different, he thought wryly.

She looked relieved. “Good—that’s one less thing I’ll have to do. It’s been just me, Cordelia, Roach, Lincoln and H.D. for a couple of months now, and everyone’s been filling in wherever they could.”

“Roach?”

“He’s one of our ministers.”

“Ah. And Lincoln?”

“Another minister—they swap shifts with Cordelia. Oh, and Lincoln’s also our florist—he’ll be here soon. I’ll take you back to meet Cordelia in a few minutes—she’s working the drive-through.”

“Drive-through?”

She nodded. “It’s our most popular feature, open twenty-four/seven. That’s why we need three ministers to pull shifts.”

Steve pursed his mouth—hmm. He wasn’t keen on marriage, but if a couple were hell-bent on doing it, a drive-through sounded less expensive and less painful even than a justice of the peace. With a fifty percent chance of failure, why not at least go the cheap route?

“We offer full-service packages in the chapels from 4:00 p.m. until midnight.” She smiled. “As the evening progresses, we tend to get drop-ins.”

As people became more inebriated, he thought. “How long do the ceremonies last?” He needed to get a handle on day-to-day operations as quickly as possible.

She shrugged. “It depends. The Love Me Tender package is our most basic, and usually takes about twenty minutes. The Aloha Las Vegas package is our most comprehensive, and takes about forty minutes—forty-five if they order a hula dancer.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Hula dancer?”

She looked sheepish. “I, um, wear a grass skirt.”

At the thought of her in a grass skirt, his sex stirred. He shifted and cleared his throat. “What happened to your photographer?”