An officer and a groom

But for how long?

Alexis Smith is single, and desperate to keep custody of her late sister’s sweet stepdaughter. But for this, she needs a husband. She thinks US Air Force Major Ben Kincaid is perfect for the job. The Special Ops pilot is a world-class stud who loves a challenge—and is always out of town. A brief marriage of convenience suits them both...until Ben moves in. Suddenly, playing house seems a little too real...

A career Air Force officer, MERLINE LOVELACE served at bases all over the world. When she hung up her uniform for the last time, she decided to try her hand at story-telling. Since then, more than twelve million copies of her books have been published in over thirty countries. Check her website at www.merlinelovelace.com or friend Merline on Facebook for news and information about her latest releases.

Also by Merline Lovelace

“I Do”...Take Two!

Third Time’s the Bride

Callie’s Christmas Wish

Course of Action

Crossfire

The Rescue

The Paternity Proposition

The Paternity Promise

Her Unforgettable Royal Lover

The Texan’s Royal M.D.

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Marry Me, Major

Merline Lovelace

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07777-4

MARRY ME, MAJOR

© 2018 Merline Lovelace

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the men and women I worked with at the 58th Special Operations Wing, formerly the 1550th Aircrew Training and Test Wing. So proud to have been part of such a dedicated band of warriors!

With special thanks to my pals Joann Henderson and author Krysta Scott, both of whom served as watchdogs for the protection of children.

Thanks sooo much for the excellent advice on child advocacy and adoption procedures.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

The reek of stale peanut shells, spilled beer and cigarette smoke smacked Alexis in the face the moment she stepped inside the Cactus Café. Her nose wrinkled as she surveyed the patrons of the run-down bar on a corner of Albuquerque’s Central Avenue. She should’ve guessed the tough, combat-seasoned men and women who’d worked for the legendary Colonel Mike Dolan, call sign Badger, would pick a dive like this for their annual drunk.

Except they didn’t conduct a Badger Bash every year. Only when three or more of them happened to be on the same continent at the same time. And they didn’t get drunk, she’d discovered the first and only other time she’d attended a Badger Bash. She’d been a guest then, along with a few other wives, boyfriends and significant others. The chance-met date of one of the participants, invited on the spur of the moment. That moment that now looked to make a serious change in the direction of her life.

They’d gotten just a little loose at that Bash. Laughing and snorting in their beer as they took turns adding to the absurdly ridiculous tales of Colonel Dolan, hard-ass squadron commander and the world’s studliest Special Ops pilot.

Alexis had left that Bash convinced Dolan’s subordinates had fabricated his whole larger-than-life persona. The colonel’s adventures were too fantastic, his kill ratio too unbelievable, his success with the female half of the population way too improbable.

Then again, she’d left the gathering in the company of one of the Badger’s protégées. Major Ben Kincaid. Also a Special Ops pilot. And a world-class stud. One long weekend with the major had pretty much made a believer out of Alex.

Now Kincaid was here. In Albuquerque. Just seeing him again after all this time knocked the breath back down Alex’s throat. He was leaning against the bar, one boot hooked on the rail, his jeans and black knit polo shirt hugging his long, lean frame and a grin tipping a corner of his mouth. Ruthlessly, she banished the memory of that mouth moving over her. Moving over every part of her.

This was business.

A very desperate business.

Dragging in a determined breath, she stepped out of the shadows of the bar’s entrance and let the door whoosh out the hot New Mexico night. As she wove her way through the Cactus Café’s beer-stained tables, smoky haze bit into her lungs and the country-pop crossover nasal whine blasting through the speakers assaulted her eardrums.

She didn’t recognize the man talking to Kincaid. Another military type she guessed from the buzz-cut hair and easy slouch that somehow still managed to convey a careless self-confidence. She did recognize the woman with the two men, though. The blonde was another of Badger’s protégées that Alex had met at the previous Bash. Susan Something. Alex couldn’t recall her last name but she did remember that the woman owed her call sign Swish to the ponytail that teased her shoulder blades seductively. That was the version put out for public consumption, anyway. A grinning Kincaid had indicated there was another version, known only to the chosen few.

Swish caught sight of Alex first. A frown creased her forehead as she tried to fit the face to a name or place. She made the connection while Alex was still a few yards away. Arching a delicately penciled brow, she nudged Kincaid with an elbow. Either he was too involved in the other man’s story or he mistook the poke for something more intimate. Smiling, he curled an arm around her shoulders and rubbed his palm up and down her arm.

The absentminded caress stopped Alex in her tracks. Damn! Had Love-’Em-and-Leave-’Em Kincaid changed his modus operandi? Her carefully constructed plan would disintegrate if the easy camaraderie Alex had observed between him and Swishy Susan two years ago had developed into something deeper. Something more permanent.

Then the blonde dug her elbow into Kincaid’s ribs again. Hard enough to get his attention this time. His beer sloshing, he winced and sent her a pained look.

“Hey!”

“We’ve got company,” the blonde said. “Someone from your checkered past, if memory serves.”

Swish tipped her chin. Kincaid followed her lead. Under other circumstances the blank look when he spotted Alex might have bruised her ego. Instead, it confirmed that the major was still the right man for her job.

Cutting past the last few tables, she joined the three of them at the bar. “Long time no see, Cowboy.”

That was his call sign. Cowboy. Reportedly gained when he’d swooped low over some grazing longhorns and stampeded the whole herd across thirty miles of Texas panhandle. Much to the displeasure of several local ranchers, he’d confided to Alex.

“Long time,” he agreed.

There was just enough of a question buried in his reply to confirm that he didn’t have a clue who she was. Alex wasn’t surprised. She’d changed considerably since Vegas. Her hair, her style of dressing, her life.

Still, they had spent two days and three extremely erotic nights together. She couldn’t help feeling a little piqued. With a cynical smile, she held out her hand.

“Alexis Scott. Las Vegas. Two years ago.”

She could see him make the connection. Those electric-blue eyes widened, made a quick trip south, zipped back up to her face.

“Alex! Damn. You’re looking good.”

She should be. She’d donned her best armor in preparation for this meeting. The subtly dramatic makeup. The snug short-sleeved black tank sparkling with turquoise and silver crystals along its low-cut scoop neckline. The slim black jeans with matching crystal trim on the pockets. The black boots with ice pick heels. She’d even coaxed some curl into her shoulder-length auburn hair.

“You’re looking good, too” she had to admit as she mirrored his quick inventory. His dark hair was a little shorter than she remembered from Vegas. The white squint lines at the corners of his eyes were pretty much the same, though. So were the square chin, the strong neck and the muscled shoulders under his faded denim shirt.

“What are you doing in New Mexico?” he asked, jerking her back to the here and now.

“I moved here last year.”

“With...” He cocked his head. “What was his name? The real estate tycoon?”

“Bryan, and no.”

She’d started dating Bryan a month or so after her wild weekend with the hotshot special operations pilot. She and Bryan had progressed to the exclusive stage when Kincaid called her some four months later. He’d been in Iraq, he’d explained. Then she’d explained her situation at the time, at which point he’d cheerfully wished her and Bryan the best and disappeared from her life again.

Not that Alex had ever expected her weekend with the major to result in any kind of long-term relationship. Kincaid had been up-front with her about his single state. No ties, no obligations, not even a pet goldfish. Short-notice deployments flying heavily armed gunships into hot spots around the world didn’t make for either stability or durability in relationships. Alex suspected there was more to his deliberately casual philosophy of life and love, but they hadn’t spent enough time together for her to want to dig deeper.

But now...with so much on the line... Kincaid’s here-today, gone-tomorrow philosophy formed an essential element of her desperate scheme. She itched to get him away from his friends and lay out her proposition but curbed her impatience while he introduced the other two.

“This is Susan Hall. She served as a comm officer under the Badger.”

“We met at the Vegas bash,” the blonde said with a friendly nod. “Good to see you again.” Her gaze lingered on the sparkling turquoise and silver decorating Alex’s top. “Love the bling.”

“Thanks. This is one of my most popular designs.”

“You designed that?”

“It’s what I do for a living.”

Swish looked as though she wanted to pursue that, but Kincaid hooked a thumb at the man beside him. “Blake Andrews. We call him Dingo for reasons that can’t be explained in polite company. Careful what you say around him, by the way. He’s a cop.”

“Ex-cop,” Dingo corrected. “I hung up my shield with my air force uniform.”

His palm was callused, his handshake firm without the iron crunch some men thought necessary to demonstrate their virility. The pleasantries observed, Kincaid asked Alex if she’d like a beer.

“I would. Thanks. And could we talk? You and I? If your friends will excuse you for a few minutes.”

“Sure. Why don’t you grab that table?” He gestured to one just being vacated. “I’ll bring your beer.”

* * *

Ben raised his bottle to signal the bartender, then watched as the unexpected visitor from his past headed for the corner table. Now that she’d stirred the memories, they played out inside his head in vivid detail. She was slimmer than he remembered. And her hair was different. Longer, he thought. Shot with streaks of red and deep, dark gold. Those chocolate-brown eyes were the same, though, and that full, sensual mouth. All in all, Ben decided with a kick to his gut, the overall package was pretty damned outstanding.

Dingo shared his assessment. “You lucky bastard,” he muttered as he followed her progress across the room.

Swish was more interested in the sparkles. “Find out where I can get one of those shirts.”

Yeah, right, Ben thought wryly as the bartender handed him a dew-streaked Coors. Like he was going to talk T-shirts with a woman he could only hope wanted to take up where they’d left off in Vegas.

Maybe this time it would work. It hadn’t last time. Truth was, he’d tried to reconnect with the auburn-haired hottie after their wild weekend. Just days after he’d returned from a four-month deployment to Iraq. Just his bad luck that she’d already hooked up with someone else. Some hotshot Realtor.

Ben was surprised by the regret that news had spurred. He’d thoroughly enjoyed their weekend together. And not just in the opulent suite at The Venetian he’d taken her to after deserting his pals at the Bash. Alexis Scott had kept him grinning with her lively recap of the joys and challenges of designing what passed for costumes at Vegas’s risqué revues and surprised him with her savvy knowledge of video marketing techniques. He’d shaken off the regret soon enough, though. Another no-notice deployment, this one a humanitarian mission to earthquake-ravaged Haiti, had shoved that weekend out of his head.

Maybe, just maybe, she was thinking to rekindle old fires. Hoping fervently that was the reason for her unexpected reappearance in his life, he took a seat and passed her the beer.

“Thanks.” She raised her bottle in a toast. “Here’s to Vegas.”

“To Vegas.”

She tipped her head back and took a long swallow. Ben did the same, but the glitzy stuff on the low neck of her T-shirt did exactly what he figured it was supposed to. Damned if the sparkling crystals didn’t catch his gaze. And hold it!

His, and every other male’s within a twenty-foot radius. He saw the stares, caught the elbow jabs. No wonder Swish wanted to know where to buy one of these seemingly sedate but disturbingly provocative T-shirts. Just in time, Ben managed to drag his gaze from the seductive valley between her breasts.

Her head tipped forward, her brown eyes met his. “I suppose you’re wondering why I tracked you down.”

“I was kind of hoping it was my charm and suave good looks.”

A quick smile flitted across her face. “That’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

“Parts,” she corrected, her smile fading. “There are several.”

She glanced down and picked at the label on her beer with a fingernail. When she looked up again, Ben had the impression she’d steeled herself for something that ranked up there on the fun meter right alongside a colonoscopy.

“There’s a child. A little girl.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t alter his politely curious expression. But his stomach contracted and his mind razored back to their nights together.

He’d used protection. A whole damned box of protection, if he remembered right. Yet the possibility that one of those little suckers hadn’t worked had his knuckles going white on his beer bottle.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want kids. He did. Someday. Maybe. Hell, he was only thirty-two. Plenty of time yet.

Except now he had to face the possibility time might’ve run out. His spine going rigid, he waited for the hammer to fall.

“Well,” she said, spearing through his whirling thoughts, “I guess she doesn’t really qualify as a little girl. Maria’s seven, and the sweetest, smartest, most loving...” She broke off, her brows snapping together. “Kincaid?”

“Huh?”

Her scowl deepened. “Am I boring you?”

“What? No.”

“You looked like you were a thousand miles away.”

“I heard every word. Maria’s seven and sweet and smart and...” he couldn’t suppress a huff of laughter “...not mine.”

“Yours?” She jerked back in her chair. “Why on earth would you...? Oh!”

Her astounded expression morphed into one of unholy amusement. Then something that looked a whole lot like chagrin.

The amusement Ben could understand. The chagrin got him nervous all over again. Especially when she went back to peeling off strips of the wet label.

One corner of his brain could hear Charley Pride’s “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” above the clink of glasses and buzz of conversation. Another corner registered the fact that Swish and Dingo were keeping him under close surveillance. But the main cortex, the cerebrum or cerebellum or whatever the hell part processed danger signals, was flashing a red alert.

“Back up a few steps,” he instructed. “Tell me what seven-year-old Maria has to do with you and me and Vegas.”

“I want to adopt her.”

“And?”

She sucked in a deep breath. Manfully, Ben kept his eyes above the bling. Mostly.

“Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a problem. Most states, including this one, allow single-parent adoption. But in Maria’s case, there are special circumstances that make it necessary for me to...ah...have a husband.”

“Whoa!” He plunked his beer on the table. “I hope you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

“As a matter of fact...” Those warm brown eyes cut through the cigarette haze to lock with his. “I came here to... I need to ask... Oh, hell. The thing is, I want you to marry me, Major.”

Before he could recover enough to ask what the hell she was smoking, she tacked on a caveat.

“Temporarily.”

She was crazy. Certifiably nuts. He could’ve kicked himself when curiosity made him ask.

“How temporary?”

“Six months. Or less, depending on...well...circumstances. And I promise there’ll be no strings.” She rushed on. “No obligations on your part, financial or otherwise. Just your signature on a marriage certificate before you take off again for parts unknown.”

“Look, lady, these ‘circumstances’ you keep referring to make me think that what you’re suggesting comes real close to fraud.”

“It’s not fraud! I’ve discussed this with my attorney. He’s assured me what I’m doing is legal. And you don’t have to declare me your spouse or dependent or whatever the military term is. I promise, I won’t make any claim on you or the air force.”

“Doesn’t matter whether you make a claim or not. If we’re married, we’re married. That entitles you to whatever privileges come with the ring.” He shoved back his chair. “Sorry, you’ll have to find another—”

“I’ll pay you.”

“’Scuse me?”

“Five thousand when you sign the wedding certificate, another five when we divorce.”

Okay, now he was pissed. Ben almost started to blister her with a few well-chosen words about what she could do with her money but the sudden flash of desperation in her eyes had him biting back the words.

“Please!” The table wobbled as she pushed to her feet and threw a quick glance around the noisy bar. “Can we go somewhere quieter? So I can explain these...these special circumstances? Five minutes,” she pleaded. “Please. Give me just another five minutes.”

If Ben had a lick of sense he would’ve wished her a happy life and rejoined his buddies. Now that his anger had cooled, though, he wanted to hear what the hell was behind her crazy proposal.

“My ride’s outside. We can talk there.”

She started for the exit while Ben detoured to tell his friends that he was stepping out for a bit.

“Riiight,” Dingo drawled. “Have fun.”

“And find out where I can get one of those shirts,” Swish called after him.

The hot desert night hit with a wallop after the air-conditioned bar. Ben shrugged it off as he caught up with Alexis.

“I’m parked over here. Careful.”

He took her elbow to steer her around a man-size pothole. A relic of the old Route 66 heyday, the Cactus Café had long passed its prime. Half the bulbs in the illuminated sign that gave the place its name had burned out. The rest shed only a flickering green glow over the pitted dirt lot.

He beeped the locks on his muscled-up Chevy Tahoe and opened the passenger door for her. She had a long step up from the running board but Ben resisted the temptation to provide any help with a palm under her rear. Once behind the wheel, he keyed the ignition and lowered all four windows to let out the trapped air.

“Okay,” he commented as he settled against his seat, “the clock’s ticking.”

“My sister married a single dad with a young daughter. Janet—my sister—adored the girl. Then, last year, Janet was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and I moved to Albuquerque to help take care of her. She died within six months of the initial diagnosis and I’ve had custody of her stepdaughter, Maria, since.”

“Why did you get custody instead of the kid’s father?”

“Because the scumbag walked out on Janet less than a week after she found out she had cancer. And he’s now in prison for dealing drugs.”

She kept her voice flat and the words succinct, with no hint of the anguish Ben knew she had to have gone through.

“I want to legally adopt Maria but her father won’t agree to the adoption.”

“Why not?”

“Spite. Pure and vicious and vengeful.” Her lip curled. “Before he got busted for drugs, I went after him for child support. He got hauled into court several times. That pissed him off so much he would cut off his own nose to spite me.”

“He sounds like a real winner.”

“A real loser, you mean.”

She stared out the open window for a few moments, presenting a profile that showed a taut, angry jaw. When she faced Ben again, he had to admire her rigid self-control.

“The court awarded me temporary custody. Since Maria and I aren’t related by blood, though, the judge refused to revoke her father’s parental rights and approve an adoption over his objections. Especially since I would be a single mom. Judge Hendricks,” she said with a twist of her lips, “doesn’t hold a high opinion of single, working women attempting to acquire a ready-made family.”

“Which is where I come in,” Ben drawled, enlightened.

“Right.” Her eyes were dark pools in the flickering light. “I don’t want a husband, but I need one. Temporarily.”

“I guess I can see that. But why me, for God’s sake? We barely know each other. Surely you have better candidates to pick from.”

“No, you’re perfect.”

He gave a snort of laughter. “I must have performed better in Vegas than I remember.”

The quip didn’t raise an answering laugh, and her total lack of response told him she really meant this absurd proposition.

“I’ll admit the sex was pretty good...” she said with a shrug.

“Thanks.”

“Okay, extremely good. But I’m going to be up-front with you. Sex can’t play in any deal we work out. Our marriage has to be in name only. I can’t risk getting emotionally involved. Not with Maria to consider. And you don’t want any entanglements. You made that clear in Vegas.”

Damn! He must’ve come on like a complete jerk. At least he hadn’t lied to her. Still, her blunt assertion that all he’d been interested in was getting her horizontal hit too close to the mark.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he countered drily, “but sex was the only thing we had in common in Vegas. With that off the table, I’m having a little trouble seeing why you think I’m the perfect choice.”

“Because you’re military. That’s a plus in this city. With such a large percentage of the population either working on or associated with the base, Albuquerque is nothing if not pro military. A husband in uniform has got to play in my favor with the judge.”

She hunched sideways, her shoulder wedged against the door and her face dead serious in the dim light.

“As an added bonus, you’re Special Ops. That means you’re gone more than you’re home. Your absence is a built-in excuse if the court orders an unscheduled home visit and finds no husband in residence.”

“Convenient,” he drawled.

“Yes, it is.” She must have sensed she hadn’t convinced him. Her voice took on an urgent note. “I won’t make any demands on you, Kincaid, or tie you down. I promise! And you’ll be helping a little girl who’s lost almost her entire world.”

Still Ben hesitated. The scheme edged too close to fraud in his mind. He was tossing possible legal ramifications around in his mind when she fumbled her phone out of the little purse slung over one shoulder.

“Here.” She opened the phone and jabbed the photo icon. “This is Maria.”

The lit screen displayed a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl with an impish smile and a doll cuddled up to her cheek.

“She’s a great kid. And really smart. She downloads a new book from the library every week. And...” She broke off, her voice thickening. “She helps in my business. I use her to model my line of kids’ clothing.”

When she feathered a finger over the sparkly red heart on the girl’s T-shirt, Ben caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away and scrolled to another photo.

“This is my sister, after her loving husband lit into her about the mounting medical bills.”

The face in this photo was older, painfully gaunt, and sporting a vicious black eye.

“That slime is capable of doing the same—or worse—to his daughter,” Alex said, her voice low and vibrating. “Which is why I’ll do whatever I have to, to keep him away from her.”

She clicked the phone off, shoved it in her purse and locked her gaze on Ben’s face. “So will you? Marry me?”

She’d played him. Ben knew it. She’d shown him those pictures, hoping they would kick his protective instincts into high gear. Counting on it!

No matter. The ends in this case appeared to justify the means.

“Yeah, I will.”

She blew out a long breath. “Thank y—”

“On two conditions.”

Her face closed in, turned wary. “Which are?”

“First, if you mention paying me again, the deal’s off. No way I’m going to take money you’ll probably need for the legal battles still ahead.”

She didn’t try to hide her relief. “I can live with that. Second?”

“If we’re going to do this, we have to do it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! Why?”

“Remember those pluses you just enumerated? Particularly the one about me being gone more than I’m home? My unit’s heading across the pond. We’re going wheels up at o-dark-thirty Monday morning.”

“But tomorrow’s Sunday! The country clerk’s office won’t be open to issue a license.”

“Then I guess we’d better make a quick trip to the scene of the crime.” He had to grin at her blank look. “Vegas, sweetheart. Vegas. I’ll take care of the details. Just give me your address, phone number and email. I’ll let you know what time I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

* * *

Alex exited the Cactus Café’s dusty parking lot and drove home in a swirl of emotions. This was what she wanted. This was the scheme she’d paid her high-priced lawyer to help her devise. It didn’t do a bit of good to remind herself that she’d resisted putting that scheme into play until she’d discovered this year’s Badger Bash would take place at the Cactus Café.

She’d known for months that Major Ben Kincaid was stationed right here, in Albuquerque, at the vast, sprawling military installation dominating the south part of the city. Kirtland Air Force Base was home to a dozen or more military units, including the premier training squadron for Special Ops aircrews and pararescue personnel. It hadn’t taken much sleuthing to confirm he was one of the instructors assigned to the 58th Special Operations Wing.

Alex hadn’t acted on that knowledge, however, as much as she’d wanted to. Her life was complicated enough with her rapidly expanding business, taking care of Maria, and trying to ramrod an adoption through a confusing and complicated legal system.

Then Eddie Musgrove, damn his putrid soul, had appeared in court. In restraints and an orange prison jumpsuit, no less. Despite the fact that he was a deadbeat dad and convicted felon, he’d convinced the doddering, dyspeptic, misogynistic judge that a single working woman wasn’t a suitable parent for his daughter. He’d also convinced the judge that the photo of his wife with that black eye was a result of a misunderstanding. He’d never laid another hand on her, or so much as touched his daughter in anger.

Furious and more than a little desperate, Alex had brainstormed the next course of action with her lawyer. After discussing and discarding several options, she and Paul Montoya had decided on the one—the only one!—that seemed doable.

Then she’d hit the computer. She was searching for a contact number for Major Benjamin Kincaid when she saw a flash about the Badger Bash. It was here this year. At the Cactus Café. Central Avenue. Starting tonight. And sure enough, Kincaid had been there. Her one-time lover and prospective groom.

She still couldn’t quite believe he’d accepted her desperate proposal. Now all she had to do was go home and dig through her closet for something to wear to her wedding.

Chapter Two

“Why can’t I go, too?”

Alex swallowed a sigh and gave Maria the same answer she had the previous four times. “Because this is a quick trip. I’ll be home in time to pick you up at Dinah’s before bedtime.”

“But you promised to take me ’n’ her to the BioPark today.”

“I know, Kitten. We’ll go next weekend. Cross my heart!”

Raising the scrubber she’d used to rinse the breakfast dishes, Alex air-sketched an X on her cream-colored tunic. Swarovski crystals danced along the tunic’s hem and sweetheart neckline. Paired with palazzo pants in the same clingy fabric, it was as close as she’d been able to come to wedding white.

Maria remained as unimpressed by Alex’s sartorial efforts as by her heart crossing. Her lower lip jutting mutinously, the girl took a just-rinsed plate and jammed it into the dishwasher.

“I want to go,” she said again. “I haven’t seen Aunt Chelsea in a long time.”

The “aunt” was an honorary title for Alex’s former Vegas roommate and best friend. The two women had kept in touch since Alex jettisoned her life in Vegas to move to Albuquerque. Laughing, vibrant Chelsea visited whenever she could get away from her job performing in the chorus line at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino’s flashy review.

“Chelsea was here last month,” Alex reminded Maria. “This trip will just be me and Major Kincaid.”

“I don’t like him.”

“How do you know? You haven’t met him yet.”

“But you’re gonna marry him!”

“Yes, I am.”

Alex had spent long hours last night trying to decide what to tell Maria about Ben Kincaid. After much agonizing, she’d decided to stick as close to the truth as possible.

As she’d explained over breakfast this morning, she and the major had met two years ago and had a wonderful time together before going their separate ways. Still clinging to the truth, she related that she’d lost touch with him until she saw a notice of his old squadron’s reunion on Facebook. On a whim, she’d gone to meet him last night, and they realized they were in love and decided to get married.

Maria hadn’t bought it. Still wasn’t buying it. Cutting off the tap, Alex wiped her hands on a dish towel and sagged the girl’s hands in hers.

“I told him all about you, Kitten. How you love to read. How you aced your spelling test last week. How you help me with my designs. Ben can’t wait to meet you.”

With a pout that had her lower lip jutting out ominously, Maria jerked her hands loose and crossed her arms over her thin chest. “He can wait all he wants. I don’t want to meet him.”

Alex bit back another sigh. Every website she’d pored through about seven-year-olds warned that this was a touchy transition period. They weren’t yet adolescents, but they no longer needed constant supervision. Yet they still hovered between that budding independence and clinging to their trusted anchors. For Maria, that anchor was Alex.

Unfortunately, Alex couldn’t risk explaining the real reason for her quickie Vegas wedding. The marriage had to look real. Feel real. Even to Maria.

Especially to Maria. Alex didn’t doubt for a minute that the girl’s scumbag dad would try to use her fake marriage to undermine Maria’s tentative sense of security.

“You’ll like Ben, Kitten. You will. He’s...”

Sexy as hell? Beyond amazing between the sheets? Desperate, Alex glommed on to one of the few nonbedroom activities she and Ben had shared during their brief weekend together.

“He’s a pizza freak. Just like you.”

“Does he like the pineapple, green olives and barbecue chicken combo?”

“I don’t know. But I bet he will if you get him to try it.”

Maria’s lower lip did its thing again. Elbows tight, black eyes stormy, the girl was a fifty-two-pound bundle of not happy.

As ferocious as it was, the scowl sent a wave of hot, liquid emotion pulsing through Alex. God, she loved this stubborn little person! Surprising, really, since Maria seemed to exasperate her as often as she melted every corner of her heart. Where had this confusing, conflicting, swamping love come from? Not through any blood ties, certainly. And not just because of her promise to her dying sister.

Janet’s death had left Alex riddled with guilt. It was several months before she could admit the truth. She’d loved her sister but hadn’t really liked her.

Janet was two years older and their father’s acknowledged favorite. Secure in that superior position, she’d ignored her younger sibling for most of their childhood. That changed in middle school, thanks to Alex’s swan-like emergence from gawky prepubescence to curvy preteen. Suddenly, the little sister got all the attention, and the gap between the two had widened even more.

After high school, the Scott sisters had followed separate paths. For Janet, it was a stint as a backup singer with a band no one outside of the musicians themselves and a few of their close friends had ever heard of. She’d capped that with marriage to the drug-addicted bass guitarist, whose lack of talent was matched only by his absence of anything approaching a sense of responsibility to Janet and the child he’d fathered with his long-absent girlfriend.

Meanwhile Alex had parlayed a bachelor’s degree in Fashion Design and Merchandising into an apprenticeship with one of Las Vegas’s premier costumers. It didn’t matter that most of the costumes she worked on consisted of rhinestone-studded G-strings and star-shaped pasties. She’d loved the vibrant, tawdry, behind-the-scenes action of casino showrooms. The fact that her roommate was a chorus girl in the Flamingo’s glitzy troupe had only added to the fun.

Then, just a little over a year ago, Janet had called with the devastating news that she’d been diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. She’d also admitted that her scuz of a husband had deserted her and her stepdaughter. In what seemed like a heartbeat, Alex’s life had veered in a different direction.

She’d never intended to assume guardianship of Maria after her sister’s slow, agonizing death. That was a father’s responsibility, after all. But by then Eddie Musgrove was in prison and there was no one else to take charge of his daughter.

Now Maria’s life was taking another unexpected turn. One Alex knew the girl couldn’t help but view as a threat to her shaky security. Aching for her, she tried again to soften the blow.

“Ben won’t be around much, sweetie. Like I told you, he’s in the air force and has to go where they send him. That’s why we’re getting married on such short notice. He’s leaving early tomorrow morning. So you’ll have to wait a few months before you even meet him.”

By which time, God willing, the adoption would be finalized and Alex would be planning a divorce as quick and painless as the wedding.

“Is your backpack ready?” she asked Maria. “Dinah and her mom will be here to pick you up any...” The tinkle of the door chimes cut her off. “That’s probably them now. Go get your backpack, Kitten.”

The door chime rang again and Alex hurried down the tiled hall of their rented casita. The two-bedroom adobe unit was part of a new complex just a few blocks from Albuquerque’s picturesque Old Town Plaza. The prime location meant a higher rent than Alex wanted to pay, but the complex was within walking distance of Maria’s school and close to a warehouse where Alex rented operating space for her business.

She opened the door expecting Maria’s cheerful, chubby, freckle-faced friend and her mom. Instead, she found her groom standing under the portico of woven piñon branches. Flustered, Alex ran a quick eye over his dark slacks and crisply ironed blue oxford shirt to the carryall he toted in one hand.

“Are you early or am I late?” she asked.

“I’m early, but I thought I’d better bring a few things over while I could.”

“What things?”

He hefted the leather carryall. “You might want to have some evidence of a husband around the house. For those unannounced home visits.”

“Oh,” she said stupidly. “Right.”

She stood aside so he could move out of the blinding morning sunlight into the shady cool of the entryway. Although her small bungalow looked like a square adobe box on the outside, Alex had unleashed her creative juices on the inside.

“Nice,” Ben commented as he ran an appreciative eye over the sand-colored floor tile, the ochre walls and the antique wooden hall stand painted a bright turquoise. Alex had added a hand-painted border of colorful cactus blossoms around the mirror and replaced its plain brass hooks with whimsical coyotes wearing a variety of cowboy hats and sombreros. Maria’s book bag hung from one howling coyote, Alex’s purse and car keys from another.

She’d continued the Southwestern motif in the living room framed by a wide arch and visible from the entry hall. The hues were muted desert tans and golds splashed with jeweled accents in mauve and turquoise and sunset orange. The combination kitchen-dining room was just as colorful. Ben murmured his appreciation of the decor as Alex led the way down the hall to her bedroom.

“I have no idea how long this deployment will last,” he told her. “But I’m up for reassignment when I get back, so I moved out of my apartment a few days ago and put my stuff in storage. All I have here are a couple changes of clothes, some underwear, a pair of sweats and—”

“Is that him?”

The belligerent question flew at them from the doorway of Maria’s bedroom. They turned to find her standing with feet planted and arms crossed.

“Yes,” Alex answered with a determined smile, “this is Major Kincaid. Ben, this is my niece and soon-to-be daughter, Maria.”

The “niece” was honorific since she and Maria shared no actual blood tie, but they both hoped to eliminate the “soon-to-be.”

“Hi, Maria. Alex said you were smart and a whiz at spelling. She forgot to mention how pretty you are.”

The ploy was only partially successful. The arms remained crossed but the lower lip retreated a little.

“I’m sorry we won’t be able to spend any time together before I leave tomorrow,” he told her, unknowingly echoing Alex’s attempt to soften the impact of a stranger dropped suddenly into her life. “Maybe we could get to know each other a little by email. I’ll send you pictures of my crew and the places we fly into and you can tell me about school and your friends. Would that be okay?”

“I guess,” the girl said sulkily. “Except Alex only lets me on the computer when she can watch what sites I go to.”

“That makes sense. There’s some real scary stuff on the internet.” He unzipped his carryall and fished out a tablet encased in hot pink. “That’s why the iPad I brought you comes with strict parental controls. If it’s okay with Alex, you could use this to keep me posted about what’s happening here.”

The sulk disappeared, and the girl’s eyes went wide with excitement. “Oh, wow! My very own iPad! I’ve been wanting one.” In almost the next heartbeat, she zinged from excited to dejected. “But Alex says I have to wait for my birthday to get one.”

“When’s that?”

“September 9.”

“Hmm.” He scraped a palm across his chin and pondered the dilemma for a few moments. “How about we consider it a wedding present instead? From me to you. That okay with you, Alex?”

She could have kissed him. In one smooth move he’d eased a little of Maria’s uncertainties and given her the expensive gift she’d been angling for ever since her friend Dinah got one last Christmas.

“It’s okay with me.” She turned a warning glance on her ward. “But only after I put on a code restricting access to the app store.”

“I already engaged it,” Ben assured her. “I’ll give you the passcode later. She’s good to go.”

“Can I play with it now? Please, Alex. Please!”

“I guess. Do you want Ben to show you how to work it?”

The seven-year-old gave her a look of utter disdain. “Dinah and I play on hers all the time.”

“Okay, if you’re sure you know what you’re doing.”

“Aleeeeex.”

With that parting shot, she whirled, took her prize to her bed and belly flopped onto her Princess Elsa comforter.

“Pretty slick,” Alex murmured as she escorted Ben to the master bedroom. “But how in the world did you find time to buy an iPad and download those applications?”

“I hit a twenty-four-hour Walmart. Then I had Swish and Dingo test fly the apps while I set us up for Vegas. They congratulated me on our upcoming nuptials, by the way, and sent you their heartfelt condolences.”

“Did you tell them our arrangement is only temporary?”

“No. Did you tell Maria?”

“No.” At his questioning look, she shrugged. “I said we’d reconnected last night after two years and rekindled a hot romance.”

“Close enough.” The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “We did reconnect and the romance was pretty hot.”

Dammit! That lopsided grin should come with a warning label.

“Give me a sec,” she said, pulling herself together, “and I’ll empty a drawer for you.”

His neatly folded underwear didn’t take up even a fourth of the drawer. Similarly folded socks, gym shorts and sweats barely filled the rest of the empty space. He arranged the three shirts he’d brought over knife-pressed slacks and squeezed the hangers into her jam-packed closet. His one pair of sneakers and one pair of boots looked lost amid her racks of slings and mules and wedges and jeweled flip-flops.

She caught him eyeing the colorful array and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I can’t help it. Shoes are my comfort food.”

“Whatever works. I’m into Game of Thrones myself.”

“The HBO show?”

“The books. But I’ll admit I’ve watched the video of Cersei walking naked through the streets of King’s Landing more than once.”

“I don’t know,” she mused. “I kind of liked Daenerys Targaryen’s hunky husband.”

“How come I didn’t discover that you’re a Game of Thrones devotee during our weekend together? Wait. Scratch that. We were pretty much otherwise occupied, weren’t we?”

“Pretty much,” she agreed with a flutter just under her ribs.

She’d have to think about that jittery sensation. Later. After they got back from Vegas and Ben was on his way to wherever.

Right now she had all she could handle with her prospective groom propping a baseball bat in the corner of her bedroom and hooking a ball cap emblazoned with 2014 Badger Bash on a corner of her dresser mirror.

“A little extra touch,” he explained. “In case you have to spin the tale of where we met.”

“Good thinking.” She eyed the almost empty carryall. “What else is in there?”

“Just a few challenge coins.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a challenge coin?”

“A sort of unit patch. Every squadron or wing has its own. Then we trade with other units. Like baseball cards from the ’50s.” He rooted around in the bag and produced a handful of disks decorated with various designs. “You have to carry a coin on you at all times or you might get stuck buying a round of drinks for the house if challenged.”

When she moved in for a closer look, he shuffled a coin out of the small pile. The enameled surface showed a four-engine aircraft painted a dull gray. “This is my bird, the MC-130J Commando II.”

Another featured a fierce-looking eagle on a field of blue with an olive branch clutched in one claw and thunder bolts in the other. The lettering around the seal widened Alex’s eyes. “Is this from the president?”

“Yeah, we hauled POTUS for a couple classified missions.”

Impressed, she fingered a colorful coin displaying an orange-and-blue-striped lizard surrounded by lettering in an unfamiliar script.

“Where’s this one from?”

“A little island off the west coast of Africa nobody’s ever heard of.” Wry amusement flickered across his face. “That was one of the hairiest approaches I ever made. A short, unimproved dirt airstrip that ended in a fifteen-hundred-foot drop to the ocean. I’d just as soon not fly in there again anytime soon, even if the locals did brew up one helluva brand of fermented guava juice.”

And Alex thought her brief stint as a Vegas costume designer had been exciting! She’d rubbed elbows with a few stars, none of them A-listers but still glamorous in their own way. She’d never hauled a president around, though, or landed on a remote African island.

But suddenly, inexplicably, she couldn’t wait to get back to Sin City. She’d only be there a few hours. Just long enough for them to pick up a license and say “I do.” Yet for those few hours in that fairy-tale land of fake pyramids and Italian castles, she could be her old self again.

Impatiently, she checked her watch. Their flight would depart in a little over two hours. Plenty of time at an airport that didn’t see anything even remotely resembling the crowds at LAX or JFK. Still, they needed to be sure to make both the outbound and the return flight later this evening so Ben could report for his deployment processing early tomorrow morning.

Worried that Dinah and her mom had been delayed by the orange road-construction cones that sprouted all over the city like mushrooms, Alex slid a hand in the pocket of her slacks to retrieve her phone. Thankfully, the Madisons pulled in to the drive just as she was keying their number.

“Sorry we’re a little late,” Pat Madison huffed when Alex opened the door to her and her daughter. “Rio Grande Boulevard’s down to one lane north of Mountain Road. Some kind of accident.”

“No problem. Thanks for keeping Maria today. I’ll pick her up around eight thirty this evening, if that’s not too late.”

“That’s fine.”

“Dinah! Look what I got.”

Maria skipped out of her room hefting her iPad, and Dinah cooed in delight.

“Cool! Now we can play Crazy Farm together. But you said you had to wait for your birthday before you got one.”

“Ben brought it for me. He’s...uh...” She swiveled to face the man who emerged from the master bedroom. Her lips pursed as she tried to decipher their connection. “When you ’n’ Alex get married, will you be my uncle?”

“I guess so.”

“Even if she’s not really my aunt?”

“Well...”

“What about when she adopts me? She’ll be my mom but you can’t be my dad ’cause I already have one.”

“How about we figure all that stuff out as we go?”

Dinah’s mother followed the exchange with considerable interest. She knew about Maria’s deadbeat dad. A single mom herself, she’d been a fierce advocate and trusted advisor in Alex’s adoption campaign. Still, she’d expressed both surprise and concern when Alex called and explained why she needed her friend to keep Maria for the day.

Pat’s concern seemed to lessen appreciably at meeting Ben. She took his hand in a no-nonsense grip and ran a frankly approving glance over his tall, lean form.

“So you’re the phantom major from Alex’s past. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical when she called last night but what the hay. The woman’s lived like a menopausal nun ever since she moved back to Albuquerque. If she’s going to discard her habit, it might as well be for someone who looks like he could make it worth—”

“Pat!” Hastily, Alex cut her off. “We have to catch a plane.”

“Okay, okay. C’mon, girls. Let’s go.”

* * *

Mere moments later Ben shoved the key in the ignition of his midnight-black Tahoe, pulled out of the drive and aimed for the airport. As he wheeled through the light Sunday morning traffic, his gaze cut to his prospective bride.

Alex hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words since she’d kissed Maria and hustled her out the door. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was having serious doubts about this shotgun wedding. God knew, he was. But he waited until he’d joined the traffic heading south on I-25 to comment on her obvious nervousness.

“There’s still time to back out.”

“I know.”

She didn’t look at him, just stared out the windshield as they cruised past the towers of downtown Albuquerque.

“It’s your call, Alex. You don’t have to do this.”

That shook her out of her funk. She angled to face him and pulled on a smile. “Yes, I do. And in case I forget to tell you later, I’m more grateful than I can say. I owe you, Cowboy.”

For some reason, that irritated the heck out of Ben. He didn’t want her thanks any more than he wanted her to owe him. The fact that he didn’t know what exactly he did want from her irritated him even more.

Oh, hell. Who was he kidding? He knew precisely what he wanted. The memory of this woman naked and languorous and stretched out in bed had kept him awake and aching for most of last night.

The plain truth was that he wanted her naked again. Sated and smiling and sleepy amid a tangle of sheets. Preferably in a luxurious suite similar to the one he’d taken her to their last time in Vegas. Instead, he was going to zip down to city hall, fork over fifty bucks for a marriage license, participate in a hurried ceremony and hustle his new wife aboard a flight back to Albuquerque almost before the ink had dried on their marriage certificate. Not exactly the wedding of any woman’s dreams, even if she insisted that’s exactly what she wanted.

* * *

Give the time change, they landed at McCarran Airport a mere thirty minutes after their Albuquerque takeoff time. To Alex’s surprise, a uniformed driver was waiting when they walked out into the arrivals area. The chauffeur escorted them to a stretch limo half a football field long. Alex folded herself into the decadently luxurious back seat and hiked a brow when she saw the label on the champagne bottle nested in a silver ice bucket.

“Veuve Clicquot?”

“You only get married for the first time once.”

“True.”

“Too bad I don’t have my dress uniform and sword,” he said as he peeled off the foil and unscrewed the wire cage. “Badger learned the fine art of sabering champagne while serving a stint at the US Embassy in Russia. He taught a few of us the trick during some downtime on a rotation to a former French colony that shall remain nameless.”

“He was real, this colonel of yours?”

“Oh, yeah.” Ben got the cork out smoothly despite the lack of a saber and filled two crystal flutes. “Here’s to that first time.”

It was as good a toast as any, Alex thought, given the circumstances. With a nod, she tipped her glass to his.

The familiar landscape rolled by outside the limo’s window as the driver took I-15 toward downtown and the Clark County courthouse. To the right were the improbable castles and pyramids and glass towers of the Strip. To the left, the Spring Mountains rose in majestic splendor. Alex had lived here almost four years and still thought of it as home.

“By the way,” she told Ben, “I called the woman I used to room with here in Vegas. She’s a dancer at the Flamingo and has a matinee show but said she could slip away long enough to meet us at the Bellagio and act as a witness.”

“I called a pal, too. He’s stationed at Nellis and agreed to do the same.”

Alex took another sip of the champagne, hoping that the presence of two friends instead of strangers would make the quickie wedding seem a little more real.

As smooth as the champagne was, she confined herself to those two sips during the drive downtown. Once they’d obtained the marriage license, though, her nerves revved up and she gulped down what was left in her glass.

Ben’s choice of the wedding venue had surprised her. Given the short notice, she’d expected a no-frills, hurry-up-and-say-I-do ceremony at one of Vegas’s tacky little wedding chapels. She certainly hadn’t expected the Bellagio, but given a choice it would’ve been among her top three or four picks.

The Bellagio’s famed dancing fountains were delighting crowds of tourists when they pulled up at the main entrance, where an event planner in an Armani pantsuit was waiting with clipboard in hand and a warm smile on her face.

“We’re ready for you, Ms. Scott, Major Kincaid. This way, please.”

The planner led them through a lobby festooned with fabulous glass chandeliers to a private terrace overlooking the lagoon. The fountains were just finishing a lavishly choreographed sequence to “Time To Say Goodbye” sung by Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli.

“Lex!”

The high-pitched squeal that pierced the music and splash of cascading water came from Alex’s former roommate. A statuesque five foot ten, brimming with energy and surgically enhanced everywhere it counted, Chelsea had tossed a light wrap over a costume that consisted of spangled flesh-colored stockings, a rhinestone-studded G-string and a pearl-encrusted bra. A sparkly cap concealed her glossy black hair and buckled under her chin. The ostrich feathers topping the cap bobbed as she rushed across the terrace to engulf Alex in a rib-cracking hug.

“I still can’t believe you talked someone into agreeing to your crazy scheme,” she exclaimed when they disengaged.

“I can hardly believe it, either.”

“You sure you want to go through with it?”

“I’ve run out of options.”

“Mmm. How’s Maria?”

“Fine. She sends her love. And her congratulations on moving up to second lead. You deserve it.”

“I think so, too. I’ve got the best strut in town, even if I do say so myself.” Her inch-long fake eyelashes fluttered as she aimed them at Ben. “So this is the sex machine you spent that wild weekend with?”

As best Alex could recall, she hadn’t used quite that term to describe Ben. She had to admit it wasn’t too far off the mark, though.

“Chels, this is Major Ben Kincaid. Ben, Chelsea Howard.”

Although Ben topped Alex by a good five or six inches, he stood eye to eye with the long-legged dancer. He held out his hand but, before Chelsea could take it, another arrival rushed out on the terrace.

“Sorry, Cowboy. Damned traffic was backed up for a... Well, hel-lo.”

The new arrival’s eyes locked instantly on Chelsea. His sand-colored flight suit dotted with subdued military patches told Alex this had to be Ben’s pal from Nellis Air Force Base. Ben confirmed it when he pried his friend’s attention away from the dancer long enough to make the introductions.

“Brace yourself, Alex. This sorry excuse for a combat systems officer is Captain Jerry Floyd, call sign Pink...for obvious reasons.”

“Pink Floyd. Got it.”

“And you’re the woman who finally caused Cowboy to crash and burn.” He pumped Alex’s hand gleefully. “The news that he’s going down in flames flashed around the internet with the speed of light this morning. I had to promise to post a picture of the two of you as soon as the deed is done. No one’s gonna believe it otherwise.”

“Speaking of doing the deed,” Chelsea said, “I hate to hurry you, but I have to get back to the Flamingo.”

“No problem,” Ben replied easily. “We’re ready, aren’t we, Alex?”

As ready as she’d ever be. Still, her throat went dry when the minister launched into the time-honored, “We’re gathered together to witness the joining of this man and this woman...”

She had another uncomfortable moment when the minister asked for the rings. They hadn’t had time to pick them out but, thankfully, Ben had ordered plain gold bands as part of the wedding “package.”

“You’ll have to have it sized,” he murmured as he slipped it over her knuckle.

Mere seconds later the by-the-hour minister pronounced them husband and wife. Beaming, he gave the new groom the go-ahead. “You may kiss your bride.”

Prepared for this part of the ritual, Alex tipped her face for Ben’s kiss. He was good at this, she remembered from their weekend together. What she hadn’t remembered was how good.

His mouth brushed hers lightly. Then again. Slowly. Deliberately. She breathed in the warm scent of skin. Felt a sandpapery prickle where his chin scraped hers. Then he curled his arm around her waist, drew her in close and really got into it. When he raised his head and smiled down at her, her heart was jackhammering inside her chest.

“Hello, wife.”

She gulped. “Hello, husband.”

He looked like he was about to say something else but the event planner intervened with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Major, but we’ve got another wedding scheduled on the terrace in fifteen minutes. Shall we move to the railing and take some pictures?”

Chelsea threw off her wrap and struck her best showgirl pose. Pink went to parade rest beside Ben. And, as if on cue, the fountains spurted and began dancing to Elvis Presley’s rousing rendition of “Viva Las Vegas.” Alex had to grin at the tableau they presented as the photographer did his thing.

The wedding planner was good. And quick! She accessed a nearby printer and slid copies of the best photo into silver-tinted souvenir frames, then gave one to Alex, Chelsea and Pink while the photographer texted the original JPEGs to their phones.

“You sure you guys can’t stay over for a few days?” Chelsea asked Alex as she covered her showgirl splendor with her wrap again. “I could get you an employee discount on the bridal suite at the Flamingo.”

Alex was tempted. So tempted. Her mouth still tingled from Ben’s kiss and memories of their nights together were crowding front and center in her mind.

“We’d love to but...”

“Yeah, you told me. Hubby’s unit is deploying early tomorrow morning. Not much of a honeymoon, kid. Guess you’ll have to make up for lost time when he gets home.”

“Not likely,” Alex murmured, “seeing as we’ll probably be divorced by then.”

“Ya never know,” the showgirl murmured with a sideways glance at Ben. “Ya just never know.”

Chapter Three

Ben had considered several options to kill the four hours between the wedding and the flight back to Albuquerque. His first choice was a room right there at the Bellagio. With a little luck and a few smooth moves, he might’ve been able to convince Alex to forget her no-sex condition.

Although...

His gut told him she was right to keep their pseudomarriage platonic. By this time tomorrow he’d be sprawled in the back end of a C-17 with ten other aircrews being ferried across the pond as replacements for a squadron that had flown more than twice its share of combat missions. By the time he rotated stateside again, his brief stint as a married man would most likely be a distant memory. Going horizontal with his sexy bride might generate some happy memories to take with him. Unfortunately, a few hours between the sheets would also complicate an already weird situation.

His second choice to fill the four hours was to take Alex out to Nellis and give her an up close glimpse of his world. But that would generate too many questions about his supposed marriage if Pink or any of his pals got wind of it. The news that Cowboy was playing tour guide to his new wife instead of heating up a honeymoon suite would hit every Special Ops news feed around the globe.

His third and only viable option was to treat his bride to a lavish wedding feast before they headed to the airport. He pitched the idea when they were once again ensconced in the limo.

“I don’t know about you but I need more than airline peanuts to sustain me until we get back to Albuquerque. What say we celebrate our nuptials with a late lunch–early dinner at one of Vegas’s many eateries?”

“That sounds wonderful!”

The barely disguised relief in her response told Ben she’d been worrying over ways to fill their postwedding hours, too.

“Do you have a place in mind?”

Nobly, he left the choice to her. “Your town, your call.”

“Well...” she said with a quick grin.

Damn! Why hadn’t he remembered how her eyes gleamed with flickers of gold when she smiled. Probably because they hadn’t had much to twinkle about since they’d reconnected.

“There is one place,” she told him. “But it doesn’t exactly qualify as elegant.”

“Your town,” he repeated, thoroughly intrigued by those bright eyes.

* * *

Okay, Ben thought some minutes later, he might have made a serious error in judgment by turning the choice of eating establishments over to his bride.

He got his first clue when she leaned forward, tapped the window separating them from the chauffeur, and directed him to Pancho’s Cantina on East Hacienda Boulevard. The second was when they pulled in to a dirt parking lot and Ben surveyed a structure that looked like it had started life as a garage. Rusted sedans and a burned-out bus sat off to one side of the establishment. Dented pickups with gun racks decorating their rear windows crowded the front entrance.

“This is your favorite place to eat in Vegas?” Ben asked. “A city with as many four-and five-star restaurants as Paris or London?”

“Pancho’s green chili and sour cream enchiladas will melt your soul,” she asserted confidently before scooting forward to rap on the window divider again. “Have lunch with us, Ernie. You’ll be our special guest.”

The chauffeur’s glance cut to the rearview mirror. Ben endorsed the invitation with a nod. Why not?

Ten minutes later the three of them were seated in a booth and scarfing down what could only be described as fifty-megaton salsa. Ernie, they discovered, was actually Ernesto Constanza and a transplant to Vegas from south Philadelphia. Ben listened while he and Alex exchanged increasingly humorous tales of living and working in Sin City. Ernesto’s anecdotes edged closer to the mob than Alex’s, although Ben hiked a brow at the instances she sketched of strong-arm tactics by the unions.

When Ernie excused himself to hit the men’s room, Ben had to ask, “Did Chelsea really fork over part of her paycheck for a year to get her first break in Vegas?”

“It was either that or sleep with the slug who was doing the hiring.”

“What about you? Did they lean on you, too?”

She shook her head. “I was lucky enough to be hired right out of college by one of the really, really great guys in the costume business. Don kept our union steward in line. He was also openly, proudly gay. The only threat to my somewhat dubious virtue came from the aircrews who converged on Nellis for Red Flag.”

No surprise there. Red Flag was a massive combat training exercise that brought a host of air, space and cyber forces of the US and its allies to the Nevada Test and Training Range. The range’s fifteen thousand square miles of desert provided a target-rich environment, realistic threat systems and an enemy force that couldn’t be replicated anywhere else in the world. Ben and his crews had dodged more simulated surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles in the skies above Nevada than he wanted to count.

“I managed to resist the Red Flag crews.” With a rueful smile, Alex leaned forward and propped her elbows on the table. “Can’t say the same for a certain Badger Basher.”

God! Did she have any idea how seductive she looked right now? The sparkles on her heart-shaped neckline pulled Ben’s gaze like airfield approach lights. He tried, he honestly tried, not to stare at the swell of creamy flesh above those sparkles but he was sweating by the time the waitress dumped three platters the size of B-52s on the table.

* * *

Pancho’s house special didn’t do much to douse the heat in his belly but it did fill him up enough to pass on the airline’s peanuts during the short flight back to Albuquerque. The sun was just beginning to sink toward the volcanic peaks across the Rio Grande when they exited the terminal. Streaks of red and gold and flaming orange tinted the sky as they claimed Ben’s SUV and drove to Pat and Dinah’s house to pick up Maria.

“So?” Pat asked when she answered the door and ushered Alex inside. “How was Vegas?”

“Still bright and glitzy and completely unreal.”

“Your friend Chelsea make it to the ceremony?”

“She did. So did Ben’s best man. They were both in uniform. Mostly.”

Keying her phone, she brought up the souvenir wedding photo that the wedding planner had texted to her and Ben’s phones.

“Darn! No Elvis?”

“No, thank goodness. Not that anyone would notice with Chelsea spilling out of her halter.”

“True.”

Alex tucked her phone back in her bag. “How were the girls?”

“Fine. They wore themselves out and are both zonked out on the sofa.” She slanted Alex a quick glance. “Sure you don’t want to just leave her here tonight? This being your honeymoon and all?”

“They have school tomorrow. It’s enough of a battle to get Maria up and out the door at our own house. You’d need a bulldozer to do it here.”

“Your call. You get her, I’ll carry her backpack.”

Alex had to stifle a grunt when she lifted the fifty-plus pounds of sleeping child. Maria woke only long enough to whine petulantly at being disturbed before wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck.

When the two women appeared by the car, Ben popped out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear door. Maria had outgrown her booster seat and five-point harness months ago but she was too sleepy to just buckle in and leave all slumped over.

“I’ll ride in the back with her,” Alex told him.

Unfortunately, she had Maria’s head pointed the wrong way and couldn’t slide her into the seat. She tried angling around. That didn’t work, either.

“Here, let me.”

He transferred the sleeping girl from Alex’s arms into his. Maria gave another bad-tempered whine, then rolled into his chest and burrowed in. Ben looked so startled at having the seven-year-old’s nose stuck in his chest that Pat laughed and Alex had to smother a smile.

“She’s always cranky when she’s half-asleep,” she apologized. “I’ll slide in first and you can hand her to me.”

* * *

They reversed the process after the short drive to the casita. Ben cut the ignition, climbed out and opened the passenger door to gather the still-sleeping child in his arms. Maria didn’t whine this time. Just drew up her knees, mumbled something incoherent and cuddled up against him again.

Alex slid out and refused to acknowledge the pain that lanced into her. Why couldn’t Maria’s father have cradled her like this? Held her just once and showed some love?

In Janet’s last, agonizing months she’d admitted that her absent husband had resented Maria’s claim on her time and attention. Eddie had never played with the girl. Never showed her any affection. And in one of his drug-induced highs, he’d claimed that his former girlfriend had slept with half the band before she dumped the kid on him and took off for parts unknown. Any of them might be the kid’s father. Alex had settled that with a court-mandated DNA test when she’d gone after the bastard for child support.

Except, she acknowledged grimly as she unlocked the casita’s front door, her determination to get the deadbeat dad to own up to his responsibilities had totally backfired. The incontrovertible proof that Eddie was, in fact, Maria’s father had come less than a week before his arrest on drug charges. Now the asshat was in prison, still not contributing to his daughter’s welfare and getting back at Alex by blocking every one of her attempts to adopt his daughter.

Her sham marriage to Kincaid had to tip the scales, she thought furiously. It had to.

Her jaw tight, she led the way to Maria’s room and yanked down the bed comforter. Ben hooked a brow at the suppressed violence but eased the girl into bed and murmured that he’d wait in the kitchen while Alex got her undressed and settled for the night.

* * *

Alex had sternly banished all thoughts of her sister’s ex by the time she followed the scent of fresh brewed coffee to the kitchen. Ben was leaning a hip against the counter with a steaming mug in one hand.

“Helped myself,” he said, hiking the mug. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not. I’ll have some, too.”

Yikes! The first sip reminded her of their weekend together, when he took his coffee strong enough to grow hair on his chest.

Not that Major Ben Kincaid would final in any of the hairy chest contests conducted with some frequency in Vegas’s less reputable lounges. Chelsea had dragged Alex to one but the fur-covered contestants had totally turned her off. Ben, she now remembered, sported a light scatter of silky black that dusted his pecs, arrowed down his chest to his belly and...

No! She’d better stop right there! She’d laid out the conditions for their fake marriage up front. No point in renegotiating them at this point. Not when he was taking off for parts unknown in a few hours. Which reminded her...

“You mentioned that you moved out of your apartment and put your things in storage. Where were you going to stay tonight?”

“I’ve got a room at the Transient Lodging Facility at Kirtland. But...” He glanced at his watch and shrugged. “I have to be at the Base Ops with my crew at 0400. I’ll probably just hit the TLF to change into my uniform, then hang in the crew lounge until takeoff.”

“You’re not going to fly across country with no sleep!”

“Not hardly.” He laughed. “Remind me to explain air force regs governing mandatory crew rest to you sometime.”

The mutual realization that he wouldn’t be around to explain crew rest...or anything else...hung in the air until he broke the awkward silence.

“My crew is one of ten being ferried across the Atlantic in the back end of a C-17. The transport crew will do the flying. The rest of us will spend the whole flight sawing z’s.”

“Can you tell me where you’re going?”

“No. Sorry.”

The silence stretched a little longer this time. Alex took another cautious sip of coffee and was hit by the unsettling realization that the kitchen she’d so lovingly decorated was just the right size for her and Maria. She’d painted the walls a sunny yellow herself and spent hours haunting Old Town’s bazaar for the terra-cotta sun faces arranged above the cooktop. Ben, however, seemed to shrink the kitchen’s proportions by at least a third.

It wasn’t his height, she had to concede, or those broad shoulders. It had to be that Special Ops confidence. The quiet air of authority he exuded even with his back in a lazy curve and his hips propped against her kitchen counter. Somehow, some way, he owned the room.

“Why don’t you hang here for a while?” she suggested.

He looked interested. Very interested.

Reluctantly, Alex popped his bubble. “We could go into the living room, put up our feet and talk.”

“Right. Talk.”

“I might need to know more about my...uh...husband than his name, rank and serial number.”

Dammit! She’d better learn not to stumble over the H word. And, she realized as she led the way into the living room, she actually had no clue what his serial number was.

“It’s the same as my Social Security number,” he replied in answer to her embarrassed question. “I’ll take a photo of the SS card for you. Also my military ID, which has a different number. You might need both.”

He laid them on the coffee table, clicked a quick photo and texted it to Alex’s cell phone. The JPEG nestled next to their wedding certificate and the picture with Chelsea and Pink in her phone’s photo album.

She bit her lip as she studied Ben’s face on his military ID card. She had absolutely no intention of making any spousal claim on him. All she wanted—all she needed—was his signature on a marriage license. She wasn’t about to risk being accused of fraud by the air force. Or by the state of New Mexico, although she skated closer to the line with the state than she did with the military.

The thought caused a little flutter in her stomach. Resolutely, she banished it. Maria was worth the risk. A thousand times over.

Which brought her back to name, rank and serial number. If she was going to sway the Neanderthal judge who’d sustained Eddie’s objection to the adoption because of Alex’s single status, she needed to know more about her groom. Kicking off her shoes, she sank back against the overstuffed sofa cushions and tucked her feet under her.

“I know this sounds really manipulative... Okay, it is manipulative. But it would help if you tell me a little about yourself. Just in case I need to provide some details about my absent spouse.”

Ben stretched out in the saggy armchair opposite her. “What do you want to know?”

She shrugged. “Your favorite ice cream. Your shirt size. Your mom’s and dad’s first names. Where you graduated from high school.”

“Plain vanilla. Fifteen-and-a-half neck, thirty-three sleeve. Alice and Ben Senior. Although,” he added sardonically, “the ‘senior’ part’s a little iffy. My mother was fairly sure the trucker she lived with for a few months fathered me, but they parted ways long before I was born. Never saw him, never wanted to. Mom took off when I was about eight or nine. It was pretty much a series of foster homes after that.”

Uh-oh! The casual way he’d tossed that out didn’t pass the smell test. With a quick kick to her gut, Alex guessed he’d just shared the real reason he’d agreed to her outrageous proposal. Apparently, his childhood had been as rootless and haphazard as Maria’s. His next comments confirmed her guess.

“As for high school, I dropped out after my junior year. The oil fields were hiring,” he related with a careless shrug. “I’d had enough of foster homes and didn’t see the need for a diploma, so I lit out on my own. The air force recruiter who had me in his sights didn’t see it the same way.”

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