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“No,” Cort said, shaking his head, his smile wry now. “But he did almost marry a stripper.”
“What happened?”
“He realized he was about to almost marry a stripper.”
“Strippers need love, too,” Katie said, smiling. “Besides, you married a washboard girl.”
“A very cute washboard girl,” he said.
Katie’s smile faded, and he immediately regretted the comment. Especially since her smile had been real and she’d looked more like herself in that moment than she had all night.
“At least briefly, right?” he added, hoping she’d be comforted that they could at least rectify this one issue. “Come on, let’s go see what happened here.”
He hesitated just a second when they reached the door, but then he grabbed the handle and shoved it open. A bell rang announcing their entrance.
He got only the impression of silk flowers and draping white cloth before a woman, who looked like she should be flitting about the room with little wings while strumming a harp, bustled into the room.
“Can I help—” Her cherubic smile faded as soon as she saw them.
Great, someone else who was less than pleased to see them.
“Oh, you two,” the lady said, actually looking nervous. She glanced over her shoulder as if searching for reinforcements. When she didn’t see anyone coming, she turned back to them, forcing a smile. “You’re back.”
“We are,” Cort said, glancing at Katie, whose pretty lips were pulled downward into a worried frown. She clearly hadn’t missed the woman’s reaction either.
“Well, it’s lovely to see you are . . . feeling so much better,” the cherub said, with a sympathetic smile.
Feeling better? Cort wasn’t sure about that.
The lady continued, “But as we told you last night, the parrot cannot serve as your witness.”
Oh dear God, they’d tried to have the parrot as their witness. Really?
Katie shook her head slightly, but she didn’t react any further. Cort supposed, given what they’d discovered thus far, trying to have a parrot as a best man—or maid of honor—wasn’t much of a shock.
“We know that,” Cort said easily as if he remembered their antics from the night before, even though everything else he was about to say would reveal they had no idea what happened. Period. “We’re actually just checking here, because it seems we did get married.”
He raised his left hand to show the ring. Katie showed hers, too.
“And it doesn’t sound as if we got married here,” he added.
“Indeed you did not.” A man in a black suit and tie entered the room and stopped beside the cherub.
Yet again, another person who wasn’t pleased with them. One thing was becoming clear. It was probably a good thing they didn’t remember their night. They hadn’t made any friends, that’s for sure.
“Is this the only twenty-four-hour chapel in the Quarter?” Cort asked.
The man nodded. “It is.”
“Do you happen to have a priest who works here?”
“This is a nondenominational chapel,” the man said, his tone haughty, “and I’m the only reverend.”
Cort nodded, instantly uncomfortable with the man’s air of superiority. In fact, he really wanted to walk out. After all, they hadn’t married here, and that was all they needed to know, right?
Even as he told himself that, Katie asked, “Do you have any idea where we could have been married?”
“I don’t,” the man said, “but I know if you were still in the same state you were when you arrived here, then whoever he was shouldn’t have married you. I certainly could not agree to it.”
Again, Cort didn’t like his tone. As if this man didn’t encounter all sorts of inebriated people in the Crescent City.
“Why wouldn’t you marry us?” Katie asked, and Cort shot her a surprised look. Surely she wasn’t so naïve as to not realize what the reverend was saying.
“Well, you were very drunk.”
Katie had to know that was what he was going to give as his answer.
“And there appeared to be blood on your clothes.”
Cort’s attention snapped back to the reverend. Now that answer he hadn’t expected.
“Blood?”
The reverend and the cherub both nodded.
“Both of us?” Katie asked.
“Just you,” the reverend said to her. “I think you can understand my misgivings at the whole situation.”
Cort could, but he still didn’t like the man’s attitude. Definitely not that of Christian concern, but rather holier-than-thou judgment.
So it really irked Cort to have to ask, “Did we tell you what happened?”
“Not exactly,” the reverend said. He crossed his arms, looking decidedly unimpressed. “But you did have the strangest reason for needing to marry.”
“We did?” Katie asked, her voice reedy like it had been back in his apartment.
The reverend nodded, as did the cherub.
“Yes, you kept saying that you had to marry,” the reverend looked at Cort, “because you bit her.”
Cort had bitten her. Beside him, Katie swayed slightly on her feet, and he immediately put out an arm to steady her. To his shock, she allowed his touch, even after finding out he’d been the one. The one who crossed her over.
Why? Why?
“You bit me,” Katie said, her voice strange, totally dazed. Cort watched her for a moment, then realized the other two were watching both of them, one bewildered, the other suspicious.
The reverend knew something. Something he shouldn’t.
“Well, that certainly is an odd reason to insist on marriage,” Cort said, trying to sound amused. “Isn’t it, sweetheart?”
Katie looked at him, her eyes clouded with a mixture of confusion and disbelief, but she nodded.
Cort gave her an encouraging smile, and she seemed to realize he was trying to get her to calm down. She even managed a slight smile of her own in return.
The reverend nodded, his expression relaxing—but only a little.
“And of course there was your odd choice of witnesses,” the reverend added. “The bird, of course. And some long-haired fellow who kept trying to touch my cross.”
“He even knocked that one down off the wall.” The cherub pointed to a small cross adorning the entryway wall. “It hit him in the head and he carried on like he was dying. He claimed it burned him and he ran out of the chapel.”
