AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turned the bathroom light on and for the first time got a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gasped in horror. Her hair was ratted in the back and fell limply around her green-tinged face. Dark raccoon-like rings appeared around her eyes, a combination of mascara, dehydration, and too little rest.
Lord. She was a mess.
What she needed was a shower. A long, hot shower to wash away all the stink and then maybe she’d be able to remember things more clearly.
And it wouldn’t hurt to look human again.
She started the water and tested it before climbing in. Her stomach roiled at the steamy moisture, and she turned it down before letting the water sink into her skin and hair. Giving herself the freedom to pick at her memories. To try and remember how she’d landed herself naked in that bed out there.
The tour of the agave fields and the distillery. That she remembered. A shot of tequila. Dinner down in the cavern beneath the distillery. A second shot of tequila. Candlelight. Conversation. More tequila. Later, dancing with Cruz under the stars. Tequila. The hypnotic gleam in those dark eyes of his, and—
A kiss.
A kiss like she’d never had before, one that made her toes curl and her insides turn hot and squishy. A kiss that had made her hunger for more.
More images started coming to her.
Of Bev and Lenny and Pat and the rest, smiling and teasing them as they caught their kiss. Another shot as they toasted the happy couple. A late night tour of the old church in the town-square. Of several couples making their vows to God and each other before the crowds and a slightly inebriated priest. Of—
She froze. No. Not possible.
But the memory of standing face to face with Cruz, her hands in his as she stared into those dark eyes that promised so much. Seeing him smile, something she’d been determined then and there he would do each and every day as they said the words. Familiar words. Promising loyalty and fidelity. Love. Of promising to take care of each other…
All the days of their lives.
She let out a strangled cry and ripped the shower curtain away and stumbled back out of the tub. Trailing water she slipped her way across the floor and into the bedroom where she studied every surface of the room. She stopped as her gaze fell on a piece of paper tossed carelessly on the nightstand.
Her legs trembled as she walked to the stand, praying it wasn’t true. Her wet fingers lifted the paper and she took a breath before processing the words.
It was in Spanish, but it wasn’t hard to miss her signature below. And Cruz’s. And a few others.
Not even able to understand the words on the document, she knew without out a doubt what it said.
She and Cruz were married. They were husband and wife.
Cruz busied himself filling two cups with coffee at the hotel lobby. He didn’t know how Payton took her coffee, so he grabbed a handful of sugar and sweeteners and creamers and stuffed them in his pocket.
She was going to need the sharp hit of caffeine when she remembered everything from the previous night.
Memories that were still sweeping over him.
He couldn’t believe he’d done something so foolhardy. So spontaneous. So…stupid. Because how else would you qualify marrying someone you barely knew while both people were heavily intoxicated?
See. This was exactly why he went with the expected.
When he awoke this morning, the insides of his skull pounding about, he’d been more than a little stunned to find Payton draped across his chest. It had taken three point four seconds for it all to come back to him.
The kiss.
The special moment of watching other couples making that commitment to each other, of feeling so hopeful and excited at the promise of a future with the woman next to him. Of thinking it could be forever.
The moment she brazenly asked him if he wanted to get up there before God, their new friends, and everyone else who had crowded into the church, and make whatever was happening between them the real deal.
Forever.
God help him, in that moment, he was a goner. He’d said yes.
And then the long night of discovering each other, finalizing their newfound marital bliss. Of her under him, on top of him, of her giving herself to him in every way that he’d been so humbled and proud and filled with such affection he’d lost his breath.
