Bury the Hatchet (3 page)

“Which is precisely the point,” Mr. Jernigan cut in, his voice rising over mine. He arched an eyebrow in my direction, either daring me to interrupt or putting me back in my place, one of the two. “You’ll do whatever we need you to do—John assured us you would—and we need you to marry Tallulah. She’s gotten into a scrape. She needs a way out of it. You’re it, son. On top of that,
she’s
the best way to get the people here in Tulsa on your side.”

“How is marrying her supposed to help me make things up to all the people I pissed off?” I demanded.

“Would you
please
watch your language?” Mrs. Jernigan demanded, and I just about fell out of my chair. Of all the things to get worked up over, she was getting her panties in a twist over me uttering the words
pissed off
? How on earth was she going to handle being around a whole team of hockey players? It might be better if she was one of those hands-off team owners like we’d had in Portland, but so far it didn’t look like that would be the case.

She put her hands on her hips, prim, proper, and as incensed as I’d ever seen a woman. “Really, there’s no reason for all that foul stuff. Your mama should have taught you better than that.”

“Let’s leave his mama out of it, Sharon,” her husband said, never removing his gaze from me. No doubt he sensed that I was about to lose my shit, and he wanted to defuse the situation before I did something else I would regret. I might not like his wife, but so far
he
was okay. Well, except for the fact that he thought I needed to marry some random chick I’d never met before.

He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Here’s the deal, son.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m not your son.”

He ignored me. “Tallulah won Miss Teen Oklahoma USA several years back, and then she won Miss Teen USA. She’s the reigning Miss Oklahoma USA, or she was until they stripped her of her crown last month because of a slight indiscretion. She was expecting to contend for Miss USA, and most likely Miss Universe after that. She’s been competing in and winning pageants for years, including some very high-profile ones. The fact is that Oklahomans love her. We adore her. But now her image has been tarnished, and she needs a husband so she can repair her image in the public eye. She fell down a few pegs when…well, never mind that. The point is that they want Tallulah to appear to be the role model they always assumed she was, and to do that, she needs to give the impression that she’s growing up, settling down, and doing the things they’ve expected of her all along.”

“Which is exactly why you can’t just shove her in with him,” the hand-waving man interrupted, pointing a finger in my direction so hard it seemed he might be attempting to jab me in the eye. “He’ll ruin her worse than she already is.”

Mr. Jernigan closed his eyes, shook his head, and sighed. “He’s not going to ruin her. They’ll rescue each other.”

I wasn’t in the mood to play knight in shining armor to anyone, even if she had legs for days and killer curves like this Tallulah chick did, and I’d be damned if I needed anyone to rescue me. I’d dug my own hole; I could damned well figure out a way to climb out of it myself. “I’m not marrying anyone,” I said, loud and clear enough to be heard over everyone else.

“You are.” This time it was John speaking.

I spun my head to glare at him. “You knew this was going on and you didn’t say a word about it?”

“Had to be sure you were going to show up,” he said, shrugging. Like this was no big deal. Like he wasn’t trying to tell me that my life as I had it planned was all being tossed out, and I was going to have to bend to someone else’s rules. Like I should have expected it since I’d been dumb enough to make an ass of myself, and this was my due penance. “We already discussed this. You’ve got to play by their rules, at least for a while. Things are different down here. You’re going to be living and playing in the Bible belt, and there are different expectations. Besides, it’s not forever,” he added sheepishly.

“You expect me to believe that a preacher”—I pointed in the general direction of the Jernigans—“is going to suggest a marriage that will end up in divorce in order to cover up some silly scandal.”

“Well, really, honey pie,” Mrs. Jernigan said. “It’ll be more like an annulment. It’s just for a year.”

“A year?” I scoffed. I didn’t know American marriage law very well, but this didn’t sound like the sort of thing a judge would consider appropriate annulment material. “And I’m not your honey pie. Either way, doesn’t matter since I’m not doing it.”

“Yes,” John said, more emphatically than before, “you are.”

I shot him a go-to-hell look. “No one can make me get fake married for a year. Not even you, and don’t fool yourself into thinking you can. Besides, that would mean I’d have to be celibate the whole damn time.” If the entire fucking state loved this Tallulah chick, the second I was seen with some other girl, hoping to scratch an itch, I’d be the bastard who cheated on Oklahoma’s sweetheart.

“Language!” Mrs. J shouted at me. The woman reminded me more and more of Effie Trinket from the
Hunger Games
movies, only minus the pink hair.

“Sorry if the mention of sex offends you,” I spouted off, and I didn’t even feel bad about the offended gasp she let out. The longer I was in this room, the shorter my fuse grew. I’d be lucky if I got out of here without them threatening to find a way to void my contract.

Hell, maybe I should really let loose. Maybe then they
would
try to void it, and then I could sign with some other team. Anything would be better than being stuck here and getting forced into some sham of a marriage.

“You wouldn’t…” Tallulah had spoken up again, drawing my attention, but she clammed up the second her mother and Lance shot looks in her direction.

“I wouldn’t what?” I asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lance interjected. He reached across and put a hand over Tallulah’s, as though to prevent her from saying another word. The guy seriously needed a good throat-punching, and I was itching to be the one to have that honor. Not to rescue her. More to fuck with him because the half hour or so I’d spent in his company was more than anyone should have to bear in a lifetime. The guy was a serious ass. He met my glare. “No Neatherthals allowed near Tallulah Belle. Not now. Not ever.”

She tugged her hand free, and my esteem for her went up a few notches. She scowled at him before turning to me. “You wouldn’t necessarily have to be celibate the whole time,” she said, staring straight at me. “I mean, I’m not sure I’d want to stay—”

“Tallulah Belle Roth!” her mother interrupted before turning her hateful glare on me. “There will be
no
hanky-panky, not with Tallulah or anyone else. Just enough hand-holding and light kisses for the cameras, but when you’re not putting on a show for the media, you’ll be keeping your hands to yourself and your little
thing
tucked away in your pants.”

“It ain’t little, sweetheart,” I said before I could think better of it.

“Well, I never.” She shut up after that, though, crossing her arms and turning her back to me.

Tallulah didn’t keep quiet. “Mama, you can’t speak to him like that. And it’s none of your business—”

“My daughter isn’t my business?”

“—what happens behind closed doors,” she continued, ignoring her mother’s interruption. “The fact is, we
will
be married. And soon.”

Soon? I was about to speak up again, but the other man—the one who, so far, had kept his mouth shut and merely looked on, mildly amused by the proceedings—leaned forward and locked his gaze on me. “Saturday, actually,” he said, answering my unasked question. “And I’ve already got the prenup lined out. I’ll just need you and my Tallie to drop by my office later this afternoon to go over it so we can get it finalized.”

I pressed my fingers to my eyes, wishing I could push hard enough that my whole head would explode like the dude on
Game of Thrones
. My head hurt enough that it might explode from the internal pressure without any outside forces.

“
Not him
,” Lance tossed in. “We’ll find someone else.”

“By Saturday?” Mrs. Jernigan asked. “Everything’s already in place for this weekend, and we’ve already wasted too much time. They’re hounding Tallulah everywhere she goes.”

“Find someone else,” I ground out.

“There
is
no one else,” the father insisted at the same time as John said, “Whether you want to do this or not, you’re going to have to.”

“Why?” I roared. “Why this? What the hell is this supposed to do that couldn’t be accomplished some way that doesn’t involve fucking getting married?”

Tallulah stood up, planting both hands on her hips and drawing my eye exactly there. “Now you look here,” she said, suddenly turning sassy in a way that turned me on despite my better judgment—further proof that hormones had nothing to do with the part of the brain that processed thought. “I’m not any happier about this than you are, and clearly my mama and Lance don’t think you’re up to snuff, but they’re right about this one part. Whether you want to hear it or not, they’re right. The two of us getting married—at least long enough for all of this to blow over—is the best solution for both of our problems. So we’re going to do it. We’re getting married on Saturday, so you’d better just accept the fact that it’s happening. And you should probably call your mama. They don’t like finding these things out after the fact.”

Well, holy hell. Even Tallulah wanted to go along with it. Apparently, Tulsa wasn’t just hell; it was also the Twilight Zone, only the people I was surrounded by didn’t realize it.

FOR WHATEVER REASON
, he said he would go along with it. I was still dumbfounded that Mama and Mrs. Jernigan had come up with the idea of us getting married to begin with, and I wasn’t positive that
I
was fully on board, but Hunter Fielding had agreed to marry me, and now everything was moving at the speed of light. I needed to make up my mind, once and for all, before it was too late. Yes, Mama and Lance insisted that I had no choice and was going to have to marry
someone
, but I was a grown woman. An adult. I had choices. And marriage? That was a big decision to make, even if it was essentially to be in name only and would have an expiration date.

The meeting with the Thunderbirds brass took place on Tuesday morning. That afternoon, Daddy and I sat down in his office with Hunter and his agent and hammered out the details for the prenuptial agreement.

“You’ll live together as husband and wife for one year,” Daddy explained to the other men. He’d already gone over all of it with me, Mama, and Lance well before now. He and I were seated on one side of the long board table at Roth & Rainier, the law firm where he was one of the two primary partners, while Hunter and John sat across from us. “All money and possessions that started out being Hunter’s will remain Hunter’s. The same will go for Tallie. Upon your divorce, everything that she comes into the marriage with will leave the marriage as hers. You’ll maintain a single residence but separate bank accounts.”

“Who will own the house?” the agent asked.

“Hunter buys a house,” Daddy answered before I could interject. “He’ll need one to live in after this all washes over, anyway, since he’ll still be on the team. You’ll live in it together to give the impression of being as completely head-over-heels in love as possible. What happens inside that house with the doors closed is your business and yours only, no matter what her mother and that ass Lance may have to say on that matter.”

Heat raced to my cheeks as I remembered what I’d said earlier about not necessarily remaining celibate. The fact was, Hunter was hot. Seriously gorgeous. He was about half a foot taller than me and solid muscle. His dark hair was too long and curled a little where it hit his shoulders, and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, with a bit of scruff lining his square jaw. Everything about him screamed
Man
, with a capital M, from the defined muscles of his forearms to the deep, gravelly sound of his voice. He’d been wreaking havoc on my girly parts since the moment he’d walked into the Thunderbirds offices earlier, and I couldn’t seem to get my hormones under control. At least not while he was staring at me like he was right now. Something told me he was remembering what I’d impetuously said, as well.