The Marriage Agenda: The Marriage Conspiracy / The Billionaire's Baby Plan

Dekker, Joleen and Sam left the party at a little after nine. The reporters—who had not gone away when Dekker asked them to—snapped pictures when the newlyweds emerged from the house, their flashes explosions of blinding light in the warm autumn darkness. Then they jumped into their cars, ready to give chase.

Dekker swore under his breath as he swung out of Camilla’s driveway. “They said they’d leave us alone for tonight, damn it.”

“Well, they are not doing it.” Joleen fastened her seat belt. “Take your own advice and ignore them.”

Dekker muttered a few swear words under his breath. Joleen pretended not to hear. She smiled and waved at the family members who had gathered on the porch to watch them drive away.

“And how the hell am I supposed to see to drive?” Dekker grumbled as they took off down the street. He had to squint through the words Just Married, which Bud and Burly had scrawled on the windshield in shaving cream. There Goes the Bride was written on the rear window. And a bouncing row of tin cans clattered along behind them.

Joleen brushed the birdseed from her hair. “It’s three blocks to my place. Take it slow and we’ll make it okay.” They’d chosen to stay at Joleen’s house for the wedding night. First thing in the morning they were leaving for Los Angeles.

As soon as they turned the corner and all the waving relatives disappeared from sight, Dekker swung over and stopped at the curb.

“What now?” Joleen demanded, as one of the reporters’ cars slid in behind them and the other rolled past the Lexus and nosed in along the curb just ahead.

Dekker whipped out his Swiss Army knife—the one with three blades, a corkscrew and just about every other tool known to man tucked inside. “Be right back.”

“Dekker—”

He was out of the car before she could tell him to stay where he was. She watched him circle around to the rear bumper, where he crouched, disappearing from her line of sight. When he stood again, he had the cans, still hanging by their strings.

He came back to the front of the car and presented them to her. “Here. Do something with these.”

Like what? she thought, but decided not to ask. She took them and set them on the floor next to her door. They rattled together as Dekker swung away from the curb. He passed the car in front before the reporter at the wheel had the wherewithal to shift into drive.

“I thought you said you couldn’t see,” Joleen reminded him as the powerful car picked up speed.

“I’m managing.”

“Lord, I hope so.”

“And this baby handles like a dream.”

“Oh. Good news to all of us, I am sure.…”

Sam laughed in pure glee from the backseat. He let out a string of almost-words, followed by a rousing, “Vroom-vroom-vroom!”

Joleen clutched the armrest and thought of all the times she’d suggested her friend ought to get himself a new car. And now he had done it. She could almost wish he hadn’t.

But then again, his old Road Runner, which still sat beneath the carport outside his apartment building, boasted 383 cubes on a V-8 block—a fact he mentioned often and with considerable pride. If he’d been driving it right now, they’d be going at the same speeds—and the ride would have been a whole lot rougher.

They barreled around a corner, tin cans rolling at her feet. “Dekker…”

He wasn’t listening. “Very fine,” he murmured, “like a knife through warm butter…”

In seconds they reached another corner and spun around it. Joleen shoved the cans out of the way, braced her feet more firmly and told herself she ought to be grateful he hadn’t bought that Ferrari he’d mentioned Wednesday.

“Maybe later,” he’d decided, after considering the Ferrari. “First, I want to get us a nice family car.”

The Lexus was a four-door. In Dekker’s mind, that made it a family car, though clearly, what it had under the hood would stack up against that old Road Runner of his any day of the week.

They took two more corners at speeds faster than Joleen wanted to think about. Then at last Dekker applied the brakes. “Well?” he asked.

She glanced behind them. The dark street was deserted. “You lost them.”

“Vroom-vroom-vroom,” said Sam.

Dekker readjusted his rearview mirror. “You haven’t seen any of them hanging around your place, right?”

“No, I have not.”

“Good. Then maybe they haven’t figured out where you live yet. Which means we’ll be left alone tonight. And tomorrow, we are outta here.”

“I cannot wait.” She gave him a look, one that told him just what she thought of his driving so fast.

He grinned back at her, not sorry in the least.

Dekker drove around—at a sedate speed—for another fifteen minutes. “Just to make certain I shook those fools.”

The dashboard clock said it was 9:33 when he pulled up in front of the tidy one-story house that Joleen had been calling home for a little over a year.

“We’d better hide this car,” he said. “If our ‘friends’ decide to cruise the neighborhood, it would be a dead giveaway.”

So Joleen got out and moved her own car from the small detached garage at the side of the house. Once Dekker had parked in the vacant space, she went to get Sammy. “And put those tin cans in the recycling bin,” she said as she leaned in the car to free her son from his safety seat.

Dekker, who stood behind her at that point, made a put-upon sound in his throat and muttered, “What? You? Anal?”

She pulled her head out of the car just long enough to make a face at him before she reached back in to scoop Sammy out of the seat and into her arms.

* * *

Joleen’s house was very much like a lot of the smaller houses in Mesta Park. A classic prairie cottage, it had no hallways. Living room, dining room and kitchen opened into each other, a bedroom off each. The single bath was tucked between the two back bedrooms.

Joleen had the room off the kitchen and Sam had the one in the middle. The largest bedroom, in front, with a nice window facing the porch but without direct access to the bath, served as her guest room. Dekker carried his overnight bag in there as Joleen took her son with her into her own room. She swiftly changed out of her wedding dress and into a pair of capris and a crop top.

Then Sammy had his bath. He went right down when she put him to bed, turning his face toward the wall and sighing in tired contentment. Joleen tiptoed from the room, switching off the light and pulling the door quietly closed behind her.

She found Dekker sitting in the kitchen, his back to the window, at the old pine table she’d picked up at a yard sale and refinished herself. He’d changed clothes, too. Now he wore faded jeans and an OSU T-shirt.

She tipped her head at the open Rolling Rock in front of him. “I see you managed to find the beer.”

He picked up the bottle and toasted her with it—then set it down without drinking from it. “What a damn day.”

“You said it.” She got herself a Coke from the fridge and dropped into the chair across from him. “At least Uncle Hubert didn’t get falling-down drunk.”

“That’s true. We need to be grateful for small favors. But I have a request.”

“Name it.”