The Bride Said, 'I Did?'

Like her, Billy had a passion for movies. The kind of passion that was just not going to go away. The kind of passion the industry needed in this day and age if it was ever going to get back to the glory days of old, where the story—not the special effects—was the focus of the film.

“Billy is an excellent student, an incredible worker. He’s just young and overly romantic. I don’t think I should hold that against him,” Dani continued. Surely his crush on her would fade with time, she told herself.

“Then maybe you should hire someone else, too. A third party to make things less intimate,” Kelsey suggested practically as the four sisters headed back out to the much-cooler veranda, glasses of lemonade in hand, to enjoy what was left of the sultry summer afternoon.

“I only wish I could. But my budget has been sorely strained as it is,” Dani said. She had moved from Los Angeles, bought one of the most expensive old houses in town: a charming Victorian on Spring Street—and then set about furnishing it. She’d depleted her savings, and until she received her book advance, in approximately another month, she was counting every penny. Her sisters, all having incurred similar expenses, were also strapped for cash.

“I need someone who knows movies as well as I do. And aside from Billy—” a film buff if ever there was one, Dani thought “—I don’t know a single person in Laramie who would have the patience, never mind the know-how, for the job. I mean, I can just rattle off a title and Billy instantly knows whether it was a western or a comedy. Who’s in it, who directed it, how it was received by moviegoers.”

“Well, then, I guess you could try dressing badly,” Jenna, a clothing designer and fashion plate in her own right, teased.

“Or smelling awful,” Kelsey, a cowgirl and budding rancher who knew what it was to smell to high heaven after a day in the saddle, suggested with the same mirth as Jenna.

“Or just stop bathing,” Meg, who’d just landed a job as nursing supervisor at Laramie Community Hospital, said. “That’ll do it.”

“You all are lots of help.” Dani rolled her eyes at the good-natured ribbing.

Silence fell as Meg stood, stretched and peered around the crepe-myrtle bush at the corner of the house. Dani noted the stunned look on Meg’s face.

“What?” Dani demanded.

Meg blinked, blinked again. “Uh…are you expecting company this afternoon?” she asked nervously. Which was odd, Dani thought. Meg was never nervous.

“No,” Dani said slowly, almost afraid to find out what suddenly had her oldest sister on edge. “Why?”

Jenna joined Meg at the veranda railing. She, too, peered around the brilliant flowers on the leafy green bush. “Oh, boy,” she said. “And we thought Billy was going to be trouble.”

Kelsey leaped up to see what the fuss was about. “You aren’t kidding,” she muttered, looking even more amused and skeptical.

Dani, who felt she’d already endured enough joking for the day, stayed where she was, remaining cool, calm and collected. And curious. “Is Billy back?” Dani demanded when her three sisters continued to gape at whatever—whoever—was coming down the walk. She’d just sent the kid home for the day half an hour ago.

“You wish,” Meg said.

“Billy, you can handle,” Kelsey agreed.

“But this one…” Jenna shook her head in silent commiseration.

Surely her sisters were pulling her leg with their dramatics. Dani walked over to the corner of the porch where all three were congregated, fighting for a view.

She peered around them. Seeing who was coming up the walk, all the air left her lungs in one big whoosh. She would have known that tall broad-shouldered silhouette and ruggedly handsome face anywhere, even if he hadn’t graced the romantic daydreams of millions of women the world over.

As usual, Beau Chamberlain was wearing snug worn jeans, custom leather boots, a bone-colored Stetson hat and a snowy white western shirt that had become his trademark both on and off the set. The only thing that alluded to his star status—aside from the knowing curl of his sensually carved lips and the exceedingly confident way he carried himself—was the movie-star sunglasses that shaded his bedroom eyes.

Already picking up her sketchbook of designs, Jenna turned back to Dani. “Should we stay or go?” Jenna asked, looking ready to bolt if so desired.

Dani frowned as Beau made a hard right and strode resolutely up the walk to her house. To her mounting dismay, he looked ready to kick some Texas butt. Namely, Dani realized on a beleaguered sigh, hers.

But that was not going to happen.

“Stay,” Dani told her sisters firmly. Her heart beat slowly and heavily as she surveyed the straight black hair peeking out from beneath the brim of Beau’s hat, and remembered the way it had felt beneath her fingertips. Another shimmer of awareness sifted through her, weakening her knees. “It won’t take me long to get rid of him,” Dani promised. All she had to do was remind Beau of the acrimonious nature of their relationship for the past two years, and he’d be gone in a flash.

Ignoring the take-no-prisoners set of his broad shoulders and the determined flare of his nostrils, Dani crossed to the top of the porch steps. She folded her arms in front of her and glared down at him, determined not to forgive him for what had happened between them in Mexico. “I thought I’d seen the last of you,” she said coolly, amazed he had the audacity to show up on her doorstep after the unforgivable stunt he’d pulled on her south of the border. Never mind stand in front of her so contentiously, his legs braced apart, every inch of him taut and ready for action.

“Dream on,” Beau Chamberlain replied with a grim smile. He yanked off his sunglasses to reveal thick-lashed, midnight-blue eyes that lasered into her very soul. “Wife.”

DANI LAUGHED UNEASILY as she recalled all too well where and how they had last parted company. And she, at least, hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. That she knew for sure. The gauzy white dress, flowers and lacy white mantilla were another matter. But she was sure they could easily be explained. Just not by her. Not yet, anyway.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded incredulously, not sure what he was trying to pull on her now, just knowing she didn’t like this practical joke any more than she had liked the first one.

Beau propped one boot on the bottom step. Leaning forward, he rested an elbow on his thigh. His sunglasses dangled from his hand.

“I am talking,” he enunciated clearly, looking deep into her eyes, “about waking up in Mexico three weeks ago with you in my bed.”

Dani recalled waking up alone in a hotel room and being naked beneath the sheets. And very little before that. Embarrassed to the hilt—as he had no doubt intended her to be, Dani thought angrily—she felt all the color leave her face. Her sisters looked similarly distressed. Darn it all, anyway. She hadn’t wanted them, or anyone else for that matter, to know about this!

“Oh, dear.” Meg consulted her watch with customary tact. “I think I better go pick up Jeremy. That birthday party he’s attending is supposed to be over at four and it’s three-thirty now.”

Jenna cleared her throat and patted her chest with the flat of her hand. “That reminds me. I think I have a customer coming in for a fitting.”

Kelsey dug in the pocket of her blue jeans for the keys to her pickup truck. “You know cattle and horses—they wait for no one. And I’ve already taken off enough time today.” That quickly, all three of her sisters scattered, leaving Dani to work out what was obviously a difficult situation with as much dignity and privacy as possible.

“Way to clear out a front porch,” Dani told Beau sarcastically, not sure when she had wanted to deck a cowboy more. And Beau Chamberlain was one heck of a cowboy, both on-screen and off. There hadn’t been one with as much charisma and raw sex appeal since John Wayne. Worse, the man practically exuded courage, integrity and the determination to do right, no matter what the cost.

Men liked and respected him.

Women adored him and lusted after him.

Children found him irresistible.

And animals instantly trusted him.

Only Dani, it seemed, found him lacking in any way.

A fact, she knew, that had gotten to him like a spur in the side.

She regarded him in a devil-may-care way as he shrugged his broad shoulders. “You could have asked them to stay,” he said. Clearly aware he was annoying her terribly, he looked her over from head to toe, taking in the delicate U of her collarbone and the shadowy hint of cleavage in the open V of her marine-blue blouse. His glance moved still lower, checking out the fit of her tailored white linen slacks before returning to her eyes. “I’m sure they’d like to know all about our marriage,” he taunted softly.

“Stop saying that.” Dani felt herself flush with embarrassment. She didn’t know what he was up to now, but she didn’t like it one bit.

“Why?” He tipped the brim of his hat back with his index finger and looked up at her with a taunting smile. “It’s true.”

Dani’s eyebrows climbed higher. “It can’t be,” she countered just as emphatically, even as her knees grew weaker still.

“Really,” he said, still holding her gaze. “And how do you figure that?”

“Because—” Dani marched down the steps until they stood at eye level, and poked a finger in his chest—“we’ve been sworn enemies for two years. I would never marry someone and not remember it! Never mind my sworn enemy,” she contended hotly.

Beau moved up two steps, so they were standing on the same one and he was once again towering over her. “But you do recall waking up in that little inn in Mexico with a raging headache,” he said, glaring down at her.