The Marriage Conspiracy

“And then I have to pay the lawyer. Oh, what a mess. There is no way around it. This is going to cost a bundle.”

Dekker knew that Joleen made an okay living, working with her mother. She supported herself and Sam and she did a decent job of it. He also knew that there wasn’t much left over once all the bills were paid. Quality child care and a good lawyer would stretch her budget way past the breaking point.

But it was okay. Money, after what had happened in Los Angeles, would be the least of their problems. Dekker wanted to tell her as much. However, that would only get her started asking questions about L.A.

Right now, they had a limited amount of time before someone would be knocking on the study door, demanding that Joleen get out there and deal with some other minor crisis. When he told her about L.A., he didn’t want to be interrupted.

“Don’t look so miserable,” he said. “We’re just getting it all out there, so we can see what we have to deal with.”

“I know.” But she didn’t know. He could see by her worried frown that the money problem was really bothering her.

He strove to ease her fears without saying too much. “The money issue can be handled.”

“I don’t see how.” She looked down at her lap and shook her head.

“Jo, I’ll help out. The bills will get paid.”

“Oh, no.” She glanced up then, her frown deeper than before. “You work hard for your money. And we both know you don’t have much more of it than I do.”

Joleen was right—or she would have been right, as of a few days ago. Before the trip to Southern California, Dekker would have had to rob a bank to be of much use to her financially. He’d gone into something of a downward spiral, right after his wife, Stacey, died. He’d quit his job and sold his house. He had not worked for several months while grief and guilt did their best to eat him alive. With Joleen’s help, he’d pulled himself out of it. But by that time he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot left.

For almost two years now he had operated a one-man detective agency in a one-room office over a coin laundry downtown. It paid the rent and put food on the table, but that was about it.

Or it had been. Until he’d flown to L.A. and learned that he had money to burn. He was a rich man now, and he had every intention of spending whatever it took to help Joleen fight the SOB who thought he could take her child away.

“I have a few extra resources,” he said. “I mean it. Don’t worry about money.”

“Dekker. You are not listening.”

“No. You’re the one who’s not listening.”

“I couldn’t take money from you.”

“Sure you could—for Sam’s sake.”

“No. It wouldn’t be right. I couldn’t live with myself if I—”

Someone knocked on the door. “Joly?” It was DeDe’s voice. “Joly, are you in there?”

Joleen glanced toward the sound and sighed.

Dekker said softly, “It’s all right. We’ll talk more. Later. After the party’s over and everyone’s gone home.”

“You know that’s going to be good and late.”

“It’s okay. I’ll be available.”

“Thank you,” she said. Even if he hadn’t been a brand-new multimillionaire, the look she gave him then would have made him feel like one.

“Joly?” DeDe knocked again.

Joleen pushed herself from the chair and smoothed out her skirt. “Come on in.”

The door swung inward and DeDe demanded, “What are you doing in here? I have been looking all over for you.”

“Well, you have found me.”

DeDe glanced from her sister to Dekker, then back to Joleen again. “What’s going on?”

Dekker laughed. “None of your business. What do you need?”

DeDe wrinkled her nose. “Oh, it’s Uncle Stan. He wants some special coffee.” In the Tilly and DuFrayne families, special coffee was coffee dosed with Irish Cream and Grand Marnier.

“And?” Joleen prompted.

“I can’t find the Bailey’s.”

“Did you look in the—”

DeDe groaned. “I looked everywhere. Would you just come and find it?”

“Sure.”

“And it’s almost eight. I think I should throw the bouquet pretty soon.”

“Good idea.”

“I want you to stand about ten feet, in a direct line, behind me when I do it. Understand?”

“DeDe.” Joleen looked weary. “The whole idea with the bouquet is that everyone is supposed to get a fair chance at it.”

“Too bad. It’s my wedding. And my big sister is catchin’ my bouquet.”

Chapter 4

Joleen did catch the bouquet.

It wasn’t as if she had a choice in the matter. DeDe, after all, had made up her mind that Joleen would be getting it. And there was just no sense fighting DeDe once she’d made up her mind.

Cousin Callie Tilly, one of Uncle Stan’s daughters, who worked at a bank and had just hit the big three-oh with no prospective husband in sight, was a little put out at the way DeDe went and tossed those flowers at the exact spot where Joleen stood. Callie grumbled that she was older than Joleen and she needed that bouquet more.

But her own father told her to quit whining and have herself a little special coffee. Which cousin Callie did. And then one of Wayne’s friends, a handsome cowboy in dress jeans and fancy tooled boots, asked Callie if she would care to dance. Her attitude improved considerably after that.

Joleen put Sam to bed upstairs in her old room at a little after nine o’clock. When she went back outside, she did some dancing herself. She danced with Uncle Stan and Bud and Burly. And with another friend of Wayne’s, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow who ran an oyster bar in Tulsa. He told her she had beautiful eyes and that she knew how to follow. He claimed there were way too many women who tried to lead when they danced. Joleen smiled sweetly up at him and wondered if he was casting some kind of aspersion on modern women as a whole.

Then she decided she was just too suspicious. A guy called her a good dancer and she started thinking of ways to take it as an offense.

But then again, after what had happened with Bobby Atwood two years ago and with Bobby’s father just this evening, well, was it any wonder she had trouble trusting men?