The Maverick's Accidental Bride

His racing heart slowed. “Uh. Right. Of course you remember that.”

“What? You don’t?”

“Oh, no. I do.”

“Will. You’re acting strangely.”

Yeah, and why wouldn’t he? It was a damn strange situation, after all. He watched as she plucked at the sheet some more. “Tell me what else you remember.”

She straightened the front of the terry-cloth robe and blew out a slow breath. “I remember the reception in the park, or most of it. I think. I remember what happened in the afternoon. I remember us dancing...” She twisted the sheet. “But the later it got, the more it all just becomes one weird, hazy blur.”

A sinister thought occurred to him, and he went ahead and shared it. “Maybe someone put something in your punch.”

She went straight to denial on that idea. “Oh, no. No. I don’t think so. Why would anyone do a thing like that?”

He regarded her patiently. “Why do you think?”

She wrinkled up her nose at him. “Oh, come on.”

“It happens, Jordyn. We all like to think it doesn’t. But what about that smart-ass cowboy in the white hat, the one who danced by and winked at you when we were first standing there at the punch table together?”

“He wasn’t a smart-ass. He was really nice.”

“Seemed like a smart-ass to me,” Will muttered.

But she shook her head. “No. Uh-uh. I don’t believe he would do a thing like that.” She stared off toward the window that looked out over the hotel grounds.

“Don’t just blow me off,” he insisted. “Think about it. I drank from your cup after you did, remember? So maybe both of us were drugged—Jordyn, are you even listening?”

She met his eyes then, but hers were a thousand miles away. “I don’t believe that guy drugged me. I just don’t. He was a great guy.”

“And you know this, how?”

She glanced away. “Okay, fine. He seemed like a great guy—and he never even had a chance to put anything in my drink. I danced with him once. He was nowhere near me when I served myself the punch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. You’d have been more in a position to put something in my drink than anyone.”

He gaped at her in horror. “Jordyn. You really don’t think I would—”

“Of course not. And I don’t think that other guy did, either.” She’d stopped mangling the sheet—and gone to work wringing her hands. “And frankly, I’m more concerned with—” she turned away again and cleared her throat “—the question of whether or not you and I...” And then she looked at him again, her eyes huge and haunted. “Did we have sex, Will?”

Damn. Direct question. He tried to think of a gentle way to tell her that he had no idea if they had or they hadn’t.

But he took too long, and she went on. “I hope you know, because I don’t. I don’t know how we got here, Will. It’s all just vague, cloudy images, flashes of us dancing. Of us laughing together. Of us kissing...” Her too-pale face colored slightly.

He remembered those kisses, too, remembered that she smelled so good and tasted so sweet, that her slim body fit just right in his arms. “I remember kissing you, too.”

“So then tell me. Please. Did we...?”

He was forced to confess, “I’m sorry, Jordyn. But I don’t remember, either.”

She stared at him as though he’d just slapped her across the face. “Oh, fabulous.” More color flooded her soft cheeks—angry color now. “So I’m that forgettable, am I?”

“Jordyn, be fair. You don’t remember, either.” He said it roughly, letting his own frustration show—and then regretted his harsh tone when her eyes welled with tears. “Aw, come on, don’t cry...”

Too late. Fat tears spilled over and trailed down her cheeks. She sniffed. “I...I can’t help it. I’m a virgin.” His mouth dropped open when she said that. She let out a sad little sigh. “Or I was a virgin.” He gaped at her as she swiped furiously at the tears running down her face. “Can you just not look at me like that, please?” She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears still leaked out. “Oh, I can’t believe I just said that, just told you that...”

He tried to soothe her. “Jordyn, it’s okay...”

“It is not okay, and don’t you say that it is. Everything is very, very not okay.”

He pleaded, “You have to believe me. I can’t see how I would ever take advantage of you that way.” But he couldn’t be sure, damn it. Because he just plain did not remember.

Jordyn cried harder. “Oh, look at me. What a mess. And now I’ve said it. Now you know. I was a virgin—or I am a virgin. That’s what’s so awful. I don’t know if I am, or just was, because I can’t remember what happened.” And with that, she buried her head in her hands again. Her slim shoulders shook with desperate sobs.

Will had no idea what he ought to do to comfort her, so he just sat there and watched her cry. He felt lower than low. Not only had he possibly had sex with little Jordyn Leigh—if he had, she’d also been a virgin.

He didn’t have sex with virgins. He knew better than that.

Still sobbing, Jordyn shoved back the covers, scooted aside and stared at the sheets. “Nothing, no blood,” she said with a moan as she tugged on the hem of the robe. Then she whipped a few tissues from the box by the clock, blew her nose and declared, “I don’t see any blood, and I don’t feel like anything happened.” She tossed the used tissues toward the wastebasket, flipped the covers over her again and folded her arms across her middle.

Silence. Jordyn gazed into space. Will had no idea what she might be thinking.

But he needed to comfort her. He needed to wipe that lost look off her pretty face. So in the interest of injecting a positive note into this train wreck of a situation, he blurted, “Listen, it could be worse. If we did make love last night, at least we were married first.”

She missed the positive angle altogether and screeched, “Married? Have you lost your mind?” And she whipped one of the pillows from behind her and tossed it at his head. He put up both hands and caught it before it hit him in the face—at which point Jordyn screeched again. “Oh, my God! Will! Your finger!”

He peered cautiously around the pillow at her. “Huh?”

“You’ve got a ring on your ring finger, too!”

He just wasn’t following. “Too?”

She muttered something discouraging under her breath, tossed back the covers again and jumped to her feet.

“Jordyn,” he asked warily, “where are you going now?”

She didn’t answer, just headed for the bathroom. A moment later she returned, plunked herself down on the side of the bed and held up a ring like the one he wore, only smaller. “It freaked me out when I saw it on my finger,” she confessed glumly. “So I took it off and stuck it under a stack of extra towels.” She dropped it on the nightstand. It spun for a moment and then settled. Jordyn cut her eyes to him again. “I don’t remember getting married...though maybe, well, I do remember that little man with the black-rimmed glasses. He was the county clerk. Do you remember him?”

“I do. I remember him and his wife, the judge...”

She nodded, her eyes staring blankly into the middle distance again. “I stood beside you, Will. I remember that. I stood beside you under the moon. We were holding hands, and people were all around us, and Her Honor, the judge, was in front of us. And after that...”

“Yeah?”

A long, sad sigh escaped her. “After that, it’s all a blank.”