A Christmas Proposition

Hour Three

Emmett slid a look over at Stefanie, who was intently scrolling through her phone and had been for the last several miles. What the hell was she doing?

“You’re going to make yourself carsick,” he grumbled.

He could feel her eyes on him. Wide, innocent eyes.

He didn’t understand that observation about her, but it was nonetheless true. The only Ferguson daughter wasn’t naive or immature. She was headstrong and mulish, and he knew from experience, since he had both those attributes in spades. When they belonged to a woman, however, people saw her as a trite, vapid troublemaker.

Frankly, it pissed him off. He’d known Stef for as long as he’d known Chase, and she wasn’t any of those things. But she must’ve been immune to what the public said about her. She never complained about her image or tried to make herself smaller because the media talked about her.

“You do your thing, I’ll do mine.” Her snide remark made him smile in spite of himself.

His “thing” at the moment was chauffeuring her safely from Dallas to San Antonio so that she could hobnob with her friends and ignore him. Which was what being around her was always like. He’d been joking about sleeping in the SUV, but he assumed he could find a last-minute room. San Antonio was a big city.

He checked the rearview mirror and noticed the same black sedan he’d clocked earlier. It trailed three or four cars behind him. He wasn’t so paranoid that he believed they were being followed—it was a highway and they were all heading the same direction—but neither would he take Stef’s safety for granted.

He’d been in the habit of looking out for her over the past couple of years, so he supposed that was the reason he’d offered himself up as the human sacrifice rather than asking her to change her plans.

First off, he knew she wouldn’t. And if she’d gone anyway, he’d have been the one tailing her right now.

Another glance showed the black sedan sliding into the same lane and vanishing behind a semi.

It was early yet. He’d keep an eye on it.

Both eyes.

Hour Four

Stef paused her scrolling through her address book, which she’d been desperately searching for a man to marry her for show.

She was young, rich and attractive, yet this was proving to be an insurmountable task. Every name she passed on the list was either seeing someone or the wrong choice. Like Oliver James, for example.

She and Oliver had casually dated for three months last summer. He was a successful commercial real estate buyer and a few years older than her. They’d stopped seeing each other mutually when things had simmered down.

She’d been contemplating texting him to find out if he was still single when Emmett spoke up to ask her if she was cold and snapped her out of her imaginings. Just as well. Oliver was a nice enough guy, but she didn’t know if she could trust him when it came to being discreet. He was showy with a big personality. Always telling a joke or commanding the attention of the room.

Definitely not a good choice for an undercover marriage.

Now, though, her eyes rested on a name that she hadn’t considered before. She blinked, considered what she knew of the man and wondered if she could slot him into the role of groom even on a pretend-temporary basis.

Emmett Keaton.

She wrinkled her nose, but the distaste she tried to feel wasn’t there.

Stefanie Keaton.

It might work.

At first blush, the idea seemed insane, but when she allowed herself to walk through the steps of arranging a wedding to the man driving, it wasn’t so insane.

Emmett didn’t like her and she didn’t like him that much, either. Ending a marriage when it was time would be as natural as breathing for them.

She looked up “marriage licenses in Harlington” on her phone and Google provided the website for the city. She hadn’t exactly lied about going to San Antonio. The smaller district was located about thirty minutes outside San Antonio. If she had told Chase that she was heading to the one-horse town to visit her high-class friends, he would’ve known something was up.

She hadn’t told Emmett yet, but they weren’t close to where he needed to pull off the highway. She opened a map. In about twenty miles, he’d need to reroute.

Back to the issue at hand: marrying Emmett.

The marriage license had a seventy-two-hour waiting period. If they applied today... She counted the days on her fingers. They’d be good to go by Christmas Eve. The question was, could she find someone to marry them at the last minute on a holiday?

She opened her email app and pecked out a correspondence to the woman who ran the B and B where Stef had made her reservations.

Hi, Margaret,

Do you know anyone who could marry a couple on Christmas Eve?

She watched out the windshield, considering the timing of the charity dinner. It was a six o’clock dinner, and even with cleanup she’d be out of there by ten o’clock. Once they returned to the B and B, changed into whatever wedding attire she was able to scrounge up in the three-day gap between license and “I do,” that’d mean...

Preferably midnight, she typed. As Christmas Eve turns to Christmas day.

She smiled to herself as she finished the email. Married at midnight on Christmas day. Could it be more perfect?

She slanted a glance at Emmett and frowned. Maybe perfect was overshooting it. She hoped he could summon up an expression other than “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” for a few of the photos.

She should probably make sure Emmett didn’t have a secret wife or girlfriend first. He kept his personal life in Stef’s blind spot. She knew him in relation only to what he did at the mayor’s office, and even then it looked to her like a bunch of walking around while wearing a starched white button-down shirt and a stern expression.

“Do you date?”

Emmett snapped his head around, a look of incredulity on his face. “What?”

“Date. Do you date?”

If she wasn’t mistaken, he squirmed in his seat.

“Women. Men. Anyone?”

“Women.” His frown intensified.

“Are you dating anyone right now?”

He said nothing, both hands on the wheel in an elbows-locked position.

“Why?” he finally muttered.

It seemed too early to blurt out that she wanted to marry him. She’d have to ease into that request.

“Just making conversation. I never see you with anyone whenever you’re at a family function.”