Can't Buy Me Love

“And so did I.” A voice boomed around them.

Sunshine could never figure out how Miss Arlotta, who spent most of her time in the attic, was nevertheless able to hear all and see all and speak to them wherever they were.

“Sunshine! The bride is checking into your room.” Lavender was hovering behind the guest register.

“And the groom?” Mimi asked.

“The new section.”

“Well, that can’t be good,” Glory said.

“Why not? You know the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride on their wedding day until she walks down the aisle.” Sunshine sighed. “It’s so romantic.”

“Sunshine will assist this couple,” Miss Arlotta pronounced. “Older gentlemen are her speciality.”

“Thank you, Miss Arlotta!” Sunshine drew a deep breath as the others protested—but not too much—before gradually drifting away to other parts of the inn. Older men who were lonely and liked her youthful looks and innocent chatter had been, indeed, her speciality.

She felt a tug on her gauzy wrapper. Rosebud had abandoned her book and was watching the couple check in. “You can drop the act,” she murmured. “We’re alone.”

“What act?” Sunshine batted her eyelashes.

“They have blonde jokes now, you know.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Jokes about girls with yellow hair being dumb.” She tweaked one of Sunshine’s sausage curls. “Only you’re not dumb.”

Sunshine kept her smile in place. “And don’t you forget it, sweetie.”

“I mean…take all this romantic talk. This was a place of business.”

Sunshine laughed. “Sure was—monkey business.”

“It was sex for money.” Rosebud pushed her wire-rim glasses up higher on her nose. “The men gave us money and we gave them sex. It was as simple as that.”

Sunshine looked across the lobby at the couple. Other than briefly resting his hand on the small of the woman’s back, the man never touched her. And she didn’t touch him. They smiled politely instead of the wide, tooth-baring grins of people who can’t help smiling. Of people who are in love.

“Rosebud,” she murmured, “it was never as simple as that.”

1

WHEN ALEXIS O’HARA ARRIVED at the Inn at Maiden Falls, Colorado, for her wedding and encountered an ex-boyfriend also checking in, she gave him a cool I’m-looking-good-and-aren’t-you-sorry-you-dumped-me smile. When he informed her he was representing her fiancé in the pre-nup negotiations, she did what any successful, independent, modern woman did when faced with the unthinkable: she called her mother.

Abandoning her luggage in the center of a lovely Aubusson rug as soon as she got to her room, Alexis stared unseeingly out the window at the gorgeous Rocky Mountain vista, cell phone pressed to her ear. “Mom?”

“You’ve changed your mind,” Patty O’Hara said flatly.

“No! Why do you keep assuming that every time I call?”

“Oh, I don’t know—maybe the week-long engagement to a man I’ve never before heard you mention in a romantic context?”

“This isn’t that sort of marriage.”

“What sort of marriage is it?”

Alexis began to speak, fully intending to extol the virtues of compatibility, admiration and shared interests, but heard herself say, “It’s an I’m-tired-of-dating marriage.”

“Oh, one of those. I thought it was an old-fashioned marry-an-old-guy-for-his-money marriage.”

Alexis gritted her teeth, then craftily pointed out, “He’s fifty-four. That’s only two years younger than you. Are you saying you’re old?”

“I’m saying I’ve been married to a fifty-four-year-old man and I know what it’s like.”

She was talking about Alexis’s father. Alexis preferred not to think of her father in that context. “But you haven’t been married to a rich fifty-four-year-old man.”

There was silence.

“Mom?”

“I was giving you time to think. You’ve been rushing around like a madwoman and I know you haven’t fully considered what you’re doing.”

“I had plenty of time to think on the plane.” Actually, she’d fallen asleep on the plane. Missed the honey peanuts and everything. “I’m not changing my mind.”

“I’m still not cutting the tags off my dress until I have to walk to my seat.”

“Mom.” Alexis pressed the area between her eyebrows.

“Alexis, as with any mother, I just want you to be happy. Now, I know you didn’t call to argue and I’m in the middle of packing. What’s up?”

“Dylan’s here.” Alexis was proud that her voice sounded calm and matter-of-fact.

“Do I know her?”

“Him.”

“Well, you never know these days with one-size-fits-all names.”

“Like Pat?” Alexis asked dryly, although no one ever called her mother Pat.

“A nickname for Patricia. What’s Dylan a nickname for?”

Alexis exhaled. “Trouble.”

“Why?”

How could her mother have forgotten? “Law school? The guy who drop-kicked my heart into orbit around Planet Pity?”

“Oh. That Dylan.”