“So you came all the way from Chicago to stop the wedding,” he said.

  She started to shake her head, then thought better of it when the black behind her eyes began to swirl. “I knew I’d be too late for the wedding, but I had to let Matt know I knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That he was getting married without me.” Her companion didn’t respond to that, and she didn’t have the strength to look at him. “I was going to confront him. Throw my wedding gown in his face and conk him over the head with a nice, cold bottle of bubbly. But I must have drunk all the champagne and put the dress on in the airport restroom.”

  Or on the plane, she thought, as the image of struggling with thick folds of fabric in a bathroom the size of a high school gym locker sprang to mind.

  Her companion looked at her like she’d just lost her mind while he watched it fly out the window. Then he turned away and asked, “Is there somewhere I can take you? The airport? A hotel?”

  She ignored his suggestions, focusing on her own thoughts. “I have to do something to get back at Matt.”

  “Haven’t you done enough already?”

  “No. He has to know how much he hurt me. He has to know he made a mistake and regret it for the rest of his life.” Matt had betrayed her. He’d ruined everything, and he couldn’t be allowed to get away with it. She wasn’t just going to make him pay her back for the money he’d stolen; she was going to make…him…pay. Then she’d make sure the entire world knew what a rat he truly was.

  She opened her eyes then and turned to face the man who had prematurely ended her revenge. “You have to help me.”

  He spared her a glance before turning back to the road. “Help you get back at my sister’s new husband?” he asked with a chuckle. “You’re two balls short of a bull if you think I’ll go along with something like that, darlin’.”

  “We can do it.” She sat up excitedly, struggling to fold her legs beneath her with six yards of satin and taffeta fighting her every inch of the way. “We just have to think of something that will infuriate Matt. He hates being bested, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  And he didn’t sound like he cared.

  “Chess, racquetball, everything. He can’t even stand for me to finish reading the paper before he does. It drives him nuts. So we just have to come up with something that will really tick him off.”

  “Such as?”

  His fingers flexed and tightened on the steering wheel, and the movement of those long, tawny digits almost made her lose her train of thought.

  “I don’t know.” She gave a huff because he didn’t seem to be trying. Didn’t he understand how important this was? “Maybe we could steal his car. Or his plane tickets. Where are they going on their honeymoon?”

  Not giving him a chance to answer, she went on. “Never mind, it has to be better than that. I need to make him sorry. Show him he made a mistake, that he married the wrong woman.” Her eyes widened as an idea came to her, and she began to grin. “That’s it! I’ll make him jealous.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “By being the perfect wife.”

  “He’s already married,” the Lone Ranger reminded her, as if she didn’t know. “To someone else.”

  “I’m not going to marry him,” she said, the solution patently obvious to her. “I’m going to marry you.”

  Chapter Two

  The best way to get married is with ignorance and confidence.

  Ryder Nash almost slammed on the brakes at her announcement. Instead, he took a moment to gather his wits, knuckles tightening on the steering wheel.

  She was drunk, he knew that much. But now he was beginning to wonder if she might not be clinically insane, as well.

  He turned his head, letting his eyes bore into her. “Are you crazy?”

  “Probably,” she admitted, absently rolling one of the thousand pearl-like beads of her dress between a thumb and forefinger.

  Even for a crazy person, he had to admit she looked mighty fine in that form-fitting, snow-white gown. Soft, flyaway hair framed her porcelain features—a pert little nose, high-arched dark brows, and satin bow lips licked to a moist, kissable shine.

  Kissable? What was he thinking? He didn’t even know this woman and yet here he sat, contemplating how soft and pliable her lips might be if he leaned over and touched them. Right…about…there.

  “But it will work,” she continued, her words energized by alcohol and a loss of inhibitions. “If we get married, we can show him what a happy couple we are. How happy I am. He’ll be totally jealous and realize he married the wrong woman. Then he’ll leave her, but I won’t take him back. He’ll have nothing.”

  “But you’ll be married to me,” he reminded her, even though he had no intention of going through with her hare-brained idea. He was going to get her to a hotel where she could sleep it off and then go home to do the same.

  She shrugged both shoulders, losing her balance and grasping for the door handle. The silky, beaded fabric of her wedding gown started to slide off one shoulder, then slipped even more when she reached into her cleavage and came out with a cell phone.

  Ryder stared for a split second at the slight jut of her now bare collarbone before returning his gaze to the road. He wanted to chastise himself for entertaining any thoughts at all about her body, but—considering she’d just announced her intentions to marry him—he figured looking was the least of his problems. Besides, she had a body like Venus de Milo with arms and didn’t seem the least self-conscious about the bits and pieces that were showing. He wasn’t made of wood.

  Just then, a certain part of his anatomy stirred with interest, reminding him that at times he most certainly was made of wood.

  “So we’ll get an nulliment. An annalment.” She gave a frustrated huff, still poking at her phone. “A divorce. People do it all the time. For lesser reasons than this, too,” she said with a carefree wave of her hand.

  “You don’t even know me,” he pointed out, his chest feeling suddenly tight. “I’m just some guy who dragged you out of a wedding reception before you could make an even bigger fool of yourself.” And he was beginning to regret it.

  “I know you.” She leaned across the seat to lay a hand on his arm. “You’re my hair climber.”

  Her fingers dug into the material of his tuxedo jacket as she weaved a bit to one side.

  His brows knit. “Your what?”

  “Hair climber.” She straightened and moved back toward the passenger side of the cab, nearly overcorrecting and smacking against the other door as she returned her attention to her phone. “You know, the prince guy who climbed up Rapanetzel’s—I mean Rapanunzel’s…”

  “Rapunzel?”

  “Yeah, you’re the guy who would climb up my hair to rescue me from the tower if I needed it.”

  “You’d need to grow it out a couple more inches before I could hitch my boot in that ’do, sweetheart,” he told her, casting a glance at her dark, shoulder-length hair.

  Her brow creased. “Don’t try to confuse me with irrelevant fats…facts.”

  He shook his head and bit back a grin. “Do you need rescuing from a tower?” he asked, almost afraid of her answer.

  She nodded, her head wobbling a bit, as though she couldn’t stop it once the motion began. “Definitely.”

  Yeah, like I’m hero material.

  His conversation at the reception with his fortunately former girlfriend came back to him in a wave of agitation. Stephanie had sauntered up, bold as you please, to give him one of those “poor baby” pouts. And then she’d said something about how sad it was when a young girl like Josie got married before her perfectly eligible, much older brother.

  He wasn’t much older. Only twelve years.

  Of course, if Stephanie knew how bad things were at the ranch right now, she wouldn’t have bothered with even that much of a dig at their failed relationship. She was all about keeping up appearances with regular hair appointments and manicures, while he was currently all about keeping the wolves from the door. He was in debt up to his eyeballs, and just yesterday on the way in to his sister’s rehearsal dinner the bank had sent an email saying he’d been turned down for the loan he needed to make Rolling Rock the only ranch in two hundred miles that offered equine therapy.

  That plan had been in place long before the tornado that had torn through and ruined the main barn…not to mention about a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of other stuff he had yet to repair. Ever since Xander O’Neill’s boy had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy and he’d been forced to drive Tommy halfway across the state twice a week for the treatment that seemed to work best, Ryder had gotten it into his head that equine-assisted therapy would be the perfect addition to what he was already doing.

  He loved raising cattle and working with horses, but how great would it be if one of those things could also help people? Especially kids with special needs.

  Then Xander had gone and married that physical therapist from the place he was taking Tommy, and she was bussing tables in town, just waiting for Ryder to get his shit together so she could start working with Tommy and bunches of other kids—as well as adults, he supposed—on the Rolling Rock.

  He had the space and was training the horses himself, but all the special equipment he needed wasn’t cheap. Once they had the program off the ground, Ryder had no doubt it would shoot them into the black. Hell, not only would it be a godsend for a lot of folks in the area, but insurance paid through the nose for stuff like that. But he hadn’t exactly been rolling in dough before the tornado, and without another loan, there was no way he could work his way out of the rut he was in.

  Ryder couldn’t believe he was even entertaining this woman’s bizarre proposal. (Pun intended.) He’d never pictured himself married. He’d chalked Stephanie’s remarks at the wedding up to bitterness. To the fact that no matter how hard she tried—and, boy, had she tried!—she’d failed to drag him down the aisle.

  But now, with her words well sunken in and spinning around in his head like a cyclone, he began to wonder if she wasn’t right. Maybe he was hanging on to his bachelorhood a little too tightly.

  Do the words “death grip” mean anything to you? a voice in his head asked caustically.

  Even if he did soon give up the single life, it wouldn’t be with a gal like his ex. Stephanie might be pretty on the outside and a wildcat in the sack, but beneath the surface was a nasty streak she wouldn’t hesitate to make known the minute she didn’t get her way. He’d learned that the hard way. And it wouldn’t be with this woman, either—a virtual stranger who seemed bent on breaking up his sister’s marriage. What kind of man did this damsel-in-distress think he was?

  Not that anyone other than a half-baked stranger would even consider hitching up with him…at least not once she knew what kind of hole she’d be getting herself into.

  “We’re not that far from Las Vegas,” this particular stranger continued, in an attempt to persuade him to her way of thinking. “It says here we can pick up a license at the county clerk’s office and get married at the chapel across the street, if we want. I just need to fill out the online apprication…applitation…” She gave a heavy sigh. “Form ahead of time.”

  For being drunk and possibly a few ribs short of a barbecue, she sure seemed to be figuring things out at a record pace.

  “I assume we’d need photo IDs, maybe blood tests,” he tossed out, thinking it would throw a nail under her tire.

  But she just kept right on trotting along.

  “No blood tests. Just personal info on the form, then IDs when we get there.”

  Well, he had her there, didn’t he? She’d shown up to his sister’s wedding reception in a pretty enough gown but otherwise empty-handed. Pulling a cell phone out of from between her boobs was a nice trick, but he doubted she’d managed to hang on to anything else on her drunken bob-and-weave through the airport. He was surprised she’d been lucid enough to get through airport security, frankly.

  And thank you very much for doing such a great job, TSA. If they’d stopped her at the gate, Josie’s reception might’ve gone off without a hitch, and he wouldn’t be stuck having this inane conversation with Little Miss Party Crasher.

  But since he was, he had to figure out some other way to put a pin in her plans.

  “Do you have a photo ID?” Ryder asked.

  “Of course,” she answered much too quickly and cheerily for Ryder’s peace of mind. Then she dug into the bodice of her dress again, hand coming out with what he assumed was her driver’s license between two fingers.

  Damn and double damn.

  The first damn was for the ID, which he’d have laid odds she couldn’t produce. The second was for her propensity to reach into that lovely bit of cleavage and bring out random items like a master illusionist. He was starting to think of the front of that dress—and her boobs—as a very seductive version of a magic hat.

  “That’s all well and good, darlin’,” he told her, determined to come up with another reason he was not going to drive to Las Vegas and leg-shackle himself to a complete stranger. “But you still haven’t convinced me to kiss my bachelor days goodbye and let you use me to get back at my sister’s new husband. You heard that part, right?” he asked.

  When she didn’t respond and continued to peck at the screen of her phone, he repeated the vital portions, slower and with more emphasis. “My sister and her new husband.”

  “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Another pause. More tapping. “I’ll pay you,” she offered out of the blue.

  His heart took one powerful jolt against his rib cage as he watched the woman beside him as long as he dared before turning back to the road. There were three magic words with the potential to make everything else go away. Too bad he was a half-decent guy and not some schmuck who’d take advantage of a woman, drunk or not.

  “Yeah, right. I’m not taking your money,” he replied firmly, as much to stop himself from even wanting to as to put an end to her sales pitch.

  “No, really—I’ll pay you,” she said again.

  He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to play into her possible delusions or devious plans, but no matter how tightly he clenched his jaw, he couldn’t seem to help himself. “How much?”

  “How much do you want?” she retorted, still engrossed in her phone.

  He wanted enough to pay off his debts, which were growing larger with each passing day. Enough to keep the bank from repossessing his ranch, which they were threatening to do, and make the necessary repairs after last summer’s tornado. Enough to open Rolling Rock for equine therapy and get his life back on track. Enough that he wouldn’t have to ask his parents for help when they’d done too much for him already these past few years.

  “How much do you have?” he asked cautiously, telling himself he was just humoring her.

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  His eyes rounded and the air whistled out between his teeth. Holy hell. He only needed half that much to not only keep his ranch but fix it up and move toward modernizing the entire operation.

  “You don’t have fifty thousand dollars,” he said, thinking she must be pulling numbers out of the air just to convince him to help her.

  “Do, too,” she insisted, her words clipped. “My savings.”

  Affronted, she finally lifted her gaze from that blasted phone and raised herself a little higher on the seat. She spread her arms between the dashboard and the back of the seat to keep her balance as she turned in his direction. Her gown had slipped even farther down her shoulder and came dangerously close to revealing another shade of skin altogether at the center of her breast.

  Doesn’t she have anything on under that damn dress? He shifted uncomfortably. She’d managed to stuff a phone and ID and God knew what else down there, but apparently a bra had been one item too many.

  When he didn’t say anything for a few minutes—mostly because any blood in his brain had abandoned ship and headed south the minute his eyes had locked on her increasingly impressive rack—she slid sideways on the seat, close enough for her cloth-covered breasts to rub delicately against his cloth-covered arm. What he wouldn’t give for a truckload of moths right about now.

  “If you marry me and help me get even with Matt, I’ll give you all the money I have.”

  He wanted to say yes. He really needed that money, and this would be an easy way to get it. But she was drunk, he reminded himself. Possibly not even mentally stable. What kind of man would take advantage of a drunk—albeit attractive—loony bin patient?

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he forced past his dust-dry throat, nobility winning out over gut-wrenching instinct and desperate need.

  “Please,” she begged in a soft, cajoling voice. Then she tilted her head, batted her lashes, and stuck out her bottom lip. A posture she’d seen too many times on TV, he suspected. She didn’t quite pull it off. It looked more like she’d been punched in the mouth and had sand thrown in her eyes both at the same time.

  “I’m not taking money from a woman.”

  “Well, that’s kind of sexist. You won’t take money from a woman, but you would from a man?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he nearly growled. “I’m not taking money from anybody.”

  And wasn’t that a wallop of a little white lie? He’d already borrowed from Peter to pay Paul, and he sure as blazes wouldn’t turn down a winning lottery ticket or a nice, fat inheritance from some unknown relative twice removed.

  She breathed out a disgruntled sigh. “Don’t be so darn literal,” she informed him. “If you won’t take the money, we’ll call it a loan. You can pay me back after our annulliment.”

  He gave a snort by way of reply. Right. What would he pay her back with—sawdust and broken dreams?

  Slowing down, he swerved to avoid a pothole, and her butt hit the seat with a plop.

  Not that it deterred her one little bit.

  “Okay, how about we call it a business deal, then? What kind of business are you in? I’ll be your partner!”