Considering his state of undress, she suddenly realized she had no idea what she was wearing. For the life of her, she couldn’t recall from her earlier trip to the bathroom, and the thought that she might be more naked than he was kept her from glancing down. Instead, she used her hand to feel across her chest and hips.

  Releasing a relieved breath, she lowered her eyes and saw that she was wearing her Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs bra and panties. Not what she usually wore to bed, and it wasn’t much, but at least it was something. She grabbed a towel from the shelf behind the commode and covered what she could of her all-too-bare body.

  “Could you move back, please,” she asked. “Just a few steps.”

  The man swore under his breath—though she heard the expletives clearly enough this time—but he did as she requested. She threw the door open, launched herself across the room, and thanked him all in one swift motion.

  Still bouncing on the king-size mattress, she turned just in time to see the bathroom door slam shut. Knowing she might not have much time, she dropped the towel, jumped off the bed, and threw back the covers, searching for anything that might belong to her.

  She didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, but was sort of hoping she’d find her clothes. Instead, all she found on the wrinkled sheets were small, round pieces of multi-colored confetti.

  Dear God, what had they done that required confetti? She’d been with a few men in her time, but never once had she impressed one so much that he felt the need to throw a parade in her honor.

  When nothing more turned up in the bed, she began scouring the rest of the room. Draped over a sturdy oak rocking chair in the far corner, nearly hidden behind the long dresser, was a full-length, beaded wedding gown. She picked it up, held it to her body, and almost cried.

  It was her wedding gown. The one she’d bought to marry Matt.

  So what was it doing here? The hem was smudged brown with dust and dirt, and a light, yellowish stain marred the edge of one sleeve. She sniffed the spot and decided it must be champagne or some other form of alcohol.

  How had her dress gotten in such bad shape? She’d never even had it out of the bag.

  Unless…

  A sudden memory tugged its way through her muddled brain. Rushing through a busy airport with a huge garment bag, little bottles of assorted airplane liqueurs, struggling to fit down the aisle of a plane, people gasping and staring…

  Oh, no.

  She glanced at her finger, then the dress, then the bathroom door. All thoughts of escape drifted away as her knees gave out and she fell into the rocking chair, clutching the gown to her breasts.

  In the back of her mind, she heard the bathroom door unlatch, heard the soft pad of feet crossing the floor. And then a tall, male shape loomed over her for a moment before hunching down in front of her.

  He didn’t touch her, merely rested a hand on the arm of the rocker. “Are you okay?” he asked softly.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, then raised her eyes to meet his. Cobalt blue. Intense, she thought. But kind. Kind and concerned. “I guess that depends on who you are.”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a weak smile. “I think you’ve figured that one out for yourself. I take it you’re not happy about it.”

  “If this is a dream, I’m happy. You can wake me up now.” She tried for a light, joking tone, but failed. Her gaze fell back to her lap. “If it’s not, you can just shoot me and put me out of my misery.”

  “Being married to me isn’t going to be a fairy tale, I know, but I don’t think it’s cause for hara-kiri, either.”

  She groaned, her head falling back against the hard wood of the chair. “We really are married, then. This isn’t a joke?”

  “No joke,” he said, rising and moving about the room. “I’ve got the ring and papers to prove it.”

  She opened her eyes to watch as he found a pair of jeans crumpled on the floor and tugged them over his lean hips.

  As husbands went, she supposed she should be grateful she’d gotten a handsome one. He was easy to look at, with brownish-blond hair and bright blue eyes. A small scar cut through his right eyebrow, but other than that, his face was flawless. With those cheekbones and that straight nose—not to mention bronze skin usually found only in tanning salons—he could easily be on the cover of GQ.

  “You shouldn’t be so surprised,” he said, digging in his closet for a clean shirt. “After all, this whole thing was your idea.”

  Her eyes widened. “My idea?”

  He turned, a devilish glint shading his expression. “Yours, darlin’. Lock, stock, and barrel.”

  He finished buttoning the red, blue, and white long-sleeve shirt he’d pulled from the closet and tucked the tail into his trousers.

  “I’ve got livestock to take care of,” he told her. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be back around lunchtime.”

  Grabbing a beat-up cowboy hat off the dresser, he opened the bedroom door and disappeared from view.

  Great. Left alone the morning after her wedding. And the wrong wedding, at that! What had she gotten herself into?

  Chapter Four

  When you’re tryin’ somethin’ new, the fewer people who know about it, the better.

  While the stranger who called himself her husband was out with the livestock—dear God, livestock—Monica decided to get dressed and see just what kind of disaster she’d created of her life.

  The only thing in Ryder’s bedroom resembling female clothing was the bra and panties she’d woken up in and the wedding gown draped across the rocking chair. Digging through drawers, she found a pair of new-looking blue jeans and grabbed one of the many long-sleeved shirts hanging in the closet.

  In the bathroom, she paused for a moment in front of the sink, leaning heavily on its edge. Ignoring the tiny flecks of whiskers dotting the porcelain—and every other sign of male occupancy in the room—she stared at her reflection in the spotty, streaked mirror. She looked tired. More than that, she looked stunned. And she couldn’t imagine that feeling fading any time soon.

  She didn’t want to touch his things, didn’t want to be naked in his shower or dry off with one of his towels. But unless she washed away the hazy effects of sleep, she’d be a zombie all day. And she’d already used his toothbrush—a shudder ran through her at the thought—so what was the difference?

  After a long, somewhat abrasive shower with a soap that smelled like Mr. Clean, she dressed in her confiscated clothes, foregoing a bra and underwear, considering she’d been wearing her only set since…well, she hoped yesterday, but couldn’t really be sure. She washed them out in the sink and draped them over the shower rod to dry. If she was lucky, maybe they’d be ready by the time she caught a flight back to Chicago.

  Her hair hung straight as straw, still wet from her shower. The light blue cambric shirt she’d nabbed from the closet billowed about her shoulders, knotted at her waist. She couldn’t see the rest of her appearance in the small mirror, but looking down, she noted the bagginess of the jeans and how they barely managed to catch on her hips. She had to hold on to at least one belt loop at all times to keep them from falling straight to the floor and leaving her naked from the waist down. With her luck, there would be a witness to the zenith of that humiliation, and she’d end up on the internet in some viral video, the butt of the world’s joke in perpetuity. Pun intended.

  Apparently, her new husband didn’t own a single tie or extra belt that she could use to hold them up. And because the pants were so long, she’d cuffed the legs several times, almost turning them into clamdiggers.

  She moaned aloud. Bleach her hair blonde, give her a rope belt and quirky Southern accent, and she could be a dead ringer for Ellie May Clampett. The thought made her laugh, even as the agony of the moment hit her in the solar plexus. With her lifelong love of classic movies and black-and-white television, she’d often wished she could be more like Ellie May. Now here she was, one wild “critter” away from fulfilling a childhood dream.

  Finally understanding what people meant when they said “Be careful what you wish for,” she took a deep, stabilizing breath and decided to venture outside the bedroom to see what the rest of her new residence looked like.

  For a man, he kept a fairly nice house. It was a ranch-style home with only one level, most of the walls done in a muted eggshell. The place could use a woman’s touch, she noted, but the southwestern motif was actually kind of pleasant. A variety of blues, oranges, and browns brightened the rooms and brought it a step above what she might term “plain.”

  Framed photographs hung here and there on the walls, rested on top of an occasional dresser or bookshelf. She assumed most of the people in the pictures were family members or close friends of Ryder’s. They looked happy enough, and he looked happy with them. They weren’t professional photographs, but they captured the moment and the emotions of their subjects, which was what photography was really about, anyway.

  Having been in the fashion business for the past few years, she’d almost forgotten that people were supposed to smile while having their pictures taken. Most of the models she shot had clips and pins digging into their flesh from ill-fitting clothes or were on the verge of passing out from lack of food.

  If the bedroom and living room looked decent, then the kitchen was a disaster area. Empty food and drink containers cluttered the counters, dirty dishes filled the sink and spilled over onto every available surface, and dirty footprints tracked across the linoleum floor. She opened the cupboard doors beneath the sink only to see that the garbage was overflowing. No wonder he’d thrown the rest of his trash on the counter.

  In the ugly, avocado green refrigerator, she found a half-empty jug of whole milk, a six-pack of beer, and about two swallows of orange juice at the bottom of a plastic bottle.

  Why am I not surprised?

  Finding a clean glass, she poured herself some milk. Though she much preferred skim, she decided to chance the fat content and just hoped Ryder wasn’t the type of guy who drank straight from the container.

  With a little something in her stomach, she pulled a stool over to the wall phone and tried to think of the best person to alert about her current situation. It had been ages since she’d had to bother with a landline, and all of her contacts were saved on her cell phone. But that—which she’d been so delighted to find during her search of the bedroom—was in the back pocket of her oversize pants, as dead as peep-toe cork wedges, with no charger in sight to bring it back to life.

  There weren’t many numbers anymore that she knew by heart, so she had to wrack her brain for who to contact. And since she wasn’t even sure what state she was in at this point, Monica had a sinking suspicion she’d have to use a one and the area code to reach anyone she knew. After punching a long string of numbers, she waited for someone at the other end to answer.

  Two rings later, she heard a voice she recognized. “Brooke, it’s Monica. You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Monica? Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you for the past two days.” Her friend’s words all but reached hysterical level. “I thought you were dead or kidnapped or—”

  “Two days?” Monica covered her eyes and tried not to think of how many states a body could cross in two days’ time.

  “Yeah. I haven’t talked to you since Thursday night.” Brooke paused for a moment, then added quietly, “When you found out about Matt.”

  She remembered that. She remembered seeing the announcement in the Chicago Tribune, reading that her fiancé was getting married Saturday morning—but not to her. She’d called Brooke, frantic, crying her eyes out. And then…

  Well, the rest was a bit of a blur.

  “Listen,” Monica said. “My phone is dead, so I can’t access my calendar. Can you tell me what I’ve got scheduled for the next couple days?”

  “Sure.”

  Monica heard keys tapping and pages fluttering in the background. Leave it to Brooke to have all the details right at her fingertips. Monica’s best friend and also her agent/manager, Brooke was a big believer in backing up her backups. She would have everything saved on her phone and laptop, as well as written down in her day planner.

  “Monday you’re going over your shots for the Charlotte Russe winter collection and you have a six p.m. on-site for Young Miss at Grant Park. Then you’re in New York until Friday for a meeting with the Marie Claire folks.”

  Monica groaned. This was going to ruin her career. She’d been doing so well, really beginning to establish herself as an up-and-coming photographer in the world of fashion. Designers, well-known magazines, and even a couple of reality shows had started asking for her by name. But until she figured out what was going on and how to deal with her—she swallowed hard—husband, she couldn’t see any way to get back home right now.

  “I need you to either reschedule that YM shoot and the meeting in New York, or send another photographer, Brooke. And you can pick which photos to send to the Charlotte Russe people. I trust you. I just can’t make it.”

  “Are you joking? Do you know what it means to shoot a cover for Marie Claire?”

  “I do. And I’ll be there for the actual shoot, whenever it is, honestly I will. But believe it or not, I have bigger problems right now.”

  “Impossible. How could anything be more important than setting up a job with Marie Claire?”

  Monica grimaced. “Try the fact that I have no idea where I am, and I woke up married.”

  “You what?”

  She tried to laugh, but the sound came out as more of a strangled gasp. “My sentiments exactly.”

  “Monica,” her friend whispered. “What did you do?”

  Lunchtime to Ryder, Monica learned, was closer to 3:00 p.m. than noon. She’d been alone in the house since 6:00 a.m. and hadn’t seen a soul.

  After convincing Brooke that she would be all right, and to either cancel or reschedule all of her appointments until further notice, Monica spent her time wandering around the house. She peeked where she probably shouldn’t have, but since she was the man’s wife, she figured that gave her some sort of legal-ish right to snoop.

  Thankfully, she was back in the kitchen, scrounging around for something to eat when she heard the front door open and heavy footsteps moving in her direction. Panic skittered down her spine a moment before she straightened and took a deep, calming breath.

  “Hey,” Ryder said, sounding tired and slightly out of breath.

  She turned, planning to offer a similar greeting. Instead, the word stuck in her throat, and her eyes all but bulged out at his appearance.

  He’d left the house in fairly good condition, but he returned now looking like he’d been dragged behind a truck for fifty miles.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, concern overriding her initial anxiety about facing him once again.

  He glanced down at himself, then back at her. “Nothing, why?” He slapped a pair of thick, leather gloves on the counter, then set his dusty brown cowboy hat on top of them.

  “You look terrible,” she told him. Normally, she might have struggled to be polite or just kept her mouth shut, but in this case, she was too shocked to recall manners.

  He looked bad, like really awful. His shirt and pants were covered with dirt. Not just a sprinkling of dust, but full-fledged dirt, some spots on the verge of being caked with mud. Even his face was streaked brown and dotted with sweat. A spot of red lined one side of his jaw, as if it had been rubbed raw.

  Ryder chuckled. “Welcome to my world, honey.”

  The endearment caused her stomach to lurch, reminding her that they weren’t just casual acquaintances. Small talk seemed ridiculous in her current situation, especially since she had no idea how she’d gotten into it.

  She tried not to flinch when his arm brushed her chest as he reached in front of her to open the refrigerator door. He grabbed the orange juice, twisted off the cap, and drank the few drops that remained at the bottom of the bottle. He replaced the lid, then turned slightly and tossed the empty container over his shoulder. It clattered into the rest of the mess on the counter, sending several empty containers spinning. Amazingly, nothing fell to the floor.

  “Sorry the place is such a mess,” he mumbled. “My housekeeper quit last month, and I haven’t had a chance to clean or really shop for food since.”

  She’d noticed. Other than a box of saltines and a couple cans of soup, the cupboards were bare.

  Next, Ryder reached for the milk and chugged several long gulps straight from the jug.

  Monica groaned and moved to a stool on the other side of the countertop.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  “Nothing,” she said, resting her head in her hands. She felt a dull throb begin at her temples. “It’s just that I drank some of that milk this morning.”

  “That’s okay. There’s plenty here.”

  She laughed weakly and muttered half to herself, “Yeah, that was my main concern.”

  He put the cap back on the jug and returned it to the shelf. “What was your main concern, then?”

  “It’s too late now,” she said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’d just been hoping I was pouring milk from a container that your lips hadn’t been in direct contact with.” From the corner of her eye, she saw one side of his mouth quirk up in a grin.

  “Considering where my lips were last night, you shouldn’t be too worried, darlin’.”

  She groaned aloud this time, not even attempting to hide her feelings. “Don’t say things like that. At least not until I have some idea of what happened.”

  “You still don’t remember?”

  When she lifted her head, she saw him leaning against the refrigerator, arms crossed over his chest. She gave herself a mental shake to keep from recollecting what that chest looked like under his shirt. All smooth and tan.

  She forced her lungs to inhale. “I recall a few things, early on. But I don’t remember you,” she told him honestly.

  He came across the kitchen, pulling an empty stool from her side of the counter to his and straddling the cushioned seat, hitching his boot heels on the wooden rungs.