Married While Intoxicated (3 page)

As the three of them seemed to come to the
same conclusion all at once, six eyes turned on Sheila.

Her cheeks glowed as red as ripe apples. “I
was only trying to calm the two of you,” she said, looking at
Matthew and Melinda. “You were upset, dear Melinda, and you,
Matthew, seemed to be feeling her pain just as if it were your own.
Have you ever heard the expression, ‘Wine is the drink that
gladdens men’s hearts?’ I think it comes from the Bible.” She gave
them a look which was the picture of fake innocence. “I just wanted
to gladden your hearts and take away your sadness so I kept filling
your glasses when you weren’t looking.”

“But things didn’t work out that way,
Mother.” Derrik turned his attention to Matthew and Melinda once
more. “When I encountered you in the living room after my phone
call, you two were as glum as ever over Tamara’s wedding.”

“So I offered the perfect solution,” Sheila
interjected. “I said, ‘Melinda, how would you like to marry my
Matthew?’ And you said, ‘He’s the most perfect man I’ve ever
met.’”

“She did not!” Matthew exclaimed.

“Yes, she did,” Derrik confirmed.

“You did?” Matthew asked Melinda.

Her cheeks felt two hundred degrees hot. “I
don’t remember.”

“Well I do remember because it was the most
beautiful thing I’d ever heard. So then I asked Matthew, “Wouldn’t
this lovely girl make a beautiful wife for you and a perfect mother
to my grandchildren?’ And you said, ‘Mother, she’d be perfect for
Derrik.’”

“I did not!” Matthew shouted.

“Yes, you did,” Derrik said.

“You did?” Melinda asked, disappointment
tugging at her heart.

The Adam’s apple in Matthew’s throat bobbed
up and down. “I don’t remember.”

“Well, I do remember because you surprised me
at first with your answer until you said what you really felt,”
Sheila said smugly.

“And what was that?”

Melinda was glad Matthew asked. She wanted to
know how he really felt too.

Sheila wiped her eye. “You took Melinda’s
hand, gazed into her eyes and said, ‘If I ever were going to get
married, I’d want to marry a woman exactly like Melinda.’”

“I did?”

“You did?” Melinda asked Matthew.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “I don’t
remember.”

“At this point,” Derrik continued, “Melinda
started blubbering uncontrollably about Tamara getting married
before she did.” He laughed gently. “There was nothing else we
could do, Matthew. The only way we could convince Melinda to stop
crying over her sister’s wedding was to give her a wedding of her
own so she could be married first.”

“That’s right,” Sheila said.

Matthew and Melinda started to laugh.

“You are a prankster indeed, Sheila,” Melinda
said, grinning. “While I certainly don’t approve of your plying me
with alcohol, I do understand your reason for doing so. You were
only trying to get me out of a bad mood.”

“Of course, dear,” she said, her eyes showing
a guile which seemed to contradict her words. “I was only trying to
help.”

Matthew leaned forward. “I’m convinced your
explanation as to why you gave Melinda too much to drink
might
make sense, but why did you keep refilling
my
glass?”

Sheila shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“It didn’t seem fair to give only Melinda a little extra wine. Why
shouldn’t the both of you cheer up?”

“But I wasn’t sad.”

“Weren’t you, really? I thought you were. You
acted terribly empathetic towards Melinda. You seemed almost as sad
as she was.”

“Never mind the whys and wherefores now,”
Derrik said. “Let me finish my explanation so I can clear up
everything, and we can all have a good laugh over this whole
situation.”

“I’m for that,” Matthew said.

“I could use a good laugh too,” Melinda
said.

Derrik folded his hands and laid them on the
table. “Once the two of you agreed to marry each other so Melinda
could be wedded ahead of her sister, Mom got out the video camera
and I got out my marriage licenses and my prayer book. I married
the two of you in an authentic ceremony, we filled out the
certificate and that was that.” Derrik got up and went to the desk
on the other side of the kitchen. “Here is the certificate you both
signed and Mother witnessed.” He handed it to Melinda. “Maybe you’d
like to keep it as a souvenir,” he said jokingly.

She took it and looked it over. She’d never
seen a more official looking document in her life. “It looks so
real,” she said as she looked up at Derrik and handed the license
to Matthew.

“It is real, but it isn’t legal,” Derrik said
reassuringly. “In order for it to be legal, it has to be filed at
the county hall of records.”

A pang of disappointment filled Melinda’s
tummy. She’d known Matthew and his family for less than twenty-four
hours, but she felt in so many ways that she belonged with
them--that she and Matthew were meant to be together.

All right, she understood such feelings were
stupid, but she couldn’t help how she felt.

“You’re sure this isn’t legal?” Matthew
asked. “Because it looks awful damn legal to me.”

“I’m telling you, it would only be legal if
it were filed at the hall of records. And I have no intention of
filing it,” Derrik said emphatically.

Melinda let out a deep breath, half out of
relief and half out of disappointment.

“Mother,” Matthew said firmly, “don’t
ever
do anything like this again. No more wine for any of us
unless we ask for it.”

Melinda felt a need to scold Sheila as well.
“No wine and no putting unconscious people in bed together.”

“Oh, I didn’t put the two of you in bed
together. Once the wedding was over, Matthew couldn’t wait to take
you into his arms. He whisked you off to the guest room, and I
don’t know what happened after that.”

“
Nothing
happened,” Matthew and
Melinda said together.

“As I said before,” Sheila said, “maybe next
time
something
will happen.”

“Mother!”

“The wine…” Melinda said, deliberately
changing the subject. “With a minister in the house…you’d
think…”

“What?” Derrik asked. “That drinking wine
would be frowned upon?”

Melinda bit her lip and shrugged. “Some
ministers think it is a sin to drink alcohol.”

Derrik chuckled. “But such a notion is
ridiculous for a Christian minister. Jesus drank wine. He changed
water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana. Jesus was incapable
of sinning, so if He consumed wine, how could drinking wine be a
sin?”

Melinda shook her head. “I’ve never thought
it was a sin to drink.”

“Drinking isn’t a sin,
but
,” Derrik
said, raising a finger, “drinking too much can lead a person into a
weakened state in which he or she might be tempted to commit a sin
or to do something foolish like--”

“Marrying someone you don’t know,” Melinda
said, chuckling.

Matthew and Derrik joined her laughter, but
Sheila did not.

“Come on, Mother,” Matthew chided, “you can
enjoy your little joke. We’re all laughing now that we know this
whole marriage was some colossal prank.”

A smug look covered Sheila’s face. “I’m
afraid it’s no joke, son. You and Melinda are married.”

“Mother, the ruse is over,” Derrik said. “I
saved the certificate so they could see it, but now I am going to
tear it up, just as I told you I would last night.”

Sheila pushed away from the table and stood.
“It’s too late, Derrik. I’ve wanted Matthew married for years, and
now I’ve finally got what I wanted. And I couldn’t ask for a more
delightful daughter-in-law than Melinda.” She ran her fingers
through her silvery curls and smiled. “I faxed a copy of that
license to the county hall of records early this morning. It’s on
file, and they are legally married.”

***

“I’ll take care of this, Melinda.” The
sincerity of Matthew’s tone did nothing to quell the storm beneath
her sternum. Her gut was raging with conflict. Part of it was sick
over the sudden change in her marital status and part of it was
euphoric over the sudden change in her marital status. Thanks to
Sheila, Tamara would now not beat her to the altar.

No…no. It wasn’t victory over a sibling
rivalry which filled her heart with a joy she didn’t truly own. She
was happy with the prospect of marriage to Matthew because she
found him utterly attractive.

Yet, she really didn’t know him. First
impressions were certainly not something a woman could count on
when choosing a husband.

“What can we do?” she asked, trying to set
her mind squarely on the genuine problem she faced in straightening
out Sheila’s mistake--even if part of her didn’t want to fix it. “I
suppose we could get an annulment. That would probably be the most
sensible thing to do.”

“I suppose,” he said as he stared out the
living room window

They were alone in the Pottaski parlor. She
touched his arm, and he looked at her. “I’m sorry for making such a
mess of your life. If I hadn’t lodged my car in a snowdrift by your
driveway--”

He touched his fingers to her mouth, stopping
her words, and smiled at her. “If things hadn’t happened the way
they did, I wouldn’t have had such an interesting way to pass this
stormy confinement.”

She smiled back at him and pushed his hand
away from her mouth. “
Interesting?
”

He touched her chin with his finger and drew
back his hand. “Yes, interesting. Intriguing, in fact. Actually,
down-right entertaining! How often does a man get drunk and end up
married to a beautiful woman?”

“And not remember a thing about it!”

They laughed together.

Had he called her beautiful? Her cheeks
burned.

He pushed a lock of hair from her forehead.
“I can certainly think of worse ways to wait out a storm than being
in the company of a lovely lady with long blonde hair and eyes the
color of a July-blue sky.”

His flattery only made her cheeks hotter.

The whole room seemed suddenly warmer.
Melinda decided to go the window closer to the storm outside so she
could cool down the tempest raging inside her. This attraction she
felt to Matthew was growing by the minute.

He followed her to the window and looked out.
“As soon as the snow stops and the wind dies down, we’ll take the
snowmobile to the county seat. It’s only a few miles from
here.”

“I heard on the radio that all the county and
state offices in the entire eastern half of North Dakota are
closed. If you were thinking of checking out Sheila’s story to see
if she really did fax a copy of the marriage license, we won’t be
able to do that until the offices reopen.”

He looked at her and cocked a brow. “If the
offices are closed when we’re ready to go, we’ll have to wait for
them to open, of course. But I think we should be in the courthouse
the moment the offices open. If we can intercept the fax Mom sent,
if she indeed did send it, before it is officially received and
filed we can put an end to this practical joke without any further
damage or embarrassment.”

“You think we could pull that off?” His plan
sounded both romantic and rather sleuth-like. “Wouldn’t it be
illegal to take possession of a legal document and essentially
steal it?”

“We wouldn’t be
stealing
anything.
It’s
our
marriage certificate.”

Blast her racing heart! Her pulse throbbed
more enthusiastically than ever when he reminded her once more she
was
married
to this completely irresistible man.

She took a calming breath. “Matthew, this is
so embarrassing,” she said, referring to their unusual
situation…and also to her secret fantasies about
really
being married to him.

He rubbed his hand over his strong jaw. “For
me it’s embarrassing,” he said. “Unbelievably embarrassing. For you
it’s a terrible inconvenience.” He touched his fingers to her chin.
“I am truly sorry, Melinda, for what my mother did. I swear she’s
never done anything like this before. I don’t know what got into
her.”

Those gorgeous eyes of his stared into her
soul, and his gentle fingers against her chin warmed her clear to
her toes.

What had he just said?

He dropped his hand. “I guess the lovely Ms.
Sheila Pottaski wants me married even more than I thought she
did.”

Melinda took a step back. She needed to put
some distance between them before she blurted out something
stupid--like maybe they should give their marriage a try…at least
until the snowstorm subsided.

“Mothers are like that,” she said when she’d
taken a few steps away from him. “My own mother has been nagging me
to get married since I turned twenty-five.”

He grinned at her. “And you don’t want to be
married?”

She chuckled and blushed at the same time. “I
think I made myself abundantly clear last night. Obviously, I do
want to be married. Why else would I be so upset about my sister’s
wedding taking place before mine?”

“Do you have a fiancé? he asked
tentatively

She shook her head. “I’ve been too involved
in my work to become involved with a man.”

“Sounds like me,” he said, smiling at her. “I
spend twelve hours a day six days a week at my body shop.”

“You fix cars bodies?” she asked, placing her
hand over her chest. “I work on cars too. I’m a mechanic.”

“You’re a mechanic?” He gave her a skeptical
look. “No way. You’re too beautiful to be a mechanic.”

She giggled like a teenager. “How a woman
looks has little to do with her skills.”

His cheeks began to redden. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean anything negative by what I said.” He shrugged and
smiled. “Most of the mechanics I’ve worked with have been paunchy
or rail-thin guys named Rusty or Butch or Harvey. I’ve never worked
with a mechanic who looked anything like you.”