The Mistletoe Effect (3 page)

“This isn’t the place or the time. But, getting back to your question about my underwear, I had to do something to counterbalance this awful dress.”

He shoved his longing to have a real conversation with her aside. She was right; they’d have plenty of time later. For now, he’d settle for flirtation.

“I don’t know. I kind of like the dress. It makes me want to sit on your lap and tell you what I want for Christmas.”

“You think I look like Santa Claus?” She smoothed a self-conscious hand over the fluffy white material lining the dress across her chest. “That wasn’t exactly the vibe Haylie was going for when she picked out these dresses.”

The reality was that Carina was gorgeous and sexy and didn’t look a thing like old Saint Nick. But Decker had her talking real good now, and he could hardly believe it. Carina never loosened up enough to say more than a few words to him while looking like it pained her to use her vocal cords, but tonight she did, so he was going with what worked. And what worked was pushing her buttons.

“A little bit, yeah. Let me hear you say
ho, ho, ho
.”

She mashed her lips together, her pink cheeks turning red, then seemed to relax, as though she’d given herself permission to lighten up. “First of all, I don’t have a bowl full of jelly for a stomach.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s true.” He loved her stomach, actually. Not that he’d ever let on that he’d seen it. The Briscoes’ private pool faced the ranch’s northwest riding trail, and every so often he caught a glimpse of her sunbathing in a bikini. Needless to say, he made that particular trail ride as often as he could.

“Or a ruddy complexion,” she added, cutting into his memory of the last time he’d seen her lying poolside last summer.

“But you do blush a lot.”

She wrenched her face away and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Only around you.”

He liked that idea. Liked it a lot, actually. “I have one last question before we tie the knot.”

“You already asked your one question and then some, but I’ll allow another if you hurry because I’m sure the chaplain is about ready to start.”

“Fair enough. What other seasonal underwear do you own? Independence Day? Easter?”

“None of your business.” He could hear a hint of smile in her tone, though she was trying her darnedest to look offended.

“A husband has a right to know what he has to look forward to with his wife down the road.”

“We’re not actually getting married. You do understand that, right?”

He did, and he hoped that’s what Ty Briscoe was reminding the wedding guests, too, although he couldn’t quite make out the words of the speech it sounded like Ty was currently giving the crowd. But knowing the truth and messing with Carina were two entirely different animals. To be honest, it turned Decker on to think about her pledging her body and heart to him, if only temporarily.

“Until Christmas, we are.”

The string quartet that the resort kept on retainer during the holidays began to play a classical piece. Decker offered his arm to Carina and, together, they stepped from the room. The crowd had stayed. If anything, more folks had arrived, but all sounds quieted at Carina and Decker’s appearance.

Getting to the altar was a blur, but once they were in front of the chaplain, facing the cross, under the massive cluster of mistletoe hanging from the ceiling and the fog of the nasty holiday incense, shit got real for Decker fast.

Struggling for breath behind the bow tie and tightly buttoned shirt collar, he wiped the sweat from his palms onto his slacks and tried to keep himself from ripping the tie off and running out of the room like Haylie had only a few minutes earlier. It wasn’t that he was against marriage, or church for that matter, but this was a whole lot of steps beyond what he had in mind in all his years of scheming to seduce Carina.

Over the time he’d worked at Briscoe Ranch Resort, he’d come up with more than a dozen half-baked plans toward that end and every one of them crashed and burned with the realization that she was his boss’s daughter and, therefore, off-limits.

That the boss in question had invited Decker to fake a wedding with his little girl in front of everybody they knew as well as reporters, the resort’s staff, local wedding planners, and other prominent members of San Antonio royalty had him wondering if Ty gave a whit about his daughter’s reputation at all. And, to top it off, he’d been totally fine with her and Decker living together for the month. Come to think of it, what kind of man set his daughter’s honor and reputation on the line for the sake of a business, even if that business was a multimillion-dollar enterprise?

Carina interrupted his thoughts with a nudge to his arm with her shoulder.

“I have a Saint Patrick’s Day thong. Shamrocks,” she whispered.

Just like that, his temper evaporated. Who the hell cared about Ty Briscoe’s screwed-up logic or the sham they were embarking on in front of God and three hundred witnesses when he got to spend more than three weeks in the company of the woman who’d fascinated him since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her?

“Sounds like a lucky pair of underwear.”

“It has its moments.”

It was impossible not to chuckle at that, despite his sudden bout of jealousy at the unnamed men who’d gotten a firsthand look at Carina’s shamrock thong. One thing was for sure—he could get used to this side of the boss’s buttoned-up daughter.

He wiped his palms on his pants one more time, then took her hand firmly in his. “All right, future Mrs. Decker. Let’s get this party started.”

Chapter Two

Decker didn’t remember much about the actual wedding ceremony. Sure, it was nerve-wracking to fib in church about something so important, and, yes, he’d made a deal to move a virtual stranger into his house during his busiest month of work. But mostly, his brain was locked on all the many splendid things he was going to do to and share with Carina Briscoe over the next few weeks.

In the tiny bride’s room to the left of the chapel vestibule that he and Carina had retired to after their walk down the aisle after the ceremony, he came crashing back down to reality at the sound of voices raised in excitement from the other side of the wall that separated the room from the chapel’s front steps. He’d been around enough weddings at the resort to know what was coming.

“Are we going to get pelted with snow when we walk outside?”

“Fake snow. And
pelting
isn’t the idea. More like a sprinkling effect.”

There wasn’t a doubt in Decker’s mind that the moment he stepped through the doors his and Wendell’s buddies on staff and in the wedding audience would provide him with an actual snow pelting. In his mind’s eye, he could see them scraping up icy, dirty snow from the dusting they’d gotten the night before and compacting it into hard little orbs in their hands. Decker might’ve done a lot of growing up in the past few years, but Wendell and his friends hadn’t seen fit to follow him down the road to maturity. He hoped they’d spare Carina the injustice of their plans.

“Fake snow,” he mused, taking off his jacket to use as a shield. “Sounds like the perfect end to a fake wedding.”

He opened the door from the bridal room to the now-empty vestibule and walked with her to the entry’s double doors.

“Oh, the fakeness isn’t over,” she said. “Wait until you see the ballroom. No expense was spared for my parents’ big night, with their princess getting married.”

She didn’t sound the least bit jealous, which threw him off. Instead, he would have sworn he detected a note of relief in her tone, as though she was grateful that Haylie had to endure their parents’ doting, not her.

“You’re not their princess, too?”

The question earned him a grimace. “I don’t want to be a princess. When Haylie and I played castle as kids, I always volunteered to be the knight.”

“Not the king or queen?”

“I always fancied myself more of a dragon slayer.”

Meek Carina, a dragon slayer? Either her imagination had only dreamed up little bitty dragons or something happened to her in the years since her youth that took away her sense of power. Then again, Decker was one to talk. Up until a few years ago, he’d willingly given away his power in favor of a good time. It had taken experiencing a vivid dream about his father on the tenth anniversary of his death to realize how much he was sacrificing by not believing in himself.

Happy to stall their walk to the waiting horse-drawn carriage, he asked, “What kind of fakery did the resident dragon slayer plan for tonight’s wedding reception?”

“At our mom’s request, and on Dad’s credit card, I created a magical indoor snow-covered forest reminiscent of the resort’s Winter Wonderland garden.”

Dang.
That was one demanding mother-of-the-bride—and an even more demanding price tag. The winter wonderland garden was one of the main tourist attractions at the resort. It spread from the grounds around the chapel to the base of the nearest foothill and was a landscaping masterpiece of evergreen trees, flowers, topiary animals, water features, and a huge gazebo, all decorated to the nines for Christmas and sporting enough wattage to light a small city.

“Did you have real trees brought in?”

“Some real, some artificial. And trees are just the start.” She enumerated on her fingers. “Snow-kissed trees lining the room, ice sculptures, snow confetti over the dance floor, cages of turtledoves and partridges. I pulled out all the stops.”

“And will there be ten lords a-leaping, too?”

She flashed a
you guessed it
face. “That’s why I’m the best at what I do. And now it’s all ours tonight.”

The words weren’t said with pride or her usual weariness but sarcasm, as if she, too, couldn’t quite believe the farce they were presently embroiled in. He supposed that as long as he wasn’t one of the lords required to leap he shouldn’t be surprised by the extravagance, but still—“Are you serious about the lords a-leaping?”

Her sage expression morphed into a smile. “God, no. Not that there’s anything wrong with leaping lords. Or maids a-milking, for that matter, but there’s a fine line between tasteful and over-the-top and I drew it at the vodka tasting station with a bar made out of ice.”

Was that another jest out of the buttoned-up Carina? He looked into her twinkling eyes. It
was
a jest.
Well, damn.
As he’d first glimpsed with her secret Halloween underwear, he was discovering there were many hidden layers to his new faux bride—layers that he planned to peel off one at a time. But first they had to get through the reception.

He shook out his jacket, then draped it across her shoulders. “I suppose we should get this snow pelting over with. Our vodka bar awaits.”

Two steps outside, something hard and cold exploded against Decker’s cheek, followed by a snicker from Cord McGraw, one of Wendell’s groomsmen. Carina squealed and pulled the edges of the jacket over her face. Amid the actual snowballs, other guests tossed white flakes into the air, hooting and calling their congratulations.

Decker took Carina’s elbow. “Let’s pick up the pace.” He hustled her through the crowd, spitting out the flakes of fake snow that flew into his mouth as they jogged.

“What is that fake snow made of, anyway? Tastes like sawdust,” he said.

“A biodegradable paper that dissolves in water.”

One of the groomsmen clobbered Decker’s back with another icy snowball as he followed Carina, who dodged away from the open carriage door and around to the back of it.

“Why didn’t you get in? You’re not planning to fight back with snowballs, are you? Because I’d really rather get to the vodka bar.”

“I’m with you on that, but I’d rather walk.” She patted the dark green garland that adorned the white-and-gold open-top carriage. “This was Haylie’s idea. God forbid that a bride be tasked with walking, like a mere mortal.”

From the chapel, it was only a short distance across the grounds to the reception. Already the same guests who’d stayed behind for the snow-throwing fiasco were filing along the well-lit path. The winter wonderland garden glowed in the distance beneath a huge, lit Star of Bethlehem that rose from the top of the highest hill at the edge of the resort.

Clusters of carolers strolled amid the guests, as they did every night throughout the Christmas season, singing holiday songs a capella. White and blue twinkle lights were everywhere, lining the path and wrapped around nearly every tree and shrub. To top off the extravagance, the event-catering staff passed out mugs of hot cider for the guests to sip along the way.

Truly, Decker would’ve been happy to stroll along with Carina to the reception amid such festive cheer, except that he was eager to have her away from the prying eyes of the guests and all to himself for a few minutes before the craziness of the reception kicked in.

“Normally, I’m all for doing what a lady wants, but I was looking forward to being driven around by Manuel.” He gestured to Manuel, the carriage driver and one of Decker’s most reliable workers at the stable, who’d followed them around to the back of the carriage. He already had the right-side carriage door open and a step stool ready, all the while doing a terrible job hiding his shit-eating grin.

Up until then, Decker hadn’t given a moment’s thought to how much flak he was going to be taking at work the next day from his employees. They were all going to get a lot of mileage out of this, but it was a small price to pay for the time with Carina.

With a finger out to Manuel, he said, “Give us a sec.” Then he tucked Carina’s arm around his elbow and walked her a few feet away. “I bet you’ve been on your feet all day.”

“Yes, but—”

“No
buts
. Manuel is going to get paid either way, and you, um …” He ran a finger along the fluffy white material lining the top of the dress. “You need to save your strength for later.”

She didn’t seem to notice his finger on her dress but instead grimaced, her expression filling with panic. “You better not be talking about dancing at the reception, because I don’t remember that being part of our agreement.”