Page 4

“For about five seconds when I was too young to know better,” Ms. June said.

Mr. Bill finished his dance and walked over to Marina. “Congratulations, girlie! And any time your man falls down on his job, you come right on over. As you saw, I’ve still got the moves to keep you satisfied.”

Marina laughed and squeezed his hand. “You got it! Thanks for coming to my bachelorette party.”

“Anything for you, sweetheart. Oh, hell.” Something had caught his eye over Marina’s shoulder. “Susie’s coming this way with my coat. You’d think my own daughter would want me to live my truth, but she’s a prude like the rest of them. I better go before she covers me.” Mr. Bill walked away, leaving the women to their margaritas and appetizers.

Snow cleared her throat. “Now, Jeannie, what’s this I hear about Al getting a dating show? That’s awesome they’refilming locally. Having another show in town will be great for the economy. How’d you convince them to do it here instead of LA or somewhere flashier?”

“It wasn’t that hard, actually.” Jeannie flipped her hair over her shoulder. “They liked Al because of his job as a deputy and his work onGrimm County Lawmen,so filming locally made sense. And theLawmenteam was more than willing to push back their filming schedule since they expect Bachelor Al will add a ton of new viewers.”

“I’m curious about the women,” Marina said, her eyes lighting up. “Do you know anything about them?”

“No, I’m not really involved with that part.” An uncomfortable knot formed in Jeannie’s belly. “I just know they’ll start with ten and go from there.” The truth was, they had asked her to assist with the casting. Even offered to fly her out to New York City. But so far, she’d declined, not interested in seeing who Al would date.

“Maybe you could be one of them.” Marina pulled a cheese fry out of the pile. A hush fell over the table as she continued to stuff her cheeks, oblivious to the awkward bomb she’d dropped.

“What?” Marina asked through a mouthful of food.

“Why would I go on the show as one of Al’s harem?”

“As a spy? Duh. It’s been done before. You pose as one of the girls and give Al the real scoop on how they act when he’s not around.”

Jeannie released a long breath. Of course she didn’t want to be one of Al’s women. So what if maybe sometimes on occasion she imagined what it might be like to be his. And it was totally irrelevant that most of those occasions were while she was in the shower with a certain battery-operated friend. But those daydreams had her as his woman, singular. Not one woman out of many competing for his attention. Which she would never get because he only saw her as a friend.

She sighed and shook her head. “My job was to boost his profile enough to book a show. I did that. Now it’s up to Al to sign the contract and do everything else.”

“Wait, he hasn’t signed yet? I thought you got the offer weeks ago,” Rose said, rubbing her stomach.

“We did, but these things take time.” Jeannie hoped she sounded truthful. In fact, Al had been offered an exceptional deal, and he should have signed it last week. But he was stalling, and she didn’t know why.

Snow reached over and pulled a large chunk of fries away from Marina. “Good for Al for being cautious and reviewing the fine print. My dad had horror stories from his time as a lawyer when clients rushed through a deal.”

Maybe Snow was right. Maybe Al was trying to be thorough. But Jeannie had read that contract over with a fine-tooth comb. Filming would take six weeks, and they’d worked it out with Christian so that he could take vacation days when necessary. When combined with the rest of their savings, the sign-on bonus was enough to cover the initial payment for the lawyer they wanted to hire for Ben. And when he finished the show, he’d have the rest of the money they needed.

There was only that one clause that was a little unusual, but not surprising, considering the theme of the show. He wasn’t allowed to date anyone other than the ten contestants for the duration of filming. If he did, he would be in breach of contract and not only would he be fired, he wouldn’t get paid. And if he was caught dating outside the show more than halfway through production, he’d have to pay a twenty thousand dollar fine. But surely that wasn’t the reason Al was stalling. She hadn’t seen any ladies on his side of the duplex lately, so it’s not like he was holding out for someone else.

Chapter 3

Al stood at the front of the church, feeling uncharacteristically anxious in front of the sea of guests. He’d made quite the leap from teenage thief to sheriff’s groomsman. His mother would have gotten a kick out of that, if she was sober. Al hadn’t seen her in years. When he refused to give her money for her drug habit, she told him she didn’t want anything to do with him. Fine by him. He’d stopped looking to her as a mother when he started buying his own groceries at ten years old.

Christian stared down the aisle patiently, his face shining with love for his bride. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”played softly as the doors opened. Jeannie was the first to walk down the aisle, and Al nearly swallowed his tongue as he drank her in. The strapless turquoise dress hugged her curves in all the right ways, showing just enough cleavage to make his heart race. The skirt ran all the way to the floor, draping her like an elegant princess. Her honey-rich hair was piled on her head in some kind of fancy updo, andhis fingers itched to pull out the pins and let her hair fall against—

Old garbage. Nursing homes. Gutting fish.He needed to think of something, anything, to distract Al Junior, who had decided to stand up for the wedding.

Rose walked down the aisle next, followed by Snow. Al glanced at Nick and Hunter’s faces, finding similar sappy expressions on each. The music changed to “Here Comes the Bride,” and this time, Marina stood at the entrance.

With no parents to walk her down the aisle, Marina chose to walk by herself. Christian had told them she’d toyed with the idea of asking Sofia, her sort-of stepmother, but he vetoed it. He was willing to give Marina the world but drew the line at having the head of the Romano crime family in his wedding.

Al watched as Christian’s hand moved up to wipe a tear from his cheek. The love he had for Marina, hell, the love all the deputies had for their women, was a foreign concept to Al. His mom had been a literal crackwhore, which left him with no clue about his father.

Ben and Jeannie’s parents weren’t much better. Their dad had been sentenced to life in prison when Jeannie was in kindergarten. After he was killed in a prison fight, their mom started dating around like it was her new job.

The three of them were already used to taking care of themselves, so her inattention didn’t make a big difference. Ben had inherited the trailer from his father, so they didn’t need to worry about becoming homeless whenever their mom decided to stay with her latest beau. Jeannie could fake her mom’s signature and voice when needed. They knew the best food pantries, and Ben and Al could steal whatever else.

Al snorted when he remembered the year Jeannie started her period. She stole as many pads as she could from the bathrooms at school, but eventually had to ask them for help. Ben was horrified, but Al didn’t mind. It wasn’t any different from them stealing toilet paper or deodorant. They could have afforded the off-brand kind, but he figured lady products were important enough that he wanted to steal the best.

Thank fuck.His hard on was finally gone. He’d have to remember to add period products to his list of deflation visualization aides.