Four Weddings and a Fiasco: The Wedding Caper

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R
ose Martin hadn’t realized she was headed for the garden of the Rose Chalet until she was there. Yet she wasn’t truly surprised to find herself there.

The garden was a beautiful spot. This oasis of beauty and peace amid the city contributed immeasurably to making this among the top wedding venues in all of San Francisco.

It was also where RJ Knight was.

He smiled the instant he saw her, and she smiled back. She couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to even try. Not anymore.

But then RJ’s expression changed. “What’s wrong, Rose?”

That was RJ. Always looking out for her. Always attuned to her. Sometimes knowing what she felt long before she did.

However, she didn’t answer him directly. “RJ, that friend of yours and Patrick’s you introduced me to when he was considering coming to San Francisco, he did move here, didn’t he?”

“Eric Larkin? Yeah. I thought I told you, he’s just a few blocks away. We thought we’d have dinner in a couple weeks. Why?”

“He’s a lawyer, right?”

He frowned. “Yeah. What’s up, Rose? Is something wrong?”

“Do you trust him? Truly trust him?”

“F
irst, you and I get married.”

“Excuse me?” Officer K.D. Hamilton stared at the man she had just met. Nobody ever said an attractive face guaranteed sanity.

“We get married,” repeated Eric Larkin, as if it were something she might do three times a day instead of not-in-this-lifetime. “We can fake the date, but it will be better to have paperwork in case they check our cover story. Then all you have to do is pretend to be my wife for a weekend.”

Wife.

The word did to her nervous system what a scream of
Fire
! did in a crowded theater. Caused a mad stampede for the exits.

“I don’t think—” she started before her protest was overrun.

“Wait a minute, Eric,” said Ken Yount, a top aide to the mayor of San Francisco and another stranger to K.D. They were in his office in impressive City Hall.

Then again, nobody said an impressive City Hall office guaranteed sanity, either.

Her head was still spinning with why the third man in the room, Captain Dwight Hadley of the California Highway Patrol, had requested her presence. In fact, had apparently pulled an impressive number of strings to guarantee it. The steel-haired Hadley’s reputation in her small corner of the state for being a smart law enforcement officer with the best of contacts still endured years after he’d been promoted and transferred to head this district.

That had happened before she’d joined the force in tiny Cabot, California. So, they’d never met. But she’d heard so much about him that when her chief delivered his request, she’d come with no questions.

Now she wished she’d asked a few.

Her gaze flicked to Eric Larkin.

Even though Hadley had gotten her here, even though they were in Ken Yount’s office, and down the hall from the mayor’s, Larkin was the key. She was sure of it. But he wasn’t the easiest to read she’d ever met.

Faint lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth seemed to be waiting to be brought to life by a smile. Though that was pure speculation. Because he sure wasn’t smiling now.

“
All she has to do
?” Yount continued. “You make it sound like she’ll be window dressing. The agreement is that Officer Hamilton will be involved in the investigation.”

“That’s right,” said Captain Hadley. “K.D. is a top-notch police officer. Broke my record at the range last year. She will contribute to this investigation.”

Captain Hadley knew about that? K.D. felt warmth flow across her cheeks. Which was stupid.

Damn right she was top-notch. C
ontribute
? She could
run
this investigation. If her chief hadn’t thought the last good century was the nineteenth, she would have been running the department’s major investigations. Not that even the most major of investigations in Cabot, California were much of a challenge.

“No disrespect to Officer Hamilton,” Eric Larkin said without looking at her. In fact, he hadn’t looked at her since he’d responded to the captain’s introductions by standing to politely shake her hand, topping her nearly five-foot-ten by several inches.

In that moment, he had studied her like a wary dog studying the face behind the hand holding out a tidbit. Didn’t trust the face or the hand, but sure did want that tidbit.

Yet judging by his clothes, looks, and bearing, Larkin was not a man accustomed to taking handouts from anybody.

“If these were common hoodlums,” he said now. “I’m sure her skills would be needed. But these people are sophisticated financial criminals, and following the legal and money trail could take expertise.”

Great, so the chief of her police department thought women were such delicate flowers that she had to constantly fight his efforts to keep her off the streets and Mr. Financial Wizard thought all she was good for was muscle.

“I
can
add,” K.D. muttered. “Even divide in a pinch.”

The elegant red-haired woman sitting on a couch just beyond the testosterone circle interrupted by K.D. covered her mouth, but not before K.D. saw her smile.

None of the three men in the room, however, were listening to her. That figured. They already had her playing the role of
wife
.

Oh, I couldn’t do that — I’m his wife.

How many times had she heard those words from her mother? Every time K.D. had urged her mother to stand up to her husband’s rules, regulations, and rigid budget.

That dress is pathetic, Mom. Just tell Mark you need a new one and forget his stupid budget for once.

Oh, I couldn’t do that — I’m his wife.

Wife . . . .

No. No way. Not K.D. Hamilton.

“Hold on.” Yount said. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. We should explain this to Officer Hamilton from the start.”

He smiled at her. It was hard not to smile back. He presented a businesslike surface, but underneath he was relaxed in the way of people whose world was spinning happily.

Not Larkin. No happy spinning for this guy, no matter how much those lines at the corners of his eyes promised to crease with a grin.

She’d known at first glance that he wasn’t a cop. It wasn’t the dark blond hair being slightly longer than regulation, or the top quality of his clothes, or even the distant smile that hid more than a blank expression could. It was the trouble in his eyes that made her so sure he wasn’t a cop.

Because the trouble he’d seen had surprised him, and trouble didn’t surprise cops.

“That would be helpful, Mr. Yount,” she said.

“Call me Ken. The neighborhoods of San Francisco are as distinct and individual as snowflakes. It’s been that way since—”

Larkin interrupted. “If we go back to when your ancestors got off the first boat, this could take forever.”

“Some of my ancestors were here before the first boat. And even then the leaders of San Francisco worked hard to protect our neighborhoods,” Yount picked up smoothly. There was an ease in the interchange that made her think these two men had been friends a long time. “Strong businesses are vital to that. Our business owners are the first line of —”

“Campaign commercial,” Larkin muttered. The lines by his eyes and mouth flashed as a quick grin broke through briefly before being suppressed.
Whoa
. Brief was plenty to see how very different it was from that practiced smile. How different
he
was.

“All right, all right. In one neighborhood — one of our most wonderful neighborhoods,” he added with a triumphant look at Eric, “there is a historic building that went out of business as a small hotel, and is being leased by an organization called Marriage-Save as a retreat for couples whose marriages are in trouble. Couples come in for packages of various lengths to get therapy, counseling, that sort of thing. Until two years ago, Marriage-Save operated in Oregon. Now they want to buy this property, which the city took over for back taxes.”

He paused and she nodded to acknowledge she’d followed so far. “We have reason to believe Marriage-Save might not be on the up-and-up. Before we agree to let them buy, we need to know for sure.”

“In what way not on the up-and-up?” she asked.

Eric Larkin shifted his weight like a boxer getting ready to move around the ring. Yount glanced toward him, then the woman on the couch before saying, “That’s not entirely clear, and that’s one of the things we hope to find out.”

“How do you intend to find out?”

“By sending a couple posing as clients in to watch the operation from the inside.”

“That’s where you come in,” said Hadley. “Your chief has agreed to a short leave of absence to let you do this work — if you’re interested.”

Talk about being careful what you wished for . . . She was being offered what she most wanted — a potentially high-profile investigation that could get her out of Cabot. But it came wrapped in the guise of what she never wanted — being a wife. Even undercover.

On the other hand, getting the answers about this Marriage-Save place, would spotlight her abilities. Hadley’s connections were legendary, and he’d helped dozens of officers advance.

Could this be the kind of break that —
? No, she wouldn’t speculate. That came too close to jumping to conclusions. Take it as it comes. Build her career the way she would build a case — steadily, reliably, factually.

The first step was to make sure she got the answers.

To accomplish that, she could handle pretending to be a wife. It was a way to get her into Marriage-Save, after all. And temporary. And with a stranger, so there couldn’t be any confusion about what was real and what wasn’t.

Except . . . .

Larkin hadn’t said
he’d
go in as
her husband
. He’d said
she’d
go in as
his wife
.

She looked at him and met his assessing gaze. So she made no effort to mask her reciprocal study, looking directly into Eric Larkin’s hazel eyes. Beneath a surface tarnish from the trouble she’d spotted earlier, she recognized a man who planned to run the show. Just like a husband.