Shotgun Marriage Read online

  Day Leclaire invites you to a wedding...

  And it could be your own!

  Letter to Reader

  Books by Day Leclaire

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright

  Day Leclaire invites you to a wedding...

  The Location: the Cinderella Ball.

  The Bride: Ella Montague. She had grown up with fairy tales, but this year was her last chance to meet her handsome prince and live happily ever after.

  The Groom: Rafe Beaumont He didn’t believe in fairies, hope or marriage. He had come to stop the Cinderella Ball once and for all, until he discovered an even better way to exact his revenge—a SHOTGUN MARRIAGE to Ella Montague!

  And it could be your own!

  On one very special night, single people from all over America come together in the hope of finding that special ingredient for a happy ever after—their soul-mate. The Cinderella Ball offers the opportunity for immediate matrimony: come single, leave wed. Which is exactly what is about to happen to three unsuspecting couples in Day Leclaire’s magical new trilogy:

  Titles in this series are:

  November: TEMPORARY HUSBAND

  December: ACCIDENTAL WIFE

  January 1997: SHOTGUN MARRIAGE

  Dear Reader,

  Ella Montague grew up on fairy tales and happily-ever-after endings. So is it any wonder that she would expect the magic of the Cinderella Ball to work for her? Unfortunately, Rafe Beaumont doesn’t believe in faith or hope or miracles. Worse, he’s determined to prove how wrong Ella’s dreams are by making this the very last event of its kind.

  I’ve really enjoyed writing the Fairytale Weddings series. And I hope you’ll enjoy sharing in the romance and fantasy of the Cinderella Ball just one more time.... A very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

  P.S. My next book, The Secret Baby, will be out in May!

  Books by Day Leclaire

  HARLEQUIN ROMANCE

  3028—JINXED

  3139—WHERE THERE’S A WILL

  3183—IN THE MARKET

  3238—A WHOLESALE ARRANGEMENT

  3285—TO CATCH A GHOST

  3301—ONCE A COWBOY

  3338—WHO’S HOLDING THE BABY?

  3361—MAIL-ORDER BRIDEGROOM

  3376—ONE-NIGHT WIFE

  3404—MAKE-BELIEVE ENGAGEMENT

  3433—TEMPORARY HUSBAND

  3438—ACCIDENTAL WIFE

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo. NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Day Leclaire

  Shotgun Marriage

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  To Kathy Smith Acosta. Thank you so much for always

  being there when I’ve needed you.

  And to Susan Ashmore Fairbank, who exemplifies faith,

  hope and incredible courage every day of her life.

  PROLOGUE

  The Montagues—Forever, Nevada

  “YOU’RE dreading tonight, aren’t you?”

  Ella Montague glanced at her mother, reluctant to hurt her feelings with an honest reply. To be precise, she’d been dreading this evening’s Cinderella Ball for five long years—ever since the last ball her parents had thrown. For on that bleak night, all her hopes and dreams had been thoroughly shattered. But to admit that aloud and risk causing her mother pain... She shook her head. She just couldn’t do it.

  “I know how much this occasion means to you and Dad....” she offered cautiously.

  “The Cinderella Ball does mean a lot to us,” Henrietta conceded. “It’s our dearest wish that others experience the sort of love and joy your father and I found in our marriage. That’s why every five years we sponsor these balls—why we’ve kept the tradition going for thirty-five years.” She reached for her daughter’s hand. “But you must know that what we want most of all is for you to be happy.”

  Happy? Ella’s fingers trembled within her mother’s grasp. What had once seemed such a certainty crept ever closer to the realm of impossibility. “Maybe some of us weren’t meant to find ‘happily-ever-after,’” she whispered.

  “Of course you were.” Alarm filtered through her mother’s voice. “How could you think otherwise?”

  Ella bowed her head. “I’d always imagined I’d meet the man of my dreams on a night like this, that we’d fall in love and marry in the space of one magical evening. Just like you and Dad. But maybe—” She fought for control, fought to voice a possibility her parents had always refused to face. “Maybe the Cinderella Ball doesn’t work for everyone.”

  “It works for those who believe,” Henrietta insisted.

  “Does it? Are you certain?”

  Sadness crept into Henrietta’s gentle blue gaze. “That Beaumont man hurt you badly, didn’t he?”

  “I’ll survive,” Ella said with a shrug.

  “Not a day goes by that your father and I don’t regret that night. It’s all our fault. We should have known...” Her hand fluttered in the air like a wind-blown butterfly. “We should have realized...”

  “You weren’t to blame,” Ella instantly denied. “No one could have known what Rafe’s sister intended to do. Shayne never told any of us what she’d planned. Besides, I didn’t fall in love with Rafe at the Cinderella Ball.”

  “You just lost him there,” came the shrewd observation.

  There wasn’t any point in denying it. “I’m not a naive twenty-one-year-old. Nor am I a starry-eyed dreamer.” Ella lifted her chin and met her mother’s gaze resolutely. “Not anymore.” The past five years had seen to that.

  Henrietta’s breath caught in dismay. “You’ve stopped believing, haven’t you? Oh, darling, you mustn’t give up.”

  “I haven’t.” Thick, dark lashes fanned Ella’s cheeks. Not yet.

  Not unless tonight ended those few remaining dreams of finding an everlasting love. She’d give it a final chance, a last Cinderella Ball in which to find her Prince Charming. And if it didn’t happen, she’d know. She’d know that she wasn’t one of the special people meant to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, one of those who discovered the “happily-ever-after” that turned fantasy into reality.

  She stood, despair tarnishing the amber clarity of her eyes. Over the past several years she’d made up her mind. If daylight broke and she remained unwed, she’d face the inescapable truth. She’d accept that heaven never met earth. That stars were but distant pinpricks of cold firelight rather than vehicles for wishes. And that fairy godmothers didn’t help dreams come true, even for little girls named Cinderella. She’d finally concede that Rafe had been right all along. Fairy tales were just pretty stories and most people never lived happily ever after—her parents the one exception that proved the rule.

  “Ella? Please tell me the truth. You do still believe, don’t you?”

  She turned and offered her mother a reassuring smile. “It’s all right. I still believe.” For this one last night, she’d cling to the wispy remains of her hopes and dreams. She’d give the magic of the ball a final opportunity to work.


  “I have to be certain you haven’t given up,” Henrietta said anxiously. “It’s so important to me...to us.”

  “I know.” Ella’s smile grew. “You and Dad are incurable romantics. You always have been.”

  “There’s no point in denying it,” her mother confessed. “But that’s not why I’m so concerned. There’s something else. Something I haven’t told you.”

  Ella’s amusement turned to alarm. “Mother, what is it?”

  “Sit with me, darling. We need to talk.”

  The Grand Hotel—Forever, Nevada

  “You’re looking forward to tonight, aren’t you?” Rafe cradled the phone receiver against his ear with an uplifted shoulder. “You wish me to lie about it, Shayne?” he demanded, stabbing a heavy gold cufflink into the buttonhole of his stark-white dress shirt. “Shall I wrap up the truth in pretty falsehoods so you’ll feel better about what I intend to do?”

  “Yes! That’s exactly what I want.”

  “You know I don’t operate that way,” he retorted flatly. “Now, did you phone from Costa Rica just to give me a hard time? Or is there something important you wish to discuss? I have a party to attend.”

  “Darn it all, Rafe! This is important. Please. Promise me you’ll leave the Montagues alone.”

  “You know I can’t make such a promise.”

  Distress crept into his sister’s voice. “You mean you won’t.”

  “Fine. I won’t.” He gave the words a finality she couldn’t mistake. “The Montagues are going down and I intend to be there when it happens. Hell, I plan to be the one to push them off the cliff.”

  “But it’s my fault! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  He stared down at the thick gold-embossed envelope he’d tossed to the bed. It contained his sister’s “ticket” to the ball. “Maybe I would have found a different approach if it hadn’t been for this latest incident. That affair five years ago was bad enough. But for them to have the unmitigated gall to send you another invitation...” He heard the trace of Spanish accent seep into his words and his hand tightened around the receiver as he fought for control, fought to chain the black fury that rode him so relentlessly. Only the strongest emotions caused him to regress into childhood habits. “That I cannot forgive.”

  “Don’t you understand? I wanted to attend tonight’s ball. I thought... Maybe...”

  Rafe gritted his teeth. “You’d hoped he’d be there.”

  She didn’t reply, but the heartbreaking catch in her breath bled through the static on the line.

  “Ah, pobrecita hermanita,” he whispered. “Your pain is mine. I would do anything to spare you more hurt.” He shut his eyes, a fierce determination taking hold. “And so I shall. I will resolve this matter once and for all. When I have finished with the Montagues there won’t be any more Cinderella Balls to tempt you or anyone else with romantic rubbish.”

  “Please, Rafe.” Emotion choked her words, adding to the burden of guilt he’d carried for five impossibly long years. “Don’t do it.”

  “I must,” he replied with devastating simplicity. “They cannot continue to play games with innocent lives. They cannot steal people’s money with promises of love and happiness and then deliver nothing but pain and misery.”

  “You have to believe me. It’s my fault, not theirs. How can I convince you?”

  “You can’t, Shayne, for one simple reason.” He gazed out the window of his suite, watching as the sun surrendered its light and warmth to the greedy demands of the desert. “The fault is mine more than anyone’s.”

  “I...I don’t understand.”

  “You spent half your life with no one to care for you. When I finally found you, I swore I’d protect you.” His mouth twisted. “It was a promise I failed to keep. I can’t change the past. But I can make sure it’s never repeated. I won’t fail you this time.”

  She tried to muffle her sobs, but he heard them, the sound of her grief, soul-crippling in its impact. “We need to talk,” she finally managed to say. “You don’t understand.”

  “Ah, but I do, mi pichón,” he replied calmly. “I understand more than you’ll ever know.”

  Gently, he cradled the receiver. His gaze returned to the envelope on the bed and he picked it up. Inside he found a white velvet pouch that held a surprisingly heavy “gilt” ticket. He pulled the metallic wafer from its nest. It caught the last rays of the setting sun and shimmered as though alive, flooding the suite with a bright, golden promise.

  “I swear to you, Shayne,” he murmured. “They will pay.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Montagues’ Cinderella Ball—Forever, Nevada

  LIKE a hungry mountain lion scenting its prey, awareness of Ella struck first, alerting Rafe to her presence long before he zeroed in on her location. His movements slowed as he approached and tension rippled along the length of his shoulders, radiating downward into his arms and fisted hands. He caught tantalizing glimpses of her through the line of people waiting to enter the Montagues’ ballroom—the brilliant flash of her gold dress, the deep luster of ebony hair, an endless expanse of magnolia pale skin.

  And then the crowd shifted and he saw her.

  His reaction came hot and swift, with all the raw power of a jaguar coiled to spring. Desire and a driving need to possess clawed through him, making a mockery of the indifference he’d thought he’d attained over the past five years. The rational part of his brain might reject her, Rafe realized bitterly, but the baser, more instinctual part still wanted her with a ferocity he couldn’t deny.

  Memories long suppressed flooded his mind and fed his fury—a fury aimed squarely at himself. Dios! To his disgust he couldn’t drag his gaze from her. Five years ago he’d thought her the loveliest woman he’d ever seen. Since then she’d matured into a beauty beyond even his fertile imagination.

  He shifted to one side of the line, allowing the glittering tide of guests to pass him by as he battled to overcome the perversities of fate and human nature. He was suffering from a nasty case of lust, no more than that. It had to be lust, he refused to consider any other possibility. It was a natural reaction, one any red-blooded man would feel toward such a woman. He’d worry if he didn’t have a need to hold Ella in his arms, to seduce her into his bed, to join with her in the most ancient of rituals. Still, he’d be a fool if he didn’t acknowledge that this overpowering urge would complicate his mission. His craving for her could go no further—not after what she’d done...and not considering the fate he had in store for her.

  Even as he made the determination, an alternate plan occurred to him, one that would satisfy his thirst for vengeance as well as his hunger for possession. He watched Ella with cold silver eyes as he analyzed this latest possibility. Assuming she hadn’t changed since the time he’d known her, it just might work.

  A humorless smile crept across Rafe’s mouth. For the sake of his sanity, it had better work.

  Ella had lost track of how much time had slipped away since the start of the Cinderella Ball. But she’d felt the loss of each precious moment. More than anything she longed to steal from her place in the receiving line and fight for her last chance at happiness. Instead, she greeted the guests with a warm smile and collected the gold metallic wafers that served as tickets to the ball. They went into the velvet-lined basket she held, building into a miniature gold mountain of fervent dreams and wishes. And as each ticket landed with a melodic clink she added her own silent prayer that this guest would find his or her heart’s desire.

  She glanced up as the next visitor approached and summoned another smile. He was a large, good-looking man whose tired hazel eyes warred with a determined expression. “I’m Jonah Alexander,” he introduced himself. “Listen, I have a small problem—”

  But even as he began his explanation, an odd frisson of awareness caused her to glance past him. Past him...and straight into the diamond-hard gaze of Rafe Beaumont.

  “Hello, Ella,” he said, the softly spoken words at direct o
dds with the threat glittering in his stormy gray eyes.

  The blood drained from her face. It couldn’t be Rafe! Not here. Not now. Not on the most important night of her entire life. The basket tilted in her unsteady grasp and tumbled to the floor. For an instant, she couldn’t react, couldn’t move, could only stare at Rafe in disbelief. She dreaded to consider what secrets she gave away with that one single look. Knowing his uncanny ability to read her every thought and feeling, it had to be far too many. She didn’t regain control until the man at the head of the line went down on one knee and began scooping tickets back into the basket. With a muffled exclamation she crouched beside him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in an undertone.

  What had he said his name was? Joe Something? Jonah? That was it. Jonah Alexander. “I’m fine,” she insisted, though she suspected her trembling hands betrayed her. Gathering up the last ticket, she stood. “Thanks for your help.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Jonah rose, too, and glanced pointedly behind him. If he’d thought to intimidate Rafe, he soon learned his mistake. Rafe folded his arms across his chest and held his position as though he had all of eternity to wait. But it was the expression in his cold, bleak gaze that worried Ella the most. She’d seen that look before, had seen men of immense wealth and power cave before it, wilting like unwatered daisies beneath the fierce desert sun. Without uttering a single word he made it clear that Jonah was intruding on a personal matter.