He held up his hands. “Don’t panic.”
Any words she might have mustered for a biting retort utterly vanished.
He traipsed over to the desk, switched on the lamp, and picked up a piece of paper. A groan punched from his lungs.
“What? What is it?”
He locked gazes with her. “You can panic now.”
A mere beat passed, and she was by his side, gawking at what he held in his hands. Her already-unsettled stomach plummeted to her toes. “That’s … that’s …”
“A marriage license. Yeah.”
“It’s got to be a joke. Are those our real names?”
“Looks like. My brothers signed as witnesses, so maybe itisa joke. They could have faked this, but I gotta hand it to them, they went to a lot of trouble to make it look authentic.”
He plucked up what looked like a receipt and whipped his head toward her. His eyes dipped to her hand. “Holy Mother of …”
She followed his gaze, and her mouth swung open.
He pointed at her hand. “That isnotfake.”
On her left ring finger was a big-ass diamond and a matching band.
Now she darted her eyes to his left hand. “Uh, you seem to be wearing what looks like the man version of mine. These must be fake! Right?”
“Don’t think so.” He held up the receipt.
She covered her mouth to hold back a choked cry. “Is that a six? With four zeros after it?”
“No, that’s aneight.” He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Damn! I bought these!”
“And in Alma’s store, no less, which means you got gouged.”
He scanned the receipt one more time. “Well, not completely. Seems I got a Black Friday deal, so the price included our wedding bands.”
She inspected the ring, which was almost too big for her small finger. “Itisbeautiful.”
“I have great taste. Did you have a say in it, or did I just … buy it?”
“You’re askingme?”
“You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I was there, but I was as drunk as you, and everything’s a black hole.” Dear God, what had they done? And why? “Look, let’s just go back to Elvin’s and return these. While we’re there, we’ll find out if that license is real, and if it is, how we get it … undone. There has to be a law about drunk people getting married, right?”
“Neve, we’re in Vegas. Drunk people get married here all the time.”
“I’m sure we can unwind this,” she persisted. “We’ve got to get your money back, Reece.”And our lives.
Picking up her hand, he inspected the ring. Then he read from the receipt. “What we have here is a three-carat, emerald-cut center stone set in platinum, with diamonds totaling point eight carats on either side. Thecolor and clarity ratings are I and VS2, respectively.” He glanced down at her. “I think that means it’s a really good diamond.”
“Are you joking right now?”
“I’m trying to bring humor into a confounding situation, yes.”
She tried to pull it off her finger, but it wouldn’t budge over her swollen knuckle. Alcohol had probably turned her fingers into sausages.
