Rodeo Blues by Karen Michelle Nutt Read Free Book Online

one foot as she
yanked it on, and then donned the other.
    "Don't you think we should talk about this?"
he asked.
    "No."
    He stood there staring at her in all his
natural glory – damn him. Why couldn't he put some clothes
on?
    Finally, he threw up his hands and headed for
the bathroom.
    Good.
    He slammed the door and she cringed, but this
gave her the opportunity to skedaddle out of there. Only two
seconds later, he opened the door again.
    "Jolie, darlin'," he said in a singsong voice
that really grated on her nerves. "You might want to take a look at
this?"
    "Now what?" She strode over to the bathroom
door and followed his gaze to the mirror. Her eyes widened in
horror at the piece of paper stuck in the corner. She shoved him
out of the way and grabbed it, already knowing what it would
say.
    Tye wrapped his arm around her waist and
leaned nearer to rest his chin on her shoulder. She met his gaze in
the reflection of the bathroom mirror. "Well, Mrs.
Casper , I guess you'll be talking to me after all."

Chapter Eight

    Tye took a shower, leaving Jolie to hunt down
Mayor Dirkly regarding his part in marrying them last night.
Personally, he was in no hurry to annul their marriage, but it
seemed Jolie couldn't make the call fast enough. When he emerged
from the bathroom, she was still on her cell phone. From what he
could make out, Mayor Dirkly wouldn't cooperate one iota on her
demands. Tye dried his hair with a towel as he watched Jolie pace
their hotel room, trying to wiggle her way out of the marriage
she'd agreed to. She even signed the papers with a cute little
heart above the 'i' in her name.
    "You can't be serious ," she said to
Mayor Dirkly over the phone, her voice going up a few octaves as
she spoke each word. "The document can't be real," she insisted.
"We were as full as ticks. We didn't know what we were doing and
since when do you do business after hours? Maybe you were just as
drunk 'cause none of this makes sense. What?" She paused in her
tirade as Mayor Dirkly managed to get in a few words. He couldn't
make out what the man said, but Jolie's face turned a pretty shade
of crimson.
    Sure, he would have done the proposing
differently, but he asked her to be his wife – and by the looks of
it, she said yes. Maybe they weren't thinking straight, then
again…maybe they had been. He promised to marry her when they were
all of eighteen. He may have been slow to make the promise a
reality, but it looked like he finally came through.
    "Oh really," Jolie snapped. "You haven't
heard the last of this Mayor Dirkly." She ended the call and tossed
the cell phone on the bed with a scream of frustration. "This is
all your fault." She turned her anger on him.
    He lifted his brows. "How do you figure?"
    "You … you should have known better." She
threw up her hands.
    "I take it Mayor Dirkly won't annul the
marriage?"
    "No. Said it was all legal with witnesses and
all."
    He'd noticed Whisper and Buddy's signatures.
So good of them to help out.
    "And because we…"
    "We what?"
    "He won't give us an annulment because we
consummated the marriage."
    He let out a short chuckle then shook his
head. "You told him?"
    "Well, I didn't expect him to ask." The
faintest tinge of humor lit her eyes. "My sputtering like a fool
gave him all he needed to know we'd spent the night together."
    "You never were a very good liar," he
admitted.
    Jolie ran a hand over her face and inhaled
deeply before letting out a cleansing breath. "We need to take care
of the annulment immediately," Jolie said. "We'll just see what
Mayor Dirkly has to say when we show up at his office and demand he
do what is right and proper. Marrying us when we were plastered…
What in the world could he have been thinking?"
    Tye had a feeling he knew. He had a foggy
memory of telling the Mayor he owed him one. Told him he wouldn't
have had such a great turnout for his Cowboy Christmas in July
Rodeo if it wasn't for him. Then he might have done a little
blackmailing and stated he