Cancelled Vows Read online

  His ears drooping, he hung his head and pouted.

  Mac opened the driver’s side door and climbed out. Seeing an opening, Gnarly hopped over the center console and jumped out to run across the deck and down to the dock, where he ran back and forth barking at the ducks.

  “Remember what I told you!” Mac called after Gnarly before pounding on the front door. “David, I know you’re in there! Open up!”

  After a long silence, the door opened.

  Their shared DNA could not be denied. Even though Mac was several years older than David and they had grown up with different families and backgrounds, the common traits they’d both inherited from Patrick O’Callaghan were apparent to everyone—and especially to those aware of the family secret that had only recently been made public. Their blue eyes were identical in hue and shape. They had the same tall, slender build. While David had inherited his mother’s blond hair, Mac’s was dark brown with a hint of gray at the temples.

  “Rough day?” Mac asked with a note of sarcasm.

  David’s hair was disheveled, as were his clothes. Mac saw that he had untucked his white button-down police shirt and unbuttoned it, exposing his white undershirt.

  With a jerk of his head, David invited him inside. Leaving the door open, he went back down into the sunken living room, plopped down onto the sofa, and took a swig of beer from the bottle. “I’m sure your wife told you.”

  “Only that for some reason you and Chelsea didn’t get the license.” Mac held the door open to allow Gnarly to run inside.

  Without stopping, the dog galloped inside and jumped up over the back of a cushioned chair to land on the seat. He turned around several times before lying down.

  “And then you two had a fight, and she called Archie to go pick her up because she refused to ride home with you.” Mac went over to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Why wouldn’t they give you a license?” He reached inside to take out a bottle of beer.

  “Because bigamy is against the law.”

  His hand on the cold beer bottle, Mac froze. Over his shoulder, he asked, “What?”

  “I’m already married.”

  With a laugh, Mac turned around to peer across the kitchen counter at David, who was in the sunken living area. “Obviously, they made a mistake. The clerk was looking up the wrong David O’Callaghan. You know Edna. She’s a nasty old biddy. You’d know if you were already married.”

  “That’s what I thought,” David said. “Until I read the name of who I’m married to.” He took a long sip to finish his beer.

  “And you had no idea?”

  David shook his head.

  Mac glanced at the beer bottle he was holding in his hand. “I need something stronger than this—and so do you.” He reached up into the kitchen cupboard for the brandy. “Married?” he asked. He repeated the word over and over again while pouring the two drinks and carrying them into the living room, where he held a short glass of brandy out in front of David.

  After David took it, Mac sat in the love seat across from him. “I never would have believed it,” he muttered before taking a sip of his own drink. “Who would have thought—how did Chelsea take it?”

  David turned his head to meet Mac’s eyes. “How do you think?” He took in a deep, ragged breath. “I’ve worked all these years to gain her trust again after everything that happened, and now she finds out not only that I’m married but—” He drained the glass in one gulp. With a grimace, he set it down on the coffee table. “She wouldn’t even get in the cruiser with me.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking”—Mac shook his head—“how could you have gotten married without knowing it? Who did you marry?”

  David groaned.

  “It’s a logical question,” Mac asked. “Who is she?”

  David responded in a low mutter.

  Mac leaned over to hear him better. “Who?”

  “Yvonne,” David breathed. “Yvonne Harding.”

  Mac sat up straight. “Yvonne? You started dating her back when we first met.”

  “I know.”

  “That was—” Mac sat up. “How long have you two been married? You two haven’t been together for years. She moved to New York—how long ago?”

  “Four years ago,” David replied. “Do you remember that little trip she and I took to Las Vegas to go to that conference?”

  “The one where she was hired by Zenith News Channel,” Mac said with a nod of his head. “That was the beginning of the end for you two.”

  “Well,” David said, “we went out to Vegas a day early just to have some fun. And we were drinking quite a bit of champagne, and we were feeling really good, and we went through a drive-through—”

  “Wedding chapel,” Mac finished.

  “I thought it was a joke!” David jumped to his feet. “We got the value pack for two. Two deluxe cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes, and nuptials.”

  “Obviously, it wasn’t a joke,” Mac said with a laugh.

  “How could you laugh?”

  “How could a man get married and not know it?” Mac asked. “All these years—”

  “Six weeks after that trip, Yvonne moved to New York. If I’d known we were really married—” David shook his finger at Mac. “I had no idea that that was a real wedding chapel. What kind of wedding chapel has a drive-through?”

  “Only in Vegas.”

  “Well, they should have huge signs out in front that say in big, bold block letters, ‘Hey, drunks! Sober up! This is for real!’”

  Mac stood up and grasped David by the shoulders. “Calm down, and take a deep breath. The important thing now is to get you unmarried so that you can marry Chelsea on Saturday.”

  “How can I marry a woman who won’t even speak to me?”

  “Archie will talk sense into her,” Mac said.

  “Chelsea knew Yvonne, Mac,” David said. “We all went to high school together. Yvonne and Katrina were friends. Katrina broke Chelsea and me up. When Chelsea read Yvonne’s name on the monitor—and she didn’t even know I dated Yvonne—she found out that I’d married her.”

  Mac cocked his head at him. “You never told Chelsea about your dating Yvonne Harding?”

  David shook his head. “Yvonne and I were over long before Chelsea came back into the picture.”

  “That’s a lie.” Mac backed up a step. “You didn’t want Chelsea to find out that you’d been involved with Yvonne, because you knew she’d react the way she did today, and you didn’t want to deal with it. So instead, you kept the truth from her, which made it worse when she did find out in the worst possible way.”

  “Mac, what am I going to do?” David asked.

  “First things first,” Mac said. “We need to get your marriage dissolved. We need to track down Yvonne—”

  “That’ll be easy.” David took his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call her—”

  Mac snatched the phone from his hand. “You have her phone number?” He studied the contact information. “You have her address—and you’ve been texting her!” He held up the phone for David to see. “I thought you two broke it off four years ago when she moved to New York.”

  “It was a long breakup,” David said.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Mac asked.

  David swallowed. “Are you talking casually or in the biblical sense?”

  Mac’s blue eyes bore into David’s.

  “We have not been sleeping together,” David said. “We haven’t slept together in a year.” He added under his breath, “At least.”

  “You’ve been seeing Chelsea for two years.”

  “It was a very long breakup.”

  With a growl, Mac thrust the phone back to David, jabbing him in the chest with it. Disgusted, he stormed across the room before turning back to David. “You have no right to be getting mar
ried!”

  “I love Chelsea!” David rushed up to him. “I know all of this is fallout caused by the dumb things that I’ve done going back to when I was in school, and I let the best thing I had going slip out of my hands because I let Katrina seduce me. But if you just help me out, Mac, I swear I’ll do right by Chelsea. You should have seen her running out of the clerk’s office today.” He hung his head. “Mac, you’re my best man. You have to help me.”

  After uttering a growl, Mac said, “Okay, first thing we’ll do is get my lawyer to draw up papers to dissolve the marriage.” He regarded David. “Am I correct in assuming you have no property or children together?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “We’ll have Willingham send the papers to his New York office.” Mac turned David around by his shoulders and pushed him toward the circular staircase leading upstairs to the bedrooms. “Go pack. We’re going to New York to get your marriage dissolved, and then we’ll come back here and get you married again.”

  Chapter Two

  “David had no idea he got married?” There was a doubtful tone in Archie Monday’s voice, and Mac could hear it all the way in the bathroom, where he was packing up his toiletries. Carrying his shaving kit, he went into the master bedroom, where he found his wife standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her slender hips. Her emerald-green eyes were narrowed to slits.

  Stretched out on his back with his head hanging upside down over the edge of the king-sized bed, Gnarly was chewing on something. Mac guessed it was a new toy that Archie had picked up on her way back from comforting Chelsea. Archie was always buying Gnarly playthings to keep him occupied. It helped to keep the kleptomaniac from stealing from the neighbors.

  Mac’s inheritance included Robin Spencer’s stone-and-cedar home located at the end of Spencer Court, which ran the length of Spencer Point. The court ended at the stone pillars marking the entrance to Spencer Manor, a multimillion-dollar estate that included Robin’s famous floral gardens, which were tended by Mac’s wife.

  Robin had stipulated in her will that her assistant, Archie Monday, a stunning young woman with ultrashort blond hair, be allowed to live in the guest cottage on the estate for as long as she wanted, a condition for which Mac was eternally grateful. Before long, Archie had moved into the main house. They had only recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary.

  “They were drunk and in Vegas.” Mac slowed down on his way across the room to peck her on the lips. Seeing the anger in her eyes up close, he added, “Don’t be mad at me. I knew full well what I was doing when I married you.”

  Pausing to reflect on how much he loved this woman, he brushed his hand across her soft cheek, letting it slide down to her shoulder, which he then squeezed. The curl of her lips told him that she was fighting the smile his touch had caused.

  Turning serious again, she said, “You know what David’s big mistake was?”

  “Getting married without knowing it?” After tossing his shaving kit onto the bed, he went to the closet to retrieve his suitcase.

  “Never telling Chelsea that he’d been involved with Yvonne in the first place,” Archie said. “He dated Yvonne for a long time. They were so hot and heavy that I couldn’t believe it when they broke it off the way they did. I actually thought they’d end up married.”

  “Frankly, it was a long breakup.” Mac regretted his statement as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

  Those lovely emerald eyes were glaring at him again. She folded her arms across her chest. “What?”

  “You know those reserve weekends David does in Quantico once a month?” Mac muttered. “Well, there are several commuter flights from New York to Washington, but as soon as David got serious with Chelsea …” He set the suitcase onto the bed so he could pack.

  “I knew it,” she replied. “Why did Yvonne even take that job in New York if she was going to be running down to Quantico once a month for a booty call? If she wanted David, she should have stayed here.”

  “Maybe David didn’t ask her to marry him.” Realizing what he said, Mac laughed. “No, wait! He did! He was just too drunk to realize it at the time and then didn’t remember it afterward.”

  “This is serious, Mac.”

  “I can see Yvonne trying to have her cake and eat it, too.” Mac forced himself to become serious. “She always wanted to be a star. That job hosting Crime Watch was her golden opportunity.” He chuckled. “David married to a television star? Who would have thought?”

  “But are you sure David’s ready to get married to anyone?” Archie asked. “Chelsea’s asking that question herself. She’s seriously thinking of cancelling the wedding.”

  “Why are you asking me?” Mac demanded. “I’m only his best man.”

  “The job of the best man”—she pointed to him—“and the job of the matron of honor”—she directed her index finger to herself—“is to stand up and witness the bride’s and groom’s vows. If we stand up there on Saturday and listen to David vow to love, honor, and cherish Chelsea for the rest of his life, knowing that he has this commitment problem, then we’re both lying—not just to everyone in that church, but to God.” She lowered her voice. “Never lie to God. He doesn’t like it.”

  “You make David sound like a scoundrel,” Mac said. “He’s not. I’ve known a lot of scoundrels. They’ll have sex with anything that moves. That’s not David. He honestly has feelings for every woman I know he’s slept with.”

  “What about the ones we don’t know about?” Archie let out a sigh. “I love David. Truly, I do. He’s like a brother to me. But he honestly has this problem when it comes to women. Is he going to be able to keep his wedding vows?”

  “Only David can answer that.” Mac placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look up at him. “I think he’s scared to death of making his—our—father’s mistake. Imagine growing up in a home where you know that your father is in love with someone else—someone he can never have because he’s married to your mother. Imagine watching your mother go mad with jealousy and resentment because she knows, deep down, that her husband loves someone else.”

  “Pat never cheated on David’s mother,” Archie said.

  “But he was in love Robin,” Mac said. “How would you feel if you realized that I was in love with someone else—even if I never slept with her—that my heart was with her?”

  “I would want to die,” she said.

  “The fact is, David grew up in the middle of that. He once told me that if he’d been in his father’s place, he would have divorced Violet and married Robin.”

  “Pat was too honorable to humiliate Violet by doing that,” Archie said.

  “Deep down, David’s scared to death of marrying one woman only to discover afterward that he’s made a mistake.” Mac went to the closet to gather socks and underwear to pack.

  “He’s going to break Chelsea’s heart—I can feel it,” she muttered while sitting down on the bed next to where Gnarly was still chewing on his toy. “He should have Chelsea about dating Yvonne.”

  “Yvonne was friends with Katrina.” Then, as he folded his clothes and placed them in the suitcase, he corrected himself. “Actually, Katrina and Yvonne were frenemies. The same Katrina who seduced David to break him and Chelsea up back in high school.”

  “Which was ages ago,” she pointed out.

  “First loves can be very powerful—and painful.” He smiled at her. “By this time next week, David will have divorced Yvonne and will be married to Chelsea, and we’ll all have a good laugh about this on their first wedding anniversary.” He grasped her by her shoulders and kissed her.

  “I hope so.” She returned his hug.

  Mac closed the suitcase and zipped it shut. With a swipe of his arm, he said, “Gnarly, get off the bed.”

  The German shepherd rolled over onto his stomach. The object he was chewing tumbled
out of his mouth and bounced onto the floor. With disappointment, the dog peered over the edge of the bed.

  Mac bent over to pick it up. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw that the object was a box and that its felt cover had been torn by Gnarly’s sharp teeth. The slimy object was dented and mutilated.

  “What?” Mac sucked in a deep breath. He swallowed.

  “What is it?” Archie took the box from his hand. “It’s a jewelry box. What was in it?”

  “David’s and Chelsea’s wedding bands,” Mac said with gritted teeth. “The box was on the dresser.”

  Meanwhile, Gnarly gazed up at Mac, who moved in closer to him. Seeing the growing fury in his master’s eyes, the German shepherd’s ear lay back flat on his head.

  Archie opened the box. “Where are the rings?”

  “Good question.” Mac then asked Gnarly, “Where are the rings?”

  As if to answer him, Gnarly jumped down off the bed and burrowed underneath it.

  “They have to be here someplace,” Archie said.

  After two hours of searching, Mac and Archie took Gnarly to the vet, who confirmed their worst fear with an X-ray. The German shepherd had swallowed both wedding bands.

  “You’re lucky he didn’t swallow the box,” the veterinarian said.

  “I can get another box,” Mac said. “I need the rings—those rings. They’re custom made.”

  “But the box could have obstructed his intestines,” the vet replied. “From what we can see in these X-rays, I believe the rings will pass through fine.” With a grin, he said, “In other words, he’ll give them back to you in good time.”

  Cringing at the thought of how Gnarly would give the two wedding bands back, Mac asked, “How long?”

  “Could be anywhere from one to ten days.”

  “The wedding is in five days,” Mac argued. “How about pumping his stomach?”

  The vet looked at Gnarly, who was on the examination table. The great dog lifted his head from where he was resting it between his paws and uttered a low snarl. “I don’t think so. That could be very dangerous.”