Tall Tales and Wedding Veils by Jane Graves Page B

back. “It’s none of your business!”

    Then Sylvia turned and gave Tony and Heather a smile that said she was trying really hard to believe this was all for the best. Looking around, Tony realized everybody else’s smiles had that same tinge of hopefulness. He figured only one thing was keeping the rest of the crowd from expressing the suspicion they obviously felt: Heather’s reputation for being sane, smart, and logical, no matter how much it looked as if she’d lost every one of those qualities the moment she’d stepped foot in Vegas.

    “Regina told me you two knew each other before you went to Las Vegas,” Bev said.

    “Uh, yeah.” Heather glanced at Tony, speaking carefully. “Tony’s a regular at a bar where I go sometimes.”

    “How nice,” Bev said, then turned to Barbara, crinkling her nose as if she’d caught a whiff of sulfur. “They met in a bar.”

    “And now he’s buying the place,” Barbara said. “Heather told me last night. Did I tell you that, Fred? He’s going to be an entrepreneur!”

    “Yup, you told me,” Fred said. “About ten times.” And then he turned to look at Tony, his eyes narrowed and his heavy brows scrunched up.
You had better be on the up and up,
that look said.
Or I’m squashing you like a bug.

    Tony had gotten stuck in some pretty odd situations in his life, but this was getting a little weird even for him. Somebody—preferably Heather—needed to stop the madness, but she looked just as stunned as he felt. And he wasn’t sure if saying the wrong thing would turn this large crowd into a large, angry mob.

    He leaned over and spoke softly. “Heather? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

    “Uh . . . sure. Will you all excuse us for just a bit?”

    Heather took Tony into another room, which turned out to be a den that contained a lot of man furniture—a walnut desk, a leather sofa, and a hefty coffee table piled with magazines.
Guns and Ammo. Hunting Illustrated. Shooting Sportsman.

    But the manliest things of all were the hunting trophies that filled nearly every square inch of wall space. Deer. Elk. Buffalo. A few other creatures Tony didn’t even recognize. Judging from the sheer number of them, Fred Montgomery had put his taxidermist’s kids through braces, college, and funded a wedding or two for good measure. The only wall space not occupied by hunting trophies held gun racks.

    “Holy shit,” Tony said, looking around.

    “My father likes hunting.” She paused. “And he’s a retired cop, so he has a thing about guns.”

    Oh, this was just great. A cop. The moment Fred found out Tony had married his daughter and wanted a divorce all in the same weekend, he would not only want to blow Tony’s head off, he’d also have the means to do it. Times twenty. And then successfully hide the body.

    “Does your family actually believe our wedding was the real thing?” Tony asked.

    Heather shrugged weakly. “I don’t really know who believes what. I only know how much my mother wants to believe. And after I told her about ten times last night how happy I was and how perfect you were for me, I think I actually have her convinced.”

    “Then you need to
unconvince
her.”

    “I know.”

    “I don’t believe it,” Tony said, shaking his head. “All I did was take you home, and now I’m in the middle of
this?
”

    “I’m sorry.”

    “I don’t get uptight about much, but facing angry men with guns isn’t my idea of a good time.”

    “My father isn’t angry.”

    “Oh, yeah? He’s looking at me as if I’m at the top of the FBI’s most-wanted list.”

    “He isn’t a violent man.”

    “Not a violent man? Look around you. The man’s shot more stuff than a freakin’ survivalist!”

    “That’s not violence. That’s hunting.”

    “And he was a cop.”

    “That was his
job,
” she said with an eye roll. “And in his whole career, he only fired his weapon once.”

    “Uh-huh. Shot the guy dead as a doornail, didn’t