Page 83 of Single Mom's Christmas Wish

I’m sure he’ll have some explaining to do once they’re inside, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m too stunned, unable to offer any reasonable reaction to everything that just happened—let alone to anything that is about to happen.

“I mean it,” Archer says, shifting his focus back on me. He takes the pocket square out of his tuxedo vest and uses it to gently dab at my makeup. “Marry me instead, Dakota. We’ll put my name on the marriage license and fix it later. I know people in the records department.”

“Archer…”

“You’re marrying the three of us, anyway,” he says. “We’re doing this, dammit. We’re getting you that money if only to put that snotty bitch of a sister of yours back in her place. I want her to suffer for what she just pulled. And I want you to be happy, at peace, and in possession of the kind of wealth that you genuinely deserve.” Pausing, he takes a deep breath and chuckles nervously. “If it were up to me, I’d just sign a check and pay everything off for you, Dakota. No questions asked. The bank, the school fees for Maisie. Whatever you need, I’ll cover it. My brothers and I would cover it. But I understand that your pride wouldn’t allow you to accept such a gift, and I get it. I honestly do. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

“Oh, Archer.”

“I am dead serious. I’m head over heels, woman. And I want to marry you.”

“Okay.”

He stops, eyes wide with wonder as his brain catches up to my words. He laughs lightly, then finishes dabbing my face. I take a look at myself in the small mirror near the doors and let a heavysigh roll from my chest.

“It’s as good as it’s going to get, given the circumstances,” I tell him. “But thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

I lift myself up on my toes and kiss his cheek softly. “Thank you, Archer. For everything.”

“Come on, let’s get this blushing bride inside and explain it to the preacher.”

31

Dakota

Chelsea stands next to me near the back of the church, both of us glowering at Callie. Maddox has her sitting in one of the distant pews, staying close to make sure she doesn’t do anything else to ruin what’s left of this trainwreck of a wedding. But she seems eerily calm, and the smirk she’s wearing fills me with dread and disgust. She is enjoying every second of this disaster. “I just want to bash her head in,” I hear Chelsea mumble.

“Get in line,” I whisper.

Trevor and Donna do their best to keep Maisie busy with her flower basket while Archer has his conversation with the preacher. The tension filling the wedding hall at this point is damn near suffocating. Meanwhile, Reed is still very much passed out upstairs. This isn’t going the way it was supposed to, but then again, what has gone the way it was supposed to in this entire situation?

I might as well embrace the chaos and pray I survive.

“I knew you shouldn’t have trusted her,” Chelsea says, then frowns. “All the work I put into your makeup.”

“Forget about the makeup. Let’s just hope we can still have a wedding,” I shoot back.

“I will get a marriage license online, on my phone, right now, if I have to.”

“And that’s why you’re my best friend and more of a sister than Callie ever was or ever will be,” I say, smiling as I lean into my darling Chelsea. It’s enough to soften her a bit. She’s been on edge from the minute she heard about what happened.

Maisie comes over with an ecstatic smile drawn across her cute face. “Mommy, Grandma Donna says I can start throwing the petals around.”

“She did?”

“Probably wants to keep her busy,” Chelsea whispers in my ear.

I giggle and crouch so I can be on Maisie’s level. “Honey, I need you to be the best flower girl that this church has ever seen and throw those petals all over the aisle.”

“You got it!”

Chelsea and I watch my little angel as she sashays back to Trevor and Donna. On the floor next to them is a wicker basket filled with white rose petals. Given the urgency of our situation, we didn’t pay much attention to dream wedding details, but we did make sure that our little flower girl would have plenty of flowers to toss around ahead of the bride.

As I chalk this up to yet another hurdle that we clearly needed to cross before getting to our desired endgame, I turn my attentionback on Archer and the preacher. They’re out of earshot, but I can tell from the nervous hand gestures and occasional frown that Archer is still trying to convince the guy to officiate the wedding.

“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter to this guy who it is that I’m marrying,” I mumble.

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