Nothing really had changed. She was the same easy-going, no-nonsense person she’d been the day before. The most important thing to her still was her family, making sure she took care of her grandmother.
Peter was still her friend, even though he was temporarily her husband.
Nothing important about her life was different than it had been two days ago.
***
A half-hour later, she heard a sound from the front door, and she stepped out from the guest room, where she’d been folding some of her clothes in the dresser drawers.
Instead of Peter, Deanna walked in, looking pretty and breezy in a casual green dress and tall boots. In place of her normal smile, she was frowning as she put down her purse. “Where’s Peter?”
“He’s over at his apartment, getting some of his stuff.”
“Where’s Grandmama?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t here when we arrived.”
Deanna’s frown deepened. “Oh, she said she was having tea with a friend this afternoon. So tell me what the hell is going on!”
Kelly sighed. She’d talked to her sister briefly on the phone that morning, but there hadn’t been time or privacy to say much. “I told you before. Peter and I got married last night.”
“But why?”
Kelly gave a little shrug. “Because we wanted to.”
“But you always said you and he were just friends.”
“We are. I mean, we were.” She cleared her throat. “Things changed.”
“So you really want this?”
“Why wouldn’t I want this? Peter is great.”
“I know, but this whole thing seems a little…”
“A little what?” It was ridiculous to feel defensive, since everything Deanna suspected about the marriage was true, but Kelly still did. She wasn’t a little kid. If she wanted to get married, she could get married—even if it was a sudden, drunken Vegas thing.
“A little irrational.”
“Seriously? You married a man you barely knew because Grandmama bullied you into it. Rose got engaged to her boss to get him out of an awkward situation with his ex-fiancée. And you think my marriage is irrational?”
Deanna blinked for a moment, and then she burst into dry laughter. “I guess you’re right. I was just worried that…I don’t know how to explain it, but you seemed like you wanted to do…to be someone different the other evening. And I was just wondering if this was some sort of spontaneous way of doing that. I didn’t want you to get stuck in a bad situation.”
“It’s not a bad situation. It’s really not. It’s Peter. It’s Peter.”
Deanna scrutinized her face for a longer-than-normal length of time. Then she nodded, as if she was satisfied by what she saw. “Okay. I’ll go along with it then.”
“There’s nothing to go along with,” Kelly said, knowing as she said the words that they were futile. Deanna could obviously see that something was going on, something other than a normal marriage based in love. “We’re married for real.”
“I believe you.” Deanna grinned. “Mitchell and I were married for real too.”
“That’s different,” Kelly muttered. She suddenly wished that she and Peter could go away for the next forty-four days. It was so much harder to put on this ruse when surrounded by people who knew and loved them.
“Of course, it is,” Deanna replied.
Before Kelly could say anything else, the front door swung open and a small, imperious woman with a steel-gray bun and a black dress stood in the doorway. Without even a greeting, she pronounced, “I had tea with Stella Blake.”
Kelly tried not to groan. What the hell had her grandmother been doing with Peter’s mother? “Did you?”
“Yes, I did. We are very surprised, but we have decided we will not object.”
Kelly wondered silently what would have happened if one or both of the women had objected.
“We will have a wedding reception two weeks from tonight. It will be in Chevalier Hall.”
Kelly tried not to make a face. “Peter and I don’t want a big production or—”
“Of course, there will be a big production. We will invite everyone. There will be no arguments.”
Kelly met Deanna’s eyes, and they shared a moment of frustrated understanding. Peter was going to hate this. He didn’t want to rely on his family’s money or connections. He didn’t want the stuffy, artificial lifestyle of his parents. He certainly wouldn’t want a fancy, pretentious party to celebrate his fake marriage.
But what could she do? Her grandmother would go through with this, no matter what she said. And she didn’t want to hurt the old woman’s feelings.