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at reddish-brown hair that he loved the texture of.
He took the hair elastic and slid it onto his wrist. It was time to leave paradise. He was kind of
glad her flight had departed before his, knowing he d managed to keep his secret on the small island.
By the time he and his teammates made it to the big island it would be another story entirely. His copy
of the fake marriage certificate lay on the coffee table. He wanted to put it in his carry-on so it
wouldn t get lost, and he wondered if he d ever see his wife again.
Sam the bellhop knocked, then entered the bungalow, prepared to take all his bags to the car.
Hey, Sam.
Hey, Mr. Blake, the young man said.
Sam, I told you to call me Seth. Remember?
Yes, so sorry, Seth.
That s better. I hate to sound clichéd, but Mr. Blake really is my dad. Seth looked up to find Sam
staring at the marriage scroll on the coffee table.
Mr. Blake, um, Seth?
Yes, Sam? Seth clasped his watch on his wrist over Morgan s hair elastic.
Is that a marriage certificate?
Seth laughed. Not real. Alvin gave it to us when he married Morgan and me on the beach last
night. The lady who stayed here with me. He s your uncle, isn t he?
Sam stumbled. Yes he is. Did he have you sign the registry?
You mean that scruffy leather book he carries around with him? Seth asked, remembering Alvin
had called it his trusty union record keeper.
Sam nodded. Yeah. Did he perform the ceremony?
Yep, on the cliff not too far from here.
When Sam s questions suddenly dried up as Seth finished putting his wallet in his pants pocket,
Seth looked up to see what was wrong. Sam looked a bit worried.
What s wrong, Sam?
Oh dear, Mr. Seth. I have some troubling news.
* * *
Morgan stared at the numbers on the back of the picture so long they were etched in her brain. She
went through the motions of getting off the plane, getting her luggage, and then going home to her
apartment, not bothering to call any of her family to pick her up. She wanted to be alone.
Seth lied to her. Or did he? She remembered all the offhanded remarks she made about football and
winced at the thought of the countless times she must have hurt his feelings. Now embarrassment was
creeping in. Morgan tried to get a grip on the situation. She d run through every emotion known to
mankind since meeting that man. Now the run-in with the chick in the red dress was making perfect
sense to her.
She still wore the fake diamond wedding ring he d bought her at a gift shop. The fake diamond
sparkled as the sun filtered into the room and hit it, and Morgan s hand began to feel heavy.
Promise me you ll keep this as a memento of our time together, he d said.
Sure. She d smiled, thinking the rock was so big she wouldn t want to wear it just for fun and
have someone think she was loaded.
* * *
Morgan put her phone on speaker and dialed into her voice mail. There were a few calls from
friends, a call from Jason saying he needed to talk to her, and a call from her assistant manager asking
if she would be in the bookstore tomorrow. Of course she would. Getting back to her books, the
feeling that rushed through her veins when she was surrounded by all that knowledge, aching to read
everything in sight, was where she belonged. Maybe the world was too hectic and shallow and
material for her. She would go back to the fort she d built out of books, comfortable old leather
couches, and lamps that made her feel like she was someplace elegant and scholarly. So what if the
average customer wanted the latest trashy tell-all or something else she was forced to stock if she
wanted to keep her store open? It was all in the name of reading, of appreciation, of taking in the
knowledge of something one did not know before one cracked the spine of a book.
* * *
As the limousine glided smoothly away from the airport, Seth vaguely remembered getting into the
thing. Dazed, he thought about Morgan and the revelation that Sam had dropped on him. Turns out the
crazy uncle Alvin actually was a real minister who could officiate a real wedding, and that makeshift
leather binder he carried with him was a record of all the weddings he d done on the island for many
years. So it was legal. The petite African American woman he d slammed into on the beach and
bruised her rib, better known as Morgan Reed, was really his wife. He chuckled, wondering what
Morgan would say when he told her. They d both taken what Alvin had said with a grain of salt, not
knowing he had any officiating powers.
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