Page 3 of Accidentally Marrying the Prisoner
“I had a toddler and a baby on the way when I was your age,” the guard says unconcerned, and she shoos me with her hand toward the exit door. “I’ve got more than twenty of these to get through. Tell your mom I saidhi, Mrs. O’Byrne.”
I glance at the inmate, who slides his black baseball cap with a frayed brim backwards on his head, somehow even hotter now and way out of my league. Why on earth would he ever agree to this? Was he tricked into it too?
He finally decides to grace me with his green-eyed, intense stare that scares the daylights out of me, looking at me like he can see right into my soul and finds it pitiful, his lips thinned and pressed tightly together.
With a gasp, I bolt, leaving behind the marriage agreement that includes links to helpful articles such asHow to Help Your Felon Feel at HomeandWhat to Expect When You’re Expecting a Felon’s Baby.
CHAPTER
TWO
CONRAD
“Better get going, O’Byrne. Good luck with your new mother-in-law,” the guard says with a cackle.
I click my tongue, slide our paperwork off the counter, and unhurriedly follow after my youngwife, Mirabeth, out the double doors and down the sidewalk through the twenty-foot-tall metal fence that leads to my freedom. Ahead, she trips over a concrete bumper in the parking lot and falls to her knees with a pained cry. I jog to catch up, but she takes off like a shot without looking back, limping since her right heel has slipped from her foot like Cinderella, dangling by a strap still wrapped around her delicate ankle.
Well, I knew it wouldn’t be a love match. How could it be? But at least it’s not as bad as I feared, her running away from me as if her life depends on it. I knew there was a chance of being randomly matched with a swamp creature who has smoked three packs a day for the last five decades, so desperate for a shot at love that they’d willingly go through with marrying a prisoner, sight unseen. Yet I still agreed to this insane program—a bizarre answer to the overcrowding issue and a last-ditchattempt to reverse the nationwide plummeting birth rate—so I could be released a few years early. No matter who I ended up with, I’d have bitten my tongue and bided my time until the requisite three years were up, which is how long I have left on my sentence, before I ultimately filed for divorce.
I pass one of my fellow former inmates making out with his new bride, bending her backward over the hood of a gold sedan. His jeans are pooled at his skinny ankles, already pumping furiously between her long legs. I’d intervene if it weren’t for her clawing at his back, screaming, “Don’t stop…what’s your name again?”
“Burt,” he answers with a grunt. “You?”
“Ashley. Don’t stop, Burt!”
I look away and follow Mirabeth to a tiny white Beetle, finding her sitting in the driver’s seat, the key already turned in the ignition. She screams and drops her phone when I knock on her window. Thumbing through the stack of papers, I locate the one I want and press it against the glass, pointing to her initials next to the agreement she made to take full, legal responsibility for housing and feeding me.
“Open the door, princess,” I grit out, dropping my voice lower.
Mirabeth brings her phone back up to her ear, biting her bottom lip as she shakes her head fast enough to likely make her dizzy, her blonde ponytail whipping her face.
My eyes dart to the manual lock at the bottom of the window, and she’s a half-second too late in realizing she’d forgotten to push it down before I wrench the door open. It’s easy enough to pluck her up and sling her over my shoulder like a bag of rice, since she goes limp and doesn’t fight me, as I round the hood to deposit her on the passenger seat. Immediately, she jumps back into action and tries to scramble over the console, but I drop down into the driver’s seat right before she lands on my lap. Igrunt with her squirming on my dick, my cock lengthening. I hit the jackpot with how drop-dead gorgeous she is, even if she is a terribly uncoordinated, screechy little creature.
As expected, she screams loud enough to burst my eardrums before she lurches back over the console onto her seat. I toss the papers behind me, put the gear in drive, then speed out of the parking lot before Mirabeth has a chance to throw herself out of the car. Lucky me, her Beetle has a manual transmission, so even though the car is likely as old as she is, I can really let loose as I switch between gears, opening the girl up on the interstate that directly neighbors the prison.
Mirabeth curls in on herself, facing her window. At first, I’m just happy to have a moment’s peace, but then flashing red and blue lights atop a large SUV appear in the rearview mirror. I pull over onto the shoulder as traffic whizzes by, my heart beating out of control.Don’t tell me I’m getting sent back to the can within minutes of being released because I was stupid enough to speed five miles over the limit. I can hear my brother laughing all the way from heaven.
A young male deputy raps the back of his knuckles along my window, motioning for me to roll it down.
“Oh, thank god,” my wife says with enormous relief, slumping lower in her seat. “Yes, he just pulled us over,” she says into her phone, which she’d had hidden beneath her hair at her right ear. “Thank you.”
I take my ball cap off, drop my head back, and drag my hands down my face. “You called the cops on me?”
Mirabeth’s flushed face goes stark white with terror when our eyes meet, and she tugs on her door handle to step out.
The deputy flicks his finger against the brim of his cowboy hat to push it farther up his forehead, over his short, tightly coiled black hair. He peers past me, his brows bunched togetherwhen he tells Mirabeth sternly, “Stay in the car, miss.” Ignoring me, he asks her, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”
The rock that had dropped low in my gut lifts.This is about her? Not me?
“Y-yeah,” she says, waving her phone with the call log pulled up on the screen. There are dozens of unanswered calls to her mother and one placed to 9-1-1. “He kidnapped me.” She tips her head twice my way as if the deputy doesn’t know who she’s referring to. “You’re here to rescue me.”
The officer’s stone-cold demeanor breaks when he laughs. “You should see the look on your face.” He goes so far as to pull his phone from his pocket, snap a quick photo of my wife gaping at him, then tap around on his screen. “I just sent it to your mom,” he says, putting his phone away. “She’s gonna die laughing when she sees it.”
Panicked, Mirabeth asks, “Is everyone in on the joke? How do you even know my mom?”
“My aunt works at the prison,” he says, pointing down the highway. “The guard with the bright white hair? She called me the moment you two left. Told me you ran screaming.” He slaps his knee and blows out a whistle, wiping tears from his dark brown eyes as he laughs. “Reminds me of my wife, Cookie.” Then he taps the car’s roof twice. “Y’all have a good day, now,” he says, tugging up his duty belt before sauntering back to his SUV while Mirabeth looks back helplessly.
I wait until the deputy pulls away from the shoulder, throwing his hand out his window to wave as he passes by. I wave back, and as soon as we’re out of his view, I lunge at Mirabeth.
