A Marriage of Convenience by Vicki Blue Page A

talkative girlfriends. She told him you were pregnant by a one night stand and the baby was born in February. She said it was by a guy named Austin. I was going to come around and help. I just wanted to do it in a way that mama wouldn’t find out….”
    His voice faded. He looked embarrassed. He looked up, looked around
    “Hey,” he said. “You need this, too. I saw the eviction notice on your door, Jillian. Let me be in your life and Sabrina’s. I want to be. We’ll stay together for a year. I’ll make sure you’re compensated. After that….”
    “Foley-Bellaford?” Jillian startled as their names were called. Sabrina was fretting and sucking on her little fist.
    “What a beautiful baby,” the clerk said as they walked into the makeshift wedding chapel of the courthouse. “How old is she?”
    “Two months,” Jillian said.
    “Well congratulations,” the clerk said. She turned to Austin. “Are you the proud papa?”
    “Yes,” Austin said, and smiled at Sabrina. When he’d first met his daughter, he’d seemed almost afraid of her. But now that he’d satisfied himself that she would not break he picked her up on his own and Jillian often found him just marveling at her while she slept.
    “I’m the grandmother.” Martha Bellaford’s nasal tone disrupted the pleasant memory she was trying to have.
    “Any more guests coming?” the clerk asked. Jillian knew what was implied. The clerk was curious as to whether any of her family might be attending her wedding.
    “No,” Jillian said. She’d been on her own since thirteen. If her parents didn’t care she was now a mother, it logically followed that they wouldn’t care that she’d become a wife.
    The ceremony began. A portly female judge with a kind face and a shock of unruly white hair read the vows. “Do you, Austin Wentworth Bellaford take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love, honor and cherish her through sickness and in health, through times of happiness and travail, until death do you part?
    He did. Jillian could feel his eyes on her but she could not meet them. She was still clutching the baby, and glanced up at him as he said, “I do.”
    “Do you, Jillian Rose Foley, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor, and cherish him through sickness and in health, through times of happiness and travail, until death do you part?”
    Jillian crossed her fingers under the hem of Sabrina’s gown. She may have made some mistakes in her life, but she was not entirely comfortable promising to spend the rest of her life with someone when they both knew it was a temporary arrangement.
    “I do,” she said, looking not at Austin but at Sabrina. She was doing this for her child, after all. Her heart felt heavy. The things we do for our kids, she thought.
    They were pronounced man and wife.
    “You may kiss the bride,” the clerk said. Austin leaned in. Jillian had not kissed him since they’d had sex that one night. Both had been tipsy. He’d waited for her to get off work. They’d gone out. It had just been for a drink, or so she’d thought. But she’d felt an attraction to him. She still felt it. She let him kiss her on the lips.
    Martha stepped up and interrupted the kiss. “I’ll take the baby now,” she said, her arms outstretched. She had a calculating, satisfied expression on her face that made Jillian nervous.
    “She’s fine with me,” she informed the older woman.
    Her new mother-in-law scowled.   “You need to sign the certificate, dear,” she said tightly, forcing a smile.
    “Her father can hold her while I do,” Jillian said. She handed the baby to Austin. He took her, more confident now than he’d been when she’d first placed the baby in his arms just a few weeks earlier.
    “It’s OK, mom,” he said. “I need to get used to this anyway.”
    “Yes, you’d better get used to it. You’re not going to be a part-time father, Austin. You’re a fulltime father, and your child’s