The Christmas You Found Me, page 3
It used to upset my ex-husband so much that we could sell some of the acreage and just…didn’t. He used to refer to it as being married to an heiress with a bucket over her head, determined to eat cheeseburgers instead of filet mignon.
Micah never got it. You don’t sell what doesn’t belong to you in the first place.
Considering the fact that the property isn’t within the Frank Church Wilderness, the State of Idaho disagrees. It took nine years of marriage for Micah to decide he was done with us but another year of arguing with lawyers to realize I was going to drain our joint bank account digging my heels in, fighting for the ranch to stay in one piece. Honestly, it would have broken my heart, but I would have even signed over my half of the property rights if it had been written he couldn’t parcel up the property. Micah caved, but I sure paid for it. If I wanted the ranch? Whole and unharmed? No problem. Then he was going to take every single thing we’d built together.
He got it all. Down to the antique silver in my great-grandmother’s kitchen hutch. I signed away my rights to any of the inheritance from his family, all the local businesses we’d started together, all the investments we’d made, and nearly every penny in our shared bank accounts. I got to keep Legs, Lulu, the donkeys, and a small herd of cattle to start over again. It was almost…almost…enough to cover the difference between what Micah’s theoretical half of the ranch was valued at if he’d been allowed to butcher it into chunks. So now he’s got what he needs, and I have the peace of mind knowing I’m not the Naples who let everyone else in my family down.
Barley lets out a soft woof, pulling me from my thoughts. I follow his sight line toward the stand of trees a hundred or so yards ahead of us, and there he is: the jerk face himself.
The massive brown bull turns and lows, a loud, miserable sound. As if it’s my fault he’s out here alone without a round bale of hay in front of him.
“Don’t complain to me,” I say to Jerkface. “You’re the one who decided to be a pain in the butt today.”
Barley lowers his head, focusing on the bull before us. Lulu’s ears perk up, and I keep the reins loose in my hand. We’re a motley crew, but we know how to do our jobs. Mine is to not get in Lulu’s or Barley’s ways. Barley’s not as fast as he used to be, and this bull might make cute little calves, but he’s a problem on a good day. With some exceptions, bulls don’t tend to like being told where to go or what to do.
He snorts, breath condensing in the cold winter air. When he wheels and starts to dart around me, Lulu drops into a lower stance, cutting off his path, then swinging sideways to do it again as the bull tries to dart around our other side.
A cutting horse like Lulu comes around once in a blue moon, and I need her a lot more for the babies she’s going to make than to get this guy back in the corral. But man, is she beautiful when she works. Like a crouching cat, liquid smooth as she swings back and forth, frustrating the bull and holding it in place until he spins the way we want him to move. We trot after him, with Barley barking and nipping at Jerkface’s heels to keep him going toward the ranch.
I don’t like to move my cattle very quickly. The process sometimes stresses them out, but this bull is young enough to be full of extra energy. Between Barley and Lulu, we keep him headed back toward the homestead, but the deep snow is tough on Barley, and even though it’s her job, I cringe every time Lulu cuts back and forth on this kind of ground.
“Safe and sound,” I mutter to the animals I love, even Jerkface. “Let’s all just get home safe and sound.”
Finally, we get my bull into the corral, and I side pass Lulu over to the gate to close it as fast as possible. Barley pants longer than he should, and I wait for him to catch his breath before riding to the barn. Working dogs are complex creatures. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by leaving him when we always used to return together, with Barley a few steps ahead of me.
When he’s ready, Barley pads off toward the barn, and I follow. “Good boy,” I tell him as I dismount, bending down to scratch behind his graying ears before tending to Lulu.
I still have a truck bed of grain to unload and everyone to feed. By the time I’m done, the sun has slipped behind the mountains, leaving a soft glow on the snow. Chilled and tired from the day, I let Barley into the cabin in front of me.
The house is too quiet. I’ve learned to appreciate the soft snores of my dog, the lowing of the cattle outside, or the occasional whinny or bray. Even the soft crackle of the fireplace in the living room. If it weren’t for the animals in my life, I would be surrounded by nothing but silence.
I haven’t even bothered to try to decorate for Christmas. There doesn’t seem to be any point.
I try not to hate it. This is the life I fought to keep, and it’s mine now. Me. The cabin. The coffee maker. This is as good as it’s going to get. I don’t miss my marriage. I miss the man I thought I married, and I miss the life I hoped we were going to have together.
I miss when this cabin was more than my house; it was my family’s home.
Micah used to feel like this place was too small for the three of us when Dad was here. Even when it was just the two of us, he found it confining. But my whole life, these hand-hewn log walls were full. Full of my mother’s laughter and my father playing his guitar in the evenings. I’m still not used to the silence from his garage-size workshop, where I heard metal thumping on metal or a muttered curse of annoyance every single day of my life.
I’ve never lived anywhere but this cabin. I was my parents’ rainbow baby, after a lot of years of trying and almost giving up on having children. There are a lot of benefits to having mature parents, but there’s one fairly rough negative: watching them get older. We lost Mom to breast cancer before I hit high school, and I didn’t want to leave Dad alone, even after Micah and I got married. Micah always tried to be understanding, although the worse Dad’s dementia got, the harder it was on everyone.
Dad is the one who decided he wasn’t going to stay, choosing to sign over the property to both of us and sell the bulk of his cattle to cover the cost of a long-term care facility. He didn’t want to be a burden on us, and considering how far his illness has progressed recently, it was a brave decision by a brave man to protect his family.
Thinking about medical expenses makes me think about Guy and Emma Maple again. I fix myself a cup of coffee and start to do some research. Guy’s social media presence is sparse but there. His pictures are private, but the fundraising posts to cover medical expenses and posts thanking friends and family for the well wishes for Emma go back three years.
The whole situation is gut-wrenching. If the child is four, she’s been sick three-quarters of her life.
I look up chronic kidney disease on the internet, my heart sinking with every sentence I read. I wish I could give Guy a job, and I think about who might be hiring right now. The man was just so stressed, so desperate, and I’m starting to understand why. If Emma’s dialysis isn’t working as well anymore, then getting a new kidney is her only option. Without it, Emma has a death sentence.
“That poor little girl,” I murmur, shaking my head. “That poor family.” And right at Christmastime too.
Something pops into my head, but it’s absurd. Sheer, unadulterated absurdity. If I didn’t know I had decaf coffee in my hands, I would say I’d had too many glasses of wine.
“It’s ridiculous, right?” I ask Barley, earning a single eye opening before lazily closing again.
Except…it’s logical ridiculousness if someone looked at the entire situation with dispassionate eyes. I sit there, my brain rolling around all the reasons why this is a bad idea. Then it keeps coming back to how Guy stood there today, desperate for anything to help his daughter.
I think about how, for the first time in a long time, I honestly have no one whose opinion matters to me. How I have nothing to lose.
“Screw it,” I mutter, and I reach for my phone. I scroll to Guy’s contact, and when the option for a video call shows on my screen, I lean my phone against my desk and hit the button. This is the kind of conversation you have face-to-face.
The call rings several times, and I almost chicken out and end it, then Guy’s face pops up on the screen. He gives me a quick smile of greeting. “Sienna? Hey.”
The man is just as handsome as he was this morning, although he’s a bit wild-eyed. I suppose I would be too if I were him. He probably thinks I’m calling him about work.
“Hey, sorry to surprise you. This isn’t a work call thing. It’s another…thing.”
He almost manages to cover being disappointed. “If it’s a coffee shop thing, I’m going to say yes. That was the best breakfast I’ve had in years.”
Oh. Ooooooh. He thinks I’m calling to ask him out on a date. Sorry, I’m jumping a few steps here.
“Daddy, who is it?” a child’s voice asks cheerfully in the background.
“It’s a new friend I made today, Em. Her name is Sienna.” Guy turns his head from the phone, and I don’t hear what Emma says next, but I do catch Guy’s murmurs. “Not now, baby. I’m not sure why she’s calling.”
Yep, I’m in a full-blown panic attack here. I know why I’m calling, but I’m not sure about it at all.
“Emma says hi,” Guy tells me in a fond voice. “I told her earlier that you were very nice, and now she wants to meet you. So, what can I do for you, Sienna?”
“Well, okay. This is a little awkward. Is it possible for you to go somewhere Emma can’t hear?”
Guy’s expression is puzzled, but he nods. “Yeah, gimme a sec.” To his credit, he covers the camera on his phone with his thumb so I don’t have to see a dizzying pattern of wall and floor as he goes to a more private place. I hear the soft shut of a door, and when he removes his finger, it looks like he’s outside a brick building. Maybe it’s a motel room.
“I’ve got to warn you that I’m not really into this kind of thing.” He’s trying to be kind, whatever he means, but firm too. “Especially not with my daughter in the other room.”
Suddenly I understand, and I spit my coffee onto my phone. “Oh no! Oh no, not that. I’m not… Noooo.”
I frantically wipe the coffee spit off the screen, revealing a chuckling Guy. He flashes me a knee-melting smile. “I’m open to getting to know each other though,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was flirting with me.
I sputter and try to recompose myself. “Okay, why I called was not about…that. It is about getting to know each other though. I mean, it would kind of be a given, I suppose.”
Blue eyes blink at me, and his head tilts slightly. He clearly has no idea what I’m talking about.
“I don’t have work for you, but I’ve been thinking about you and Emma a lot today. And I was thinking I do have really good insurance. Part of my divorce settlement included me being able to stay on our company’s plan, either single or remarried, so I can’t get kicked off the insurance no matter what.” One of the few things I didn’t lose in the divorce. My eyes drop as I stare at the coffee in between my hands. “If we did get married, it would cover you both.”
The silence between us is deafening. I don’t have to look at the phone to know he’s staring at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. I mean, pretty much no one marries someone they just met, unless Vegas and copious amounts of alcohol are involved. Or it’s a love-at-first-sight kind of romance—not that I believe those exist anymore.
“I remembered you said you need to show financial stability to keep Emma on the transplant list, right? I’m land poor: I have a lot of physical property without any actual cash to my name. I’ll never sell the ranch, but all the bank—” I pause and add dryly, “And my ex-husband see is over a thousand acres of possible liquifiable assets. It should be more than enough to cover what you said the transplant board needed to see.”
Guy inhales a tight breath. “Sienna, are you saying you want to get married?”
“I’m saying I want Emma to get a kidney.” I glance back at the phone. “This would kind of be like a…marriage of convenience thing, I guess?”
“What would you want out of it?” Guy asks me quietly, staring at the phone so intensely it makes my heart start racing. “This is a big deal you’re talking about.”
“I guess…it’s been a bad year. And it’s almost Christmas. I wouldn’t have to actually pay for the anti-rejection medication, correct? Just show we have the financial stability to cover them when she gets the kidney.”
Guy closes his eyes, and I see him take a deep, steadying breath. “No, I would pay for everything. I’ll sign whatever you’d need me to sign so you don’t worry.”
“I would want you to sign a prenup. I fought too hard for this ranch to stay whole, and I can’t risk it now. And I guess…that’s it. I don’t need anything from you. I just want to help.” My words sound so flimsy, so inadequate, and I wonder if he thinks I’m lying to him. “We don’t even have to see each other beyond the paperwork. Maybe we could get coffee sometimes and you can tell me how she’s doing.”
“You just want coffee?”
Guy’s holding the phone in his hands, and I have his complete, utter attention. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that kind of attention from someone, the way he’s looking at me.
“Maybe breakfast with the coffee?” I joke awkwardly. “Umm, yeah. That’s all.”
There’s another long moment of silence, and then Guy says in a whisper, “If you’re willing to do this for us, I promise I’ll be a good husband to you, Sienna. I won’t lie to you, I won’t cheat on you, and I’ll do my best never to hurt you.” Guy’s voice catches, then he clears his throat. “I can’t promise I’ll love you, but when I give my word, I mean it. I’ll work hard, and I’ll always have your back. And when you want out, I’ll do that too. Whatever you need.”
“Same deal for both of us, okay? If you want out, then we’ll call it,” I tell him. “You don’t know me. Two weeks in, you could end up hating my guts and regretting this.”
“I highly doubt it,” Guy tells me quietly. “And you don’t know me either, but I know I’ll do anything to keep my daughter on the transplant list.”
“Even meet me at the courthouse tomorrow? Nine thirty?” I met the man at 9:30 this morning. Might as well make it a full twenty-four hours before getting married to him.
A flicker of the muscles in his jaw is the only thing telling me this hits him hard. Guy blinks rapidly, turning his face away to look at the brick wall next to him. I have the feeling Emma is on the other side of the wall. Then he says in an even quieter voice, “We both will.”
I end the call and sit back in my chair, my heart pounding in my chest.
“It isn’t real,” I tell Barley, who’s snoring softly and no longer listening. “It isn’t a real marriage.”
This is a marriage of convenience. A way to help someone take care of his dying child. This isn’t love. If I’ve learned anything the hard way, marriage for love might exist, but not for me. But doing a good thing? I can still have that.
Assuming I’m brave enough…and reckless enough…to take the leap.
Chapter 3
“Making good choices,” I singsong under my breath as I drive toward the courthouse. It’s 9:23 in the morning, meaning I have a whole seven more minutes to run screaming the other way.
My hands grip down too hard on the steering wheel. Right now, I have no clue if what I’m doing is the right thing or if I’m suffering from the kind of postdivorce reckless impulsivity that makes for good movies and very bad actual life choices. A manila folder rests on the passenger seat of my truck, my purse parked on top of it so if I slam on the brakes, my birth certificate and the freshly printed prenup from my very worried lawyer won’t go flying. The courthouse has everything we need, including a notary for the prenup.
There isn’t a waiting period in Idaho. Once we have the marriage license, we can get married today. No state requirement to take a step back and think this one over. No witnesses needed, which is a relief. I doubt anyone I know would agree to this wild plan of mine, let alone sign as a witness.
Well, Jess would. They would probably find it highly entertaining, even if somewhat alarming.
I’ve kept the prenup simple. Everything Guy brings into the marriage is his. Everything I bring into the marriage is mine. After the marriage, there’s an equal distribution of any combined assets, which won’t exist. I’ve learned my lesson about combined assets. Honestly, it’s possible I won’t see him more than once or twice after this until it’s time to get a divorce.
My knuckles pale on the steering wheel. I guess I hadn’t thought about the idea of being a two-time divorcée.
“That’s future Sienna’s problem,” I mutter to myself, glancing at the clock. It’s 9:25 a.m., meaning I now have five minutes to get there on time. “Focus on the present. You’re getting married today.”
Oh man. I’m getting married today. I glance down at my clothing, wondering if I’m overdressed or underdressed. No one ever told me what to wear to a not-fake-but-kind-of-fake wedding. Slacks and a nice sweater seem right. For a few horrifying moments, I imagine myself getting out of the truck in a massive white wedding dress, walking up to a stranger, bouquet in hand, then I shudder.
I park my truck across the street from the courthouse, wondering if I hallucinated all this as I cross the street and head up the steps. Maybe this is just a prank, to see if I’d fall for it? Maybe this is real, but Guy changed his mind, like a rational human being about to marry a complete stranger might?
Or maybe he’s standing outside the courthouse doors, holding a little girl with a massive, sparkly rainbow bow on her headband. She’s wearing a Christmas-red dress with equally sparkly rainbow-colored boots and a fluffy child’s jacket. Emma’s hair is wispy thin but a deep brunette color. Her eyes are the same ice blue as her father’s, and the combination is striking.
She might be the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen.
Guy has her wrapped up in a second, larger jacket, the same heavy Carhartt he was wearing yesterday. Suddenly I feel guilty for driving five miles under the speed limit all the way to the courthouse. They’re waiting outside for me, and I wonder how long they’ve been here. Clearly Guy doesn’t want his daughter to get too cold.
