“About this afternoon,” he began, glancing at the diamond he’d placed on her finger, liking the way it glistened there, “I’m sorry for the way that went down. I was...”

  “Being you,” she said, with a real grin. “Getting the job done.”

  “Yeah.” He grinned back. “But I could have let you in on the plan ahead of time,” he allowed.

  “Might have been a good idea.”

  “So...we’re good?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  He gazed at her fondly. “You know I love ya, right?”

  “I figured, maybe.”

  “You want to get a beer?”

  When her usual positive response didn’t immediately follow, Asa’s gut tightened again.

  “I just...if Widow Hensen suspects that this marriage isn’t real...you still won’t get the ranch,” Lily reminded him.

  “I know.” He figured that went without saying, literally. “The whole point of the proposal was...”

  He stopped when he saw her frown. “What?” he asked.

  “In public, Asa...we’re going to have to act like it’s real. Holding hands. Sitting next to each other at the table, having conversations with our heads close together sometimes...”

  He’d had the same thoughts but was trying not to dwell on them too much.

  “You have a problem with that?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “So...you want to get that beer?”

  Her smile was still lighting him up inside as he parked outside the Corral, the popular rancher bar just outside of town, where they’d met the previous summer. Aafter exiting the truck, he reached for her hand.

  He felt her softer palm and fingers intermingle with his calloused ones. Didn’t hate it.

  Two friends, lifting each other to their futures.

  Life had never been better.

  Chapter Four

  Lily put her notice in the next day at work, but agreed to work a few more days, just until management could fill her schedule. She could pretend that life was going on as normal—other than the huge rock surrounded by a setting of smaller ones she was carrying around on her left ring finger—except that nothing about the following couple of days felt at all normal.

  Everyone who saw her in the café either congratulated her or asked about a wedding date. Her sisters were both calling daily to check up on her—and wanting to know the same.

  Plus every single one of the Fortune cousins currently in town, and Asa’s two sisters, had called, or stopped by to welcome her to the family—all of them offering to help with wedding plans. And it got to the point that on Friday, after work, she had to take matters into her own hands. Her last day at the café had culminated with a surprise shower for her, gifts consisting of things she’d need for a wedding, like certificates for a manicure and pedicure, a waxing—like she’d have any reason to need that—a hair appointment, and a pile of gift certificates for the GreatStore.

  She and Asa had been meeting in town for dinner each night, usually at the Chatelaine Bar & Grill, the nicest place in town, to be seen as much as to eat, and she started in on him as soon as she joined him in the red-leather booth.

  Rather than asking if he’d been waiting long—she’d been late due to more well-wishers stopping her as she tried to get out of the café—she slid onto the chair directly across from him and started right in. “I think we need to get this over and done with,” she told him. “Let’s just go to Town Hall and get married.” She could use the gift certificates making her purse bulge as Christmas gifts or something.

  Asa quirked a brow. “Right now?”

  “Probably best to wait for them to open, but Monday morning, for sure. People can throw whatever parties they want to for us afterward. Or we can have a big housewarming at the ranch once the closing happens.”

  His glance at her seemed a little worried. And she sighed. “I’ve just spent twenty minutes trying to get a word in edgewise with my sisters, regarding me having a dress suitable for marrying a Fortune. Tabitha wants me to wear the wedding dress she had made to marry West, but never got to wear. If we don’t get this done, we’re going to have one-year-old twin ring bearers and a magazine spread of the big day, too.”

  Her sisters, bless their hearts, were trying to make everything so real and perfect in the hope that Asa was going to fall in love with her—not just love her as a friend. In the hopes that the marriage would turn out to be real. And by then the wedding would already have happened, robbing Lily, in their opinion, of the chance to have her big day. And pictures and memories to cherish forever. They wanted to make sure she had that.

  Didn’t matter how many times she told them that she didn’t care about that kind of stuff.

  Asa suddenly pulling out his phone, as though her conversation wasn’t worthy of his attention, didn’t sit well, either. Not right then, after a busy day at work, and too much pressure coming at her.

  For a second there, she wished herself back to the nonentity life she felt like she’d lived since she was ten months old. Invisible, or slightly visible, under the radar at least, wasn’t all bad.

  Not wanting to chance anyone witnessing a cross word from her to him, she picked up the menu as though she’d hadn’t just read it the night before. And wished they were over at the Corral, having wings and chips. At least there the conversation was louder and the mood lighter.

  “There’s a seventy-two-hour waiting period after you apply for the license until you can get married.”

  She glanced across the booth at her pseudo fiancé. He’d been reading about getting married? Not finding something more important than her wedding woes on his phone?

  And of less importance, but easier to deal with in the moment, “We have to wait until next Thursday to do this? That’s like...almost another whole week from now!”

  Another week in which Val Hensen could find some married person to buy the Chatelaine Dude Ranch. Asa would lose his chance. And she...really and truly wanted her chance, too. She wanted to marry the man, to make the deal, to change her life, build her future into something more than her past had been. If they had to wait, they had to wait, but it was going to be a very nerve-wracking week on so many levels.

  He leaned in toward her. “Let’s go to Vegas.”

  Heart jumping, she stared at him. Saw the seriousness in his gaze. And a new light there, too.

  “Vegas?” She didn’t squeak, but almost. “I’ve never been outside of Texas.” In fact, she’d never been more than a hundred miles from Chatelaine. Excitement pumped through her. “Is it like you see on those old CSI, Las Vegas reruns?”

  “Pretty much,” he told her. “Though we can stay off the strip if you’d like. They have marriage chapels around the town.”

  “No!” She blurted so loud, one of the managers from The GreatStore, who was seated with his wife at the table next to them, glanced over. “I want to go!” she finished, not much quieter. “I want to see it all.”

  And a fake wedding where she had her groom all to herself...the groom she loved for real...sounded better than anything she’d ever dared dream up for herself. There’d be no worrying about what other people saw, or thought. No pretending. Just a woman eloping with her best friend, knowing that he wasn’t going to have sex with her.

  Just her and Asa on the most incredible road trip...

  He talked to her about wedding venue options, looked up flights, and booked them two seats for Sunday morning, then moved on to hotels. Eventually choosing what he said was one of the most opulent, in the best part of the strip, he got them the honeymoon suite plus. The plus part was that in addition to the lavish master suite, the accommodations included a second, smaller bedroom. For her, she assumed. Which was what she preferred anyway. No way she wanted to sleep alone in a big romantic wedding room bed.

  Of course, for show, they’d be able to bring back photos of the amenities, including a heart-shaped bed, chocolate-covered strawberries, and exclusive champagne.

  It was working out perfectly. In a way, she was getting the wedding of her dreams. Just her and Asa, all alone, on a magical trip, in Sin City, staying in a room that would surely feel like paradise to her. For those two days and one night, she’d be a princess. And he’d be her prince.

  Grown-up version, of course.

  And not having to go through a wedding in Chatelaine, where everyone would be watching, where her sisters would be looking on, knowingly, where she’d worry every second that someone would call them on the pretense...that relief was palpable.

  Lily was still flying high as she and Asa left the restaurant, their plans all firmly settled. So much so that she slid her hand behind his elbow and down, linking her arm with his. He stiffened, but then immediately relaxed, hugging her arm close to him, and she couldn’t help thinking what a perfect moment it was.

  Right up until they started down the sidewalk to their vehicles and Baylor Minser turned a corner and started toward them. The tall, thin, glamorous blonde with her perfect make up and long, flowing, flawlessly styled hair was one of the women Asa took out on occasion.

  Had he called her? Let her know the marriage was a fake?

  Even as Lily had the thought, she was admonishing herself. Asa wouldn’t do that to Lily. Or risk sabotaging his chances of getting the ranch, either.

  Smile, just keep walking, get past her, Lily was saying to herself.

  “Asa! Hello!” Baylor called out, as though just then noticing them. The woman’s gaze was firmly on Asa, her smile inviting more than just words, even as she said, “I hear congratulations are in order...”

  At which point Baylor gave a quick up-and-down glance over Lily. With a smirk filled with disdain before turning her gaze, accompanied by a bright smile, right back on Asa. “I wish I’d known you were in the market for more than a good time,” she said, with a little pout. “I’m sure we could have worked something out...”

  She let her words trail off as she passed them—on Asa’s side—making sure that the side of her hand grazed his thigh as she did so.

  Lily couldn’t say how Asa reacted. She was too busy trying to keep her own despair firmly under wraps. Clearly, whether her marriage to the handsome cowboy was real or not, there were some women who were still going to be available to him.

  And...

  “I need you to promise me something,” she blurted, all sense of euphoria giving way to panic. But at least she had her feet firmly back in her own world where they belonged.

  “What?” Asa didn’t seem the least bit different. As though seeing Baylor had had no effect on him at all. Good or bad.

  Because he knew he’d be calling her for a little on the side action the woman had made clear she’d still be willing to offer?

  “I know our marriage is pretense, and this is asking a lot of a guy like you, but I can’t do this if I’m going to be humiliated.”

  “A guy like me?” He was still walking...still holding her arm. But more loosely. And his tone had a more distant edge to it, too.

  “You’re sexy, Asa. Virile. You have healthy desires and places to assuage them...” What the hell. She was going to start spouting like some kind of virginal heroine of a melodrama now? “I just...you need to promise me it won’t be in this town. Or with anyone who lives here. Not as long as we’re married.”

  “What won’t be in this town?”

  He was going to make her spell it out? Maybe even was teasing her some? Getting a little fun out of it? Fine. “Your sex life. Or partners.”

  He stopped. Right there in the middle of the sidewalk. Then took hold of both of her arms and held her in front of him. So close, if she leaned at all, their thighs would be touching. Glancing up at him, she saw his gaze boring into hers. “There will be no sex life, period,” he told her gruffly. “At least not on my part. You think I’d do that to you?”

  At that moment she didn’t have a thought. Not a single one of them. She had tears welling inside her, though.

  And, almost as if he knew the things she couldn’t show, knew the battle inside her, Asa leaned in and kissed her.

  It was all for appearances, she knew. For the benefit of the folks out and about who’d probably witnessed at least parts of their interaction.

  Which was definitely why Lily kissed him back.

  She flooded with warmth, too.

  Asa was her closest friend. He was going to have her back. Not only during the marriage, but afterward, too.

  And that was a win for her future.

  * * *

  He hadn’t thought about sex.

  Or rather, entering into six months of total celibacy.

  It wasn’t a deal breaker. Not even close.

  But he should have given the matter thought. Enough to assure Lily that he was not going to be unfaithful to her before she’d had to ask. He would not have her known as a woman whose husband cheated on her during the first year of their marriage. In a town the size of theirs, she’d carry that with her for the rest of her life.

  He’d die first.

  For that matter, he had no desire whatsoever to be labeled as that guy, either. He planned to be in Chatelaine, owning and running his dude ranch, until he was old and gray. No way he was going to smirch any of it with rumors of infidelity.

  Having grown up with all four of the major adults in his life—parents and his aunt and uncle—cheating on their spouses, he’d promised himself he would never put himself in such a situation. One reason he didn’t ever intend to marry for real. Or at least not for a very long time.

  All of which he’d still been thinking about on Saturday when Lily called him, just after noon, saying she was ready for his truck. With firm wedding plans in place, she’d given notice on her apartment and had been told that, instead of having to pay the full month’s utilities, if she was out by the end of the weekend, she’d get her full deposit back. The owner knew of someone else needing a place as soon as possible.

  She’d known of someone, too, she’d told him. A cook at work whose twentysomething son was moving back to town to help his father out with their horse breeding business, and she’d hoped the new renter was one and the same.

  Asa had wanted to provide boxes and help her pack, but she’d staunchly refused his offer, to the point of refusing to accept his help moving her things from the apartment in town out to the spare bedroom in his cabin, if he didn’t stop.

  He’d stopped. Asa had figured her sisters would be there, helping her, but was surprised to find her alone. With a tattered blue suitcase, two large moving boxes, and a small closet’s worth of hanging clothes wrapped in a blanket and lying over the couch.

  “This is it?” He regretted the question as soon as he’d asked it. Making it sound as though her belongings weren’t enough.

  But in a perfectly satisfied-sounding tone, she told him that the furniture wasn’t hers. Her apartment had come furnished.

  Standing there, looking at her small, incredibly neat haul, he had to hold back a surge of emotion. He’d been moving around his entire adult life and he had twice as much stuff to lug around with him everywhere he went.

  “It’s not like I have family photos or childhood mementos,” she added. He took the reminder as a cue to get his butt moving.

  Carrying her boxes down one at a time, Asa found himself seeing Lily in a new way. It was like he was somehow entering more of her world, even as he moved her into his. He’d known she’d grown up in various foster homes. Nickolas, head bartender at the Corral, and also, as it had turned out, one of Lily’s foster brothers, had told him she’d never been in one home long enough to feel a part of a family. Nickolas had only lived with her for part of a year before he’d aged out of the system. But the married man and father of two clearly looked after Lily.

  Nickolas was why Lily frequented the Corral, she’d once told Asa. She could have a beer, alone, yet not feel lonely. Plus, she’d help him out in the kitchen, making wings if he got overly busy, and she’d get comped beer.

  Asa had known her childhood had been vastly different from his. He’d just never put himself in her position until that Saturday afternoon. Or truly understood how much their marriage was going to impact her life.

  And he told himself once again, as they headed out to the Chatelaine Dude Ranch, that he’d make certain his friend never went back to a life of two boxes, an old suitcase, and some hanging clothes.

  Unless she wanted to do so.

  Wanting to give her plenty of time to unpack, he left her to it and drove to the freeway, following it to the first exit that promised plenty of shopping choices. He wasn’t after much. Just a new set of luggage for his bride-to-be, and, as an afterthought, a box of expensive chocolates, too.

  She’d raved about a box a customer had left her at the café over the Christmas holiday. He’d thought maybe the drive would open his mind to seeing how out of hand his scheme to get the ranch was getting. Instead, he took the Chatelaine exit feeling pretty damned good about the future.

  For him and for Lily.

  She deserved so much more than he was giving her, but at least she’d be getting a home, the new way of life she wanted, as she searched for the rest of her future.

  The thought was still on top of his mind a couple of hours later, as he and Lily—who’d seemed more embarrassed by, than happy with, his gifts—made their way to the front door of the main house.

  Both of them in jeans and short-sleeved shirts, they stood together, their sides touching as they waited for their summons to be answered.

  Val looked shocked to see him, but smiled almost immediately as she invited them in.

  “That’s okay,” he said quickly. “We don’t want to take up your time, and actually have a lot to do before our flight in the morning. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m getting married.”

 

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