Legally in Love
Boxed Set: Volume I
The Marriages of Convenience
Includes:
Legally Wedded: A Marriage of Convenience Romance
Illegally Wedded: A Marriage for Citizenship Romance
Bonus Volume: Mergers & Acquisitions: An Unexpected Matchmaker Romance
Jennifer Griffith
Legally Wedded
Chapter One
Morgan’s mouth turned to cotton. “What? What do you mean I’m not getting the financial aid? I’ve had it the past three years.” The walls of the office expanded and contracted. Morgan had to grip the desk. This was the absolute worst case scenario—especially since her grades tanked last spring and she lost her scholarship.
The financial aid clerk kept looking at her computer screen and adjusted her polo shirt with the embroidered Clarendon College logo. It barely stretched over her buxom frame. “I’m sorry, Miss Clark. The rules are the rules. Income limits apply. The tax records set the boundaries.”
“I’m an accounting major. I know all about taxes.” Don’t lecture me on taxes. That was for her professors, not this dead-eyed clerk.
“Then you obviously understand that the student’s ability to qualify for federal grants and loans depends wholly on the parents’ previous year’s income.” This came at Morgan in a patronizing tone. “And you obviously know that the rules apply, even to you.” The clerk smirked and then looked over Morgan’s shoulder at the next person in line. “Next.”
Shock and despair created a desperation in her.
“Wait. Wai-wai-wait.” Morgan put on a fake smile. “Yes, I know there are rules. But the thing is, see, my mother had a major financial departure last year. After a lifetime of basically no income, she made a mint on her poetry book sales. Frogs in the Sand. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
The clerk raised a ten-percent-interested eyebrow. “Everyone in the state of Oregon’s had Frogs in the Sand shoved down their throats for the past eighteen months.” She lifted one side of her upper lip, like the book was a piece of junk. Which it was.
“You see what I mean, then. That’s never going to sell another copy again. Ever! That book was a total fluke.” Morgan loved her mother, but the truth was, that book was lame. She had no idea why the TV talk show host ever mentioned it, let alone got a half a million people to buy it. “No one knows that fact more than you and I do, uh, Resistencia.” Perfect name for a financial aid clerk. Resistance! “But what no one else knows is that my mother used the whole Frogs fortune to pay back rent, to fix her old car, and to pay bills my father left that have been dogging her for years. All that money is gone.”
“Like a frog in the sand.” The clerk smirked, still looking at her computer screen. No sympathy. Not even a drop. “Next.”
There was nothing more to say. As she left, dejection turned Morgan’s legs to cement and the marble floor of the Student Life Center to tar. In fact, she couldn’t even trudge. It was more of a slog-through-sludge as she walked out into the overcast day to the parking garage and her old pickup.
Summer term kept the parking lot mostly empty, just like that financial aid office mostly emptied Morgan’s hope of ever finishing her senior year. And if she never finished, she’d never get a job that paid well enough to put her sister Tory through school. And Tory had already been waiting a full two years to start classes. And even though by next year, Mom’s bad finances would allow Tory to qualify for a grant, both girls would have to be working to cover rent, and two part-time jobs and two grants would never cover both rent and tuition at Clarendon for both of them.
It was hopeless. Hope drained from her, like oil from her truck’s leaky engine.
She started the engine—on the third try—and then gripped the steering wheel and slammed her hand against the side of the wheel in an angry rhythm. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Stupid time-sucking job, stupid lost scholarship, stupid financial aid rules.
She pulled out into the winding roads of campus, through the beech trees and oaks and pines that on most days made Clarendon College so charming. Charm and prestige: it’s what had drawn her here. Well, that and the scholarship—which she no longer had.
Honestly, it wasn’t like she’d had any choice about the stupid part-time job last year. She’d had to take that ridiculous job last semester to pay for housing when rent prices close to campus skyrocketed. Working at Veg-Out escalated quickly from part time, and then it had taken all her evenings which meant her study time. Her scores suffered. Her scholarship evaporated when her grades dropped. And still she only made enough money to afford rent in the worst apartment complex on the wrong side of the tracks in Starry Point.
Not that Starry Point necessarily had a wrong side. It was a pretty posh town, with the narrow exception of Estrella Court, where she lived.
She pointed her truck toward there now, hating how naïve she’d been—thinking the letter she’d gotten denying her financial aid application had been in error. What a fool! What a ditz! Because she, Morgan Clark, the accounting department’s once-favorite daughter, of all people should have known.
For the zillionth time, she cursed all those stupid frogs and their sand.
She jammed the truck into park and sat in the parking lot of Estrella Court for a moment. She’d have to calm down before going inside. She didn’t want Tory to see her upset because then she’d have to tell her sister about this setback, and she’d rather not until after she’d figured out a solution. Because this affected Tory as much as it affected Morgan. Maybe more.
She rested her chin on her elbow, which was leaning on the dusty window ledge of the old yellow Dodge that swilled gasoline like a Kentucky wino drank bourbon. That’s where the other half of her paycheck last year had gone—to feed this truck’s drinking habit. Ah, yet another no-win situation: she had to have the truck to get to work, but she had to work to keep the truck running. But if she’d lived closer to campus, she could have just walked, or ridden a bike, like the rest of the environmentally-conscious Oregonians did.
Man, money troubles just sucked.
She got out of the truck and slammed the door so hard that dust rose from beneath the crack around the hood.
“Whoa, there. You’ll make it fall to pieces,” a guy’s voice joked. “It looks like it’s vintage. Might be worth something someday.”
Morgan shook her head and tried to see who was talking to her from over by the collective mailboxes. It wasn’t Mr. Reeves, the cranky old maintenance guy she loved, or any of the other usual suspects at Estrella Court. He was tall—she could see that—and held a laundry basket. Did he live here?
“Not with the miles it’s got. It’s worth about half what it’ll cost to have it towed to the wrecking yard.” She got close enough to see him at last, and the cotton mouth she suffered at financial aid came back. He was about a hundred times better looking than any of the guys she’d ever seen roaming the weedy sidewalks of Estrella Court. Okay, maybe a thousand times better looking. She’d never been remotely good at talking to guys, especially gorgeous ones. If she’d seen him before she spoke to him, she probably wouldn’t have said anything.
“Hi. I’m Josh. Just moving in.” He patted the laundry basket, which appeared to be full of kitchen and bathroom supplies instead of laundry stuff. “You live here?”
“Since January.” Boom! She’d eked out two words. This was a miracle. Maybe she’d try for a few more. “You going to school at Clarendon?”
“Re-enrolling this fall. Took a couple of gap years. Well, assuming everything comes together I’ll start up. You in school, too?”
This was a complex question. It dumbfounded her. Yes, for three years, but not this year, un
less everything in the universe turns on its ear and I get the funds to continue? How could she explain when she didn’t even know herself?
She probably stood there too long looking stupid because finally Josh nodded. “Uh, okay. I’m just going to head up to my apartment. See you around.”
And he was gone.
And Morgan was a dimwit. Couldn’t even answer a simple question. She wanted to do one of those face-palm things, but there was a chance he’d still be at his door and see her, so she resisted. A moment later, she was at her own door shoving the key into the lock.
The apartment smelled like cherry candles and home perm solution. Not a great combo. Tory must be home. Morgan went in the kitchen and saw her sister there, squirting chemicals from a clear plastic bottle onto curlers in an elderly woman’s hair. She caught the drips with a wash cloth.
“You get things straightened out on campus?” Tory asked. “It’s okay. Mrs. Reeves took out her hearing aids while I put on the solution. You can speak freely.”
Mrs. Reeves was reading a Hollywood gossip magazine. Morgan waved to her, and then went to the fridge for an apple from their tree back home.
“Not yet. But I’m close. The bureaucrats want to work against people.”
“It’s to protect their kingdom.”
“Precisely.” Morgan bit the apple. She had to change the subject. “Did you see the new guy?”
“I’ve already nicknamed him—James Bond in Jeans.”
“He doesn’t have a British accent.”
“He doesn’t? Wait. You talked to him? Shut the front door!” Tory dropped the plastic clamp she was using to enclose the woman’s curlers in a plastic bag for catching the fumes. “You’re not serious.”
“I talk to guys.” Morgan tried to sound defensive, but she knew Tory knew the truth. “When they’re related to me or way out of my age range.”
“Exactly.” Tory shook her head. “So what did he say? Was he as dreamy to talk to as he is to look at?”
“Dreamy? Uh, totally.” Morgan had gone into a dream-like trance, that was for sure. “More like coma-inducing.”
“Oh, no. Not the Conversation Coma.” Tory sighed. It was legendary, Morgan’s inability to talk to men.
“Sad but true.” Morgan dropped onto a kitchen chair and took another bite of the apple. “But I at least managed a couple of sentences before its onslaught. And he seemed pretty nice.” She shrugged. “I’m sure he has a girlfriend. Any guy that good-looking has a girlfriend.”
“Don’t go all sour grapes. You don’t even know—unless you asked. Did you ask?”
Morgan shook her head. “Be serious.”
“Okay, okay. But did you at least get his name?”
“Joshua Hyatt.” He hadn’t said his full name, but she’d seen it on his mailbox—and taken note, of course.
Tory set the timer on the stove and then pantomimed twenty minutes to Mrs. Reeves before saying, “Josh Hyatt. Why have I heard that name before?” She looked at the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know. But if he’s half as nice on the inside as he looks on the outside, you’re in trouble.”
“Me? Why not you?” Morgan knew this guy would never take an interest in her. Not now, after that neon Vacancy sign had lit up her eyes when he asked her a simple question.
“Because I met someone, too.” Tory looked smug. She met someone new all the time. It baffled Morgan. “He’s at the theater. I’m making a Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, costume for him.”
“You can sew now?”
“How hard can it be? I’m up to the challenge. Especially if it means spending time with this guy getting his measurements.”
“Does this guy have a name?” Morgan raised an eyebrow of interest. The truth was, she was kind of glad Tory relinquished her I-saw-him-first rights to Josh Hyatt. Not that it mattered.
“Let’s just call him Hamlet for now. Until things get more serious.”
In her bedroom, Morgan let out a long breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She didn’t have time to think about good-looking guys. She had a huge problem to solve—with only days until school started. Her copy of Frogs in the Sand ribbitted at her from the bookshelf, mocking her pain. When in the history of Oregon had a book of poetry been a runaway bestseller?
Never. Not until this stupid book ruined her life.
She flipped through its pages. If her mom hadn’t dedicated the book to Morgan and Tory, Morgan would have dropped it in the garbage and set the contents of the can on fire.
Such. A. Killer.
And now she had to go to work—at a job where she was required to wear roller skates.
Oh, heart. She’d been so close, so very close to finishing her accounting degree. And now unless she could figure out how to come up with the remaining five thousand dollars she needed by the end of September, which was the last day tuition could be paid, that chance was basically everlastingly lost, as was Tory’s chance at ever starting college and moving on from sewing costumes and doing home perms.
Stupid frogs.
Morgan kicked imaginary sand on her bedroom carpet and grabbed her hot pink uniform for Veg-Out, the vegan drive-in where she worked—probably for the rest of forever. Or until her ankles gave out.
Chapter Two
Josh chucked his mail key and laundry basket on the ratty couch. Again? Still nothing from the government? He’d changed his address with them as soon as he knew he’d be moving here weeks ago, and he was still waiting for word. There should have been an approval. His appeal was airtight. They had to give him the grant this time.
Because he absolutely had to start school this semester.
And, ugh. What was that smell? Was it here when he signed the rental agreement? It smelled like thousand-year-old cooking oil and burnt popcorn. He opened three windows, hoping to air the place out.
It was a far cry from the college brochure’s depiction of the lush living quarters at Clarendon College. But it was what he could afford: a time warp of brown shag carpet and brass and glass decor that looked like it had come straight out of a K-Mart in the 1980s.
If the whole concatenation of Hyatt family millionaires could see him now…
Well, they weren’t millionaires—yet. They’d have to wait for old Bronco Hyatt to finally kick the bucket to get their share of his inherited fortune. Not that Bronco was anywhere close to letting the Grim Reaper take him as harvest. And probably none of the other family members were looking forward to it fondly, like Josh was. Okay, fine. Truthfully, he wasn’t wishing for his father’s early demise—just the demise of a few of his more tightly held preconceived notions about how Josh ought to be living his life.
As a plumber.
Did Josh strike anyone as a plumber?
No. Especially not himself.
The fresh air did wonders for the burnt popcorn smell, but that oil was probably here for the duration. At least when he set up his hobby in the second bedroom no one would notice the smell of the compost barrel he was planning to use. That was a plus to living in this dive, as was the price of rent, and the proximity to the ocean—if not campus. And the girls at the mailbox weren’t bad. Not that he was noticing.
His phone chimed a text.
Brielle: Hey. You get moved in? I’m about ready to go to the airport. I can meet you at the curb in front of my apartment in ninety minutes.
Josh clenched his jaw. Ninety minutes to Brielle’s place outside Portland, and then to the airport. And then, it was over. For a year. Or maybe forever. A year was a long time. Too long. Unless he could convince her—
Josh: I’ll come upstairs and help you bring down your luggage.
Brielle: Always the gentleman. xox
The x and o made him think of Brielle’s kiss, her embrace. And how fleeting they were.
∞∞∞
“Joshua Hyatt, I’m going to miss you.” Brielle’s words flowed through him, the sweetest honey. “But this year is going to fly, and then we’ll be together.” She placed a soft kiss on his
lips, and an ache erupted in his chest, one that he knew wouldn’t stop until she came back to him.
The bustle of Portland International faded to a din as he looked at her freckles and spiral curls. “Don’t overpay for a leather jacket while you’re there.” He tweaked her nose. It might not be romantic words for a farewell, but everything else had been said—including when he’d asked her to stay and she’d said no. It had been half-hearted—for both of them.
“Germany isn’t exactly known for its leather.”
“Okay. Cuckoo clock, then.”
“That’s never been my weakness. Wooden birds on springs.”
That was another thing he liked about Brielle. She was so practical, never awed by the trivial things of life. She looked at the big picture, which was probably why she was leaving him here to spend the next year off eating bratwurst and schnitzel and saving the world from extremists while he tried, again, to get himself back into school.
Meanwhile, Brielle was done. Just graduated, and off starting a real-life, big time job. In an embassy. In Europe.
The gap between them widened yet another span.
“You’re going to have a lot of amazing experiences.” He spun it to a positive.
“So are you.”
Right. At home. In Oregon. While she was living the diplomat’s life, meeting with foreign leaders, making decisions, and maybe going to Wagnerian operas on the weekends if she had time in her packed professional schedule.
“No, I’m being serious. You’ll be in school, which is amazing after all you’ve been through. You’re going to be so amazing that Clarendon College is going to put your picture on their next recruiting brochure. You’re going to be living in Starry Point, which is—just amazing.”
“Three amazings.”
“Probably more like three hundred. Trust me.”
He did. “I do.”
She threw her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. She felt amazing. “So you trust me now, eh? Including when I say that when old Bronco Hyatt sees the incredible success his son is having at one of the most exclusive, top-ranked programs in the nation, that he’ll roll over and relent? Bring you back into the Hyatt fold?”
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