Rhett's Make-Believe Marriage

by Liz Isaacson

  Rhett’s Make-Believe Marriage

  Seven Sons Ranch in Three Rivers Romance, Book 1

  Liz Isaacson

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Sneak Peek! Tripp’s Trivial Tie Chapter One

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  Chapter One

  “It’s totally fine,” Evelyn Foster said to the woman on the other end of the line. “Not every first date goes well.” She often had to counsel her clients through a few dates before they could see what she saw.

  Being a small-town matchmaker, where ninety percent of the men were cowboys, wasn’t an easy job. But Evelyn loved it, as she could make everything line up on paper like a dream. The women knew what she was doing, but the men…well, sometimes men just needed to get out of their own way.

  And Evelyn provided a way for them to do that—and conveniently run into the woman of their dreams. They just didn’t know it yet.

  And obviously, Tina didn’t know it yet either. “He’s perfect for you,” Evelyn assured her. “What happened that rubbed you the wrong way?”

  “For starters, he wanted to take me to the big box store for a date.”

  Evelyn could hear the eyeroll in Tina’s voice.

  “But you persuaded him to do something else, right?” Evelyn asked, shuffling a couple of pages on the desk in front of her. The wind shook the windows of her office, and she glanced outside to see a dust storm had kicked up on the farm where she lived with her sisters.

  Granted, they didn’t really use the two hundred acres they had, as that was a lot for three women to manage by themselves. Their father had retired a few years ago, and they mostly planted as much as they could and sold the hay to other farms and ranches surrounding Three Rivers.

  “I did, yes,” Tina said. “But is that going to be my whole life moving forward? Me trying to persuade this guy to do what I want?”

  “Let me look through a few more candidates,” Evelyn said, focusing on her papers again. May was an exceptionally busy time for her services, as well as around Shining Star Ranch. While her oldest sister, Callie, ran most of what happened on the ranch, Evelyn had plenty of chores to do too. “And I’ll get back to you in a couple of days, okay?”

  “Okay,” Tina said. “What should I do if Gideon calls?”

  “You get to decide that,” Evelyn said, looking at Gideon’s one-sheet. “He really does seem perfect for you. Maybe he just didn’t want to commit to something as long as dinner.”

  “I don’t know how that’s a plus,” Tina said dryly.

  “Well, he’s met you once, for what? Five minutes at the dry cleaner? Somewhere I only knew he’d be because we got a last-minute phone call.” Evelyn never revealed her sources, but she had spies all over the town of Three Rivers.

  With a population of almost seventeen thousand now, she certainly couldn’t be everywhere at once, or know where every eligible bachelor would be at any given time.

  “And that was the first time he’d been there,” Evelyn reminded her. “So maybe give him a little slack?” She spoke as kindly as she could. After all, Tina was paying her, and she didn’t need to lose a client because the cowboy Tina had her eye on was out of his element.

  “Okay.” Tina sighed. “But still look at a couple of other guys for me.”

  “Anyone in mind?” Evelyn asked, because no one else on her list stood out for someone like Tina. She liked a through-and-through Texas cowboy, with a big hat, and the biggest belt buckle possible. Rodeo experience a plus.

  While there were plenty of cowboys in Three Rivers, Tina wanted Cowboy Extreme.

  “I’ve seen a man at church the last few weeks,” Tina said. “He looks new in town.”

  Evelyn repressed a sigh and looked out the window again. She couldn’t see the trees she knew were only ten feet away. Alarms started sounding in her mind, and surprise darted through her that she hadn’t lost cell phone reception yet.

  “I don’t know his name or where he lives,” Tina said.

  “All right,” Evelyn said. “I’ll put out some feelers to find out who this guy is.” With that, the line crackled, and Tina’s words broke up. In the next moment, the service cut out, and Evelyn looked at her phone to see the call had indeed been severed.

  “Great,” she muttered. Now she had to hunt down a mystery cowboy who was new to town. Maybe Patrick would know. Her boyfriend worked the meat counter at the grocery store, and he saw a lot of people—especially single cowboys coming to buy their steak dinners.

  Of course, a lot of the cowboys around Three Rivers worked on farms and ranches, and they often got plenty of beef for free from their employers. So maybe Patrick wouldn’t know. But it couldn’t hurt to ask him.

  He knew what Evelyn did for a living, and he often sent her texts with information on men she needed to know about. She couldn’t send him a text right then, as it seemed her provider had gone down with the crazy windstorm.

  She left her office at the same time a horrible, glass-shattering sound filled the whole farmhouse. She screamed, hers matching her younger sister’s in the living room.

  Callie burst in the back door with the words, “There’s a tornado headed this way. Come help me with the animals.” She spun away before either Evelyn or Simone could answer.

  Thankfully, Evelyn already had shoes on, and she hurried after her oldest sister, saying, “The sirens haven’t even gone off. Maybe it’s just a windstorm.”

  The moment she finished speaking, the chilling, distinct wail of the tornado siren filled the air.

  She ran after Callie, who handed her a grease pen and a handful of fly masks. “Put our phone number on their sides. Put on the fly mask, and we’ll set them in the pasture.”

  They didn’t have the hurricane clips or reinforced beams needed to tether the horses securely in the barn, and their horses were used to roaming in pastures.

  “Maybe it’ll go north,” Callie said, her voice panicked. “Like that last one.”

  The last tornado had been over two years ago, and it had indeed turned north before inflicting too much damage on Three Rivers. She handed Simone the same items she had Evelyn, and the sisters got to work.

  “We have to go next door, too,” Callie said. “We’ll put our number on the animals at Fox Hill for the new owner.”

  “Who is it?” Evelyn asked, glancing east though she couldn’t see more than five feet in either direction. Even Callie’s voice coming through the swirling dirt and dust felt eerie and otherworldly.

  “Some guy,” Callie said vaguely, which meant she didn’t know either. “Last name’s Walker, I think. Mason texted a couple of days ago and said he’d be here this week, and that we could turn the keys o
ver to him then.”

  Mason Martin had lived and cultivated Fox Hill Ranch next door for years and years before deciding to up and move to Hawaii, of all places. He’d put the ranch up for sale, and contracted with the sisters to take care of the few animals he’d left behind. He had a staff of four still on the premises too, and Evelyn wondered why they couldn’t take care of their own horses.

  “What about Orion?” she asked. “Can’t he turn the horses out to pasture over there?” It was at least a half-mile to Fox Hill, though their properties touched one another along a fence line on the east side of the ranch. Evelyn did not want to get caught out in the storm.

  “They went into town this morning,” Callie said, finishing with her last horse, smacking it on the flank and saying, “Go on. Stay safe.”

  With their own livestock numbered and protected as much as possible, the three sisters piled into Callie’s pickup truck and rumbled down the road. If anything, the wind blew stronger at Fox Hill, but Evelyn kept her head down and her fingers moving as she marked the eight horses Mason had left behind.

  He also had two pigs, six goats, and a whole herd of chickens. The tornado would likely pick them up and carry them off, and she certainly didn’t know how to hold one long enough to write a phone number on feathers.

  With all the animals marked that could be, Callie shouted, “We have to go inside!”

  Exactly what Evelyn didn’t want to do, at least not here. But one look at the sky, and she knew she didn’t have a choice. Panic filled her, though she’d lived through tornadoes before. They weren’t super common in this area of Texas, but she’d had enough experience with them to know what to do in case of an emergency.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Simone asked.

  “He’s with Granny,” Callie yelled, holding her hat on her head as she ran for the back door of Mason’s homestead.

  It felt strangely quiet inside, with the three of them panting as they sucked at air that finally wasn’t filled with debris.

  “Come on,” Callie said. “He’ll have a tornado shelter.”

  Evelyn had been to Mason’s house several times, and she knew right where it was. As Callie turned to go down a hallway, she said, “It’s over here, guys. He showed it to me once.” She hated that she wasn’t in her own home, protecting it and herself.

  But just inside the living room off the front door, she swept aside the rug and pointed to the hatch door there. “Goes down into a cement foundation.”

  “Get in,” Callie said as glass broke somewhere in the house. The tornado might not strike Three Rivers directly, but this wind was definitely wicked and causing some real damage.

  Evelyn went first and turned on her phone’s flashlight. Callie followed and did the same, with Simone bringing up the rear. No sooner had Simone closed the door above them and come down the steps did it open again.

  Callie shone her flashlight on the man sliding down the steps, pure fear in every line on his face. “Who are you?” she asked as Evelyn swung her light onto him too.

  He bore a strong jaw and dark eyes—exactly the kind of man Evelyn would be interested in. You know, if she wasn’t already dating someone.

  The stranger drew in a deep breath and spoke in an even deeper voice. “I’m Rhett Walker. This is my ranch.” He dusted himself off with a pair of big hands and added, “You must be the Foster sisters from next door.”

  “Guilty,” Callie said, lowering her light so it wasn’t shining right in Rhett’s face. But Evelyn couldn’t do the same. His good looks and bass voice seemed to have frozen her to the spot, and all she could do was stare while her heart pounded wildly in her chest.

  “Can you stop shining that in my face?” he asked, his voice a touch colder than before, and Callie put her hand on Evelyn’s arm to make her put the phone down.

  “So,” he said with only the soft glow on his features now. He was somehow sexier and more beautiful than in the harsh light, and Evelyn wondered where in the world all these thoughts and feelings were coming from. “I guess the tornado is welcoming me to the Texas Panhandle.” He laughed, and Simone and Callie joined him.

  Evelyn simply reveled in the sound of his laughter, thinking that if she weren’t with Patrick, she’d definitely be setting herself up with one cowboy Rhett Walker.

  Callie started to detail what they’d done for his animals and why they’d come in his house instead of theirs, and Evelyn shied behind her sister so she could continue to simply stare at her new next-door neighbor.

  Chapter Two

  Rhett Walker could not believe his rotten luck. It seemed like he’d run into a string of it, and he wondered when it would end. Just like this blasted tornado. It seemed to go on for a long time, and not only because he was trapped in his own storm shelter with three strangers.

  Women, sure, but they chatted more with each other than him. He’d switched on the flashlight on his phone and currently stood in front of a long shelf with dozens of cans on it. At least they wouldn’t starve down here.

  “How do you know when the tornado is over?” he asked, thinking he needed a camera that showed the weather outside so he wouldn’t have to risk losing his hat to check. He felt six eyes on him, but when he turned, only one woman still stared at him.

  “Evelyn, right?” he asked, taking a step closer to her.

  “Right,” she said, her voice hoarse. She coughed, and Rhett watched her. “Sorry,” she added. “We were out in the dust and dirt for a while before coming in.” She cleared her throat and bent down to a lower shelf.

  She straightened and held two bottles of water in her hand. “Do you mind if I have one of these?” She extended the second one toward him, and he took it.

  “No problem.”

  “Where are you from? Have you been in a lot of tornadoes?”

  “I grew up outside of Austin?” Why he phrased it like a question, he wasn’t sure. He found himself clearing his own throat, as if this woman made him nervous. Everything about coming out to a ranch made him squirm a little, and three of his brothers were supposed to be with him. But there had been some problems at the office a couple of days ago, and he’d ended up coming north himself.

  “I know where Austin is,” Evelyn said with a small smile. She hid it behind the water bottle as she drank.

  Of course she did, and suddenly the storm shelter felt a little too hot. He returned his attention to the shelves in front of him. “My father owned a technology company there,” he said, glancing at her. “This shelter needs one of his cameras, then we’d know when the tornado has passed.”

  “You’ll be able to tell,” she said. “Even without a camera.”

  “You think so?” He wasn’t sure how, as it wasn’t like there were any windows in the shelter.

  “A camera would get knocked around in a storm,” she said, cocking her head at him, the questions clear.

  Rhett shuffled his feet, but he kept his eyes on hers. “My dad had contracts with the military and government,” he said. “The cameras were tiny.”

  “Tiny? How tiny?”

  “Pinhead tiny,” he said. “The wind wouldn’t knock it off.” As if the world had been holding its breath and had just released it, something changed. He looked up to the ceiling, the lack of groaning evident. “I think the storm is over.”

  “It’s passing,” one of Evelyn’s sisters said, and Rhett couldn’t believe that she could tell without visual proof. “Let’s give it a few more minutes,” the other woman said.

  “Callie,” Evelyn said, providing Rhett with the name he’d forgotten, though they’d only been in the shelter for maybe ten minutes. “She’s the oldest,” she added in a mock whisper, and Rhett got the message.

  A chuckle started in the back of his throat, and he ducked his head as he tried to quiet it. “A little bossy, is that what you’re saying?”

  “She has moments,” Evelyn said, and Rhett met her eyes again. She had a beautiful smile to go with that long, dark hair and those sparkling eyes. He couldn�
��t really tell what color those were in the glow of flashlights, and he told his heart to stop skipping beats.

  He hadn’t bought this ranch out in the middle of nowhere to get his heart broken again. He’d managed to do that in Austin, thank you very much.

  “I’m the oldest,” Rhett said. “Six younger brothers.”

  “Wow,” Evelyn said, those eyes still shining at him. “I thought some of them were coming with you.”

  “They are,” he said. “The twins got held up in Austin, tying up loose ends, but I had to come up for the job.”

  She cocked her head again. “The ranch is fine.”

  “Oh, Jeremiah is going to mostly be doing the ranch stuff,” he said. “I’ll help a little. The twins are technology dudes, but they insisted on coming.” He shrugged, because Tripp and Liam didn’t even own plaid shirts.

  “So what’s the job?” she asked.

  “I’m a forensic veterinarian,” he said. “There’s a case up here that’s expected to take a while. My dad’s company was selling, and this place was for sale….” He let the words hang there.

  Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “Have you ever lived on a ranch?”

  Before he had to answer that, Callie said, “I’m going up.” That caused movement, and while Evelyn watched him for an extra moment, she too moved toward the ladder. He let them all go up first, feeling like perhaps he should’ve done so to make sure no one got hurt.

  Thankfully, the house still stood at the top of the ladder, though there were several windows broken.