Fake Marriage Box Set (A Single Dad Romance)

by Claire Adams

  “I’m running into you everywhere, Sawyer,” she said. She gave him a brief hug before coming over to stand next to me by the trailer. She stepped up on the back to peek in, getting her first good glance at her next project. She stepped down again and turned to face us.

  “Y’all ever do anything besides stand around bullshitting?” she asked.

  Sawyer laughed, showing us his mouthful of white teeth. He hawked another dark glob of spit onto the ground before he answered. “I just came over to see how Pete here got along in Dallas. And, to tell you about the bet I have going.”

  That piqued my interests. I wasn’t really a betting man, but I didn’t mind a friendly wager now and then. “Oh yeah?”

  Lacey cocked her head, hands planted on hips, but didn’t say anything.

  “A couple of us in town are betting on how long it’ll take before you and Lacey finally admit to your feelings and just go ahead and get hitched.” He looked back and forth between us, laughing even harder than before at our reactions.

  “You need to get a life, Sawyer,” Lacey said, but she was smiling, too, her dark eyes glittering in the sun.

  I shook my head. “There are laws against marrying your sister for a reason. And, she counts as a sister.”

  “Could you even imagine that?” Lacey asked, turning her dark eyes my way, her face twisted into an overdone grimace at the thought. “The two of us together.” She gave a fake shiver from head to foot.

  “I’d rather drown slowly in a trough full of warm horse piss,” I said with a completely straight face that didn’t last more than a few seconds.

  The three of us laughed so hard, we had to hold ourselves up by bending over onto our knees. Lacey punched me in the arm, but it didn’t hurt as much as it usually did because she was laughing so hard. We all straightened up again, wiping at our wet eyes and grinning like the idiots we were. We started in on some more small talking, but didn’t get far before Sawyer had to go.

  “I’ll see you both around,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat to Lacey first, then to me. “Maybe next weekend at the barbecue.”

  We watched him climb back into his truck, turn around, and drive down the long, dirt driveway to the main country road, kicking up dirt as he went, so much that I couldn’t see his truck by the time he turned off the property.

  Lacey turned to me. “Let’s get this little guy out of the trailer before he overheats.” She stepped back so I could open the back of it. “What did you say his name was? Elrod?”

  I dropped open the bottom, creating a small ramp, and hoisted up the top. “It’s Elroy, which is just as god awful as Elrod.”

  She giggled. “I’m gonna need to do something about that. Aww, he’s precious.” She leaned to get a better look at the colt, her hands resting on the side of the trailer.

  I stepped inside slowly. “Easy now,” I mumbled, keeping my voice low as I reached slowly for Elroy’s halter. He shook his ears, but didn’t shy away, his eyes staying steady on me.

  I’d spent an hour on the ranch yesterday before I had to take cover at a nearby hotel just standing around on the paddock, letting the colt approach me on his own terms so he could get used to me. This morning, I groomed him slowly, all the while talking to him the way I would a human, but in a low, soothing voice. He was skittish from lack of socialization, but I thought he’d come around nicely once Lacey got her hands on him. He’d just been too much for that old rancher to handle.

  I pulled him out by the lead on his halter, still speaking to him nice and low. He came easily enough, his hooves clomping on the trailer floor until he stepped out onto the dirt.

  Lacey looked him up and down. He was a small quarter horse, only about thirteen months old, chestnut-colored, with a white patch running from between his eyes all the way down to his nose.

  “I thought you said he was hard to handle,” she said. She was fearless around horses, same as I was, which was one of the reasons she was so good training them. She took the lead from me and just let Elroy check out what he could see of his new surroundings. He stepped around in the dirt and shook his head.

  “That’s what that old rancher said. Really, I think he just hasn’t been around enough people and other horses. There weren’t many animals on the farm. Little guy warmed up to me well enough.”

  Lacey reached to pet Elroy between his big dark eyes, moving slowly. He didn’t flinch as she ran a light hand from his forehead to his nose.

  “He’s sweet,” she said. Her hands moved over his neck, giving him a good scratch like she would for Riley. “Young, but sweet. I can start with his training tomorrow. Let’s just get him used to the farm for now; put him out in the paddock with one or two of the calmer horses.” She thought a moment, her dark eyes still traveling over every inch of our new colt.

  “Getting him ready for racing is going to take time. I’ll be starting at square one.” She looked from the horse to me, her brown eyes serious. She had a smudge of dirt on her cheek. The girl was always dirty from something, even right after a shower. “With as much as I’m still working with the other horses, and now this guy, we’re gonna need someone at the ranch to tend to the barn and horses’ basic needs. I won’t have time and neither will you.”

  I hated to put out the money, but she was right. We should’ve hired someone last fall when we added three extra horses to the stable. We just worked so well together, I didn’t want to upset our happy little applecart by adding some stranger.

  I sighed. “I’ll put an ad in the Register.”

  She gave me a hard look, her sandy brows high, and I knew what she was thinking without her even saying so. But she also knew enough to just keep quiet, at least about this. There was no way in hell I was putting an ad any damned place on the internet. I didn’t even own a computer. The Round Rock Register wanted pages would just have to do.

  Chapter Four

  Emma

  Tuesday

  I walked around the back end of the barn, noting the rotting wood and overgrown weeds choking the rear exit. Most of the farm was overgrown. The fields hadn’t been tilled in ages. A few lonely cows were out to pasture, looking as neglected as the rest of the property. The rest had been sold, according to Mr. Myers, who was watching me assess his old, dilapidated barn with an open amount of suspicion.

  He’d made it clear when I arrived that he was against hiring a young lady, as he put it, but he was desperate. No one else had agreed to the terms of employment and low pay after laying eyes on the farm. I needed the job — I had some savings, but was burning through it quickly with paint and furnishings for my new place — but I didn’t think I needed it this bad. Ten dollars an hour for the months of backbreaking labor it would take to whip this place into shape just wasn’t worth it.

  “You said you knew how to look after horses,” Mr. Myers said, his words harsh, like he was itching to catch me in a lie.

  “I’ve ridden them since I was about three,” I answered.

  “I want to start charging to stable horses on the farm. You could help with that.”

  I’d already been inside the barn and got out as quickly as I could. No light, no ventilation, and the damp smell of moldy decay, rusting farm equipment, and rotting hay. I hadn’t even wanted to sneeze in there for fear the roof would come down on my head. Mr. Myers had stayed outside, which I thought was telling. I wouldn’t feel comfortable sheltering a stray dog in that deathtrap of a barn, let alone horses. It would cost thousands of dollars just to get the condition of it from dangerous to poor. From the look of the house and the rest of the property, that was money Mr. Myers didn’t just didn’t have to spend.

  “I thank you kindly for your time,” I said, tipping my hat to him. “I’ll give you a call as soon as I sort through my options.”

  He grumbled at that, but I just bid him a good day and walked out to where I’d parked my car. I could feel him raking me with his squinty stare the whole way. My cell phone rang as I was getting into my car. I pulled it out of my pocket.
It was my sister.

  “Hey, Kasey,” I said.

  “Em, Daddy’s gonna barbecue. You wanna come over? It’s been a few days. You could tell us how your job search is going!”

  I didn’t have to think about it long. My stomach was yowling at me. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that hadn’t been much. I’d been too anxious over my two interviews. But neither of them had gone very well.

  “Sure,” I said. “Tell Daddy I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I pulled out of the driveway, minding the potholes, as soon as I hung up the phone. The drive to Daddy and Kasey’s took less than ten minutes. I was born and raised in Round Rock, so I felt the most at home in this county in general, and on this property in particular. Daddy had sold off a chunk of land after Mama died and set up some accounts for Kasey and me to use for college and a down payment on a house. Kasey hadn’t started school yet, so her money was just sitting untouched. I had a partial scholarship, which meant I could put more of the money down on a house after I graduated. I’d actually signed the paperwork three weeks before I had my degree in hand. Thanks to the money Daddy had put aside for me, I only had a small mortgage payment to make each month on top of my other expenses.

  I parked and went around back of the house. Daddy only barbecued on nice days, and he liked to eat out at the picnic table. I found him and Kasey at the table already, a steaming plate of grilled chicken in the center along with potato salad and baked beans, both store-bought, probably by Kasey. I slid into my seat.

  “How’s the job searching?” she asked, her light green eyes extra shiny in the sunlight. It had cooled off some after five, but not enough. It was still hot as hell out here.

  “Not as well as I’d hoped,” I admitted. “I went to one farm yesterday and two today. No one’s paying enough, and the farm I just came from looked like it’d been completely neglected for more than ten years.” I put some food on my plate while Daddy watched me, his blue eyes steady and thoughtful. He didn’t often say much, but you could always tell there was a lot going on behind those eyes.

  “You should just come work in Austin with me,” Kasey said. “The bar is so much fun some nights. And, we could carpool!”

  I shook my head. I’d tried food service once in high school, and it hadn’t gone well. “I have to be outside. I don’t feel comfortable anywhere else. And, I want to be around animals.”

  “Oh, there are animals at Murdock’s!” She brayed a girlish, high pitched laugh, covering her pink mouth, her eyes sparkling.

  “Not those kinds of animals,” I countered with a smile.

  “It’s a lot of fun, Em. And, you meet so many people. It can get wild, but that’s the good thing about it. No one day is ever like another.”

  “Working in a bar isn’t for me,” I replied. “I like animals. Horses, cows, chickens, whatever. It doesn’t matter. As long as it doesn’t talk.”

  Kasey giggled again and flipped her wavy locks over her shoulder. Her hair wasn’t quite as curly as it’d been the other day.

  Daddy cleared his throat, drawing my eyes back to his side of the table. “I found an ad in the Register this morning. A local rancher’s looking for a farmhand to manage the stables and care for his horses.”

  I tilted my head, my brow furrowing as I considered this. I pictured some old farmer around Mr. Myers’s age — late sixties creeping into early seventies and ornery as hell — dropping by the office of the Register to give them a handwritten job notice. It was what Daddy did any time he had an old piece of farm machinery to sell. This used to be a full-service farm when Mama was still living. There was a lot he could still get rid of, but he liked to keep a large garden and pasture land for our horses.

  “I cut out the ad,” Daddy said. “It’s in your room.”

  My old room, but it still had all my old furniture in it. I’d bought a queen-sized bed for my new bedroom. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  I wasn’t sure about the job. Another old farmer who didn’t know how to advertise for positions on the internet — even Mr. Myers had figured out how to do that, and his farm was falling down around his ears — but I needed something to start paying the bills before my savings ran out. I didn’t need much, but I needed something. “I’ll call tomorrow.”

  He nodded, but didn’t answer, just let his eyes stay pinned to mine for a few seconds before going back to his plate of grilled chicken and fixings.

  The silence didn’t stretch on for very long before Kasey jumped in to fill it with animated stories from her crazy shift at the bar last night.

  “I’m pretty sure I met my future husband last night, Em,” she announced and didn’t wait for me to even ask her to go on before she jumped into a tale of some tall, blond, tattooed stranger who’d wandered into Murdock’s. I smiled at all the right places and laughed at the end, like I always did, but I kept my gaze wandering back to Daddy so we could share those meaningful glances, the words passing between us in silent flashes that calmed me after such a disappointing day. Who knew? I thought. If things panned out, I might have a job come this time tomorrow evening.

  Chapter Five

  Pete

  Wednesday

  After I filled my belly in town at the Texan, I drove home and rested my feet on the porch, my paper in one hand and coffee in the other. Riley was curled up next to me, snoring peacefully. I looked up at the sound of an approaching vehicle, expecting Lacey, who came in anytime between eight and ten, depending on how late she stayed the night before.

  But it wasn’t Lacey. I didn’t recognize this car.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered to Riley, who didn’t even lift his scruffy head or twitch an ear. So much for a guard dog. Somebody could run up on the farm with a gun, and he wouldn’t even open his damned eyes.

  I set my paper aside and stood, leaning onto the porch railing to watch the sporty, bright-blue sedan approach. It looked mighty out of place here. The brightest thing was usually Lacey’s fire engine red truck. The car came to a stop, and a woman got out. She saw me watching from the porch and started my way.

  She was young, maybe twenty, twenty-two, with long brown hair worn loose down her back that swung when she walked. As she got closer, I could see the bottom few inches had a reddish tint to them that looked natural. She was dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but the jeans hugged her curves, and I found myself staring hard at the sway of those hips as she walked up to the house. She moved with an easy, confident grace that was hypnotic to watch.

  “Can I help you?” I called out.

  She stopped right in front of me, looking up to stare me in the face while I looked down to stare into hers. She had blazing green eyes and clear, tanned skin.

  “I came about the job,” she said, her voice firm and as confident as her walk. “The one posted in the Register.”

  I grinned. I’d just won that bet with Lacey. She’d put up five dollars, betting me that no one under seventy would answer that ad in the paper.

  “Can I speak to whomever placed the ad?” she asked.

  My grin got wider. I must’ve been the only person under thirty who had no use whatsoever for technology. I didn’t have a computer, a web page, or any social media accounts. The only reason I had a cell phone was because Lacey’d forced me into it. But I didn’t do a thing with it besides make and receive calls.

  “You’re looking at him,” I said.

  Her dark eyebrows scrunched together slightly before smoothing out again. I couldn’t read her expression. It was serene and pleasant enough to look at, but it didn’t tell me anything. This girl was a mystery. I liked mysteries.

  I stepped down off the porch to shake her hand. “My name’s Pete Gains.”

  She shook my hand with a firm grip, her face not giving me one damned hint as to what she was thinking. “I’m Emma Flowers.”

  “Nice to meet you, Emma. Can I show you around?”

  “Sure,” she said, nicely enough, though she didn’t smile. She handed me a single sheet of paper. “Here�
�s my resume.”

  I folded it up and stuck it in my back pocket without giving it a glance. “Thanks.” I directed her to the barn first, and we walked the few hundred yards from the main house to the stables.

  “I have ten horses on the property right now, one I just brought home last weekend. Do you have experience with horses?”

  She nodded once, still exuding that easy confidence, her green eyes meeting mine without blinking. “My daddy raised us with horses. I’ve been riding since before I could read.” She didn’t say any of this in a prideful way. It was what it was. I liked that, too.

  I took her inside the barn. It smelled like fresh hay in here, which was my favorite thing about it. The horses stuck their heads out of the stalls as we approached, as curious as I was about the new arrival. Emma Flowers. I liked the sound of that name nearly as much as I liked the look of the woman walking beside me.

  “Two of these are mine, but the rest I raise, train for racing or riding, and sell,” I said as we walked down the alleyway between the stalls. The horses watched us, keen for treats, whinnying and stamping their feet. They were due to be fed in about thirty minutes, whether Lacey was here or not.

  “We turn over more than a dozen horses a year. That and hay sales keep the ranch going. We’re doing better than alright, actually, but I’d like to expand. The trainer and I can’t keep caring for the horses and the stable ourselves. It’s too much work.”

  Emma’s pretty eyes wandered over the tidy interior of the barn, the clean stalls, fresh buckets of water, the clear run from one entrance of the barn to the other. Lacey and I busted our asses to keep this place clean, scrubbing out stalls and surfaces in between caring for the horses and baling hay. It was hard work, but rewarding. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. But I couldn’t keep ignoring how much help we needed now that we were planning to expand the operation.