Fake Marriage Box Set (A Single Dad Romance)

by Claire Adams

  I closed my eyes, relishing the sound of Pete’s breathing evening out as he fell asleep and the feeling of his heartbeat against my back. Soon after, I fell asleep, too, not giving my empty hotel room another thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Pete

  Monday

  I was just finishing up my second cup of lukewarm coffee when Emma’s car pulled off the country road and came down the driveway. I couldn’t help the grin that sprang to my lips. Nothing made me as happy as watching that girl arrive in the morning. I had to stop myself from begging her not to leave at the end of the day. After the weekend, maybe she wouldn’t have to go home every night.

  She walked over to the house, a small brown bag in one hand. She lifted it as she climbed the steps up to the porch. “I brought breakfast.”

  I smiled wider. “That was sweet of you.”

  “I cut some biscuits last night before bed and fried an egg and some sausage this morning before I came out here.” She reached into a bag and tossed me a foil-wrapped breakfast sandwich. She only lived a few minutes up the road, so the meal was still warm. I’d never been to her place, come to think of it. Maybe we could break in her bed sometime soon.

  “Thanks,” I said. I tore back the aluminum foil and dug in, moaning at how good it was. She’d melted cheese over the egg, too. I wasn’t used to someone cooking for me unless I went to the Texan.

  She knelt down to where Riley was lying down. “I even brought something for old Riley.” She took a sausage patty out of the bag, wrapped in a napkin. He actually lifted his head for that. She fed it to him, laughing at how quickly he devoured it. “I think he liked it!”

  I laughed, too, covering my mouth to keep from spitting out a chewed up chunk of my breakfast.

  She sat in the only other chair on the porch and took out her own sandwich.

  “Want some coffee?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m good.”

  We sat in companionable silence for a while, each of us working on our sandwiches. It was nice. I liked that we didn’t have to talk to feel comfortable around each other. Lacey and I had that, but it was different. I’d never had it with a girl I dated. Nothing had ever felt this easy and natural.

  “We had ourselves one hell of a weekend,” I said as soon as I finished. I crushed the foil in my hand, pressing it into a ball.

  “We sure did,” she agreed, smiling over at me. “I haven’t had that much fun in a long time.”

  “I know what you mean. That night in the hotel. Holy shit.”

  She giggled prettily, and I wished I could see the exact look in her eyes at that moment. I’d gotten the chance to study them close up, exactly the way I’d wanted to when she’d first started on the farm. That close, you could see flecks of darker green close to the pupils, which explained why it felt so intense when she stared at you.

  “That was probably my favorite part,” she said. “After the funnel cakes.”

  I slapped my leg, laughing so hard I expected my stomach to split wide open. I’d treated her to a funnel cake at the rodeo, and you’d have thought the girl had never had one before. I swore her pupils dilated and everything. Kissing the powdered sugar from her lips had been better than the funnel cake itself. We’d had to go back for a second one, me laughing so hard I couldn’t help her finish it. Not that she’d needed my help. The girl could eat. It was another thing I liked about her. She didn’t trouble herself over calories or gaining weight.

  “I love those damned things,” she said, grinning.

  That got me going again, laughing harder than before so I had to lean over and curl my arms around my stomach to keep from falling out of my chair. She watched me, giggling a little herself, but mostly just shaking her head.

  “You’re so damned silly, Pete Gains.”

  She didn’t know the half of it, but I liked that it didn’t rub her the wrong way. That had happened a lot in the past with other girls. They found me funny at first, but it got old in a hurry.

  I tilted my head back, resting it on the chair, just basking in the morning, my girl next to me, and everything feeling right with the world. I hadn’t been this happy in a long time.

  It wasn’t to say I hadn’t been happy since Daddy passed, but there’d always been sadness just a few inches behind it, keeping me from really enjoying whatever was going on in my life. Now the only sadness I felt was at knowing Daddy would never get to meet Emma. Or our children. Shit. I kept doing that, jumping way ahead of myself. If I started telling Emma I loved her and couldn’t wait to start a family, raising our kids on this ranch the way I’d been raised, she’d run screaming for the hills and never look back. I knew what I wanted and had for a while now, but I needed to wait for her to get there in her own time.

  “Lacey’s gonna start teaching me how to train the horses the way she does,” Emma said. “I can run them around barrels, maybe not as fast as she can, but if I can help her, I’d like to.’

  “That’s great,” I said. It warmed my heart to see the two people who meant the most to me in this world getting along. “I’ve got an idea about how to spend the sunrise.”

  She turned to glance at me, her dark eyebrows lifted high.

  “I’ve never taken you around the property. I know you’ve ridden around with Lace, but I want to give you the grand tour.”

  “Okay,” she said with a smile.

  We left Riley sleeping off his breakfast on the porch and walked out to the equipment and storage barn beyond the stables. I rode the trailer out of the building and paused to let her climb up next to me. I already knew better than to offer my hand. She knew her way around a farm and didn’t need my damned help, or so Lacey’d said when I complained that Emma always looked at me sideways if I tried to help her with something around the ranch. She went off on me about feminism and how I needed to get with the times. But it wasn’t my fault Daddy raised me to be a gentleman.

  We rode out to the far field where I’d been baling hay to sell in town. I pointed out the northern boundary of the property.

  “Daddy bought the two farms around us when the families pulled up their stakes and left Round Rock behind. That added another hundred acres to what he already had.” I steered us around the field to an overgrown portion of grass that I sorely needed to mow today before I did anything else. “My parents used to grow a lot more than just hay. But I don’t recall Daddy growing a thing out here in all the years I was a kid. I mostly just keep it mowed. I could bring the horses out here, but the last time I did, Lacey and I had a bitch of a time getting them corralled again.”

  Emma giggled, probably at the thought of Lacey blowing her top, which she did pretty regularly when I was around. Like most brothers and sisters, we could get along great or fight like cats and dogs.

  We circled around back of the overgrown field, driving the long way around the western side of the house and back to the storage barn. I didn’t want the drive to end, but I could see Emma getting antsy in the seat next to me. She was snuggled in close, her shoulder and leg pressed into mine as her eyes roamed the property.

  “If I don’t get those horses fed soon, they’ll be screaming,” she said. She kept doing that — reading my mind.

  “What if I just kept driving and didn’t let you get off?”

  She looked up at me with narrowed emerald eyes, her smile as bright as the sun rising over yonder. “You think I’ve never jumped from a moving tractor before?”

  I had to laugh at that. I couldn’t quite get used to the sharp edges of her attitude. Just when I thought I had her figured out, she knocked me flat again. I loved it.

  I dropped her off at the stables and because we were still alone, she gave me a soft kiss on the cheek.

  “See you after work,” she said and jumped off the tractor. I watched her swinging hips as she walked to the sliding door. Once she went inside, cutting off the view, I got to work. That back field wasn’t going to mow itself, I told myself.

  Emma had to
leave a little early that evening to make dinner for her daddy and sister, so I stayed working until just before dark, ending the day dripping in sweat. I walked up to the house, ready for a shower and an early night. Lacey was waiting on me, her feet up on the porch railing and a cold beer in her hand. She handed me one, and I reworked my plan for the evening. Beer, shower, scrounge something easy for dinner, then bed.

  I sat down, screwed the top off my bottle, and clinked necks with Lacey. I took a nice long swallow before pulling off my hat and wiping the sweat from my brow with a damp handkerchief. Nothing beat the taste of a cool beer after a day of working hard out in the sun. I closed my eyes, just enjoying the taste and the breeze drying the sweat on my skin. The only thing that could make the evening better was having Emma here. But I’d take Lacey, too.

  “I was pleased with the rodeo,” she said.

  I opened my eyes and swung my head over to look at her. But she was looking out at the property line, her beer resting on her thigh.

  “I was, too,” I said, and took another swallow of my beer. “You did great racing. How much did you bring home?”

  “A thousand,” she said. “Not too shabby for a few minutes’ work.”

  “No shit.” I laughed, shaking my head. “I’d take that damned near any day.”

  “You could compete anytime you liked.”

  We both knew there was no way in hell I could do that. Not that I hadn’t tried a few events as a kid. I just didn’t have what it took. I could ride and rope, but my patience was in pitifully short supply. It didn’t just take time to get as good as Lacey was — I had all the time in the world here on the ranch — it also took dedication and focus. I’d never been able to focus on a thing in my whole damned life. If I had to sit still or knuckle down, that thing just wasn’t for me.

  I snorted at the thought of me riding and roping in the rodeo. “Nobody competes like you do, Lace. We only need one rodeo star on the farm.”

  She laughed at that, shaking her blonde head. “I don’t know about star, but I’ll take that money, that’s for damned sure.” She took a swig of her beer. “I was a little surprised we sold both Max and Tucker.”

  “Yep,” I said. “I couldn’t turn that money down.”

  “I know that. It just puts us low, is all. And with Emma here, we can take on a few more horses if we wanted.” She turned to glance at me, her dark eyes even darker in the disappearing sunlight. “Did you ever talk to that rancher about taking a look at the foals he has available?”

  I nodded, and Lacey looked suspicious. I wasn’t good at getting things done if it wasn’t on the farm — they just slipped right from my mind. But I’d actually taken care of this. Emma’d reminded me a few times, so I couldn’t really take the credit, but I didn’t plan on telling Lacey that.

  “Actually, I did. You can drive out there any time this week.” I took a few seconds to bask in the cool glow of her blatant disbelief before continuing on. “I’d like you to take a good long look at the five or so he has available and decide which’ll be the best for what we need. I trust your judgment.”

  She made a haughty face, her eyes wide and lips pressed together.

  “I trust your judgment on horses,” I corrected, grinning as her face fell, setting into the pissed off expression she saved just for me. But she couldn’t hold back her giggling. We’d been ribbing each other for more than twenty years. I didn’t see a reason to stop now.

  I sat back in my seat, still grinning, and turned to face night falling over the front of the property.

  “You want to grab dinner tomorrow?”

  Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate to agree to rustling up some grub together, but that goddamned bug she’d put in my ear last week was still giving me all kinds of trouble.

  I couldn’t figure out how to bring Lacey up around Emma. I was constantly worried about saying the wrong thing that would make our relationship sound less like siblings and more like potential lovers. It was making things really difficult for me on the farm. Emma didn’t seem too concerned about Lacey and me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I did just one thing that rubbed her the wrong way, I was going to end up needing to choose between them. I’d do damned near anything to avoid that.

  “I got to check with Emma,” I said, keeping my eyes well away from hers. I could feel her staring at me, those brown eyes searching hard for evidence of a boldfaced lie. I didn’t lie to her much, but whenever I did, she knew right away. “But I’m pretty sure we’re having dinner tomorrow.”

  I could see Lacey shrugging from the corner of my eye. “Let me know. Seems like forever since we grilled some burgers.” She didn’t say another word on the matter, just sank into her chair a little more as she took a swallow of her beer.

  I cursed myself up and down for lying to her. I shouldn’t have to do this kind of shit. Emma wasn’t the type to get jealous. And Lacey and I were best friends.

  After all the time Emma and I had spent together and how I was feeling for her — the same way I hoped she was feeling for me — I should be able to hang out with Lacey whenever I wanted without worrying about how it looked. I almost told her that we could eat together tomorrow, but I’d already told that damned lie.

  “Maybe we can see about the next day,” I said.

  “I got plans Wednesday,” she replied. She didn’t seem too bothered about it either way.

  I relaxed, but still felt like I was stabbing her in the back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Emma

  Thursday

  I was getting the horses put back in their stalls for the night with Lacey, both of us dripping sweat from a hard afternoon of riding. I’d ridden Elroy for the first time, and it was like trying to herd a cat. He kept jumping around and straining against the reins. I didn’t know how Lacey would get him to the point where she could race him around three barrels the way she had Max. But since she’d trained Max, too, I had complete faith in her.

  I closed the door to Lucy’s stall, the little pinto insisting on another scratch behind the ear before she’d let me wander off. Lacey had kept us rolling with laughter all afternoon with silly stories about her and Pete growing up on the farm. Right now she was in the middle of telling me about the time Pete fell off the tractor and had to chase it across the far field while she watched, wailing with laughter.

  “You should’ve seen him running after it!” she said, giggling so hard tears were pouring down her cheeks. “His daddy was screaming at him to get after it, but laughing, too. I couldn’t even stand, I was laughing so hard.” She wiped at her eyes as she shook her head.

  I was giggling, too. “How’d he fall off the tractor?”

  Her dark eyes went wide, her shoulders shaking with the force of her laughter, so it took a few seconds for her to get the words out. “That was the best part! He saw me and his daddy talking out behind the barn and yelled out to us, asking if we wanted to see something neat.” She wiped her leaking eyes again. “Right after he stood up on the seat, the tractor must’ve hit a bump that made it go off course. He fell right off into the grass and was damned lucky not to get run over by the rear tire. Me and his daddy just busted up.”

  We laughed together again while the horses whinnied, not quite knowing what to think of the sight of us bending to hold our stomachs. I could easily believe that Pete was silly enough to do something like what she’d just described.

  Once we straightened up and got busy putting the barn in order for the night, another feeling dropped into my stomach, making me uneasy. Mostly because I hadn’t felt anything like it before. As I walked to the tack room to put away saddles, pads, halters, and everything else we’d used with the horses all day, it occurred to me that I was jealous of Lacey, and not just a little bit.

  I hated the feeling. It was petty. She’d been nothing but nice to me. I relaxed a little, my stomach unclenching as I worked through it.

  I wasn’t jealous of her because I thought something was there between her and Pete
— I knew that wasn’t an issue. Not only had Pete and Lacey both told me that, but I could plainly see it in the way they acted around each other. Lacey kept after Pete the way she would an annoying younger brother, and Pete returned fire as often as he could. But the fact that she knew him so well — as well as I’d like to know him one day — rubbed me the wrong way.

  I couldn’t really control the feeling. I wanted to know everything I could about Pete Gains, and it burned me up that some other woman already did. I was determined not to make a big deal out of this. I knew Pete would tell me whatever I wanted to know about his past. I just wished I didn’t have to ask. I wanted to know everything already, like Lacey did. That was my issue, though, and I was prepared to deal with it without messing things up between me and Lacey or me and Pete.

  I’d just finished up in the barn when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my back pocket. It was Jack.

  “Hi, stranger,” I said, smiling.

  “Howdy, Em,” he replied. “I drove into town this morning to see my folks. You up for dinner tonight? We could hit up our local place.”

  Pete and I didn’t have plans until tomorrow. I stayed after work a few nights a week, but I liked having a night or two to myself, too.

  “That sounds great. You thinking the Round Rock Diner?” I asked. That had been our usual place back in the day, and it wasn’t far from my house. I needed to shower before I went anywhere else. Pete might not mind me stinky — hell, most of the time he stunk more than I did — but I didn’t want to inflict a day’s worth of sweat and dealing with horses on poor unsuspecting Jack.

  “That’s just what I was thinking. Is eight o’clock too late?” he asked.

  I glanced down at my watch. It was inching towards seven now. I’d stayed a little later than I’d planned, but Lacey and I’d had so much fun running the horses through their exercises. I loved that she was teaching me something new. I’d ridden horses for so many years. It was rare to learn a new task. I didn’t race or anything like that, but I could care for a horse with my eyes closed and one hand trapped behind my back.