by Liz Isaacson
“And why should he?” Skyler asked himself. Wyatt had been a cowboy billionaire even before he’d inherited part of Daddy’s money. Everyone in the rodeo scene adored him, and even more-so now that he had his own line of western wear.
He hadn’t had a failed business. He hadn’t had a girlfriend steal from him and cause the federal authorities to come asking questions about fraud and embezzlement.
He sighed as his thoughts always seemed to come back to that situation in Dallas. He wondered if there’d ever be a time when he didn’t think about all that had happened there and end up angry.
Or if he could possibly ever truly feel happy. He’d experienced some of it at the homestead at Seven Sons, he knew that. The ranch there seemed to have a dome around it that kept negative things out. And Skyler really liked going there.
He thought he was the brother wearing the black sheepskin, but at Seven Sons Ranch, everyone just accepted him. After his announcement yesterday before lunch, every single person had come over to hug him and Mal.
Yes, they’d been shocked. There were definite questions in Jeremiah’s eyes, and Momma’s, and out of all of them, Micah had seemed the most leery.
But he’d still said congratulations, hugged him and Mal, and not demanded to know the truth.
He’d have to tell him and Wyatt on Saturday, and the thought didn’t terrify Skyler. Someone should know. Someone who could help him know what to do.
At school here in Amarillo, Skyler felt like he knew what to do to be liked, to get someone to laugh at something he’d said, to get a woman’s number.
But with a marriage to Mal…he had no idea what he was doing.
Saturday breakfast is fine, he said. Here? Or are you going to make me drive to Three Rivers?
Three Rivers, Wyatt said. You’re not doing anything anyway.
Ditto Wyatt, Micah responded. Amarillo doesn’t have anything good for breakfast.
Skyler scoffed, because that was so false. But he smiled, didn’t argue, and said, Fine. Breakfast at ten on Saturday. No women.
No women, Micah said.
Wyatt took slightly longer to confirm the female-free breakfast date, but he did a few minutes later.
Skyler showered and changed his clothes, as he’d been wearing the same set for over twenty-four hours now. When he finally opened his bedroom door and went down the hall to the kitchen, he felt like he could face Mal again.
He sure did like kissing her and seeing her sitting on the couch in the living room, lifting a mug to her lips, actually made his heart lighten and start tap-dancing.
“Hey, pretty girl,” he said, bending over the back of the couch and placing a kiss on Mal’s cheek.
“Hey.” She sounded surprised, and Skyler wanted to kick himself in the teeth. She looked at him, but he turned and went into the kitchen to get his own drink. He wasn’t terribly fond of coffee though, as he wasn’t sure what was so alluring about the stuff. He drank it though, because it was normal. Common. And in some circles here in Amarillo, the trendy thing to do.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Pretend.”
“I’m not pretending.” But he kept his face turned away from her as heat rushed into it. Embarrassed heat. He poured himself a cup of coffee, stirred in sugar and cream, aware that Mal had gotten up from the couch and approached him.
“You’ve literally never said, ‘Hey, pretty girl,’ to me,” she said, frowning.
“You didn’t like it.” He nodded and stirred his coffee. “Got it.”
“It’s not that I didn’t like it,” Mal said, sighing. “Okay, look, we’ve got to talk.”
Talking. One of Skyler’s least favorite things to do.
“Okay,” he said anyway.
“I think we rushed into this marriage thing, because of my court hearing.” She groaned as she sat on the barstool at the kitchen peninsula. “I’ve got a charley horse.”
“Want me to rub it out?”
“Would you?” She looked at him with a hopeful look on her face, and Skyler smiled. A real smile. One that brought true happiness to his soul.
“Sure, get that lotion you like.” He held up one hand. “Wait. I’ll get it. Can you get back to the couch?”
“Yeah.”
Skyler went into the bathroom she used and found the lotion labeled Energy. Skyler could admit he enjoyed the citrus smell of it, with a hint of lavender.
Fine, maybe that was what the bottle said. But it smelled good.
He sat on the ottoman in front of Mal, and she lifted her foot into his lap. He’d rubbed out her charley horses in the past, but there was something sensual about the action this time. He kept his eyes down as he put lotion in his hand and started massaging it into her calf.
“Can I keep talking?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said.
“So I know we had a hurry-up marriage. But we’ve been living together for five weeks, and I feel like I know you less than I did when we were just friends.”
Skyler didn’t know what to say. She was probably right, because he’d retreated inside his tortoise shell the moment they’d said, “I do.”
There had been no honeymoon. They’d been married on a Thursday, and he’d helped her pack and move everything she owned on Saturday.
He’d put her name on the lease. He’d printed all the forms she needed to fill out to get a new driver’s license and the forms she should’ve filed but didn’t. He’d done anything he could to make it look like he and Mal had started to merge their lives. That their marriage was real.
He’d read a lot online, and it seemed like everything would be examined, from all angles, and he wanted to leave no stone untouched.
Why?
He’d asked himself that question a million times. And the truth was, he didn’t know, other than helping Mal felt like the right thing to do.
“So I think we should establish a few rules,” Mal said.
“Okay,” Skyler said.
“Inside these walls, we are who we are. We’re honest with each other in all things. Anything we’re worried about, we get to say. Anything we don’t like about the other, we can talk about.”
She flicked her foot, and Skyler looked up. “Skyler, you don’t have to pretend with me.”
Being real was something he longed for, and all he could do was nod.
“We’re messy, and sometimes we stink.” She smiled at him. “I mean, I can only imagine what your running shoes smell like, and it’s not good. And that’s okay.”
“Okay,” he said.
“You don’t have to go hide in your bedroom.”
Skyler’s heart jumped over itself. “Sometimes I need some time to myself after something stressful.”
“Fair enough.” She gave him another soft smile, and she really was beautiful with her big, brown eyes, all that dark hair, and her olive skin. “But you don’t have to then come out and be fake with me.”
“What if I think you’re pretty?” Skyler kept his hands moving along her calf, up and down and around. Mal was pretty—more than pretty. Beautiful.
“Do you?”
“Yes.” He looked at her. “I might be out of my mind here, Mal. But I really like you. I fought against a relationship with you for a long time, because well, just because.” That wasn’t entirely true. He knew the reason for the “because,” but he wasn’t ready to detail it for Mal. At least not right now.
“You’re thirty-five,” she said. “You’ve had girlfriends before.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “And I’m not really interested in love and marriage.” In fact, he pretty much thought they were both fake. Unattainable.
“Oh.”
“I mean, I wasn’t,” he said. “So I never asked you out. I never let myself do more than think you were beautiful and run with you and text you.”
“Do you think you could change how you feel about love and marriage?”
Skyler wanted to. His whole
soul ached to be able to feel normally about women again. Maybe with Mal….
He could only nod.
“Okay,” she said. “For full disclosure, I’ve had a crush on you for months now, even before you offered to solve my problems and support me through this.” She ducked her head and tucked her hair, and a powerful satisfaction moved through Skyler.
“Thanks for telling me,” he said. “I like you too, in case you haven’t figured that out.”
“I figured.” She grinned at him. “When you asked me out while we were lying in bed this morning.”
He chuckled. “There’s so much about this that’s awkward, isn’t there?”
“Not if we don’t want it to be.” She leaned forward. “And Sky, I don’t want it to be.”
“Me either,” he said, still massaging her calf. “I’m going to breakfast with my brothers on Saturday.”
“Oh? What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth,” he said. “I think they could help me.”
A panicked look marched across her face. “Skyler, I don’t think that’s wise. You said the immigration agents would interview family and friends.”
His morals began to battle. He didn’t want his brothers to have to lie for him. He didn’t want to lie to them.
“I think we need all the love and support we can get,” he said, trying to search for the right thing to do. Maybe his gut would tell him. But Skyler knew it wasn’t his gut that talked to him. His momma would be downright mortified if she knew he’d given God’s glory to his gut.
Skyler was mortified at that too.
He dropped his eyes back to her slender leg, trying to work through how he felt. It was impossible. Not something he could do in a few minutes.
“I don’t think that’s wise,” she said, gently pulling her foot back. “My leg feels much better. Thank you, Sky.”
He lifted his eyes to hers. “I like it when you call me Sky.”
Mal slid forward and touched her lips to his in a sweet kiss. “Just think about Saturday, okay? You’re smart, and I trust you.”
Skyler nodded. “Thank you, Mal.” He hadn’t felt very trustworthy since Shayla had stolen from him, skipped town, and left him to deal with the authorities on his own.
Bumbling, and shocked, and unsure of what to say, Skyler had narrowly escaped getting arrested. He’d been questioned multiple times, and the FBI agent he’d spoken to the most had given him a card and said, “Answer if I call, Mister Walker.”
Theron Oaks hadn’t called, thank the Lord above. In that moment, Skyler realized he needed to do a lot more thanking of the Lord above. And talking to Him. Pleading with Him. Finding out what God wanted him to do. Because if God wanted him to do something, Skyler knew the Lord would provide a way.
And he should enlist Mal in his endeavors.
“So,” he said. “Let’s talk about religion.”
“Religion?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
Chapter Three
Mal hadn’t been to church since she was thirteen years old. She cocked her head at Skyler, trying to see something in him she hadn’t seen before.
“Do you believe in God?” he asked. Just like that. Point blank.
“Yes,” she said, just as easily.
“I’ve never seen you go to church.”
“You either.” She wasn’t sure why her defenses were so high. It wasn’t like he was accusing her of something.
“I go when I go to Three Rivers,” he said, dropping his chin to his chest. “It’s kind of a family expectation.”
“If you believe, why don’t you go?”
Skyler looked at her, those eyes so open and so dark. He’d spent so much time deceiving others with those eyes, but Mal felt like she was once again seeing the man behind the mask.
“Honestly?”
“I think we’re to the point of being completely honest with each other, yes.” She crossed her arms and leaned back into the couch, suddenly too close to him. All she could think about was kissing him, and that didn’t seem super appropriate for their talk about religion.
“I had some…trying things happen in Dallas. I kind of lost my faith.” He drew in a big breath and took several long seconds to push it all back out of his lungs. “Not past tense. I have lost my faith.”
Mal nodded, because she knew what that felt like. A urgent curiosity wanted to ask him what had happened in Dallas. Until that moment, she hadn’t even known he’d lived in Dallas. The reminder that she barely knew him felt like a bucket of ice water to the face, and she blinked, blinked, blinked until her voice wasn’t quite so tight.
“But I’m thinking I’d like to go back to church,” he said, reaching for her hand. If he knew how tender and vulnerable such simple gestures made him, he probably wouldn’t do them. Or maybe he would. Skyler seemed to know exactly the power he held over women. Mal thought she’d done a good job of hiding all of her feelings for him, but now she wasn’t so sure.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Will you go to church with me on Sunday?”
Mal found herself nodding, though she’d had some trying things in her life too. They weren’t the reason she’d stopped going to church though. She supposed she’d just become too busy. Too focused on other goals in her life.
Which sounded ridiculous inside her own head. If there was anything she should focus on, it was her relationship with the Lord.
Maybe that’s why everything in your life is in ruins, she thought, and her throat tensed right back up.
Skyler stood up and stretched backward. “Great. I might go take a nap. That mattress really jacked up my back.” He groaned as he moved, finally leaning forward and placing a sweet kiss on her cheek that was too close to her mouth to be casual. “We’re still on for dinner?”
“Yes,” Mal said. He nodded, that sexy smile on his face, and headed back toward his bedroom. The moment the door closed, Mal relaxed. She wasn’t sure what that said about her—or Skyler—but she didn’t think it was good.
“Yeah, because you’re married to that man.” The impossibility of the situation hit her in that moment, as it had in others, and tears gathered in her eyes.
Her phone rang, and Julia’s name sat on the screen. Mal sniffed and pulled back on her emotions. Her younger sister would be able to hear them, even across the many miles between them. Mal had learned about her sister’s hound-like qualities from a young age. There was nothing Julia couldn’t sniff out, nothing she missed, nothing she didn’t know. And not just about everyone in their small village, but seemingly everywhere.
Mal swiped on the call, hoping her sister had some good news. “Hey, Julia,” she said as cheerfully as she could. She couldn’t believe it, but she was actually ready to do something with her life. She’d longed for a Saturday off, for an afternoon to herself. But now that she didn’t work and didn’t have anything to do, she still wasn’t happy.
“Oh, holy frijoles,” Julia said, already into the gushing. She could speak faster than any human alive, and Mal actually smiled at the level of drama in her voice. “You’ll never believe what just happened to Jorge.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” Mal said. She always found herself slipping back into a slightly more Hispanic accent when she spoke with her family. Almost like she was ashamed she hadn’t stuck more true to her roots, the way they all had.
“First, Mami wants me to say gracias for all the money you’ve been sending. It’s helped with Papi’s medicines so much.”
“Of course,” Mal said, leaning further into the couch and closing her eyes. She hadn’t told Skyler a single thing about how much money she sent back to Black Canyon, and how sometimes she resented it.
No wonder she’d stopped going to church. She had bad feelings about her own family. She wished she didn’t, but she didn’t know how to get rid of the toxic emotions.
“Second, Jorge just got proposed to!” Julia
shrieked and started laughing, as if getting engaged was the funniest thing on the planet.
Surprise streamed through Mal, if only because Jorge was as traditional as traditional got. He wouldn’t want his long-time girlfriend to propose to him. “Wow,” she said.
“And he said no!” Julia laughed again. “It was so funny. You should’ve seen his face. You’d have thought Valeria had just cursed him and all of our ancestors. Then he stomped out of the room, yelling something about how he had a plan and she couldn’t just ruin it.”
“Oh, wow,” Mal said, because she didn’t know what else there was. She missed her siblings in moments like this, because she’d love to be able to tell everyone to hang tight in the tiny kitchen where most of their conversations took place while she went to talk to Jorge.
Her family’s house in Mexico would fit inside Skyler’s apartment, but they were lucky to have it. The town of Black Canyon was actually one of the wealthier seaside towns in Mexico, due to the black coral reef that brought a lot of tourists. Her father’s family had started a restaurant in the area generations ago, and almost all Viera’s stayed and worked it. They needed people to serve, people to cook, people to fish, people to take care of the boats.
Mal had left to get an education, and the years had kind of just melted away.
Julia continued the story, and how Valeria had actually started crying, and Mama had made huevos rancheros to calm everyone down. That was her mother. Always trying to make everyone feel better with food.
No wonder Mal ran every day and considered everything she put in her mouth. She didn’t want to feed her feelings—she wanted to deal with them.
“Anyway.” Julia sighed, and Mal was tired after the conversation, and she’d only said a few things. “What’s new with you?”
Her eyes flew to the door where Skyler had disappeared. “Uh, not much,” she said.
“Well, you should see this new dog Paulo got. It’s so cute.” Julia went off again, this time talking about how hot her husband was, and how much they both loved this dog.