Wyatt's Pretend Pledge

by Liz Isaacson

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the floor in her rundown kitchen.

  “Mal?”

  She perked up with the addition of Skyler’s voice to her life. He appeared at the corner, concern on his face. Relief crossed his fine features, but Mal couldn’t speak. The appearance of him in her apartment—somewhere he’d only stood outside of—felt like a direct answer to her earlier plea.

  “There you are.” He knelt in front of her. “What’s going on? Are you hurt? Why didn’t you go to work?”

  She just shook her head, her face cracking from all the dried tears. She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want him to see the yellow paper.

  “Mal.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re scaring me.”

  With numb fingers, she picked up the yellow paper and handed it to him. He kept his eyes on hers for an extra beat, and then he looked down at it.

  “Oh.” He exhaled the same way she had earlier, and he balled up the paper in one fist. “Come on. Let’s get you up. This calls for ice cream.”

  She protested when he put his hands on her body, though she’d dreamed of holding his hand. Kissing him. Spending time with him that extended beyond the careful box of friendship he’d put her in.

  “I don’t want ice cream,” she said, finally getting her voice to work. Her foot slipped on another piece of mail that had fallen to the floor when she had, and Skyler steadied her, pressing her into the counter behind them.

  Time froze, and Mal looked up into those dark eyes that had sparked attraction at her before. Maybe he didn’t feel it too. Maybe he was just better at hiding his feelings. Maybe she should just kiss him and get it out of the way.

  She did that, practically lunging at him and matching her mouth to his. A strangled sound came from his throat, but Mal slid her hands up his arms to his face, and his surprise softened into acceptance.

  And then he was kissing her back. Really kissing her back, one hand burning into her hip and the other burying itself into her hair as he kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.

  Chapter Thirty

  Skyler had lost his blasted mind. And now he was on a runaway train called Kissing Mal Felt Great, and he couldn’t stop.

  She was the one who finally got control of herself and broke the kiss she’d started. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was. I’m just all over the place today.” She squirmed away from him, and Skyler stood panting at the counter, unable to move.

  “I missed my shift. Did I lose my job?” She gave a startled cry, swiped up her purse, and headed for the front door. “I have to call Hillstone.”

  “Mal,” he said, finally gaining some reason to his brain. “Wait.”

  “I can’t wait. I’m an hour late for work.”

  “Hillstone called me,” he said. “When you didn’t show up. He said he hoped you were okay, and not to worry about coming in.” Why couldn’t he look anywhere but at her mouth? Why did he want to kiss her again?

  And not just kiss her but take her down that short hall to her bedroom and show her he could make this day better for her. His mother would be so disappointed he had thoughts like that, not that he’d ever acted on them.

  But he still felt like there was something wrong with him for wanting Mal as much as he did.

  “Hillstone called you?” She seemed frantic, looking from him to her phone and back.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And you’re a lot more than an hour late. More like three hours. He’s really worried about you.”

  “I’ll call him.” She lifted the phone to her ear and looked somewhere past Skyler. Foolishness filled him, when only a few minutes ago he’d been worried about Mal too. It wasn’t like her not to be exactly where she said she’d be, exactly when she said she’d be there.

  He knew she worked too hard, but he also knew she had to. She had no financial support from her family back in Mexico, and she’d been working to support herself, pay her tuition, keep her car running, and pay her bills by herself. She’d recently gotten the job at Sips, and he hated watching her work herself into the ground.

  He looked around her apartment, where she’d never invited him, and he wanted to buy the house and bulldoze it. People shouldn’t live like this, with peeling walls and threadbare carpet. Especially Mal.

  He wasn’t exactly sure when Mal had gone from friend to love interest, but it had definitely happened. And before she’d thrown herself at him and kissed him. The inferno that had started in his core and spiraled out of control after only one stroke of her mouth against his still burned in his gut.

  “Okay, thanks,” she said, and Skyler looked at her. She lowered the phone, and the general panic that hung in the air seeped away. “I don’t need to go in.” Her voice sounded like a melody to Skyler, and he fisted his fingers.

  That was his physical response to trying to keep his feelings contained. He’d been dealing with them for months, and most of the time, he was in complete control.

  Mal looked at him now, though, and Skyler skidded. Every muscle tensed again, but he had no idea what to say.

  She sighed and set her purse down. “So, this is my place.” She put a smile on her face, and it could’ve lit up Time Square at Christmas. “Should we sit and talk for a minute?”

  “All right.” He stepped around the couch separating them and sat. Mal took her time coming over, and she sat on the other end of the sofa. “What are—?”

  “About that kiss—oh.”

  “You go ahead,” he said, because he wanted to talk about the kiss too.

  “No, you go.”

  There were too many things to talk about, and he couldn’t just blurt out the things revolving in his mind. Could he?

  “I was just going to ask you what you were going to do about the green card thing.” He gestured in the vague direction of the kitchen. “I mean, it says there’s a hearing. Are you going to go?”

  “You have to go,” she said. “If you don’t, it’s bad.”

  “You’ve been before?”

  She nodded, her eyes on her hands now as her fingers twined around each other in her lap.

  “So we’ll go,” he said. “Tell them how you’re working two jobs and going to school.”

  “I told them all that.” She shrugged and sniffed. “Well, I only had the one job at the time.”

  Skyler knew nothing about immigration laws, and he suddenly wished he’d been studying law instead of accounting and business. “Mal,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”

  She lifted her eyes to his, and Skyler felt the heavens open. “Please,” he said. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll help you.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  There were so many reasons why, and Skyler struggled to find one that wouldn’t give away too much.

  You already kissed her like your life depended on it, he thought.

  “Because, I like you, and I want to help you.” He hoped she understood what he really meant. “Because what just happened in the kitchen, I want to do again.” Heat filled his face, and his heart beat terribly fast in his chest, a betrayal beat against his mind.

  He honestly wasn’t sure which one was leading right now.

  “I need money,” she said. “I need to get my car fixed, and I need to hire an attorney.” She exhaled and reached up to brush her hair out of her face. Skyler remembered what it was like to fist his fingers in all that glorious, dark hair, and his blood heated again.

  “I have a lot of money,” he said, very quietly, focusing on the carpet in front of him. And he used it, sure. More than any of his brothers, he knew that. But he still had nine figures in his bank account, and if he couldn’t use it to help a friend, what was it all for?

  “Okay,” Mal said, and his gaze shot to hers.

  “Okay? I was expecting you to argue with me.” Like she had before. In fact, she’d never let him pay for one thing, not even a soda out of a machine after class.

  She lifted both hands in a what do you expe
ct? gesture. “I’m desperate.” Her voice broke. “I might be deported, and I’ll need a car to get back to Mexico.”

  “I don’t want you to be deported.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  His mind whirred. He needed an hour in front of his computer. “What can we do?”

  “I will meet with an immigration attorney,” she said. “If you’ll pay for it, I’ll be in your eternal debt.”

  Skyler smiled, because while Mal was certainly in turmoil, she knew how much he liked saying things like “I’ll be in your eternal debt.”

  “Let’s go to dinner,” he said. “And talk some more.”

  He once again expected her to decline, but she stood up and said, “Thank you, Skyler. I’m starving, and I don’t have anything to eat here.”

  His heart twisted in his chest, and the male, overprotective side of him wanted to shield her from everything bad in her life. He put his arm around her and drew her into his side. “You should’ve told me sooner.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That you needed money. That you were living somewhere like this.” Embarrassment filled him. What had she thought of his apartment—somewhere she’d been countless times before as they studied for tests, hung out, watched movies, or had coffee after they’d run six miles?

  What a fool he’d been. Though he knew poverty existed around him, he hadn’t known she was living in it.

  She didn’t answer, and Skyler took her hand in his as he led her to his truck. Maybe a denied green card was the answer to his prayers, though he hadn’t really been saying a whole lot of those lately.

  He had been wondering how to transition from friends to more-than-friends with Mal for months now, and he’d done a terrible job at it. He knew better than most that repressing his feelings resulted in an explosion.

  And if you get close to her, he thought as he started his truck and backed out of her driveway. You’ll have to tell her all about those bombs in your life.

  The next afternoon, Skyler leaned back in his desk chair. The heat blew in his luxury apartment, and he had plenty to eat. His bed probably cost more than Mal’s car, and nothing in the world seemed quite right.

  He’d been reading about immigration laws, student visas, conditional green cards, permanent green cards, and immigration hearings for the past couple of hours. His mind was full, and his heart beat in a strong rhythm.

  And he had an idea.

  He’d always said he wouldn’t get involved with another woman again, and this was actually the perfect way to make sure that didn’t happen.

  He needed to marry Mal. They were great friends. He could keep things platonic now that he’d released the sexual tension that had been building inside him for a while.

  Then his family wouldn’t ask questions. His mother wouldn’t look at him with sad eyes. And Mal would get to stay in the US.

  He picked up his phone, wondering if she was working that afternoon. He dialed her, a yawn pulling through his chest. They’d been out late the night before, as neither one of them seemed like they wanted to leave the other.

  He hadn’t kissed her again, and it was fine. He was okay. He could do this.

  “Hey,” she said when she picked up. “I’m on break and have about six minutes.”

  “Oh, I only need sixty seconds,” he said. “Hear me out.”

  “Okay,” she said, plenty of doubt in her voice.

  “I think we should get married,” he said. After that, his words rushed in a stream as he explained why and what they could show the immigration judge. “At the very least, they’ll give you a twelve-month extension while they look into the legalities of the marriage.”

  “Skyler,” she said, frustration heavy in both syllables. “Those types of marriages rarely work. They see through them.”

  “Ours will,” he said. “They don’t know how long we’ve been dating. They won’t know when I proposed. We could’ve been planning to get married for weeks now.”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Everyone knows we’re friends. Even my brothers know I go running with you. No one will be surprised.”

  Except him.

  Oh, and his whole family. His vision turned white as he thought about showing up with Mal out of the blue and saying, Hey, everyone, meet my wife.

  Silence poured through the line, but Skyler had said his sixty seconds’ worth of stuff. Now it was up to her.

  “You know what?” she asked. “I’m feeling crazy today. Let’s give it a shot.”

  Skyler thought about all the things he’d read with just a few quick searches. He knew there were consequences that went all the way to fraud if someone determined their marriage wasn’t real.

  “Okay,” he said. “But it’s going to need to happen quickly. Your hearing is the second week of January, and we need to be married and living blissfully together by then.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “It takes three days to get a marriage license in the state of Texas.” He took a deep breath. “So, what are you doing after class on Thursday?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Wyatt groaned as his alarm went off. He’d been getting up early, staying up late, traveling, smiling, waving his hat, and signing autographs for two months now. He was in the last leg of his tour, and he’d arrived in Philadelphia last night. Late, late last night.

  Really this morning, and he had a set time of five-thirty a.m.

  He’d slept for three hours, and all he could do now was pray that the makeup artists at the Digital Shopping Channel could make him look good. He showered, dressed in the most popular shirt of his western wear line, carefully perched his signature cowboy hat on his head, and left his room.

  Jim waited in the living room of the suite they shared, and he nodded to the mug on the small dining table there.

  “Bless you,” Wyatt said as he picked up the mug. He found a few pills next to the coffee, and he swallowed them with his first swig of the brew.

  “It’s two hours this morning,” he said. “Then we’re done for the day. So a nap is in your future. We don’t leave for Helena until tomorrow morning.”

  Wyatt nodded, though he’d read through his itinerary. That had changed about him in the time since he’d left the rodeo. And maybe some things Marcy had said had prompted that change.

  He needed to listen more. He could do that.

  He needed to sacrifice what he wanted for her. Or others. He could do that.

  This early morning call to the set proved it.

  No, he told himself. This tour was about him, and him alone. If he’d have demanded a different film time, they would’ve given it to him. He didn’t want to be that person, that beast who “did what he wanted to do,” no matter what.

  While he rode the circuit, he relied on Jim to tell him where to be and when. And he usually showed up. The keyword there was usually, and this time, Wyatt was determined to show himself and his manager that he could well, manage his own affairs.

  So he knew what time he needed to get up. He knew where he was supposed to be, and when, and in fact, he’d already checked in for his flight tomorrow morning.

  “You should go home for the weekend,” Wyatt said. “I can get myself to Helena, and we don’t have an event until Monday night. You could have two nights in your own bed.” Wyatt glanced at his manager, and really the only friend he felt like he had at the moment. Even Momma’s texts had slowed, and Wyatt wondered if Texas had floated away from the rest of the country.

  It felt like it.

  “Bertie would like it,” Wyatt said as Jim looked at his phone.

  “She would,” Jim said.

  “Then I’ll buy you a ticket,” he said. “Let me grab my laptop.”

  “I can buy my own ticket.”

  “I know.” Wyatt got up, a twinge of pain shooting down to his knee. Winter was definitely coming in Philadelphia, which was much farther north than Texas, and Wyatt wished it was him returning home to spend a coup
le of nights in his own bed.

  The problem was, he didn’t know which bed that was.

  Yes, you do, he told himself. He wouldn’t be returning to Marcy’s for anything except his clothes and toiletries. His desktop computer in her office. He had just enough time to buy a ticket for Jim, and then they went downstairs to the car waiting to whisk them off to the set.

  A woman dressed in an expensive skirt suit met them at the door, all smiles and handshakes. She offered food, coffee, tea, anything Wyatt wanted. She seemed flushed by the time she led him onto the set where they’d film him segment.

  “Oh, wow,” he said, pausing to take in the display. They’d decked out one of their studios in everything cowboy. And not just cowboy. Texas cowboy—and yes, to Wyatt, there was a difference.

  “It’s perfect,” he said, smiling at Georgia. “Just beautiful.” His hats lined the back wall, and the shirts were stacked just-so on the counter. His WW—Wyatt Walker—brand sat in the center of the back wall, and Georgia went on to explain that it would be on the screen the whole time too.

  “So you’ll do the shirts first,” she said. “Then the hats, and we have children coming as well. And then, we’ll reveal the belts.”

  “Do you have them?” Wyatt asked. The DSC had signed a contract with Wyatt to be the first to reveal the new item in his western wear line—belts. They came in black and brown, and the buckle could easily be changed for anything else, including championship buckles from the rodeo.

  “They’re right over here.” Georgia stepped onto the set, and Wyatt followed her. The sight from this side of the camera was much different, as there were no wires or cords, no chairs, no people bustling about.

  And boy, were the lights hot, and he hadn’t even started performing yet.

  Georgia pulled out a box that looked like it had been made with wood, which of course, it was. “That’s nice,” he said.

  “Yes, each belt comes in a signature storage box,” she said. “Which you’ll sign on camera at least three times.”