Make-Believe Marriage

by Pamela M. Kelley

  “Bob’s lunch special today is a sesame chicken stir fry with broccoli and a sweet chili sauce over quinoa. I’ve never had quinoa in my life.” The waitress shrugged, then added, “But people seem to be going crazy over it. Like all of Bob’s specials.”

  “Simon liked it,” Jaclyn said. “Beatrice, this is Cameron.”

  “Nice to meet you, Beatrice." Cameron smiled. "I’ll have the special.”

  “You can call me Bea. Anyone calls me Beatrice and I think I’m in trouble.” She picked up the menu and went off to put in Cameron’s order.

  “So, where were we?” Jaclyn asked and Cameron tried to remember all of her questions.

  “I’m good. Ethan is, too, and yes, both of us are planning to go to trivia this week.”

  “Excellent. And how’s the marriage? This is the last week of the month, I believe?”

  Cameron took a sip of her coffee and chewed her bottom lip for a moment before answering.

  “We’re getting along great. He’s good company and a good friend. He always has been. The month has actually gone by quickly. I’ll miss living at the ranch.”

  “Will you miss Ethan, too?” Jaclyn watched closely as Cameron tried to consider how best to answer. She finally just went with the truth.

  “Yes, I’m sure I’ll miss him.” She smiled sadly. “As much as I’ve been looking forward to getting my own place, I’ve gotten used to seeing him at the end of the day. I’ll miss that”

  “You don’t have to, though.” Jaclyn frowned. “The fairies are worried about the two of you.”

  “The fairies are?” Cameron had heard all the stories about Jaclyn and her conversations with the surprisingly astute fairies.

  “Well, sure. They’re worried that you’ll both make the wrong choice and miss what’s painfully obvious and right in front of you. The two of you are meant to be together. Don’t you think?”

  “Me and Ethan? I would never have imagined that. I’ve always just considered him a friend.”

  “Sometimes friendship can grow into something more meaningful, though. Who would you rather come home to at night? Ethan or that blond charmer, Blake Connors? He’s your usual type, I believe?”

  “He is. And we dated years ago. He wants to go out again when this month is up.” But the idea wasn’t nearly as appealing as it once was. And Jaclyn’s question was a good one. Given the choice, if she had it, she knew who she’d rather spend her evenings with. But did he feel the same way?

  Chapter 12

  Ethan was dreading Sunday and trying not to think about the possibility of Cameron leaving. It was Saturday night and he and Cameron were at Figs with all their friends. He’d just gone up to the bar to get a round of drinks. Blake was there talking to someone. Blake’s back was to Ethan, but he was talking loudly so he heard every word.

  “Yeah, I’m celebrating. Her temporary marriage is over tomorrow and she told me I could call her then and we would go out. She looks even better now than she did in high school.”

  “She’s a beautiful girl,” the other guy agreed. “It looks like she’s going to be making an offer on one of the condos we’re managing the sale of, too. That new development down by the lake.”

  “Those are sweet,” Blake said. “She mentioned that she’s dying to get her own place. I bet you’ll hear from her pretty quickly.”

  Ethan felt sick to his stomach. He knew Cameron had planned on buying a condo with the money from the house, but he didn’t realize that she and Blake had what sounded like pretty solid plans to get together. He knew they had a little history together and Blake did look more her type. Cameron had never given him the time of day before. Why would she start now? The closeness he’d been feeling must have been as temporary as their marriage. Just a factor of being in the same place at the same time.

  He carried the drinks back to the table where everyone was sitting and handed Cameron her cosmopolitan.

  “Thank you!” She smiled sweetly at him and his stomach tightened. He was going to miss that smile so much. She had no idea.

  He was quiet the rest of the night. Cameron glanced his way more than once and finally asked if everything was okay.

  He smiled to reassure her. “It’s fine. I’m just enjoying the music and our last night together,” he said softly. A strange look came into her eyes and she seemed to withdraw and excused herself to go to the bathroom. She returned a few minutes later, smiling brightly, and it seemed as though all was well. Cameron laughed with everyone, but toward the end of the night he could sense that she wasn’t as happy as she appeared and he asked if if she was okay.

  She answered the same as he had. “Everything’s fine. Just fine.”

  He glanced across the table at Tyler and Olivia. They were an item now and looked as though they’d been together for ages. They’d seen each other almost every night since their first dinner together. Ethan was happy for his friend. He’d never seen him like this before. He was completely head over heels in love. He wished it had been that simple with him and Cameron, but it wasn’t. And he kept thinking that it should be if there really was something there.

  He wanted to tell her how he felt, but something held him back. It would crush him completely if she rejected him again and said she just wanted to be friends. Sometimes he got the sense that she might want more, but it was so fleeting that he just wasn’t sure enough. She was hard to read.

  Ethan was very hard to read. Cameron couldn’t understand what was going on with him. He was in such a good mood earlier in the night and she’d hoped that they’d have a conversation when they got home about where they went from here. She wanted to tell him how she felt because she was pretty sure that she wanted to be more than friends with Ethan, as much as the idea surprised her. She hadn’t thought it was possible to fall for someone that she wasn’t initially attracted to. But as she’d spent time with him and got to really know him, he became so much more attractive. And now she couldn’t imagine how she ever thought that he wasn’t boyfriend material for her.

  His mood had shifted so dramatically, though, that it unnerved her. If he’d been at all interested, it seemed like maybe he was having some serious second thoughts? Or maybe he was sensing that she was interested, and he didn’t feel that way about her? He hadn’t tried to kiss her again since that one time, though they’d spent plenty of time together and she’d snuggled against him almost every night as they watched TV together. She felt her eyes grow damp as she thought about it. She was going to miss that.

  When they went inside, Ethan went into his office for a moment and came back holding a black folder. He looked both serious and sad as he handed it to her.

  “I might as well give this to you now. It’s midnight, and you’re earned it. It’s officially been one month.” He smiled as she opened the folder and saw the check for a hundred thousand dollars, addressed to her. “Now, you can go straight to your realtor tomorrow and put an offer in on that condo.”

  “Tomorrow is Sunday,” she said slowly.

  “Realtors work on Sunday. No reason to wait, right?”

  Cameron closed the folder and looked Ethan in the eyes. She was completely shaken by his abrupt attitude. It was almost like he couldn’t wait to be rid of her. She felt the tears coming and needed to get to her room as quickly as possible.

  “I’m really tired. I think I’m going to go up to bed.”

  He nodded. “It’s been a long night. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Cameron felt like she’d been hit by a truck the next morning. She’d only had two drinks all night, so the feeling wasn’t from alcohol. It was despair. She slowly eased herself out of bed, showered and slowly made her way downstairs, hoping that maybe she’d imagined it all and Ethan would be his usual sunny self when she saw him. But that wasn’t the case.

  He was sitting at the island, drinking coffee and doing something on his computer. He barely looked up when she walked into the room and his whole manner was cold and distant.

  “Good m
orning,” she said. “What are you working on?”

  “A spreadsheet, end of the month accounting stuff.”

  “That sounds fun,” she joked, hoping to get a smile out of him. But he said nothing, just tapped away on the keys while she made herself a coffee.

  She sighed. “I guess I’ll finish packing and then be on my way.”

  That got his attention. He looked up and his expression was unreadable. He was silent and finally said, “Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll help you get your bags into your car.”

  “Will do.” She’d been hungry when she came downstairs, but her appetite was gone and she finished her coffee quickly and went back upstairs to pack. She didn’t want to stay a moment longer if her presence wasn’t wanted and that’s what she was feeling. It was baffling and upsetting, and she was suddenly longing for the comfort of her own bed.

  She finished packing and tried to lug her heavy suitcase downstairs herself, but it was massive and she was struggling. Ethan was still sitting in the kitchen and jumped up when he saw her.

  “Let me get that.” He bounded up the stairs and lifted the suitcase as though it was full of feathers, which she found annoying. She went back into her room and grabbed her other bag and a box with her miscellaneous items, including the black folder with the check. She didn’t really have much there. But she hadn’t needed much.

  She met Ethan outside by her car and he put her suitcase in her trunk while she stashed everything else in her back seat.

  “So, I guess this is it then,” she said.

  He looked into her eyes then and leaned forward a little and she caught her breath. She could have sworn she felt something, saw a hint of what she was feeling in his eyes and that he was going to kiss her. But then he stood tall instead, and the moment passed. “I guess it is. Thank you, Cameron. It really means a lot to me that you agreed to do this.”

  “It worked out well for both of us. We both got what we wanted, right? You have your ranch and I—well I have this check.” She smiled brightly.

  “Are you off to see your realtor later today?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not in that much of a rush,” she laughed.

  “Right. Well, I guess I’ll see you at trivia, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  Cameron got into her car and drove away. As soon as she reached the end of the long winding driveway and turned onto the road, the tears were coming so fast and so furiously that she started to hiccup. She hadn’t had an ugly cry like this for as long as she could remember.

  By the time she got home, she thought she was all cried out, but it turned out that there was a lot more waterworks left. She spent the rest of the day doing laundry and putting all of her clothes away. She laughed when she saw herself in the mirror. No one could call her beautiful now. She was a sniveling mess. Her eyes were all puffy and her nose was raw and red from crying. She made herself a cup of tea, opened a bag of Milano chocolate mint cookies and curled up on her sofa with them. After inhaling half a dozen cookies and most of the tea, she felt exhausted and pulled a soft knit throw over her and closed her eyes.

  She dozed for a while until the sound of her cell phone ringing woke her up. She glanced at the caller ID and sighed. It was Blake. She thought about letting the call go to voicemail but then decided a bit of his charming attention might lift her spirits.

  “Hi, Blake.”

  “Hi, beautiful. It’s a lovely day for a divorce, don’t you think?” He sounded so cheerful that it made her laugh.

  “How are you, Blake?”

  “I’m fantastic. Now that your month is up, that is. Have you gone to see your realtor yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “I ran into him the other night at Figs. Said I wouldn’t be surprised if you were in today or tomorrow to make an offer on one of those condos you had your eye on.”

  Cameron sat up straight. “You were at Figs Saturday night?”

  “Yeah, I met some friends at the bar. We never made it into the back room to hear the bands. We didn’t stay long there and ended up going to another bar.”

  “Did you happen to mention anything to the realtor about us getting together, too?” she asked.

  “Sure did. I told him how you’d said we had to wait but we were going out the minute your thirty days were up. So, what do you say? What day is good for you this week?”

  The last thing Cameron was concerned about was making a date with Blake. “Can I get back to you on that? I have another call coming in that I need to take. It’s the hospital.” It was a white lie, but she needed to get off the phone fast.

  “Sure thing. You know how to reach me. Don’t keep me waiting too long, though.”

  “Bye, Blake.”

  Cameron jumped up, washed her face and brushed her hair. And then she ran to her car and headed back to the ranch. She still wasn’t sure how Ethan felt about her, but she knew how she felt about him and she had a feeling that Ethan may have overheard Blake’s comments to the realtor and gotten the wrong idea about how she really felt. He still might not be interested, she could be reading things all wrong, but she needed to find out and tell him how she felt.

  The drive out to the ranch seemed to take forever. When she finally got there, she was relieved to see that Ethan’s car was there, so he was home. But when she knocked on the door, there was no answer. The door wasn’t locked, though, so she went in and called his name. There was no response, so she tried again and walked all over the house, looking for him.

  She went outside then and checked the stables to see if he might be off riding, but all the horses were there, happily munching on hay. Midnight and Mandy cocked their heads when they saw her, as if to say hello. She promised to come back and visit them and wondered where the heck Ethan was. She walked around the property and over to the new barn that he’d been building. Maybe he was there working on it. There was a tall ladder that went up to the loft and just looking at it gave her the shivers. The stairs inside weren’t finished, so the workers were using the ladder to do the initial work.

  “Ethan?” she called out. And a moment later she heard a faint reply back.

  “Cameron? Is that you?”

  “Yes. Are you okay?” she heard something in his voice that concerned her.

  “I’m stuck. My foot slipped and the bottom of my jeans are stuck in a wire hook or something. There’s not enough room to move my leg enough to break free. Can you call for help?”

  She thought for a moment. “What do you need to get free?”

  “There are wire clippers in the shed around the corner. But you’d have to climb that ladder to get them to me. I can’t ask you to do that. If you call the fire department, they’ll send someone right out.”

  Cameron only hesitated for a second. It was ridiculous to call for help when all she had to do was climb a ladder. A very tall ladder, but still. She tried not to think about it and went around the corner to the shed. She found the clippers, slid the leather loop on the handle around her wrist and went back to the ladder. She took a deep breath and started to climb, forcing herself not to look down. She went as quickly as she could and in just a few minutes, she reached the top and saw Ethan and his predicament. He was close enough to the ladder that she could reach out with the clippers and cut him free. She didn’t even think about it—she just took the clippers and cut.

  He looked at her with something akin to wonder.

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “We need to talk, Ethan.”

  She slowly made her way down the ladder, feeling her way carefully with her feet and still refusing to look down. Finally, she relaxed when she felt the grass again.

  Ethan was right behind her and as soon as he reached the ground he pulled her in for a hug and squeezed her tight.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” he said softly.

  “I would do anything for you, Ethan.” She looked him in the eye and let her love for him shine through. He took a step back, as
if he’d been shocked and stood there, dazed and confused. He ran his hand through his hair, which was all tousled. She thought he looked adorable.

  “But, I thought you were anxious to be done with this, to go buy your condo?”

  “You thought wrong. You should have asked me how I felt. If you did, I would have told you. I love you, Ethan.” Her eyes welled up again as she said the words and waited, feeling vulnerable and terrified to see how he’d respond.

  “You love me? Really?” He stepped closer again and wrapped his arms around her. She looked up at him through her watery eyes.

  “Really.” And then she saw the same love reflected in his eyes and she relaxed and smiled.

  He leaned forward, touched his lips to hers and pulled her close to him as if he never wanted to let her go. They kissed for a long time until finally he brushed a strand of hair off her face and looked deeply into her eyes.

  “I’m not sure I have the words to tell you how much I love you. But I do. The thought of not having you here at the end of the day was beyond depressing.”

  Cameron laughed. “For me, too. It’s the favorite part of my day, to be honest. Coming home to you, sharing dinner and resting in your arms on the sofa. Simple things.”

  “I love simple things.” He grinned. “So, does this mean you want to stay?”

  “It means I never want to leave you again.”

  He kissed her again. “Well, then, let’s go move you back in.”

  Epilogue

  “We’re going to have a real wedding,” Cameron said to Jaclyn when they saw her at trivia Thursday night. They’d already told their families and friends and everyone was thrilled for them. Jaclyn beamed when they told her the news and patted Simon’s arm in delight.

  “See, I told you the fairies are never wrong. They said this would work out the way that it should.”