Hitched

by Pippa Grant

  * * *

  Hope: It’s not awful. I can imagine I’d feel the same way. But you have to trust that Savannah’s making the best decision for her, even if you would choose differently in her place.

  * * *

  Cassie: You’re right. You’re so sweet and wise, you know that? Way beyond your years. And I love that I can trust you to give me an honest opinion, even when you know it’s not what I want to hear.

  * * *

  Hope: Thanks, but…you’d forgive me if I messed up someday, right? And did something not entirely sweet or wise?

  * * *

  Cassie: Of course I would, but you have to stop worrying about you and Blake, okay? If it gets screwed up, you won’t have screwed it up alone. It takes two to make a thing go wrong too. And yeah, you and Blake came out of nowhere for some of us, but a lot of people have seen this coming a mile away. Take comfort in that—and your cute new hubby—and relax. Everything’s going to work out for the best. It almost always does, especially when you’re putting love first.

  * * *

  Hope: Okay. Love you. Give me an update on George in the morning okay?

  * * *

  Cassie: Will do. And love you too. I may not have my blood sister here, but I’m lucky enough to have you and Olivia, so I really shouldn’t complain. *winking emoji* See you at bingo tomorrow night. Sleep well!

  Nine

  Hope

  * * *

  I do not sleep well.

  I’m up most of the night, plagued by crazy dreams, guilt over lying to Cassie and the people I care about, a hyper-active awareness of the sexy-as-sin man sacked out on my couch—with the blinds pulled in case the detective tries to sneak photos in the middle of the night—and the very real terror that if I fall asleep I will wake up to find I have sleepwalked myself on top of him and am making out with his stupid face.

  And I will not make out with his stupid face in private.

  Any kissing that takes place will be for the benefit of Kyle and his spies. And I most certainly won’t let Blake O’Dell get me all tingly again or give him any other reason to think this marriage is real enough to warrant his protection or devotion.

  Admittedly, hearing him vow to annihilate my enemies was insanely hot, but it was also scary.

  I’m not ready to be anyone’s wife for real, and I don’t know that I ever will be.

  It’s like I grew up in that scary hotel from The Shining, and now someone’s asking me to move into a building that looks exactly like that one and get snowed in for the rest of my life.

  It’ll be fine, they say. No ghosts or demons or blood in the elevators or creepy twins this time around, and absolutely no one will go insane and try to kill you with an ax.

  They’re probably right, but I’m still not setting foot in that hotel anytime soon.

  Maybe ever.

  It’s a relief when my alarm goes off at five. Now I can get up and get out of the house and away from Blake and his super-powered pheromones. They are every bit as potent as my whacked out personal electromagnetic field, the one that shorts out the kitchen radio when I get too close to it as I’m making my coffee.

  After shorting out one too many coffeemakers, I’ve resorted to the French press.

  I’d take out all the electrical stuff in the house, except I love music. And air conditioning in the heat of summer, and hot food that I don’t have to cook over an open flame, cave-girl style.

  Blake saunters into the kitchen as I’m pulling on my work boots. His light brown hair is mussed and his eyes are sleepy and his shoulders are broad. The sight of his bare chest and those cords of muscle in his forearms makes my clitoris politely inquire as to why we made him sleep on the couch last night. But I tell her to hush and promise her a trip to the sex toy factory very soon.

  “Hey, my little prickly-dickly-pear,” he says with a lazy grin. “You’re looking lovely this morning.”

  “Prickly-dickly-pear?”

  “Ah-ah. That’s one nice thing I’ve said about you. Now you have to say your five nice things about me so we can get this marriage off on the right foot.”

  “Blake.”

  “The walls have ears,” he whispers with a wink that makes me want to curl up in a puddle at his feet and ask him if he could please wink at me like that a few more times.

  I definitely didn’t get enough sleep last night.

  But he’s right.

  I owe him five nice things, because this is my mess that he’s helping me out of.

  “Can I do two now and three later?”

  “As the lady wishes.” He moves to the sink, lifts the French press with the old coffee in it, sniffs it, nods, then puts it on the counter like he’s going to make a second cup with the used grounds.

  I shake my head, quieting my inner coffee snob, because however he wants to wake up is his business. “You’re very good at fixing toasters and you have a nice chin.”

  He arches a brow. “Nice chin?”

  “Yep. Strong, but not too strong. Acceptably pointy with no chin butt or distracting dimples. Not on board with chin dimples, you never know what might get lost in a crevice like that.” I prop my hands on my hips with a nod that announces the subject closed. “I have a lot to do today—including calling around for a good lawyer—so I need to—”

  “Kiss your husband goodbye?” he suggests.

  I purse my lips. “No thanks, Mr. Morning Breath. You obviously just woke up.”

  He chuckles as if we’re not sworn enemies, like this is just a normal morning for him, and I get a glimpse of the Blake everyone else in town sees. The sweet, easy-going guy who’s unoffended by the idea that his breath might stink, and not at all grouchy about sleeping on the couch or drinking old coffee at the start of his day.

  “So I’ll get my other three nice things over dinner?” he asks.

  “Can’t do dinner. It’s bingo night. I volunteer. And everyone who plays is old, so it starts at dinnertime so they can all get home for bedtime at eight.”

  “You can’t talk during bingo?”

  “Not when they’re calling numbers. It’s against the—oh. You mean you want to come with me?”

  “Naturally.”

  I laugh. “Ha. No.”

  He grins again. “If you said yes, I’d count that as one of your five nice things about me.”

  “No.” He can’t come to bingo.

  Tonight is sexy bingo, and while I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact that there’s a sex toy factory in the middle of Happy Cat, and I can talk about dildos and cock rings and lube with the best of them, I do not want to discuss them around Blake.

  Because then I’ll start thinking even more about sex—specifically sex with him—and that’s a complication I don’t need in my life right now.

  “Where you go, I go,” he tells me. “That’s what husbands and wives do.”

  “Except you have a job and I have a job and our jobs aren’t together.”

  He lifts a shoulder. “Just taking delivery of a grape crusher today. You could come watch. Not every day you get to see that. What time’s bingo?”

  I pause, and is it just me, or is his smile getting sexier with every passing minute?

  “Never mind. I’ll ask Ryan. Pretty sure he goes with Cassie, doesn’t he?”

  I huff. “I have to—”

  “Take care of the animals. Yep. Got it. You have a good day, my little cookie crumble.”

  I manage to escape the house without us touching, which is good, because easy-going morning Blake is like a magnet. My body wants to plaster itself against him even as my mind blares out warning sirens about getting in over my head.

  Thankfully, I eventually lose myself in caring for, feeding, pasturing, and cleaning up after the dozens of animals on my ten acres, where I take in everything from horses, goats, and alpacas to dogs and cats to the occasional peacock, ferret, or hamster.

  Chewpaca and Too-Pac are happy to see me, both humming low in their throats as they come over to t
he gate in their raised barn stall when I greet them. The horses across the way are also grateful for breakfast, and soon half my charges are out in the pastures, prancing and grazing and enjoying the early morning.

  The baby goats go crazy for hanging out with Chewy again this morning, like they always do, and I get in a good round of fetch with the six dogs currently in my care, making sure to love on each and every one of them, because sometimes Buddy lets the other dogs push him to the back of the pack, and I don’t want him to think I don’t see him too.

  It's hard work, but it’s so worth it to know I’m giving all of these creatures a safe home with nothing to worry about.

  The only hitch in the morning is the moment Blake comes out to say goodbye, planting a smacker on me for Dean’s benefit.

  He makes it last just long enough to offend the peacock and to make me want more, leaving me to stare at his back, filled with lusty thoughts as he walks away.

  Damn. He gets to me. The knowledge that he’s crashing bingo tonight and we have to put on a good show weighs heavier on me with every passing hour.

  For his part, Dean doesn’t try to hide, just sits there watching me all day long.

  I pass him once not long after my morning volunteers have left. He’s outside his car on a faded purple mat doing yoga stretches.

  “Morning,” he calls.

  I wave, then feel guilty about it, remembering Blake’s warning that Dean is not our friend.

  Though he could be.

  “It’s afternoon,” I call back.

  “Not in Hawaii. I’m on Hawaii time. It’s almost the same as being on regular time, except I get to pretend I’m on a beach.” He grins. “You ever let people pay to ride your horses? I rode a horse once when I was a kid. It threw me off, but I got back on it, because that’s what my parents said I needed to do. But it threw me off again, so I decided I should probably stick with riding bikes.”

  “Good decision,” I reply. “I love horses, but they can be a skittish species.”

  “Where’s your husband?” he asks.

  “Um, I…don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that,” I say, sharing a friendly chuckle with the man who’s spying on me. Nope. Not weird at all. “Where did Kyle find you?”

  “Oh, me and him go way back,” he says, clearly joking. “Actually I just met him a couple of weeks ago, while I was looking into something for someone else. You know. A confidential matter. But he seems like a good guy. I like him.” He reaches for the back pocket of his workout shorts. “You want a card? In case you need any detective work done?”

  I shake my head. “No, thank you, but you should pin one up on the board at the bakery on the square in town. People go there looking for all kinds of things.”

  I head inside for a short break and call Mr. Ashford, who confirms that Kyle may, indeed, be able to contest the validity of my marriage for the purposes of inheriting Gram’s property. He also kindly suggests a few other lawyers who might be able to help me if we have to go to court.

  I hang up to see that I’ve got a voicemail I missed while I was outside.

  From a familiar number…

  I lift the phone to my ear to hear my mother’s voice. “Hope, I’m calling from Paris. I’ve heard some disturbing rumors about you getting married to one of those tacky O’Dells to satisfy some ridiculous clause in your grandmother’s will. If this is true, it’s disgraceful. Either way, call me as soon as possible. We need to head this off before it gets any worse.”

  The only ray of sunshine in my parents being offended by my marriage is that they’re in Europe until August. They took off as soon as Gram was buried.

  Hopefully, by the time they get back everything will have worked itself out and I can ask forgiveness for embarrassing them and we can all move on with our lives.

  But seriously, thank god they’re in Europe. It certainly wouldn’t look good in court if my own mother is going around spreading rumors that I might be fake-married.

  Downhearted, I put off calling her back and head outside to meet a farmer who needs to rehome a cow with stomach issues.

  All I want is for Chewpaca to have a good life.

  For all the animals to have a good life.

  Why is Kyle so determined to wreck the good thing I’ve got going on the farm?

  I’d wonder why my parents can’t support me too, but I figured out a long time ago that we don’t see eye-to-eye on anything, and that it’s often the people who are supposed to love us the most who let us down the hardest.

  By five, I haven’t seen or heard from Blake. Dean has disappeared, which I assume means he’s figured out where Blake is and is over spying on him now.

  I begin to hope I’ll get all the way to bingo without my other half, and won’t have to worry about the tension and weirdness of pretending to be married in public.

  I finish up my chores and head inside, but when I step out of my bathroom in a towel after a nice hot shower thirty minutes later, there’s a man in my bedroom.

  I stop myself mid-scream, because the man is my husband.

  Technically.

  He’s in dirty jeans and work boots and is also in the middle of peeling his tee shirt over his head. There’s a dirt smudge on his cheek and he has the same farmer tan that I do, which shouldn’t be attractive, except it totally is when it’s on those biceps I want to bite into like the last slice of triple chocolate cake.

  “What are you doing?” I croak.

  “Bingo time. Need to shower.” He shucks his pants, and lord have mercy, love a duck and grant me strength, because Blake O’Dell in black boxer shorts should be cast in iron and put on display in the town square as a model of male perfection for women everywhere to admire.

  Though they’ll need to install a drinking fountain next to it to help with all the swooning.

  “There’s a shower down the hall in the guest bath,” I force out around my dry tongue.

  His gaze drifts to my towel, and his green eyes go dark. “I’m sure there is.”

  I inch toward the closet, which isn’t large enough for me to hide in. “You just go on then… In there. While I do my…stuff out here.”

  “Stuff, hm?” He hums, his tongue slipping out to trace the seam of his lips. “So you want me to go into the shower and think about all the stuff you’re doing all alone in here?”

  “I’m getting dressed.” My cheeks go hot, as I add in a hiss, “Not touching myself.”

  “Hey. No judgment here.” He shrugs. “And you don’t have to touch yourself. I could touch you instead. I mean, you’re naked. I’m almost naked. Sex just seems a more mutually enjoyable option at this point, right?”

  There’s no edge to his words.

  Correction: there’s no baiting edge to his words.

  But there are smoky edges and seductive edges and I have to concentrate very, very hard on remembering why sex with Blake is a bad idea.

  Actually, I’m still struggling to pull up my list of Why Hopes Don’t Bang Blakes when he brushes past me with a grin and heads into the bathroom. “All right, suit yourself. But don’t leave without me, wifey-lifey. Or I’ll have to come get you from bingo and spank you in public.”

  Two days ago, he couldn’t say anything that didn’t irritate the snot out of me.

  Today, he can’t say anything that doesn’t rev my engines and then some. Gah, I have to get him out of here before it’s too late. But I can’t.

  The alpaca.

  I’m doing this for Chewy, because he’s sweet and innocent and deserves a good life.

  I throw on clothes as fast as I can and retreat to the living room, where I peek through the blinds and verify that yep, Dean’s back.

  He’s setting up a telescope, which is a little weird, because the sun won’t set for a few hours still, and if it was a telephoto lens designed to see all the way into the house, some part of it would have to actually be pointed at the house, which it’s not.

  Maybe Blake and I can pull this off.

 
Who knew Kyle would hire an inept private eye more interested in practicing yoga and star-gazing than hardcore spying?

  “Ready, snugglepuff?” Blake leans in the doorway. He’s always leaning. So casual. Not a care in the world. “We don’t want to B-8 to bingo. Get it? B-8? Be late?”

  “That is the worst joke ever,” I tell him, but I’m smiling.

  He frowns. “Hold on. You’ve got something…”

  He reaches for my face. I assume he’s going to wipe off dirt I missed in the shower. Instead, he goes in for the full-body kiss.

  The one where his thighs line up with mine, our bellies press together, and his lips claim my mouth with an intensity that makes me want to stay inside and offer up my whole body to him on a platter. With side dishes. And garnish.

  He kisses me, and I feel so…

  So…

  Worth it.

  Worth a gorgeous man’s time, attention, and complete focus.

  I know I’m not his favorite person in the world, and he’ll probably hate me even more before our fake marriage is over. But he still makes me feel like I’m doing something oh-so-right.

  Like maybe it’s okay that I’m a bit of a mess when it comes to feelings. I’m still a woman he’d love to spend more time with anyway.

  Or possibly this is just lust, and we’re both getting swept up in the heat.

  He thrusts his fingers through my hair and angles the kiss deeper while I debate the merits of holding on to the last scraps of my resolve. What’s so great about resolve, anyway? Isn’t that just another way of saying you’re too stubborn to change your mind?

  I don’t know. It’s so hard to think clearly with his hands on me, his mouth on me. He smells like soap and sunshine, and he tastes like dessert, and I’ve pretty much decided I’m down for dessert for dinner and calling in sick to bingo night.