by Vivian Arend
Zach snatched the envelope from him. “Have a good trip home. I suggest you leave before Julia decides to practice her autopsy skills or something.”
“Let me know if you need me for anything. As always, it’s been a pleasure working with you,” Alan said with zero hesitation.
“Everybody’s a comedian,” Zach grumbled, following Alan out the door.
He waited until the other man left the yard before joining Julia beside the horse arena. This wasn’t going to be easy. A juggling act between convincing Julia to do what was right because it was necessary and because it was what he wanted—
It wasn’t often that he tossed curses his mentor’s way, but this time? Bruce Travers had fucked up royally.
Julia folded her arms over her chest. “The fact that Alan left without paperwork for us to sign does not seem like a positive thing.”
Zach shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know how to explain how they managed it, but it’s a completely legal convoluted mess. Us getting a divorce means both Finn and I lose financial control of our corporate holdings. Like, they’re gone. That’s it.”
“A corporation that’s big enough to own a private plane.” She seemed rightly dumbfounded. “It was one drunken night. We can't stay married after getting hitched while under the influence.”
“Not staying married could cost a lot of people everything. Me. Finn, which would also mean changing Karen’s life radically.”
Her face twisted. “I’m supposed to complete my trainee status in October. Then I’m gone from Heart Falls.”
“You can find a new job.”
“That easy? Plus, I only have a place to stay until the end of the month.”
Zach wasn’t about to let that one go. “You’re not staying at that deathtrap any longer, remember? Also, look around you. Dude ranch. Multiple buildings with your name on them. Although I feel as if there might be a line in here that says we have to share. To make the marriage legit. Alan said these are the rules.”
He pulled out the envelope and shook it in the air.
She reached for it. “Mister Cwedwick has been oh-so-helpful. I’m definitely putting him on my Christmas card list.”
“Can we send him a letter bomb?”
She paused before sliding the envelope open. “I need to be sitting down before we open this.”
“Your idea is much smarter than mine. I was going to suggest tequila, but all things considered, that might not be wise. Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
Julia marched ahead of him, headed to the cabin he’d claimed for his own.
“Everything is simple, isn’t it?” She glared so hard he could have sworn his hair sizzled. “I could tell you I was betrothed to a vampire, and you’d wave it off and offer to be our third.”
A snort escaped. “Sorry, no. The fooling around with a guy thing doesn’t cut it for me. Unless your vampirical arranged marriage is with a lady. Then we can talk.”
Her glare broke from annoyance to amusement as she paused on his front porch. “It’s the grouping of the sexes in the ménage that makes you hesitate, not the actual threesome?”
“My biggest complaint is the whole sucking-blood thing, but yeah…whatever. When it comes to sex, I have zero beef with whatever turns a person’s crank. My engine is attuned to ladies, though, like sexy emergency rescue chicks with feisty attitudes.”
He opened the door, but she detoured instead to the hardback chairs he’d placed to one side of the porch—the ones with a great view over the panoramic scenery.
She stilled even as she took a seat. Her gaze met his, and she seemed to calm herself before ignoring his last comment and speaking with complete seriousness. “I get that this is important. I’m not about to run away or do something to hurt my new sisters. Or Finn.”
Zach ignored her complete failure to mention not hurting him.
Julia stared over the landscape. “This is uncomfortable for many reasons, so let’s say we agree to do this thing.”
“Stay married?”
“Stay pretend married,” she clarified. “If we’re going to be roomies, we need ground rules.”
Made perfect sense. Also, his gut told him to stop worrying about the wild situation and roll with it. Enjoy it, even. “What kind of ground rules?
She shook the envelope in the air. “We check what your meany-pants lawyer tossed at us and find out how close we have to live. Sharing a house, I can work with. Sharing a bed is out.”
Zach pulled himself upright even as he laughed at her assessment of Alan. “I am perfectly capable of sharing a bed without anything happening you don’t want to happen.”
“I like my space,” Julia drawled. “Sharing a bed is on the no list.”
“Fine, but may I point out that we’ve already sort of shared a bed a couple of times and nothing terrible happened.”
Her jaw swung open. “We. Got. Married.”
Oh. Right. The jury was still out on whether that was the most brilliant mistake he’d ever made or the worst.
“Fine. No shared beds.” He hid his sigh—she was far too fine to be living celibate for a year…
Wait.
He stiffened. “I have an item for this list.”
9
Julia tugged the stool beside her closer to use as a table as she pulled her ever-present notebook from her purse. “Go ahead. I’ll make notes. We can run them by Alan later to make sure they’re kosher.”
Brilliant idea as well, but he was too focused on the rule he wanted to emphasize to tell her that. “This year, if you want to fool around with anyone, it will be with me.”
Her expressions were priceless. This time it was a raised brow and an are you kidding me? look.
“Trust me, I am not interested in finding anyone to fool around with, and that includes you.” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “You will not cheat on me during the year, though. Because if you’re off fooling around with someone else, people will think I might be cheating, and considering this entire mess started from trying to stop rumours involving my sex life—nope.”
Considering the only person he wanted to fool around with was sitting two feet away from him? “Agreed. Which brings me back to my point—you want to have some fun, let me know.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it covered,” she said dryly as she wrote RULES at the top of the page. “Number one. No cheating. Number two on the list, so it’s clear. No sex.”
He hesitated. “For a year?”
That brow went back up. “Balls really don’t explode or turn blue, you know. Also, there’s this fantastic thing called masturbation. It feels good and only requires you, yourself, and… Well, the saying is me, myself and I, so I’m not sure what the last part is when I change it to third person.”
“Third person? That’s the trouble. You’ve got way less than three in this picture.” She rolled her eyes big enough he laughed. “Look at us talking about masturbation like it’s a thing I’d be willing to do for an entire year.”
“You don’t like it, you don’t have to do it,” she pointed out. “I don’t want to be married to you for a year, but I will suck it up and make the best of it.”
Not remotely the same thing in his books, especially considering he liked her. Wanted her.
Wanted more than this sham relationship they’d begun.
Still, seemed the best thing to agree for now and deal with changing her mind over the months to come—
Dear God, a year of no sex?
Screw that. He wasn’t some hound dog who couldn’t keep it in his pants, but he liked sex, and he liked Julia, and he wanted…
Right. At the moment what he wanted and what he was negotiating for were two different things.
“If we’re spending a year together, I want this to be something we enjoy.” He tapped the No Sex line in her book. “I hear you on that rule, but seriously, you’ve had some shitty boyfriends if the only thing you’re negotiating on is sex. We have a lot of time to get through whil
e we make this look real enough people don’t figure it out. We should write down things we want to spend time doing together.”
Other than sex, dammit.
Julia nodded then on the opposite side of the page added a new heading. Activities to Do Together. “That’s a good idea. How about you think of three things you want, and I’ll think of three. We can start there.”
Finally a place he could lay a few ground rules in his favour. He considered before nodding. “Got my three.”
She dragged the pen against the surface of her notebook, doodles of flowers appearing on the page. “Hang on. Give me a minute.”
Zach sat back. With her frowning at her notes in the most adorable way, it was too easy to slip into admiration mode.
The twist of her lips right before she bit down on the bottom one…
Fuck it. Zach twisted in his chair and prayed that she didn’t glance his way until his erection no longer threatened to burst from his jeans.
Her eyes lit up, and she wrote something down only to scratch it out a second later, her frown growing deeper.
“Having troubles?” Zach asked.
Julia nodded then shrugged. “You start. I bet that’ll give me some ideas.”
Okay by him. “First. We go dancing once a week.”
She blinked. “Really?”
He nodded vigorously. “I like dancing. It’s great exercise, I love the music, and it’s a good way to make sure people see us together.”
It would also put her in his arms on a regular basis.
“I guess.”
“Don’t try to tell me you don’t like dancing, either. Rose and Tansy and Karen and…damn, all of your girl posse pulled me aside at some time over the past four months to tell me how much you like it and wished you could go more often.” He held up his hands in a modest shrug. “And I am a fantastic partner.”
Her nose wrinkled up in the most adorable way before she wrote down a number one followed by Go Dancing. “Okay…but we dance. We don’t need to make out in the corners of the dancehall or anything to have people think this is real.” An evil smile crossed her lips. “I know.”
This time she wrote decisively in her book on the rules side of the page.
Zach slipped over to read over her shoulder. “No public displays of affection.” Screw that. “I agree.”
Shock flashed. “Really?” she repeated.
Hell no. “With one addendum.”
He stole her pen and inserted the key word in his favour.
Julia sighed. “No unnecessary public displays of affection?”
“You said it before. People need to believe we’re a couple. If we never hold hands or anything, people will wonder what the hell is wrong.” He gave her his best puppy dog grin. “The local women I dated have kind of gotten used to me being…affectionate.”
“You mean handsy,” she drawled.
He didn’t want to grin, but it was impossible to stop.
“None of their business what we’re…” she trailed off. “Fine. My thing I want us to do is ride. Since, as you said, dude ranch and all. Is that possible?”
“Definitely.” And an activity he’d enjoy as well. “My second—I need you to come with me when I do research for my brewpub.”
Suspicious Julia was back. “Research?” Her head tilted, and she eyed him as if he were bug on a pin. “You’re going to make me drink beer?”
“You don’t like beer?”
Her head wavered. “I like some beers, but I’ve been warned by Karen what your experiments involve.”
“Trust me. I’ll only give you the good ones to try.” The research would require her to travel with him to as-yet-undisclosed locations, but he’d work up to that. Getting the opportunity to spoil her a little would go a long way to finessing them into the relationship he wanted.
Julia’s lips twisted into the barest hint of smirk, but she wrote it down before adding another of her own. “My second…I want us to do yoga.”
“Wow, really? That was going to be my third thing,” he said as seriously as possible.
She glared. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m hilarious. Okay, we do the pretzel business on a regular basis. You are totally in charge of that, by the way. I know nothing more than it’s fun to watch.”
The sound that escaped her was mostly a laugh, but she choked it down fast. “That’s terrible.”
“I’m a guy. For my final request, once a week we have supper together. Homemade, home-cooked, clean up together, no TV.”
That request made her stop harder than his other two. When she lifted her gaze, her expression was a mixture of confusion and suspicion. “That’s very domestic.”
“My parents do it. Family night. It’s…”
He paused, not wanting to freak her out. He skipped his first choice of words which were something about important family traditions because he figured that would make her run for the hills.
Zach went for the safe route. “It’s cheaper than taking you out once a week, but it’s the kind of thing everyone will eat up. Make this seem more real.”
She sighed again, but it was obviously for dramatic effect.
A moment later, a yawn escaped her. “Sorry. I’m still beat from our night turning our world upside down.” She glanced around the yard before turning back. “I start work tomorrow at noon. You mentioned me not staying in my apartment anymore. I’m not willing to argue because I know the truth—staying there was a crisis waiting to happen.”
“We’ll set you up here. We need to go through Alan’s rules then grab your stuff, including your car.”
Julia nodded, but something was still on her mind. It took about three attempts for her to start, but when she got rolling, it came out decisively. “I don’t want Karen to know the details. The part about if we don’t follow through on this, she and Finn lose their stuff.”
He hesitated. “Okay?”
She met his gaze square on. “My sisters had a lot thrown at them when I appeared. For me to suddenly have that much control over them would be horrifying. I mean, I sort of do, but I don’t want her to know. Please, I expect you need to tell Finn something, but that specific part needs to stay secret. I mean, can we just tell them that there’s some complication and because we don’t have a prenup, we have to stay married so you don’t lose out? I don’t want to involve Karen. I don’t want our growing relationship burdened by something that’s not her responsibility.”
The fact she’d thought of it before he had was humbling. But then again, he wasn’t looking for ways this might fail.
He hadn’t kept a secret from Finn since…
Well, frankly, ever.
Still, he saw the wisdom in it and slowly nodded his approval. “I’ll get in touch with Alan as soon as I can to make sure he knows to keep the details quiet.”
Julia examined him before offering a faint smile. “Thank you. Really. Thanks for understanding.”
“Hey, these are unknown waters for me. The whole year-long relationship business. I figure we’re going to have to keep the lines of communication open so we don’t end up killing each other over senseless shit, and what you just brought up is far from senseless.”
“Yeah.” She tapped her notebook, changing the topic. “I don’t have a third thing right now.”
“Don’t worry about it. You figure out something later, and we’ll add it.” They still had to read the damn envelope, but he figured it was time for action instead of letting her brood over what couldn’t be changed. “Tell you what. I’m sure you want to update your sisters about what’s going on, and we need to grab your stuff from your apartment. Why don’t you give them a shout and ask them to meet you there? I’ll drive you over, and between our three trucks, we can get you settled out here at the ranch pretty quick.”
Julia made another face, this one a little uncomfortable. “I don’t think it’s going to take three trucks.”
“It’ll take whatever it takes.” He pushed the envelope
back at her. “Give them a call, then you can read this to me on the drive to your apartment.”
It was the calm before the storm. Julia glanced around her silent apartment and wondered when she’d lost control of her own life.
Zach had escorted her upstairs and waited until she’d barricaded herself in before leaving to find extra packing boxes.
Her sisters were both on their way, the promise of a full explanation once they got there probably even now sending them over double-quick.
Julia shoved a hand in her pocket, and paper crinkled. The damn note from the lawyer with more inexplicable demands. Thankfully the list had been short, but the three requirements had been more than enough to make it clear there was no wiggle room to simply live separate lives.
You shall reside under one roof.
* * *
You will not be apart for more than two days/nights during any month, barring medical emergencies.
* * *
Once a month you will write and exchange a letter listing any concerns you are currently facing. While there is no specific word count required, anything less than one page will be deemed unacceptable. [Contents of these letters will not be read by anyone else, but you need to inform me that you have complied.]
Zach had growled at that last one and made a comment about bloody homework.
Her lips twitched into a smile before she could stop it. At least the man was keeping his sense of humour.
At least the man had a sense of humour—God, she couldn’t imagine being trapped in this situation with some stick-in-the-mud who didn’t know how to laugh.
And the ability to laugh was going to come in handy, considering starting any minute now she was going to have to bullshit her way through the biggest lie of her life.
The door banged against the trunk blocking the path, and she shook herself alert. “Coming.”