The Cowboy's Marriage Mistake

by Jessie Gussman

  Rosalin was headstrong and would do her own thing no matter what he said, but Rosie was a lot quieter and more considerate, although determined in her own way. Still. He should have tried, given how badly it sat with him for her to go with Max.

  He scanned the snow-covered ground on either side of the road as he drove slowly out of town, trying to keep his mind from imagining the worst. Rosie was a smart girl. A native. She would walk east until she came to the road. Once there, she would turn north and walk toward Sweet Water or wait for him to find her.

  Hopefully, she kept walking. It wouldn’t take long to freeze in these temperatures.

  And just like that, his heart thundered in his chest again, and his foot wanted to slam the accelerator to the floor, like going fast would help him look for her better.

  After driving for seven miles, he began to wonder how far south he should go before he turned around and started back north. Had he missed her? Maybe she didn’t really know where she was after all. Maybe he should have alerted the volunteer fire and rescue department and had a whole party of people searching.

  He’d just decided that’s exactly what he was going to do and was reaching for his phone when it buzzed.

  I’m at the road.

  His stomach relaxed just slightly. He knew better than to text and drive, but the road was deserted and straight as a skinny woman’s shadow.

  I’m seven miles south of SW. Think you’re farther?

  Yes.

  Two seconds later, he saw a dark form along the edge of the road. He turned the heater on high and slowed the car, stopping so the passenger door was right beside her.

  She just stood, though, not grabbing for the door right away, so he put his hazard lights on and got out, striding around.

  “Rosie?”

  “Hey. Thanks for coming.”

  He didn’t stop until he had his arms wrapped around her. She hugged him back, so he assumed that her arms weren’t frozen at least.

  “Glad I gave you that hat,” he said, his head lowered and his lips pressed to the soft hair that fell over her ear.

  “Me too. It saved my bacon.” Her breath fanned against his neck where her head was buried, and suddenly his heart was pounding harder than it had when he’d been worried she was lost.

  “Ah, that’s what you have in your head, huh? I’ll have to remember that. Romance novels turn brains to bacon.” He nuzzled his lips against her ear, so relieved he shook.

  “Shut up and keep looking happy to see me.”

  He felt her smile against his neck and a soft touch that might have been her tongue but couldn’t have been because it was Rosie, and it...just couldn’t have been.

  “I am happy to see you.” He didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t happy as his hands moved over her coat and down her back, like they couldn’t really believe he’d found her and she was safe. He didn’t try to contain his relief, either, which seemed to spread and thicken inside his soul. He could have lost her.

  “I think I’ve got you beat in that department.”

  “No way.” His hands stopped. “You’re shaking. Cold?” he asked, looking down into her eyes in question, although he knew she had to be.

  “No. It must be relief. I didn’t even think I was scared.” She smiled tremulously up at him, her arms tightening around him at the same time.

  He didn’t have any thoughts in his head. No plan. In fact, his brain had completely shut off. That’s the only excuse he had for what happened next as his head lowered and the distance between them disappeared.

  He’d kissed his fiancée. Several times in fact. But comparisons weren’t in his mind, either.

  Maybe it was the love of life. Or feelings of survival and beating the odds. Maybe it was the after effects of fear and adrenaline. Maybe it was the Christmas season and all the couples he’d seen kissing under the mistletoe that evening as he gave his sleigh rides.

  There were a lot of things he could blame it on.

  But his mind wasn’t working anyway.

  All he could do was feel. The lips, warm and soft, under his. The slightly trembling body. The brush of her skin, and the taste that felt so right he couldn’t do anything but sink deeper, holding her tighter, feeling her respond, and needing to meet her with his whole body and spirit.

  Maybe it was the howl of a wolf way off in the distance, but more likely it was that he needed to breathe. They both needed to breathe. They ripped apart, pulling back at the same time. Rosie stumbled and put the back of her wrist to her lips, holding it there. Her breath was a cloud around her face. Her eyes were wide and shocked and maybe a little betrayed as they hung on him, searching him out through the clouds of breath.

  He could only stare. His trembling worse. His heart galloping. His mind whirling, and his chest full. Full of shock. Of heat. Of guilt.

  The guilt exploded, slapping everything else down.

  “I’m sorry.” Guilt pushed those words out.

  She shook her head, like she’d been in a daze but his words had snapped her out of it. “No. Don’t be. That was me. I, uh, I was just, uh, happy. Happy to be found. Yeah, um, I would have kissed anyone. Probably even Max if he were here. He was right behind me, actually.” She looked one way, then another, then turned completely around. “I thought he was.”

  Cord wasn’t too concerned about Max. A man like that usually landed on his feet. Still, he’d look for him. In a minute. He needed to do damage control first.

  “That was just...relief, probably. On both of our parts.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was saying. Relief.”

  “I mean. It just felt like friends kissing.”

  “Yeah. Friends.” She finally moved her wrist from her face. “Yuck, actually. It was a yucky friend kiss.”

  “Yuck. Yes. That’s what I was thinking. Yuck. Um. A friends are relieved to find each other yucky kiss. That kind of kiss.”

  “Yes. Exactly that kind. People do it all the time.”

  “They do?”

  “Only once. Because it’s so yucky they can’t even think about doing it again.”

  “Oh, right. Yes. Um, me too. Too yucky to think about doing it again.”

  “What kind of man says ‘yucky?’” Max’s voice came out of the darkness. It sounded like he was shivering.

  The kind of man who just kissed his best friend and really liked it, in fact really liked it wasn’t nearly strong enough for how he felt, even though he was engaged to marry her twin sister. That kind of man. That was the kind of man who would say just about anything to figure out what in the world he was doing.

  It had to be the emotional toll of thinking she might be lost and worrying about her.

  Right?

  It had to be right. He was supposed to pick out cakes with his fiancée after Christmas. He couldn’t be kissing her twin sister today.

  But he had. Her taste was still on his tongue, and even now, he wanted to close the distance between them and hold her once more.

  Even if Max weren’t walking toward them, he wouldn’t do it. People did crazy things after an adrenaline high. That’s what that kiss had to be.

  He should have had more self-control. He couldn’t do anything about his lack, other than chalk it up to a terrible mistake and face the consequences.

  Of course, he’d have to tell Rosalin. She was coming in from Chicago after Christmas, and they were meeting Angela to pick out cakes. He’d tell her then.

  “What? Neither of you can talk?” Max stopped beside them.

  Cord’s brows jerked together, and he looked Rosie over. “Did you guys wreck?” Boy, that would really stink. If he’d kissed her after she’d been involved in a horrible accident.

  She shook her head. “Outta gas.”

  “Come on. You sound cold. Get in the car.”

  Max moved, reaching for the front passenger door, and Cord guessed it wasn’t to open it for Rosie.

  “Let Rosie have the front so the heater can blow on her.” He didn’t raise his
voice, but he was ready to fight for Rosie if he needed to. Max was a player and a ladies’ man. He might be a brawler, too. Cord wasn’t much for throwing his weight around, and he couldn’t remember ever being involved in a knockdown, drag-out fight, but he’d be willing to have his first if Max wasn’t going to give Rosie the best seat in the car. Cord shouldn’t have waited until now to stand up for her.

  But Max shrugged and smirked a little. His lips must have been cold since it wasn’t a full-on smirk, but Cord didn’t take time to think about it. He brushed by Max and opened the door for Rosie.

  She got in without looking at him, which caused his heart to shiver, very much like it had been doing when he thought she was in physical danger.

  Chapter 4

  ROSIE GOT IN THE CAR and stared at the dash.

  What had she done?

  No, really. What had she done?

  How could she be so angry at herself? Feel so guilty? Yet, at the same time, have to force herself not to look at Cord because all she wanted to do was kiss him again?

  And again.

  She didn’t say anything as Cord spoke some to Max, then turned and headed toward Rem and Elaine’s place. It was a long drive, and she really wished Cord had dropped her off first.

  Eventually, they dropped Max off and started back toward home.

  Rosie was finally feeling warm, and with that warmth came sleepiness. She hoped Cord wouldn’t want to talk. What was there to say, anyway? They’d already agreed it was yucky. Whatever that meant. Yucky in that she felt guilty. She really didn’t want to know what he meant. It was already hard enough that he’d chosen to marry her twin. She didn’t want to know that Rosalin beat her in the kissing department, too.

  There shouldn’t even be a kissing department between Cord and her.

  Just like that, her sleepiness went away, and she itched to get out and run. Even though she never ran anywhere. Turning the pages on her books was the best exercise she could ever need. She’d have to pull out one of her all-time favorites tonight. Or was it morning? There was no lightening of the eastern sky, so there must still be night left.

  She probably ought to sleep when she got home because she had Christmas celebrations, then the wedding cake thing she needed to go to...oops. She’d forgotten to tell Cord.

  “Um. So, about—”

  “I’m going to tell Rosalin. Don’t worry.”

  “I wasn’t worried.” Not about that. Crap. Was he really going to tell Rosalin? Of course. If she were engaged to a man and he kissed her twin, she’d want to know about it.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore.” Cord’s fingers tapped the steering wheel.

  She clamped her mouth shut and looked out the window. Fine. Rosalin could tell him that Rosie was picking out cakes with him after Christmas.

  ROSALIN HADN’T BEEN expecting to come home for Christmas, and she didn’t. Rosie had spent some time over the holiday with her parents in their super small house. They were kind of into that kind of thing, and honestly, she would have been more comfortable in her apartment. She tried not to be too obvious about wanting to get home to read.

  She sent a “Merry Christmas” text to her twin, but Rosalin never texted her until Friday, thirty minutes before she was scheduled to meet Cord at Angela’s boardinghouse.

  Angela didn’t have a bakery, but she was the best baker in Sweet Water, so of course, that’s who they were going to get to do their cake.

  I never told Cord I wasn’t coming in.

  Rosie stared at her phone. Then she looked in the mirror. She hadn’t really done it on purpose, but she’d left her hair down and curled the ends, fixing it the way Rosalin usually did hers. She’d also put on a nice sweater with her yoga pants and knee-high boots. A Rosalin outfit. It wasn’t something she planned, but something she’d done on autopilot while she tried to get the idea of what she’d done on the windswept prairie out of her mind so she could face Cord today.

  But she wasn’t going to have this conversation in text form.

  She dialed Rosalin’s number.

  “You didn’t need to call.” Rosalin sounded breathless.

  “You’re saying I need to be you?”

  “Yes. Why do you sound like that’s a problem all the sudden?”

  “It’s not. Not really.” Except it was. “It’s one thing to play this when we were younger, but...”

  “Oh? So that’s how you’re going to be? How many times did I pretend to be you when you had to give a speech or had to sell stuff or I even pretended to be you at parties so you could stay home and read? There were also several years when I pretended to be you and me both, so you could help Cord train those stupid horses of his. And you have no idea how hard it is to be two people.”

  “I know I probably owe you.” Maybe she did. Although she’d pretended to be her twin often enough. Mostly to get her out of trouble. She’d gotten out of bed a lot of times, gotten dressed, and snuck out the window, only to come in the front door just before curfew, wave to her parents, and head upstairs.

  “You most certainly do. And I need you to come through. I don’t want to lose Cord. But I have some things here that I absolutely have to finish up, and he would never understand.”

  “Maybe you should try him.” It was hard for Rosie to imagine Cord not understanding something.

  “No. Trust me,” her sister said with confidence. “There are things men don’t understand, and this is one of them.”

  She’d have to bow to her sister’s superior knowledge on men. Everything she knew about them came from her dad, Cord, and her romance novels. Something told her the behavior men displayed in romance novels wasn’t very close to being authentic male behavior.

  A soft sigh escaped her lips. “I just feel weird. Cord is my friend, and I hate deceiving him.”

  “You’re not deceiving him. You’re doing me a favor.”

  “One doesn’t exclude the other.”

  “What?”

  “I’m doing both.”

  “But you’re doing it because I asked you to. Because I pulled a twin. You made that promise first. That you would do whatever I needed you to if I pulled a twin.”

  “What if he wants to kiss me? I mean you.” Gah, this was confusing. “What if he wants to kiss you?”

  “Then kiss him. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  Rosie tried to keep her eyeballs stuck inside her head. How could Rosalin say that?

  “Just make sure you’re good at it,” Rosalin added. “He knows I’m a great kisser.”

  “Uh.” Rosie closed her mouth over an ugly word that wanted to come out. “First of all, I’m not a great kisser, and secondly, doesn’t it bother you at all that I might be kissing your fiancé?”

  Rosalin snorted. “It’s not like he’s never kissed anyone else.”

  “Well, apparently you’ve forgotten, twin, that I haven’t kissed that many other people.” Just one, technically, if one counted Billy Joe in second grade, but she also gave him a black eye, so she would probably say that one didn’t count. And Cord, but her sister wouldn’t know about that. She pushed down the guilt. “And that I’m not any good at it, and even if I were so inclined to learn, which I’m not, it’s way too late to hire anyone to teach me how to kiss.”

  Rosalin blew a breath out.

  Rosie held her phone away from her ear. “Are you done?”

  “No. I was thinking. You’re right. As soon as he kisses you, he’s going to know it’s not me. You have to have a cold today. Cough. Blow your nose a lot. Sneeze if he tries to get near you.”

  Rosie could almost see Rosalin tapping her chin.

  Rosalin seemed to come to a decision and continued confidently. “Okay. There’s no way you can do the date on Friday night without kissing him. It’s the Christmas season, but I actually do know someone whom I can hire for tomorrow night. He will teach you how to kiss and anything else you need to know. He’s good.”

  “Does he know which fork I’ll have to use if Cord
takes you, I mean me, to some fancy restaurant?” That was a real fear. “Or wine? Do you drink wine? Will I have to drink wine? Will I have to order wine? Aren’t there rules with wine? Can this person you’re hiring teach me silverware and wine rules?”

  “No. I didn’t say he was a brain surgeon. I just said he could kiss. I don’t think you’ll find both in a man.”

  “Both? Like intellectual ability and kissing talent is an inverse relationship?”

  “Huh?” Rosalin said, sounding irritated. She hated it when she couldn’t understand what Rosie meant. Then, “Never mind. I’m just saying smart and sexy don’t usually pair up in a man. You gotta pick one or the other. Sexy is your best bet because smart equals boring. In everything.” She sighed. “I’m not charging for that advice. But I’m actually making an online course...” Her voice trailed off.

  “On what?”

  “Never mind. I’ll have your kissing instructor at your apartment tomorrow. You can thank me later. I’ve got to run. Be good like me, sis.” She kissed into the phone, and the call disconnected.

  Right. So, her whole plan to head off with Max just because she wanted to do something so Cord wouldn’t suspect she’d been about to admit that she had a crush on him had totally backfired.

  She couldn’t imagine tonight’s deceit doing any better. But she’d try. Because Rosalin was right. Rosie had pulled twins more than she probably should have, and she owed her sister. How could she tell her twin no?

  Chapter 5

  CORD LOOKED AT THE picture of a cake that looked like a castle. Under the table, his feet itched to walk away. Across from him, Angela droned on and on about how many people this cake fed and he didn’t know what else. He was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about where they harvested the wheat to get the flour, and so, by default, he wasn’t interested.

  But he sat politely still.

  Rosalin put up a bejeweled finger. “Excuse me.” She had the sound of Chicago in her speech. It made him a little sad. Every time she flew in from the city, she came back with less of North Dakota and more of Chicago. He hoped they got married before she lost everything.