by Amelia Wilde
My soul recoils at the sight of the big, wide porch on the front of the Bliss farmhouse, but I don’t let it slow me down. I take the steps one at a time, chin up, head held high.
I knock loud. No fear.
Then I wait.
There’s no sound from inside, and my nerve skitters away like a scared mouse. He’s probably not home. I could probably come back another day and—
Heavy footsteps. “Hang on.”
The door opens the door, and before he can say a word out of his stupid mouth, I jab a finger into his chest. “You owe me one. That’s all I came here to say.” I turn away, but he catches me by the elbow.
“Slow down, Everly. What do you mean?”
“They came looking for you. The other Bliss family.”
His face is all blank confusion, and then his eyes fly open wide. “The other family? I thought they were a myth.”
“Yes. There’s another family. All that money—it wasn’t a mistake. One of them came here to find you, and they found me instead.”
He narrows his eyes. “Is that how Brooke is still over in the ranch?”
“God, Luke, what’re you doing, stalking us?”
“You live next door,” he insists. “I’d notice if you moved out.”
“Keep your eyes on your own ranch.”
“Well?” He cocks his head to the side. “Is it how she’s still over there, and you’re nowhere to be seen?”
“That’s how.”
“Damn.” He nods. “You’re good.”
“Yeah. I am. But you won’t be seeing us around for long.”
“Why not?”
“It didn’t work out.”
“Ouch,” he says, putting a hand to his chest. “Then you’re not that good.”
“Screw off.” I am not going to cry. I’m not going to cry in front of Luke Bliss, who broke my heart in college and stayed next door while I picked up the pieces. Not today. “Anyway, mystery solved. That’s where the money came from, and I bet they’ll be coming back to get it from you.”
“Everly, I never asked for you to—”
“I know you didn’t.” My heart softens. Nobody asked me to do any of this. I wanted to. “But when they show up, try to keep my name out of your mouth. Okay?”
He reaches up to tip his hat, only he’s inside, so there’s nothing there. Luke settles for a nod. “Okay.”
“I’m headed down to the courthouse. Stay off my property.”
“Will do. Thank you, ma’am.”
I leave him behind with one finger in the air.
18
Everly
There’s a line at the clerk’s office.
I have never, in all of my life, seen a line at the clerk’s office, and I’ve been here at least…five or six times. This is the first time I’ve had to wait. I thought I would have to wait when I applied for my driver’s license at sixteen, but no. When it didn’t really matter, I walked right up to the counter.
Waiting is the last thing I want to be doing.
The county’s website is down, so I couldn’t even search for the forms to fill out for a divorce in advance. Oh, no. This is going to be as mortifying as possible. Maybe nobody noticed when we got married, but they’ll notice this, that’s for sure. I’ll be the talk of Paulson. The woman who got married for a week, just to save her ranch. The woman who traded her body for some cattle and rolling green hills. They’ll never listen to the real details.
I’d trade my body every day if it meant being with Asher again, but that’s a thing of the past now. I can’t bring myself to blame him. If I’d lied to me the way I lied to him…
I want to put my hand to my chest to staunch the bleeding that’s surely spilling out onto my shirt, but when I look down to confirm, there’s nothing there. Good. At least when I die of a broken heart, it won’t be messy.
“This line?” The old man at the front of the line hovers his pen over his third form of the day. “Right here?”
“Yes, sir. We need your signature.” Her finger stabs down onto the paper and his pen wavers above the line. My heart aches for him, but the ache twists itself into irritation and back again. I’m sure he can feel me standing here, being impatient, and that’s not the best version of myself.
I don’t know who the best version of myself is. Not anymore. I thought it was the version of myself who was sitting in that bar, trying anything to get a husband. Including propositioning handsome strangers.
I have got to stop thinking about that handsome stranger if I’m going to survive the rest of my life on Sweewater Ranch.
“First and last name?”
“And middle initial.”
I rise up on tiptoe, then let myself back down slowly.
I probably deserve this wait to let myself stew in this disaster of my own making. And it was my own making. All I had to do to head this off was open my mouth and say, oh, Asher Bliss, do you happen to know Austin? He’s got your same eyes and his brother shares some gestures with your brother, Beau, and it doesn’t seem possible that you are unrelated.
Yet I did not.
And now everything’s in shambles.
I still haven’t seen Brooke to give her the news.
I take a deep breath against the pain and pressure in my chest. I’m ready to start my new life. No more secrets, no more lies. Only the truth, from here on out.
So help me god.
The old man shuffles away from the window, and I step up and open my mouth. Shit—what do I say? “I’d like, uh, some paperwork.”
“Everly. Wait.”
The clerk looks behind me, and then her face brightens like she’s looking at Ben Affleck. “I’ll give you a minute, hon.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
The hum starts in the tips of my toes, and I look over the other shoulder. There’s no line behind me. Of course.
So I have no excuse not to look into Asher’s eyes.
“How did you get here?’
He draws me away from the window. “Would you believe me if I said I called in a favor on a private jet?”
“What, five seconds after you dropped me off at the airport?”
His eyes catch the fluorescent lights above us and turn it into something that makes my heart skip a beat. “About then, yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead seriously.”
“Well, go away.” My chin quivers, and I clench my teeth together until it stops. “I’m trying to do something here.”
“Don’t do it.” Asher’s voice is urgent, and that urgency reflects in his eyes. The clerk is pretending to give us a minute, but I can sense her back in her cubicle three feet from the window, hanging on every word.
I take my phone out of my purse and look at the screen. “I can wait fifteen minutes, if you have something to say.”
“I do. But…maybe not here.”
“Where do you want to go, then?” I’ve walked all the way in here, and my car is parked three blocks away. I’m not going to drive anywhere. “Fifteen minutes isn’t a lot of time.” And it’s all the time I can wait. Because if I wait a single minute longer, I might not go through with it, and that will really be a disaster.
“Out on the sidewalk.” Asher has this planned out, I see now. “I have a spot in mind.”
19
Asher
Everly follows me out, and I take deep, calming breaths, trying to get my heart back under control. It took forever to fly here, even by private jet, and I’m sure I broke every speed limit in my rental on the way to downtown Paulson. I didn’t take the chance that she’d be at home. Knowing Everly—and I do know her—she’d go straight to the courthouse.
I almost missed her.
I was almost too late.
In a place like Paulson, there’s no doubt her request would have been expedited, if only so that the lady behind the counter would have the full story from start to finish. She’d even be a bit player. It’s the same as Ruby Bay, only in Montana. No wo
nder it felt so familiar.
Outside the courthouse, we stand on the same block of sidewalk that we stood on when we got married all of a week ago. I’m still wearing my wedding band, and Everly is still wearing the engagement ring and band set we got her at the same jewelry store. I forgot to check when I stepped up behind her at the clerk’s window.
It means something. I know it does.
“Everly,” I begin again. I wanted to say this all to her when I first saw her, but it’s better this way, in the fall breeze, with no audience and no need to act.
“Asher,” she intones. I laugh, and her face brightens, dark eyes shining. “You’re laughing at me?”
“You’re funny. You’re funny, and you’re warm, and you’re smart, and I love having sex with you.” Okay. That was not the speech I had planned, but here we are, off the runway already. “Don’t start the divorce process.”
She arches one eyebrow and opens her mouth, then snaps it shut again. Opens it, shuts it. Finally, on the third try, she speaks. “What do you mean? I’m doing it. I’m doing it today, Asher. I won’t take advantage of you for another second.”
“Don’t give up your ranch because of me.” I smile at her, hopeful. I probably look like an idiot, but my chest feels like it’s one needle away from bursting with the wait. It has been agonizing, following her across the country and not being able to say these words. “We’ll need a place to live.”
“What?”
“I’m coming with you.” I don’t know how to say it any more plainly than that. “I’m coming here. I’m leaving Bliss behind.”
EVERLY
Shock. Shock like jumping into the deep end of the bay, shock like falling from a horse, shock like I felt when Asher first walked into that bar.
“What?”
“I want to be with you, and I don’t care if you didn’t tell me about the other Bliss family. I don’t care. They’re nothing to me, and you’re everything, and I don’t want to spend another day without you.”
Asher steps forward and slips my rings off my finger. I feel surprisingly naked without them, those real fake rings.
He sinks down to one knee on the sidewalk, and my heart bursts like a flower into bloom.
Asher takes my hand in his like it’s a precious object and looks up into my eyes. “From the moment I saw you in that bar, I knew you were mine.” He could have said special. He could have said different. But mine rings like a bell in the core of my heart, in the place where every bit of hope I’ve ever harbored has come to rest and planted a beach chair in the sand. “I know it sounds crazy, but I knew it. I knew it in my fucking bones. My—bones. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper.
“I wanted you then, and I wanted to say yes to you then, but I didn’t because I was foolishly worried that it might turn out to be real. And I’ll admit it. I was afraid of that. Because falling in love…”
“It’s complicated.” I feel that in my soul. “It’s complicated and it’s risky, and there aren’t as many rules to keep things simple.”
“Here’s my first rule. If you marry me, you’ll never have to worry about being alone again.”
“I like the sound of that.” Not more tears. They spill out of the corners of my eyes, silent and happy.
“Here’s my second rule. I’ll love you with every breath I take until the day I die. I love you that much now, Everly.”
“That doesn’t sound like a rule.”
“Think of it as method living.”
I laugh out loud, throwing my head back so the sun is on my face. “I’ll think of it that way.”
“Here’s my third rule. We’ll always have truth between us. And sex, and life, and love. And maybe kids. I’ve always wanted kids.”
“Me, too. But not right now. If I’m going to marry rich, I’m going to travel.”
“Oh, and here’s my fourth rule. Our official anniversary was a week ago. I want to keep it.”
I hear something else in his voice. “But?”
“But I’d like to have another ceremony. We can invite your sister, and even your neighbors, if you want.”
“Oh, god,” I groan. “Please do not invite your relatives.”
“Why not? They’re my relatives.”
It takes a beat for this to sink in. “Really?”
“Really. They are my real relatives. My dad had a secret brother.”
My mouth falls open. “Wow. Wow.”
“Yeah. So, it might be nice to have them for the wedding.”
“No. I don’t agree.”
“Okay, that idea’s off the table. Put it out of your mind. But Everly?”
“Yes?”
“Will you marry me? Again?”
I open my eyes wide and scan the street. The sidewalk is nothing special, and the courthouse is the same building it’s been all my life. The wide open sky above us is the most special thing I can see, aside from the man kneeling at my feet in the September sun.
I want to remember this moment forever. I want to savor this moment forever.
“Everly?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re just…you’re looking around, like another Bliss brother might come sweep you off your feet.”
“No. You’re the only one I ever want anywhere near my feet.” I take a deep breath. “Yes, Asher Bliss, I will marry you, again. I love you.”
He slips the rings back onto my fingers and all of me sighs with sweet relief. Then he’s on his feet, pinning me in his arms and crushing my mouth with a kiss that’s salty with my tears and sweet with his love, and I don’t care if anyone sees.
Let the world see.
Let them all look.
Because this?
This is real.
20
Everly
“I now pronounce you man and wife!”
The guests at our tiny wedding ceremony erupt into applause that’s fit for an enormous guest list, Beau loudest of all. That guy has incredible amounts of energy. His girlfriend, Claire, whoops along with him, the two of them making the sound thunderous.
Asher dips me back and kisses me.
I have never been so happy. Never, never, never.
When I saw myself in the mirror this morning, I burst into tears. The gown Asher bought me at a store in downtown Paulson before we flew back to New York is a sophisticated version of the gown I dreamed of as a little girl and knew I would never have—not if my father had anything to say about it. It skims my hips in a fall of white fabric and has a neckline that sweeps down and makes me look like a princess. With a dramatic six-foot veil, I am perfection incarnate.
Not to brag.
The only person more perfect is Asher, who could be a tuxedo model. The rest of his brothers come close, but they could never be as attractive as he is. He smolders. I want a thousand pictures of him. A million. I want to wallpaper our house with pictures of him, which would be exceedingly weird for guests.
Luckily for Asher, I can’t do that yet, because we don’t have a house yet. There’s some news I have to break before we start shopping on the club side of the resort, where all his brothers live. Where we will live.
He breaks the kiss too soon for my taste, and I pull him back in for another one, audience be damned.
Or…audience be lucky. We’re so hot.
At the last possible moment, I stand back up again and thrust my bouquet into the air. Victory is mine.
We don’t walk back up the aisle. All of us fit at one big table in the garden courtyard at Bliss, and all that’s left to do is step back into the gathering of our family and friends.
Asher’s brothers. Their girlfriends.
And my sister, Brooke, who looks more elegant than ever in a burgundy dress with the same cut as mine. She has my dark hair and our mom’s green eyes. “I can’t believe you made me come out here,” she says when I step up next to her after the ceremony.
“For my wedding. And a vacation. You need one.”
“I don’t.�
� She frowns. “I need to work. I love work. I crave work. I—”
“You’re my sister, and I love you so much, but you don’t get to regret being at my wedding.”
She shrugs. “I would regret it less if there was a seventh Bliss brother.”
“Lucky you,” I say. “There is—”
“Not him.” She holds up a hand.
“You never know.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know this.” I take a big breath in. “I’m not coming back to Montana.”
“Wait—what?”
“I’m giving the ranch to you, and I’m moving to New York.”
Brooke claps her hands over her mouth. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“But—no, stay,” she says, and I don’t believe her for an instant. “You’re sure you want to leave?” She’s so happy that her face can hardly contain it. I don’t have to ask her to know. She’s my sister.
“Yes. And I think you need a place of your own. This place. I got it for you, and now I want you to have it.”
“I can see that it’s been a real hardship,” she jokes. “Are you going to let me visit?”
“Are you ever going to take a vacation?”
“Probably not.”
“Well, if you do, you know where to find me.”
“I’ll donate all your things to charity.”
“God, Brooke, I’ll come pack first. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“I’ll touch it if I want to. It’s my house, remember?”
“Not yet it isn’t. Tread carefully, sister mine, because I could still take this back at any moment, and you’d be—”
“I hope no one minds.” A voice rings out above the crowd, and all the chatter dies away. “I watched from the crossway on the second floor. The view was much better.”
