With This Click, I Thee Wed (Click and Wed.com Series, #1)

by Bonnie R. Paulson

  Was that enough for me? I didn’t know if I should be happy, sad, or disappointed. I had never really been complimented before. I wasn’t sure if it was backhanded or sincere.

  There I was – over-analyzing everything when he was just a boy telling me he liked me.

  Nobody just told me they liked me. Why was I trying to ruin it?

  I looked up from my sandwich to find his deep brown eyes trained on me. I swallowed self-consciously, hoping that I didn’t have any peanut butter or jelly on my face. I hadn’t even put makeup on since I wasn’t sure what else I would be doing that day.

  “What are you hoping for in a husband?” His question startled me. I was never asked what I wanted in anything.

  “Like my own version of Prince Charming?” I said it jokingly like I didn’t know what he meant. I knew who my perfect guy was. I just had never met him.

  He nodded, prodding me to answer his question with genuine interest.

  Clearing my throat, I shifted on my seat. “It’s actually really easy. I just want someone who won’t give up on me. Someone to keep me from being lonely.” There were those dang tears again. I looked at my plate and mumbled, “I want a friend more than anything.”

  His side-grin charmed me more than his full smile did, which was saying something. “Luckily for you, I’m as stubborn as they come. I don’t give up on anything. And I can be a really good friend.” He winked again at me like he knew what his eyes could do to a girl and drained his cup. “I’m gonna get you some more coffee and see if I can have someone come get your Jeep for you. Now that I’ve seen it in the light, it’s obvious it’s a rental. We’ll get it returned in time.”

  Logan stood and claimed my now-empty cup and paused, softly touching my shoulder. “I want a friend, too, Rachel. Someone I can trust.”

  I could call my hot husband my friend. That was a first.

  Did he think I was attractive? Or was that even something to worry about, yet?

  Chapter 8

  Logan and I kind of fell into a routine. Like a roommate schedule. I’m not sure how we came to the agreement that I would clean in the house while he was outside working on the ranch, but we did.

  I cleaned the kitchen as deep as possible and did an even deeper clean in the living room. Then my obsession escalated from there. I had to document everything. I’d never seen so many collectibles in one place.

  My mom always told me that I wasn’t good at anything but organizing, so that’s what I had done when I moved out of the house. I became a professional organizer. My skills at inventorying items were second to none. I took real pride in it.

  People actually paid me good money to organize their lives, their computers, their rooms, their filing systems, their kitchens, whatever they had in disarray. One woman had me organize her receipts and document them for the last ten years because of her upcoming divorce. That was the most arduous job I’d had. I had this weird gift and luckily for me, I liked doing it.

  Inventorying was just a way to give my mind something to do. All the items throughout the house gave me a lot to organize in my mind, taking the pressure off any possible overthinking I might do.

  In the kitchen, I documented almost two-thousand things. I could look at the money I’d paid ClickandWed.com as one dollar per item to organize. I had paid to come do what so many other people paid me to do. The logic had me laughing to myself in the large house.

  I could tell why he stayed outside. Everything was a cluttered mess. Nothing was organized by each other and in the pantries, there was ketchup by syrup and tomato soup stuck by the beans. The system looked like someone had taken a bunch of items, stuffed them into a potato gun, and shot them randomly into the pantry.

  There was too much food in there for it to all have been Logan’s collection. Some of those things had been in there for at least four years. At least according to their expiration dates, could’ve been in there longer.

  As much as he avoided the inside, he would come in for lunch, and we would have a chance to talk. That’s all we did, talked. In the evening, he would read a book, and I would click through my emails from clients wondering when I would be back.

  When would I be back? Did I plan on returning to my parents’ home town? Derek’s turf? Did I think I had a place there in that small place? Grangeville wasn’t large by anyone’s standards, but at least I didn’t know anyone and even fewer people than that knew about Derek.

  I hadn’t even told Logan about Derek. Logan and I hadn’t talked about much of anything serious, let alone bills, splitting payments, or anything financial. We really had just fallen into some kind of a friend zone that I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with.

  I know, I know. I’d said I wanted a husband I could be friends with, but what about love? What about passion? There was no question my attraction to Logan wasn’t something I could attribute to fatigue on my first day there. Any time we were around, I forgot I was cold, tired, or worried about things working out. He just calmed me, comforted me.

  Was love out of the question since we had met online? My hopes were high that it wasn’t, but I couldn’t discount my luck either. I’d believed Derek loved me and look where that had gotten me.

  I was in very unfamiliar territory, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with the realizations I continued coming across.

  Logan’s home was supposed to be my home, and as much as I was trying to make it mine, it wasn’t easy. I felt like a stranger, like I was visiting.

  The snow outside penned me in, and I didn’t have a vehicle to go anywhere. Grangeville wasn’t too far away from the house, but I didn’t have a reason to go in to town. The only interaction I had with my parents was sending them the mailing address by text.

  Somehow, I’d just decided to stop talking to them. It hurt too much to know I was a constant disappointment. Out of sight, out of mind made it easier to cope. How could I disappoint them though, when they never took the time to see me and the things I could do or did?

  Kind of like how Logan wasn’t seeing me either.

  ***

  It had been a week since I’d arrived. My phone dinged, and I rubbed my eyes while rolling over. Who was messaging me at seven o’clock on a Sunday? The rest of the house was quiet and there was a chill in the morning that was usually about that time.

  Logan probably had slept in and ignored the fire for a little while. I didn’t want to crawl out from my warm blankets and face yet another day of routine. The blinking red heart on the front of my phone told me it was time to do something else, but I had already checked in. What more did they want from me?

  I swiped the center of the red heart to the side. A fun red box popped up, covering my other apps and icons. The title held the explanation for what was called the first step.

  The first step? What had I signed up for?

  The box read, “In order to help you succeed at your brand-new marriage, ClickandWed.com has come up with a series of activities for you and your new spouse to do. This is part of the contract and something you need to do together. Please, log your answers together and take part of each activity and provide the essential evidence that we instruct you to do. Remember, success is worth more than anything else. Now, please watch a video from our sponsor.”

  An ad about arrangements made from food played for fifteen seconds while I stared at the screen with my mouth open. How could they say that success was worth more than anything else when they didn’t have to pay the two-thousand dollars?

  That refund looked pretty good when I had no car and essentially no money of my own.

  Another email dinged on my phone. I glared at it as I opened it, but I was pleasantly surprised to find one of my clients asking if I could do a telecommute job from where I was at. Interesting.

  I snuggled deeper into the covers and replied with, “I would be happy to help. Please send me pictures of what you have, and I will look for pictures of what we can do.”

  That particular person was a higher-end c
lient who paid in terrific chunks of money. The jobs were a lot of fun, too.

  The email exchange gave me a really good idea. I could do a lot of jobs remotely. That would open my client base exponentially as well as immediately increasing my income.

  Mollified a bit by the fact that I wouldn’t be completely dependent on Logan or anyone else, I went back into the app for ClickandWed.com. I slid my thumb across the front of the app while a little blinking heart told me to touch it. So, I did. Which was really quite stupid, if you asked me. The last time I pushed a heart on their website I got married and lost two grand.

  Apparently, all I had gotten was a considerate roommate with shoulders so broad I doubted I’d be able to put my arms around him. Not a husband.

  Money didn’t buy much those days, I guessed.

  I closed my eyes for a brief moment. I chose my situation. I told him I just wanted to be friends. That was my fault. I had set that course into motion. I would have to suck it up and deal with the results. I put us into the friend zone before we even had a chance to be anything else. Would I be able to get us out?

  ~~~

  One of my favorite dishes I made was a thick stew. I got it cooking for dinner and opted for soda biscuits to accompany the hearty dish.

  According to the rules on the app, we only had three nights to finish the first step. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything embarrassing. The task was more like some kind of truth or dare.

  Logan came in for dinner and sat down, his face red from the biting wind and snow. He smiled at me and we bowed our heads for grace. I know I had picked that faith wasn’t important to me, but it was reassuring to find a man who believed in something.

  He scooped a heaping pile of steak and vegetables into his mouth and closed his eyes as he chewed. After he swallowed, he opened his eyes and pierced me with his stunning brown gaze. “I swear, Rachel, I don’t think even my mom made stew like this. This is amazing. Promise me you’ll never leave.” He looked back at his bowl and shoveled another bite in. He leaned with his forearms onto the table and approached the meal with gusto. “I can’t imagine returning to the torture of boxed meals after this.”

  I welcomed the warmth his words spread through me, but did he realize he just asked me to never leave? I guess that’s what friends said to each other.

  I didn’t even want to eat my own stew. I just wanted to watch him enjoy what I’d made. Derek had never been enthusiastic about my meals. He never even acknowledged that I made them. He just grunted while he ate and burped when he was done. I’m still unclear what everyone else in that dang town saw in him. He got me, but once I got to know him...

  After four or five more bites, Logan sighed. “Thank you, so much. You don’t know what it’s like to work outside all day and then come in and eat something like this. Like heaven.” He closed his eyes and claimed another bite. At the rate he was going, he’d finish the pot in the next ten minutes.

  “I can help outside if you want me to. I’m just not sure what to do. I feel useless.” I blurted it out before I thought. He could’ve been saying I didn’t do anything, but he didn’t strike me as that unkind. If he needed my help elsewhere, I could be there. I’d just made sure I was busy all day cleaning, sorting, and organizing. I don’t think he knew that.

  He pulled my hand from where I fidgeted at the edge of the table. He clasped my fingers in his and spoke slowly. “Rachel, you are doing a lot. I’m sorry I haven’t mentioned it. I can see how much you’re cleaning, and these meals cannot be easy to make. I’m sure that you’re putting a lot of time in here. I apologize. My comment was backhanded. I didn’t mean you weren’t working. I’m just saying it is heaven to come in and eat like this when I’ve been outside working for so long. I haven’t eaten like this in a long time.” He grinned and picked up his spoon again. “You’re gonna make me fat.”

  His touch sizzled my skin and I regretted that he released me. I giggled at his words, shaking my head. “I doubt that’s possible. You look like you don’t have an ounce of fat on you.” Heat flooded my face. Now he knew I looked at him, when he was walking around in his T-shirts and pants. How could I not look at him? His biceps would make a professional wrestler drool. His back muscles stretched out his shirts across the top.

  Logan didn’t need to know that I thought about what he would look like in the summer when he worked outside with his shirt off. With arm muscles like he had, I could only imagine what his abs looked like. With the friend zone I’d put us in, it would be better if I didn’t think of those things.

  We laughed and ate. I adjusted myself on the seat, my phone bulged up into the tender flesh of rear from my back pocket. I pulled it out and held it aloft to show Logan. “I got an alert from the ClickandWed app? I don’t know if you’re getting them, too. Are you?”

  “I don’t usually keep my phone on me. Was it something important?” He took another bite and looked at me questioningly. I wanted to just grin at him as he wouldn’t be distracted from dinner. He hadn’t been late to eat since that first night either. He couldn’t possibly know how much that meant to me.

  “We have a lot of things we’re supposed to do in order for the contract to be fulfilled.” I wasn’t sure what he even thought of the whole thing. We hadn’t talked about anything really important, at least regarding the whole “e-mail order bride” scenario. Was I the mail order bride? Or was he? No, wait, that didn’t make sense. Maybe it was more of an arranged marriage deal.

  All of the different terms were enough to drive a person insane. He didn’t pay attention to that stuff? Didn’t he want the money back? Where were we at with that? I wished I could ask him, but I wasn’t sure how indelicate any of it would be. I wasn’t exactly the type to chase down confrontations, or be blunt with someone when I so desperately wanted to be liked.

  Although, since that the subject was broached, I could probably direct the conversation around to the questions I had.

  “Oh, right, the contract.” He scraped his bowl clean and put the spoon down. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he leaned back and studied me. “I guess that’s something we’ll need to talk about. I haven’t checked the app. What does it say we need to do now?”

  I placed my phone between us on the table. The bright pink case clashed with the red and white traditional checkered pattern for a tablecloth. “I’ve been getting things in the morning, and when I was coming here, I was supposed to check in like every little while. When I got here, I had to check in or forfeit. I’ve been using all my data. I might need to get Wi-Fi at some point.”

  Rambling and I had nothing to be nervous about. Great, Rachel. Just great. Was it being around him that made me all jumpy? There was no question I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. Why did it feel like a school crush and that he didn’t know I was alive?

  “What does it want us to do?” He leaned forward and looked at my phone, folding his arms in front of him and hunching his shoulders up. A shock of dark hair fell across his forehead, almost to his eyebrows. He had the thickest hair I’d ever seen on a man.

  I blinked a couple times to bring myself back into focus. He’d asked me a question and I was acting like an idiot. “Well, tonight you and I need to do some kind of a questionnaire together. I have to insert our answers.” I pulled a section of my cheek between my teeth and worked on the soft flesh, not biting hard enough to draw blood but hard enough to keep me from chattering or rambling.

  Derek always said I talked and never said anything that meant anything. Jerk. He’d made even less sense than I did.

  The longer from home I was, the more the blinders pulled back and I could see exactly how miserable I’d been there – with my family, Derek, and the small town that was smaller in mind than in population.

  Logan’s eyes widened and his smile returned. “A questionnaire? Sounds like fun. I actually enjoyed all the questions when I was signing up on the website.” Logan stood and grabbed his bowl. “Is it something I can do with another bowl of stew? It is so good.” The enth
usiasm for my cooking was heartwarming. I don’t think I’d ever grow bored with that.

  “Of course, I’ll get it set up while you get more.” We would actually be talking about more than if I was warm enough, what he was reading, or what I was doing.

  I was a little nervous. We really had only had quiet nights where he would read, and I would sit there and do nothing much but burn up the data on my phone.

  Soon, I would have clients to work with at night, but I really did need Wi-Fi. Maybe that was something we could talk about after I brought in some more money. I could just work from my phone as a hotspot initially, but there was no Internet in the house. I could see that from the moment I walked in.

  I swiped through the app to get to the questionnaire. It provided spots for both my answers and his. “Oh, it looks like we need a selfie of the two us sitting together as we fill it out.” Probably as proof we were together.

  He laughed and leaned closer to me until our heads touched. I held the phone aloft and said, “Shoot.” And my phone made the clicking sound of a camera taking a picture. I didn’t want to pull away, but that would be hard for him to eat with my head stuck to his.

  I returned to my seat and approved the smiling couple in the photo. Adding it to the questionnaire was easy and in seconds I’d started the quiz.

  Logan scooted his seat closer to me and worked on his stew again, watching the questions with me. He distracted me with his nearness, and I hoped I didn’t have anything in my teeth, and that I smelled okay.

  I scanned the screen and then chuckled in embarrassment. “Okay, the first question is... Wow, it just kind of jumps right in there.”

  “Well, what is it?” He took another bite, chewed, and swallowed his food, waiting for me to answer. When I didn’t, he replied. “It can’t be that bad.”

  I cleared my throat, ready to challenge him. “Okay, it asks what your favorite position is.”

  Logan’s eyes widened, and he choked on the bite he put in his mouth. While he coughed, I couldn’t help laughing. “I’m just kidding. It actually asks how many children you want.” I had to tease him, though. I needed to diffuse the tension that was building inside me from him being so close.