Pretending to Wed

by Melissa Jagears

  Corinne raised her glass of milk halfheartedly, her eyes clearly missing the levity Timothy was trying to infuse into the room.

  Nolan tried not to deflate at her lack of cheer. Whatever anger she’d harbored earlier had likely intensified after learning he’d sent off her drawings behind her back. Did she not feel ready to put her things out into the world? But even if one of her ideas failed, surely another was bound to take off and give her some much-needed confidence.

  He certainly believed she was something special, and he ached for her to believe it, too.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  In the cabin, Corinne gave her notebook one last look and handed it across the table to Nolan’s uncle. She turned her back, as if not seeing his face when he opened the pages would make it easier to allow someone such free access to her thoughts.

  She’d never handed anyone her notebook. Nolan didn’t even know all that was in there—though perhaps he might. He’d taken it from her at some point, although the page he’d copied had fallen out a few times.

  But even if he’d only seen that one page, that didn’t absolve him.

  She busied herself with making an empty spot on her cluttered table as Uncle Matthias looked through her drawings. He uttered one or two grunts of what sounded like appreciation, amid others that definitely suggested he found her ideas wanting.

  Which many of them were. She couldn’t be miffed at the man for thinking the same as she.

  A familiar slight dragging sound indicated Nolan was coming out to check on them. Within seconds, his frame filled her cabin’s little doorway, and she restrained her scowl.

  He had come clean with his uncle about the inventions being hers, but then, he didn’t have much choice since Matthias had surprised him in person.

  If his uncle hadn’t shown up, would Nolan have patented her ideas and sold them without her knowing?

  She shoved a metal bowl out of her way, letting it clatter.

  Matthias made a half-grunt that sounded more positive than any of the other noises he’d emitted so far. Nolan walked up to his uncle with a huge grin on his face and a quick wink for her.

  Didn’t he realize she wasn’t happy about this? Matthias only had her notebook in hand because her husband had essentially lied to her.

  She’d always been honest with him. She’d thought him the best sort of man—and yet he did something so underhanded.

  The way he’d treated her last night…

  She’d been jittery at the thought that he might love her—no, she had believed it. But now?

  She tossed another scrap of metal into her junk box with more force than necessary.

  His smiles, lingering touches, and what she’d assumed was Nolan putting her interest above his own had broken the chains she’d put around her heart for a very good reason. She shouldn’t have unlocked them.

  A soft whump sounded behind her. Her notebook fluffed up dust where Uncle Matthias had dropped it on her workbench.

  “I think we can generate interest in several of these.” He walked around the table to her vats that contained strips of soiled fabric. “What about your stain remover? Does it take out more than grease? It’d be better if it removed everything.”

  She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. If it could remove everything, there’d likely be no cloth left either. “I’m afraid it has only lightened the stains, so I’m trying something else. If you’re interested in soap, I’m attempting to make one for a friend with sensitive skin.”

  She handed him the nearly fragrance-free bar that had turned an ugly yellow. “This got the clothing clean, but the real test is if it causes a rash. If it doesn’t, plenty of women should be interested.”

  Matthias sniffed the soap then frowned at it.

  “What about the stepladder?” Nolan took the soap Matthias handed over.

  “I don’t have what I need to start—”

  “We can go into town tomorrow and put in an order for whatever you need,” Nolan interrupted.

  “I need hinges. Special ones I’m not sure the town’s blacksmith has the skill to make.”

  “How many and what kind?”

  She opened up her notebook and pointed at the drawing she’d finalized last week.

  Nolan glanced over his uncle’s shoulder. “They’re awfully long.”

  The better for stability. “I doubt the blacksmith could get them done before your uncle came back through.”

  “Oh,” his voice descended a touch.

  “I might be able to get you the wire basket aerator in time, maybe the waterer.”

  Matthias’s face looked more thoughtful than miffed.

  “Boss?”

  Sal poked his head into the cabin. “Could you come with me, please? We’ve got a situation.”

  “Sure.” Nolan pushed away from the table. “Excuse me a minute.”

  She frowned as she watched her husband leave with their foreman, but since she wasn’t needed, she turned back to Nolan’s uncle.

  Matthias peered over the top of his reading glasses at her. She crossed her arms and stiffened her spine. After a second, he sighed and took off his glasses. “Some of your ideas are really good.”

  She tilted her head. If that was true, why the sound of resignation?

  “I know your husband insists you take credit, but I see you are an intelligent young lady. And I think both you and I know that if you want to make money, you have to keep your investors and buyers from having a lick of doubt in your product.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. He’d not had a lick of doubt when he was under the impression Nolan had drawn these.

  Considering the fatherly look he was giving her, she braced herself for whatever unarguable advice he was about to dole out.

  “Nolan may have duped me into thinking these were his contraptions, but once I learned they were yours … I can’t say that your being female can be overlooked.”

  “What do you mean, ‘duped’?”

  “He never outright said they were his, but considering he wrote the letter and these sketches were in his hand, I assumed so.”

  She chewed her lip. Maybe Nolan had good reason to approach his uncle that way. Maybe he hadn’t been trying to steal anything from her.

  That still didn’t excuse him from deceiving them both.

  “I’m afraid most men won’t believe in you like Nolan does. Love makes men blind—not that he’s blind to what you have here.” Matthias tapped her notebook. “But he is blind to the fact that not everyone’s going to ignore your sex. Women don’t patent much. The man of the family usually—”

  “I’m familiar with that process, and no, Nolan will not be patenting my inventions in his name.” The hard edge to her voice should end any further discussion to that end.

  “Since Nolan seems amenable to that, you can do as you please, but though he has the ability to run a ranch well, he’s not familiar with these kinds of investments like I am. I know you ran a laundry, but you don’t know the art of selling a product. It’s best if you put down your pride and let Nolan take the credit. You’re bound to sell more, get further faster. It’s simply business.”

  She wanted to tell him to keep his unsolicited advice to himself, but she couldn’t ignore her husband had a relative who could get her inventions on a mercantile shelf quicker than she’d ever dreamed. “Are you unwilling to show your friends my inventions in light of the fact that the patents will belong to me?”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ll take the paper Nolan sent me and see how they react to those three. You work on getting that covered waterer made. Make sure it works.” He looked at her intently. “I suggest you think about changing your mind.”

  “There’s nothing to think over.”

  He shook his head, but the set of his mouth indicated he’d finally resigned himself—and that he thought her too stubborn for her own good. “Then I’ll need prototypes of everything before I can get anywhere with them. How soon can you get me that stepladder
?”

  “Out here?” She arched one eyebrow. Did he forget where they lived? “I don’t know if the in-town blacksmith and cabinetmaker have the talent and time to fashion what I need. It could take months.”

  Matthias started cleaning his glasses with his shirt, shaking his head. “If we have any hope of getting them into next year’s catalog—”

  “He-llllo, Father,” Matt’s slurred voice accompanied him as he stepped inside the cabin and knocked into the table under the front window. He shored himself up against the wall and crossed his arms. “I heard you were in town, not planning to see me.”

  Matthias’s frown hardened. “Nonsense, I’ve told no one that.”

  “But you didn’t ask where I was now, did you?”

  Matthias didn’t answer, just looked at his son as if a reproving stare would answer Matt’s question.

  Corinne scrunched her nose at the rank odor of aged alcohol.

  “Why’d you come out here, anyway?” Matt stagger-stepped to her table and picked up one of her failed washing dollies. He frowned at the plunger-like contraption, undoubtedly having no idea what it was, and tossed it to the floor.

  What right did he have to come in here and throw her things around?

  Nolan hustled in, not even trying to hide his limp. “I’m sorry.” His voice was breathless. “I tried to get him to wait.”

  “Why?” Matt pivoted toward Nolan, somehow keeping himself upright. “What’s in here I can’t know about?” He scanned the room, his disdainful sneer growing wider. “It’s all just junk.”

  He turned to his father. “What are you doing out here in the junk shed?”

  “It’s not junk.” Corinne retrieved the washing dolly and set it back on the table with a decisive thump. “It’s my workshop.”

  She shook her head. Why was she wasting breath arguing with him?

  Matt shrugged and took a swaggering step toward her. “What is it Nolan has that you want? He doesn’t need you anymore. He’s got the ranch.”

  “Now, son. Look here.” Matthias placed himself between Corinne and his son.

  “Oh, I’m looking.” Matt pulled up short and glared at his father. “You think Nolan’s got it all together, do you? Did you know his father didn’t want him to have this ranch and practically disowned him like you did me? Nolan ain’t no better than me, and you ain’t no better than Uncle Lewis.”

  Matthias glanced over his son’s shoulder toward Nolan with a questioning look, but Nolan didn’t notice because he was grabbing for Matt’s arm. “Let’s talk about this elsewhere. We ought—”

  Matt yanked himself from Nolan’s grasp. “Don’t touch me.”

  Nolan put both hands up in surrender, but moved to place himself in front of her, next to his uncle.

  She moved closer to Nolan.

  Matt scanned the room as if he’d found himself in a garbage heap and gestured at his cousin. “Why were you so dad-blamed determined to keep me out of this place?”

  Matthias harrumphed. “Probably because he knew you wouldn’t react well to the fact I’m going to be investing in a woman’s ideas before I lay another penny on you.”

  Corinne cringed—though under different circumstances, she might have crowed a little. Matthias’s reservation over whose name was on the patent wasn’t a deal breaker after all.

  He really thought she had something.

  “What’s she got that you want?” Matt’s disdain suddenly drained away, and he turned to glare at her like a fox that had spotted its next meal.

  “What I’ve wanted you to have your whole life—gumption, stick-to-it-tiveness, and plain ol’ work ethic.”

  Matt shrugged. “I bet I made more money this past week than she did all year. Nolan told you she’s just a laundress, right?”

  “And she’ll likely make me more money this upcoming year than what you embezzled from me last.”

  Though this was her cabin, perhaps she shouldn’t stay in it any longer. She took a step around Nolan, but he held out his arm and tucked her back behind him.

  Matt flung out his arms. “You’ve always said it takes money to make money. That’s all I was doing.”

  “And I’ve also always said principle before profit.” Matthias huffed and did a quick turn to face Nolan and Corinne. “Excuse us.” He took Matt’s arm.

  But his son wriggled out of his grasp as he had with Nolan earlier. “What makes the two of you think you can manhandle me?”

  “Get out of here, Matt. They don’t need to be involved in this.”

  Matt took one last glance around before stomping out of the cabin.

  Seemed she ought to put a padlock on her shopping list.

  Matthias sighed and followed his son out.

  Once the men exited, Nolan put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Sal tried to redirect him, but evidently he started throwing things. Once Matt figured out where Matthias was, he wasn’t about to sit in the parlor. Unfortunately, he walks faster than me, even intoxicated.”

  Corinne glanced out the doorway where Matt was marching ahead of his father. “Is he often drunk?”

  Nolan shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but apparently he lost a good deal of money last night. I shouldn’t have told him Uncle was here.”

  “It’s all right.”

  He took her hand. “But is it? You haven’t seemed yourself this morning. This isn’t how I’d envisioned today.”

  She extracted her hand. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have expected your uncle to show up and reveal you sent off my designs without permission.”

  He stepped back, his face tense.

  “How could you snoop through my sketches? I told you they weren’t done, they weren’t good enough—”

  “You need to stop saying that. I apologize for sending that paper off without your knowledge, but I was afraid to get your hopes up. Your opinion about your ideas is already low enough. I didn’t want any criticism from my uncle to stop you from continuing.”

  She lifted her chin. “You redrew it. I saw the page. You were passing it off as your own.”

  He had the good sense to look sheepish. “I figured if he knew they were your inventions, he’d not even look. My aunt did him wrong, and ever since, no woman starts out with a clean slate with him. I’m sure once he gets to know you he’ll be able to see past his prejudices, but that’ll take time. I thought I could get his opinion before he knew they were yours, so we could speed up the process if he were interested.”

  “Why not wait until I was ready? Are we hurting for money that badly?”

  “No, but we definitely don’t have enough money to help you with any of this. It might take years to save up enough to manufacture and sell just one of these things, so I was hoping Uncle could help. You’ve upended your entire life to save my ranch, so I just hoped to arrange something to make your dream a reality sooner rather than later.”

  Nolan’s heartbeat had ramped up with their first real fight, but less because of her ire, and more because he was mad at himself. Their chance at convincing his uncle to work with a woman was likely short-lived. What if he’d messed up her biggest opportunity by pushing her into it too soon?

  Corinne only stood there staring at him.

  Uncle must have told her before breakfast that he’d sent her inventions to him—and yes, he deserved the fiery darts zinging out of her eyes right now, but with Uncle being willing to work with her, surely she’d forgive him. “I believe in you, Corinne. I only wanted—”

  “Corinne?” Matthias pushed open the cabin door but didn’t come in. “I want you to be ready to go with me to Denver when I come back through. Unless we want to lose a year’s worth of potential revenue, we need to get prototypes made in time to convince my friends they should invest. Denver has everything you need. I can call in favors with my manufacturers and get you the chemicals you require and anything else that you’d have to order if you stayed here.”

  Nolan couldn’t move anything but his eyelids.

&n
bsp; He had hoped his uncle would help her achieve her dreams sooner rather than later, but to leave within days? To be gone for who knew how long, after…

  He turned to look at his wife. She appeared interested.

  Not uncertain. Not unwilling. Not like a woman too in love to leave her husband behind.

  “I…” He couldn’t push any more words out.

  They were close enough to the three-month mark no one would be suspicious of a newlywed bride heading off to visit a relative, especially when they learned of the opportunity his uncle was affording her. He’d told her she’d be free to live her life, but would she come back? If Denver would be that much better for making prototypes and talking to investors and working with manufacturers…

  “I suppose you two should talk it through. I’ll be at the hotel until nine tomorrow morning.” Matthias ducked out, shutting the door with a soft click.

  “Well?” She looked to him with a newly blank expression. Was she trying to hide how eager she was to say yes to Uncle’s offer?

  He swallowed hard. “It’s up to you. If you think it best to go to Denver…” How could he tell her not to go when he was the reason Matthias had offered this? “Uncle’s right, it’ll take you much longer to get things made out here.”

  Her face was unreadable as she picked up her notebook and hugged it to her chest. “But I don’t know your uncle, any more than I—” She shook her head.

  Know you, she likely meant to finish.

  Considering how she was clutching her notebook as if to keep it safe from him, any trust he’d earned the past couple of months was gone.

  His heart dropped to his toes. She likely had no desire to hear anything that sounded like romantic nonsense from him now, but he could tell the truth. “I trust you to make wise decisions, Corinne. I believe you’ve got what it takes to do well. If you think you should go, I’ll support you.”

  Even if it broke his romantically inclined, nonsensical heart.

  Chapter Thirty-Five