The Cowboy's Surprise Bride

by Macie St James

  Of course, he was. It was late by rancher standards. Even though Colton wasn’t a rancher by self-definition, he’d grown up here around ranchers who woke at sunrise and worked hard all day. He’d probably be out working somewhere, getting the hayride ready or helping with the petting zoo.

  Just as she was considering calling him, she heard a noise from the kitchen and realized she wasn’t alone in the house. Sure enough, he was seated at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and staring at his phone screen. She just hoped nobody had texted him the link.

  “Hi.” Her tone was tentative. It hadn’t escaped her attention that he’d been angry at her last night for some reason. So if he hadn’t read the article, he’d probably think she was acting meek for that reason.

  He looked up at her. “Mornin’.”

  She could tell from the relaxed expression on his face that he had no idea what was going on. That meant she’d have to break the news to him.

  “Don’t panic. But we have a little problem. Promise you won’t panic?”

  Colton set his phone down, the relaxed expression gone. “What happened?”

  “There’s an article in the paper about us,” she said. “Mayor Cobb blasted us. We have to get to your family before they read it.”

  “Blasted us?” He stood and walked toward her.

  “The fact that our marriage is fake,” she said. “Not only was the license never turned in, but he says he has proof it’s all a lie.”

  “What proof?” She could now hear a light undertone of panic in his voice.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sure he’s lying about that part of it. The point is, he’s right, so we have no rebuttal. And if your family finds out through the paper, they’ll be even more hurt about it.”

  “But now they’ll think we only told them because it was in the paper,” he pointed out.

  Sighing, Mina slumped. He was right. She hadn’t even thought about that. They should have talked to his family before now, but it was too late for that. All they could do was damage control at this point.

  “I’ll get dressed and we’ll head to the main house.”

  She started toward her bedroom. All of a sudden, she was aware that she was in her robe and nightgown. While her robe was more than modest, she still realized how weird it was to stand in front of him like this.

  Before she could even get to the hallway, a chime rang through the house. She froze, turning to face him.

  His eyes were wide as he stared at her. “Too late. Go get dressed. I’ll take care of this.”

  Mina shook her head. “No. I got you into this, and it’s my responsibility to get you back on good terms with your family.”

  “Maybe we could tell them it was fake, but things have changed—”

  “No more lies.” She held up a hand to stop him.

  Yes, things had changed on her side. She’d fallen for him. She could admit that now. But he was just doing this to help her, and she couldn’t get him in any deeper to keep him in her life.

  She had to let him go.

  Nothing had been clearer to her than that fact was in this moment. The truth was out anyway, so there was no point in continuing the charade. So she’d free him and let him get back to his life while she returned to the campaign. She’d either become mayor or she wouldn’t, but either way, it never would have worked with him by her side, pretending to be her husband.

  The doorbell rang again. Colton stepped toward it, finally tearing his gaze off her to turn and answer it. As she watched him walk away from her, Mina knew he was walking away for the last time. He was heading toward his family, where he needed to be.

  Reilly and Harley were standing at the front door. No Clay. That surprised her. She hadn’t gotten to know Reilly all that well, but she supposed she didn’t know any of them as well as she should. She’d somehow managed to fool herself into believing she had all the time in the world to get to know them.

  “We have to do something,” Harley said the second the door was opened.

  Mina blinked. Those hadn’t been the words she’d expected to come out of Harley’s mouth. Instead, she should be demanding to know what was going on.

  Colton stepped back. “Come in.”

  Harley did just that. And while doing so, she held up her phone to show what was on the screen. Sure enough, that obnoxious headline blared out at them.

  “Mayor Cobb is challenging your marriage. Who knew he could go so low? We have to call Shawna. We’ll talk to her as a family and she’ll write it up in the paper. Or maybe we should release a video where we talk about how in love we all know you two are.”

  The words were like a punch to Mina’s gut. She winced. This was even worse than she’d imagined.

  “The article is right.” Mina had to get the words out, even though she really would have preferred to give this news delicately. “I pulled Colton into this and convinced him to keep it a secret from everyone, including you. He fought me on that part because he loves you all so much. I did it. It’s my fault.”

  Both Harley and Reilly were staring at her, their expressions a mixture of confusion and surprise. She definitely had expected that.

  “I agreed to do it, so Mina can’t take all the blame,” Colton rushed to add. “In fact, I’m probably more to blame than she is. I thought it was a great opportunity to draw attention to Pumpkinfest.”

  Mina jumped to his defense. “And it was. Hopefully, that will continue. But we just decided last night that we were going to tell the three of you.”

  “And we woke up to this,” Colton said.

  Harley started shaking her head, her brow furrowed. “You could have told us all along.”

  “I don’t get it,” Reilly said. “You pretended to be married to prove Mayor Cobb wrong?”

  Mina shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  Everyone was looking at Mina now, and she realized she’d painted herself into a corner. It was more complicated, but she couldn’t explain why without giving away the fact that she’d been handed the opportunity to spend time with her childhood crush, and she’d jumped on it. It had been partly about her career, sure, but it was more about her lingering feelings for Colton than anything else.

  And now those feelings weren’t lingering. They were all too real.

  “It was just a bad idea,” Mina finally said. “Even if I’d won, it wouldn’t have been on my own merits.”

  Reilly looked around. “Well, you haven’t lost yet. In fact, you could just say you forgot to file the marriage license. We’d stand behind you.”

  “No,” Colton said. “We can’t do that.”

  Harley wasn’t giving up that easily. “But if you come out as faking the whole thing, you’ll never know if that’s what costs you the election. We’ll support you. You’re family now.”

  The statement brought tears to Mina’s eyes. “You should be furious with us for lying.”

  “But were you lying, really?” Harley looked from Mina to Colton. “I don’t think so.”

  Wait. What did that mean? Mina looked at Colton as if he might have answers, but he was just staring at his future sister-in-law with a confused expression on his face.

  “Breakfast at the main house when you’re ready,” Harley said, heading to the door. “It’s just Danishes, some muffins, and some scrambled eggs you can reheat, so no hurry.”

  “We’ll be there,” Colton called out as Harley and Reilly left.

  No, they wouldn’t. She started to say as much, but she decided against it. The best thing she could do was gracefully exit the situation before she got any more involved.

  “I have to go.” Mina began backing toward her bedroom. “I’ll have Robby issue a statement, but if I’m going to do some damage control, I have to start sooner rather than later.”

  “Do you need my help?” he asked.

  “No, you’ve already helped so, so much. Thank you. I can never thank you enough.”

  He sighed. “I’m prett
y sure you can since the whole thing didn’t work out in the end.”

  “Maybe it did.” She shrugged. “We’ll see how things turn out on election night. Thank you again for everything and give Clay my regrets.”

  She didn’t trust herself to stay any longer. She turned and walked calmly to her room, shutting the door before the tears in her eyes began streaming down her face.

  19

  It was the moment of truth. Months of campaigning and debating on stage and pretending to be married to an attorney-turned-Pumpkinfest-manager had all led to this.

  As the numbers displayed on the big screens all around the room, a somber mood fell over the crowd. Colton stood alongside some of the many strangers who had supported Mina all the way up to the end. He was trying to keep a low profile, and it seemed to be working. Nobody was paying a bit of attention to him.

  It had been a rough couple of weeks. After the news about their not-so-real marriage broke, Mina had admitted she’d felt pressured to fake a wedding to fit in. She’d done a great job of spinning it as a battle against the patriarchy, which couldn’t handle a woman being unmarried without kids. It seemed to be working. After all, looking around the ballroom that had been set up so Mina could give her acceptance speech, the younger demographic had embraced her wholeheartedly.

  But the results weren’t good.

  The polls weren’t closed yet, and everyone around him kept trying to assure themselves that past elections had turned around based on results from one polling station. But with every precinct that reported, the news got worse.

  Colton should leave. Really, he should. But any hope he’d have of winning her over someday died with these results. They told him, one hundred percent, that she’d be putting her house on the market and leaving town as soon as she could.

  “Hey.” Reilly slid in next to him, staring up at the screen. He winced when he saw the numbers. Yeah, it was that bad. “Sorry, man.”

  They hadn’t discussed it, but Colton was pretty sure his brothers were on the same page about what would happen if Mina left town. They also hadn’t talked about how he felt about Mina, but from what Harley had said about the whole thing, it was pretty obvious they all were onto him having feelings for her.

  But were you lying, really? I don’t think so.

  Those had been Harley’s words. She’d said no more, but it was pretty obvious she was saying they hadn’t been lying because there were real feelings. She just didn’t seem to realize the feelings were completely one-sided.

  “What do you think she’ll do now?” Reilly asked.

  Colton shrugged. He didn’t want to discuss it, but he knew exactly what she’d do. There were no opportunities for an aspiring politician here. She’d probably go straight back to Washington.

  Reilly flashed a sly smile. “Maybe you can convince her to stay. I have a feeling it won’t take much to talk her into it.”

  There it was again. His family seemed to have some sort of weird confidence that the feelings Colton had for Mina were reciprocated. He knew they weren’t, but he couldn’t figure out why everyone else couldn’t see that.

  Colton swallowed. “I have to let her go. Put this behind me. She’s too big for this town.”

  Reilly stared at Colton, studying him. “Do you really think it’ll be that easy?”

  No. It wouldn’t be. Not at all. But Colton didn’t have a choice.

  As the crowd burst into applause around them, Colton immediately looked up at the screen. He was hoping he’d see Mina had pulled ahead and was in the lead, but instead, he saw a scroll across the bottom that ninety-eight percent of the precincts had reported, and Mayor Cobb had been declared the winner.

  So why was everyone applauding?

  He got his answer when he dropped his gaze from the TV screens to the stage. Mina was walking to the podium, looking unbelievably beautiful in a maroon skirt suit. He felt a tiny stab of pain in his chest, knowing he’d never spend time with her again.

  “Come on,” Reilly said, gesturing for Colton to follow him.

  What was his brother up to? Whatever it was, Colton didn’t have time for it. He needed to listen to Mina’s speech.

  But the call to adventure was too strong to ignore. He had to know what Reilly was doing. Listening to Mina express her appreciation, he followed Reilly, squeezing through the tightly-packed rows of people.

  “There’s no place on Earth like Canyon Falls,” Mina was saying as he moved. “And I’m not giving up. There’s another election in four years, so who knows? In the meantime...”

  In the meantime, she was out of here. And he was guessing she wouldn’t be back, even in four years. If she skipped town the second this adventure was over, she’d prove Mayor Cobb right. She wasn’t a Canyon Falls resident. She was a politician looking for a city to lead.

  When Colton caught up with Reilly, he was standing backstage, staring at the screen above him. “What are we doing?” Colton whispered, moving close enough so his brother could hear him.

  “Waiting for her to exit,” Reilly answered.

  “What? No! I don’t want to see her.”

  Reilly frowned. “Why are you here then?”

  Good question. He could say he’d wanted to show his support, but if he was hiding in the crowd, he wasn’t exactly doing that. He’d wanted to see the election results, but he could have done that from home. The truth was, he’d chosen to come here. If he couldn’t be with her, being in the room while all this was going down would just have to do.

  “I’m going to head out,” Reilly said.

  That was the plan. Put as much distance between himself and Mina as possible. It wasn’t even his concern if she left town. He’d go on with his life and pretend this had never happened.

  Yeah, he knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “Colton!” someone called out.

  He froze in his tracks. So much for getting out of here. He knew that voice.

  Robby. He was walking toward Colton, a big smile on his face. It was as though he’d been waiting for Colton to show up. Colton gave him a halfhearted wave and continued in the direction of out-of-here.

  “Hold up!” he heard Robby shout.

  Yeah, he should have known Robby wouldn’t let him out of this. He considered continuing on his way, pretending he hadn’t heard. But he knew he couldn’t get away with that.

  Forcing a smile to his face, Colton turned and waited for Robby to make his way toward him. No matter what Robby said, Colton just had to stand his ground. He was leaving. He didn’t even want Robby to tell Mina he’d been here. If she’d cared anything about saying goodbye or even seeing him again, she would have made it happen.

  “Come on,” Robby said. “You were an important part of the campaign. Mina wants to thank you.”

  Colton’s pasted-on smile faltered slightly. “I don’t want her to even know I’m here. I’m just showing my support.”

  Before Robby even responded, Colton knew what he was going to say. He could have predicted it from the second Robby had come running after him.

  “She already knows you’re here,” Robby said. “She’s the one who sent me to get you. She requested that you come on stage for a second.”

  There was no possible way Mina wanted him on stage. What benefit would there be at this point to doing anything like that?

  Robby answered that unspoken question. “You were an important part of the campaign. She wants to acknowledge that, and maybe make things right between you and the community.”

  Not at all what Colton wanted to hear. With that, he knew he was making the right decision, walking out of here without seeing her.

  “Tell her I appreciate it, but it’s not necessary,” he said. “I’m heading back to the ranch. It was great meeting you.”

  Without waiting for Robby’s response, Colton turned and exited. He heard Mina thanking various people as he went, and his name wasn’t on that list. Which was fine by him. What he wanted from Mina, she could never give him. He just had
to move on.

  20

  Mina taped up the last box and looked around the tiny house, sighing. She didn’t want to leave Canyon Falls. It was the last thing she wanted to do. But that final olive branch she’d extended to Colton a couple of weeks ago had returned the answer she needed. This wasn’t her home.

  So she was heading out of town to stay with her mom while she figured out her next step. All her belongings would go in storage, and she’d hang out in her mother’s tiny guest bedroom, applying for jobs and soul-searching her way to an answer. She’d figure it out somewhere along the way, whether it was moving back to D.C. or staying in Montana.

  Colton was the main reason she longed to stay in Canyon Falls, but not the only reason. She’d grown to love this town and the people in it. Not only had it been her home for most of her life, but she’d spent the past year working her butt off to run this place. That had meant she had gotten to know everyone better than if she’d just been hanging out as a resident. Hearing their problems, hopes for the future, personal stories—all of it gave her a special bond with this town.

  Mina’s phone buzzed in her pocket, pulling her out of her thoughts. An unknown number appeared on the screen. At one time, she’d ignored calls like that, but while running for office, she’d learned to answer the phone when it rang, no matter what. Her number had been handed out no telling how many times in an effort to make it clear that she would be an accessible mayor, although she’d suspected if she won, she might have to rethink having constituents call her directly if she ever wanted sleep.

  “This is Mina,” she said, realizing at the same time she said the words that there was no need to use her professional greeting at this point. She was officially off the clock.

  “Hey, it’s Harley. Are you busy?”

  Oh. Mina sat down on the kitchen chair she’d set aside for sitting down while she was packing. She hadn’t expected this. She’d planned to get out of town before anyone even knew she was gone. Maybe she still could.