Wyatt's Pretend Pledge

by Liz Isaacson

  But she’d made it through the funeral phone calls. Most of the decisions had been made while Daddy was still alive, but there had been a lot of emails, phone calls, and texts that had needed to happen once he’d passed. Flights booked. Dresses bought. Flowers delivered.

  She took in the dozen or so vases sitting on her kitchen counter, her eyes moving to the one filled with red, white, and pink roses. That one had come from Wyatt Walker, and she’d cried a quart from the simple sight of her favorite flowers and Wyatt’s scrawled, cowboy handwriting on the card.

  I’m here if you need me, sugar. Love, Wyatt.

  Out of all the cards that had come with the condolences over the past week, Marcy had kept only Wyatt’s.

  She had not reached out to him. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t, only that she had enough balls in the air, and she couldn’t stand the idea of him falling to the ground and cracking. She’d broken up with him once before—maybe twice, if her telling him she couldn’t have a relationship while she dealt with her father’s health counted.

  He’d stayed away for a while, eventually coming back every few weeks. And over the summer, their romance had really blossomed.

  “That’s it,” Bryan said, drawing Marcy’s attention away from the roses. He closed the front door and looked at Marcy.

  She smiled, the gesture wobbling on her face. “Thanks, Bry.” Drawing in a deep breath, she surveyed the house. The sink was full of dirty dishes, and the dishwasher was filled with clean ones. She should’ve served lunch on paper plates, but she hadn’t been able to. This was her father, and he deserved more than paper plates for the last meal memorializing him.

  “Are you going to take off?” she asked. Daddy’s death and funeral had come at a terrible time for him, as he was involved in a huge, important case in Washington D.C. where he lived and practiced law for one of the biggest firms in the country.

  “Unfortunately, I have to,” he said, walking toward her. He had the same sandy hair as their father, the same dark green eyes. Marcy had inherited more of their mother’s lighter blonde hair, which she enhanced with Golden Sunshine dye every couple of months. She also had blue eyes instead of green, and her father had often said how much he loved seeing her after their mother died, because then he could see a piece of her too.

  Her chest constricted, but she held back the sob. She didn’t want her brother to go. Then she’d be all alone in Three Rivers. No parents. No siblings.

  Your cousins are here, she told herself, and that did bring some consolation.

  Bryan wrapped her in a hug, and she clung to him. “I love you, sis,” he said. “Please let me know what I can do.”

  “I will,” she said. She’d turned over Daddy’s estate to the lawyers, as he had quite a few things to go through. The house. The land. The business. The airplanes. Marcy had known about the estate planning lawyer, and she’d notified Nick Marlow as soon as all the family had been made aware of Daddy’s death.

  Bryan exhaled, bent to pick up his bag, and went out the front door too. Marcy flinched with the finality of the click and turned to survey her house again. It was a mess, which wasn’t that different from when she lived there alone. She could pile up coffee cups and soda cans on an end table until there wasn’t a spare inch before she’d finally haul a trash bag into the living room and clean it up.

  Her thoughts again turned to Wyatt, who’d come out to the hangar several times to sit with her while she worked. But sitting was hard for him, and he’d gone around picking up trash and discarded mechanic rags, setting the washing machine, and making her heart glad.

  She had to go through Daddy’s house. Meet with the lawyers. Go visit the cemetery and make sure the headstone she’d ordered was correct. Not only that, but she hadn’t been in the air since Daddy had died, and the work at Payne’s Pest-free had been piling up. And up, and up.

  She had to fly tomorrow, as people were sympathetic for a time. After that, they just wanted what they’d paid for. Marcy wanted to fly anyway, as the only place where she’d ever felt perfectly in place and at peace was in the cockpit of an airplane, soaring over the good state of Texas.

  Her black maxi dress floated around her legs and feet as she started cleaning up. Exhaustion pulled through her, but she didn’t want to be here alone. She couldn’t stand the thought of going down the hall and sleeping in her bedroom alone.

  Before Daddy had died, she’d craved being able to come home and go to bed alone. She’d spent the better part of the last year going straight to his house after work and staying with him until he fell asleep. Heck, sometimes she fell asleep at his house too, and she’d spent more than one night on his couch.

  Her tears started afresh as she emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it, put a detergent pod in the compartment, and tried to start it. The buttons didn’t light up, and she opened the door and slammed it closed again. “Just start,” she said, jabbing at the buttons without looking at them. The machine did not start, and her irritation grew. She didn’t have time for this. There was laundry to do, and a hamster to feed, and garbage. And, and, and.

  Someone knocked on the door, but Marcy didn’t want another casserole. Food didn’t fix anything. She didn’t have room for more flowers. They did nothing to fill the hole that now existed in her soul.

  She held very still, hoping whoever had come to the door would assume she was asleep or away, and they would leave.

  “Marcy,” she heard, and her heartbeat buzzed through her bloodstream. That was Wyatt’s voice. “Open the door, sugar. I know you’re here.”

  How could he possibly know? Her car was at her father’s house, and she’d been riding with Bryan for the past week.

  She took a couple of steps toward the door, and then paused. She didn’t want to see Wyatt with streaked makeup on her face. Her house an absolute mess. What a wreck she’d become since her father’s death.

  He already knows, she told herself as he knocked again. He’d been the one to find her at her father’s house, with her deceased dad on the couch. She hadn’t been able to do anything after Daddy’s last breath, and without Wyatt, she wondered if she’d still be in that living room, crying on the floor.

  Marcy walked over to the front door and opened it. Sure enough, tall, dark, beautiful Wyatt Walker stood there. She’d seen him at the funeral, wearing his white shirt and tie, as well as his brand of cowboy hat. His actual brand, as he was one of the most-winning cowboys to ever enter the rodeo circuit, and he had sponsors from here to Calgary, even now that he was retired.

  The man was made of gold, from his broad shoulders and hard muscles, to the pure concern in his eyes.

  Concern for her.

  Marcy wasn’t sure what she’d done to attract this man’s eye, as he could literally have anyone he wanted.

  “Hey,” he said, obviously nervous. It was laughable that she made him anxious when he was the celebrity bull rider, when he was the one with international sponsors, when his face appeared in TV commercials, when he was the one with a western wear clothing line.

  She glanced up at his cowboy hat, wishing she hadn’t broken up with him before the hats had hit the market. “Hey,” she finally managed to say.

  “Can I come in?”

  “I’m tired, Wyatt.” She leaned into the door as if she needed to prove it to him.

  “Me too,” he said. “Tired of waiting for you to call me.” He took a step forward. “Please. Thirty minutes. I had a feeling I should come see you, and I couldn’t ignore that.”

  She was tired of pushing him away, and she didn’t want to be alone. Besides, who was she to tell him his prompting to come see her was wrong? So she backed up and let him step past her and into the house.

  “Thanks.” He paused and surveyed the scene before him, and Marcy wondered what he saw. “How are you holding up?”

  Marcy didn’t want to answer that question, so she just exhaled and went back into the kitchen. She didn’t want to entertain anyone right now. She told herself that W
yatt had come out to the hangar several times and simply stayed with her. They didn’t have to talk all the time.

  “I miss you,” he said next, and Marcy’s anger sparked.

  She glared at him and snatched up the trash bag. She could put napkins and envelopes and half-eaten sandwiches in a bag while he watched. He made no move to clean up, and Marcy poured her last remaining energy into picking up the house.

  She moved a jacket someone had left, and she stubbed her toe against the coffee table. She cried out and more tears—more blasted tears—flowed down her face.

  “Marcy,” Wyatt said, but she didn’t look at him. She finished in the living room and turned to the dining room. He moved out of the way as she started picking up lemonade cans and sweet tea packets from the table.

  The trash made a clunking sound as she set it on the ground. She moved into the kitchen and started running the hot water. She could wash the remaining dishes while he watched, though she hadn’t planned to do that.

  “Marcy,” he said again. “Will you just stop for a second?”

  “No,” she said. “I have to go to work in the morning, and I don’t have a maid.”

  Wyatt probably did, though she knew he lived with his brothers and only had his bedroom to keep clean.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  Marcy dropped the silverware she held in her hand, and it made a horrible clanging sound against the plates there. “Why are you here?” She turned toward him, her despair spiraling out of control. She hated this feeling, and she wished he hadn’t come. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?

  “I want to offer you support,” he said. “I know you—”

  “Support?” Marcy shook her head, the idea almost laughable. “No, Wyatt, you’re not here to support me. You’re here for you. You’re here because you want to ask me to dinner. You want me to be your girlfriend.”

  He glowered at her and folded his arms. “I do want all of that, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Right.” She turned back to the sink and plunged her hands into the water. But it was far too hot now that it had been running for a while, and she yelped as she pulled her hands back. Wyatt arrived at her side a moment later, and Marcy couldn’t help crying.

  “It’s okay,” he said, handing her a towel. He turned off the water and curled her into his chest. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Marcy opened her mouth to argue, because she could not see how a world without either of her parents in it was every going to be okay. But all she could do was suck at the air as she started to sob. And sob, and sob.

  Wyatt held her close and tight, and she let him, because she needed someone to do it. Bryan had left. Her cousins had families and lives to get back to. The huge turnout from the people living in Three Rivers had comforted her, but they’d all move on with their regular lives too.

  Marcy didn’t have a regular life anymore. Not one she recognized, at least.

  Wyatt began to hum, and his bass voice soothed her. “Come on, sugar,” he said. “It’s time for bed.”

  Marcy wasn’t sure how long they’d been standing in her kitchen, the sink full of dirty dishes sitting in hot water, but she knew it wasn’t time for bed. But she let Wyatt lead her down the hall to her bedroom. She was aware of him opening a couple of drawers and then handing her a pair of pajamas.

  He left the room, and she somehow changed. He knocked before re-entering the room, and he held a glass of water and a couple of pills. “Painkillers,” he said.

  Marcy didn’t want them. “They can’t get rid of this pain,” she whispered.

  “I know, baby. Take them anyway.”

  She did, and she crawled under the covers. Wyatt laid down with her, a groan pulling through his throat as he did. She curled into his chest and listened to his heart beating. He breathed deeply, and she tried to match her breathing to his.

  Finally—finally—she drew a breath full of peace and calm, both things she hadn’t felt in twelve long months. “Thank you, Wyatt,” she murmured just before she fell into unconsciousness.

  When she woke, she was alone, and panic pulled through her sharply. She sat up with a gasp, searching the darkness for some clue as to where she was.

  “It’s okay,” Wyatt said again, and Marcy looked toward the sound of his voice. He sat in the recliner in her bedroom. “You’re safe, Marce.”

  Marce.

  She loved the nickname he used for her, and she sighed as she swung her feet over the side of the bed. “What time is it?”

  “Late,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave you alone.”

  Reaching over, she fumbled for a moment before snapping on the lamp on her nightstand. Their eyes met, and pure gratitude streamed through Marcy. Everyone else had left her. Wyatt had not.

  “Will you be okay now?” he asked. He looked as exhausted as she felt. She wanted him to stay, but she wanted him to get the rest he needed too.

  “I’ll be okay,” she said.

  Wyatt got up, pain moving across his face, and stepped over to her. He swept his lips along her hairline and said, “I’ll bring breakfast to the hangar in the morning. I won’t stay. I know you’ll be really busy.” With that, he walked out of her bedroom, leaving Marcy to wonder why she’d tried to push him away. Again.

  She also needed a plan for tomorrow morning, because she still wasn’t sure she was ready for a real relationship with Wyatt Walker. At least not the kind he obviously wanted. She needed to figure out how to live in this new world first. She needed to keep her crop dusters running. She had all the cleaning and estate sorting to do.

  She wondered if she actually had room for Wyatt in her life right now, and she certainly didn’t think so.

  So she’d just tell him tomorrow. With everything else already weighing on her conscious, she couldn’t have her poor treatment of a good man adding to it.

  Chapter Three

  Wyatt pulled up to the hangar bright and early the next morning. Marcy’s car was already there, and the sausage and egg sandwiches he’d brought weren’t going to stay hot forever. But he didn’t get out of his truck, instead taking a few moments to survey the land and to see if he could see through any of the windows.

  He couldn’t, as the wind out here on the west side of town could take dirt and blast it against a building, creating a film that was impossible to get off and hard to see through.

  His back didn’t protest today as he got out of the truck, probably from his long afternoon nap yesterday. It was due to that nap that he’d been able to sit up in Marcy’s bedroom while she slept too.

  His heart hurt for the woman, and he honestly had no idea what she was going through. He’d spent most of his vigil over Marcy praying for clarity, for guidance, for the best way to help her. His conscious—and the Lord—wouldn’t let him leave until Marcy had woken up, and then he’d driven home under the darkest of Texas skies.

  “Knock, knock,” he said as he opened the door that led into the hangar. Marcy wasn’t there that he could see, and the light in her office wasn’t on. Wyatt sighed, because if he’d let her, she’d go right back to avoiding him.

  “Maybe you should let her,” he muttered to himself. He had to get out to Three Rivers Ranch, as he’d taken plenty of time off from the horses at Bowman’s Breeds since his surgery. He didn’t need the money, but he sure did love spending his time with horses and people who loved horses.

  Ethan and Brynn were both rodeo champions, and maybe Wyatt liked that he still had a tie to the world he’d loved. He didn’t want to go back to the circuit, but sometimes, he did miss it.

  He’d belonged there, and Wyatt was still trying to find his way in the regular world.

  He walked toward her office and went inside to set the food on her desk. He’d told her he’d come this morning, and he was a little surprised she wasn’t there. A bright pink note had been stuck to the computer monitor, and Wyatt reached for it when he saw his name on it.

  I had to fly, Marcy had
written. I’m so behind on my fields. Thank you for coming last night, and thanks for breakfast.

  She’d squeezed the last few words on the side of the note, and Wyatt couldn’t help smiling as he turned the paper over to see if she’d written any more. On the back of the note, she’d drawn a heart and left the letter M.

  Wyatt’s heart skipped a beat, which was utterly ridiculous, he knew. But that heart was almost like her opening the door and saying, “Please come back into my life, Wyatt. I sure do like you.”

  He grabbed the pen on her desk and laid the bag of food down so he could write on the top. Sorry I missed you. Please call me with anything you need. Anything.

  Mimicking her, he drew a heart and left a W, noting that his first initial was hers inverted. Wyatt had always been a romantic at heart, and his chest warmed at the thought of having a real relationship with Marcy.

  He left the hangar then, because if she was already in the air, she wouldn’t come down for hours. He continued to Three Rivers Ranch, finally pulling up to the stables where he’d been working for almost a year about an hour later.

  This ranch held as much life as Seven Sons, and Wyatt sometimes thought more. It was a much bigger operation than the one Jeremiah ran, and it had two homesteads, with fourteen cowboys who lived full-time on the ranch. Three full families, all of them with children. Wyatt supposed that with Jeremiah and Whitney due to have a baby that summer, and Liam and Callie getting their foster kids, Seven Sons would be caught up with Three Rivers soon enough.

  Not that it was a race.

  “Morning, Wyatt,” someone said, and he pulled himself out of his thoughts as Kenny walked by.

  By the time he said, “Morning,” the other cowboy was out of earshot.

  “There you are,” another man said, and Wyatt turned toward the familiar voice.