Wyatt's Pretend Pledge

by Liz Isaacson

  Her words formed sharp points and stabbed him. Stabbed him hard, right through the heart.

  After all this time. After all they’d been through together. After saying I do, and sleeping together, and building a life for the past six months, she still wasn’t sure she wanted to be with him.

  Wyatt’s breath came in short bursts, just like how he nodded his head. “Okay,” he said, because what else was there to say? He’d learned to take a loss with his head held high in the rodeo. He could do the same here.

  After all, in the rodeo, the clock was king, and it didn’t matter if he thought he’d ridden better than someone else. He had to get to the buzzer, and if he didn’t, he didn’t win.

  Headlines streamed through his mind, and he hated that he was worried about what Jim or the media might say about his divorce after only a year.

  And he wasn’t sure he could stay another six months as it was. If Marcy wasn’t sure about him by now, would she ever be?

  “I’m going to go see what my brothers are doing at the ranch,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get to hold Jonah or Ginger.” The babies soothed him, and there was nothing better than a nap on the couch with an infant snuggled up on his chest.

  “You don’t need to go,” she said.

  “Yeah, I do,” he said. He gave her a watery smile. “I’m not mad. I just need some space to think.”

  She nodded, and Wyatt turned away from her. He walked faster and faster, stopping only long enough to grab his keys and wallet before escaping her house.

  And it was definitely her house in that moment. Somewhere he didn’t belong. Somewhere he might never belong.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Marcy flew over Three Rivers, her destination Shiloh Ridge Ranch, on the southwest side of town, which also boasted some hills. Bear Glover was a good customer, and he and his cousins ran the ranch where the Glovers had been living for generations.

  It was one of the few ranches that had a dairy operation, albeit small, and Marcy loved flying over all the black and white dairy cows. They looked like little toys down in the fields, and she smiled to herself.

  It seemed odd that something as simple as a cow could make her smile, but these days, she’d take what she could get.

  Wyatt had not approved the plans for the house, and in fact, he’d told the builders they needed to put their house on pause for a couple of months while he toured. He didn’t cancel it completely, and Marcy felt like her entire life had been put on pause.

  He’d be leaving for his tour in four days, and Marcy couldn’t ask him to stay home now. It would be unprofessional and rude, and Wyatt Walker was neither of those things.

  She’d never told him this, but the root of her anxiety over their relationship was well, Wyatt himself. He always seemed to get what he wanted. He wanted to go on tour, so he was. He wanted the big house, with the hot tub pad, the locked gates, the sprawling yard and pastures. So he’d gotten it.

  What about what she wanted?

  And the familiar guilt swept through her like a stiff breeze. Wyatt doted on her constantly. He brought her coffee every morning in her office, and he never complained when she put her cold feet on him in bed. He told her he loved her—though he hadn’t since their conversation about the house and the tour and their entire marriage several days ago—and he showed it in a lot of little ways.

  He loaded the dishwasher every morning. He stopped by the hangar at least once a week and picked up all the mechanic rags to wash them. She’d never asked him to do those things. He did them, because he knew they needed to be done, and he didn’t want her to have to do them.

  She knew this.

  And she did love him.

  But the doubt was strong within her. Maybe she’d been too enamored with him in the beginning. Living with someone really exposed a person to all the other person’s flaws, that was for sure. Because for every dish Wyatt put in the dishwasher, there was at least two pairs of socks left on the bedroom floor. Or the coffee table in the living room. Or under his desk in the office.

  The man wore cowboy boots like they were molded to his feet, and by the time she’d found the slew of socks under his desk, she’d been lighting a candle in the office for a week.

  So he definitely had flaws—and his bossiness and commanding demeanor that allowed him to get everything he wanted were only two of them.

  “Shouldn’t you be able to see past the flaws?” she asked the brilliant blue atmosphere in front of her. “Why am I fixated on these things?” It was almost like she was looking for a reason their marriage couldn’t work.

  “Dear Lord,” she prayed as she flew over another picturesque field of cattle. “I know You love me. The cows down in the field prove it. The sun rising each morning proves it. Please help me to know what to do about Wyatt. What is it going to take for me to know we’ve done the right thing by getting married?”

  What proof did she need for that?

  Why did she need proof at all?

  Marcy wasn’t sure, and she felt like she was constantly walking a fine line with her own husband. She did know how to dust a field of corn, and she dipped down in her plane to do exactly that.

  Perhaps she just needed more time with Wyatt, and more time on her knees, to know what to do.

  “I just don’t want to hurt him,” she said as she pulled on the controls to swing the plane around for another pass. But she feared she already had.

  Maybe this tour would be good for both of them. Maybe then, Marcy would be able to think inside the walls of her own house and learn how she really felt about Wyatt Walker.

  That night, they loaded up in Wyatt’s truck to go to dinner at his mother’s. Marcy usually enjoyed the weekly family dinners, because Penny was kind and open, and her sons loved her with all of their hearts.

  All the other wives came, and the babies, and the dogs, and Marcy enjoyed Wyatt’s big, loud, sometimes obnoxious family.

  But she wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone—heck, she was barely speaking to Wyatt as it was.

  Momma’s made all your favorites, he’d texted earlier that day, while she’d been up in the sky. And if there was one thing Marcy made sure of, it was that she didn’t text and fly. She took her phone with her in the airplane, but she never used it.

  She’d seen his text when she’d landed, and she understood the code: She couldn’t cancel. She could, however, leave the hangar a mess and the plane unattended to, and she’d done just that. She hadn’t finished her paperwork or anything, and she’d gone home to take a nap.

  So it was that she was freshly rested, perfectly make-upped, and ready for a dinner in her honor. Why she was the one getting all the food made for her when it was Wyatt leaving, she wasn’t sure. And she hadn’t asked.

  Several minutes later, Wyatt pulled up to his parents’ house, and they weren’t the first truck to arrive. He chuckled as he got out of the truck, Jeremiah’s dogs already at his side. Wyatt did have a way with animals, Marcy would give him that. Horses, cows, goats, pigs, dogs, it didn’t matter. They all loved him and obeyed him.

  She carried a pan of brownies in her hands and went toward the front door, Wyatt falling into step behind her quickly. He guided her inside, his hand warm on her lower back, and Marcy’s throat tightened.

  Noise filled the house already, spilling out onto the large back deck Micah had added to the house since his parents had bought it. The scent of hamburgers filled the air, along with coffee and popcorn.

  Marcy had never been to a meal at Wyatt’s mother’s without popcorn, and she smiled as she put the pan of brownies on a side counter with the other desserts.

  “There they are,” Penny announced, a wide smile on her face. “Good to see you, dear.” She hugged Marcy, who clung to her for an extra moment. Maybe two. Penny always let her hug her for a long time, and Marcy appreciated it. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a mother figure in her life, and she found she craved it.

  Would she lose Penny if she lost Wyatt?
r />   Probably, she thought. She and Wyatt didn’t have children, and there would be no reason for Marcy to come visit Penny and Gideon, other than she liked them and wanted to.

  Her heart felt like a stone in her chest, struggling to beat against a rigid exterior. She couldn’t keep her husband around just because she liked his parents. He deserved a wife who was hopelessly in love with him, and while Marcy really wanted to be, she wasn’t sure she was.

  She stepped away from Penny, gave her a shy look, and went to join Evelyn and Ivory in the living room. “Can I?” She reached for Isaac, and Ivory gave Marcy the baby easily.

  He was only a couple of months old, but he held his head up really well, and he had the clearest blue eyes Marcy had ever seen. “Hey, baby,” she cooed at the infant. She bounced him lightly and made sure his pacifier was secure in his mouth.

  “How’s it going?” she asked Ivory, who’d laid back against the couch and closed her eyes.

  “Great,” she said, with a smile. “I’m just tired.”

  Marcy nodded and looked back at the precious baby boy. “He’s a doll.”

  “Not at two a.m.” Ivory laughed, and Evelyn added something about how Conrad hadn’t slept through the night until he was almost six months old. Marcy didn’t have any children of her own and couldn’t contribute to the conversation.

  She watched as Wyatt went outside with Micah and Jeremiah, who was also carrying his two-month-old son in his arms. Wyatt took the baby from his brother, his whole face lighting up like Main Street did at Christmastime. A smile moved across Marcy’s face, and she wondered what a child with half of her and half of Wyatt’s genes would look like.

  “Are you guys going to have kids?” Evelyn asked, and Marcy’s gaze flew to hers. She’d obviously seen Marcy watching Wyatt, seen the smile, all of it.

  “Eventually,” Marcy said, because she and Wyatt hadn’t talked about it or planned anything. They weren’t talking about much right now at all.

  “It’s—” Evelyn started.

  “Time to eat,” Penny yelled, ringing a loud dinner bell in the next moment. The baby in Marcy’s arms startled, and she hugged him tight to soothe him. She stood up along with everyone else, and she kept baby Isaac as Ivory got Oliver settled enough for the prayer. Gideon said it, and he had such a powerful, calm, commanding presence.

  Marcy liked him a whole lot, and she realized as he asked for health and safety for all of their family and friends, that Wyatt’s personality was a lot like his father’s. He was large and in charge, but he possessed a soft side too. A side that had faith and wanted to do what was right.

  “I’ll take him,” Ivory said, and Marcy hadn’t even realized the prayer had ended. She gave Isaac to his mother, who put him in a swing in the living room, out of the way. Then she and Oliver joined Tripp in line to get food.

  Marcy hung back, because that was what Marcy was good at. Wyatt usually came to her side and waited with her, making everything less awkward. But today, he stayed on the deck, dishing out hamburgers and hot dogs as people came through the line.

  She finally reached him, and he grinned at her. “I know what you want.” He gave her a hamburger, though it wasn’t hard to tell, as she had the appropriate bun on her plate. “Save me a spot by you, would you?”

  “Sure.” Marcy sure did like the fire in Wyatt’s eyes, and she acknowledged that she loved him on some level. She probably always would, because he’d been right where she’d needed him to be at a crucial time of her life.

  It was the same reason she was so close with Alyssa and Savannah. They’d been the cousins that had been in town when her mother had died, and she’d relied on them. They’d seen her at her worst and loved her anyway.

  Just like Wyatt.

  So maybe things between them were okay. Maybe she just needed to get outside of her own mind and not worry so much.

  They ate, and the brothers used to stay and chat, play games, or put on a movie. But those with babies had been packing up and going home the moment Penny’s delicious desserts were gone. Tonight, she’d made mint chocolate chip ice cream and asked anyone who could to bring brownies.

  The twins were turning forty-two on Monday, but Liam and Callie were taking their kids to Bear Creek Lodge for a family vacation and wouldn’t be around.

  Marcy sang Happy Birthday along with everyone else. Snuggled into Wyatt’s side as the twins blew candles out on their brownies. Smiled and ate too much chocolate and ice cream.

  Before she knew it, everyone had packed up and left, except for her and Wyatt and Micah.

  Her phone rang, and she left Micah and Wyatt standing on the deck overlooking the back yard to answer it. “Hey, Bear,” she said.

  “Marcy,” he said, his growl much louder than anything. He liked people to think he was a grizzly, but he was really more of a teddy bear.

  “Don’t tell me you have a problem,” she said. “I flew over everything today, and it looked good.”

  “No,” he said. “No problem.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “I just wanted to know about—well, I wanted to ask you—” He cleared his throat. “Do you know Samantha Benton? Sammy?”

  “Sure,” Marcy said. “I know Sammy. She runs a great shop in town. Are you having problems with her?”

  “No,” he said quickly, and Marcy couldn’t quite place the emotion in his voice. Was he relieved she knew Sammy? Why was he asking about her?

  “My ranch mechanic quit, and I’m looking to hire a new one. But she can’t come live out here permanently, because of her nephew and all, and I was wondering if she’s really good enough for me to put up with not having her around all the time.”

  “She’s the best car and farm equipment mechanic in the state,” Marcy said. “I think she has an award that says so, Bear.” She chuckled. “I can see why she wouldn’t want to live out there. She has to take Sawyer to school every day.”

  “Yeah, that’s what she said. And he plays soccer too. Practices all the time.”

  “If you can hire her, she’d do a good job for you,” Marcy said. “And you know, you don’t have to have a mechanic at your beck and call all the time.”

  “I know,” he said, sighing. “I’ve just gotten used to it.”

  “Well, then maybe Sammy’s not the one for you,” she said. “I think she’s had a harder year than me.” Sammy’s sister and brother-in-law had been killed in a terrible car accident, leaving their six-year-old son behind. Sammy had adopted him and taken on the role of mother, buried two people she loved, and managed to keep her shop open, all within a few weeks.

  “She’s the one,” Bear said. “I just wanted an outside opinion, and I trust you.”

  “Thanks, Bear,” Marcy said. “Maybe work with her, then? Maybe if you pay her well enough, she can pass most of the shop work to her other mechanics.”

  “I’m not made of money, Marcy,” Bear said darkly.

  She laughed, because he’d said the same thing to her before when she’d quoted him a price to get rid of a whole herd of grasshoppers. She knew he was, though. Everyone in Three Rivers knew the Glover family had money. Old money, and lots of it.

  “I’m hanging up now,” the grizzly wanna-be said, and Marcy said good-bye.

  She turned back to the deck to find Penny had joined Wyatt on the back deck and Micah had disappeared. She clutched her phone in her hand and watched him lean down against the railing, a serious expression on his face.

  She moved to the open doorway and leaned into it, trying not to make a noise.

  “I don’t know, Momma,” he was saying. “It’s not like our marriage was real to begin with.”

  “What?” his mom asked. “What does that mean?”

  “We’ve all done it,” he said, and Marcy’s heart thrashed against all twenty-four of her ribs.

  “Done what, exactly?” His mother did not sound pleased, and Marcy willed him to stop talking.

  Of course, she knew Rhett and Evelyn’s marriage hadn’t been r
eal. They’d gotten divorced and then remarried, and everyone in town knew he’d only married her in the beginning to help her with her now defunct matchmaking business. It had been quite the town scandal, actually, but Marcy thought their story was sweet.

  Number one, she’d seen Rhett and Evelyn together, and they were made for each other by God Himself. Number two, she found Rhett’s devotion to the woman he loved admirable. He’d loved her so much, he’d married her, even when she wasn’t in the same place as him.

  “Gotten married without it being real,” Wyatt said. “Tripp only married Ivory so she wouldn’t lose custody of her son. Liam married Callie so she wouldn’t lose the ranch. Jeremiah—”

  “Stop it right now,” his mother said, almost a hiss. “This is not true.”

  “It is, Momma,” Wyatt said, “And I married Marcy so she could inherit her daddy’s crop-dusting business. That’s it.”

  That’s it.

  A squeak came out of Marcy’s throat as his words ripped through her.

  Penny and Wyatt turned toward her, but Marcy only had one thought in her mind.

  Get out.

  Run.

  Go!

  So she went.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Wyatt’s heart fell all the way to his cowboy boots.

  “You better go after her,’ Momma said. “I swear, Wyatt Jeffrey Walker, if you lose that woman, you’ll be in big trouble.”

  “Why will I be in trouble?” Wyatt simultaneously wanted to chase after Marcy and let her go at the same time. He could call Micah to come get him, and he was tired of the tension at Marcy’s. He was tired of thinking about the house where he lived as Marcy’s.

  “Because she’s an amazing woman,’ Momma said. “Did you really marry her so she could get the business?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “And no. I’ve liked her for a real long time before that.” He looked out over the back yard, hearing the engine from his truck roar to life. His heart skipped a couple of beats, but he didn’t move to go try to stop Marcy. Let her take his truck. It felt like the right thing to do, because they’d been split for a while now anyway. Even if they’d stayed living in the same house, they hadn’t been together.