by Pippa Grant
“You hate him,” Kyle growls.
“Fine line between love and hate, man.” Blake shrugs. “Turns out we like it on this side better.”
Casting him a grateful glance, I push the temporary marriage certificate across Mr. Ashford’s desk. “We got married first.”
Mr. Ashford picks it up and studies it while Kyle glares at me.
“It’s not a legit marriage if you don’t love him,” he says.
“First of all, my marriage is none of your business beyond what it gives me rights to in Gram’s will,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “And secondly, the will said married. That’s it. Not humping like bunnies since you met five days ago.”
“Actually, I make love more like a giraffe,” Cara says.
We all turn and look at her.
She shrugs. “If that’s part of the disclosure process or whatever, then I thought it might be relevant.”
“You’re a beautiful giraffe,” Kyle tells her absently while he leans over Mr. Ashford’s shoulder. “All neck. I’ll suck on it later. Be quiet for now, okay, honey?”
“Kyle’s hung like an elephant.” She beams. “A honeymoon safari is the perfect choice to celebrate our love.”
I gape at her.
Kyle ignores her.
She slides me a wink, and I don’t know if it’s a we got married for the will too, and I’m having fun fucking with you wink, or if it’s a don’t you wish your husband was hung like mine wink, but either way, I suspect I shouldn’t underestimate her.
“What do you do when you’re not being a giraffe?” Blake asks.
“Quit talking to my wife,” Kyle snaps. “Colton, this is bullshit. Their marriage isn’t valid for legal purposes because it’s not real.”
“It’s absolutely real.”
Whoa.
That wasn’t me talking.
That was Blake. And he sounded pretty darn convincing.
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and tugs me tight against his side, making me wonder if vaginas can get goosebumps too? Because there’s definite tingling going on in my lady parts.
“It’s real,” Blake says, “and I don’t give a damn who got married first. Hope and me? We’re destined to be together. So the word you’re looking for is congratulations. Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
I squeak out a small breath, because I can’t breathe with him gripping me this tight, and also, that may be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said about me.
Except for the part where I can read between the lines, just like I could during his vows.
Destined to be together?
More like destined to make each other miserable, despite the foolishly optimistic thoughts my vagina is currently having.
“I’m going to need time to do some research and consult a few colleagues,” Mr. Ashford says with a frown. “This is…highly unusual, to say the least.”
“You can either declare me the rightful owner of my grandmother’s estate, or you can see us in court,” Kyle growls.
In court.
Fighting a legal battle that could take months.
Or years.
Because if we’re going to court, Kyle won’t stop until he’s appealed as high as he can appeal. And so long as Chewpaca’s well-being hangs in the balance, I damn well won’t stop either, even though I don’t have the resources my evil cousin has. I cut ties with the family money years ago.
If only cutting ties with the baggage was as easy.
“There’s no reason to go to court,” I say, with as much bravado as I can muster. “I was married first. Seems pretty clear cut to me.”
“It’s my turn to have the llama,” he declares. “I want it at my house in two hours.”
“He’s an alpaca,” I snap back, “and he’s in a good home right now, which is where he’ll stay until a court of law orders me to give him up.”
“Colton—” Kyle starts, but Mr. Ashford holds a hand up.
“Until the will is fully executed, the estate is handled as the trust dictated. Ms. St. Claire—”
“Mrs. O’Dell,” Blake corrects.
I twitch, but force a smile. “Mrs. O’Dell,” I agree, even though something deep inside me howls in protest at the name, feeling more stressed out by this arrangement with every passing second.
“Mrs. O’Dell, then,” Mr. Ashford replies, “I trust you’ll continue to care for all of the estate’s animals as though they were your own?”
The idea that I’d do anything less is insulting. “All animals are well-cared for at my sanctuary regardless of where they came from or where they’re going.”
“Very well, then. Give me some time to look into the precedent in cases like these, and I’ll be in touch.” He settles back at his desk, then glances up. “Oh. And congratulations and many happy returns to one and all.”
“You are going down,” Kyle mutters while he pushes past me, dragging Cara along with him.
“Watch how you talk to my wife,” Blake growls at his back.
I get a happy tingle at the base of my spine, regardless of all the growing evidence that Gram’s will is going to do for my life what it took forty years of marriage to do to hers: Slowly shrivel away in a stew of bitterness and anger fueled by box wine she made her chef pour into a Barolo Monfortino Riserva bottle she kept on hand to keep up appearances.
But seriously, she knew what her grandson was like.
“I can’t believe she gave Kyle this kind of opening,” I say, turning back to Mr. Ashford. “Didn’t she love her alpaca at all?”
He clears his throat and slides his chair closer to his desk. “I believe she wished to know that her bloodline would continue. And she wasn’t sure it would without a nudge.”
Fabulous.
My grandmother wants to manage my sex life from the grave.
I know even less about how to be a good parent than I do about how to be a good wife, and now I’ve sucked Blake freaking O’Dell into an endless void of court battles.
He’ll probably divorce me before the week is out, once he realizes the kind of fight we’re in for, one that definitely won’t be over in the three months I promised him.
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve verified the proper legal precedent,” Mr. Ashford tells us.
As we head through the lobby, my shoulders are sagging, and the dress I snagged off the rack at Goodwill this morning is starting to let off a funky odor.
Rae tosses paperclips at our feet. “Since I couldn’t find rice or birdseed,” she explains. “Cara loved it. Such a sweet woman.”
A sweet woman who’s unwittingly extended an ugly battle for an alpaca that just wants to be loved and left in peace.
I adopted a second alpaca not long after Chewpaca moved to my sanctuary last year, because alpacas can die of loneliness. Chewpaca and Too-Pac are very best buds. It would be criminal to separate them, but Kyle’s already made it clear he only wants the alpaca with the perfect pedigree.
It's the St. Claire way.
“Sorry,” I mutter to Blake when we’re out in the sunshine, which is stupidly bright and happy, showing no respect for all the bad news busting out all over the place.
A few feet away, a VW bug with a giant cupcake on top whips into the last parking spot and a tiny, black-haired woman with an angel face and a sour expression that matches my mood springs out, a pink box propped on her hip. I’d heard there was a new bakery in town, but I hadn’t yet met the owner.
“You Rae?” the woman asks. “The one who ordered the wedding cupcakes?” Her eyes are haunted in a way that makes me wonder if her feelings on marriage are similar to my own.
I point to the door. “Rae’s inside.”
“But we’ll take a cupcake if you’re sharing,” Blake says, only for the sparrow of a person to cut him off with a frantic swipe of her hand.
“Probably best not to touch them,” she says. “At least not until I get them inside the building. I’ve been having some bad delivery luck lately. Very bad…” And wi
th that ominous declaration, she plods across the gravel and up the steps, leaving a sweet and sad scent in her wake, like a sugar-flavored raincloud.
Blake frowns and shrugs, before turning his attention back to me. “So did the will say you have to be married with kids to inherit the estate?”
“No. Just married. It didn’t even say happily married.”
We approach my truck, but I can’t look at him. I’ve gone out of my way not to like him since we both landed back in Happy Cat, and now he’s stuck in this mess because of me. I have to let him get back to whatever work he was doing before I texted him about a job while I go find another attorney, since odds are good Kyle will take me to court, and I need someone who’s firmly on my side rather than the attorney still representing my grandmother’s interests.
But I weirdly don’t want to say goodbye. And Blake weirdly doesn’t seem inclined to head anywhere else.
In fact, as we approach the truck, he boxes me in against the driver’s door.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Your dear dick of a cousin is sitting in his car ten feet away,” Blake murmurs, leaning close enough for his nose to brush against mine, setting off a fireworks display across the surface of my skin. “He’s watching us. So if his argument is going to be that we’re not happily married, we’d better put on a good show.”
Five
Blake
* * *
I’ve lost my damn mind.
I know it was still squirming around in my skull when I got up this morning, but ever since I saw Hope in that wedding dress, everything is short-circuiting, and now, the only thing I can think about is kissing her again.
I keep telling myself I hate Hope St. Claire, but the truth is, the only thing I hate about her is that she doesn’t want me.
But right now?
Right now, she’s stuck with me.
And we need to put on a good show.
And so I glide my lips over hers, because her cousin is watching, and because we both want this. Bad. Within seconds, we’re in the same situation as in the dark in the courthouse.
Her fingers are hooking into my belt loops.
Her lips are parting.
The roots of my hair are tingling like I’m inches from a live electrical wire, but all I want to do is get closer. If I’m going to short out, kissing this woman is a hell of a way to go.
The sun beats down on us as she scrapes her teeth over my lower lip and presses her hips into my rapidly hardening cock, which isn’t behaving itself like I told it to.
Of course it’s not behaving.
Hope St. Claire is the sexiest woman I’ve ever known in my life.
Much as I’ve tried to deny it the last four years, it’s true. She’s all passion and heart and I’m a sucker for both.
“Is he still watching?” she breathes against my mouth.
“Yes. Definitely.”
I angle my mouth and trace kisses from the corner of her mouth to her ear, and then down to her jaw, her skin like honey on my lips.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get into my pants,” she murmurs through soft gasps while she hooks one leg behind mine, trapping me in yards of satin and that fluffy white netting stuff that makes her look like she’s sitting on a cloud of cotton candy.
“You’re not wearing pants,” I reply. “Problem solved. Are you wearing underwear? No, don’t tell me. Don’t ruin the fantasy.”
“Quit fantasi—oh.”
I suckle harder on her neck just below her ear, and she shifts to spread her legs and straddle my thigh.
“This—isn’t—”
“Shh. The sooner we get you that llama, the better for both of us.”
“Alpaca.”
I know it’s an alpaca, but she gets pissed when I call it a llama, and I need her to get pissed.
I need to have a reason to stop kissing her neck.
The truck metal is hot, but if I move my hands to touch her, I’m going to get arrested for public indecency.
I’ve waited four years to touch Hope again.
Hell if I’ll be able to stop myself from touching all of her.
Her breasts.
Her hips.
Her pussy.
“He’s driving away,” she gasps.
The purr of an expensive car engine fading away confirms that we don’t have to keep kissing.
But she’s not blowing up circuits or griping at me for baiting her or tempting me by smiling so brightly at one of her rescue dogs that I want to throw her over my shoulder, march her to the barn, and kiss her until she admits she still has feelings for me.
But I am kissing her.
And maybe if I keep it up, she’ll see she’s been wrong, that she never should have walked out on me that steamy morning in Vegas.
“Blake. Stop.” She pushes at my shoulders, and I pull back. “We’re not doing this,” she adds in a shaky voice.
I lift a brow. “Being married?”
Her gaze darts to the attorney’s office. “Meet me at my place at seven. I need to get home and make sure all the chores are done around the sanctuary. And you need—something, probably.”
A cold shower?
Yes.
I have a dozen things on my to-do list, but first, a cold shower.
Six
Hope
* * *
I’m mucking the goat stalls when I hear a familiar voice.
“Hello? Hope? Are you in there, lovely?”
“Olivia! Come in!” I set the shovel against the rough wooden wall and turn to wave at my favorite California girl. The willowy blonde has a little bundle of joy tucked into a sling on the front of her chest and is beaming in the way only Olivia can, with sunshine radiating out her pores and her presence bringing peace to all humble peasants like me.
And she’s not alone. “Cassie!”
The shorter brunette smiles at me as well, and I go momentarily speechless as the reality of my situation sets in.
These two are married to Blake’s brothers, which means…
We’re sisters for real now. At least for a little while.
“Is it true?” Cassie bounces on her toes, making her glasses slip. She pushes them back up her nose with a giddy grin. “Did you and Blake really elope this morning at the courthouse?”
The gossip took longer than it probably should have to reach them, which I’m guessing means Blake didn’t call his family to tell them the bad news—I mean, happy news as soon as we left Mr. Ashford’s office.
“I—we—yeah,” I say awkwardly, biting my bottom lip. I should have thought of how to handle this, but I haven’t. Before running into Kyle at the lawyer’s office, I would have just told both of my besties the truth, but now…
Cassie and Olivia both squeal, and suddenly I’m enveloped in a girlfriend hug.
Tears sting my eyes, both because these two have become so dear to me over the past year, and also because I know they’re going to hate me when Blake and I break up in a few months.
“You should’ve called us,” Cassie says.
“Your auras are so compatible, even when you fight,” Olivia adds with a happy sigh. “Sometimes fighting is the best foreplay, don’t you think? I’m going to pick a fight with Jace when I get home in your honor.”
Cassie laughs. “How did he propose?”
“Was it magical?” Olivia asks, her words practically sparkling in the sunshine.
“I would say I can’t believe you’re mucking stalls on your wedding day,” Cassie adds. “But of course you are.”
“We can’t wait to throw you a reception.” The baby squirms in the sling between us, and Olivia pulls back to coo at her. “We all want to celebrate their joy. Don’t we, darling girl? Yes, we do.”
Cassie stares at me expectantly, her big blue eyes warm and excited. “I heard you were sitting on the courthouse steps in a wedding dress and there were dandelions involved and then Blake showed up. That’s all the gossip I’ve
managed to score so far, so spill it, woman!”
“Well, I…” I shrug, wheels frantically turning, but no explanation pops to mind, so I stall. “I’ve always loved dandelions. They were originally called lion’s tooth because they’re so tough they can grow almost anywhere. They thrive even when people do their best to weed them out. That always spoke to me, so I decided when I was twelve that they were the flower for me.”
I do love dandelions. But even at twelve, I knew marriage wasn’t in my genes.
Olivia nods while this year’s batch of baby goats bleat in excitement in their pen behind me, knowing it’s getting close to pasture frolic time. “That’s lovely. And just like a dandelion, you and Blake are ready to thrive together.”
I wince, but thankfully neither of them notices.
“But why didn’t you tell us you were finally seeing each other?” Cassie asks. “You know we can keep secrets, right? Even Baby Clover Dawn.”
Olivia nods seriously and cradles the infant through the sling. “She’s very good at secrets. And she will continue to be. Secret-keeper is written all over her star chart.”
“Well, I… Um, I…” I trail off, uncertain what to say next, and turn to check on the goats instead. Because goats are simple and uncomplicated and everything I need right now.
“Hope?” Cassie says gently. “This is a good thing, isn’t it? You and Blake?”
“Of course. I’m just nervous because no one in my family has ever done marriage right,” I blurt. “So I’m probably going to screw it all up.”
“There’s no one right formula for marriage,” Cassie tells me gently.
“It’s true,” Olivia agrees. “Every relationship is unique.”
“But my ancestors were trying to poison each other with mutual marital animosity on their way over on the Mayflower,” I say. “A trend the St. Claires of recent generations have totally embraced. I have literally never seen a healthy relationship up close.”
Cassie’s lips part, but before she can speak the dogs start barking outside, a warning chorus that makes it clear whoever’s approaching isn’t a friend. But it’s not a stranger, either. The Stranger Danger bark is deeper, sharper.
