by Liz Isaacson
He was a man of few words, but she caught him looking at her a few times, even behind his sunglasses, and wow, he was as attractive with the short hair and shades as he was in the cowboy hat and boots.
“You having fun?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said honestly. “This is great.” She scanned the sand in front of her. “I didn’t bring a swimming suit, but I want to go in the ocean.” She grinned at him, turning on as much flirtyness as she could muster. “You up for it?”
Surprise emanated from him, but he only hesitated for a moment before pushing himself up. “Let’s go.”
She let him pull her to her feet, and she kicked her flip flops onto the blanket in front of them. Giggling, she walked with him, their fingers intertwined as they walked through the sand.
“I haven’t been to the beach in so long,” she said, tipping her head back and letting the warmth of the sun hit her full in the face.
“I only come when I visit my parents.”
“I can see why,” she said. “Private beachfront, only a few flights from the back yard.”
Sawyer tipped his head toward her. “Probably should’ve told you about that.”
“Probably,” she said. “But it’s fine. They’re nice. I like them.”
“They like you too,” he said. “Which is weird.” He looked back over his shoulder at where the rest of his family sat.
“Gee, thanks,” Jeri said, stung by his words.
“That’s not what I meant,” Sawyer said quickly. “You’re great. You’re really great with people, and I’m not even sure my mom’s human.”
Jeri sent a peal of laughter up into the sky. “I thought the same thing when I first met her. But you just have to get her talking about something she’s interested in. It’s butter from there.”
“Butter.” Sawyer chuckled, stumbled in the sand and stepped away from her before bringing her close again. “Thanks for doing this.”
“You’ve got to stop saying thank you,” she said. “I volunteered.” Could she get him to volunteer to stand before a pastor and say I do?
Jeri’s next step brought her to the wet, hard-packed sand, and she was only moments away from the ocean. It was huge and wonderful and she loved it.
Before she could feel the cool water rush over her feet, she paused and pulled on Sawyer’s arm. “I have something I should tell you too,” she said, hoping her explanation and subsequent favor didn’t ruin their day.
“Yeah?” he asked, gazing down at her. Haloed with the sun as he was, he was absolutely gorgeous, and Jeri felt the words dry up right inside her mouth.
“Yeah,” she said, but she couldn’t get the words to come out. “I’ll save story time for the way home, though. Come on, let’s dip our feet in.”
The time passed quickly, and before Jeri knew it, she sat on the bench seat with Sawyer at her side, her hand in his, and the miles passing underneath his tires quickly.
Too quickly.
Darkness took forever to fall in the summer, and she couldn’t rely on him not being able to see her while she explained anything.
The silence between them was comfortable, and she didn’t want to ruin it. However, her time was running out if she wanted to explain much of anything.
“I have a favor to ask,” she started, wishing she’d begun a different way.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I owe you one.”
“This one is a little bit bigger than an afternoon with your family.” Jeri didn’t want to ask him this way. Why had she started like that?
He waited for her to speak, but Jeri couldn’t seem to find the words.
Start with the ranch, she told herself, and she forced a laugh out of her mouth. “I think I got ahead of myself. So Scarlett hired me to do a bunch of construction at the ranch, right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Projected to take until February, I heard.”
“Yes,” she said, seizing onto the facts of the job. The job she needed. It was months and months of work, and she loved the ranch. “And I need to provide my contractor’s license for Forever Friends to keep funding the ranch, and the thing is….”
He glanced at her. “The thing is….”
She drew in a big breath. “The thing is, I don’t have my contractor’s license right now.” The words poured out of her now. “I lost it when my business went under, and they won’t give me another one. But if I could apply under a different name, then I could get one, and Scarlett wouldn’t have to know, and the funding for the ranch would be fine.” She ran out of air and sucked in another lungful of oxygen.
“How are you going to apply under a different name?” he asked, clearly not connecting the dots.
“Well,” she started. “I’d need to get married.”
“Married?” Sawyer jerked the wheel as he twisted toward her. He righted the vehicle quickly, and this silence certainly wasn’t comfortable.
“Just think about it,” Jeri said. “It wouldn’t be real. A make-believe marriage. For a few months. Just for the ranch.” She tried to believe her own words, but they sounded a bit, well, make-believe to her.
“A make-believe marriage,” he repeated, shock in his voice. He looked at her again. “Dear Lord, you’re not kidding.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not.”
Chapter 6
Sawyer arrived at the church forty-five minutes before the service was scheduled to start. He sat in the back of the chapel, where he usually slid a minute or two before the pastor stood up to speak.
Today, though, he really needed some answers.
Jeri’s proposal—and he used that term literally—felt utterly insane to him. He understood the basic premise, even though she’d gone on to explain a lot more. She’d come inside his cabin instead of going inside hers, and she’d shown him the newspaper articles about the accident at her build site.
She’d told him a story—a long one—about a man named Brenden Evans, her former foreman and the cause of the accident. But she, as owner, had taken the fall. And it was a hard fall, and a long fall, and Sawyer knew she was still picking up all the pieces.
The nice-guy side of him wanted to help her. His first instinct had been to say yes, sure, let’s go to City Hall on Monday morning.
But he’d been so startled that he’d just listened. Looked at all the pictures. Read the articles. And now, he was in the chapel to pray.
There were so many pieces up in the air, and he just needed to get them all in line. He started with the bottom line—he liked Jeri. So maybe that colored all the other pieces. Made them warp and change shape while they were still in midair.
But he liked Jeri.
He liked Jeri a lot. And he wanted her to stay at the ranch for as long as possible. A small part of him thought that if she’d stay, she’d fall in love with him and start to build her business just five minutes down from the ranch in Pasadena.
Fool, he thought, but the word softened almost immediately. He wasn’t being a fool. He was here, wasn’t he? Trying to figure out what God would want him to do?
Of course, his father would think praying was a very foolish thing to do. His visit to his parents yesterday had been the best he’d had in years, and he knew why. Jeri.
It seemed a lot of things in his life right now came down to Jeri.
So what do I do? he prayed, his eyes drifting closed.
The earth didn’t shake, and no lights flashed from heaven. But Sawyer felt calm and peaceful, which usually meant that whatever thought had entered his head was okay with God. He’d felt like this when he’d decided to leave the horse training business his dad had inherited from his father, and his father from his.
It had been one of the most difficult decisions he’d ever made, but he’d prayed about it and he’d felt exactly as he did now. Peaceful. Calm. Like no matter what happened next, he’d be okay, because the Lord was in control.
“So say yes?” he asked, thinking about what his life would be like if he really married
Jeri. Would they live next door to each other? Tell anyone? Pretend like their feelings weren’t real?
A make-believe marriage.
Sawyer actually thought he could do that—if he didn’t have real feelings for Jeri. And he’d been out of the dating pool for a while, but it sure seemed like the attraction between him and Jeri definitely flowed both ways. It would actually be easier if it didn’t.
He pulled out his phone and sent Jeri a quick text. I need more info. Can we talk?
Of course. When?
Now. I’m at the church. Maybe we could skip today?
I can meet you wherever, whenever.
His heart took courage, and it started beating a little faster too. He got up from the pew in the back row and headed outside. I’ll come pick you up then. Ten minutes.
See you then.
Sawyer drove slowly, unsure of why he needed a few more minutes before he faced Jeri when he’d specifically asked to see her. Eventually, though, with all the right turns, he pulled up to her cabin and found her sitting on the front steps.
When she saw his truck, she jumped up, and the sight of her further calmed him. She was beautiful, with those dark curls falling over her shoulders and halfway down her arms. She wore sunglasses, as she usually did during the day. A pair of black shorts paired with a blue sleeveless shirt that made everything about her seem brighter and more beautiful.
She was his sky—the same color as her shirt—and Sawyer wanted to jump from the truck and gather her into a hug. She reached the door and got in the vehicle before he could even move.
“Hey,” she said, her voice a little more timid than normal. She tucked her hair behind her ear and buckled her seatbelt. “Are we just driving?”
“We can do whatever,” he said.
“Let’s go to Universal Studios,” she said. “You want to?”
No, Sawyer did not want to. But it was only about a half an hour away, and maybe he’d have fun at a theme park when he was with Jeri. He put the truck in gear and eased around the U-shaped road to get back to the exit.
“So you said you needed more information,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, wishing he knew what kind of information. But he only knew what he knew. “I guess I’m just wondering about the living situation if we do this.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice full of surprise. “Well…I have my cabin and you have yours.”
“So we’re not telling anyone about this marriage.”
“No,” she said. “It’s just for paperwork purposes. I can get my license back, and keep my job, and make sure the ranch keeps its funding and gets the buildings it needs.” She looked at him with desperation in her dark eyes, and Sawyer thought he’d do anything to make it go away.
In fact, he was about to.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll marry you.”
A yelp came out of her mouth. She slapped a hand over it. “Are you serious?” Her wide eyes were beautiful, and Sawyer felt like an idiot for thinking so.
This was going to be fake. Not real.
And yet, his heart beat wildly in a very real way. And his fantasies really wanted to become real. And his feelings felt very, very real.
“I’m serious,” he said. “We can go down and do it tomorrow.”
“Um,” she said. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?” He glanced at her.
“Yeah, I did some research last night. We can apply online for a marriage license online, but we need to make an appointment to get married.” Her voice trailed off. “This is insane, right?”
“It’s a little crazy,” he said. “But I believe you about the accident, and I don’t want you to leave the ranch—” He cut off, because he was about to say way too much. Real things, not make-believe things.
She watched him for a moment, and then she unbuckled and slid across the seat, tucking her arm through his. “I don’t want to leave the ranch either.” She looked at him, the weight of her eyes heavy on the side of his face. “And not just because I need the job.”
He cleared his throat. “So…an appointment?”
“Yeah.” She gave herself a little shake. “They’re on Wednesdays or Fridays, and we need to call and set something up. Has to be an hour before closing, and we have fifteen days to use the marriage license.”
“So Wednesday,” he said. “Didn’t you say you needed it quickly?”
“Yes,” she said. “If possible.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Where do we have to go?”
“The closest office is in Van Nuys.”
Sawyer just drove, thinking seventy-two hours ahead to Wednesday. He could do this.
“It’ll just be a couple of months,” she said. “Then I’ll be out of your hair.” She reached up and touched the back of his neck, curling her hand along his shoulders. “Not that you have much hair.” She giggled, and Sawyer wanted to tell her everything he was feeling.
He bit back the words. “However long is fine,” he said. “It’s not like I have a lot of prospects for dates up at the ranch.”
“That’s not true,” Jeri said. “Scarlett has the new accountant, and she just hired a marketing executive too. She moved into the cabin next to Adele.”
Sawyer automatically rejected both women. He’d met Sissy, and she was nice. Dark-haired like Jeri. But she wasn’t Jeri. He hadn’t met the marketing executive yet, but she didn’t sound like his type.
“Are you going to set me up with someone else?” he teased. “Your husband?”
She laughed, and Sawyer sure liked the sound of it. If marrying her would keep her close to him and let him start to break down some of her walls, it was just another reason to do it.
“So separate living conditions,” he said. “Are there any perks to this job?”
She laughed again, but the thing was, Sawyer wasn’t kidding. And the way she held his hand, and sat beside him, and flirted with him?
She wanted the perks a marriage brought too. Satisfied with that knowledge, he continued on toward the theme park, almost desperate for Wednesday to arrive.
And Wednesday did arrive. Jeri came walking down the road at lunchtime, and she waved to him. “I just need a few minutes,” she said.
He stood, something plaguing him. “I just have a quick question,” he asked. They’d texted a lot over the past couple of days, and she’d eaten his frozen pizza with him on Monday and the soup-from-a-bag last night.
“Did you get your new tie?” she asked, detouring across the front lawn. “I left it on your back door.”
“I got it.” It felt like he’d be able to take her into his arms. The action would be effortless, and he wanted to do it so badly. He didn’t. “I just thought of something we haven’t talked about.” He cleared his throat and looked toward the other cabins on the other side of Jeri’s.
“What?” she asked.
“When we go to get…today, we’re going to have to, you know, kiss.”
Only the breeze whispered between them, and then Jeri started to laugh. “And you can’t even look at me.”
He focused on her, smiling at her when he found that sexy grin on her face. “I’m just saying it’s something we haven’t planned for.”
“You’d like to practice, is that it?”
Yes. “Well, I’m not sure our first kiss should be as man and wife.”
“You say that like there will be a second kiss.” She twirled the ends of a lock of hair, clearly flirting with him.
He had to do something to show her he wanted to help her—and that he liked her. So he leaned closer, watching her intently so he didn’t miss anything. He didn’t touch her, but when he whispered, “A man can dream, right Jeri?” he saw the desire in her eyes. He backed up. One step, and then two. “I’m ready when you’re ready.”
Chapter 7
Jeri kept Sawyer waiting outside, her nerves inside the privacy of her cabin nearly drowning her.
“What am I doing?” she asked herself. And why in the world had
Sawyer agreed to it?
For the good of the ranch, she thought, and she seized onto it. It would just be a few months, and then her license would be final, and she’d be able to finish the job here and set up shop somewhere else.
She’d never be able to stay here, not after this sham with a man she actually liked.
“And you’re going to need an explanation for Scarlett,” she said aloud to herself. She and Sawyer had talked every detail to death—except for a few, obviously.
She’d been dreaming of kissing him for a few nights now, and yet somehow, it had never crossed her mind that she’d have to kiss him in front of a judge. Or a city official. Someone who’d sign the marriage certificate, at the very least.
Maybe they should practice.
“Jeri,” Sawyer called from the front porch. “We’re going to be late. I just checked the traffic, and—”
She pulled open the door, effectively silencing him. “I’m ready,” she said. She’d laid out her dress that morning, and she could do her makeup in the truck. She never wore much anyway. She couldn’t tame her curls, so she figured she’d just pull them up and wrap them into a knot on top of her head. Get them out of the way.
Get this whole marriage out of the way.
Intellectually, she knew she was kidding herself. Severely.
She’d seen the heat in Sawyer’s eyes outside just now. Felt it burn way down in her gut. If she and Sawyer were going to get married, they’d definitely still see each other.
Of course we’ll see each other, she thought. We live next door to each other.
But she knew there was another definition for “see” and it was akin to “dating.”
And kissing. And hand-holding. And happiness.
And a huge risk.
“So are we going?” he asked, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. “Want me to grab your clothes?”
“They’re right there,” she said, indicating the garment bag draped over the back of the couch.
He stepped into her personal space, and Jeri should’ve backed up. She should’ve just admitted to Scarlett she didn’t have her license. Should’ve packed her bags and disappeared into the night, the way self-respecting women did.
