When my phone dings with a message from Ryder, I nearly jump out of my skin.
Willa said Rooney’s going through a rough patch and needed somewhere to stay for a while, so I told her to have at it. You don’t even stay at the A-frame, Ax. You built your own damn house on the property. What’s the big deal? Are you going to catch cooties from sharing an acre of land with her for a few weeks?
Oh, God. Weeks? She can’t stay here for weeks. I’ll be done for.
I don’t stay at the A-frame, I type, but I had projects I was working on.
Pause the projects, he says. Or work on them & stay out of her way. Find your big-boy pants & talk to her about it yourself.
I can’t talk to Rooney, not at any length, and be coherent. I can barely look at her and breathe properly. Make Willa invite her to stay at your place instead, I type.
My phone dings again with his next message. Fuck no. We live in a shoebox bungalow and Willa’s not even around right now. The A-frame’s empty & it’s perfectly reasonable to offer it to a family friend. If you have to be a jerk about it, go hide in your little troll cottage in the woods & stay there until she leaves.
It dings again. While you’re at it, pull that stick out of your ass about being around her, because she’s invited to Thanksgiving, which means post-turkey-dinner charades.
Shit. The memory of Rooney’s kiss comes back in full force—the sweet softness of her mouth on mine, the flush on her cheeks as she stared up at me. That can’t happen again.
My asshole brother has the audacity to text, I’m putting “make out” in the basket this time.
Fuck. Off, I type.
His response comes instantly. LOL.
I groan and drop my phone into my pocket. This is terrible. Ryder says Rooney came here because she’s going through a rough patch, and while I don’t know what’s going on, I know she didn’t seem like herself, either.
And that’s what turned me inside out, what made me throw her suitcase in my trunk and drive her to the house. I wasn’t thinking. I was reacting. Because after I nudged her out of the A-frame, it felt like my heart was splintering in my chest.
I stared at her profile as she peered up at the house, that honey-blonde hair just past her shoulders, wind-whipped and dancing, like the breeze couldn’t help but slip its cool fingers through those spun-gold strands. And I knew something was different. Something was wrong. Her wide blue-green eyes weren’t sparkling and there were half-moon bruises beneath them. Her normally glowing skin was pale, no rosy flush in her cheeks. Two deep dimples that flash every time she smiles were nowhere to be seen.
She was hurting. And I didn’t want her to hurt anymore. I don’t want her to hurt ever.
So now what do I do? I can’t kick her out if she needs somewhere to stay. But if I don’t send her packing, there’s no chance in hell I’m going to paint. Shit, who am I kidding? Even if she were to leave first thing tomorrow, crashing into her today has sent me into a tailspin. I have to face the facts:
I am not in the right frame of mind to paint.
Because I can’t paint, I can’t sell.
And because I can’t sell, I can’t make money.
With no money, the A-frame’s done for. My parents will find out. They’ll absolutely veto the financing necessary to shore up the place, and that will leave one thing and one thing only: selling it. And then this place will be lost to us.
Unless I bite the bullet and take Bennett up on his offer, let him and Parker help me find someone who’ll enter into a civil union only for the money and with no other expectations, a marriage that’s purely transactional. It’s bleak, but it’s the only solution.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull out my phone and dial Bennett. He picks up on the third ring. “You okay?” he asks.
A fair question. I never call. “When you said you’d help me find someone so I could get the inheritance, did you mean it?”
There’s a pause. “Of course, Ax.”
I inhale slowly, relief funneling into my lungs. “I’m going to take you up on it.”
“I think you’re making the right call,” he says. “It’s a shit ton of money, with the plumbing disaster.”
Stepping through the sliding doors onto the back deck, I look over the field toward the cabin where I left Rooney. “Yeah. There’s no way I can force painting right now.”
“He finally comes to his senses!” Parker calls.
I scowl. “Speakerphone. How lovely.”
“Hi, Uncle Ax!” Skyler bellows.
I yank the phone away from my ear. “Hi, Skyler.”
“I’m eating your favorite,” she says loudly around the sound of chewing. “Carrots with grape jelly.”
“Gross.”
“Hey! Give Uncle Ax another mark on his chart. He yucked my yum!”
Parker laughs in the background.
“Sky, put BiBi on the phone, please. ”
“Hey,” Bennett says, amid footsteps and the sound of a door being shut. “Sorry about that. We were in the middle of dinner, but I answered because the last time you called me, you were in the hospital, so the precedent was set.”
I scrub my face and groan. “I don’t know why I called. I could have texted.”
After a beat, Bennett says, “Ax, are you okay?”
My eyes fasten on the exact spot in the woods where the cabin sits. My heart pounds. “I will be.”
“All right. I’m here for you, remember? All three of us are.”
“I know.”
“Good,” he says. “Well, talk tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” I hang up, then pocket my phone. After a walk-through to remind myself why I’m going to marry a stranger for money (which works—this place is so deceptively good at hiding its problems, I’m surprised it hasn’t caved in on us already), I lock up the A-frame.
Standing on the porch, my back to the clearing, I hold my breath, not knowing when I turn around what car I’m more terrified I’ll see: the Jeep or Rooney’s rental.
If the rental is gone and my Jeep is in its place, she passed up my offer and left. And then life will be back to normal—well, minus marrying someone for money—and I can focus on the tasks ahead. But if the rental is still here, that means she stayed. And then…
Air rushes out of my lungs. Her rental sedan glows in the dying light.
She stayed.
She stayed.
My heart pounds against my ribs. My chest tightens. I take a deep breath, concentrating on the logistics. I changed the sheets on my bed this morning, coincidentally, so that’s good. I’m fastidiously neat, so the place is spotless. When I let her into the house to use the restroom, I threw a handful of clothes into a duffel bag to tide me over for the night since I wouldn’t have access to my stuff.
But I’m pretty sure the fridge is almost empty. I should pick up food.
Once I grab my bicycle from the shed, I double-check that the dual storage bags are secure and take off. I ride hard, trying to outstrip the unsettling hum beneath my skin when I think about Rooney in my house.
In my bed.
In my shower.
I mentally slap myself for going down that dangerous path. Then I ride harder.
Soon, I’m parking the bike outside Shepard’s, bracing myself for the inevitable. Bike bags in hand, I push open the door. The bell dings, and—