“She swears she was wearing it and he just smooth talked her. Put his mouth on hers, his hands on her ass, and then the Goddamn prick took her to bed. My wife told me everything.
“Crazy redneck drunk…he’ll pay his due for screwing with someone from the Phillips family. Not yet, I’ve got to head out west to Big Bend for a little while. I’m leaving for my plane now, so we’ll talk soon.”
When he rattled off the name of the hotel he’d be at in West Texas, I filed it away in my memory.
I put away my fishing gear and hurried out from my spot, but the man was gone. Disappeared. I ran down Main Street but didn’t see him anywhere.
All I could think was that I have to do something.
A tug on my line brings me back to Darcy and the present. I reel in the catfish and then immediately release it back into the water.
As my pulse settles, I remember why I’m keeping this a secret from Macey. I can’t tell her the truth. Not yet.
When this fake engagement and marriage come to an end, I plan to tell her everything. How her father’s past indiscretions finally came back to bite him. How I left for West Texas determined to find and stop the man who wanted to ruin her family. How I stumbled onto his daughter, who turned out to be the key to keeping Macey and her family from suffering further from Mr. Henwood’s past indiscretions. And how I struck a deal with Gigi Phillips, and then her father, who is the most powerful man I’ve been around. He’s also a man who despises the Henwoods,
If I tell Macey too soon, she’ll tell me she’ll handle it herself. If I manage to talk her out of that, she’ll still insist on getting involved. And if Macey gets in the middle, she would unwittingly put the whole deal in jeopardy.
I can’t get her involved.
I want her happy, and if her daddy’s in jail for life, she’ll either be stuck running a bar she doesn’t want to run, or she’ll be stuck trying to figure out how to bring in money for her mama. If her father goes to jail, Macey’s essentially in prison, too. And she deserves to be free. More than anyone I know, Macey Henwood deserves to be free.
And I’ll do what I need to do to see the deal through—even if it means faking a marriage.
I had to turn in those divorce papers and go ahead with the bargain I made with Mr. Phillips and his daughter. I had no choice.
I just didn’t know it could hurt so much—especially with Macey.
I chastise myself for lingering at the fishing hole. It’s time to dust off and put away the pain of becoming Macey’s ex-husband.
I’m a cowboy.
And the job’s not done yet.
Chapter Twenty
Macey
I smile at my reflection in the bridal salon’s floor-length mirrors. The pale green spaghetti-strap dress I’m wearing is beautiful from all three angles. If I close my eyes and pretend my life were different, it would make a perfect wedding gown. I’m not a big fan of white gowns anyway. White means purity, it means virginal, and it just wouldn’t work for me.
“This is definitely the right choice for my bridesmaid dress,” I say to Eloise.
“You look beautiful, honey,” Ginny concurs from her window seat. “The full length really shows off your figure.”
Eloise helps me take off the dress. I sigh as I step back into my shorts and t-shirt, and Darcy’s bridal shop returns to being just a store and no longer the gorgeous backdrop for a woman’s most important day. A woman who’s not named Macey Henwood.Myone and only wedding has come and gone in the blink of a Las Vegas eye—where alcohol and lack of rational thought made for a very bad decision.
“How are you?” Ginny asks me as we step out of the air-conditioned shop, and the bright sun temporarily blinds us. “You’ve been tense since…you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
Yes, ever since I handed over the divorce papers to Logan a week and a half ago, I’ve been a tad on edge. I haven’t seen him because he and Gigi disappeared to New York the next day, and somehow I haven’t run into them since they returned.
In his absence, I’ve overcompensated by getting very little sleep and by multi-tasking. On the plus side, I finished my red raindrop quilt and wrote five chapters inGhost Love.
On the less positive side, I allowed Jamie to give me back his commitment ring even though it’s far too tight and I’ve barely spent any time alone with him. I’ve managed to avoid kissing him by keeping our dates public and then claiming I’m too tired afterward to hang out.
Despite Logan being engaged, ever since he and I slept together in Vegas—and of coursemarried—the idea of being with another man sexually still makes me ill. But thinking of Logan with Gigi makes me excruciatingly lonely, and I can’t imagine having no one to date all summer.
To fill my need for distraction, I’ve spent several hours a day locked in my office with Mrs. Rattles, doing wedding planning.
