Blake makes a face. “Seriously?”
“No. I’m just fucking with you.”
He shakes his head. “Good to know. So.” He grins. “You’ve put off our tubing plans.”
“I haven’t put them off.” Not exactly. “I was in New York and…”
“You’ve been busy,” he fills in for me. “But after your engagement party, we’re all going to the river. No excuses.”
“Fine.” I turn off at my cottage. “See you later.”
I go inside and walk over to my covered easel. I set up the dropcloth and prepare the paints.
And then, I lift the cover off the easel.
My painting for Macey is nearly done. It will definitely be ready for her birthday, but I’m going to have to give it to her before then. Because on her birthday, I’ll be—
Getting married.
I never wanted to get married. But I can’t forget how I felt when I woke up in Vegas with a ring on my finger and Macey next to me in bed. I felt…happy. And I haven’t been able to shake that feeling.
I don’t know what I’d be doing about that feeling if I wasn’t going full steam ahead with a fake marriage. I don’t have enough bandwidth to figure that out.
As I start painting, my mind wanders to the day I left Darcy to track down the man intent on ruining the Henwoods.
When I reached West Texas, I checked into the same hotel as the one I’d heard him mention.
I was there for three nights, almost crazy with doubt before I spotted him for the first time. I’d been camped outside with my easel for hours each day, hoping to run into him. The way I finally did—well, that was a surprise all in itself.
I was painting the burnt sunset behind the mountains when someone tapped my shoulder. I looked back at a curvy blonde who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
“You’re a painter?”
I nodded.
“What are you going for with this one? Besides a sunset?”
Her eyes were gauging my response. Something told me my answer meant everything.
“Life,” I said honestly. “The ebb and flow, the rush and the shitstorm, the highs and the lows. You ever had a situation you couldn’t figure a way out of?”
Instead of answering me, she pointed a few feet away from us where a man—the very man I’d driven out here to see—was on his phone.
“That situation for me would be my father.”
“That man is your father?”
She nodded. “You know him?”
“Not exactly.”
I introduced myself, and told her my family’s ranch neighbored Benjamin Henwood’s bar.
“Did your dad ever mention that name to you?”
“Of course. He’s the man my dad wants to ruin,” she said softly.
“That’s right. The thing is, Mr. Henwood is a good man,” I said. “Yes, he’s had some problems with alcohol, but he never would have flirted with a woman if he knew she was taken.”
