His laugh is low and warm, doing something dangerous to my resolve. “I’ll figure something out.”
He heads toward the kitchen, then pauses, looking back at me over his shoulder. “For the record? This isn’t how I planned to get married.”
“No?”
“No.” His mouth curves into something that’s almost a smile. “But I’m not exactly upset about who I ended up with.”
He disappears into the kitchen before I can respond.
I stand there, heart doing something complicated in my chest, and realize I’m smiling.
Accidentally married to a mountain man.
Every dating app horror story I’ve ever heard just got topped by my own life.
But Tank Granger isn’t a horror story. He’s a man who gives up his bed for strangers, makes coffee without being asked, kisseslike he’s staking a claim, and responds to accidental marriage with dry humor and practical planning.
There are worse people to be stuck with for thirty days.
There are definitely worse views.
I glance toward the kitchen, where I can hear him moving around, and something shifts in my chest. Something that feels dangerously like anticipation.
Twenty days until New York.
Thirty days until I can be un-married.
And one very attractive mountain man who’s “not exactly upset” about being stuck with me.
I’m already looking forward to tomorrow.
Chapter 6
Tank
She’s sketching again.
I watch her from the kitchen, coffeepot in hand, as her pencil moves across the page in quick, confident strokes. She’s curled up in the corner of my couch—ourcouch now, I guess—wearing my flannel like she was born in it, hair piled in a messy knot on top of her head.
She looks like she belongs here.
The thought hits me somewhere beneath my ribs, settling in like it plans to stay. It’s been five days since we discovered we were accidentally married. And already I can’t imagine this cabin without her in it.
You’ve got it bad, Granger.
The scary part? I don’t want to imagine it without her. The marriage that’s supposed to be a clerical error feels more like fate getting its paperwork right for once.
I pour two cups of coffee, black for me, a splash of milk for her. I’m halfway across the room when her phone buzzes on the arm of the couch.
She glances at the screen and goes still. The phone keeps ringing.
“You going to answer that?”
She’s already unfolding herself, moving toward the door with a tension in her shoulders that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago. “Sorry, it’s my—it’s work.”
The door clicks shut behind her.
I set her coffee on the side table, not bothering to pretend I’m not watching. She’s on the porch, phone pressed to her ear, her free arm wrapped around herself, bracing.
