“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” He softens the phrase with a little grin. “So how are ya? Hanging in there?”
I lean against his truck, the metal warmed by the bright sun. The heat feels good against my muscles as I ponder his question. It’s a loaded one that I don’t know how to answer. Replying with“I’m alive”seems a little dramatic, but it’s really all I know for sure.
“How about this?” I ask, grinning back at him. “How areyou? Areyouhanging in there?”
His chuckle rumbles through me. “I have been worse, and I have been better.”
“Dammit! That’s a good answer. Why didn’t I think of that?”
He shakes his head, running a finger around the side of his mouth.He’s amused. That’s good.
“How long did Lolly give us to make a decision?” I ask.
“A week.”
I groan. “You know, it’s so typical of her to just put our entire lives on her schedule. And it’s not like she’s asking us to Sunday dinner. She’s asking us to get married—and holding shit over our heads. It’s probably illegal.”
“So what are you going to do? Have Sheriff Kline arrest your seventy-eight-year-old grandmother?”
I smile. “Maybe.”
“She’d talk her way out of it before she ever got to the jail.”
“You’re right,” I say, laughing. “She would.”
He blows out a breath. “I want to be mad at her. But I can’t. She’s giving me an opportunity—a messed-up one, but an opportunity nonetheless—that I could never have afforded myself.”
I look past him, down the hill and across the creek to the tree line that separates the two properties. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I understand why she’s doing this. I wish that wasn’t the case. I wish I could easily pack up and drive away, leave the manipulation behind, and not worry about it again.
Markie made a lot of sense in our conversation yesterday, and I’ve taken much of that to heart. All Lolly has ever wanted is for us to be safe and loved. And after all that she’s given me when she didn’t have to—including a house and land worth more than I’d make in a lifetime at the rate I’m going—I could at least give her a year in Sugar Creek. That’s fair.
And the Hartley piece—I get that, too. He’d never take charity. Not even from Lolly. But if he had to bleed a little for the land, if he had to earn it somehow, he’d let himself accept it.
I know she hopes that making me settle, even if only for a year, will put a taste in my mouth for that sort of life. It won’t. But I can respect her game.
Hartley runs a hand through his hair, watching me with his big, brown eyes.
It could absolutely be worse.
“So what do you think?” he asks. “Are we doing this? Because if you want to back out, I completely understand.”
“Do you want to back out?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No, but that’s what I’m asking,” I say. “Maybe you saw Lora this morning at Piper’s when you were picking up your daily sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich.”
He rolls his eyes. “Stop it.”
“I’m just being sure. I don’t want to marry a man who is secretly pining for another woman.”
He makes a face, trying hard not to laugh.
“Okay, fine,” I say. “Yes, I still think we should do this. It’s a little batshit crazy, but this will change our lives. You’ll get the land, but I’ll get the house and a chunk of acreage, too. If hell freezes over and I decide I want to stay, I’ll have a nice place to live. But, if it doesn’t, I can sell it, maybe even to you, if you want it, and not have to save and scrimp for the rest of my life.” I shrug. “I can pretend to be your wife for a year for that.”
A shadow crosses his expression before he smooths it away. “How do you want to do this?” he asks.
“Get married? I mean, I don’t know. I suppose we can go to the courthouse or something, right?”
