Page 54 of Dandelion Sighs

Saying my goodbyes helped keep my mind off the simmering anxiety in my gut. Until it was time to drive home, all cozy in the same pickup.

After we were loaded and on the road, Jasper blew out a hard breath. “I can explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain.” A pang in my chest disagreed, but that was the truth. “It’s not your place until you get married, and you don’t want to get married.”

“I don’t think I should have to get married, no. It’s not fair.”

Yet his siblings found people who made them want to use the excuse to get closer to each other. No—I couldn’t get hung up on that. Jasper’s reasons might be different, and they should be none of my concern.

Why did I think I could do casual?

“I know Alder and my sisters all did,” he said.

“All five of them.” I didn’t point it out to be snide. But five? All loving and deliriously happy now?

“Is that what you want? Marry a guy you just met, live in a one-bedroom lake cabin for a year, then divorce?”

The pain behind my ribs intensified. Divorce? He was so sure? I hadn’t thought beyond the “I do,” but he was thinking of the end, and that there would be one despite the five happy couples surrounding him. “You have to live there?”

“Plus my dad and Linda have to believe that our marriage is real at the end of the year or I don’t get the place.”

“That’s weird.” What if it could be real? My chest constricted. I hadn’t even been thinking long term. I was nearsighted on the resort and figuring out if and when the new one would be up and running. Yet the hurt lingered.

“It was my grandma. She loved love, and none of us were settling down fast enough for her.”

“So you’re just going to let it go?” Setting my situation aside, that had to suck. The cabin was cool. A lot of places around the lake were older and didn’t have much square footage, and the Duke cabin was the same, but it was also a real cabin. Stacked logs that needed some TLC made up the outside, and it had the cutest porch. The shed beside it was in worse shape than the one Jasper had fixed at the resort.

“If I don’t marry before the deadline in August, then it’s not mine.”

All or nothing. That didn’t seem fair. Was his grandma so sure they’d find love?

“Sheridan, if I proposed a deal to marry and get the property, how would that have served your goals?” He cast a pointed look my way. “Or your drive to be independent?”

My throat grew thick. Was he trying to tell me that he was thinking of me? That not marrying me was for my own good? How should I feel about that? Only confusion welled up. “I haven’t been independent at all. Without you, I would’ve lost the roof on the shed, missed out on two rooms thanks to rain damage, and I would’ve had no support. In any of this.”

“Your best friend. What’s her name?”

The shift in topics left my head spinning. Easy to do after today. “Exactly. I’m going to forget her name too! She never calls.”

“Do you call her?”

“This isn’t about me and Everly.” No, I hadn’t tried. She was busy—with her family and her successful job.

“You want to prove to your family, to yourself, that you can run Bishop’s Landing. If anyone—anyone—learned you and I married to get the property, no one would’ve taken you seriously.”

“I would’ve been able to improve the place,” I said more to hide the fact of how right he was.

“Then marry me.”

I barked out a laugh, but a hot brand seared my lungs. “Wow.” That was my proposal. After all this time, a handsome, sweet, funny, and thoughtful man I was crazy about felt shoved into a corner just to make a marriage proposal that was a business arrangement. Swoon…

Yet this was my chance. My moment to seize. I could get what I wanted, but was this how I wanted it? In all the other situations his sisters described, there’d been something in it for both parties, even if it was just to get close to the other person. Jasper claimed he was looking out for me. I’d have to do the same for him.

“No, Jasper. I won’t.”

I dragged in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He would’ve done it if I had said, Yes, I need the help. Please marry me and pretend to love me for a year and then sell me the cabin, he would’ve done it. And then I would’ve been reliant on him. As much as I liked and admired him, I didn’t know him. What if, at the end of the year, he decided to keep the place? I’d had men promise me the world and barely deliver a pizza. If I hung my hopes on Jasper and he did something well within his rights, like change his mind, I’d be destroyed. I’d become a cartoon. The owner who fired the person with the most experience, married a guy to get ahead, then got dumped with nothing.

I wished I’d never learned about the real stipulations of the trust. Jasper and I could’ve kept just enjoying each other. That rang as more of a loss than possibly accessing the land.