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Prologue
Prologue
Five Years Ago
I should have a dress, shouldn’t I? Mia thought.
A white one. Something with lace and ribbons. Even fake brides about to get pretend married, wore wedding dresses. Didn’t they? Not their best pair of jeans, dusty boots and a shirt they borrowed from their sister.
Whatever they wore, fake brides at their pretend weddings should not throw up. That would be bad, Mia didn’t know much, but she knew that. She splashed a little more water on her face and took a few deep breaths. The bathroom in the hallway of the county courthouse smelled vaguely of flowers and soup from the cafeteria.
I don’t even have flowers.
Mia wasn’t going to get emotional. This wedding was a business arrangement. A favor, really.
Jack was not, it was obvious, marrying her because he loved her.
Her breath hiccuped in her throat. It was just her dumb luck that she loved him. So much. This was a special kind of hell, marrying her best friend and the only man she’d ever loved, so he could leave the country, knowing his ranch would be in good hands.
What am I doing? She’d gotten used to the ache of being in love with Jack McKibbon. It was just part of her life. But now she was marrying him, knowing he didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him? This was a whole new kind of crazy. A whole new kind of pain.
There was a knock on the bathroom door and Mia squared her shoulders the way she’d been taught to face any kind of trouble and threw open the door. Jack McKibbon stood there, looking worried and carrying a bouquet of flowers.
Do. Not. Cry.
“You all right?” He asked. His eyes the color of the sky outside the windows. A clear crisp blue.
“It’s a fake wedding,” she said with a laugh, wiping her damp hands on her thighs. “Not sure why I’m so nervous.”
“You want to call it off?” he asked. His beloved face was so serious. So worried.
“No. I mean…do you?”
He shook his head, his blond hair picking up the light coming through the windows. He wore a pair of dark jeans and a sports coat over a chambray shirt. “I want you to stay on the Rocking M. I want your mom and sister to stay there too. It’s your home.”
His mother had died and considering she hadn’t been a pleasant woman in life, she really went for it in death. Her will stipulated that her husband, Walter wouldn’t have control of the property. That everything would go to Jack and that Mia and her family would be kicked off the land. Mia’s father before he died and Mia after him had been foreman on the ranch for years. It was the only home Mia knew. The only land she wanted to work.
Jack was a hydro engineer who was developing a low-cost drill that would work in desert conditions and he and his partner had just gotten a grant to work on the drill in parts of China and Africa. He wanted to leave and know the ranch was in good hands. Mia’s hands.
Marriage was the solution to a problem and Jack was excellent at solving problems.
“These are for you,” he said and handed her a bouquet of daisies and tulips. He must have grabbed them at the grocery store down the road. “I know this is a little unorthodox, but I kinda thought every bride should have some flowers.”
“Thank you,” Mia whispered, touching the soft white petals with her calloused finger. “Here.”
She popped the head off one of the daisies and slipped it into the buttonhole of his sports coat. Aware of every breath he took. Of the firmness of his chest and the warmth of his skin beneath his clothes.
“Do I look like a groom?” he asked, with that familiar twinkle in his eye. Jack was brilliant and he had big plans in this world but to her he would always be the boy who was up to trouble. Who was ready for adventure. A night out with Jack and she didn’t know if she was going end up sleeping under the stars or getting arrested.
“Sure,” Mia said. He grinned at her and stuck out his elbow for her to slip her hand through. Their bodies brushed all along her side. Electrical currents zipping between them but only she could feel them. How, she wondered for the millionth time, was it possible to love someone so much and for them to not feel it at all.
“Your sister coming?” he asked. “Your mom?” Mia was silent and he stopped to stare at her. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing. They just…couldn’t make it.”
“To your wedding.”
“Pretend wedding,” she said with a smile.
“Still, I would have thought your sister would be here.”
The truth was Mia didn’t even tell Lucy. Lucy’s opinion on her relationship with Jack was clear. Mia needed to move on, find a man who would love her the way she deserved. But Lucy just didn’t understand the only person she wanted to love her was the man she was about to marry.
