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Trying not to panic, although she frustratingly slapped away the sudden drops of tears that leaked from her eyes, she concentrated hard on the road.
There was no way she was going to have the road around her collapse into a pile of mud, taking her and her car with it on the way down.
No way. Not until she got to settle the score with Jenna once and for all.
Also, had she thought this through properly? She was going to show up at the ranch—after one failed first attempt—then what? Do their laundry? Make their sandwiches? And then what? How was she going to validate that she had, in fact, proven she could be a wife?
A medal. Or a signed certificate. Or anything similar.
Bingo.
That’s what would endorse her claims. After her five-day trial run, she would get them to write a little letter stating she was all that and a bowl of milk, in Lindsey’s words, when it came to being their pretend wife.
Whew. For a few uncertain moments, she thought she had gotten herself into trouble for nothing.
But her thoughts could only keep her distracted for that long. Soon she found herself singing a song that went something like…don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.
The rain came down in torrents, harder with every minute that passed by.
Oh god, help her.
She could barely see the road ahead and hoped she was still on it. She glanced at her watch, and if her memory served her correctly, it was just twenty minutes on the road before the back of the ranch would come into view.
And if she remembered correctly again, she had to cross a small stream, climb up a small cliff, and voila, she would be on Kennedy land. The inner fence was not electrified, and there was a gap she could use to get in.
She stopped the car. There was no other way to do it. She had to get out and judge her position.
Drenched within seconds of stepping out, she squinted her eyes, and relief washed over her. There was the stream, and there in the distance was Kennedy Ranch; she could make out its red roof.
All she had to do was maneuver her car a little to the left so it was not on the road that could cause an accident, and then she had to make the trip to the ranch.
There was no way she was going to take her bags with her. She would get them tomorrow when the weather cleared.
Confident now that she had a clear plan in place, she moved her car, removed her shoes, and, as slowly as she could, crossed the thankfully still shallow stream, crawled under the opening in the fence in the mud, refusing to think about that, and then made her way to the ranch.
With her teeth clattering, she still managed to create a wave of euphoria when she reached the back door of the ranch and opened it. Instant warmth hit her, but it wasn’t enough. Her sole focus was to get out of the soaked clothes and into a hot shower.
The wet footsteps she left behind would be cleaned up afterward.
She stepped into the first bathroom she came across, and soon she stood under steamy, hot, powerful jets of water that slowly thawed her body and warmed her bones.
So maybe she hadn’t parachuted freefalling from a freak altitude like Jenna, but she had crawled through mud and didn’t die.
Also, okay, so maybe Jenna didn’t do half the things Lacey kept saying she did, but as long as it sounded like something Jenna would do, she didn’t care that it was a false exaggeration at all.
She didn’t have any clothes with her because her bags were still in the car, but she found a massive bath sheet in one of the otherwise empty closets. It smelled clean and it looked clean, so that’s what she used, wrapping it around her like a sarong.
But soon a shiver floated over her again. She needed something warm to drink first, and hopefully, the kitchen was as empty as she had found it when she entered from the rain the first time.
It was not.
She had hoped to postpone what was bound to be a grueling face-off until she had something warm and caffeinated in her system, but her luck would not have it.
“Husbands,” she said cheerily, unconsciously tightening the towel around her naked body.
“The fuck—”
And so it began.
