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Claim Me, Cowboy
Maisey Yates
Wanted: fake fiancée for a wealthy rancher!Danielle Kelly is perfect for Joshua Grayson’s scheme. He’ll pretend he’s marrying Danielle to keep his father from meddling. He won’t be tempted to touch her, to claim her…or to fall in love!
Wanted: fake fiancée for a wealthy rancher
Benefits: all your dreams come true
#1 Rule: don’t fall in love
The woman on his doorstep is brash, independent and holding a baby! His father won’t approve, which makes her perfect for Joshua Grayson’s scheme. He’ll pretend he’s marrying unsuitable Danielle Kelly to keep his father from meddling. He won’t be tempted to touch her, to claim her...or to fall in love.
MAISEY YATES is a New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing, she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: www.maiseyyates.com (http://www.maiseyyates.com).
Also by Maisey Yates (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
Take Me, Cowboy
Hold Me, Cowboy
Seduce Me, Cowboy
Claim Me, Cowboy
The Rancher’s Baby
Shoulda Been a Cowboy
Part Time Cowboy
Brokedown Cowboy
Bad News Cowboy
A Copper Ridge Christmas
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Claim Me, Cowboy
Maisey Yates
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07633-3
CLAIM ME, COWBOY
© 2018 Maisey Yates
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Jackie Ashenden, my conflict guru and dear friend. Without you my books would take a heck of a lot longer to write, and my life would be a heck of a lot more boring.
Thank you for everything. Always.
Contents
Cover (#ud0bb796d-cd23-5cad-b623-6e60780b41ff)
Back Cover Text (#u4bba4bd0-12e2-59d4-add7-3ddff2755917)
About the Author (#ufedaab4c-9540-51ed-8a10-07adfd7a7e2b)
Booklist (#u3593eee9-96d6-5e23-90dc-6f6e29f85f73)
Title Page (#u4445cd02-35f1-5c9c-bb1f-2f27c6827622)
Copyright (#u92bc1036-ac74-57f3-9d47-5af0e2393f6c)
Dedication (#u5b10f091-6ef8-5270-8be5-9889537c84f9)
One (#ulink_121ec779-61f0-55fa-8cb6-91881b272821)
Two (#uc3b8b302-1b8f-528f-a40a-33b604ab1e31)
Three (#uf785e36a-f582-5f3a-9ad9-87475a15c7c7)
Four (#u81f004e7-76a4-59a2-a582-434723ba6b86)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
November 1, 2017
LOOKING FOR A WIFE—
Wealthy bachelor, 34, looking for a wife. Never married, no children. Needs a partner who can attend business and social events around the world. Must be willing to move to Copper Ridge, Oregon. Perks include: travel, an allowance, residence in several multimillion-dollar homes.
November 5, 2017
LOOKING FOR AN UNSUITABLE WIFE—
Wealthy bachelor, 34, irritated, looking for a woman to pretend to be my fiancée in order to teach my meddling father a lesson. Need a partner who is rough around the edges. Must be willing to come to Copper Ridge, Oregon, for at least thirty days. Generous compensation provided.
One (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
“No. You do not need to send pics.”
Joshua Grayson looked out the window of his office and did not feel the kind of calm he ought to feel.
He’d moved back to Copper Ridge six months ago from Seattle, happily trading in a man-made, rectangular skyline for the natural curve of the mountains.
Not the best thing for an architect to feel, perhaps. But he spent his working hours dealing in design, in business. Numbers. Black, white and the bottom line. There was something about looking out at the mountains that restarted him.
That, and getting on the back of a horse. Riding from one end of the property to the other. The wind blocking out every other sound except hoofbeats on the earth.
Right now, he doubted anything would decrease the tension he was feeling from dealing with the fallout of his father’s ridiculous ad. Another attempt by the old man to make Joshua live the life his father wanted him to.
The only kind of life his father considered successful: a wife, children.
He couldn’t understand why Joshua didn’t want the same.
No. That kind of life was for another man, one with another past and another future. It was not for Joshua. And that was why he was going to teach his father a lesson.
But not with Brindy, who wanted to send him selfies with “no filter.”
The sound she made in response to his refusal was so petulant he almost laughed.
“But your ad said...”
“That,” he said, “was not my ad. Goodbye.”
He wasn’t responsible for the ad in a national paper asking for a wife, till death do them part. But an unsuitable, temporary wife? Yes. That had been his ad.
He was done with his father’s machinations. No matter how well-meaning they were. He was tired of tripping over daughters of “old friends” at family gatherings. Tired of dodging women who had been set on him like hounds at a fox hunt.
He was going to win the game. Once and for all. And the woman he hoped would be his trump card was on her way.
His first respondent to his counter ad—Danielle Kelly—was twenty-two, which suited his purposes nicely. His dad would think she was too young, and frankly, Joshua also thought she was too young. He didn’t get off on that kind of thing.
He understood why some men did. A tight body was hot. But in his experience, the younger the woman, the less in touch with her sensuality she was and he didn’t have the patience for that.
He didn’t have the patience for this either, but here he was. The sooner he got this farce over with, the sooner he could go back to his real life.
The doorbell rang and he stood up behind his desk. She was here. And she was—he checked his watch—late.
A half smile curved his lips.
Perfect.
He took the stairs two at a time. He was impatient to meet his temporary bride. Impatient to get this plan started so it could end.
He strode across the entryway and jerked the door open. And froze.
The woman standing on his porch was small. And young, just as he’d expected, but... She wore no makeup, which made her look like a damned teenager. Her features were fine and pointed; her dark brown hair hung lank beneath a ragged beanie that looked like it was in the process of unraveling while it sat on her head.
He didn’t bother to linger over the rest of the details—her threadbare sweater with too-long sleeves, her tragic skinny jeans—because he was stopped, immobilized really, by the tiny bundle in her arms.
A baby.
His prospective bride had come with a baby.
Well, hell.
* * *
She really hoped he wasn’t a serial killer. Well, hoped was an anemic word for what she was feeling. Particularly considering the possibility was a valid concern.
What idiot put an ad in the paper looking for a temporary wife?
Though, she supposed the bigger question was: What idiot responded to an ad in the paper looking for a temporary wife?
This idiot, apparently.
It took Danielle a moment to realize she was staring directly at the center of a broad, muscular male chest. She had to raise her head slightly to see his face. He was just so...tall. And handsome.
And she was confused.
She hadn’t imagined that a man who put an ad in the paper for a fake fiancée might be attractive. Another anemic word. Attractive. This man wasn’t simply attractive...
He was... Well, he was unreal.
Broad shouldered, muscular, with stubble on his square jaw adding a roughness to features that might have otherwise been considered pretty.
“Please don’t tell me you’re Danielle Kelly,” he said, crossing his arms over that previously noted broad chest.
“I am. Were you expecting someone else? Of course, I suppose you could be. I bet I’m not the only person who responded to your ad, strange though it was. The mention of compensation was pretty tempting. Although, I might point out that in the future maybe you should space your appointments further apart.”
“You have a baby,” he said, stating the obvious.
Danielle looked down at the bundle in her arms. “Yes.”
“You didn’t mention that in our email correspondence.”
“Of course not. I thought it would make it too easy for you to turn me away.”
He laughed, somewhat reluctantly, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Well, you’re right about that.”
“But now I’m here. And I don’t have the gas money to get back home. Also, you said you wanted unsuitable.” She spread one arm wide, keeping Riley clutched firmly in her other arm. “I would say that I’m pretty unsuitable.”
She could imagine the picture she made. Her hideous, patchwork car parked in the background. Maroon with lighter patches of red and a door that was green, since it had been replaced after some accident that had happened before the car had come into her possession. Then there was her. In all her faded glory. She was hungry, and she knew she’d lost a lot of weight over the past few weeks, which had taken her frame from slim to downright pointy. The circles under her eyes were so dark she almost looked like she’d been punched.
She considered the baby a perfect accessory. She had that new baby sallowness they never told you about when they talked about the miracle of life.
She curled her toes inside her boots, one of them going through a hole at the end of her sock. She frowned. “Anyway, I figured I presented a pretty poor picture of a fiancée for a businessman such as yourself. Don’t you agree?”
The corners of his lips tightened further. “The baby.”
“Yes?”
“You expect it to live here?”
She made an exasperated noise. “No. I expect him to live in the car while I party it up in your fancy-pants house.”
“A baby wasn’t part of the deal.”
“What do you care? Your email said it’s only through Christmas. Can you imagine telling your father that you’ve elected to marry Portland hipster trash and she comes with a baby? I mean, it’s going to be incredibly awkward, but ultimately kind of funny.”
“Come in,” he said, his expression no less taciturn as he stood to the side and allowed her entry into his magnificent home.
She clutched Riley even more tightly to her chest as she wandered inside, looking up at the high ceiling, the incredible floor-to-ceiling windows that offered an unparalleled mountain view. As cities went, Portland was all right. The air was pretty clean, and once you got away from the high-rise buildings, you could see past the iron and steel to the nature beyond.
But this view... This was something else entirely.
She looked down at the floor, taking a surprised step to the side when she realized she was standing on glass. And that underneath the glass was a small, slow-moving stream. Startlingly clear, rocks visible beneath the surface of the water. Also, fish.
She looked up to see him staring at her. “My sister’s work,” he said. “She’s the hottest new architect on the scene. Incredible, considering she’s only in her early twenties. And a woman, breaking serious barriers in the industry.”
“That sounds like an excerpt from a magazine article.”
He laughed. “It might be. Since I write the press releases about Faith. That’s what I do. PR for our firm, which has expanded recently. Not just design, but construction. And as you can see, Faith’s work is highly specialized, and it’s extremely coveted.”
A small prickle of...something worked its way under her skin. She couldn’t imagine being so successful at such a young age. Of course, Joshua and his sister must have come from money. You couldn’t build something like this if you hadn’t.
Danielle was in her early twenties and didn’t even have a checking account, much less a successful business.
All of that had to change. It had to change for Riley.
He was why she was here, after all.
Truly, nothing else could have spurred her to answer the ad. She had lived in poverty all of her life. But Riley deserved better. He deserved stability. And he certainly didn’t deserve to wind up in foster care just because she couldn’t get herself together.
“So,” she said, cautiously stepping off the glass tile. “Tell me more about this situation. And exactly what you expect.”
She wanted him to lay it all out. Wanted to hear the terms and conditions he hadn’t shared over email. She was prepared to walk away if it was something she couldn’t handle. And if he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer? Well, she had a knife in her boot.
“My father placed an ad in a national paper saying I was looking for a wife. You can imagine my surprise when I began getting responses before I had ever seen the ad. My father is well-meaning, Ms. Kelly, and he’s willing to do anything to make his children’s lives better. However, what he perceives as perfection can only come one way. He doesn’t think all of this can possibly make me happy.” Joshua looked up, seeming to indicate the beautiful house and view around them. “He’s wrong. However, he won’t take no for an answer, and I want to teach him a lesson.”
“By making him think he won?”
“Kind of. That’s where you come in. As I said, he can only see things from his perspective. From his point of view, a wife will stay at home and massage my feet while I work to bring in income. He wants someone traditional. Someone soft and biddable.” He looked her over. “I imagine you are none of those things.”
“Yeah. Not so much.” The life she had lived didn’t leave room for that kind of softness.
“And you are right. He isn’t going to love that you come with a baby. In fact, he’ll probably think you’re a gold digger.”
“I am a gold digger,” she said. “If you weren’t offering money, I wouldn’t be here. I need money, Mr. Grayson, not a fiancé.”
“Call me Joshua,” he said. “Come with me.”
She followed him as he walked through the entryway, through the living area—which looked like something out of a magazine that she had flipped through at the doctor’s office once—and into the kitchen.
The kitchen made her jaw drop. Everything was so shiny. Stainless steel surrounded by touches of wood. A strange clash of modern and rustic that seemed to work.
Danielle had never been in a place where so much work had gone into the details. Before Riley, when she had still been living with her mother, the home decor had included plastic flowers shoved into some kind of strange green Styrofoam and a rug in the kitchen that was actually a towel laid across a spot in the linoleum that had been worn through.
“You will live here for the duration of our arrangement. You will attend family gatherings and work events with me.”
“Aren’t you worried about me being unsuitable for your work arrangements too?”
“Not really. People who do business with us are fascinated by the nontraditional. As I mentioned earlier, my sister, Faith, is something of a pioneer in her field.”
“Great,” Danielle said, giving him a thumbs-up. “I’m glad to be a nontraditional asset to you.”
“Whether or not you’re happy with it isn’t really my concern. I mean, I’m paying you, so you don’t need to be happy.”
She frowned. “Well, I don’t want to be unhappy. That’s the other thing. We have to discuss...terms and stuff. I don’t know what all you think you’re going to get out of me, but I’m not here to have sex with you. I’m just here to pose as your fiancée. Like the ad said.”
The expression on his face was so disdainful it was almost funny. Almost. It didn’t quite ascend to funny because it punched her in the ego. “I think I can control myself, Ms. Kelly.”
“If I can call you Joshua, then you can call me Danielle,” she said.
“Noted.”
The way he said it made her think he wasn’t necessarily going to comply with her wishes just because she had made them known. He was difficult. No wonder he didn’t have an actual woman hanging around willing to marry him. She should have known there was something wrong with him. Because he was rich and kind of disgustingly handsome. His father shouldn’t have had to put an ad in the paper to find Joshua a woman.
He should be able to snap his fingers and have them come running.
That sent another shiver of disquiet over her. Yeah, maybe she should listen to those shivers... But the compensation. She needed the compensation.
“What am I going to do...with the rest of my time?”
“Stay here,” he said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. As though the idea of her rotting away up here in his mansion wasn’t weird at all. “And you have that baby. I assume it takes up a lot of your time?”
“He. Riley. And yes, he does take up a lot of time. He’s a baby. That’s kind of their thing.” He didn’t respond to that. “You know. Helpless, requiring every single one of their physical and emotional needs to be met by another person. Clearly you don’t know.”
Something in his face hardened. “No.”
“Well, this place is big enough you shouldn’t have to ever find out.”
“I keep strange hours,” he said. “I have to work with offices overseas, and I need to be available to speak to them on the phone, which means I only sleep for a couple of hours at a time. I also spend a lot of time outdoors.”
Looking at him, that last statement actually made sense. Yes, he had the bearing of an uptight businessman, but he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He was also the kind of physically fit that didn’t look like it had come from a gym, not that she was an expert on men or their physiques.
“What’s the catch?” she asked.
Nothing in life came this easy—she knew that for certain. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for him to lead her down to the dungeon and show her where he kept his torture pit.
“There is no catch. This is what happens when a man with a perverse sense of humor and too much money decides to teach his father a lesson.”
“So basically I live in this beautiful house, I wear your ring, I meet your family, I behave abominably and then I get paid?”
“That is the agreement, Ms. Kelly.”
“What if I steal your silverware?”
He chuckled. “Then I still win. If you take off in the dead of night, you don’t get your money, and I have the benefit of saying to my father that because of his ad I ended up with a con woman and then got my heart broken.”
He really had thought of everything. She supposed there was a reason he was successful.
“So do we... Is this happening?”
“There will be papers for you to sign, but yes. It is.” Any uncertainty he’d seemed to feel because of Riley was gone now.
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small, velvet box. He opened it, revealing a diamond ring so beautiful, so big, it bordered on obscene.
This was the moment. This was the moment when he would say he actually needed her to spend the day wandering around dressed as a teddy bear or something.
But that moment didn’t come either. Instead, he took the ring out of the box and held it out to her. “Give me your hand.”
She complied. She complied before she gave her body permission to. She didn’t know what she expected. For him to get down on one knee? For him to slide the ring onto her fourth finger? He did neither. Instead, he dropped the gem into her palm.
She curled her fingers around it, an electric shock moving through her system as she realized she was probably holding more money in her hand right now than she could ever hope to earn over the course of her lifetime.
Well, no, that wasn’t true. Because she was about to earn enough money over the next month to take care of herself and Riley forever. To make sure she got permanent custody of him.
Her life had been so hard, a constant series of moves and increasingly unsavory uncles her mother brought in and out of their lives. Hunger, cold, fear, uncertainty...
She wasn’t going to let Riley suffer the same fate. No, she was going to make sure her half brother was protected. This agreement, even if Joshua did ultimately want her to walk around dressed like a sexy teddy bear, was a small price to pay for Riley’s future.
“Yes,” she said, testing the weight of the ring. “It is.”
Two (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
As Joshua followed Danielle down the hall, he regretted not having a live-in housekeeper. An elderly British woman would come in handy at a time like this. She would probably find Danielle and her baby to be absolutely delightful. He, on the other hand, did not.
No, on the contrary, he felt invaded. Which was stupid. Because he had signed on for this. Though, he had signed on for it only after he had seen his father’s ad. After he had decided the old man needed to be taught a lesson once and for all about meddling in Joshua’s life.
It didn’t matter that his father had a soft heart or that he was coming from a good place. No, what mattered was the fact that Joshua was tired of being hounded every holiday, every time he went to dinner with his parents, about the possibility of him starting a family.
It wasn’t going to happen.
At one time, he’d thought that would be his future. Had been looking forward to it. But the people who said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all clearly hadn’t caused the loss.
He was happy enough now to be alone. And when he didn’t want to be alone, he called a woman, had her come spend a few hours in his bed—or in the back of his truck, he wasn’t particular. Love was not on his agenda.
“This is a big house,” she said.
Danielle sounded vaguely judgmental, which seemed wrong, all things considered. Sure, he was the guy who had paid a woman to pose as his temporary fiancée. And sure, he was the man who lived in a house that had more square footage than he generally walked through in a day, but she was the one who had responded to an ad placed by a complete stranger looking for a temporary fiancée. So, all things considered, he didn’t feel like she had a lot of room to judge.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why? I mean, you live here alone, right?”
“Because size matters,” he said, ignoring the shifting, whimpering sound of the baby in her arms.
“Right,” she said, her tone dry. “I’ve lived in apartment buildings that were smaller than this.”
He stopped walking, then he turned to face her. “Am I supposed to feel something about that? Feel sorry for you? Feel bad about the fact that I live in a big house? Because trust me, I started humbly enough. I choose to live differently than my parents. Because I can. Because I earned it.”
“Oh, I see. In that case, I suppose I earned my dire straits.”
“I don’t know your life, Danielle. More important, I don’t want to know it.” He realized that was the first time he had used her first name. He didn’t much care.
“Great. Same goes. Except I’m going to be living in your house, so I’m going to definitely...infer some things about your life. And that might give rise to conversations like this one. And if you’re going to be assuming things about me, then you should be prepared for me to respond in kind.”
“I don’t have to do any such thing. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the employer, you’re the employee. That means if I want to talk to you about the emotional scars of my childhood, you had better lie back on my couch and listen. Conversely, if I do not want to hear about any of the scars of yours, I don’t have to. All I have to do is throw money at you until you stop talking.”
“Wow. It’s seriously the job offer I’ve been waiting for my entire life. Talking I’m pretty good at. And I don’t do a great job of shutting up. That means I would be getting money thrown at me for a long, long time.”
“Don’t test me, Ms. Kelly,” he said, reverting back to her last name, because he really didn’t want to know about her childhood or what brought her here. Didn’t want to wonder about her past. Didn’t want to wonder about her adulthood either. Who the father of her baby was. What kind of situation she was in. It wasn’t his business, and he didn’t care.
“Don’t test me, Ms. Kelly,” she said, in what he assumed was supposed to be a facsimile of his voice.
“Really?” he asked.
“What? You can’t honestly expect to operate at this level of extreme douchiness and not get called to the carpet on it.”
“I expect that I can do whatever I want, since I’m paying you to be here.”
“You don’t want me to dress up as a teddy bear and vacuum, do you?”
“What?”
She shifted her weight, moving the baby over to one hip and spreading the other arm wide. “Hey, man, some people are into that. They like stuffed animals. Or rather, they like people dressed as stuffed animals.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I like women,” he said. “Dressed as women. Or rather, undressed, generally.”
“I’m not judging. Your dad put an ad in the paper for some reason. Clearly he really wants you to be married.”
“Yes. Well, he doesn’t understand that not everybody needs to live the life that he does. He was happy with a family and a farmhouse. But none of the rest of us feel that way, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“So none of you are married?”
“One of us is. The only brother that actually wanted a farmhouse too.” He paused in front of the door at the end of the hall. He was glad he had decided to set this room aside for the woman who answered the ad. He hadn’t known she would come with a baby in tow, but the fact that she had meant he really, really wanted her out of earshot.
“Is this it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, pushing the door open.
When she looked inside the bedroom, her jaw dropped, and Joshua couldn’t deny that he took a small amount of satisfaction in her reaction. She looked... Well, she looked amazed. Like somebody standing in front of a great work of art. Except it was just a bedroom. Rather a grand one, he had to admit, down to the details.
There was a large bed fashioned out of natural, twisted pieces of wood with polished support beams that ran from floor to ceiling and retained the natural shape they’d had in the woods but glowed from the stain that had been applied to them. The bed made the whole room look like a magical forest. A little bit fanciful for him. His own bedroom had been left more Spartan. But, clearly, Danielle was enchanted.
And he shouldn’t care.
“I’ve definitely lived in apartments that were smaller than this room,” she said, wrapping both arms around the baby and turning in a circle. “This is... Is that a loft? Like a reading loft?” She was gazing up at the mezzanine designed to look as though it was nestled in the tree branches.
“I don’t know.” He figured it was probably more of a sex loft. But then, if he slept in a room with a loft, obviously he would have sex in it. That was what creative surfaces were for, in his opinion.
“It reminds me of something we had when I was in first grade.” A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “I mean, not me as in at our house, but in my first-grade classroom at school. The teacher really loved books. And she liked for us all to read. So we were able to lie around the classroom anywhere we wanted with a book and—” She abruptly stopped talking, as though she realized exactly what she was doing. “Never mind. You think it’s boring. Anyway, I’m going to use it for a reading loft.”
“Dress like a teddy bear in it, for all I care,” he responded.
“That’s your thing, not mine.”
“Do you have any bags in the car that I can get for you?”
She looked genuinely stunned. “You don’t have to get anything for me.”
It struck him that she thought he was being nice. He didn’t consider the offer particularly nice. It was just what his father had drilled into him from the time he was a boy. If there was a woman and she had a heavy thing to transport, you were no kind of man if you didn’t offer to do the transporting.
“I don’t mind.”
“It’s just one bag,” she said.
That shocked him. She was a woman. A woman with a baby. He was pretty sure most mothers traveled with enough luggage to fill a caravan. “Just one bag.” He had to confirm that.
“Yes,” she returned. “Baggage is another thing entirely. But in terms of bags, yeah, we travel light.”
“Let me get it.” He turned and walked out of the room, frustrated when he heard her footsteps behind him. “I said I would get it.”
“You don’t need to,” she said, following him persistently down the stairs and out toward the front door.
“My car is locked,” she added, and he ignored her as he continued to walk across the driveway to the maroon monstrosity parked there.
He shot her a sideways glance, then looked down at the car door. It hung a little bit crooked, and he lifted up on it hard enough to push it straight, then he jerked it open. “Not well.”
“You’re the worst,” she said, scowling.
He reached into the back seat and saw one threadbare duffel bag, which had to be the bag she was talking about. The fabric strap was dingy, and he had a feeling it used to be powder blue. The zipper was broken and there were four safety pins holding the end of the bulging bag together. All in all, it looked completely impractical.
“Empty all the contents out of this tonight. In the morning, I’m going to use it to fuel a bonfire.”
“It’s the only bag I have.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“It better be in addition to the fee that I’m getting,” she said, her expression stubborn. “I mean it. If I incur a loss because of you, you better cover it.”
“You have my word that if anything needs to be purchased in order for you to fit in with your surroundings, or in order for me to avoid contracting scabies, it will be bankrolled by me.”
“I don’t have scabies,” she said, looking fierce.
“I didn’t say you did. I implied that your gym bag might.”
“Well,” she said, her cheeks turning red, “it doesn’t. It’s clean. I’m clean.”
He heaved the bag over his shoulder and led the way back to the house, Danielle trailing behind him like an angry wood nymph. That was what she reminded him of, he decided. All pointed angles and spiky intensity. And a supernaturally wicked glare that he could feel boring into the center of his back. Right between his shoulder blades.
This was not a woman who intimidated easily, if at all.
He supposed that was signal enough that he should make an attempt to handle her with care. Not because she needed it, but because clearly nobody had ever made the attempt before. But he didn’t know how. And he was paying her an awful lot to put up with him as he was.
And she had brought a baby into his house.
“You’re going to need some supplies,” he said, frowning. Because he abruptly realized what it meant that she had brought a baby into his house. The bedroom he had installed her in was only meant for one. And there was no way—barring the unlikely reality that she was related to Mary Poppins in some way—that her ratty old bag contained the supplies required to keep both a baby and herself in the kind of comfort that normal human beings expected.
“What kind of supplies?”
He moved quickly through the house, and she scurried behind him, attempting to match his steps. They walked back into the bedroom and he flung the bag on the ground.
“A bed for the baby. Beyond that, I don’t know what they require.”
She shot him a deadly glare, then bent down and unzipped the bag, pulling out a bottle and a can of formula. She tossed both onto the bed, then reached back into the bag and grabbed a blanket. She spread it out on the floor, then set the baby in the center of it.
Then she straightened, spreading her arms wide and slapping her hands back down on her thighs. “Well, this is more than we’ve had for a long time. And yeah, I guess it would be nice to have nursery stuff. But I’ve never had it. Riley and I have been doing just fine on our own.” She looked down, picking at some dirt beneath her fingernail. “Or I guess we haven’t been fine. If we had, I wouldn’t have responded to your ad. But I don’t need more than what I have. Not now. Once you pay me? Well, I’m going to buy a house. I’m going to change things for us. But until then, it doesn’t matter.”
He frowned. “What about Riley’s father? Surely he should be paying you some kind of support.”
“Right. Like I have any idea who he is.” He must have made some kind of facial expression that seemed judgmental, because her face colored and her eyebrows lowered. “I mean, I don’t know how to get in touch with him. It’s not like he left contact details. And I sincerely doubt he left his real name.”
“I’ll call our office assistant, Poppy. She’ll probably know what you need.” Technically, Poppy was his brother Isaiah’s assistant, but she often handled whatever Joshua or Faith needed, as well. Poppy would arrange it so that various supplies were overnighted to the house.
“Seriously. Don’t do anything... You don’t need to do anything.”
“I’m supposed to convince my parents that I’m marrying you,” he said, his tone hard. “I don’t think they’re going to believe I’m allowing my fiancée to live out of one duffel bag. No. Everything will have to be outfitted so that it looks legitimate. Consider it a bonus to your salary.”
She tilted her chin upward, her eyes glittering. “Okay, I will.”
He had halfway expected her to argue, but he wasn’t sure why. She was here for her own material gain. Why would she reduce it? “Good.” He nodded once. “You probably won’t see much of me. I’ll be working a lot. We are going to have dinner with my parents in a couple of days. Until then, the house and the property are yours to explore. This is your house too. For the time being.”
He wasn’t being particularly generous. It was just that he didn’t want to answer questions, or deal with her being tentative about where she might and might not be allowed to go. He just wanted to install her and the baby in this room and forget about them until he needed them as convenient props.
“Really?” Her natural suspicion was shining through again.
“I’m a very busy man, Ms. Kelly,” he said. “I’m not going to be babysitting. Either the child or you.”
And with that, he turned and left her alone.
Three (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
Danielle had slept fitfully last night. And, of course, she hadn’t actually left her room once she had been put there. But early the next morning there had been a delivery. And the signature they had asked for was hers. And then the packages had started to come in, like a Christmas parade without the wrapping.
Teams of men carried the boxes up the stairs. They had assembled a crib, a chair, and then unpacked various baby accoutrements that Danielle hadn’t even known existed. How could she? She certainly hadn’t expected to end up caring for a baby.
When her mother had breezed back into her life alone and pregnant—after Danielle had experienced just two carefree years where she had her own space and wasn’t caring for anyone—Danielle had put all of her focus into caring for the other woman. Into arranging state health insurance so the prenatal care and hospital bill for the delivery wouldn’t deter her mother from actually taking care of herself and the baby.
And then, when her mother had abandoned Danielle and Riley...that was when Danielle had realized her brother was likely going to be her responsibility. She had involved Child Services not long after that.
There had been two choices. Either Riley could go into foster care or Danielle could take some appropriate parenting classes and become a temporary guardian.
So she had.
But she had been struggling to keep their heads above water, and it was too close to the way she had grown up. She wanted more than that for Riley. Wanted more than that for both of them. Now it wasn’t just her. It was him. And a part-time job as a cashier had never been all that lucrative. But with Riley to take care of, and her mother completely out of the picture, staying afloat on a cashier’s pay was impossible.
She had done her best trading babysitting time with a woman in her building who also had a baby and nobody else to depend on. But inevitably there were schedule clashes, and after missing a few too many shifts, Danielle had lost her job.
Which was when she had gotten her first warning from Child Services.
Well, she had a job now.
And, apparently, a full nursery.
Joshua was refreshingly nowhere to be seen, which made dealing with her new circumstances much easier. Without him looming over her, being in his house felt a lot like being in the world’s fanciest vacation rental. At least, the fanciest vacation rental she could imagine.
She had a baby monitor in her pocket, one that would allow her to hear when Riley woke up. A baby monitor that provided her with more freedom than she’d had since Riley had been born. But, she supposed, in her old apartment a monitor would have been a moot point considering there wasn’t anywhere she could go and not hear the baby cry.
But in this massive house, having Riley take his nap in the bedroom—in the new crib, his first crib—would have meant she couldn’t have also run down to the kitchen to grab snacks. But she had the baby monitor. A baby monitor that vibrated. Which meant she could also listen to music.
She had the same ancient MP3 player her mother had given her for her sixteenth birthday years ago, but Danielle had learned early to hold on to everything she had, because she didn’t know when something else would come along. And in the case of frills like her MP3 player, nothing else had ever come along.
Of course, that meant her music was as old as her technology. But really, music hadn’t been as good since she was sixteen anyway.
She shook her hips slightly, walking through the kitchen, singing about how what didn’t kill her would only make her stronger. Digging through cabinets, she came up with a package of Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tarts!
Her mother had never bought those. They were too expensive. And while Danielle had definitely indulged herself when she had moved out, that hadn’t lasted. Because they were too expensive.
Joshua had strawberry. And some kind of mixed berry with bright blue frosting. She decided she would eat one of each to ascertain which was best.
Then she decided to eat one more of each. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She had a feeling the hunger wasn’t a new development. She had a feeling she had been hungry for days. Weeks even.
Suddenly, sitting on the plush couch in his living area, shoving toaster pastries into her mouth, she felt a whole lot like crying in relief. Because she and Riley were warm; they were safe. And there was hope. Finally, an end point in sight to the long, slow grind of poverty she had existed in for her entire life.
It seemed too good to be true, really. That she had managed to jump ahead in her life like this. That she was really managing to get herself out of that hole without prostituting herself.
Okay, so some people might argue this agreement with Joshua was prostituting herself, a little bit. But it wasn’t like she was going to have sex with him.
She nearly choked on her Pop-Tart at the thought. And she lingered a little too long on what it might be like to get close to a man like Joshua. To any man, really. The way her mother had behaved all of her life had put Danielle off men. Or, more specifically, she supposed it was the way men had behaved toward Danielle’s mother that had put her off.
As far as Danielle could tell, relationships were a whole lot of exposing yourself to pain, deciding you were going to depend on somebody and then having that person leave you high and dry.
No, thank you.
But she supposed she could see how somebody might lose their mind enough to take that risk. Especially when the person responsible for the mind loss had eyes that were blue like Joshua’s. She leaned back against the couch, her hand falling slack, the Pop-Tart dangling from her fingertips.
Yesterday there had been the faint shadow of golden stubble across that strong face and jaw, his eyes glittering with irritation. Which she supposed shouldn’t be a bonus, shouldn’t be appealing. Except his irritation made her want to rise to the unspoken challenge. To try to turn that spark into something else. Turn that irritation into something more...
“Are you eating my Pop-Tarts?”
The voice cut through the music and she jumped, flinging the toaster pastry into the air. She ripped her headphones out of her ears and turned around to see Joshua, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his eyebrows flat on his forehead, his expression unreadable.
“You said whatever was in your house was mine to use,” she squeaked. “And a warning would’ve been good. You just about made me jump out of my skin. Which was maybe your plan all along. If you wanted to make me into a skin suit.”
“That’s ridiculous. I would not fit into your skin.”
She swallowed hard, her throat dry. “Well, it’s a figure of speech, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” he asked.
“Yes. Everybody knows what that means. It means that I think you might be a serial killer.”
“You don’t really think I’m a serial killer, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I am pretty desperate.” She lifted her hand and licked off a remnant of jam. “I mean, obviously.”
“There are no Pop-Tarts left,” he said, his tone filled with annoyance.
“You said I could have whatever I wanted. I wanted Pop-Tarts.”
“You ate all of them.”
“Why do you even have Pop-Tarts?” She stood up, crossing her arms, mimicking his stance. “You don’t look like a man who eats Pop-Tarts.”
“I like them. I like to eat them after I work outside.”
“You work outside?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have horses.”
Suddenly, all of her annoyance fell away. Like it had been melted by magic. Equine magic. “You have horses?” She tried to keep the awe out of her voice, but it was nearly impossible.
“Yes,” he said.
“Can I... Can I see them?”
“If you want to.”
She had checked the range on the baby monitor, so depending on how far away from the house the horses were, she could go while Riley was napping.
“Could we see the house from the barn? Or wherever you keep them?”
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s just right across the driveway.”
“Can I see them now?”
“I don’t know. You ate my Pop-Tarts. Actually, more egregious than eating my Pop-Tarts, you threw the last half of one on the ground.”
“Sorry about your Pop-Tarts. But I’m sure that a man who can have an entire nursery outfitted in less than twenty-four hours can certainly acquire Pop-Tarts at a moment’s notice.”
“Or I could just go to the store.”
She had a hard time picturing a man like Joshua Grayson walking through the grocery store. In fact, the image almost made her laugh. He was way too commanding to do something as mundane as pick up a head of lettuce and try to figure out how fresh it was. Far too...masculine to go around squeezing avocados.
“What?” he asked, his eyebrows drawing together.
“I just can’t imagine you going to the grocery store. That’s all.”
“Well, I do. Because I like food. Food like Pop-Tarts.”
“My mom would never buy those for me,” she said. “They were too expensive.”
He huffed out a laugh. “My mom would never buy them for me.”
“This is why being an adult is cool, even when it sucks.”
“Pop-Tarts whenever you want?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“That seems like a low bar.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe it is, but it’s a tasty one.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Now, why don’t we go look at the horses.”
* * *
Joshua didn’t know what to expect by taking Danielle outside to see the horses. He had been irritated that she had eaten his preferred afternoon snack, and then, perversely, even more irritated that she had questioned the fact that it was his preferred afternoon snack. Irritated that he was put in the position of explaining to someone what he did with his time and what he put into his body.
He didn’t like explaining himself.
But then she saw the horses. And all his irritation faded as he took in the look on her face. She was filled with...wonder. Absolute wonder over this thing he took for granted.
The fact that he owned horses at all, that he had felt compelled to acquire some once he had moved into this place, was a source of consternation. He had hated doing farm chores when he was a kid. Hadn’t been able to get away from home and to the city fast enough. But in recent years, those feelings had started to change. And he’d found himself seeking out roots. Seeking out home.
For better or worse, this was home. Not just the misty Oregon coast, not just the town of Copper Ridge. But a ranch. Horses. A morning spent riding until the sun rose over the mountains, washing everything in a pale gold.
Yeah, that was home.
He could tell this ranch he loved was something beyond a temporary home for Danielle, who was looking at the horses and the barn like they were magical things.
She wasn’t wearing her beanie today. Her dark brown hair hung limply around her face. She was pale, her chin pointed, her nose slightly pointed, as well. She was elfin, and he wasn’t tempted to call her beautiful, but there was something captivating about her. Something fascinating. Watching her with the large animals was somehow just as entertaining as watching football and he couldn’t quite figure out why.
“You didn’t grow up around horses?”
“No,” she said, taking a timid step toward the paddock. “I grew up in Portland.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Always in apartments,” she said. Then she frowned. “I think one time we had a house. I can’t really remember it. We moved a lot. But sometimes when we lived with my mom’s boyfriends, we had nicer places. It had its perks.”
“What did?”
“My mom being a codependent hussy,” she said, her voice toneless so it was impossible to say whether or not she was teasing.
“Right.” He had grown up in one house. His family had never moved. His parents were still in that same farmhouse, the one his family had owned for a couple of generations. He had moved away to go to college and then to start the business, but that was different. He had always known he could come back here. He’d always had roots.
“Will you go back to Portland when you’re finished here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, blinking rapidly. “I’ve never really had a choice before. Of where I wanted to live.”
It struck him then that she was awfully young. And that he didn’t know quite how young. “You’re twenty-two?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding almost defensive. “So I haven’t really had a chance to think about what all I want to do and, like, be. When I grow up and stuff.”
“Right,” he said.
He’d been aimless for a while, but before he’d graduated high school, he’d decided he couldn’t deal with a life of ranching in Copper Ridge. He had decided to get out of town. He had wanted more. He had wanted bigger. He’d gone to school for marketing because he was good at selling ideas. Products. He wasn’t necessarily the one who created them, or the one who dreamed them up, but he was the one who made sure a consumer would see them and realize that product was what their life had been missing up until that point.
He was the one who took the straw and made it into gold.
He had always enjoyed his job, but it would have been especially satisfying if he’d been able to start his career by building a business with his brother and sister. To be able to market Faith’s extraordinary talent to the world, as he did now. But he wasn’t sure that he’d started out with a passion for what he did so much as a passion for wealth and success, and that had meant leaving behind his sister and brother too, at first. But his career had certainly grown into a passion. And he’d learned that he was the practical piece. The part that everybody needed.
A lot of people had ideas, but less than half of them had the follow-through to complete what they started. And less than half of those people knew how to get to the consumer. That was where he came in.
He’d had his first corporate internship at the age of twenty. He couldn’t imagine being aimless at twenty-two.
But then, Danielle had a baby and he couldn’t imagine having a baby at that age either.
A hollow pang struck him in the chest.
He didn’t like thinking of babies at all.
“You’re judging me,” she said, taking a step back from the paddock.
“No, I’m not. Also, you can get closer. You can pet them.”
Her head whipped around to look at the horses, then back to him, her eyes round and almost comically hopeful. “I can?”
“Of course you can. They don’t bite. Well, they might bite, just don’t stick your fingers in their mouths.”
“I don’t know,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Except he could tell she really wanted to. She was just afraid.
“Danielle,” he said, earning himself a shocked look when he used her name. “Pet the horses.”
She tugged her hand out of her pocket again, then took a tentative step forward, reaching out, then drawing her hand back just as quickly.
He couldn’t stand it. Between her not knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up and watching her struggle with touching a horse, he just couldn’t deal with it. He stepped forward, wrapped his fingers around her wrist and drew her closer to the paddock. “It’s fine,” he said.
A moment after he said the words, his body registered what he had done. More than that, it registered the fact that she was very warm. That her skin was smooth.
And that she was way, way too thin.
A strange combination of feelings tightened his whole body. Compassion tightened his heart; lust tightened his groin.
He gritted his teeth. “Come on,” he said.
He noticed the color rise in her face, and he wondered if she was angry, or if she was feeling the same flash of awareness rocking through him. He supposed it didn’t matter either way. “Come on,” he said, drawing her hand closer to the opening of the paddock. “There you go, hold your hand flat like that.”
She complied, and he released his hold on her, taking a step back. He did his best to ignore the fact that he could still feel the impression of her skin against his palm.
One of his horses—a gray mare named Blue—walked up to the bars and pressed her nose against Danielle’s outstretched hand. Danielle made a sharp, shocked sound, drew her hand back, then giggled. “Her whiskers are soft.”
“Yeah,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips. “And she is about as gentle as they come, so you don’t have to be afraid of her.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Danielle said, sticking her hand back in, letting the horse sniff her.
He didn’t believe that she wasn’t afraid of anything. She was definitely tough. But she was brittle. Like one of those people who might withstand a beating, but if something ever hit a fragile spot, she would shatter entirely.
“Would you like to go riding sometime?” he asked.
She drew her hand back again, her expression... Well, he couldn’t quite read it. There was a softness to it, but also an edge of fear and suspicion.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“You seem to like the horses.”
“I do. But I don’t know how to ride.”
“I can teach you.”
“I don’t know. I have to watch Riley.” She began to withdraw, both from him and from the paddock.
“I’m going to hire somebody to help watch Riley,” he said, making that decision right as the words exited his mouth.
There was that look again. Suspicion. “Why?”
“In case I need you for something that isn’t baby friendly. Which will probably happen. We have over a month ahead of us with you living with me, and one never knows what kinds of situations we might run into. I wasn’t expecting you to come with a baby, and while I agree that it will definitely help make the case that you’re not suitable for me, I also think we’ll need to be able to go out without him.”
She looked very hesitant about that idea. And he could understand why. She clung to that baby like he was a life preserver. Like if she let go of him, she might sink and be in over her head completely.
“And I would get to ride the horses?” she asked, her eyes narrowed, full of suspicion still.
“I said so.”
“Sure. But that doesn’t mean a lot to me, Mr. Grayson,” she said. “I don’t accept people at their word. I like legal documents.”
“Well, I’m not going to draw up a legal document about giving you horse-riding lessons. So you’re going to have to trust me.”
“You want me to trust the sketchy rich dude who put an ad in the paper looking for a fake wife?”
“He’s the devil you made the deal with, Ms. Kelly. I would say it’s in your best interest to trust him.”
“We shake on it at least.”
She stuck her hand out, and he could see she was completely sincere. So he stuck his out in kind, wrapping his fingers around hers, marveling at her delicate bone structure. Feeling guilty now about getting angry over her eating his Pop-Tarts. The woman needed him to hire a gourmet chef too. Needed him to make sure she was getting three meals a day. He wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten regularly. She certainly didn’t have the look of a woman who had recently given birth. There was no extra weight on her to speak of. He wondered how she had survived something so taxing as labor and delivery. But those were questions he was not going to ask. They weren’t his business.
And he shouldn’t even be curious about them.
“All right,” she said. “You can hire somebody. And I’ll learn to ride horses.”
“You’re a tough negotiator,” he said, releasing his hold on her hand.
“Maybe I should go into business.”
He tried to imagine this fragile, spiky creature in a boardroom, and it nearly made him laugh. “If you want to,” he said, instead of laughing. Because he had a feeling she might attack him if he made fun of her. And another feeling that if Danielle attacked, she would likely go straight for the eyes. Or the balls.
He was attached to both of those things, and he liked them attached to him.
“I should go back to the house. Riley might wake up soon. Plus, I’m not entirely sure if I trust the new baby monitor. I mean, it’s probably fine. But I’m going to have to get used to it before I really depend on it.”
“I understand,” he said, even though he didn’t.
He turned and walked with her back toward the house. He kept his eyes on her small, determined frame. On the way, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders forward. As though she were trying to look intimidating. Trying to keep from looking at her surroundings in case her surroundings looked back.
And then he reminded himself that none of this mattered. She was just a means to an end, even if she was a slightly more multifaceted means than he had thought she might be.
It didn’t matter how many facets she had. Danielle Kelly needed to fulfill only one objective. She had to be introduced to his parents and be found completely wanting.
He looked back at her, at her determined walk and her posture that seemed to radiate with I’ll cut you.
Yeah. He had a feeling she would fulfill that objective just fine.
Four (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
Danielle was still feeling wobbly after her interaction with Joshua down at the barn. She had touched a horse. And she had touched him. She hadn’t counted on doing either of those things today. And he had told her they were going to have dinner together tonight and he was going to give her a crash course on the Grayson family. She wasn’t entirely sure she felt ready for that either.
She had gone through all her clothes, looking for something suitable for having dinner with a billionaire. She didn’t have anything. Obviously.
She snorted, feeling like an idiot for thinking she could find something relatively appropriate in that bag of hers. A bag he thought had scabies.
She turned her snort into a growl.
Then, rebelliously, she pulled out the same pair of faded pants she had been wearing yesterday.
He had probably never dealt with a woman who wore the same thing twice. Let alone the same thing two days in a row. Perversely, she kind of enjoyed that. Hey, she was here to be unsuitable. Might as well start now.
She looked in the mirror, grabbed one stringy end of her hair and blew out a disgusted breath. She shouldn’t care how her hair looked.
But he was just so good-looking. It made her feel like a small, brown mouse standing next to him. It wasn’t fair, really. That he had the resources to buy himself nice clothes and that he just naturally looked great.
She sighed, picking Riley up from his crib and sticking him in the little carrier she would put him in for dinner. He was awake and looking around, so she wanted to be in his vicinity, rather than leaving him upstairs alone. He wasn’t a fussy baby. Really, he hardly ever cried.
But considering how often his mother had left him alone in those early days of his life, before Danielle had realized she couldn’t count on her mother to take good care of him, she was reluctant to leave him by himself unless he was sleeping.
Then she paused, going back over to her bag to get the little red, dog-eared dictionary inside. She bent down, still holding on to Riley, and retrieved it. Then she quickly looked up scabies.
“I knew it,” she said derisively, throwing the dictionary back into her bag.
She walked down the stairs and into the dining room, setting Riley in his seat on the chair next to hers. Joshua was already sitting at the table, looking as though he had been waiting for them. Which, she had a feeling, he was doing just to be annoying and superior.
“My bag can’t have scabies,” she said by way of greeting.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. I looked it up. Scabies are mites that burrow into your skin. Not into a duffel bag.”
“They have to come from somewhere.”
“Well, they’re not coming from my bag. They’re more likely to come from your horses, or something.”
“You like my horses,” he said, his tone dry. “Anyway, we’re about to have dinner. So maybe we shouldn’t be discussing skin mites?”
“You’re the one who brought up scabies. The first time.”
“I had pretty much dropped the subject.”
“Easy enough for you to do, since it wasn’t your hygiene being maligned.”
“Sure.” He stood up from his position at the table. “I’m just going to go get dinner, since you’re here. I had it warming.”
“Did you cook?”
He left the room without answering and returned a moment later holding two plates full of hot food. Her stomach growled intensely. She didn’t even care what was on the plates. As far as she was concerned, it was gourmet. It was warm and obviously not from a can or a frozen pizza box. Plus, she was sitting at a real dining table and not on a patio set that had been shoved into her tiny living room.
The meal looked surprisingly healthy, considering she had discovered his affinity for Pop-Tarts earlier. And it was accompanied by a particularly nice-looking rice. “What is this?”
“Chicken and risotto,” he said.
“What’s risotto?”
“Creamy rice,” he said. “At least, that’s the simple explanation.”
Thankfully, he wasn’t looking at her like she was an alien for not knowing about risotto. But then she remembered he had spoken of having simple roots. So maybe he was used to dealing with people who didn’t have as sophisticated a palate as he had.
She wrinkled her nose, then picked up her fork and took a tentative bite. It was good. So good. And before she knew it, she had cleared out her portion. Her cheeks heated when she realized he had barely taken two bites.
“There’s plenty more in the kitchen,” he said. Then he took her plate from in front of her and went back into the kitchen. She was stunned, and all she could do was sit there and wait until he returned a moment later with the entire pot of risotto, another portion already on her plate.
“Eat as much as you want,” he said, setting everything in front of her.
Well, she wasn’t going to argue with that suggestion. She polished off the chicken, then went back for thirds of the risotto. Eventually, she got around to eating the salad.
“I thought we were going to talk about my responsibilities for being your fiancée and stuff,” she said after she realized he had been sitting there staring at her for the past ten minutes.
“I thought you should have a chance to eat a meal first.”
“Well,” she said, taking another bite, “that’s unexpectedly kind of you.”
“You seem...hungry.”
That was the most loaded statement of the century. She was so hungry. For so many things. Food was kind of the least of it. “It’s just been a really crazy few months.”
“How old is the baby? Riley. How old is Riley?”
For the first time, because of that correction, she became aware of the fact that he seemed reluctant to call Riley by name. Actually, Joshua seemed pretty reluctant to deal with Riley in general.
Riley was unperturbed. Sitting in that reclined seat, his muddy blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. He lifted his fist, putting it in his mouth and gumming it idly.
That was one good thing she could say about their whole situation. Riley was so young that he was largely unperturbed by all of it. He had gone along more or less unaffected by their mother’s mistakes. At least, Danielle hoped so. She really did.
“He’s almost four months old,” she said. She felt a soft smile touch her lips. Yes, taking care of her half brother was hard. None of it was easy. But he had given her a new kind of purpose. Had given her a kind of the drive she’d been missing before.
Before Riley, she had been somewhat content to just enjoy living life on her own terms. To enjoy not cleaning up her mother’s messes. Instead, working at the grocery store, going out with friends after work for coffee or burritos at the twenty-four-hour Mexican restaurant.
Her life had been simple, and it had been carefree. Something she hadn’t been afforded all the years she’d lived with her mother, dealing with her mother’s various heartbreaks, schemes to try to better their circumstances and intense emotional lows.
So many years when Danielle should have been a child but instead was expected to be the parent. If her mother passed out in the bathroom after having too much to drink, it was up to Danielle to take care of her. To put a pillow underneath her mother’s head, then make herself a piece of toast for dinner and get her homework done.
In contrast, taking care of only herself had seemed simple. And in truth, she had resented Riley at first, resented the idea that she would have to take care of another person again. But taking care of a baby was different. He wasn’t a victim of his own bad choices. No, he was a victim of circumstances. He hadn’t had a chance to make a single choice for himself yet.
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Maisey Yates
Wanted: fake fiancée for a wealthy rancher!Danielle Kelly is perfect for Joshua Grayson’s scheme. He’ll pretend he’s marrying Danielle to keep his father from meddling. He won’t be tempted to touch her, to claim her…or to fall in love!
Wanted: fake fiancée for a wealthy rancher
Benefits: all your dreams come true
#1 Rule: don’t fall in love
The woman on his doorstep is brash, independent and holding a baby! His father won’t approve, which makes her perfect for Joshua Grayson’s scheme. He’ll pretend he’s marrying unsuitable Danielle Kelly to keep his father from meddling. He won’t be tempted to touch her, to claim her...or to fall in love.
MAISEY YATES is a New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing, she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: www.maiseyyates.com (http://www.maiseyyates.com).
Also by Maisey Yates (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
Take Me, Cowboy
Hold Me, Cowboy
Seduce Me, Cowboy
Claim Me, Cowboy
The Rancher’s Baby
Shoulda Been a Cowboy
Part Time Cowboy
Brokedown Cowboy
Bad News Cowboy
A Copper Ridge Christmas
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Claim Me, Cowboy
Maisey Yates
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07633-3
CLAIM ME, COWBOY
© 2018 Maisey Yates
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Jackie Ashenden, my conflict guru and dear friend. Without you my books would take a heck of a lot longer to write, and my life would be a heck of a lot more boring.
Thank you for everything. Always.
Contents
Cover (#ud0bb796d-cd23-5cad-b623-6e60780b41ff)
Back Cover Text (#u4bba4bd0-12e2-59d4-add7-3ddff2755917)
About the Author (#ufedaab4c-9540-51ed-8a10-07adfd7a7e2b)
Booklist (#u3593eee9-96d6-5e23-90dc-6f6e29f85f73)
Title Page (#u4445cd02-35f1-5c9c-bb1f-2f27c6827622)
Copyright (#u92bc1036-ac74-57f3-9d47-5af0e2393f6c)
Dedication (#u5b10f091-6ef8-5270-8be5-9889537c84f9)
One (#ulink_121ec779-61f0-55fa-8cb6-91881b272821)
Two (#uc3b8b302-1b8f-528f-a40a-33b604ab1e31)
Three (#uf785e36a-f582-5f3a-9ad9-87475a15c7c7)
Four (#u81f004e7-76a4-59a2-a582-434723ba6b86)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
November 1, 2017
LOOKING FOR A WIFE—
Wealthy bachelor, 34, looking for a wife. Never married, no children. Needs a partner who can attend business and social events around the world. Must be willing to move to Copper Ridge, Oregon. Perks include: travel, an allowance, residence in several multimillion-dollar homes.
November 5, 2017
LOOKING FOR AN UNSUITABLE WIFE—
Wealthy bachelor, 34, irritated, looking for a woman to pretend to be my fiancée in order to teach my meddling father a lesson. Need a partner who is rough around the edges. Must be willing to come to Copper Ridge, Oregon, for at least thirty days. Generous compensation provided.
One (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
“No. You do not need to send pics.”
Joshua Grayson looked out the window of his office and did not feel the kind of calm he ought to feel.
He’d moved back to Copper Ridge six months ago from Seattle, happily trading in a man-made, rectangular skyline for the natural curve of the mountains.
Not the best thing for an architect to feel, perhaps. But he spent his working hours dealing in design, in business. Numbers. Black, white and the bottom line. There was something about looking out at the mountains that restarted him.
That, and getting on the back of a horse. Riding from one end of the property to the other. The wind blocking out every other sound except hoofbeats on the earth.
Right now, he doubted anything would decrease the tension he was feeling from dealing with the fallout of his father’s ridiculous ad. Another attempt by the old man to make Joshua live the life his father wanted him to.
The only kind of life his father considered successful: a wife, children.
He couldn’t understand why Joshua didn’t want the same.
No. That kind of life was for another man, one with another past and another future. It was not for Joshua. And that was why he was going to teach his father a lesson.
But not with Brindy, who wanted to send him selfies with “no filter.”
The sound she made in response to his refusal was so petulant he almost laughed.
“But your ad said...”
“That,” he said, “was not my ad. Goodbye.”
He wasn’t responsible for the ad in a national paper asking for a wife, till death do them part. But an unsuitable, temporary wife? Yes. That had been his ad.
He was done with his father’s machinations. No matter how well-meaning they were. He was tired of tripping over daughters of “old friends” at family gatherings. Tired of dodging women who had been set on him like hounds at a fox hunt.
He was going to win the game. Once and for all. And the woman he hoped would be his trump card was on her way.
His first respondent to his counter ad—Danielle Kelly—was twenty-two, which suited his purposes nicely. His dad would think she was too young, and frankly, Joshua also thought she was too young. He didn’t get off on that kind of thing.
He understood why some men did. A tight body was hot. But in his experience, the younger the woman, the less in touch with her sensuality she was and he didn’t have the patience for that.
He didn’t have the patience for this either, but here he was. The sooner he got this farce over with, the sooner he could go back to his real life.
The doorbell rang and he stood up behind his desk. She was here. And she was—he checked his watch—late.
A half smile curved his lips.
Perfect.
He took the stairs two at a time. He was impatient to meet his temporary bride. Impatient to get this plan started so it could end.
He strode across the entryway and jerked the door open. And froze.
The woman standing on his porch was small. And young, just as he’d expected, but... She wore no makeup, which made her look like a damned teenager. Her features were fine and pointed; her dark brown hair hung lank beneath a ragged beanie that looked like it was in the process of unraveling while it sat on her head.
He didn’t bother to linger over the rest of the details—her threadbare sweater with too-long sleeves, her tragic skinny jeans—because he was stopped, immobilized really, by the tiny bundle in her arms.
A baby.
His prospective bride had come with a baby.
Well, hell.
* * *
She really hoped he wasn’t a serial killer. Well, hoped was an anemic word for what she was feeling. Particularly considering the possibility was a valid concern.
What idiot put an ad in the paper looking for a temporary wife?
Though, she supposed the bigger question was: What idiot responded to an ad in the paper looking for a temporary wife?
This idiot, apparently.
It took Danielle a moment to realize she was staring directly at the center of a broad, muscular male chest. She had to raise her head slightly to see his face. He was just so...tall. And handsome.
And she was confused.
She hadn’t imagined that a man who put an ad in the paper for a fake fiancée might be attractive. Another anemic word. Attractive. This man wasn’t simply attractive...
He was... Well, he was unreal.
Broad shouldered, muscular, with stubble on his square jaw adding a roughness to features that might have otherwise been considered pretty.
“Please don’t tell me you’re Danielle Kelly,” he said, crossing his arms over that previously noted broad chest.
“I am. Were you expecting someone else? Of course, I suppose you could be. I bet I’m not the only person who responded to your ad, strange though it was. The mention of compensation was pretty tempting. Although, I might point out that in the future maybe you should space your appointments further apart.”
“You have a baby,” he said, stating the obvious.
Danielle looked down at the bundle in her arms. “Yes.”
“You didn’t mention that in our email correspondence.”
“Of course not. I thought it would make it too easy for you to turn me away.”
He laughed, somewhat reluctantly, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Well, you’re right about that.”
“But now I’m here. And I don’t have the gas money to get back home. Also, you said you wanted unsuitable.” She spread one arm wide, keeping Riley clutched firmly in her other arm. “I would say that I’m pretty unsuitable.”
She could imagine the picture she made. Her hideous, patchwork car parked in the background. Maroon with lighter patches of red and a door that was green, since it had been replaced after some accident that had happened before the car had come into her possession. Then there was her. In all her faded glory. She was hungry, and she knew she’d lost a lot of weight over the past few weeks, which had taken her frame from slim to downright pointy. The circles under her eyes were so dark she almost looked like she’d been punched.
She considered the baby a perfect accessory. She had that new baby sallowness they never told you about when they talked about the miracle of life.
She curled her toes inside her boots, one of them going through a hole at the end of her sock. She frowned. “Anyway, I figured I presented a pretty poor picture of a fiancée for a businessman such as yourself. Don’t you agree?”
The corners of his lips tightened further. “The baby.”
“Yes?”
“You expect it to live here?”
She made an exasperated noise. “No. I expect him to live in the car while I party it up in your fancy-pants house.”
“A baby wasn’t part of the deal.”
“What do you care? Your email said it’s only through Christmas. Can you imagine telling your father that you’ve elected to marry Portland hipster trash and she comes with a baby? I mean, it’s going to be incredibly awkward, but ultimately kind of funny.”
“Come in,” he said, his expression no less taciturn as he stood to the side and allowed her entry into his magnificent home.
She clutched Riley even more tightly to her chest as she wandered inside, looking up at the high ceiling, the incredible floor-to-ceiling windows that offered an unparalleled mountain view. As cities went, Portland was all right. The air was pretty clean, and once you got away from the high-rise buildings, you could see past the iron and steel to the nature beyond.
But this view... This was something else entirely.
She looked down at the floor, taking a surprised step to the side when she realized she was standing on glass. And that underneath the glass was a small, slow-moving stream. Startlingly clear, rocks visible beneath the surface of the water. Also, fish.
She looked up to see him staring at her. “My sister’s work,” he said. “She’s the hottest new architect on the scene. Incredible, considering she’s only in her early twenties. And a woman, breaking serious barriers in the industry.”
“That sounds like an excerpt from a magazine article.”
He laughed. “It might be. Since I write the press releases about Faith. That’s what I do. PR for our firm, which has expanded recently. Not just design, but construction. And as you can see, Faith’s work is highly specialized, and it’s extremely coveted.”
A small prickle of...something worked its way under her skin. She couldn’t imagine being so successful at such a young age. Of course, Joshua and his sister must have come from money. You couldn’t build something like this if you hadn’t.
Danielle was in her early twenties and didn’t even have a checking account, much less a successful business.
All of that had to change. It had to change for Riley.
He was why she was here, after all.
Truly, nothing else could have spurred her to answer the ad. She had lived in poverty all of her life. But Riley deserved better. He deserved stability. And he certainly didn’t deserve to wind up in foster care just because she couldn’t get herself together.
“So,” she said, cautiously stepping off the glass tile. “Tell me more about this situation. And exactly what you expect.”
She wanted him to lay it all out. Wanted to hear the terms and conditions he hadn’t shared over email. She was prepared to walk away if it was something she couldn’t handle. And if he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer? Well, she had a knife in her boot.
“My father placed an ad in a national paper saying I was looking for a wife. You can imagine my surprise when I began getting responses before I had ever seen the ad. My father is well-meaning, Ms. Kelly, and he’s willing to do anything to make his children’s lives better. However, what he perceives as perfection can only come one way. He doesn’t think all of this can possibly make me happy.” Joshua looked up, seeming to indicate the beautiful house and view around them. “He’s wrong. However, he won’t take no for an answer, and I want to teach him a lesson.”
“By making him think he won?”
“Kind of. That’s where you come in. As I said, he can only see things from his perspective. From his point of view, a wife will stay at home and massage my feet while I work to bring in income. He wants someone traditional. Someone soft and biddable.” He looked her over. “I imagine you are none of those things.”
“Yeah. Not so much.” The life she had lived didn’t leave room for that kind of softness.
“And you are right. He isn’t going to love that you come with a baby. In fact, he’ll probably think you’re a gold digger.”
“I am a gold digger,” she said. “If you weren’t offering money, I wouldn’t be here. I need money, Mr. Grayson, not a fiancé.”
“Call me Joshua,” he said. “Come with me.”
She followed him as he walked through the entryway, through the living area—which looked like something out of a magazine that she had flipped through at the doctor’s office once—and into the kitchen.
The kitchen made her jaw drop. Everything was so shiny. Stainless steel surrounded by touches of wood. A strange clash of modern and rustic that seemed to work.
Danielle had never been in a place where so much work had gone into the details. Before Riley, when she had still been living with her mother, the home decor had included plastic flowers shoved into some kind of strange green Styrofoam and a rug in the kitchen that was actually a towel laid across a spot in the linoleum that had been worn through.
“You will live here for the duration of our arrangement. You will attend family gatherings and work events with me.”
“Aren’t you worried about me being unsuitable for your work arrangements too?”
“Not really. People who do business with us are fascinated by the nontraditional. As I mentioned earlier, my sister, Faith, is something of a pioneer in her field.”
“Great,” Danielle said, giving him a thumbs-up. “I’m glad to be a nontraditional asset to you.”
“Whether or not you’re happy with it isn’t really my concern. I mean, I’m paying you, so you don’t need to be happy.”
She frowned. “Well, I don’t want to be unhappy. That’s the other thing. We have to discuss...terms and stuff. I don’t know what all you think you’re going to get out of me, but I’m not here to have sex with you. I’m just here to pose as your fiancée. Like the ad said.”
The expression on his face was so disdainful it was almost funny. Almost. It didn’t quite ascend to funny because it punched her in the ego. “I think I can control myself, Ms. Kelly.”
“If I can call you Joshua, then you can call me Danielle,” she said.
“Noted.”
The way he said it made her think he wasn’t necessarily going to comply with her wishes just because she had made them known. He was difficult. No wonder he didn’t have an actual woman hanging around willing to marry him. She should have known there was something wrong with him. Because he was rich and kind of disgustingly handsome. His father shouldn’t have had to put an ad in the paper to find Joshua a woman.
He should be able to snap his fingers and have them come running.
That sent another shiver of disquiet over her. Yeah, maybe she should listen to those shivers... But the compensation. She needed the compensation.
“What am I going to do...with the rest of my time?”
“Stay here,” he said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. As though the idea of her rotting away up here in his mansion wasn’t weird at all. “And you have that baby. I assume it takes up a lot of your time?”
“He. Riley. And yes, he does take up a lot of time. He’s a baby. That’s kind of their thing.” He didn’t respond to that. “You know. Helpless, requiring every single one of their physical and emotional needs to be met by another person. Clearly you don’t know.”
Something in his face hardened. “No.”
“Well, this place is big enough you shouldn’t have to ever find out.”
“I keep strange hours,” he said. “I have to work with offices overseas, and I need to be available to speak to them on the phone, which means I only sleep for a couple of hours at a time. I also spend a lot of time outdoors.”
Looking at him, that last statement actually made sense. Yes, he had the bearing of an uptight businessman, but he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He was also the kind of physically fit that didn’t look like it had come from a gym, not that she was an expert on men or their physiques.
“What’s the catch?” she asked.
Nothing in life came this easy—she knew that for certain. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for him to lead her down to the dungeon and show her where he kept his torture pit.
“There is no catch. This is what happens when a man with a perverse sense of humor and too much money decides to teach his father a lesson.”
“So basically I live in this beautiful house, I wear your ring, I meet your family, I behave abominably and then I get paid?”
“That is the agreement, Ms. Kelly.”
“What if I steal your silverware?”
He chuckled. “Then I still win. If you take off in the dead of night, you don’t get your money, and I have the benefit of saying to my father that because of his ad I ended up with a con woman and then got my heart broken.”
He really had thought of everything. She supposed there was a reason he was successful.
“So do we... Is this happening?”
“There will be papers for you to sign, but yes. It is.” Any uncertainty he’d seemed to feel because of Riley was gone now.
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small, velvet box. He opened it, revealing a diamond ring so beautiful, so big, it bordered on obscene.
This was the moment. This was the moment when he would say he actually needed her to spend the day wandering around dressed as a teddy bear or something.
But that moment didn’t come either. Instead, he took the ring out of the box and held it out to her. “Give me your hand.”
She complied. She complied before she gave her body permission to. She didn’t know what she expected. For him to get down on one knee? For him to slide the ring onto her fourth finger? He did neither. Instead, he dropped the gem into her palm.
She curled her fingers around it, an electric shock moving through her system as she realized she was probably holding more money in her hand right now than she could ever hope to earn over the course of her lifetime.
Well, no, that wasn’t true. Because she was about to earn enough money over the next month to take care of herself and Riley forever. To make sure she got permanent custody of him.
Her life had been so hard, a constant series of moves and increasingly unsavory uncles her mother brought in and out of their lives. Hunger, cold, fear, uncertainty...
She wasn’t going to let Riley suffer the same fate. No, she was going to make sure her half brother was protected. This agreement, even if Joshua did ultimately want her to walk around dressed like a sexy teddy bear, was a small price to pay for Riley’s future.
“Yes,” she said, testing the weight of the ring. “It is.”
Two (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
As Joshua followed Danielle down the hall, he regretted not having a live-in housekeeper. An elderly British woman would come in handy at a time like this. She would probably find Danielle and her baby to be absolutely delightful. He, on the other hand, did not.
No, on the contrary, he felt invaded. Which was stupid. Because he had signed on for this. Though, he had signed on for it only after he had seen his father’s ad. After he had decided the old man needed to be taught a lesson once and for all about meddling in Joshua’s life.
It didn’t matter that his father had a soft heart or that he was coming from a good place. No, what mattered was the fact that Joshua was tired of being hounded every holiday, every time he went to dinner with his parents, about the possibility of him starting a family.
It wasn’t going to happen.
At one time, he’d thought that would be his future. Had been looking forward to it. But the people who said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all clearly hadn’t caused the loss.
He was happy enough now to be alone. And when he didn’t want to be alone, he called a woman, had her come spend a few hours in his bed—or in the back of his truck, he wasn’t particular. Love was not on his agenda.
“This is a big house,” she said.
Danielle sounded vaguely judgmental, which seemed wrong, all things considered. Sure, he was the guy who had paid a woman to pose as his temporary fiancée. And sure, he was the man who lived in a house that had more square footage than he generally walked through in a day, but she was the one who had responded to an ad placed by a complete stranger looking for a temporary fiancée. So, all things considered, he didn’t feel like she had a lot of room to judge.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why? I mean, you live here alone, right?”
“Because size matters,” he said, ignoring the shifting, whimpering sound of the baby in her arms.
“Right,” she said, her tone dry. “I’ve lived in apartment buildings that were smaller than this.”
He stopped walking, then he turned to face her. “Am I supposed to feel something about that? Feel sorry for you? Feel bad about the fact that I live in a big house? Because trust me, I started humbly enough. I choose to live differently than my parents. Because I can. Because I earned it.”
“Oh, I see. In that case, I suppose I earned my dire straits.”
“I don’t know your life, Danielle. More important, I don’t want to know it.” He realized that was the first time he had used her first name. He didn’t much care.
“Great. Same goes. Except I’m going to be living in your house, so I’m going to definitely...infer some things about your life. And that might give rise to conversations like this one. And if you’re going to be assuming things about me, then you should be prepared for me to respond in kind.”
“I don’t have to do any such thing. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the employer, you’re the employee. That means if I want to talk to you about the emotional scars of my childhood, you had better lie back on my couch and listen. Conversely, if I do not want to hear about any of the scars of yours, I don’t have to. All I have to do is throw money at you until you stop talking.”
“Wow. It’s seriously the job offer I’ve been waiting for my entire life. Talking I’m pretty good at. And I don’t do a great job of shutting up. That means I would be getting money thrown at me for a long, long time.”
“Don’t test me, Ms. Kelly,” he said, reverting back to her last name, because he really didn’t want to know about her childhood or what brought her here. Didn’t want to wonder about her past. Didn’t want to wonder about her adulthood either. Who the father of her baby was. What kind of situation she was in. It wasn’t his business, and he didn’t care.
“Don’t test me, Ms. Kelly,” she said, in what he assumed was supposed to be a facsimile of his voice.
“Really?” he asked.
“What? You can’t honestly expect to operate at this level of extreme douchiness and not get called to the carpet on it.”
“I expect that I can do whatever I want, since I’m paying you to be here.”
“You don’t want me to dress up as a teddy bear and vacuum, do you?”
“What?”
She shifted her weight, moving the baby over to one hip and spreading the other arm wide. “Hey, man, some people are into that. They like stuffed animals. Or rather, they like people dressed as stuffed animals.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I like women,” he said. “Dressed as women. Or rather, undressed, generally.”
“I’m not judging. Your dad put an ad in the paper for some reason. Clearly he really wants you to be married.”
“Yes. Well, he doesn’t understand that not everybody needs to live the life that he does. He was happy with a family and a farmhouse. But none of the rest of us feel that way, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“So none of you are married?”
“One of us is. The only brother that actually wanted a farmhouse too.” He paused in front of the door at the end of the hall. He was glad he had decided to set this room aside for the woman who answered the ad. He hadn’t known she would come with a baby in tow, but the fact that she had meant he really, really wanted her out of earshot.
“Is this it?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, pushing the door open.
When she looked inside the bedroom, her jaw dropped, and Joshua couldn’t deny that he took a small amount of satisfaction in her reaction. She looked... Well, she looked amazed. Like somebody standing in front of a great work of art. Except it was just a bedroom. Rather a grand one, he had to admit, down to the details.
There was a large bed fashioned out of natural, twisted pieces of wood with polished support beams that ran from floor to ceiling and retained the natural shape they’d had in the woods but glowed from the stain that had been applied to them. The bed made the whole room look like a magical forest. A little bit fanciful for him. His own bedroom had been left more Spartan. But, clearly, Danielle was enchanted.
And he shouldn’t care.
“I’ve definitely lived in apartments that were smaller than this room,” she said, wrapping both arms around the baby and turning in a circle. “This is... Is that a loft? Like a reading loft?” She was gazing up at the mezzanine designed to look as though it was nestled in the tree branches.
“I don’t know.” He figured it was probably more of a sex loft. But then, if he slept in a room with a loft, obviously he would have sex in it. That was what creative surfaces were for, in his opinion.
“It reminds me of something we had when I was in first grade.” A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “I mean, not me as in at our house, but in my first-grade classroom at school. The teacher really loved books. And she liked for us all to read. So we were able to lie around the classroom anywhere we wanted with a book and—” She abruptly stopped talking, as though she realized exactly what she was doing. “Never mind. You think it’s boring. Anyway, I’m going to use it for a reading loft.”
“Dress like a teddy bear in it, for all I care,” he responded.
“That’s your thing, not mine.”
“Do you have any bags in the car that I can get for you?”
She looked genuinely stunned. “You don’t have to get anything for me.”
It struck him that she thought he was being nice. He didn’t consider the offer particularly nice. It was just what his father had drilled into him from the time he was a boy. If there was a woman and she had a heavy thing to transport, you were no kind of man if you didn’t offer to do the transporting.
“I don’t mind.”
“It’s just one bag,” she said.
That shocked him. She was a woman. A woman with a baby. He was pretty sure most mothers traveled with enough luggage to fill a caravan. “Just one bag.” He had to confirm that.
“Yes,” she returned. “Baggage is another thing entirely. But in terms of bags, yeah, we travel light.”
“Let me get it.” He turned and walked out of the room, frustrated when he heard her footsteps behind him. “I said I would get it.”
“You don’t need to,” she said, following him persistently down the stairs and out toward the front door.
“My car is locked,” she added, and he ignored her as he continued to walk across the driveway to the maroon monstrosity parked there.
He shot her a sideways glance, then looked down at the car door. It hung a little bit crooked, and he lifted up on it hard enough to push it straight, then he jerked it open. “Not well.”
“You’re the worst,” she said, scowling.
He reached into the back seat and saw one threadbare duffel bag, which had to be the bag she was talking about. The fabric strap was dingy, and he had a feeling it used to be powder blue. The zipper was broken and there were four safety pins holding the end of the bulging bag together. All in all, it looked completely impractical.
“Empty all the contents out of this tonight. In the morning, I’m going to use it to fuel a bonfire.”
“It’s the only bag I have.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“It better be in addition to the fee that I’m getting,” she said, her expression stubborn. “I mean it. If I incur a loss because of you, you better cover it.”
“You have my word that if anything needs to be purchased in order for you to fit in with your surroundings, or in order for me to avoid contracting scabies, it will be bankrolled by me.”
“I don’t have scabies,” she said, looking fierce.
“I didn’t say you did. I implied that your gym bag might.”
“Well,” she said, her cheeks turning red, “it doesn’t. It’s clean. I’m clean.”
He heaved the bag over his shoulder and led the way back to the house, Danielle trailing behind him like an angry wood nymph. That was what she reminded him of, he decided. All pointed angles and spiky intensity. And a supernaturally wicked glare that he could feel boring into the center of his back. Right between his shoulder blades.
This was not a woman who intimidated easily, if at all.
He supposed that was signal enough that he should make an attempt to handle her with care. Not because she needed it, but because clearly nobody had ever made the attempt before. But he didn’t know how. And he was paying her an awful lot to put up with him as he was.
And she had brought a baby into his house.
“You’re going to need some supplies,” he said, frowning. Because he abruptly realized what it meant that she had brought a baby into his house. The bedroom he had installed her in was only meant for one. And there was no way—barring the unlikely reality that she was related to Mary Poppins in some way—that her ratty old bag contained the supplies required to keep both a baby and herself in the kind of comfort that normal human beings expected.
“What kind of supplies?”
He moved quickly through the house, and she scurried behind him, attempting to match his steps. They walked back into the bedroom and he flung the bag on the ground.
“A bed for the baby. Beyond that, I don’t know what they require.”
She shot him a deadly glare, then bent down and unzipped the bag, pulling out a bottle and a can of formula. She tossed both onto the bed, then reached back into the bag and grabbed a blanket. She spread it out on the floor, then set the baby in the center of it.
Then she straightened, spreading her arms wide and slapping her hands back down on her thighs. “Well, this is more than we’ve had for a long time. And yeah, I guess it would be nice to have nursery stuff. But I’ve never had it. Riley and I have been doing just fine on our own.” She looked down, picking at some dirt beneath her fingernail. “Or I guess we haven’t been fine. If we had, I wouldn’t have responded to your ad. But I don’t need more than what I have. Not now. Once you pay me? Well, I’m going to buy a house. I’m going to change things for us. But until then, it doesn’t matter.”
He frowned. “What about Riley’s father? Surely he should be paying you some kind of support.”
“Right. Like I have any idea who he is.” He must have made some kind of facial expression that seemed judgmental, because her face colored and her eyebrows lowered. “I mean, I don’t know how to get in touch with him. It’s not like he left contact details. And I sincerely doubt he left his real name.”
“I’ll call our office assistant, Poppy. She’ll probably know what you need.” Technically, Poppy was his brother Isaiah’s assistant, but she often handled whatever Joshua or Faith needed, as well. Poppy would arrange it so that various supplies were overnighted to the house.
“Seriously. Don’t do anything... You don’t need to do anything.”
“I’m supposed to convince my parents that I’m marrying you,” he said, his tone hard. “I don’t think they’re going to believe I’m allowing my fiancée to live out of one duffel bag. No. Everything will have to be outfitted so that it looks legitimate. Consider it a bonus to your salary.”
She tilted her chin upward, her eyes glittering. “Okay, I will.”
He had halfway expected her to argue, but he wasn’t sure why. She was here for her own material gain. Why would she reduce it? “Good.” He nodded once. “You probably won’t see much of me. I’ll be working a lot. We are going to have dinner with my parents in a couple of days. Until then, the house and the property are yours to explore. This is your house too. For the time being.”
He wasn’t being particularly generous. It was just that he didn’t want to answer questions, or deal with her being tentative about where she might and might not be allowed to go. He just wanted to install her and the baby in this room and forget about them until he needed them as convenient props.
“Really?” Her natural suspicion was shining through again.
“I’m a very busy man, Ms. Kelly,” he said. “I’m not going to be babysitting. Either the child or you.”
And with that, he turned and left her alone.
Three (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
Danielle had slept fitfully last night. And, of course, she hadn’t actually left her room once she had been put there. But early the next morning there had been a delivery. And the signature they had asked for was hers. And then the packages had started to come in, like a Christmas parade without the wrapping.
Teams of men carried the boxes up the stairs. They had assembled a crib, a chair, and then unpacked various baby accoutrements that Danielle hadn’t even known existed. How could she? She certainly hadn’t expected to end up caring for a baby.
When her mother had breezed back into her life alone and pregnant—after Danielle had experienced just two carefree years where she had her own space and wasn’t caring for anyone—Danielle had put all of her focus into caring for the other woman. Into arranging state health insurance so the prenatal care and hospital bill for the delivery wouldn’t deter her mother from actually taking care of herself and the baby.
And then, when her mother had abandoned Danielle and Riley...that was when Danielle had realized her brother was likely going to be her responsibility. She had involved Child Services not long after that.
There had been two choices. Either Riley could go into foster care or Danielle could take some appropriate parenting classes and become a temporary guardian.
So she had.
But she had been struggling to keep their heads above water, and it was too close to the way she had grown up. She wanted more than that for Riley. Wanted more than that for both of them. Now it wasn’t just her. It was him. And a part-time job as a cashier had never been all that lucrative. But with Riley to take care of, and her mother completely out of the picture, staying afloat on a cashier’s pay was impossible.
She had done her best trading babysitting time with a woman in her building who also had a baby and nobody else to depend on. But inevitably there were schedule clashes, and after missing a few too many shifts, Danielle had lost her job.
Which was when she had gotten her first warning from Child Services.
Well, she had a job now.
And, apparently, a full nursery.
Joshua was refreshingly nowhere to be seen, which made dealing with her new circumstances much easier. Without him looming over her, being in his house felt a lot like being in the world’s fanciest vacation rental. At least, the fanciest vacation rental she could imagine.
She had a baby monitor in her pocket, one that would allow her to hear when Riley woke up. A baby monitor that provided her with more freedom than she’d had since Riley had been born. But, she supposed, in her old apartment a monitor would have been a moot point considering there wasn’t anywhere she could go and not hear the baby cry.
But in this massive house, having Riley take his nap in the bedroom—in the new crib, his first crib—would have meant she couldn’t have also run down to the kitchen to grab snacks. But she had the baby monitor. A baby monitor that vibrated. Which meant she could also listen to music.
She had the same ancient MP3 player her mother had given her for her sixteenth birthday years ago, but Danielle had learned early to hold on to everything she had, because she didn’t know when something else would come along. And in the case of frills like her MP3 player, nothing else had ever come along.
Of course, that meant her music was as old as her technology. But really, music hadn’t been as good since she was sixteen anyway.
She shook her hips slightly, walking through the kitchen, singing about how what didn’t kill her would only make her stronger. Digging through cabinets, she came up with a package of Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tarts!
Her mother had never bought those. They were too expensive. And while Danielle had definitely indulged herself when she had moved out, that hadn’t lasted. Because they were too expensive.
Joshua had strawberry. And some kind of mixed berry with bright blue frosting. She decided she would eat one of each to ascertain which was best.
Then she decided to eat one more of each. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She had a feeling the hunger wasn’t a new development. She had a feeling she had been hungry for days. Weeks even.
Suddenly, sitting on the plush couch in his living area, shoving toaster pastries into her mouth, she felt a whole lot like crying in relief. Because she and Riley were warm; they were safe. And there was hope. Finally, an end point in sight to the long, slow grind of poverty she had existed in for her entire life.
It seemed too good to be true, really. That she had managed to jump ahead in her life like this. That she was really managing to get herself out of that hole without prostituting herself.
Okay, so some people might argue this agreement with Joshua was prostituting herself, a little bit. But it wasn’t like she was going to have sex with him.
She nearly choked on her Pop-Tart at the thought. And she lingered a little too long on what it might be like to get close to a man like Joshua. To any man, really. The way her mother had behaved all of her life had put Danielle off men. Or, more specifically, she supposed it was the way men had behaved toward Danielle’s mother that had put her off.
As far as Danielle could tell, relationships were a whole lot of exposing yourself to pain, deciding you were going to depend on somebody and then having that person leave you high and dry.
No, thank you.
But she supposed she could see how somebody might lose their mind enough to take that risk. Especially when the person responsible for the mind loss had eyes that were blue like Joshua’s. She leaned back against the couch, her hand falling slack, the Pop-Tart dangling from her fingertips.
Yesterday there had been the faint shadow of golden stubble across that strong face and jaw, his eyes glittering with irritation. Which she supposed shouldn’t be a bonus, shouldn’t be appealing. Except his irritation made her want to rise to the unspoken challenge. To try to turn that spark into something else. Turn that irritation into something more...
“Are you eating my Pop-Tarts?”
The voice cut through the music and she jumped, flinging the toaster pastry into the air. She ripped her headphones out of her ears and turned around to see Joshua, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his eyebrows flat on his forehead, his expression unreadable.
“You said whatever was in your house was mine to use,” she squeaked. “And a warning would’ve been good. You just about made me jump out of my skin. Which was maybe your plan all along. If you wanted to make me into a skin suit.”
“That’s ridiculous. I would not fit into your skin.”
She swallowed hard, her throat dry. “Well, it’s a figure of speech, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” he asked.
“Yes. Everybody knows what that means. It means that I think you might be a serial killer.”
“You don’t really think I’m a serial killer, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I am pretty desperate.” She lifted her hand and licked off a remnant of jam. “I mean, obviously.”
“There are no Pop-Tarts left,” he said, his tone filled with annoyance.
“You said I could have whatever I wanted. I wanted Pop-Tarts.”
“You ate all of them.”
“Why do you even have Pop-Tarts?” She stood up, crossing her arms, mimicking his stance. “You don’t look like a man who eats Pop-Tarts.”
“I like them. I like to eat them after I work outside.”
“You work outside?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have horses.”
Suddenly, all of her annoyance fell away. Like it had been melted by magic. Equine magic. “You have horses?” She tried to keep the awe out of her voice, but it was nearly impossible.
“Yes,” he said.
“Can I... Can I see them?”
“If you want to.”
She had checked the range on the baby monitor, so depending on how far away from the house the horses were, she could go while Riley was napping.
“Could we see the house from the barn? Or wherever you keep them?”
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s just right across the driveway.”
“Can I see them now?”
“I don’t know. You ate my Pop-Tarts. Actually, more egregious than eating my Pop-Tarts, you threw the last half of one on the ground.”
“Sorry about your Pop-Tarts. But I’m sure that a man who can have an entire nursery outfitted in less than twenty-four hours can certainly acquire Pop-Tarts at a moment’s notice.”
“Or I could just go to the store.”
She had a hard time picturing a man like Joshua Grayson walking through the grocery store. In fact, the image almost made her laugh. He was way too commanding to do something as mundane as pick up a head of lettuce and try to figure out how fresh it was. Far too...masculine to go around squeezing avocados.
“What?” he asked, his eyebrows drawing together.
“I just can’t imagine you going to the grocery store. That’s all.”
“Well, I do. Because I like food. Food like Pop-Tarts.”
“My mom would never buy those for me,” she said. “They were too expensive.”
He huffed out a laugh. “My mom would never buy them for me.”
“This is why being an adult is cool, even when it sucks.”
“Pop-Tarts whenever you want?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“That seems like a low bar.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe it is, but it’s a tasty one.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Now, why don’t we go look at the horses.”
* * *
Joshua didn’t know what to expect by taking Danielle outside to see the horses. He had been irritated that she had eaten his preferred afternoon snack, and then, perversely, even more irritated that she had questioned the fact that it was his preferred afternoon snack. Irritated that he was put in the position of explaining to someone what he did with his time and what he put into his body.
He didn’t like explaining himself.
But then she saw the horses. And all his irritation faded as he took in the look on her face. She was filled with...wonder. Absolute wonder over this thing he took for granted.
The fact that he owned horses at all, that he had felt compelled to acquire some once he had moved into this place, was a source of consternation. He had hated doing farm chores when he was a kid. Hadn’t been able to get away from home and to the city fast enough. But in recent years, those feelings had started to change. And he’d found himself seeking out roots. Seeking out home.
For better or worse, this was home. Not just the misty Oregon coast, not just the town of Copper Ridge. But a ranch. Horses. A morning spent riding until the sun rose over the mountains, washing everything in a pale gold.
Yeah, that was home.
He could tell this ranch he loved was something beyond a temporary home for Danielle, who was looking at the horses and the barn like they were magical things.
She wasn’t wearing her beanie today. Her dark brown hair hung limply around her face. She was pale, her chin pointed, her nose slightly pointed, as well. She was elfin, and he wasn’t tempted to call her beautiful, but there was something captivating about her. Something fascinating. Watching her with the large animals was somehow just as entertaining as watching football and he couldn’t quite figure out why.
“You didn’t grow up around horses?”
“No,” she said, taking a timid step toward the paddock. “I grew up in Portland.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Always in apartments,” she said. Then she frowned. “I think one time we had a house. I can’t really remember it. We moved a lot. But sometimes when we lived with my mom’s boyfriends, we had nicer places. It had its perks.”
“What did?”
“My mom being a codependent hussy,” she said, her voice toneless so it was impossible to say whether or not she was teasing.
“Right.” He had grown up in one house. His family had never moved. His parents were still in that same farmhouse, the one his family had owned for a couple of generations. He had moved away to go to college and then to start the business, but that was different. He had always known he could come back here. He’d always had roots.
“Will you go back to Portland when you’re finished here?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, blinking rapidly. “I’ve never really had a choice before. Of where I wanted to live.”
It struck him then that she was awfully young. And that he didn’t know quite how young. “You’re twenty-two?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding almost defensive. “So I haven’t really had a chance to think about what all I want to do and, like, be. When I grow up and stuff.”
“Right,” he said.
He’d been aimless for a while, but before he’d graduated high school, he’d decided he couldn’t deal with a life of ranching in Copper Ridge. He had decided to get out of town. He had wanted more. He had wanted bigger. He’d gone to school for marketing because he was good at selling ideas. Products. He wasn’t necessarily the one who created them, or the one who dreamed them up, but he was the one who made sure a consumer would see them and realize that product was what their life had been missing up until that point.
He was the one who took the straw and made it into gold.
He had always enjoyed his job, but it would have been especially satisfying if he’d been able to start his career by building a business with his brother and sister. To be able to market Faith’s extraordinary talent to the world, as he did now. But he wasn’t sure that he’d started out with a passion for what he did so much as a passion for wealth and success, and that had meant leaving behind his sister and brother too, at first. But his career had certainly grown into a passion. And he’d learned that he was the practical piece. The part that everybody needed.
A lot of people had ideas, but less than half of them had the follow-through to complete what they started. And less than half of those people knew how to get to the consumer. That was where he came in.
He’d had his first corporate internship at the age of twenty. He couldn’t imagine being aimless at twenty-two.
But then, Danielle had a baby and he couldn’t imagine having a baby at that age either.
A hollow pang struck him in the chest.
He didn’t like thinking of babies at all.
“You’re judging me,” she said, taking a step back from the paddock.
“No, I’m not. Also, you can get closer. You can pet them.”
Her head whipped around to look at the horses, then back to him, her eyes round and almost comically hopeful. “I can?”
“Of course you can. They don’t bite. Well, they might bite, just don’t stick your fingers in their mouths.”
“I don’t know,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Except he could tell she really wanted to. She was just afraid.
“Danielle,” he said, earning himself a shocked look when he used her name. “Pet the horses.”
She tugged her hand out of her pocket again, then took a tentative step forward, reaching out, then drawing her hand back just as quickly.
He couldn’t stand it. Between her not knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up and watching her struggle with touching a horse, he just couldn’t deal with it. He stepped forward, wrapped his fingers around her wrist and drew her closer to the paddock. “It’s fine,” he said.
A moment after he said the words, his body registered what he had done. More than that, it registered the fact that she was very warm. That her skin was smooth.
And that she was way, way too thin.
A strange combination of feelings tightened his whole body. Compassion tightened his heart; lust tightened his groin.
He gritted his teeth. “Come on,” he said.
He noticed the color rise in her face, and he wondered if she was angry, or if she was feeling the same flash of awareness rocking through him. He supposed it didn’t matter either way. “Come on,” he said, drawing her hand closer to the opening of the paddock. “There you go, hold your hand flat like that.”
She complied, and he released his hold on her, taking a step back. He did his best to ignore the fact that he could still feel the impression of her skin against his palm.
One of his horses—a gray mare named Blue—walked up to the bars and pressed her nose against Danielle’s outstretched hand. Danielle made a sharp, shocked sound, drew her hand back, then giggled. “Her whiskers are soft.”
“Yeah,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips. “And she is about as gentle as they come, so you don’t have to be afraid of her.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Danielle said, sticking her hand back in, letting the horse sniff her.
He didn’t believe that she wasn’t afraid of anything. She was definitely tough. But she was brittle. Like one of those people who might withstand a beating, but if something ever hit a fragile spot, she would shatter entirely.
“Would you like to go riding sometime?” he asked.
She drew her hand back again, her expression... Well, he couldn’t quite read it. There was a softness to it, but also an edge of fear and suspicion.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“You seem to like the horses.”
“I do. But I don’t know how to ride.”
“I can teach you.”
“I don’t know. I have to watch Riley.” She began to withdraw, both from him and from the paddock.
“I’m going to hire somebody to help watch Riley,” he said, making that decision right as the words exited his mouth.
There was that look again. Suspicion. “Why?”
“In case I need you for something that isn’t baby friendly. Which will probably happen. We have over a month ahead of us with you living with me, and one never knows what kinds of situations we might run into. I wasn’t expecting you to come with a baby, and while I agree that it will definitely help make the case that you’re not suitable for me, I also think we’ll need to be able to go out without him.”
She looked very hesitant about that idea. And he could understand why. She clung to that baby like he was a life preserver. Like if she let go of him, she might sink and be in over her head completely.
“And I would get to ride the horses?” she asked, her eyes narrowed, full of suspicion still.
“I said so.”
“Sure. But that doesn’t mean a lot to me, Mr. Grayson,” she said. “I don’t accept people at their word. I like legal documents.”
“Well, I’m not going to draw up a legal document about giving you horse-riding lessons. So you’re going to have to trust me.”
“You want me to trust the sketchy rich dude who put an ad in the paper looking for a fake wife?”
“He’s the devil you made the deal with, Ms. Kelly. I would say it’s in your best interest to trust him.”
“We shake on it at least.”
She stuck her hand out, and he could see she was completely sincere. So he stuck his out in kind, wrapping his fingers around hers, marveling at her delicate bone structure. Feeling guilty now about getting angry over her eating his Pop-Tarts. The woman needed him to hire a gourmet chef too. Needed him to make sure she was getting three meals a day. He wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten regularly. She certainly didn’t have the look of a woman who had recently given birth. There was no extra weight on her to speak of. He wondered how she had survived something so taxing as labor and delivery. But those were questions he was not going to ask. They weren’t his business.
And he shouldn’t even be curious about them.
“All right,” she said. “You can hire somebody. And I’ll learn to ride horses.”
“You’re a tough negotiator,” he said, releasing his hold on her hand.
“Maybe I should go into business.”
He tried to imagine this fragile, spiky creature in a boardroom, and it nearly made him laugh. “If you want to,” he said, instead of laughing. Because he had a feeling she might attack him if he made fun of her. And another feeling that if Danielle attacked, she would likely go straight for the eyes. Or the balls.
He was attached to both of those things, and he liked them attached to him.
“I should go back to the house. Riley might wake up soon. Plus, I’m not entirely sure if I trust the new baby monitor. I mean, it’s probably fine. But I’m going to have to get used to it before I really depend on it.”
“I understand,” he said, even though he didn’t.
He turned and walked with her back toward the house. He kept his eyes on her small, determined frame. On the way, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders forward. As though she were trying to look intimidating. Trying to keep from looking at her surroundings in case her surroundings looked back.
And then he reminded himself that none of this mattered. She was just a means to an end, even if she was a slightly more multifaceted means than he had thought she might be.
It didn’t matter how many facets she had. Danielle Kelly needed to fulfill only one objective. She had to be introduced to his parents and be found completely wanting.
He looked back at her, at her determined walk and her posture that seemed to radiate with I’ll cut you.
Yeah. He had a feeling she would fulfill that objective just fine.
Four (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)
Danielle was still feeling wobbly after her interaction with Joshua down at the barn. She had touched a horse. And she had touched him. She hadn’t counted on doing either of those things today. And he had told her they were going to have dinner together tonight and he was going to give her a crash course on the Grayson family. She wasn’t entirely sure she felt ready for that either.
She had gone through all her clothes, looking for something suitable for having dinner with a billionaire. She didn’t have anything. Obviously.
She snorted, feeling like an idiot for thinking she could find something relatively appropriate in that bag of hers. A bag he thought had scabies.
She turned her snort into a growl.
Then, rebelliously, she pulled out the same pair of faded pants she had been wearing yesterday.
He had probably never dealt with a woman who wore the same thing twice. Let alone the same thing two days in a row. Perversely, she kind of enjoyed that. Hey, she was here to be unsuitable. Might as well start now.
She looked in the mirror, grabbed one stringy end of her hair and blew out a disgusted breath. She shouldn’t care how her hair looked.
But he was just so good-looking. It made her feel like a small, brown mouse standing next to him. It wasn’t fair, really. That he had the resources to buy himself nice clothes and that he just naturally looked great.
She sighed, picking Riley up from his crib and sticking him in the little carrier she would put him in for dinner. He was awake and looking around, so she wanted to be in his vicinity, rather than leaving him upstairs alone. He wasn’t a fussy baby. Really, he hardly ever cried.
But considering how often his mother had left him alone in those early days of his life, before Danielle had realized she couldn’t count on her mother to take good care of him, she was reluctant to leave him by himself unless he was sleeping.
Then she paused, going back over to her bag to get the little red, dog-eared dictionary inside. She bent down, still holding on to Riley, and retrieved it. Then she quickly looked up scabies.
“I knew it,” she said derisively, throwing the dictionary back into her bag.
She walked down the stairs and into the dining room, setting Riley in his seat on the chair next to hers. Joshua was already sitting at the table, looking as though he had been waiting for them. Which, she had a feeling, he was doing just to be annoying and superior.
“My bag can’t have scabies,” she said by way of greeting.
“Oh really?”
“Yes. I looked it up. Scabies are mites that burrow into your skin. Not into a duffel bag.”
“They have to come from somewhere.”
“Well, they’re not coming from my bag. They’re more likely to come from your horses, or something.”
“You like my horses,” he said, his tone dry. “Anyway, we’re about to have dinner. So maybe we shouldn’t be discussing skin mites?”
“You’re the one who brought up scabies. The first time.”
“I had pretty much dropped the subject.”
“Easy enough for you to do, since it wasn’t your hygiene being maligned.”
“Sure.” He stood up from his position at the table. “I’m just going to go get dinner, since you’re here. I had it warming.”
“Did you cook?”
He left the room without answering and returned a moment later holding two plates full of hot food. Her stomach growled intensely. She didn’t even care what was on the plates. As far as she was concerned, it was gourmet. It was warm and obviously not from a can or a frozen pizza box. Plus, she was sitting at a real dining table and not on a patio set that had been shoved into her tiny living room.
The meal looked surprisingly healthy, considering she had discovered his affinity for Pop-Tarts earlier. And it was accompanied by a particularly nice-looking rice. “What is this?”
“Chicken and risotto,” he said.
“What’s risotto?”
“Creamy rice,” he said. “At least, that’s the simple explanation.”
Thankfully, he wasn’t looking at her like she was an alien for not knowing about risotto. But then she remembered he had spoken of having simple roots. So maybe he was used to dealing with people who didn’t have as sophisticated a palate as he had.
She wrinkled her nose, then picked up her fork and took a tentative bite. It was good. So good. And before she knew it, she had cleared out her portion. Her cheeks heated when she realized he had barely taken two bites.
“There’s plenty more in the kitchen,” he said. Then he took her plate from in front of her and went back into the kitchen. She was stunned, and all she could do was sit there and wait until he returned a moment later with the entire pot of risotto, another portion already on her plate.
“Eat as much as you want,” he said, setting everything in front of her.
Well, she wasn’t going to argue with that suggestion. She polished off the chicken, then went back for thirds of the risotto. Eventually, she got around to eating the salad.
“I thought we were going to talk about my responsibilities for being your fiancée and stuff,” she said after she realized he had been sitting there staring at her for the past ten minutes.
“I thought you should have a chance to eat a meal first.”
“Well,” she said, taking another bite, “that’s unexpectedly kind of you.”
“You seem...hungry.”
That was the most loaded statement of the century. She was so hungry. For so many things. Food was kind of the least of it. “It’s just been a really crazy few months.”
“How old is the baby? Riley. How old is Riley?”
For the first time, because of that correction, she became aware of the fact that he seemed reluctant to call Riley by name. Actually, Joshua seemed pretty reluctant to deal with Riley in general.
Riley was unperturbed. Sitting in that reclined seat, his muddy blue eyes staring up at the ceiling. He lifted his fist, putting it in his mouth and gumming it idly.
That was one good thing she could say about their whole situation. Riley was so young that he was largely unperturbed by all of it. He had gone along more or less unaffected by their mother’s mistakes. At least, Danielle hoped so. She really did.
“He’s almost four months old,” she said. She felt a soft smile touch her lips. Yes, taking care of her half brother was hard. None of it was easy. But he had given her a new kind of purpose. Had given her a kind of the drive she’d been missing before.
Before Riley, she had been somewhat content to just enjoy living life on her own terms. To enjoy not cleaning up her mother’s messes. Instead, working at the grocery store, going out with friends after work for coffee or burritos at the twenty-four-hour Mexican restaurant.
Her life had been simple, and it had been carefree. Something she hadn’t been afforded all the years she’d lived with her mother, dealing with her mother’s various heartbreaks, schemes to try to better their circumstances and intense emotional lows.
So many years when Danielle should have been a child but instead was expected to be the parent. If her mother passed out in the bathroom after having too much to drink, it was up to Danielle to take care of her. To put a pillow underneath her mother’s head, then make herself a piece of toast for dinner and get her homework done.
In contrast, taking care of only herself had seemed simple. And in truth, she had resented Riley at first, resented the idea that she would have to take care of another person again. But taking care of a baby was different. He wasn’t a victim of his own bad choices. No, he was a victim of circumstances. He hadn’t had a chance to make a single choice for himself yet.
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