2. Luna
Chapter 2
Luna
“You runnin’ to or from somethin’, sweetheart?” the woman at the bus station ticket booth asks, looking me up and down.
Jeez. Do I look that bad?
I glance down at myself—jeans, a thermal long-sleeved shirt, and a canvas jacket that belonged to a foster brother who aged out and vanished before I could ask where he was going. It’s too big in the shoulders, but it’s warm and smells like cinnamon and old cigarette smoke. My boots are scuffed, my duffel bag has seen better decades, and even I can smell the whiff of desperation that clings to me.
So, yeah. I look exactly like a girl running from something. I certainly don’t look like a potential bride.
“Does it matter?” I ask, clutching my duffel tighter.
The woman taps my ticket against the counter, giving me a look like she wants to say more—like she’s the kind of person who watches true crime shows and spots the killer in five minutes.
Finally, she shrugs. “Guess not. Long as you know where you’re headed.”
Oh, I know exactly where I’m headed: One way to Clover Canyon. One marriage contract. Zero backup plans.
The bus wheezes to a stop, coughing smoke like it’s tired of running too. I take my ticket and straighten my spine.
“Fake it till you make it,” I mutter as I head outside.
I step onto the bus and slide into a cracked vinyl seat. When the engine rumbles back to life and the station slides away behind me, I don't look back.
No point.
I'm not going that way anymore.
Even if this ends up being just another stop in a life full of short stays.
I check my phone. Still nothing from Marlie, which means Angus Sutton hasn’t changed his mind.
He had three days to back out. He didn’t.
Neither did I.
I open the notes app on my phone, scanning the sparse details Marlie sent over one last time. It’s not much. Just enough to make the decision feel real.
Name: Angus Sutton. Age 33.
Occupation: Rancher, ex-military
Location: Havenridge Ranch, Clover Canyon, Havenstone, Montana.
Personality Notes: Quiet. Straightforward. Not interested in romance. Prefers clear expectations.
Stability Level: High. Landowner. Family nearby. Looking for a long-term arrangement.
And then, the last line:
Reason for marriage: Inheritance clause—terms not disclosed.
That part still makes me pause. Something about his mother, Marlie said. Ruth Sutton passed away six months ago, leaving behind a legal stipulation in her will that forced her sons to marry.
Marlie didn’t know the details—or if she did, she wasn’t sharing—but her tone said enough. Something unconventional. But whatever it was, it must’ve mattered. Enough for a man like Angus to agree to a contract.
Marlie said he was a good man—rough around the edges, maybe even emotionally unavailable—but steady and unflinching. A man who says what he means and means what he says.
I’ve never met anyone like that before.
Still, it’s hard not to wonder—what kind of man agrees to marry a stranger from a digital catalog? What kind of man doesn’t even ask for a photo?
And what kind of woman says yes?
I do, apparently. The one with no fallback plan, no savings, no family—just a duffel bag, an overdeveloped survival instinct, and a willingness to sign my name on the dotted line if it means not having to look over my shoulder every damn morning.
My fingers drift over the lock screen. My reflection stares back—tired eyes, chapped lips, hope buried under too many disappointments to count.
I close the app and lean my head against the window, letting the vibration of the road hum through my bones.
He had three days to back out, I remind myself again. He didn’t.
But that doesn’t mean he’s ready for me.
I watch the slushy gray streets of Missoula blur into pine and power lines. I try not to think about the last five places I left. Or the three jobs I lost for not being “a team player.” Or that I’ve never had my name on a mailbox that didn’t belong to the state.
This marriage isn’t a romance. It’s a contract.
Angus Sutton needs a wife to keep his land. I need a place that won’t disappear underneath me. Neither of us is expecting fireworks. Just foundation.
And God, do I want something solid.
* * *
The ride lasts a little over four hours. I spend most of it sketching in the back of my journal—little pencil lines of porch swings and kitchen windows, soft yellow light that probably doesn’t exist outside my imagination. I add a big dog curled by the stove and maybe a kid in mismatched socks. These are the things I crave but am not allowed to want.
I’m not good at dreaming, but I excel at building routines. Doing the jobs no one wants because I never expect applause.
That’s what I bring to the table.
The bus pulls into Clover Canyon just after four in the afternoon. It’s raining. An April shower that’s romantic in theory but like soggy death in practice. I step off the bus into a puddle that soaks one boot.
Perfect.
The depot is tiny—one bench, one vending machine, and one elderly woman knitting in the corner as if she’s waiting for a bus that no longer runs.
I scan the lot. No sign of a cowboy.
I check my phone. No new texts.
Anxiety flares sharply in my chest. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he changed his mind at the last minute and didn’t tell Marlie. Maybe I’ve made a massive mistake.
Then I see the truck.
It’s an older model, its paint dulled by too many winters, with a long scrape along the driver’s side as if it picked a fight with a tree and lost.
And leaning against the front—arms crossed, boots planted like he’s braced against the whole world—is him.
Somehow, in his stillness, I know this is Angus Sutton.
The man who needs a wife, not a fairytale.
The man I’m supposed to marry.
He’s big. Broad through the chest and thick in the shoulders. His hat is pulled low, shadowing his face, but even from here, I can see the hard lines of his jaw and the way his mouth pulls tight like smiling is a foreign language.
His faded jeans stretch across muscular thighs, and his battered flannel clings like a second skin. The sleeves are shoved up to his elbows like an advertisement for forearm porn. And I’m just standing here, a puddle of hormones, wondering if Marlie signed me up for a cowboy calendar shoot instead of an arranged marriage.
He lifts his head, and oureyes meet. Blue. Sharp. Clear and cutting.
My gaze catches on the scar on his right cheek—a thin, silvered slash running from his eye to the corner of his mouth. Not fresh. Old enough to fade. Old enough to say I’ve survived things you can’t even imagine .
Something shifts inside me, sharp and electric.
Because this man? He’s not pretty or polished.
He’s raw.
Weathered.
Heat sparks low in my belly, so fierce it makes me grip the strap of my duffel.
For a second, I forget why I’m here. Forget my name. Forget how to breathe. I might be drooling. It’s hard to say with the wind.
All I know is that this man—this stranger who’s about to become my husband—is looking at me like he’s sizing up a wildfire.
And God help me, now I’ve seen him, I want to burn . With him.
I square my shoulders and walk toward him like I’ve done this a hundred times. Like I’m not shaking inside. “Angus Sutton?”
He nods, slow and silent. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t blink. “You Luna?”
“Yeah.”
He jerks his head toward the truck. “Truck’s warm.”
Wow. Somebody stop us before we combust from all this verbal foreplay.
Although it’s not romantic—-not a meet-cute, not flowers or fireworks—something about the way he says it, “Truck’s warm” lands differently. As if warmth is a gift and it matters that I’m cold.
It’s so simple. So plain. But it hits me straight in the chest.
This strange man with the steady eyes and the quiet mouth. I want the safety he offers without saying it out loud. The way he makes space for me without flinching.
I slide into the passenger seat, duffel bag on my lap, and Angus pulls away from the curb without another word.
The silence stretches for ten miles, give or take.
He doesn’t ask about my trip. I don’t ask why his jaw looks like it’s carved from disappointment and old ghosts.
This is what I wanted. Isn’t it?
The road winds between hills shaking off the winter. Snow melts into muddy streams, and the first stubborn shoots of green claw their way into the sun. We pass a closed diner, a church with a crooked sign, and a feed store with a light still glowing behind the blinds.
When he finally speaks, his voice is rough.
“You ever lived on a ranch before?”
“I worked at a guest ranch in Bozeman for a few years. It wasn’t all hayrides and marshmallows. I did real work. Fence repairs. Mucking stalls. Hauling water in a snowstorm when the pipes froze solid. One time, I spent four hours chasing a steer through knee-deep mud after it busted through a pasture gate in the middle of a thunderstorm.”
That earns the smallest grunt of acknowledgment from him. It might be a laugh, but it’s hard to tell.
“I liked it,” I add. “The rhythm. The work. It was simple and honest. No one cared where you came from, just whether you showed up and pulled your weight.”
I glance at him. He’s still watching the road—but something about the silence says he heard every word.
“When Marlie told me what you were looking for, it didn’t sound crazy to me,” I say. “It sounded… doable.”
He’s quiet for a second. Then: “Huh.”
A beat. Another flick of a glance. “You ride?”
“Nope.”
“Willing to learn?”
“Sure,” I say. “As long as you give me a helmet, a life insurance policy, and maybe a prayer circle.”
His mouth twitches. For a man carved out of granite, that’s basically a full-blown grin.
The ranch comes into view, and something in me exhales as if a part of me has been waiting to see this place my whole life.
Not because it’s fancy—no manicured lawns or magazine-perfect porches—but because it’s solid. Real.
The barn nearest the house is big and weather-worn, the boards silvered by years of sun and storm. Smoke curls from the chimney of the main house, the windows reflecting the last patches of snow retreating into muddy fields. A tire fixed to a tree swing twists slowly in the breeze, looking like it’s survived a hundred summers.
I don’t say anything. I don’t let myself hope too much as the truck crunches over the gravel drive and Angus cuts the engine.
Three men wait on the front porch.
The oldest stands in the center, tall and broad, arms folded across his chest. His hair is silver at the temples and thinning a little at the crown, but it only makes him look more solid, more rooted—a man who's weathered every kind of storm and is still standing. His face is lined with age and a life spent outside, and his eyes—bright, sharp blue—miss nothing.
To his left—grinning like he’s been waiting all day for this moment—is a younger man with messy hair and a crooked smile. He looks like a guy who says yes to every bad idea first and thinks about the consequences sometime next year.
The man on his other side removes his hat as we pull up. He leans against a porch post, his posture easy but alert. His build is leaner, more whipcord than bulk, and his gaze tracks every movement with a quiet, thoughtful intensity.
I clutch my duffel tighter. “Well,” I mutter to Angus, “nothing says warm welcome like a wall of Sutton men.”
He doesn’t smile. But he doesn’t correct me either.