Christmas Vows for the Mountain Man (Mountain Man Brides For Christmas #12)

Chapter 1 The Clause

THE CLAUSE

CLARA

I knew my aunt’s will reading wasn’t going to be easy; I just never assumed it would change my life.

Henderson adjusted his glasses. "Marriage by Christmas or the property reverts to the state."

There it was. Forty acres of mountain land held hostage by my dead aunt's romantic delusions. The cabin where I'd spent every summer as a kid. The barn where I planned to build my veterinary practice. All of it gone unless I found a husband in three weeks.

"Who the hell writes this crap?" I snapped. "Fake marriage for land? What is this, a Hallmark fever dream?"

Henderson cleared his throat. "Mrs. Chen was quite specific about—"

"Aunt Mae was a romance novelist with boundary issues." I stood up so fast my chair scraped against the floor. "This is insane."

But insane or not, it was legal. Ironclad. And I was screwed.

I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, Henderson's voice following me about taking time to consider my options. What options? I could barely get a second date, let alone a marriage proposal.

The December air hit me like a slap. Christmas lights mocked me from every storefront, and my hands shook as I fumbled for my phone.

David's number was still in my contacts. We'd dated for eight months last year before he decided I "worked too much and smelled like dogs." But desperate times called for desperate ex-boyfriends.

"Clara?" His voice was cautious when he picked up. "This is unexpected."

"Hi." I tried to sound casual instead of completely unhinged. "How are you?"

"Good. Engaged, actually. Spring wedding."

I hung up without another word.

Of course he was engaged. Probably to some woman who worked normal hours and smelled like vanilla instead of antiseptic.

I scrolled through more contacts. Jake—married with twins. Mark—moved to Seattle. Tom—gay and blissfully happy with his boyfriend.

One by one, every possibility crumbled.

My back hit the brick wall, and I slid down until I was sitting on the cold sidewalk. This was it. I was going to lose everything because I couldn't find a man desperate enough to marry me in three weeks.

The tears came hot and angry. I pressed my face against my knees and let myself fall apart right there on Main Street.

A shadow fell across me.

"You all right?"

The voice was deep, rough, with quiet authority that made me look up without thinking.

Work boots. Scuffed leather, steel toes. My gaze traveled up—worn jeans that hugged strong thighs, a flannel shirt rolled to reveal forearms that could probably snap me in half. Broad shoulders that looked like they carried heavy things without complaint.

Then I saw his face.

Dark hair, storm-gray eyes, a jaw that could cut glass. He was holding rebar in one hand and a toolbox in the other, like he'd been walking past when he spotted my side walk breakdown. His mouth was set in a hard line, but his eyes weren't unkind.

They were also looking at me like he could see straight through my defenses.

"I'm fine," I lied, wiping my eyes.

"You don't look fine."

Something about the way he said it—matter-of-fact, no judgment—made my throat tight again. It also made me notice the way his voice rumbled low in his chest.

"Bad day," I managed.

"Figured." He shifted the rebar, and I caught sight of his hands. Big, scarred, callused. The kind that knew how to fix things. "You need help?"

I almost laughed. "Actually, you wouldn't happen to know anyone who wants to get married, would you?"

The words hung between us like a dare. His eyebrows went up a fraction, and I realized how insane I sounded.

"Sorry," I said quickly, scrambling to my feet. "I'm not usually this crazy. Just a really, really bad day."

He was quiet for a long moment, those storm-gray eyes never leaving my face. When they dropped to my mouth for just a second, something hot flicked through my stomach.

"Depends on the timeline," he said.

I stared at him. "What?"

"You asked if I knew anyone who wants to get married. I'm asking about the timeline."

My heart did something strange. "Three weeks."

"Reason?"

"Inheritance clause. Marry by Christmas or lose everything that matters." The words tumbled out. "I'm a vet tech, I want to start my own practice, but I need the land. My aunt left it to me with this ridiculous marriage requirement."

He nodded like this made perfect sense. Like desperate women proposed to strangers all the time.

"I'll do it," he said.

The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"

"I'll marry you."

I blinked at him. "You don't even know me."

"Don't need to." His mouth quirked up at one corner—not quite a smile, but close. "You're not the only one who lost something up here."

Something in his voice made me study his face more carefully. There was pain there, buried deep but still visible if you knew how to look.

"Why?" I whispered.

"Because Mae saved my sister once. Figure I owe her."

Mae. He knew my aunt. That should have been reassuring, but something about the way he said it felt like there was more to the story.

"I don't even know your name," I said.

"Eli." He shifted the toolbox and held out his right hand. "Eli Hayes."

I took his hand without thinking. His palm was warm, rough with work, completely steady. When his fingers closed around mine, that heat in my stomach spread lower.

"Clara Chen."

"Nice to meet you, Clara Chen." His grip tightened just slightly, and I caught him looking at my mouth again. "You want to get married?"

ELI

I'd been walking past the lawyer's office when I heard the crying.

Not polite tears. The real kind. The broken kind that came from somewhere deep and desperate.

I should have kept walking. Should have minded my own business and headed to the hardware store. But something about the sound stopped me cold.

Maybe because I knew what that kind of crying meant. What it felt like when the world ripped everything important away and left you with nothing but wreckage.

So I stopped. Found her.

She was small, curvy in a way that made my hands itch. Dark hair escaping from a ponytail, scrubs that had seen better days, and mascara streaked down her cheeks. She looked like she'd been wrestling with something bigger than herself and lost.

She also looked like she needed help.

And I was good at helping. Better at that than most things these days.

"You all right?" I asked.

She looked up with brown eyes that were too bright, too wet, too full of pain. But also too fucking gorgeous for her own good.

"I'm fine," she lied.

"You don't look fine."

When she told me it was a bad day, I believed her. Bad days had a particular look, and she was wearing it like a second skin.

Then she asked if I knew anyone who wanted to get married.

Most men would have backed away. Assumed she was crazy, desperate, looking for any warm body to solve her problems.

But I heard something else in her voice. Determination. Like marriage wasn't what she wanted, but what she needed.

"Depends on the timeline," I said.

She said three weeks, and something about the way she said it—like it was a death sentence—made me stay.

Inheritance clause. Land. A future that depended on finding a husband by Christmas.

Mae Chen's niece. I should have seen it sooner—she had Mae's stubborn chin, Mae's fierce eyes when she was pissed.

Mae, who'd pulled my sister out of that creek when we were kids. Mae, who'd never asked for anything in return.

"I'll do it," I said.

The words came out before I'd really thought them through, but they felt right. And when Clara stared at me like I'd just offered to move mountains, something shifted in my chest.

She was beautiful when she was shocked. Hell, she was beautiful when she was crying. But there was something about the way she looked at me in that moment—like I might actually be worth something—that made me want to prove her right.

"You're not the only one who lost something up here," I told her. True enough. I'd lost plenty in these mountains.

"Because Mae saved my sister once. Figure I owe her."

Which was true. Caitlin was alive because of Mae. But that wasn't why I was offering to marry her niece.

I was offering because Clara Chen looked at me like I was a man instead of a broken-down former sawyer who couldn't save the people who mattered. Because she needed help, and I needed to feel useful again.

Because when she took my hand, her pulse jumped under my thumb, and I wanted to see what other reactions I could get out of her.

"You want to get married?" I asked.

She went very still, like she was waiting for the catch. But there wasn't one. Just a woman who needed a husband and a man who had nothing better to do than help her get one.

And maybe figure out why touching her made me feel like I was waking up for the first time in three years.

CLARA

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting across from each other at Murphy's Diner, and I was trying to process what had just happened.

I'd convinved a complete stranger to marry me. And now we were discussing it while I tried not to stare at the way his hands wrapped around his coffee mug.

Big hands. Scarred. The kind that knew how to work, how to build things, how to tear them apart if necessary.

"Ground rules," Eli said.

"Ground rules," I repeated it, hoping it would make more sense the second time.

"Marriage of convenience. Nothing more." His gray eyes met mine across the table. "We do what we need to do legally, you keep your land, then we figure out what comes next."

The practical way he laid it out should have been reassuring. Instead, it felt like disappointment settling in my chest.

"What else?" I asked.

"No expectations. This isn't about romance or feelings." He paused, and something flickered in his expression. "It's about solving a problem."

Right. Problem-solving. I could do that.

So why did this feel different?

"How long?" I asked.

"However long you need to secure the inheritance." He shrugged. "After that, annulment."

Annulment. Like it never happened.

"What about you?" I asked. "What do you get out of this?"

He was quiet for a long moment, staring into his coffee. "Peace of mind, maybe."

"Everyone needs something," I said.

His mouth quirked up. "Do they?"

"Yes. So what is it really?"

Another pause. Then: "Purpose."

The word hung between us, heavy with meaning I didn't understand. But I heard the loneliness underneath it.

"I can work with that," I said.

"Can you?"

"I'm good at giving people things to do." I took a sip of coffee, grimacing at how cold it had gotten. "What do you do for work?"

"Trail crew. Forest service contracts. Road maintenance, fire suppression."

That explained the muscles. And the hands. And the way he moved like he belonged outdoors instead of sitting in diners making impossible deals.

"Are you from around here?" I asked.

"Close enough." He drained his coffee. "You?"

"Born and raised. This place gets in your blood."

He nodded like he understood. "The mountains."

"The mountains. The people." I managed a smile. "It's home."

"And now you might lose it."

"Not if you can help it."

The certainty in his voice made my chest tight. When was the last time someone had offered to help without wanting something in return?

"We should make this official," I said. "Get the license, find someone to perform the ceremony."

"When?"

"This weekend. That gives us time to get everything in order."

"This weekend works." He pulled out an old flip phone. "I'll need your number."

We exchanged information, and it felt strangely intimate. Like we were crossing some invisible line.

"One more thing," Eli said as we stood to leave. "This stays between us. No one needs to know it's not real."

"Agreed." I held out my hand. "Partners?"

His palm was warm when it closed around mine, and he held on longer than necessary. When his thumb brushed across my knuckles, that heat in my stomach flared again.

"Partners," he said, but the way he was looking at my mouth suggested he was thinking about more than business arrangements.

We walked to the door together, and when he held it open for me, I had to brush past him to get through. The contact was brief—my shoulder against his chest—but it was enough to make my breath catch.

I glanced up, catching our reflection on the diner window. We looked like a couple. Like two people who belonged together.

He held the door. I walked through.

Just like that, I belonged to a stranger.