CHAPTER EIGHT
Maddie
For the first time since I’d been on the mountain, I woke up warm.
The temperature hadn’t risen and I didn’t have another quilt.
Nope. This was all about being snuggled with a my own, incredibly hot, mountain man bed warmer.
Thorne’s arm was draped across my waist, his chest pressed against my back, his breath tickling my neck. We were tangled together in my bed—correction, our bed now apparently—like we’d been doing this for years instead of one incredible, mind-blowing night.
I smiled into the pillow.
My husband could deliver. Boy, could he deliver.
Multiple times.
With no batteries needed.
I giggled.
“I hate to ask what you find amusing this early in the morning,” Thorne mumbled against my shoulder.
“Early in the morning? You should have been up and about hours ago, mountain man.”
He bit the side of my neck and wetness flooded between my thighs. “If you recall, I was up and about. Just not out of bed yet.”
“Mmm, I do seem to recall something like that happening.” I pushed my hips back again him. He was hard again and I shivered. “The question is, can you make it happen again?”
I squeaked as he flipped me over, settling between my legs. “How many times do you want it, baby?” I felt him nudging at my entrance and pulled my legs up, holding them on either side of his waist.
“A gazillion and one?”
“You’ve got it.” Then he was kissing me, his tongue sliding inside my mouth as he guided himself inside me. I was sore, but it was a delicious soreness. He eased inside, conscious of that fact and I fell in love him just a little bit more.
Then a car door slammed outside and we both froze.
“You expecting someone?” I asked.
“No.” Thorne lifted his head, listening.
“Thorne,” Kate’s voice carried through the cabin. “I brought coffee and pastries. And I want to hear all about married life.”
We stared at each other in horror.
“She has a key,” Thorne said.
“Why does she have a key?”
“She’s my sister. She insisted. For emergencies.”
I shoved at his chest. “Get off me. Get dressed. Do something.”
He rolled off the bed, grabbing his sweatpants from the floor. I looked around frantically for some clothes—any clothes. My eyes landed on his flannel shirt lying in a heap by the bed. I grabbed it like a life line.
“Thorne? Where are you?” Kate’s footsteps sounded in the living room.
“Be right there,” Thorne yelled, yanking on his sweatpants.
The footsteps stopped. “Oh my God. Did I interrupt something?”
“No,” we both shouted.
“That was very synchronized for two people who weren’t doing anything.”
“Give us two minutes,” Thorne called out.
“Take your time. I’ll just make myself at home.”
Thorne stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Stay here. I’ll handle her.”
“Like hell. She’s going to grill you.” I found a pair of jeans and pulled them on.
“She’s going to grill both of us. At least if you stay here—”
“Nope. We’re a team now. We face your terrifying sister together.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then pulled me in for a quick, hard kiss. “You’re brave.”
“I’m an idiot. There’s a difference.”
We crept down the hallway like teenagers sneaking in after curfew. Kate stood in the kitchen, grinning like Christmas had come early.
“Well, well, well,” she said. “Look what we have here.”
“Kate,” Thorne warned.
“What? I’m happy for you. This is great.” She pulled out her phone. “Maybe I need to apply to be an in-house matchmaker for Mountain Mates.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Relax. I’m kidding. Mostly.” She set down a bag from the bakery in town. “I really did bring pastries. Because I’m a wonderful sister who wanted to check on my baby brother and his new wife.”
“By showing up unannounced?” I asked.
“It’s not unannounced if I texted first.”
“You didn’t text.”
“I texted ten minutes ago.”
“I was—” He stopped. “Busy.”
“I’ll bet you were.” Kate wiggled her eyebrows. “So. How’s married life treating you?”
“Fine,” Thorne said flatly.
“Fine? That’s all I get? Come on, give me something. Are you settling in okay, Maddie? Is he being a good host?”
“Very attentive,” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
Thorne choked on air.
Kate’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I knew I was going to like you. You’re fun.” She started pulling pastries out of the bag. “Okay, real talk. I actually did come for a reason beyond torturing you both.”
“Here it comes,” Thorne muttered.
Kate’s smile faded slightly. She looked at Thorne, then at me, then back at Thorne. “We need to talk. About Granddad’s will.”
Thorne went still. “What about it?”
“Maybe we should sit down.”
“Kate. What about the will?”
She took a breath. “There was no marriage clause.”
The silence in the cabin was deafening.
“What?” Thorne’s voice was dangerously quiet.
“The will. Granddad left you the land outright. No conditions. No requirements.” Kate wouldn’t meet his eyes. “There never was a marriage clause.”
I watched the color drain from Thorne’s face. “You lied.”
“I didn’t lie exactly. I just... creatively interpreted Granddad’s wishes.”
“You lied.” His voice went quieter instead of louder. “You made up a fake requirement, set me up on a dating app without my permission, and got me married under false pretenses?”
“When you say it like that, it does sound a little bad.”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking you were miserable.” Kate’s tone matched his. “I was thinking you’d been hiding up here for six months, barely speaking to anyone, turning into some kind of hermit. I was thinking Granddad wouldn’t have wanted that for you.”
“So you committed fraud?”
“I committed sisterly intervention.”
“You can’t just—” Thorne ran both hands through his hair. “Damn it, Kate.”
I stood there, trying to process what I was hearing. There was no inheritance clause. No requirement. Thorne could have had his land without marrying me.
Which meant our entire arrangement was based on a lie.
Which meant I was...what? A defunct bride?
“Maddie,” Kate started. “I can explain—”
“You lied to both of us,” I said quietly.
“I know. And I’m sorry. But look at you two.” She gestured between us. “You’re perfect together. You’re happy. Would you have even given each other a chance without the arrangement?”
“That’s not the point,” Thorne said.
“Then what is the point?”
“The point is you took away our choice.” He was pacing now. “You manipulated both of us into a marriage neither of us would have agreed to otherwise.”
“Says who?” Kate looked at me. “Would you really not have agreed to this if you’d known the truth?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Would I have?
If Kate had said, my brother’s lonely and sad, want to marry him and move to a mountain, would I have said yes?
Probably not.
But now...
Now I was standing here in his shirt, having just spent the night in his bed, feeling things I honestly thought I’d never feel for somebody.
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“Maybe not. But it’s honest.” Kate’s expression softened. “Look, I know I overstepped. Way overstepped. And I’m sorry. I really am. But I also know my brother. And I know he never would have put himself out there otherwise. Never would have let himself be happy.”
“So you decided to play God?” Thorne asked.
“I decided to be a sister who gives a damn.” Kate grabbed her purse. “The marriage is legal. It’s real. What you do with that information is up to you. But I’m not sorry I brought you two together. Even if I did it in the most ethically questionable way possible.”
She headed for the door, then paused. “For what it’s worth? I’ve never seen you this happy, Thorne. Not in years. That has to count for something.”
Then she was gone.
Thorne and I stood in the kitchen, not looking at each other.
“So,” I said finally. “That was a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“She really just... made the whole thing up.”
“Apparently.”
More silence.
“You’re mad,” I said.
“I’m...” He stopped. “I don’t know what I am.”
“Me neither.”
He finally looked at me. Really looked at me. “What do we do now?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
We were legally married. Had consummated that marriage quite thoroughly just hours ago. And had an arrangement based entirely on a lie.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “What do you want to do?”
He crossed the kitchen, stopping in front of me. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“I want to be mad at Kate. I want to be furious that she manipulated us both.” He reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “But I can’t stop thinking that if she hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”
My chest tightened. “Thorne—”
“This didn’t start as a lie, Maddie. We both knew what we were getting into. And just because my sister lied—which she will pay for somehow, some way.” His thumb brushed across my cheek. “I can’t bring myself to regret it.”
“Even though you didn’t actually need to get married?”
“Even though.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “Tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me you feel it too.”
I did. God help me, I did.
“You’re not crazy,” I whispered.
“So what do we do?”
I pulled back to look at him. “We could get it annulled. Pretend this never happened. Go back to our separate lives.”
“We could.”
“Or...”
“Or?”
“Or we could decide that maybe Kate’s crazy scheme actually worked.” I traced the line of his jaw. “Maybe we keep going. See where this goes. On our own terms this time.”
“No contract. No timeline. No arrangement.”
“Just us. Figuring it out as we go.”
He kissed me, soft and sweet and full of promise. “I like that plan.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Though I reserve the right to be mad at Kate for at least a week.”
“A week seems fair. Maybe two.”
“Two weeks. Final offer.”
I laughed, and he pulled me closer, and somewhere in the middle of the chaos Kate had created, I realized something.
I had fallen for my fake husband.