13. Jack
Chapter thirteen
Jack
“ B randy, cut it out!” I jerked on my horse’s lead rope for the fourth time in a minute.
My horses might have been content eating and sleeping in a new place, but behaving on their set was a different story.
It was only about a ten-minute walk from my new barn to the exercise track where the horses were worked, and the five trotting beasts below me were eager to get home to their dinner—even more so than the first fivesome I took before them.
I was already in a bad mood from my encounter with Maggie, and the horses misbehaving made me all the more pissed off.
Giving Barcado—the horse I currently rode—another kick to the sides, I huffed in anticipation of getting home.
Not that anything good was waiting for me there.
I fucked up with Maggie today. I knew I did.
But she saw something she never should have witnessed last night.
Something I knew was going to keep her worrying about me.
I didn’t need it. I was a man who could take care of himself, not a pitied case of anxiety.
She was taking on enough as it was, I wasn’t about to add on to the load she was carrying on her back—and in her body.
The poor girl had gone through hell, and she was cracking as much as I was from the pressure that had barely even begun.
There was no way I could finish that conversation in the kitchen, but I needed to make it up to her somehow.
I grunted as I dismounted Barcado and led the horses into the barn, carefully distributing each into their newly-labeled stalls.
Huh. Those weren’t there when I left with my set.
The stalls were prepped for dinner too—hay in the corner, grain in the buckets, and waters full.
Maggie must have done the night feeding while I was gone, a clever way of avoiding me in the barn since she wouldn’t find privacy there any other time.
Running a hand through my hair and checking to make sure everything was perfect, guilt and frustration punched me in the gut.
You pissed her off and she still did all of this for you.
I tried to excuse it by telling myself it was her job, but I knew that wasn’t why.
The horses happily munched on their hay as I mentally berated myself for being such an asshole to my new wife and baby mama. They looked so fucking happy. I needed to take a hint from those guys.
After turning out the horses and finishing the stalls, I flipped the lights and took in the view around me.
Wyoming was breathtaking. The lush pastures were thick with grass.
The sky was bigger than anywhere else I’d seen.
The air was lighter and cooler than it was in Pennsylvania.
This place was my fresh start. My rebrand.
Except this new version of myself carried the same baggage.
The same heavy, inconvenient shit I had dealt with all my life.
I needed to grab a shower before we went to dinner with Michael Luna, my new sponsor. A hint of nervousness poked at me as I made my way up to the house. This would be Maggie’s and my first night pretending to be married, and I felt about as prepared as a green horse on the open field.
I took a detour to the front door instead of the back to retrieve a package that was supposed to arrive today. A sigh of relief came over me when I saw the small, brown box sitting proudly on the faded welcome mat.
Thank God for Amazon Prime.
Our two wedding bands, the tickets to our brand new lives, sat inside this box. Now, all we had to do was prove that our marriage was real.
I set out for the shower in my bedroom upstairs, taking two steps at a time since I needed to get a move on.
But to my surprise, the door to my bathroom was closed and the fan was turned on.
Just before I reached to knock, the door jerked open to reveal Maggie in a towel, droplets of water covering her skin, her wet brunette hair cascading over her shoulders.
She startled at the sight of me, sweaty and surprised, before letting her expression return to a blank slate.
“My shower doesn’t work, so…I had to use yours.” She didn’t sound nervous, but she didn’t sound sure of herself either. Her wide eyes bounced back and forth between mine.
Nonetheless, I was entirely distracted by the amount of skin showing from the towel, leaving little to my wild imagination. Fuck. I shouldn’t have been thinking the thoughts I was thinking, but they were there, and not even Maggie’s current state with me could stop them.
Well, except for Maggie sneaking past me and locking herself in her bedroom with haste.
Her perfect body was gone as quickly as it came, and I grieved the view.
I stared through my bedroom door across the hallway at hers in disbelief.
How the hell was this supposed to work? Were we just going to see each other half-naked all of the time?
Sneak past each other with little clothing and work around it like we were roommates?
We couldn’t do anything, I knew that. But seeing Maggie’s body on display like that—especially now that she carried part of me inside of her—was the ultimate test of chastity.
Trying to tame myself before I stepped into the cold spray, my mind ran through the endless possibilities of tonight’s dinner.
How Maggie and I would portray ourselves as if we were in love.
If we were going to tell Mike that we were pregnant.
If it was possible to win Maggie back before we got there.
How we would act around each other…at the dinner and for the rest of our lives.
If I would be lucky enough to witness another smile on the brunette beauty’s face.
Fuck.
I couldn’t think of her that way. Not with the amount she cared about me.
Not with how easy it was to break down into her arms the night before.
I grabbed a towel from the rod outside of the shower and wrapped my torso before glancing at the digital clock on the vanity.
I only had fifteen minutes before we had to leave.
Only fifteen minutes to get on Maggie’s good side before this dinner because, if I didn’t, it would be awkward as hell and not particularly believable that we were newlyweds.
I quickly dressed into khaki pants and a blue button-down, not even attempting to deal with my wet hair yet. “Maggie,” I called toward her room, starting the buttons on my shirt. Her door opened after thirty long seconds.
Truly, I didn’t mean to stare, but seeing Maggie put together in a nice outfit with her hair done did something funny to my heartbeat.
I much preferred her in her barn clothes—or my clothes, for that matter—but my God , she looked stunning.
She wore white jeans that flared at her ankles and a burgundy top wrapped around her neck like it was trying to choke her.
Lucky top.
“Yes?” she asked from her doorway. I motioned for her to come into my room. She hesitantly obliged and stood at the foot of my bed. Discomfort coated her features. “What is it?”
Not wanting to flash her with my half-bare chest as I worked the tiny buttons on my shirt, I made eye contact with her through the mirror above the dresser. “I wanted to apologize. Again.”
“Okay…” Her eyes left mine in the mirror as her index finger drew circles on her jeans. “About what?”
I groaned, struggling to fit my fingers around the tiny buttons. “About this morning. Shutting you down like that was rude, and I’m sorry.”
“Did you change your mind about telling me how you feel?”
“How I feel about what?” I leaned closer to the mirror to see the last damn buttons I had to secure.
“Okay, I can’t watch you do this.” Maggie stepped forward to help me since my shaky fingers weren’t up for the job. Her scent invaded me as she came closer, and it took everything in me not to audibly inhale her scent.
But it was too late. She had already violated every one of my senses.
Her small fingers secured the last four buttons on my shirt, her nails accidentally scraping my chest along the way.
My eyes caught hers for a fraction of a second before she pulled them back down to my shirt.
Her pillowy lips were so full, the bottom slightly bigger than the top. I wanted to sink my teeth into them.
My breathing became uneasy.
“Maggie.” Her gaze met mine again. “I didn’t change my mind.
I can’t come to you for every worry I have.
It would be too much right now. ” I would never give her those burdens, but if I gave her the slightest bit of hope, maybe she could find it in her to forgive me.
Her eyes followed my hand as I reached for the now-opened brown box on the dresser.
“These…” I pulled out the studded wedding band and clutched her left hand in mine. “Are our wedding bands.”
Maggie didn’t move as I slid the ring onto her finger. Instead, she took a sharp breath and stared at it like it was a disease spreading throughout her body. Despite her shock, I slid my own ring on my left ring finger and intertwined our hands. Fear and something unfamiliar sparked in my chest.
The realization set in that this relationship might not have been real , but our circumstances were. Maggie and I, both incredibly unfit romantic partners, had entered a temporarily binding agreement to act as if we were unequivocally in love. And now we had the rings to prove it.
“I know this is terrifying, but I’ve got you every step of the way. I don’t want you worrying about me when we have enough on our plates. We have no idea what these next few months will look like, but I want you to trust me because that’s all we have.”
I didn’t expect her to jump into my arms and kiss me, but I surely didn’t expect the next words that came out of her mouth.