Chapter 3
chapter
three
Temple
The guys have left me inside, alone again. Presumably they’re outside talking about me. That’s what people do. Though they did say they were checking on a suspicious car.
Flynn’s cabin is feeling like home, oddly enough. Strange even for me, who can carve out a space for myself in nearly any environment. He didn’t even blink at the way I’d scattered my clothes and pillows. The pillows so it looks like I live here–the clothes because I couldn't find my favorite sports bra when I was feeling antsy and needed to do some yoga to calm myself down.
Okay, that’s a lie, he totally blinked. Several times, if I’m honest. His thickly lashed brown eyes had surveyed the room, scanning back and forth. But he hadn’t said a word. Even when Piglet made himself known.
My partner in crime is currently snoring next to me on the couch. After Cruz left to join Flynn outside, I grabbed my laptop to check email and—what else, I’m not sure. I just needed to do something with my hands.
I could have gotten back up in my yoga hammock, but judging by Flynn’s face when he saw me up there, I decided to wait. Maybe he just needs to be assured that it’s perfectly safe. I am a professional Yogi.
The door opens and Flynn strolls back into the small cabin. I set my laptop on the coffee table and close it.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes. The car we’d seen earlier was gone and I walked the perimeter of the area and couldn’t find anyone.”
“Maybe it was just my imagination.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not the paranoid type.”
His words are stated as a fact.
Like he knows me.
I mean we do know each other, but we haven’t been around one another in years. He knew me as a teenager, but his statement rings true. I’ve never been overly suspicious about anything. Except maybe my cousin’s moral compass.
I watch him step into the kitchen and grab a glass from a cabinet, then fill it with water at the fridge. He downs the entire thing. Watching his throat work to swallow is mesmerizing and it occurs to me that I’m staring at him.
It’s hard not to. He’s beautiful. Tall and broad without being overly bulky. Just perfectly honed muscles, initially from high school sports and then the Army. His dark hair is longer than the last time I saw him. Longer on the top and trimmed tightly to his head above his ears.
I want to strip his clothes off him and catalog every scar and tattoo. I know he has some of both. He had stitches on his arm and neck at our wedding ceremony and he mentioned something about some new ink.
Oh, who am I kidding? I want to see him naked because he’s so sexy and I want to ride him like a pony.
But that is not what this marriage is about.
“Everything okay, Temple?” he asks.
He caught me staring, so I give him a small smile. “Yeah, just lost in thought, I guess.” Thoughts about how amazing your tight ass would look sans jeans and boxers. If he even wears boxers. “What kind of underwear do you wear?” I blurt.
Temple Thorne: excellent at ice breakers. Now available for your next party.
“What?” he asks, a frown creasing his forehead.
“Well, I am your wife.” I shrug. “Just seems like something I should know.”
He shoves off of the kitchen counter and walks towards me. He’s all casual prowling grace. That’s a thing, right?
“You going to tell me about your underwear?” he asks.
Ugh, why was that hot? “I don’t think there are as many options for women.”
“Inaccurate, but we’ll move on.”
“I’m a no-frills cotton kind of girl,” I admit. “Pretty low key and plain.”
“Boxer briefs. And I like ones with nerdy stuff on them.” His arms cross over his chest, and I swear he’s smirking at me.
“Like protractors and calculators?”
He laughs. “Not exactly. Though I do have some with math equations on them.”
“I never knew they had novelty underwear for y’all.”
“We’ve come a long way since tighty-whities.”
That makes me laugh because what are we even talking about? I’m so weird sometimes.
He comes over and sits on the coffee table facing me. “Okay, now that we’ve gotten the awkward underwear conversation out of the way, tell me what’s going on.”
“Just my cousin being his obnoxious self,” I say.
“I need more words, Temple.”
I snort. “No one has ever asked me for more words.”
He taps his knee against mine. “Your grandmother, is she still…?”
His question hangs in the air, but I know what he’s asking. “Inexplicably still alive. The doctors have given up trying to give us a timeline anymore. Her body is definitely weaker, but it’s her mind that we’re losing more rapidly.”
That warrants me a knee squeeze from one of his big hands. I bet his hands are big enough that he could legitimately cup my tits.
For fuck’s sake, Temple, get your head out of the slutty gutter. Focus.
“In any case, she’s having more bad days than good days at this point. I know that Rick and Lotus are conspiring to put her in a memory care facility. But Granny was very specific when she said she wanted to live the rest of her days in her own home. She has twenty-four hour care. She should get to make that decision. It’s her damn money.”
“Right now you’re still listed as executor, right?” he asks.
I blow out a breath. “Technically, no. That is tied up in court because of my cousin. So the family attorney is executor.”
“And Rick the dick is calling our marriage into question?” Flynn asks.
“Correct.”
“I take it you’ve shown him the marriage license and all of that?”
“Of course. I think for him it’s less about whether or not the marriage is legal and more about if it’s a real marriage,” I say. “Honestly, it feels like any moment he’s going to call a doctor in to examine me to see if we’ve been intimate.”
Flynn’s already dark eyes go black. “Has he threatened that?” his tone is sharp and jagged.
“No. No one does that anymore. And I’ve clearly read too many medieval romance novels.”
Stop talking, Temple. Stop talking, especially about being intimate with Flynn.
I wave my hand as if to wipe away the last few moments.
“Please understand it’s not about the money. I truly do not care about her money. But I do care about some of the family heirlooms and what happens to Grandma when the rest of her memory fades. I think Rick preys on her memory issues, planting lies and ramping up her paranoia.”
“Hey, I’m not judging you, whatever your motives are. If you were just in it for the money. It’s your family inheritance; you deserve at least half of it.”
“I know, I just hate for people to think I’m some money hungry loser. I own my own business. I have an income to take care of myself. If Grandma hadn’t created that weird competition in the first place, maybe Rick wouldn’t be so angry with me.”
“Agreed. Having a race to the alter has strong Hammerstein musical vibes.”
That makes me smile. “You were so tolerant of me and Daisy singing showtunes in the backseat of your car.”
He gives me a fond smile that just about breaks my heart. He still sees me as a little sister type.
I blow out a breath.
“We’ll figure this out,” he says.
I nod. Regardless of how he sees me, at least I’m not in this completely alone. “Flynn, I need you to know that, had I known this would stretch beyond that first year, I never would have asked you. I know this is inconvenient, and now I’ve come here to hijack your life even further.”
“You haven’t hijacked anything,” he says. “Now that I’m retired from the military, I’m starting over.”
I snort. “So it’s the perfect time to have an inconvenient wife?”
“Something like that.”
“I suppose we need some ground rules if we’re going to be suddenly living together.”
He stares at me blankly for a minute, then nods. “Right. Because we need to live together to make it look as real as possible.”
“Exactly.” Piglet rolls over on his back, legs in the air, and releases one of his snort-snores. “You’re not allergic to dogs, are you?”
“Is that actually a dog?”
I gasp, but I’m still smiling. I put my hands over Piglet’s ears. “He can hear you.”
“He snores louder than I do.”
“Oh, do you snore?”
He shrugs. “Not sure, actually. Guys never mentioned it when we bunked together. Also, no, I’m not allergic to dogs.”
This simultaneously feels awkward and comfortable all at the same time. Which frankly is confusing as hell.
Is it the kiss? Should I explain more about why I kissed him?
I should have read up on being a fake wife before coming here.
Though, it’s doubtful there are how-to guides out there.
Maybe after this, I’ll write one.