Chapter 10
Month One
Camila
“This is only temporary,” I say to myself as I follow my Google Maps to Hess’s house. I feel like I’m out in the middle of nowhere in Queen Creek—the last stop before tumbleweeds. I’m being a little dramatic. There are lots of houses. They’re just spread apart farther than I’m used to.
My GPS tells me to turn right in one hundred feet.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I drive under the gate arch with the words Broken Spur Ranch welded into metal. “What in the John Wayne is happening here?”
I follow down a dirt road with a black metal fence on either side until it leads me to a long, curved driveway, and my jaw nearly drops.
The house isn’t just big; it’s the kind of sprawling rambler ranch you’d expect to see on the cover of a luxury homes magazine.
Stone and wood details stand out, giving it both a rustic charm and a polished elegance.
Wide porches stretch across the front with rocking chairs lined up like they’re waiting for a family reunion.
The gabled roof peaks and timber beams make the place look grand but still inviting, like it’s daring me to walk inside and see if it’s as gorgeous as it looks on the outside.
I park the car in the middle of the circular drive and step outside, still gaping at the property. Behind the house, I see the matching barn with dark board and batten siding, wood beams, and giant wood doors.
“Okay, Selena. I can see the appeal.”
“Home sweet home.” Hess’s teasing voice is behind me.
I whip around, facing where he stands on the front porch. There’s a playful smile on his mouth that doesn’t seem to match his rugged attire. Fitted jeans. Fitted t-shirt. Fitted everything.
My gaze narrows. “I can’t believe you’re making me move into your parents’ house.”
“What? No.” His smile falters. “This is my house.”
I’m gaping again. “This is your house? Allllll”—my eyes sweep across the property—“of it?”
He shrugs with indifference. “Business has been good.”
“What’s your business? Drug smuggler? Oil tycoon?”
“No, the Step and Spray.” He says it like I should know what that is. “Let’s get you unpacked.” He walks out from under the porch to my car, and that’s when I notice his boots.
My heartbeat stumbles.
“Are you suddenly a cowboy?” I snap, the anger a secondary emotion, hiding my anxiety at being forced to live with my biggest fantasy.
“You kinda like that you married a cowboy, don’t ya?” A wink accompanies his words, and that’s usually something I would hate—like end-the-date-right-then-and-there kind of loathe—but for some reason, when Hess does it, it works.
It works too well.
I shake my head. “You’re not a cowboy.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, and with how the front piece of his hair dangles above his brow, he looks overwhelmingly attractive. “I’ve always been a country boy.”
Country boy is different than cowboy. We can work with that.
“You haven’t been a country boy since I’ve known you.”
“That’s because you don’t know me.” I want to argue that this country version of him is something he probably should’ve hinted about before now, especially since it’s my weakness, but he stops beside my car, twelve inches from me, causing a crackling of chemistry between us—for me, at least.
I can’t say these feelings are out of the blue. There have been a few times since I’ve known Hess that I’ve felt the unfamiliar flutter of a crush. But that all stops now.
Full stop.
This situation is far too complicated to add in attraction and real feelings. No, for the next six months, this is a cut-and-dry business deal.
He opens my car door and starts pulling out suitcases. “I expected you to bring more than this.”
“Well, this is only temporary.” I awkwardly shift behind him, trying to maneuver a way to grab my bags. “I can get that myself.”
“The first thing you need to know about me”—he flashes a charming smile over his shoulder—“is that I take care of my woman.” There’s a bit of a drawl to his voice that makes me think he’s joking, but that doesn’t stop me from giving him a long, measured look.
“I’m not your woman.”
“That’s not what the state of Arizona says.” The good-natured laugh that rolls out of him confirms he’s teasing, but he still carries all my bags for me while somehow managing to kick open the front door and looking incredibly rugged and manly.
To make things worse, he shoots me a crooked grin. “Want me to set these bags down so I can carry you over the threshold?”
“Do I seem like the kind of woman who would let a man carry me over a threshold?”
“Maybe not.” His grin holds. “But deep down, I bet you have a mushy side that secretly dreams of a man doting on you.”
Maybe once upon a time, but I’ve worked hard to deconstruct any idealized notion of love I might’ve had.
He keeps walking past the leather couches. “I can give you the complete tour in a minute. First, let me show you where your room is.”
I’m trying to take in the house as I follow behind him, but there’s too much. Exposed wood beams, wood floors, a stone fireplace, vaulted ceilings, glass windows, and sliding doors that lead out to a huge covered patio. It’s pretty incredible.
He turns down a hallway and walks through double wooden doors, leaving the suitcases next to the king-sized bed. “This is you. There’s a big walk-in closet and your own bathroom.” He moves through the room, gesturing to each thing.
I eye the bedroom across the hall with piles of clothes on the ground and an air mattress. “Is this the master bedroom?”
Hess glances around. “Uh-huh.”
I point to the messy room across from us. “Did you just move out of here so I could move in?”
“No, I thought we’d stay in here together.” He pats the mattress. “Just you and me spooning all night long.”
The thought triggers a response. I’m just not going to admit which kind. Instead, I channel everything into a fierce glare that gets my point across.
“Yes, I’m staying across the hall,” he says seriously, “but I promise this room is clean. There are fresh sheets on the bed, and I deep-cleaned the bathroom this morning.”
Never in my life have I heard a man say he deep-cleaned the bathroom, let alone a cowboy saying he deep-cleaned the bathroom. He might’ve unwittingly created a new fantasy: a man wearing a cowboy hat while holding a toilet brush and Lysol cleaner. I shake the thought away.
“Hess, I can’t take your bedroom.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s your room in your house. You can’t sleep on an air mattress for six months.”
“It’s only for a few days. I’ll get a bed next week. Besides, I’m not taking the nicer bedroom and bathroom just because it’s my house. Anita Taylor raised me better than that. For the next six months, this is your house too. I want you to feel comfortable.”
“Thank you.” Really, I guess I should be thanking Anita Taylor for raising a gentleman, because this master bedroom is pretty luxurious. “It’s only temporary, so…”
He nods to the hallway. “Do you want to see the rest of the place?”
I throw my purse onto the mattress. “Sure.”
“There are two other bedrooms back there, but they’re empty.
” He points down the hallway in the opposite direction.
“And you already saw the living room.” We walk back out to the main area where he tugs the two glass doors, pulling them open.
“There’s an outdoor kitchen here, but it’s getting too hot outside to use it. Maybe in October or November.”
His words are like a throat punch, stealing my breath. October and November. I can’t even wrap my head around living here that long.
“It’s only temporary,” I mutter to myself.
“You have to stop saying that.”
“What?”
“The temporary thing. It’s getting old.”
My mouth opens to defend myself, but Hess has already moved on. “Feel free to use the pool whenever you want.”
I keep my expression even, though I am excited for that perk. My eyes drift around the rest of the backyard. Beyond the pool and dirt road is a corral attached to a shade cover with steel panels and a metal roof, providing enough shade to keep the sun off the animals.
“Do I count two horses out there?”
“Yes, that’s Cactus Jack and Daisy Duke. You can ride them if you want.”
“That’s okay. I don’t do smelly animals—or even non-smelly animals, for that matter.”
“That’s going to be a problem.”
My brows hover in confusion. “Why?”
He scratches behind his ear. “You haven’t met Harvey yet.”
“Who’s Harvey?”
“My golden retriever.”
“You have a dog?” As soon as I say the words, the animal spawns, running toward me. I brace myself for contact as he leaps forward, paws on my hips.
“He’s just a giant puppy.”
Giant is right.
“Down!” My hands lift, and I try to back away. “Down!”
“Harvey, c’mon!” Hess wrangles the animal by pulling on his collar and nudging him away. “Go play.” We both watch the dog run to the corral and bark at the horses. “You’ll love him the more you get to know him.”
I brush off my linen shorts. “I doubt it.”
“That's where Selena plans to have her wedding.” He points to the barn. “Do you want to go see it?”
“Nope.” I walk past him back inside the house, where the AC is flowing. “I’m still hoping I can convince her to call off the wedding.”
“If she didn’t listen to you before, she’s certainly not going to take your advice once our secret marriage gets exposed.”
“She’s not going to find out about our secret marriage.” I keep walking, finding my way to the kitchen, glancing over the wooden cupboards and dark-granite countertops. “That’s the point of it being a secret.”
“Wait. I thought it wasn’t a secret anymore. That we had to prove that we’re trying.”
“We have to prove to Judge Perry, but to everyone else we can just keep things on the down low.”
“So you’re not going to tell Selena?”
I turn around and rest my back against the kitchen island, facing him. “I’m not going to announce this marriage to the world. It’s on a need-to-know basis. Just because we’re living together doesn’t change things.”