Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
WILLA
Without a single word, Beau followed us into the silo, the door clicked shut behind him, and then it was just the three of us in this too-small space.
He gave our home a cursory glance. “Nice, but it’s a little small, don’t you think?”
My spine snapped straight, that defensiveness coming out, but Lincoln settled a hand on the small of my back, his touch calming my ire just slightly.
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “We don’t need a lot of room since it’s just the two of us.”
Beau hummed and slid his attention to me. “Would’ve been nice to know you’d rented out our childhood home and moved over here, Willa. But I guess you were too busy dodging my calls and texts to let me know.” His voice was sharp, but there was an underlying edge of hurt he couldn’t hide.
Fuck.
He was right—I should’ve told him. But if I’d told him that, then I would’ve had to admit the reason I needed to rent out the house was because of the overdue bills.
And the overdue bills were because I wasn’t able to produce enough on the farm.
And I wasn’t able to produce enough because my body hated me.
And if he’d known all that, he would’ve come storming back to Starlight Cove, leaving his dream behind like the hero he was.
And I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.
I’d rather be the sister who shut him out than the one who held him back.
“Cut the shit,” he said, his voice sharp. “You might have the retiree renters fooled, but not me. This marriage is about as real as Dad claiming he taught the goats to sort laundry.”
I remembered that story. Beau and I had been maybe nine or ten, and my dad had sworn up and down for a week he’d done it. Even then when we were so young, we’d called him on his bullshit.
My heart lurched and my stomach bottomed out. I opened my mouth to respond, my words tripping over themselves. “It’s not— It’s not fake-fake—it’s… Complicated. There’s this grant—”
“A grant? Are you out of your goddamn minds?” he asked, each word landing like a blow. “This is your plan? Marry my best friend for money? Did you even think about what this would do to him? To you?”
I glanced at Lincoln, who stood still, his arms crossed, jaw tight. Expression utterly unreadable.
Turning back to Beau, I said, “It’s not like that.”
He huffed out a humorless laugh. “It’s exactly like that.
What about the future? Did you think about that?
About the two of you being exes in a town this small?
Spending the next fifty years bumping into each other at bonfires and farmers markets and pretending this—” he gestured around the tiny silo “—never happened?”
The thought made my eyes sting, my chest tightening over the idea of a future where Lincoln wasn’t mine.
Beau turned his attention to Lincoln, his gaze narrowed. “And you. I thought you had a brain in that pretty head. You let this happen?”
Lincoln’s shoulders tightened, a silent crack in his composed facade. “I didn’t just let it happen. I chose it. Because I care about her.”
“Then you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.” Beau took a step closer, voice cold as he stared Lincoln down. “Admit it—you went along with this sham marriage for your benefit, not hers.”
Lincoln’s jaw twitched—the barest reaction, but I saw it. Beau did too.
“And what happens if the grant goes through and you get the money?” he asked. “This fake matrimony has to end sometime, so what then? You think you’ll just amicably separate? Have a nice, clean fake divorce?”
“You think I haven’t thought about that every damn day?” Lincoln said, his voice harsh.
Beau pressed his mouth together in a thin line and shook his head. “Not enough to make you come to your senses, apparently.”
Panic clawed its way up my throat, and my pulse raced.
This was going even worse than I’d anticipated, and I’d feared something bad.
But this? My brother was more upset than I’d thought he’d be.
And if we couldn’t get him to come around…
if he said one thing to the wrong person…
This could all implode in our faces before the grant was approved.
“Beau, stop,” I snapped, my composure long gone. “I’m not going to let you ruin this.”
Lincoln stepped closer, settling in next to me, his hand a comforting, grounding weight against my spine.
“The grant isn’t even approved yet,” I continued, “and if anyone hears about this, we’re fucked.”
Lincoln stiffened, then slowly turned to face me, his brows drawn down. “Are you serious right now?” he asked. His voice was low, but his tone scraped against me like sandpaper over skin.
He was looking at me like I’d just happily kicked the air out of his lungs. Like I wasn’t the woman who’d shared a bed with him every night for two months or laughed with his family over Sunday night dinners. Like I wasn’t his wife…even if we were only supposed to be pretending.
“With everything we’re talking about, the fucking grant is what you’re concerned about?”
“That’s not—” I started, then swallowed hard. Because the grant was what this whole thing was about. It was why we were here in the first place. Why Lincoln and I wore matching wedding bands, why we’d shared this too-tiny space for so long.
Even if I wanted it to be something else.
But that was too scary to voice right now, in the midst of everything else. So, instead, I allowed myself to give him a lie wrapped in truth.
“It was supposed to be business,” I whispered.
Lincoln’s entire body went still. Completely, utterly still. And then he exhaled once, a short, tired sound, and ran a hand through his hair. “I really thought we were past pretending, hellcat.”
He didn’t glance at my brother. Didn’t kiss me goodbye. Instead, he strode toward the door, turned the knob, and walked out into the night without looking back.
The door shut behind him with a quiet finality that hurt worse than anything Beau had said. Worse than the possibility of losing the grant. Worse than the fear of everything tumbling down, of me fucking up and costing my family our legacy.
Worse than any of it. Worse than all of it.
I stood there, staring at the empty space my husband left behind, and found it hard to breathe.
And then the floor creaked as my brother took a step toward me, and I took out every ounce of my anger and hurt and devastation on him.
“You asshole.” I braced my hands flat on his chest and shoved, hard. “What the hell was that?”
“That was me trying to protect my best friend and my sister from themselves,” he snapped back. “You two are being stupid, and you can’t even see it.”
“Stupid? You have a lot of nerve saying that to me. You’ve been gone for years, Beau.
Years. And I’ve been running this place alone.
Breaking my back—literally—to keep it afloat.
And you have the fucking audacity to show up now and lecture me like I haven’t been bleeding every fucking day for this family? ”
Beau’s eyes flashed, shame and anger mixing in their depths. “Because you never told me you needed help!”
I laughed, but the sound came out as a sob, my throat clogged with emotion. “Because I didn’t think I could! You were halfway around the world, saving babies and being a goddamn saint! You think I was going to tell you the farm was in trouble?”
Silence fell around us, both of us primed and ready for a fight. Until, all at once, Beau’s shoulders slumped and he dragged a hand over his mouth, his eyes locked with mine.
“I would’ve helped,” he said softly. “You could’ve told me you were in trouble. You didn’t have to drag Lincoln into this.”
“I didn’t drag him. He jumped.” I tried to blink back the tears threatening to fall, but one escaped anyway. “And now he’s gone.”
“Fuck,” Beau muttered, stepping close to grip my upper arms. “What do you need?”
I didn’t answer right away. I’d heard that question from him before, too many times to count. After Dad died. After I took over the farm. After Mom bailed and moved to Florida, leaving us. After he left me too. And every time, I’d said nothing. I didn’t need anything.
I could handle it all on my own.
But I didn’t have it in me to pretend anymore.
“I need him,” I said, voice trembling as I admitted my worst fear aloud. “I need Lincoln.”
Beau recoiled like I’d slapped him. “That fucking guy?”
“You mean your best fucking friend?” I glared at him, even through my tears, and punched him in the stomach. “Yes, idiot!”
He doubled over with a soft, “Oof,” before raising his hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll find him.”
The second he left, the silo felt too quiet. Too still.
Too empty.
I sank onto one of the armchairs, unable to stop the tears, more lost than I’d ever been.
This was always supposed to be fake. A simple fix. A contract. A strategy. But somewhere between our first practice kiss and him building me an outdoor soaking tub like something out of a fairy tale, it became real.
And now that he’d walked out? The fear of losing the farm had nothing on this feeling inside me. Because with Lincoln gone?
It felt like I’d lost everything.