A Marriage Pact for the Cowboy (Sweet River Ranch #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

M axwell Sullivan hung back in his class reunion’s meet-and-greet and scanned the crowd. Who were all these people who seemed to know each other, and why had he come? He hadn’t been back to Kansas all that often since graduating from high school ten years ago, much to his mother’s dismay.

He shouldn’t have come now, either. No one in the teeming gymnasium of Gilead High School would have spared a thought if he wasn’t here. Oh, his name might have cropped up in an occasional ‘remember when’ story, but quite possibly not even that.

“Sullivan? Is that you?” A man with a toddler on his arm stopped in front of him.

“Yes, and you…?” Maxwell scraped his memory down to the bone and couldn’t come up with the guy’s name. Why hadn’t they handed out name tags? Probably because everyone else still knew each other.

“Brandt. Stuart Brandt. Hey, man. It’s good to see you. Remember Joanie Thompson? She’s around here somewhere. I married her, and we have four kids now.”

“Oh, yeah? Congrats, Stuart. Good to see you.” Not that they’d hung out in the same crowd back then. He remembered Joanie, though. Flirty cheerleader. She’d actually settled down?

Maxwell felt old. And very, very single.

Stuart turned. “Reeder! Get over here. Remember Sullivan?”

In minutes, half a dozen guys stood around him. Seemed most of them still lived in Gilead and had married their high school sweethearts.

Stuart turned to Maxwell “What have you been up to?”

Maxwell shrugged. “I spent a few years flipping houses, but I’m living in Montana now, renovating and building cottages at my grandfather’s guest ranch.”

Garth Reeder blinked. “Your grandfather is a rancher? I thought he was a rich hotel mogul in the Windy City.”

The dude didn’t have to sound so snarky about it. The other guys didn’t need to chuckle. “A guest ranch is a lot like a hotel. Just another business venture in hospitality.”

“Montana, huh?” Stuart laughed. “That’s a long way from Gilead, Kansas.”

In more ways than these guys could ever imagine. Maxwell had wiped the dust of the Plains off his feet and jetted off to Chicago before the ink on his diploma had dried.

There was only one reason he was back in town now. Okay, two.

His mother had begged, cajoled, and coerced him. Maybe Mom was three reasons all by herself.

And he was mildly curious about the Ralston twins: Amelia, in particular. He’d kind of had a thing for her back in the day, not that he’d made a single effort to keep in touch. Too focused. Too busy.

“There’s Eryn Ralston now.” Stuart jutted his chin toward the door. “Remember her?”

The other twin. The quiet one.

She stood chatting with the person behind the registration table, but she constantly glanced around. How many times had she tucked her long blond hair behind her ear by now? Three? Four? Man, she looked nervous.

Maxwell could relate. He felt as at home in the boardroom as in the midst of a rubble-filled house, but neither was daunting compared to facing the kids he’d known the first 18 years of his life.

“Yeah, I remember Eryn. Is Amelia around somewhere?”

“Oh, man. Didn’t you hear?” Stuart’s voice lowered ominously.

“Hear what?”

“You know Mrs. Ralston was killed in that accident when we were kids — eighth grade, I think?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, the same thing happened to Amelia in exactly the same intersection.”

Maxwell took a step back. “Amelia is dead ?”

“A couple of years ago now.”

“No way.” And how had Mom never passed the news on to Maxwell? Maybe she’d forgotten the twins had been in his class. Or maybe she’d finally believed that he didn’t care about anyone from back then. “That’s awful. How did Eryn take it?”

“Not real well. Her dad isn’t doing so great either.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Yeah, it’s been rough for them.” Stuart shook his head.

Eryn turned to survey the room and seemed to shrink into herself. Her gaze swept Maxwell without pausing. Maybe she didn’t recognize him. He certainly wouldn’t have known her anywhere outside of this class reunion in Gilead. Maybe not even here if Stuart hadn’t pointed her out.

“I should talk to her.” He didn’t wait for a reply before skirting the group of guys and heading toward the blonde. “Eryn? I just found out your sister passed away. Please accept my condolences.”

She turned and looked at him. “I’m sorry — you are…?”

“Maxwell Sullivan. I remember some Halloween parties and sleigh rides out at your farm when we were kids.”

“Max? I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

“I wouldn’t have known you, either.” Not a chance. The willowy blonde in front of him barely resembled the awkward girl with braces on her teeth he’d known back then. She’d been shy, too, more focused on studying than dating. No twins could have been less alike.

“Yeah, Amelia’s passing… that was a huge shock. It’s just Dad and me now.” Her smile seemed forced.

“I bet it’s been hard.” Maxwell knew a bit about that.

“You lost one of your brothers, too.”

“I did.” Maxwell shook his head, trying to dislodge the memories of discovering his oldest brother and his wife had been killed in a helicopter crash almost two years ago. Maybe that’s why Mom hadn’t mentioned Amelia — she’d been too busy mourning her son and taking care of the toddler he’d left behind. “He was seven years older than me, though. We weren’t super close. Not like a twin.”

Eryn released a shuddering breath. “We had our good and bad moments, of course. We were very different in every way. Still, we were twins, you know?”

“I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much else to say about that.

“And I was sorry to hear about Wally and his wife. They left a baby, right?”

“Yes, Jamie. My brother Tate and his wife adopted him. He’s doing well.” It wasn’t like a three-year-old could miss the parents he’d spent so little time with.

“That’s good. I remember when Tate had a part in the college passion play here — year before last, I think? He was the apostle Peter. Did a great job.”

“I flew in for the final performance, and you’re right. He was good.” Tate was good at everything he did. Made it hard to live up to him, actually. “Funny story. Tate and his wife named their baby Simon Peter. I think Tate wanted to keep reliving his glory days.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” Eryn smiled. “So, um, I haven’t seen you around in like forever.”

“I went to work for my grandfather in Chicago right after high school. My dad and my brothers lived there at the time. You?”

She sighed. “I haven’t been anywhere at all. I started busing tables at Debby’s Diner during high school, and I’ve moved all the way up to assistant cook.”

“Hey, good for you!”

Eryn shook her head. “It’s not my dream come true.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Maxwell’s curiosity surprised him. His dad would never have put up with him if he’d decided to stick around Gilead to take on a job in service, but Dad loved eating out. Didn’t he realize someone had to facilitate his lifestyle? It didn’t do to think of oneself as better than someone else just because he had money, and the other person’s job was to cater to him.

“I don’t even know. I’ve never had the chance to find out.” Eryn brushed her hair aside as though she removed her concerns with it and smiled at him. “It doesn’t matter. So, you’re living in Chicago?”

“Not anymore. Montana is home now.”

She blinked. “Montana? They call it Big Sky Country, but can it really compare to Kansas?”

Maxwell chuckled. “I live in the hills just west of the Continental Divide. The skies are wider in the east. I’ve driven across the state a few times on my way to and from Chicago, and it lives up to its nickname.”

Was that wistfulness on Eryn’s face? How did someone go her entire life and not get to experience life outside her birthplace?

Maxwell wouldn’t wish divorced parents on anyone, but having two distinctly separate homes had broadened his horizons right there.

Eryn Ralston studied the man before her. Memories of Maxwell Sullivan from childhood zipped through her mind, and time had only been good to him. He’d always been slight of build. Now his shoulders had broadened, and those were real muscles visible below the sleeves of his T-shirt. What did he do for a living with biceps like that? The Sullivans had money. There’d be no need for him to take on a menial job.

Not like her.

She needed to say something. Do something, anything besides stare at him. “Your family has a chain of hotels, right? Is that where you work?”

Maxwell nodded. “My grandfather is over 80, but he still heads up the company. My dad and my uncle work for him. I guess all the grandsons do, too, though I struck out on my own for a while.”

Eryn tried to imagine a business that employed all its family members. It sure wasn’t a wheat farm in Kansas like Dad’s. He’d been barely hanging in there before the medical bills from Amelia’s accident tipped the balance. Not helpful. Eryn blocked the thought. “Oh? What did you do?”

He shook his head with a self-deprecating smile.

Was that a dimple? How had she not ever noticed a dimple on him back when they were kids? Yeah, he’d been Amelia’s thing. If Eryn had learned anything in life, it was never to compete with her twin. Amelia would win, and Eryn would lose. The rules had been simple and reinforced often until Eryn had been trained.

She pulled her attention back to Maxwell, who was speaking.

“I didn’t go to college, much to my father’s dismay. I found I was good at construction when working on renovations on one of the Sullivan hotels, so I struck out on my own. My crew and I flipped a bunch of houses, and then Grandfather bought a guest ranch in Montana and summoned all us boys out there to fix up the place and put it on the map. I’ve been working there the past eighteen months now.”

“That sounds cool. I love watching those house flipper shows.”

He laughed. “It’s not like that in real life. We don’t gut and renovate a three-thousand-square-foot house to move-in-ready in a week. And the pace is different at the ranch, too. Some of my crew members didn’t want to leave the Chicago area, but the ones who stuck with me have been a real asset as we rehab cottages and build new ones. And my grandfather has vision. Next year we’ll be adding eight treehouses for guests. That will be a fun challenge.”

Eryn tried to imagine the beauty and the delights of that sort of life. Failed utterly. Seeing it would be like Dorothy transported to the wonders of Oz, but that was only a fairy tale. Dorothy might have said there was no place like home — meaning Kansas — but Eryn wasn’t sure she’d feel the same if she could escape.

“Someday I’d like to see a place like that. It sounds… delightful.”

Maxwell studied her for a moment. “I like Montana a whole lot more than I thought I would. You should come out there sometime. Take a vacation.”

Eryn forced a laugh. “That’s a nice dream. I can’t even remember the last vacation I took.”

His grin was lopsided. “Then it’s high time, don’t you think?”

“If only.” She needed a change of topic. Stat. A rich guy like Maxwell — oh, yes, she remembered the Sullivan money — could never understand the realities of the life she wallowed in. Every penny she or Dad earned went into trying to keep the farm afloat.

Eryn didn’t need Maxwell Sullivan figuring out her secret and feeling sorry for her. Pity was the worst.

She’d had enough of it to last a lifetime by being the twin left behind. Everyone talked about Amelia’s bright light being dimmed too soon. Had it been Eryn? No one would even have missed her.