Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Mira
“Don’t you dare think about opening that door,” Hartley says, grinning at me from the driver’s seat of his truck.
I pull my hand away from the handle. “I apologize for the audacity.”
“As you should.”
He gets out, straightening his shirt as he moves around the front of the vehicle. A woman nearly trips over her own feet as she ogles him walking by her. It’s wholly satisfying that he doesn’t even glance her way.
“My lady,” he says, opening my door. He offers me a hand, which I promptly take if for no other reason than to remind the women milling about the park that this man is mine. Who knew pretending could be so fun? “I need to grab something from the bed. Hang on just a sec.”
I watch as he fiddles around in the back of his truck, admiring the way his biceps fill out the black fabric of his long-sleeved T-shirt.
“There we go.” He extracts a picnic basket and blanket and then shuts the tailgate. “Ready?”
I lift a brow, grinning. “A picnic? I thought we were just here for music.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” He grins back and stops inches in front of me. His scent is warm and addictive—less like cologne, and more like temptation wrapped in enough safety to make me reckless, if I’m not careful. “People are watching, so we should probably hold hands.”
My eyes grow wide for a split second, but I’m quick to catch myself. “Of course.”
His palm slips against mine, and our fingers lace together.
His skin is calloused and hard against my overly moisturized hands.
The contact sends shock waves barreling through my body, ending at my toes.
Holding his hand was always one of my favorite things.
The way his fingers fold across mine and gently press into my skin?
I’ve never felt more protected than when I’m connected to him in this way.
Hartley leads me to the center of the park where the band is warming up.
Children run carefree, playing tag and hide-and-go-seek.
Adults sit on blankets and in lawn chairs with coolers and red wagons by their side.
We collect twelve congratulations before we find an open, fairly private spot near the edge of the grass.
“Are you doing okay?” Hartley asks, taking his hand from mine. Instantly, I miss the contact. “Can you hold the basket?”
“Sure.” I take it so he can spread the blanket on the ground. It’s cream colored with faint yellow knots in the center of each square. “This is so pretty.”
“I’ve had it forever,” he says, taking the basket and placing it on the blanket. “I think it might’ve been Cathy’s.”
We sit next to each other as the band starts playing.
“I love that Cathy and Bobby still work for you,” I say, tossing my hair over my shoulder.
“They’re like family.”
He stretches his long legs out in front of him while looking over his shoulder at me. Without a hat casting shadows across his face, his eyes are brighter. Gold flecks kiss the deep brown irises like someone spilled glitter in them. They’re beautiful.
“I had a long talk with Cathy today,” he says, the corner of his lips lifting.
“Oh, really? What about?”
“About what happens after the wedding.”
My brows furrow as I look up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, you see, I’ve never had a woman around before—certainly not living with me. And she wanted to know what you, as the woman of the house, wanted from her.”
Me? Woman of the house?
I force a swallow and switch my attention to the band. It’s a small group, and I don’t know a lot about music, but it sounds pretty good. And the people around us seem to be enjoying themselves, too. It’s easy to tell when you can see their smiles … because they’re looking straight at you.
Oof.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” I say, turning back to Hartley.
“She doesn’t want to step on your toes, that’s all.”
“I appreciate that, but I don’t want to come in and change how you run your home. I’m sure however you do it now is fine.”
His eyes soften, but a shield is up. “It’ll be your home, too. At least for the next twelve months.”
“Which is why I don’t want to get in the way,” I say carefully.
He nods, taking a breath, before he opens the picnic basket.
Our exchange hangs in the air as he takes out two glass bottles of Coke and an assortment of snacks.
I replay our exchange a few times, trying to figure out what part of it went wrong.
I’m not going to be there after our divorce—something I never thought I’d have and that feels wrong to consider—and I was just trying to be respectful of his space.
But maybe it’s important to Hartley that I feel comfortable in his home. That would be on par for him.
“You know what?” I say, taking a slice of a pinwheel from a container. “It’s impossible to know what I’d like her to do until I move in. And I’m sure she’ll be helpful in getting to know your routine a little better.”
I knock his shoulder with mine, making him smile.
“Hey! Can I have one?” A little red-haired boy stops in front of us. A ball is tucked under his arm as he smiles a wide, toothless smile at Hartley. “I love sandwiches.”
“Sure.” He takes two pieces and hands them to the boy. “Is that enough?”
“Yup! Thanks!” He runs off, shoving both pieces into his mouth with his dirty little hands.
“I guess stranger danger isn’t a thing here anymore,” I say, laughing. “I remember getting that beat into us when we were little kids.”
“I know that kid. That’s Cody.” He looks up in the direction the boy ran and nods. “His dad works at the feed store. Tucker Lewis. Remember him? He was a grade ahead of us in school.”
A light bulb goes off in my head. “Oh, yeah. I do remember him. He always wore that big belt buckle, and everyone called him Bucky.”
Hartley laughs. “I forgot about that.”
“A bunch of memories are coming back to me. Do you remember the night we all went out to the train trestle? And Brooks was trying to get someone to bet him that he could run across it without falling into the river.”
“I forgot about that. What an idiot.”
I giggle, remembering all the shenanigans from the past. I haven’t thought about these things in such a long time that it almost feels like a different lifetime. The people, the places—I had a whole life here at one point, and now I hardly know anyone, it seems. Why does that feel so weird?
“Oh, my goodness,” Wendy Watters says, stopping in front of us. I remember her well. Class president, cheerleader, and altogether good person. I always liked Wendy. “It’s so good to see you, Mira. How have you been?” She glances at Hartley and smirks. “Aside from the obvious, of course.”
I shrug happily. “I’m good. Things are good. How are you? You look fantastic.”
Her smile stretches from ear to ear. “Thank you. I had my last birthday and gained ten pounds and acne. How is that fair?” She sighs. “Add in two kids and a husband, and I have a few gray hairs, too.”
“I’ve heard gray hairs come with the husband and kids’ territory.”
“From what I hear,” she says, like we’re sharing a secret, “you’re about to find out all about that.”
That’s a segue if I’ve ever heard one.
Hartley lazily places a hand behind me, so it appears like I’m tucked against his side. I am closer, the distance between our bodies wide enough to maybe slide a piece of paper through. My heart pounds beneath my ribs as I breathe him in. He, on the other hand, feels as steady as ever.
“You heard right,” I say, resting my head against Hartley’s shoulder. “We’re getting married this week.”
“Let me see your ring. I’m sure you had fun choosing that.”
Oh. Shit. I ball my fingers into the blankets, not wanting her to see my bare hand.
“I’m picking it up tomorrow,” Hartley says coolly. “We had to have it sized.”
“Of course,” Wendy says. “Well, I bet it’s stunning. But I’ll leave you two alone. I just wanted to come over and say hi to you, Mira, and tell you both congratulations. I think I speak for the whole town when I say that we’ve been waiting on this.”
What do you mean you’ve been waiting on this? I haven’t been in town for more than a couple of days in years. How could you possibly have been waiting on it?
“It was good to see you,” I say, confused but trying hard not to show it.
“Thanks, Wendy,” Hartley says before she heads toward the monkey bars.
Once she’s out of earshot, I sigh and sit upright. “That was some nice quick thinking about the ring. I haven’t thought about what to say if someone asked about that. Think we can just say it’s being sized for a year?”
Hartley smiles, taking a sip of his Coke. He watches me over the bottle. There’s a glimmer in his eyes that makes my stomach swirl.
“What?” I ask, picking up a strawberry.
“What what?”
“What’s that look?” I ask.
He holds up a container of fluffy white dip. “Try this with your strawberry. Cathy makes it. I don’t know what’s in it, but it’s amazing.”
I do as instructed, and it is, as promised, fantastic. “Okay, Cathy can keep making this. Make sure she knows that.”
Hartley laughs, placing the bowl between us.
“Now, what’s that look about?” I ask. “Also, can I double dip, or does that gross you out?”
“I think we crossed that line years ago, darlin’.”
My gaze snaps to his because I know exactly what he’s talking about. Betsy Barn. A bottle of strawberry wine. Hartley’s mouth on every single inch of my body.
His eyes are dark, the gold flecks hidden in the browns as he looks at me. They never leave mine. Not when goose bumps ripple across my skin. Not when the memory hits hard enough to make me shiver. And certainly not when my lips part to allow in a rush of cool air to help regulate my temperature.
He reaches up, brushing his thumb across the corner of my mouth.
The touch is barely there. And despite being in a public space filled with people, the act is as intimate as it gets. My pulse sputters as I lean into him before I can stop myself, caught in this strange space between the past and the present where one wrong move can ruin us both.
“You had some dip there,” he says, exhaling and ripping his eyes from mine.
I deflate, closing my eyes. I came too close to forgetting this isn’t real.
“That was my fault,” he says, clearing his throat.
“No harm, no foul.” I scoot a little farther away from him, reaching for my Coke so I have something to do with my hands. “So, what are you doing tomorrow? Markie’s making me get my hair and nails done, which is totally unnecessary, I think.”
“Unnecessary or not, enjoy it. Markie’s your big sister. She probably wants to be a part of this … even if it’s not real.” He takes a couple of grapes from the basket. “Does she know that? Or does she think we’re actually doing this?”
“She knows the truth. Lolly explained the plan to Markie before she told us.”
He nods as if he’s processing that. “Well, I didn’t tell Gray the truth.”
“You could’ve.”
“Yeah, but we agreed to make it believable, and I don’t want to ruin my chances at the land by telling Gray something that he didn’t need to know.” He glances over his shoulder at me. “If that makes sense.”
It sure does. It means you’re doing this ultimately for the land, which I knew … and better be sure to remember.
“I have to run to Nashville tomorrow,” he says. “And then the wedding’s Thursday, and I thought we could leave from there and head to Kentucky. Sound good?”
It sounds so mechanical when he says it like that. First we do this, then that, then this other thing. I hate that it bothers me. But even more, I hate that this stopped feeling like a transaction for a moment.
“Sure,” I say.
“I put Bobby in charge for the weekend at the ranch, but I really need to be back by Sunday.”
“Of course. I get it. I put a vacation responder on my email and website yesterday so I could navigate this week. But I’m going to have to get back to work on Monday, too.”
He smiles at me. “We’ll set up an office somewhere in the house for you.”
“I’d like that.”
Hartley leans back again, with his arm behind me, and I let myself lean against him. The townspeople are watching, after all.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.