Chapter 14
JONAH
“If you won’t do it, then I’ll find someone who will,” Winnie says resolutely.
Immediately, I picture her in a white dress, walking down the aisle with some unnamed asshole at the other end. Whoever he is, I’m sure he’s not good enough. And I know all of the men in Star Mountain—none of them are good enough for her.
And you are? a voice in my head chides.
Well, I’m a hell of a lot better than the alternatives. I won’t take advantage of her.
“No you won’t,” I bark.
Winnie’s eyebrows fly up. “Excuse me? Who said you had a say in this?”
“You did. When you asked me to marry you to the tune of a hundred grand.”
“I asked for your help,” she says primly. “Not your advice. If I was in need of a man who thought he knew better than me, they’re a dime a dozen.”
“Do you even know any other single men in Star Mountain?” I ask.
“Sure I do. Tomás.”
“And you want to marry him?”
“No, but I don’t really want to marry you either.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “Well, I have news for you. If you marry Tomás you’ll be marrying into his enormous family, and his mom and his abuela are going to have a hell of a lot of questions for you.”
Winnie frowns. “Well I’m sure it can’t be that difficult to find a man who will marry me. Especially if I offer him money.”
“That’s the problem, Winnie. It won’t be difficult at all. Not for a woman like you. Who looks like a damn super model and who is all inviting smiles and warmth. Most men would agree to marry you without the money.”
“I still don’t see what the problem is.” She starts to stand up as if to leave, but I pull her back down gently, clasping her wrist in my hand. When she sits, it’s even closer to me than she was before, our knees now knocking together.
“Most men are pigs. Most men would marry you, and then treat you worse than you deserve. They’d take advantage of you.”
“And you wouldn’t?” Her blue eyes flash as she levels me with a challenging stare.
“No, sweetheart. I wouldn’t.” I meet her gaze head on.
“How would you treat me, then?” She flutters her lashes.
“Like…like something precious, alright?”
“Oh,” Winnie says, her pink lips dropping open a bit.
“I’d treat any woman I married like that,” I add.
“So you’ll do it?”
“Who’s the dog with the bone, now?” I ask, referring back to our conversation from the other day.
“Just answer the question,” she says.
I think about everything I could do with a hundred grand.
I could pay off the sixty-thousand my mom still owes to the hospital.
And then I could finally take the time to record that album I’ve always dreamed of putting out.
I could hire a band and book studio space.
I could afford to take more than one day off every few weeks, and I could play gigs somewhere other than the Horseshoe’s open mic night.
“Fine,” I say, before I can talk myself back out of it. “I’ll do it. Against my better judgment.”
“Yessss!” Winnie squeals. “Thank you, Jonah.”
And then she’s leaning in and giving me a hug. Instinct has me wrapping my arms around her and pulling her in. The scent of her shampoo fills my nose, and her body is soft and warm against mine. Her face is pressed into my neck and for a brief moment I feel her breath on me.
She pulls away, and looks at me with a straight face once more. “Should we iron out the details?”
“We can go to the county courthouse on Monday,” I croak, suddenly parched.
“And I’ll call the estate right after,” she says.
“We’re really doing this?”
“Yes,” Winnie nods. “We’re really doing this.”
I just nod.
Winnie stands up, and walks through my living room and into my kitchen. I trail behind her, with no clue what she’s up to now. She looks around the kitchen until she spots the small bar cart I have in the corner.
“Aha,” she says, and picks up a bottle of whiskey from it. “This okay for me to use?”
“Hey, what’s mine is yours now, right?”
Winnie digs around in my cabinets and finds two glasses, and then pours a healthy measure of alcohol into each.
“Here,” she says, holding one of the glasses out to me. “You look like you need it. And honestly? So do I.”
We clink glasses and I say, “To getting married.”
“To getting married,” she repeats, putting the glass to her lips and gulping some of it down.
And then she chokes on the burn of the alcohol and coughs it up all over herself, because I guess pageant queens aren’t used to drinking their whiskey neat.
I let out a laugh, unable to help myself. “Come here,” I say, motioning at her.
She takes a step towards me, and I pull a clean kitchen towel off of the pile on the counter and then start wiping off her chin.
She looks up at me, blue eyes wide, as I soak up the whiskey.
I tilt her chin up and swipe at the last few drops.
A shiver seems to pass through her, and she takes a step back from me.
“Thanks,” she says quietly.
“No problem. We’ll working on drinking whiskey together once we get married, okay pageant queen?”
Once Winnie leaves, I sit at my kitchen table and pick up the piece that I started whittling earlier. I grab my knife, the wooden handle warm and smooth in my palm, and start on the face of the figurine. It’s part of a chess set I’ve been working on, and this piece is a knight.
As I carve and shave the wood, my mind starts to quiet, and I think about how I’m going to tell my parents that I’m getting married. To a woman they’ve never met, who I haven’t dated, and who I’ve only known for two weeks. Okay, fine. It sounds insane when you put it like that.
But I can’t just tell them the truth, either.
I can’t say that I’m marrying Winnie for money, and so that she doesn’t end up married to some asshole.
They’ll understand that even less, and will probably try and stop me from paying the hospital bills.
They only begrudgingly accept my help as it is—there’s no way they’ll take sixty grand from me.
I set the finished piece down in front of me and sigh.
It looks like I’m left with trying to convince them that Winnie and I are in love.