Chapter 7
Hayes
I tried to focus on the market rates that had just come in, demanding my attention. But no amount of blinking and looking at the charts could make me focus on my job.
Catherine was perfect and she had said no.
Technically, she said no and then said she’d think about it.
Catherine was the only woman who could do this. The fabricated story would be believable. She came back to Honey Hollow to be with her mom. I came back for my granddad. We bonded in grief. Easy peasy.
But it wasn’t just the convenience of the lie. Catherine was composed. She was well-spoken, but funny. She was gracious and graceful. She knew when to play the game and when to let her guard down.
If I had to go through with this nightmare, I didn’t want to be tethered to someone I’d be miserable around.
Even though the marriage was a farce, we would have to be seen together on occasion.
Though we had only been together a few times, being in Catherine’s presence wouldn’t be a burden in the least. It was easy to be around her.
She had a sharp wit that was only outmatched by her passion.
Usually, it took me much longer to become comfortable with someone, but with her it was instantaneous.
Kismet.
I hated dating. The formalities, the metaphorical dance of getting to know each other—it was exhausting.
Maybe that’s why I had proposed to Lynn…
It wasn’t that we were madly in love, though I had tried to convince myself we were. I just didn’t want to be alone. Especially when it felt like I was losing the last of my family.
In hindsight, I could admit that I didn’t propose out of love. I proposed to mitigate risks. Formalizing our partnership was the logical next move. It was less risky to commit than to stay in limbo, wondering when the other shoe would drop and I’d lose someone else.
The joke was on me. I lost her anyway.
I was done putting my heart in someone else’s hands. It was too risky. Keeping it locked away in my rib cage was safer.
The walls began to close in as the last year played in my mind on a loop. I glanced out the window at the rose garden and had just begun to debate if the Wi-Fi would reach far enough for me to take my laptop out there when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” I said as I realized I had completely zoned out and hadn’t actually read anything. I scrolled back to the top of the page to try again.
Hallie poked her head in. “Anything from Catherine yet?”
“No,” I said as I pressed my thumbs into my eye sockets to ease the strain.
Hallie’s forlorn expression matched my own. “I can call her and see where her head’s at.”
“She said she’d think about it. I don’t want to pressure her, but I need her to make a decision soon.”
“Have you started thinking about alternatives?” Hallie asked.
There were no alternatives. I knew it the moment Catherine said she never used the front door.
It had to be her.
“No. I’m going to hold out as long as I can,” I said, then muttered, “which isn’t long.”
Hallie’s pursed smile was sympathetic.
I huffed and leaned back in the desk chair. “Have you heard from her at all?” I asked, exasperated. I thought for sure if Catherine was going to double down on her “no” that she would have done it by now.
Hallie avoided my gaze.
“Hallie,” I said, even though my stern tone was no match for her “mom voice.”
She raised an eyebrow, daring me to use that tone with her ever again.
I lifted my hands and conceded.
“Let’s just say I got a strongly worded text message after she left that was mostly ‘fucks.’ Did you know that ‘fuck’ can be a verb, adjective, noun, and an adverb? Because I’m pretty sure she used it as all of them.”
I chuckled. “I’d like to see that text.”
Hallie scoffed. “Absolutely not. Girl code.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.
Doors slammed, echoing throughout the house. Hallie groaned. “Something wicked this way comes,” she sang under her breath before disappearing.
Lewis quickly and unfortunately took her place. “Where’s the fiancée?” he sneered.
Suddenly, the spreadsheet on my computer screen was the most fascinating thing in the world. “Are you always this uptight and choleric, or is this a new development for you?”
Lewis huffed. “I think it’s a little suspicious that I haven’t seen that blonde around here since the funeral.”
His suspicions were spot-on. I just had to make sure he didn’t know that.
“You do realize that people can live separate lives, right? That when you’re in a relationship, you’re not attached at the hip?
” I glanced up from my computer. “Don’t you have work to do?
You know, with the foundation that you inherited?
Maybe you should stop sticking your nose in my business and start building your own. ”
“Oh, I have been,” he said gleefully. “It’s been a full morning. I gutted the board and hired a consultant to restructure the whole thing. I am absolutely exhausted.”
“You did what?!”
“Like you said.” Lewis pointed to his chest. “It’s my business.”
My phone ringing was the only thing that kept me from ripping him a new one. “Wilder,” I said without looking at the screen.
“Hi, Hayes. It’s Catherine Foster. Hallie gave me your number.” Her tone gave away absolutely nothing.
Lewis was watching me with suspicion in his beady little eyes.
“Sweetheart,” I said as I leaned back in the chair and kicked my foot up onto my knee. “How’s your day going?”
Lewis paled, and I ate up that victory.
There was a long pause on Catherine’s end, probably her debating whether or not I had just had a stroke when I called her sweetheart and if she needed to call 911.
“Lewis is in the room with you, isn’t he?” she guessed.
“That’s right,” I said with a smile.
“He just denied my grant application and cut funding to the Honey Hollow Library. Personally,” she snapped. “Put me on speaker.”
What the fuck? But I went with it, setting the phone down on the desk and tapping the speaker button.
“What are you up to?” I asked as I combed through my emails, mindlessly scrolling so it looked like I was too busy to hold the phone.
“I’m running all over the place to take care of some wedding details,” Catherine said, her irritation quickly masked by a cheery tone.
“I wanted to see if I could steal Hallie from you one day soon? I need someone to go wedding dress shopping with me, and you know how she is about leaving the estate.”
I chuckled. “I’ll make her take a day off.”
“Thanks, babe,” Catherine said, the term of endearment rolling easily off her tongue. “Do you need anything from town?”
“Just you,” I said.
Catherine laughed. “I’ll see you later. Love you.”
My throat constricted. We have to say that to each other…
When I had proposed to my ex-fiancée, it had been a clinical, logical decision—stability, tax breaks, and whatnot. Or at least I tried to convince myself that it had been.
I had said “I love you” before, but it never rolled off my tongue with the familiarity that it had for Catherine, even though she was just pretending. The reality of what I was about to do slammed into me, knocking the wind from my lungs.
I just hoped that Lewis didn’t notice.
“Love you too,” I said, then hung up. I glanced up at Lewis. “Is that proof enough for you?”
He sulked out of the study, slamming the door behind him.
My phone vibrated with a text.
Unknown: Did he buy it?
I added Catherine to my contacts and texted back.
Me: Performance of the century. He’s pissed.
Catherine: Excellent. So am I.
Me: You’re a little scary when you’re pissed.
Catherine: Good. Remember that. Happy wife, happy life.
I laughed as I read her reply.
Me: Are you actually coming by the estate today?
Catherine: Probably not. I hope Lewis doesn’t notice. I’ve got most everything out of my mom’s place and am in the middle of the move-out clean.
Me: Don’t bother. I’ll have Hallie hire a cleaning crew to come in and do it for you.
Catherine: Put your credit card away, Daddy Warbucks. I need to do this myself.
Me: When do I get to see you?
Catherine: Does that offer to live at the estate still stand?
Me: Yes.
Catherine: Is tomorrow too soon? We can work out our story and our ground rules.
Me: See you then.
I set my phone on my desk and tried to take a breath, but it was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
We were actually doing this.
I needed to get some fucking air. Thankfully, the Wilder Estate had plenty of that.
I closed my computer and slipped out from behind the desk. Even though it was only lunchtime, I had already gotten in a full day’s work. A virtual meeting with buyers in Seoul meant I had been up and at ’em since three in the morning.
On days when I was working on someone else’s time zone, I tried to stay awake through the regular workday so that my sleep schedule didn’t get messed up too badly.
Some days it was hard. Today was not one of those days.
A rush of adrenaline after talking to Catherine was the second wind that I needed.
I closed the door to the office and slipped through the house. Hallie’s car was gone, which probably meant she had gone to town to run errands. My loafers squeaked across the spotless kitchen floor as I slipped out the side door, taking long strides down the pebble path.
There were golf carts I could have used to get around the property.
Granddad favored them toward the end of his life when he couldn’t get on horseback.
But today, I needed to stretch my legs. More than that, I needed the rush of riding across the valley at breakneck speeds, feeling each jolt as hooves pounded into the earth.
“Look who it is,” Mason said when I made it down to the stables. “Get tired of looking at the same four walls?”
“Something like that,” I said. “Early morning. Needed to get some air.”
“I’ll say,” Mason said with a chuckle. “I saw lights already on in the estate house when I got up for the day. And I’m an early riser.”
Levi slipped out of a stall, leading a beautiful colt who seemed to eye him with annoyance.
“Morning.” The slap of his farrier’s apron against his blue jeans matched the clop of the horse’s hooves.
He paused a few feet away and looked me up and down as the horse did the same.
“You sure you wanna be down here dressed all fancy?”
I smoothed my hand down the front of my dress shirt. “Honey Hollow has a dry cleaner.”
Levi smirked. “Suit yourself. Good to see you getting out of your hidey-hole.”
“Who’s this?” I asked, nodding toward the massive beast.
“This is Carolina Charisma, but everyone around here calls him Kamikaze,” Levi said, tipping his head toward the animal. “He comes from a long line of derby winners and has the attitude to prove it.”
The horse blustered at the inconvenience of having to wait. I swore he looked at me and rolled his eyes.
“So, he’s an asshole?” I guessed.
“Yep,” Levi said. “But he’s an asshole who makes a lot of money and has a real shot at earning the Roses next year.
He lost his last race by a nose, and he’s taking it out on everyone.
We’re going on a long, romantic stroll around the pasture so he can cool his temper and keep from kicking at me when I go to work on his hooves. ”
I shuffled out of the way. “Well then, don’t let me hold up your flirtation. Best of luck.”
Levi looked around to make sure the coast was clear. “You got a fiancée yet?”
I let out a sharp exhale. “As of ten minutes ago, yes.”
“Good,” Levi said. “I don’t want to lose my house. I like a short commute.”
One thing my granddad had insisted on was sharing the land. He was protective of it but allowed anyone who worked at the property full-time to build on a parcel or live in the estate house, so long as they treated the land with respect.
Hallie and her son lived in the estate house, while Mason and Levi both had cabins up in the foothills.
Levi wasn’t technically an estate employee, but his farrier business had him working on so many of the horses that were boarded on the property that it just made sense for it to be his home base. In return, he provided free care to the few horses that belonged to the estate.
“So, Catherine said yes?” Mason asked.
I nodded.
“Thank God,” he said with a shake of his head. “I was ready to marry you if it meant keeping Lewis from running this place.”
I laughed. “You would have looked great in a white dress.”
Mason stroked his beard with a smirk. “I would, wouldn’t I?” He paused. “So, you’re actually going through with this?”
“She’s moving in tomorrow. We’ll come up with a plan to make it work, but she’s easygoing. It shouldn’t be a big deal.”
Mason nodded. “You couldn’t have picked better, but you definitely could have gotten worse.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said. A rust-colored horse with a stark white patch on its forehead poked its head over a stall door. I had seen the animal grazing in the paddock, but it didn’t act like a racehorse. “Who’s this?”
“That’s Maisey—one of the estate horses. She’s a real sweetheart. Walt got her right before his second stroke.” Mason sighed. “He never got to ride her.”
I opened my palm and let her sniff me up and down. “Hey, darlin’.”
Maisey took a particular interest in my cuff links.
“I’ll bring a treat next time.” I slowly stroked her neck, showing her that I was gentle and trustworthy, but Maisey didn’t seem to need any get-to-know-you time. She practically trembled in delirious delight.
“Take her out whenever you want. She’d like that,” Mason said. “Just be careful. She’s sweet, but she’s not exactly…reliable.”
Nostalgia washed over me as I glanced toward the tack room. Elvis had always been the horse I gravitated toward, but a new challenge was just what I needed.