Chapter 3
Liam
The firehouse kitchen smelled like burnt coffee and regret.
I'd been sitting at the worn table for an hour, working through my third cup of the sludge that passed for caffeine around here.
The stuff had been sitting on the warmer since morning, turning bitter and thick, but I kept drinking it anyway.
Gave my hands something to do. Something to keep me from thinking too hard about what came next, enough to make me lose my grip.
Cal sat across from me, nursing his own mug, not saying much. That was the thing about Cal. He knew when to talk and when to just be there, solid and quiet, letting you work through whatever was eating you without trying to fix it. He always did what needed to be done.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in that flat, institutional glow that made three in the afternoon look like three in the morning.
A few crew members drifted through, grabbing snacks, checking the schedule, but something in my posture must have warned them off.
They took one look at my face and kept moving.
"Three months," I said, the words coming out louder than I intended. "Three months, Cal. That's what I've got."
He nodded without asking what I was talking about. He already knew. I’d told him the same refrain again and again since the lawyer’s call, and Cal had been patient enough to let me circle.
"Patricia called again this morning. Confirmed the deadline was real. If I’m not married by my birthday, Derek gets everything.
" I laughed, but it came out wrong. "My cousin, who hasn't set foot on Murphy land in fifteen years.
The guy who thinks ranching is for people too stupid to make real money.
He's going to sell it to developers, Cal.
Every acre my parents built. Every fence post my father set. Gone."
Cal took a slow sip of his coffee. "Your grandmother didn't know this would happen."
"No." I stared into my mug, watching the dark liquid settle.
"She thought she was helping. When she wrote that will, Claire and I were solid.
Or at least she thought we were solid. Gran saw us together, saw how happy I was, figured the wedding was just a matter of time.
" I shook my head. "She wasn't trying to trap me.
She was trying to look out for me, trying to make sure I didn't end up like the other Murphy men.
Alone on that land until it swallowed them whole. "
"But things didn’t work out the way she planned."
"Yeah." The word tasted bitter. "They didn’t."
I thought about Gran in those last months, how she'd smile whenever Claire came to visit, how she'd pull me aside and whisper about great-grandchildren, about filling the house with noise again. She'd been so sure. So hopeful. She'd died believing I had a future with someone who loved me.
Instead, I had three months and an empty hook where Claire's jacket used to hang.
"She couldn't wait to get back to Denver.
" My voice went raw, scraping against the thing I'd been trying not to say.
"Three years, Cal. Three years of driving back and forth, of believing her when she said soon, when she said eventually.
And the whole time she was just waiting for the right moment to leave. "
Cal was quiet. He didn't offer platitudes or advice. Just sat there, present, letting me bleed.
"Three months to find someone willing to marry a man whose own fiancée gave up on him.
" I laughed again, and this time it sounded worse.
"Gran wanted me to have what she had. Fifty-three years with my grandfather.
A legacy. Kids running through those fields.
" I pushed the coffee away, suddenly unable to stomach it.
"Instead, I got a deadline and a woman who looked at everything I was offering and said no thanks. "
The kitchen fell silent except for the buzz of the lights and the distant clang of someone working on equipment in the bay. Cal didn't move. Didn't speak. Sometimes silence was the only kindness that fit.
I didn’t notice Riley until she was already pulling out the chair across from me, like she’d slipped into the moment while I was too busy being elsewhere.
She sat down without asking, her expression unreadable, still wearing her turnout pants from the drill we'd run earlier. Her dark brown hair was pulled back tight, a few strands escaping around her face, and there was a smudge of something dark on her jaw. Soot, maybe. Or grease.
I blinked at her, thrown off balance. We'd worked together for two years, but our relationship had always been professional.
Cordial nods in the hallway. The occasional conversation about equipment or schedules.
She was the only woman on the crew, and she carried herself like someone who'd had to fight for every inch of respect she'd earned.
She was competent. Reliable. Always the first one through the door when it counted.
"I have a solution."
The words caught me off guard.
Her voice was flat. Matter-of-fact. Like she was discussing logistics for a call, not interrupting what was clearly a private conversation.
"A solution to what?" I was so lost in my own head that it didn’t even occur to me she might’ve heard my conversation.
"Your problem." She folded her hands on the table, fingers laced together. "Marry me."
I laughed. It was instinct, the kind of laugh that comes when someone says something so absurd your brain can't process it any other way. I looked at Cal, expecting him to be laughing too, but he was just watching Riley with an expression I couldn't read.
"That's funny." My words came with a laugh slipping out of me before I could stop it. "Really. Good one."
Riley's face didn't change. Not a flicker of humor. Not a twitch of a smile.
"I'm not joking."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water. I felt the ripples spreading outward, rearranging everything I thought I understood about this moment.
"You're serious?"
"I'm serious." She leaned forward slightly, and I caught a glimpse of something in her eyes.
Desperation, maybe. Or determination. It was hard to tell the difference.
"You need a wife to keep your ranch. I need stability to keep custody of my sister.
One year. We live together at your place, make it public enough to meet the terms of your grandmother's will and convince the family court that I'm in a stable household.
Then we walk away clean." She paused. "No one gets hurt. "
My mind raced through objections, each one tumbling over the next.
This was insane. It was legally questionable at best, fraud at worst. A scheme that could blow up in both our faces and leave us worse off than we started.
I should say no. I should laugh it off and pretend this conversation never happened.
But she was looking at me with something I recognized. Something I’d seen in my own reflection that morning, staring at the empty hook in the mudroom. Desperation worn thin enough to pass for courage.
"Your sister," I said slowly. "Mia, right?"
Riley nodded. "She's twelve. I've been her guardian for two years, since our mother died." She paused before continuing. "An overdose."
She studied a scuff mark on the table. "Our stepfather is fighting me for custody. Not because he wants her. Because she comes with survivor benefits he thinks he's entitled to."
The pieces clicked together, one by one. The phone calls she took in the apparatus bay with her back turned. The shadows under her eyes that never quite faded. The way she pushed herself harder than anyone else on the crew, like she was trying to prove something that shouldn't need proving.
She was as cornered as I was. Maybe more.
"And you think getting married will help your case?"
"The caseworker made it clear that a two-parent household would strengthen my position.
" Riley's voice stayed even, but I caught the edge underneath.
The anger she was working hard to contain.
"The judge assigned to my case is traditional.
She likes families that look a certain way.
Todd's lawyers know that. They're using it. "
"You mean Todd," I said carefully, "your stepfather?"
"Yes."
One word. Clipped. Final. There was a story there, written in the tension of her jaw and the flatness of her gaze, but she wasn't offering it, and I wasn't going to ask. Not now.
"Okay." The words surprised me as they came out.
This wasn't the wedding I'd imagined. No nervous proposal, no joyful yes, no future built on love. Just two desperate people making a deal across a firehouse table. Gran would've hated it. Claire would've laughed. But they weren't here, and I was out of options.
"So how would this work?"
Riley didn't hesitate. She'd clearly been thinking about this, running the numbers, building the framework before she ever sat down.
"Separate bedrooms. No romantic involvement. We present ourselves as a couple in public and to the courts, but in private, it’s strictly business." She ticked off the points like items on a checklist.
"You really know how to make a guy feel special." The joke landed flat, even to my own ears.
Riley's expression didn't waver. "I'm not looking for a love story. I'm looking for a legal solution. Can you handle that?"
It sounded like a challenge—and, at the same time, exactly what I needed.
A practical arrangement with clear boundaries and a defined endpoint.
No messy emotions. No risk of getting hurt.
No chance of ending up like I had with Claire, blindsided and broken in an expensive restaurant while my future crumbled around me.
"Yeah." I sounded like I was giving up, but then the words came. "I can handle that."
We shook hands across the table. Her grip was firm, her palm calloused from years of hauling hose and gripping axes. The hands of someone who worked for everything she had.
"I'll draw up a timeline," she said, already standing. "We should move fast. The sooner we're married, the sooner I can present the new living situation to the court."
Not the love story I'd wanted. Just the lifeline we both needed.
"Okay."
She nodded once at Cal, who hadn't said a word through the entire exchange, and headed for the door. Her stride was purposeful, efficient. A woman with a plan, already moving on to the next problem.
I watched her disappear through the bay doors, and then I felt Cal's eyes on me.
The silence stretched between us, thick enough to notice. I waited for him to fill it. Advice, maybe. A warning. Something calm and measured about the spectacular mistake I’d just agreed to make.
Cal didn’t rush it. He never did. He just sat there, elbows loose on the table, fingers wrapped around his mug like he had all the time in the world.
His eyes stayed on me—not sharp, not judging.
Assessing. Like he was watching a weather system roll in and deciding whether it was worth battening down the hatches.
Then he chuckled.
Low and knowing. The kind of laugh that didn’t come from humor so much as recognition. Like he’d seen this movie before, knew the plot beats by heart, and was already bracing for the part where things went sideways.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He took a long sip of his coffee, eyes still on me, the corner of his mouth tilted like he was in on a joke I hadn’t caught up to yet. “Just thinking.”
“About?” I pressed.
“About how interesting the next year is going to be.”
I frowned. “It’s a business arrangement. That’s all.”
Cal’s smile widened. He stood, clapped me on the shoulder, and headed for the door without another word. He didn’t have to say it. The look on his face said plenty—like he knew exactly how flimsy that line was and was kind enough not to call me on it.
I looked down at my phone. Her contact was saved as Riley Santos.
My fake future wife. She would be Riley Murphy if this went through.
Maybe my way out. Maybe my biggest mistake yet.
Either way, I was in it now.