6. Fake Zoned #2
“He’s not passing through this time. You heard him. He’s staying. That raises all kinds of red flags to me.”
He crossed to the counter and leaned against it, opposite me, mirroring my stance, so we were eye to eye.
The closeness was enough that the warmth radiated off him, wrapping around me.
The scent of sawdust and the outdoors and everything manly from him hit me at once.
For a brief moment, I wanted to climb him like a solid oak tree and feel his arms wrap around me tightly.
“At the wedding, you indicated things with him were bad.” His jaw clenched, and he spoke through gritted teeth. “How bad? Did he hurt you?”
“Not the way you mean. He never hit me.” He’d done worse.
He’d made me believe I was the type of woman who belonged in his MC world, and then he showed me exactly the twisted world he lived in.
And by the time I’d gotten out, I didn’t know who I was anymore.
But I couldn’t explain that in the boot shop on a Tuesday afternoon, so I straightened up.
“He scares me. I won’t pretend he doesn’t. I’ve seen the things he’s capable of. But when he sees me with you, he hesitates. At the wedding, he backed off. Just now, he didn’t push. Your presence somehow changes things for him. For that I’m grateful.” My lips gave a flatlined smile.
He chewed his cheek. I could see him turning something over behind his light irises, the same way he did on the dance floor at Cowboy Night, deliberately, weighing consequences.
“Then I have a proposition for you. We make things look real between us,” he said. “What if, as far as anyone knows, especially him, we’re together?”
“Wh-what?” I blinked in rapid succession.
“Look, I didn’t care for what you did at Cowboy Night, introducing those ladies to us. I’m not in a position right now to go after any kind of relationship. And you’ve also said the same for yourself. So… I figure we can help each other.”
“By what? Posing as a couple around here?”
“Yep.”
My heart shifted into a complicated rhythm that I was absolutely not capable of examining closer right now. “Calhoun, I can’t ask you to—”
“You’re not asking. I’m telling you.” His voice was steady.
No bravado, no chest-pounding. Just the calm, certain tone of a man who’d made a decision and wasn’t interested in debating it.
“You came to me at the wedding and kissed me. You grabbed my arm out there today. You already chose this, Wylde, chose me as your protector. I’m just saying I’m all in. ”
“Like friends doing each other a favor?” I stared at him.
The afternoon sunlight broke through the doom and gloom of the rally outside and came through the shop windows at the right time.
It caught the stubble on his jaw, the faint scar above his eyebrow, and the place above his collar showing the hollow of his throat.
And I thought about how easy it would be to ruin this.
To let the lines blur between fake and real.
To forget this was a strategy between friends, and start believing it was something else.
“That’s all,” he agreed, but his eyes held mine, and neither of us moved away from the counter. “We can do this. The sheriff’s election is the first week of November.”
“Seth might leave town then.”
“And hopefully not bother you at all if he hears about us together and sees us together, especially if he knows you come under the protection of the ODRR guys. Because we protect what is ours.”
A shiver went down my spine at the word ours.
“There was something that happened between Ash and Seth when the ranch started operations. I don’t know the full story, but that might be why Seth backs off,” I mentioned.
“I’ll talk to Ash about it and see what’s there. So what do you say? Be my fake girlfriend?” He held out his hand to shake, and accompanied it with a smoldering smile that he’d better stop using or I might think things were real.
“Thank you.” My voice came out softer than I wanted it to. I put my hand in his—big mistake. My palm burned with his, skin on skin. Sparks flew between us.
I let go and straightened up, grateful for the support of the counter, because if I stood next to him, I was going to do something stupid like rest my head on his shoulder and breathe him in. “I mean it. Thank you.”
Colt pushed off the counter and put his hat back on with the bill forward, and just like that he was ranch hand Colt again, serious and contained. “So, how does this whole fake thing work?”
“It was your idea.” I pointed.
“Doubt there’s a rule book for it.”
“Rules?”
“Need the rules so I don’t break ‘em, Wylde.” A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Think about it. Gotta get back to the ranch. We have a new horse, Silver. He’s chosen me, apparently.”
Who could blame a horse? ‘Chosen’ on the ranch meant when they onboarded a new rescue, sometimes the horse took to certain ranch hands more than others.
“Well, look at you. Chosen by me and a horse all in one week.”
“What can I say? Must be my charm and magnetic personality. See you, Wylde.”
He tipped his hat and left me with a wink that could melt any woman’s ice. The bell above the door chimed behind him. I stood at the window and breathed deeply to calm my fluttering heart.
This was a terrible idea—that made perfect sense. Colt Calhoun was going to pretend to be my green-flag boyfriend so my red-flag ex would keep his distance. I hoped. This might be the safest I’d felt in years.
I just had to keep Colt in the friend zone. And repeat that as many times as necessary until it stuck.