The Rancher's Fake Fiancée Read online

  His heart pounded in his chest as he dismounted Goliath and tied him to the pasture fence. On the other side of the road was the Double T Ranch, where Ben now lived.

  Carefully, Tyler approached the spot where his parents had met their maker. He stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he noticed the patch of bluebells that had grown around what was left of the bridge’s abutment. His mother had loved bluebells.

  “What’s the story behind this bridge? Let me guess, you and your brothers blew it up. Am I right?”

  Tyler pressed his fingers against the corners of his eyes to stop the stupid tears from flowing. He struggled to clear his throat. “This is where my parents died.”

  * * *

  HADLEY FELT HER heart stop. There was no hope that she could even begin to remove the foot in her mouth. Mortified, she took off her hat and tried to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Tyler. I didn’t mean to make light.”

  “You didn’t know,” he said, turning his back.

  “That doesn’t make it any better. I would do anything to take that question back.” She felt like such a heel. He didn’t talk much about his parents. He’d never mentioned how they died, only that they had.

  Tyler crouched down and lightly touched the wildflowers growing around what was left of the bridge on this side of the creek. He pulled his hat off his head and pressed it to his chest. Hadley hung back, giving him some privacy. She wondered how long it had been since he had been here.

  As much as her parents frustrated her with their obvious favoring of Asher, she couldn’t imagine not having them in her life. In fact, she felt terribly guilty for the times she had taken them for granted.

  “People used to ask my mom if she ever wished she had a girl, as if having five boys was some sort of disappointment,” Tyler said, standing upright but still facing away from Hadley. “She’d look them in the eye and say being our mom was the best thing that ever happened to her. She had the privilege of teaching five amazing boys to become five incredible men, which meant someday she’d be the proud mother of five spectacular daughters-in-law.”

  “It sounds like she had no regrets.”

  He turned enough for Hadley to see his tear-streaked face. “She didn’t get to see us grow into men, though. And if she was here, she’d only have four spectacular daughters-in-law. I would have failed her.”

  Hadley moved closer. “Don’t say that. You haven’t failed, Tyler. You just haven’t found the woman you want to marry yet.”

  Tyler wiped his face and shook his head. “I was never good enough. My brothers all stood out in their own way. Jon’s the best rancher. Ben’s the smartest. Ethan has the most compassion. Chance is musically talented. They all fell in love with someone and managed to convince that person to fall in love with them. I disappointed my parents in life and in death.”

  It broke her heart to hear him talk like that. She’d never seen him or anyone be that vulnerable before. Hadley threw caution to the wind and stepped in front of him. Tossing her hat on the ground, she grabbed his face in her hands.

  “Katie says your love of this land is like no one else’s. You run one of the most successful marketing companies in all of the Pacific Northwest. I don’t know how smart Ben is, but you are smarter than anyone I know in this world. You also came here to help your family even though it’s obvious this place holds a lot of painful memories.”

  Tyler put his hands over hers. “You don’t know me.”

  “I think I do. I may not know everything, but the Tyler Blackwell I’m getting to know is a good man with a good heart and way too hard on himself.”

  She lifted up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It didn’t matter what she had told him or what kind of messed-up situation they were in. He didn’t think anyone could care about him, but the truth was she was beginning to care quite a bit.

  His hands dropped to her waist, and if she had caught him off guard, he wasn’t backing away. In fact, he was pulling her closer. Her head should have been spinning but her focus was razor sharp. All she could think about was how good this felt.

  The kiss ended, but their embrace did not. Tyler rested his forehead against hers. “I thought we had rules.”

  “New rule—no self-loathing allowed.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said in a whisper.

  “I don’t care what I don’t understand. It’s our new rule.”

  “You make the rules and break them. What if I want to break them, too?” A tiny smile played on his lips. Those lips were darn good at kissing. He might not make music or love animals but Tyler could kiss.

  “This new rule can’t be renegotiated.”

  “But the kissing one can be?”

  She didn’t know what to say. The kissing was a good idea a minute ago, but was it a good idea moving forward?

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Tyler’s hands dropped from her hips and he bent over to pick up her hat, placing it on her head. “Okay, we need to get these horses back before we find ourselves in a heap of trouble.”

  She wasn’t sure what kind of trouble he was referring to—the trouble with Ethan for taking the horses out or the trouble they’d get in if they started kissing again.

  They took the road north toward the barn and got the horses some water. Tyler helped Conner untack them. Hadley went out front and waited for her fake fiancé to finish up.

  What was she doing? What had she done? When this was all over could she return to Portland and go back to the way things were? Unlikely. Could she see herself in a relationship with Tyler? Maybe.

  The thought of it made her smile. That had to be a good sign. She touched her lips and closed her eyes, letting her mind wander back to that moment by the bridge.

  “Hadley!”

  Her eyes opened to find Ethan jogging over. “Hey, Ethan.”

  “Did you just get back from your ride?”

  “We did. It was...perfect.”

  “So, Grace and I were thinking it might be nice if we had dinner together tonight. Grace was going to make chow mein. Tyler still loves Chinese food, right?”

  Hadley had no idea how he felt about Chinese, but if Ethan said he loved it then he must. “Of course he does! We order it in at least once a week in Portland. There’s this great place in the Pearl District we like to get it from.”

  Ethan nodded. “And does he still like listening to jazz? I found a bunch of Big E’s old records in storage. I thought maybe Tyler would like to go through them and take some home with him.”

  She knew his favorite kind of music like she knew the square root of 422. If Ethan said he loved jazz, he had to still love it. Why would his musical taste change?

  “He would love that. Best thing about Portland is the music scene. We go to shows all the time.”

  “I had a feeling you would say that,” Ethan said. Only he wasn’t smiling anymore. He actually seemed angry. “Can you help me out with something in the main house? It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Sure. Let me tell Tyler where I’m going.”

  “Carl,” Ethan called to one of the ranch hands. “Can you tell my brother that I’m stealing his fiancée for a minute?”

  The young guy nodded and Ethan led the way to the house.

  “What do you need help with?” Hadley asked as she tried to keep up with his long strides.

  “Grace and I had a couple questions about the people coming to look at the property next week.”

  It seemed strange that he needed her help with that when it made more sense to ask Tyler. Maybe he was hoping he could sway her into convincing Tyler not to sell. Little did he know that was impossible.

  Grace sat in the front room when they walked in. She looked uncomfortable on the ultramodern couch. She popped a peppermint in her mouth and smiled. Ethan closed the door behind them.

  “Seems Tyler would love to
join us for Chinese tonight,” Ethan told Grace.

  “Would he?”

  “He’d also love to look through Big E’s jazz records. Maybe take some home. They go to shows all the time.”

  Grace tilted her head, a look of concern on her face. “Jazz concerts?”

  Hadley’s stomach rolled. Something was off. Way off. She nervously fidgeted with her hands. “You didn’t ask me up here to talk about the prospective buyers, did you?”

  “We’re worried about you, Hadley,” Ethan said, taking a seat next to Grace.

  “Worried about me?” She felt like she was going to throw up. The temperature in the room must have gone up a hundred degrees since they walked in. Hadley could feel the sweat beading on her forehead.

  “I love my brother, but he’s up to something. What’s he got on you?”

  “Got on me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Ethan leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “He must have something on you to get you to come here and pretend to be engaged to him.”

  Hadley felt the walls close in. The air in the room was so thick she couldn’t breathe. She had to play it cool or everything would be ruined.

  She tried laughing but it sounded more like a wounded animal. “What in the world are you talking about? Tyler and I are very happily engaged. Is this some sort of test? A little initiation game or something?”

  “When Tyler was thirteen, we ate chicken chow mein for dinner and later that night he got violently ill. The kind of ill that makes you never want to eat the things that you barfed up because it will always remind you of being horribly, horribly sick.”

  Tyler didn’t like Chinese. Tyler did not order Chinese takeout every week.

  “Tyler isn’t a huge music buff. He listens to some rock and roll and probably owns all of Chance’s records, but Stepgrandma Number Three used to play jazz in the house when we were in high school and it used to make Tyler want to jump out of his bedroom window. He once told me that if he died and he heard jazz, he’d know he hadn’t made it to heaven.”

  No jazz concerts in Portland for Tyler either. If he found out she had blown it, her promotion was history before it even became a reality.

  “Listen, I can explain,” she tried. Maybe they would believe she had lied about what he ate and listened to because she didn’t want them to know that she didn’t know the man she was marrying well enough.

  Grace interrupted, “You told Ethan that you wanted a huge wedding and to be a princess for the day. You said Tyler was completely on board and wanted to give you whatever you wanted. Tyler told me that you were a no-frills kind of girl and the two of you would probably do something similar to Ben and Rachel. It’s obvious that the two of you have never made plans to get married.”

  Hadley wished the floor would open up and swallow her. Anything would be better than standing in the ugliest sitting room of all time, listening to how terribly she had lied to her fake fiancé’s family.

  “We aren’t judging you,” Grace continued. “We’re positive it wasn’t your idea to pretend to be engaged. Tyler is obviously the mastermind of this plan. What we want to do is simply get your help.”

  There was no escaping the truth. She was going to lose her promotion because she opened her big mouth and said too much. Tears welled in her eyes. She forgot to tell Tyler what she told Ethan and ruined everything. She sat on the chair across from them and buried her face in her hands.

  “Please don’t tell him you know. Please let him leave here believing that you all believe.”

  “We don’t want him to know that we know,” Ethan said, getting up and sitting next to her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  Hadley dropped her hands. “What?”

  “We don’t want Tyler to know we know. We want him to think he’s still fooling all of us,” Ethan explained.

  “Right now, Ethan and I are the only ones who know. Ben, Jon, Rachel, Lydia, even Katie. Everyone else has no idea what we know.”

  “We want to work together to make things right.”

  “Thank you.” Hadley felt the weight lift off her chest. “I promise I’ll do whatever you want if you keep this between us. Your brother just wanted to fit in. Everyone was getting married and he thought if he said he was, he wouldn’t have to come home. But that didn’t work and he didn’t want to have to admit that he lied because you guys would never let him live it down—”

  “Hadley, we get it,” Ethan assured her. “All we need to know is does he have anything on you? What do you get out of pretending to be part of this lie?”

  It was so embarrassing to admit the truth. It made her feel like a bad person to be doing all this for a step up at work. She had lied to his entire family. They had welcomed her into their homes and hearts and she had deceived them.

  “He agreed to follow through on a promotion that I swear I completely deserved a couple months ago if I helped him save face with his family and get the ranch sold.”

  “Is the promotion dependent on selling the ranch?” Ethan asked.

  “Well, he didn’t think we’d get it sold while we were here, but he asked me to help him with the marketing so it would sell eventually.”

  “But if it doesn’t sell while you’re here, you’ll still get your promotion?”

  Tyler hadn’t made the promotion contingent on a sale during these two weeks. All he said was she had to help him, which she was. “I think so.”

  Ethan sat back and let out a sigh of relief. “Then there’s still hope.”

  “Hope for what?”

  “Hope that I have enough time to convince my brother to help me run this ranch.”

  “Your brother is very set on selling,” Hadley reminded him.

  “I know he thinks he is, but the Tyler I know wanted to work this land until he was old and gray.”

  That was similar to what Katie had said to Hadley the other day. However, Hadley also knew the ranch caused him so much heartache. “The Tyler I know now wants to run the most successful advertising agency in Portland.”

  Ethan stood up and began to pace across the sitting room. “Maybe that’s true, but I have to try. Maybe we can make a deal.”

  A deal? Hadley had already made a deal with one Blackwell and that wasn’t going so well. “What kind of deal?”

  “What if we helped each other out? We’ll keep your secret and help you keep the rest of the family in the dark, if you help us stop Tyler from selling the ranch to the buyer he has coming next week.”

  “You want me to what? Sabotage the sale?”

  “That could work,” Grace said, popping another peppermint. “Stopping a sale while at the same time making this place more appealing could sway Tyler our way.”

  “It’s going to take a lot more than sabotaging one sale to get Tyler to change his mind,” Hadley warned.

  Ethan sat down by Grace, a grin spread wide across his face. “Tyler is more attached to this place than he lets on.”

  All the relief Hadley had felt when they told her they weren’t going to expose the lie disappeared with the revelation that she would need to not only continue to tell that lie, but somehow lie to Tyler, as well.

  “We all win if we do this. You help us, we get the time to work on Tyler. We keep your secret, you get your promotion,” Grace said.

  “Do we have a deal?” Ethan asked.

  Obviously, Ethan knew Tyler better than she did, but Tyler seemed very adamant about selling the ranch. If she helped Ethan persuade the Mendes family not to buy, would it really stop Tyler from trying to find another buyer and another if that one fell through?

  The answer didn’t matter. All Hadley had to do was survive another week and a half. She and Tyler would go home to Portland, she’d be promoted at work and he would tell his brothers they had broken off the engagement. The whole ruse would be over and whatever happe
ned with the ranch would have nothing to do with her.

  Lying was not her favorite thing to do, but lying seemed like the safest way to get what she wanted.

  “Deal.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “HOW DID YOU and Hadley meet?” Conner asked as Tyler lifted Goliath’s saddle, girth and saddle pad off and set them on the saddle rack.

  “What we need to talk about is your obsession with my fiancée.”

  Conner dared to look appalled. “I’m not obsessed with your fiancée. I’m trying to make conversation.”

  “And of all the things we could talk about, you want to talk about Hadley.”

  “Listen, boss man, I would be a fool to mess with you and your fiancée. It’s obvious she’s crazy about you. We can work in silence if that’s better for you.”

  “Perfect.” Tyler didn’t need Conner talking his ear off about Hadley.

  Not that not talking about her made it any easier to not think about her. Obsessed was a good word to describe the way Tyler felt at the moment. That kiss had thrown him for a loop.

  There he was, mourning his parents, and Hadley swooped in and did what she always does. She challenged him to look at things from a different perspective, to get out of his head and to step outside his comfort zone.

  Tyler was so far out of his comfort zone, he was afraid he might not be able to find his way back. It was disconcerting and exhilarating at the same time. They needed to talk about what they were doing. There was too much at stake for them to pretend what happened didn’t happen.

  He finished cleaning Goliath up and led him out to the grazing pasture. Rules were rules for a reason. He needed to know why Hadley was so willing to break that one. She had made it crystal clear that there were boundaries not to be crossed. Had her feelings changed?

  “Please tell me you kidnapped my fiancée to help tear down the wallpaper in here,” he said as he came through the front door.

  Grace, Ethan and Hadley were sitting awkwardly in the living room. Maybe it was the ultramodern furniture or maybe it was something else. His eyes met Hadley’s and he could sense her anxiety. Not the emotion he was hoping to see there.