The Rancher's Fake Fiancée Read online

  Tyler wasn’t used to being around kids. He certainly didn’t know how to help them flip. “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

  “It’s easy,” Gen said with confidence. “Hold my hands. And then hold me tight so I can flip.” She put her bare feet on his jean-clad shins and scaled him like a tiny ninja. She flipped over and beamed up at him. “I did it!”

  Abby ran over. “My turn with Uncle Tyler. You can flip with Uncle Ethan.”

  “No! I get to play with Uncle Tyler and you get Uncle Ethan.”

  It was an all-out battle and the prize was Tyler’s attention. Ethan’s face fell. He went from the favorite uncle to chopped liver in two seconds flat.

  “How about the two of you go wash up for dinner and give your uncle Tyler a chance to talk to the adults for a couple minutes,” Jon said. The girls groaned but with a little more coaxing went to clean up.

  “Don’t worry, Ethan,” Ben said. “Once they get to know Tyler, you’ll be their favorite again.”

  His comment stung even though he was probably right. No one ever chose him when there were so many Blackwells to pick from.

  * * *

  HADLEY WRESTLED WITH her nerves as they stood in Jon’s family room. Hadley Sullivan, Brand Strategist for 2K Marketing. It had such a wonderful ring to it. She kept repeating her new title over and over in her head. She was here to get that job. All she had to do was convince Tyler’s family they were in love.

  The word love made her stomach turn. Tyler had placed his hand on the small of her back as they made their way to where the rest of the family was waiting. It had sent a tingle up her spine.

  “I think once they get to know him, they’ll fall head over heels and it won’t have anything to do with the flips he helped them do,” Hadley said in her fake fiancée’s defense.

  “I like her already,” Rachel said, getting up off the couch and handing the baby to Ben. “She’s protective, which is good. The Blackwell boys are always at each other’s throats. It’s been a long time, Ty.” She gave him a hug and held out her hand. “Rachel Blackwell. It’s nice to meet you, Hadley.”

  Hadley had felt more confident about winning over Lydia than she did Rachel and Grace, but maybe they wouldn’t be as tough on her as she feared. Grace jumped up and introduced herself, as well. She was the same age as Tyler and Chance and knew them well. Hopefully not too well that she’d catch on to the lie.

  “You look so nice. Didn’t Tyler tell you we were just hanging out on the ranch?” Grace asked.

  Dressing up had been Hadley’s idea, but seeing the other ladies in their shorts and T-shirts made her long for some comfy clothes. Hadley was used to blending in, not standing out. Her floral shift dress and high heels made it impossible to fade into the background. But that was the point. Tyler didn’t want to be in Montana and Hadley was there to help him drive that point home.

  “Guess I was trying to make a good first impression. Plus, I have no idea what you wear on a ranch. The most casual I get back in Portland is when I’m at yoga.”

  “Another city girl,” Jon said. “Lydia was a little bit of a fish out of water when she got here, too. Remember those boots?”

  Lydia scowled at him playfully. “I liked those boots. But this place and way of life does have a way of growing on you real quick.”

  “Can you imagine if everyone moved back to Falcon Creek? Wouldn’t you boys love that?” Grace asked, pushing her glasses up her nose.

  “I sure would,” Ethan piped up. “I wouldn’t even mind sharing the best uncle title with you, Tyler.” He was trying too hard and they were already prepared for his oversell of Montana.

  Tyler gently placed his hand on the back of Hadley’s neck. The tingling returned. “Hadley and I love Mount Hood and Portland’s eccentricities. We’d never survive in Falcon Creek. Would we, honey?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Hadley said. “Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautiful place to visit and family is so important, but I need my Black Rock Coffee and Voodoo Doughnuts in the morning.”

  “Doughnuts?” Both girls came running and squealing.

  “Are we having doughnuts?” Genevieve asked as she slid to a stop in the middle of the room.

  “The next time you guys come to Portland to visit me and Hadley, we’ll take you to Voodoo Doughnuts. You can get one with Froot Loops on it.”

  “Cereal on a doughnut?” Abby asked with wide-eyed disbelief.

  “My favorite one has bacon on top,” Hadley confessed. That was the honest truth. Maple bacon doughnuts were her favorite indulgence.

  “Bacon on a doughnut?” Gen couldn’t believe it.

  “I thought everyone in Portland was vegan. Last time we were there, I saw a sign advertising gluten-free vegan pizza as if people were in the market for that. I still wonder what it could possibly taste like,” Jon said with his arms folded over his chest.

  “It’s actually pretty good.” Hadley had shared one with Maggie before. Maggie was the quintessential Portlander. If there was a Portlandia cliché, she fit it.

  “Maybe we need to eat some chili and corn bread to purge the thought of gluten-free vegan pizza from Jon’s wheat-and-meat-loving brain,” Lydia suggested.

  “Corn bread is actually gluten-free,” Ethan pointed out.

  Jon rolled his eyes and invited everyone into the kitchen. Hadley started to follow the family when Tyler moved his hand to her cheek and leaned in to press a soft kiss to her lips.

  “You two are so cute,” Grace said with a sigh before following Ethan out of the room.

  “You’re so awesome at this,” he whispered.

  Hadley couldn’t think straight. Her insides were mush. Kissing was not part of the deal. She had made that clear before she had accepted his insane proposal. Of course, that was back when she thought kissing him would make her uncomfortable. Right now, she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him a little harder.

  One stupid kiss and she was ready to renegotiate the terms of their deal. Hadley needed to pull it together or she could lose everything—the job and herself in the process.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “NO KISSING. That was the rule.” Hadley had managed to wait until they were in the car to confront him.

  “Why are you bringing that up now?”

  “You kissed me,” Hadley reminded him. It was a little offensive that he acted like it was forgettable. “Before dinner. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  “Come on,” Tyler said with a groan as they drove back to the Blackwell Ranch. “It wasn’t like I made out with you in front of everyone. I gave you an innocent little kiss. Grace is fully convinced that we’re a couple. Heck, I think the whole family believes it to be true.”

  Oh, everyone was convinced tonight. Even Hadley started to believe that they had feelings for one another, and that was nonsense. Tyler Blackwell loved nothing but his work. He even had a love/hate relationship with his own brothers. Falling for someone like him was asking for nothing but trouble.

  “I am not comfortable with being that comfortable with each other. You are still my boss. This isn’t a partnership like Jon and Lydia. This is a business arrangement and we need to make sure it stays that way.”

  “What else could it be?” Tyler’s gaze slid to her for a second. “Did you think... You didn’t think I was... Please tell me you weren’t confused about my intentions.”

  Hadley’s face burned from the embarrassment. She turned her head so he couldn’t see it. “No. I wasn’t confused. I know what this is. I just think that we don’t want to muddy the waters moving forward so neither one of us gets confused.”

  “I’m not falling in love with you, Hadley.”

  She knew that shouldn’t hurt her feelings, yet there was a little twinge of rejection in her chest. “I have no plans to fall in love with you either,” she scoffed. “It’s ac
tually inconceivable to me.”

  “Good.” He paused. “I mean, inconceivable? I feel like that’s a strong word choice. Misguided or maybe wishful thinking...”

  She glared at him for a second. Was he serious? What were they arguing about here?

  “Forget it,” he said. “It’s good. I feel the same as you do. I’m not going to ever be confused. I kissed you because it was part of the act, but if that made you uncomfortable, I won’t do it again. Kissing is off the table.”

  “It’s totally off the table. It’s not even in the room. It’s not in the house. It’s out of town.”

  Tyler laughed. “Boy, tell me how you really feel about it.”

  Hadley had too many feelings about this arrangement. None of them were particularly positive either. “I feel nervous. I feel like my future rides on how well I play your fiancée and that’s really scary.”

  “We made a deal. You want a promotion and I want to get through this visit without my brothers finding out I lied. I don’t understand why you’re worried. There’s no reason we both shouldn’t get what we want.”

  Hadley fingered the hem of her dress. The fact that she had to do this to get the job also made her angry. They were in this mess only because he didn’t want to admit to his brothers that he was single. He had issues. Another reason to dismiss any chance of their being in anything more than a fake relationship.

  “Well, I shouldn’t have to kiss you to get a promotion.”

  Tyler pulled up in front of Heavenly Pines. He put the car in Park and turned his body in her direction. His eyes were the kind of blue that made a woman stop and stare.

  “I respect you, Hadley. I shouldn’t have kissed you. The promotion is not dependent on you doing whatever I say. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t say what you’re really feeling, at least, to me. I’m asking you to help me get the ranch sold and to help me save face with my family. That’s it.”

  She wanted to believe what he said. He sounded sincere. The look in his eyes screamed he meant what he said. Yet, the uneasy feeling in her gut said there was no guarantee.

  “I know you’re putting your trust in me. I want to trust you, too.”

  “I won’t kiss you again. I promise.”

  Hadley swallowed hard and nodded her head. All she could focus on was his lips as they told her they would never touch her again, even though they had felt so good against hers earlier tonight.

  Maybe she could trust him, but could she trust herself? One minute she was telling him he better never kiss her again and the next minute she was thinking about how good it would be to try once more. How did this get so complicated?

  Hadley Sullivan, Brand Strategist for 2K Marketing. This needed to be her battle cry. She had a goal and it had nothing to do with Tyler’s lips or his hands touching her. Her goal was to work for him and Kellen in the position she deserved.

  With her resolve back, she got out of the car and took notice of the millions of stars shining bright in the Montana sky. She paused on the porch to take it all in. What happened tonight was like one of those stars, a tiny point in an enormous sky. There was so much more ahead. She wouldn’t lose sight again.

  “Are you coming?” Tyler asked from the door.

  “I’m going to enjoy the view for a few minutes,” she replied, resting her elbows on the railing. Hadley needed to clear her head and figure out how to make sure nothing derailed her from getting what she wanted.

  * * *

  HADLEY WAS SO STRANGE. Tyler had thought he’d known her when he asked her to come with him, but she was way more complicated. Sometimes, usually in the most stressful situations, she was beyond calm. Other times, he seemed to rattle her with little effort.

  He tossed his rental car keys on the coffee table in the sitting room. Tonight had been a win. No one suspected he was lying. Hadley had helped him successfully convince everyone that Portland was the only place he wanted to call home. And...he’d kissed her.

  In truth, the kiss was a bit more impulsive than he had let on. Hadley had this way of drawing him in that was catching him off guard time and time again. It was extremely unexpected given the fact that before they got to Montana, he’d never thought of her as anything more than an employee.

  Not that he thought of her any other way now.

  Tyler shook his head, hoping to shake all thoughts of kissing Hadley from it permanently. He couldn’t let it happen again. She certainly didn’t want that. He went back to the bedroom and unbuttoned his shirt. He slipped out of it and was just about to put it on the bed when he noticed one of the dresses Hadley had been considering for dinner laid out on the other side of the king-size bed they were in no way going to share.

  He needed to be a gentleman and offer her the bedroom. He went into the closet in search of some extra blankets. Snatching a pillow off the bed, he headed for the couch, hoping it had a pull-out hiding under those cushions.

  Hadley walked in and froze. “I didn’t realize you...” she said, quickly averting her eyes. “I’ll go back out on the porch until you put on a shirt.”

  She was out the door before he could say anything. This was the kind of rattled he didn’t expect from her. He threw on a T-shirt and grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge.

  Hadley sat on the bench, hugging one of the pillows. He handed her a water bottle. “We’re going to have to get used to sharing a living space. I plan to sleep on the couch, by the way. The bedroom is all yours.”

  “You don’t have to do that. This is your family’s place. You should have a bed.”

  Tyler took a seat next to her. The moon was almost full and cast a soft light across the horse pasture. “I told you I was working on being nice to you while we’re here. Please take the bed so I can feel as if I accomplished that goal.”

  “How about we take turns? First week, I get the bed. Second week, it’s yours.”

  She was hard to please or maybe just unwilling to let him have his way. He realized that was one of the things he liked most about her at work. She challenged him. Challenged the way he thought about things, made him question his ideas before they moved forward on a project. It made him better.

  “Sounds fair,” he conceded. They spent the next few minutes in silence. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as Tyler might have thought.

  “I bet the sunsets are gorgeous from this spot,” Hadley mused.

  “We’ll have to make time to watch one before we head home.”

  Hadley blew out a long breath. “I can’t wait to go home.”

  “We just got here and you’re ready to leave?”

  “Aren’t you?” She quirked an eyebrow.

  “Of course I am. I never wanted to come here in the first place. You were the one who said it solved all the problems. I’m still waiting for one to get solved.”

  “I think we need to solve one big problem,” she said, crossing her legs. “We’ve got to be able to trust each other if this is going to work.”

  He trusted her. He must. To bring her into this and to let her see this side of his life, there had to be trust. Tyler let her words sink in for a second. Maybe she wasn’t talking about him trusting her.

  “Do you not trust me?” He recognized that he could demand a lot out of the people who worked for him, but he was always a man of his word. At least, he tried to be. He didn’t like how her potential distrust felt.

  “I want to.”

  That was clearly not a yes.

  “Is this still about the kiss?” He threw his hands up. “I can assure you that I’ll be hands-off from now on. We’re going to be too busy working to have to put on a show.”

  Hadley shook her head and hugged the buffalo-checked pillow closer. “That’s not it. It’s more about the job. I’m here for one reason, and that’s to get the promotion. But there’s part of me that’s afraid there’s no guarantee.”

>   “I said I would talk to Kellen. It won’t be hard to convince him given Eric’s performance so far.”

  “And what if he is hard to convince? What if he doesn’t want to give me the job, then what?”

  Kellen wouldn’t fight him on this. Eric was his nephew, but he was also terrible at the job. They wouldn’t have to fire him. He could become office manager, something a little more appropriate for his skill set.

  “I’ll promote you no matter what Kellen says about Eric. We can have two brand strategists if that’s what he wants.”

  “I want to believe that...”

  What did she want him to say? Did he need to sign his name in blood? Since when was his word not good enough? She wasn’t going to let this go until he proved to her that the job was hers.

  “How about I call Kellen tomorrow and let him know that when we get back, you’ll be taking over the job? Will that ease your mind?”

  Hadley got up and walked to the porch railing. She spun around and leaned back against it. “That would help tremendously.”

  “We have a busy day ahead of us,” Tyler said, getting to his feet. “I’m going to get some sleep now that we got all these trust issues resolved.”

  “Good idea.” Hadley walked past him and into the cabin. The flowery scent of her perfume was left in her wake. It was a bit intoxicating.

  Falling for him was inconceivable, she’d said. He’d promised never to touch her or kiss her again. She’d made it clear that being here was only about her promotion. There was no reason he should be thinking about how good she smelled.

  He was the unlovable Blackwell. That wasn’t changing anytime soon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “KISS ME,” HADLEY WHISPERED.

  “I can’t. I promised.” Where his self-control was coming from, Tyler didn’t know.

  Hadley ran a finger down his nose and pressed it to his lips. “You’ve never broken a promise before?”

  He’d broken a few, but not one like this. Kissing was off the table. It wasn’t even supposed to be in the house. However, that look in her eyes was saying he had the green light.