The Maverick's Accidental Bride

“Erm, of course...”

“Oh, sweetie, I can’t wait.”

Jordyn played her part. She said she couldn’t wait, either. And Carol Clifton babbled happily on for another ten minutes.

Finally, she asked for Will again. “I have a few more things I need to tell him, and then his father will want to congratulate him.”

Jordyn tossed Will the phone as if it was a scalding hot potato, scooped up her overnighter and made a beeline for the bathroom, which gave her a door to shut on Will as he told more brilliantly detailed lies to his own mother.

Determined not to go back out there until Will had finished his call, Jordyn set her toiletry case on the shelf, ran a comb through her hair and put on some lip gloss. She was just peeking around the door to make sure the coast was clear when her own phone rang. It was her mother, who was crying happy tears just like Will’s mother had been.

Jordyn emerged into the main room and dropped to the sofa as Evelyn Cates said how thrilled she was about the marriage. She was also hurt that she hadn’t been there to see her youngest daughter say I do to the man of her dreams. Jordyn talked to her for fifteen minutes, in the course of which her mom got past her hurt and confessed that she was over the moon at the news.

“I’ve always favored Will over his brothers,” her mother confided in an excited whisper. “Though make no mistake, I do love his brothers, too.”

“I know you do, Mom.”

“And your father and I are going to see what we can do, see if we can make it up there to the Rust Creek Valley for a visit this summer...”

“It would be so great to see you.” Except for how I’ll have to lie straight to your face the whole time that you’re here.

“Well, I can’t promise anything. Things are always crazy here at home—and you’ll be here in Thunder Canyon for Thanksgiving, anyway, won’t you?”

She cast a reproachful glance in Will’s direction. “That’s the plan.”

“Wonderful.” Her mother sighed. “Just wonderful. I’m so happy for you—and Will is a lucky, lucky man.”

Her father came on the phone next. He told her he loved her and he was proud of her and he thought she’d made a damn fine choice in Will for a husband. “And is he there with you? I would like a word with him.”

Jordyn passed Will her phone. He got congratulated by her father and then her mother. Twenty minutes later, they finally said goodbye to the Cates parents.

And five minutes after that, Jordyn’s sister Jasmine called. Jazzy had come to Rust Creek Falls with Jordyn, but had found love in no time with the local veterinarian, Brooks Smith.

“I’ve called twice before this and sent more than one text, too, since I heard the news Sunday morning,” Jazzy chided in a wounded tone. “I was getting worried.”

Jordyn apologized and settled her down and told all the right lies. Already they were starting to come way too smoothly, those lies. And that seemed somehow a whole new kind of wrong. Bad enough that she kept lying, even worse that the untruths were starting to rise so easily to her tongue.

After she got rid of Jazzy, she looked up to find her new husband watching her. “I would really love it if I didn’t have to tell another lie today.” She tossed her phone on the low table and sank to the sofa in the room’s small living area.

“Hey.” He came to her in long strides, dropping down beside her and throwing an arm across the back of the couch. Faintly, she could smell his aftershave, like saddle soap and spice. He had a scruff of black beard on his fine, square jaw, and his eyes really were beautiful, surrounded by long, black lashes that any girl would envy, his irises light as blue frost in the center, the outer circle rimmed in cobalt. “Don’t think of it as lying,” he advised in that know-it-all tone he’d been using on her practically since she was in diapers.

“Of course I think of it as lying. It is lying.”

“Because you’re approaching it the wrong way. Strictly speaking, nothing we’ve told them is untrue.”

“Strictly speaking,” she shot back, “now you’re lying to me, too.”

“That’s not so.”

“Think back, Will. You told your parents that you’re bringing me home to Thunder Canyon for Thanksgiving—and at Christmas, too.”

A muscle in that square jaw twitched. “It could happen.”

“If I’m pregnant, which I’m not.”

“It’s going to be fine. I promise. We just need to stick with the plan.”

“Yeah. Our Divorce Plan,” she said sourly, already thinking of it as requiring capital letters, something huge and looming, dishonest and wrong that she’d somehow let Will convince her was right. “And not only are there all the lies we’re telling now. Think about how fun it’s going to be having to also explain to everyone we love that it ‘didn’t work out.’”

He studied her for a long, uncomfortable moment and then asked too quietly, “Do you want to call it off now? If you do, just say so.”

She should say yes and she knew it. Yes, Will. Let’s put an end to this craziness now. But she didn’t want to call it off. She wanted...

She didn’t know for sure what she wanted. But calling it off wasn’t it.

His eyes had a hard light in them. “Are you going to answer my question, Jordyn Leigh?”

“I, um...”

“Answer my question.”

“Fine. No, then. I don’t want to call it off.”

His expression gentled. “What do you say we not borrow trouble?” He caught a lock of her hair and rubbed it slowly between his fingers.

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Don’t.”

They stared at each other. She was pinching up her mouth at him, and she knew it. His skin was so warm against her palm. She found herself remembering the other night—before it all got so crazy and misty and they did things she could no longer recall.

It had been wonderful, that night. She’d loved being with him. And his kisses had thrilled her, just set her on fire...

She didn’t know quite how it had happened, but she was staring at his mouth. So soft, that mouth, especially in contrast to the general hardness of him.