Hitched(11)

“You are going down,” Kyle mutters while he pushes past me, dragging Cara along with him.

“Watch how you talk to my wife,” Blake growls at his back.

I get a happy tingle at the base of my spine, regardless of all the growing evidence that Gram’s will is going to do for my life what it took forty years of marriage to do to hers: Slowly shrivel away in a stew of bitterness and anger fueled by box wine she made her chef pour into a Barolo Monfortino Riserva bottle she kept on hand to keep up appearances.

But seriously, she knew what her grandson was like.

“I can’t believe she gave Kyle this kind of opening,” I say, turning back to Mr. Ashford. “Didn’t she love her alpaca at all?”

He clears his throat and slides his chair closer to his desk. “I believe she wished to know that her bloodline would continue. And she wasn’t sure it would without a nudge.”

Fabulous.

My grandmother wants to manage my sex life from the grave.

I know even less about how to be a good parent than I do about how to be a good wife, and now I’ve sucked Blake freaking O’Dell into an endless void of court battles.

He’ll probably divorce me before the week is out, once he realizes the kind of fight we’re in for, one that definitely won’t be over in the three months I promised him.

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve verified the proper legal precedent,” Mr. Ashford tells us.

As we head through the lobby, my shoulders are sagging, and the dress I snagged off the rack at Goodwill this morning is starting to let off a funky odor.

Rae tosses paperclips at our feet. “Since I couldn’t find rice or birdseed,” she explains. “Cara loved it. Such a sweet woman.”

A sweet woman who’s unwittingly extended an ugly battle for an alpaca that just wants to be loved and left in peace.

I adopted a second alpaca not long after Chewpaca moved to my sanctuary last year, because alpacas can die of loneliness. Chewpaca and Too-Pac are very best buds. It would be criminal to separate them, but Kyle’s already made it clear he only wants the alpaca with the perfect pedigree.

It's the St. Claire way.

“Sorry,” I mutter to Blake when we’re out in the sunshine, which is stupidly bright and happy, showing no respect for all the bad news busting out all over the place.

A few feet away, a VW bug with a giant cupcake on top whips into the last parking spot and a tiny, black-haired woman with an angel face and a sour expression that matches my mood springs out, a pink box propped on her hip. I’d heard there was a new bakery in town, but I hadn’t yet met the owner.

“You Rae?” the woman asks. “The one who ordered the wedding cupcakes?” Her eyes are haunted in a way that makes me wonder if her feelings on marriage are similar to my own.

I point to the door. “Rae’s inside.”

“But we’ll take a cupcake if you’re sharing,” Blake says, only for the sparrow of a person to cut him off with a frantic swipe of her hand.

“Probably best not to touch them,” she says. “At least not until I get them inside the building. I’ve been having some bad delivery luck lately. Very bad…” And with that ominous declaration, she plods across the gravel and up the steps, leaving a sweet and sad scent in her wake, like a sugar-flavored raincloud.

Blake frowns and shrugs, before turning his attention back to me. “So did the will say you have to be married with kids to inherit the estate?”

“No. Just married. It didn’t even say happily married.”

We approach my truck, but I can’t look at him. I’ve gone out of my way not to like him since we both landed back in Happy Cat, and now he’s stuck in this mess because of me. I have to let him get back to whatever work he was doing before I texted him about a job while I go find another attorney, since odds are good Kyle will take me to court, and I need someone who’s firmly on my side rather than the attorney still representing my grandmother’s interests.

But I weirdly don’t want to say goodbye. And Blake weirdly doesn’t seem inclined to head anywhere else.

In fact, as we approach the truck, he boxes me in against the driver’s door.

“What are you doing?” I hiss.

“Your dear dick of a cousin is sitting in his car ten feet away,” Blake murmurs, leaning close enough for his nose to brush against mine, setting off a fireworks display across the surface of my skin. “He’s watching us. So if his argument is going to be that we’re not happily married, we’d better put on a good show.”





Five





Blake





* * *



I’ve lost my damn mind.

I know it was still squirming around in my skull when I got up this morning, but ever since I saw Hope in that wedding dress, everything is short-circuiting, and now, the only thing I can think about is kissing her again.

I keep telling myself I hate Hope St. Claire, but the truth is, the only thing I hate about her is that she doesn’t want me.

But right now?

Right now, she’s stuck with me.

And we need to put on a good show.

And so I glide my lips over hers, because her cousin is watching, and because we both want this. Bad. Within seconds, we’re in the same situation as in the dark in the courthouse.