The Cowboy's Make Believe Bride Read online

  “Say cheese, boys. I'll make sure to send you copies for posterity.” She got in several shots before Conway threw his arm in front of his face.

  “Lady, no one gave you permission to get our pictures,” he bit out.

  Cori dropped the camera back into the bag. Conway struck her as the sort who'd rip it from her hands and smash it on the ground. “Oh, well, technically I don't need your permission to take a photo, only if I intend to use it for monetary purposes, which I'm not.”

  Fort reached across her and slid the camera bag from her shoulder. He zipped it up and then set it over his shoulder so the bag was resting against his back. “She takes tons of photos, dumps most of them. Don't you short-stuff?”

  Cori nodded.

  “Now, if you'll excuse us, I need to get Cori home so Ma can gush over her.” Fort steered her around the two men while shifting the bag so it wasn't in direct reach.

  “It was nice meeting you both,” Cori called over her shoulder as Fort hustled her back to the escalators.

  They didn't say anything, just kept their large smiles plastered to their faces until they were at the bottom and Deke and Conway weren't right behind them. They stayed silent as they picked up her luggage and made their way toward the exit.

  They were outside when Cori scanned the area before saying, “Conway Witty, my aunt Fannie. That's no more his name than my dad was an honest politician.” She smirked.

  “Agreed,” Fort said. “Something wasn't right about him.”

  Cori had her phone out, searching. When she found it she said, “Well, for starters, my guess is that he and Conway Twitty made their appearance around the same time. Our Mr. Witty is no spring chicken, and to say his parents were huge fans when the singer only had a few songs out…nah, I don't buy it.”

  “Me either. And I don't buy him being Deke's campaign manager. Those two are up to something.”

  “Yup. My bet is there's something going down in your town. Like my rhyme?” She grinned and pointed her finger at him. “That's the only thing that could bring Mr. Witty to the area. A guy like that lives for get-rich-quick opportunities. Like a rat on a greasy Cheetos, he'd be all over it. I should know. I've seen enough of it in my lifetime.”

  They were walking to the parking garage, Fort leading the way, when he stopped short. “Yeah,” he said. “You would know.” He looked at her as if he was working a puzzle. “Any chance you have connections that you could send old Conway's picture around and find out who he really is?”

  Cori couldn't believe her ears. Did he think she knew all the crooks her dad associated with on a personal level? “Any chance you could run him through some federal system and find out who he is?” she said, trying to keep things civil. They were on good footing right now, not fighting.

  Fort shook his head. “I intend to, but my gut says nothing will pop. What about asking your dad? Or any of the guys who worked with him?”

  Cori stared up at him, incredulous. She crossed her arms and said, “What do you think I did for my father? Kept his books? Hooked him up with the other crooks he hung out with? I was a kid, Fort. Not his secretary or assistant. Besides, I don't speak with my dad.” She rolled her eyes. “How about you? Can't you ask your dad if maybe he's seen him at any of his poker games? Maybe Conway also conned your dad. He does have a history of repeatedly being taken.” She had chucked civility out the window. It was a low blow but, man so was what he’d said.

  He narrowed his eyes, and like a superhero with powers to see the invisible, she watched him construct a wall between them.

  “This isn't going to work,” he said.

  “Too late.” She wagged the ring in his face. “You just told Deke you were running and we're getting married. How will you explain that to the town?”

  Fort groaned and looked up at the ceiling of the parking garage.

  “No man is an island, Fort. I'm here. I'm ready to help, and after meeting Nit-Witty, it looks like you could use someone.” She looked at her shoe, knowing what she needed to say. Man, she wished her life had been totally different, and thus her experiences. She wished she had no knowledge about such things as cattle rustling or running cons. She wished she had a squeaky clean, blissfully naive life. Instead, she said softly, “Besides, why not get help from someone who's been down the road before lots of times? I have personal experience.” She snapped her head up to look at him, or more like his chin, and poked her finger at his chest, and said firmly. “Meaning, I lived with a con man, that's my experience. Not that I ran the cons with him. Know the difference.”

  He leveled his gaze to her. “Maybe with our collective experiences, we can get to the bottom of this.”

  “There's more here than us trying to get you elected by pretending to like each other. Something’s going down in Wolf Creek. You feel it, right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I do.” He gave her a measured look from top to toe. “But we can't lose sight of why you're here. If we're going to pull this off, we're going to need some ground rules.”

  “Yes,” she said, “good idea. I have one. No being a butthead. That one's for you. Now you give me one.”

  Fort briefly closed his eyes; she assumed he was counting cattle, or some other method to collect his cool. He'd done this before with her. Way back in the day when she would pester him about how he was running things on the ranch.

  When he returned his attention to her, his eyes were still a steely gray. He probably needed to count higher.

  “There’s no denying we don't like each other much.” He didn't wait for her to agree, but she nodded anyway. “So acting like we adore each other might be tricky, but I'm not big on public displays of affection so getting all cozy in front of people isn't something we need to do.” He rubbed his chin. “Rule number one. Keep touching to a minimum. Arms around the waist, occasionally the shoulder. No hand holding.”

  She saw where he was going with this. “Rule number two. Kissing should be chaste. Only on the cheek. No lips and certainly no tongue.” She used her finger to pretend like she was gagging herself. “Certainly no S.E.X.”

  “Yeah, that's a no-brainer.” He mocked her by pretending to gag himself.

  “Ha ha. You're very funny. That's new right? The sense of humor. You never had one of those before. I'll let you know if it's working out. And as for the PDA, who are you? I mean, in high school you were all about public displays.” She looked off to the distance, pretending to search her memory. “I remember you and big-breasted Beth getting all up in each other's tonsils everyday by the lockers.”

  Fort smiled. “Ah, Beth. She was quite the woman.” He made the outline of a woman with his hands, one that was very heavy on the top.

  Cori snorted her disgust. Had someone made a wager with her that one day she'd be standing in a dark parking garage with Fort Lame-O, talking about sex and getting felt up, she'd have taken that fool's bet. Yet, here she was. Had she liked him or was a forward person, she'd consider indulging in hot, parking garage sex. As it was, she'd stick to pointing out his flaws.

  “Oh, and then what about the time you and Carly McAdams were caught in the bed of your truck. Not really worried about PDA then, were you? Or what Beth might think since you were still dating her? There's also the time you and—”

  “All right. Enough. That was then. This is now. I'm different.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “We all are,” she said in a huff and grabbed her rolling case. She stalked off past him.

  “But thanks for the stroll down memory lane,” he called behind her. “Hey, short stuff, how do you know where I'm parked?”

  “I don't,” she called back and kept right on going. “But I bet I can find it. You probably have one of those stupid trailer hitches with the ball sack hanging from it.” She could get a cab or something and just blow out of here. Let him deal with the consequences. This whole thing was his mess, anyway.

  “Look who thinks they’re funny now. Turn right at the next aisle. I'm the third truck from
the end.”

  She did as he said and found his old beater Ford. Second Chance Ranch was painted on the side of the doors and the tailgate over the symbol of their brand. She rested against the back of the truck with arms crossed as he took his sweet time catching up with her.

  “Rule number three,” he said as he approached. “Do not get attached to anyone. You're here to do a job. Get in. Get out.”

  “Don't you worry, Fort Be-so-lame. That's unlikely. You and your little town probably aren't my type, anyway.” Anger made people say stupid stuff, but she didn't care. Her feelings were hurt. It wasn’t that she wanted Fort to kiss her or feel her up outside the sheriff's office or something. It was that he treated her like doing so was confounding, implausible, and disgusting. “Rule number three for you. Don't get attached to this”—she gestured to herself and cocked her head to the side—“because I'm not staying.”

  Fort gave her a blank stare, then lifted his brows as if to ask if she was serious. “Don't worry. You aren't my type, short-stuff.”

  12

  On the drive back to the ranch, Fort and Cori ironed out the specifics. Because he didn't want his election to be won on a lie, they decided she would leave him before then. It was unfortunate about the ring since that complicated matters. The plan was she would slip away quietly, and he would tell everyone she missed Texas too much. She thought she could leave her hometown, but found she couldn’t. Funny enough, until this moment, Cori would have believed that to be true. Her love for Brewster and nostalgia for home had kept her there for a decade trying to repair everything broken. Now, watching the mountains roll by, the purple and orange sky was stunning. It captivated her like an enchantress, and as Fort spoke, she found herself agreeing to everything. She was more interested in letting the beauty of the landscape wash over her.

  Maybe when she was done helping Fort, she could explore more of the West. Pack up her beat-up old car and point it away from Brewster. Picturing it made the heavy weight that had sat upon her chest lift slightly. Sabrina was right. She should have gotten away a long time ago.

  Fort and Cori also worked out a schedule of when they'd be seen together. Since conversation between them deteriorated quickly into bickering, in order to pull this off, they'd need to limit their time together. They would make sure they were seen in town often enough, but would feign an interest to be alone to avoid extended time together.

  They arrived at the ranch moments before the sun slipped away for the day. Cori jumped out of the truck and took a hearty breath of air. Man, she loved the smell of a ranch. The mix of tooled leather, pine, spruce, and a tad manure. She closed her eyes and took in another deep inhalation. The scent was as familiar to her as her own. This was how she defined hearth and home.

  “You have Angus?” She whiffed again and then opened her eyes. In Texas, his father had won and ran Hereford before he'd lost it all.

  “Yeah, Ma's family has kept Angus for several generations.”

  “No dairy?” she asked while checking the landscape and structures before her. “Wow, its breathtaking here.”

  “I know. Makes ranching easy when you look at that everyday.” He gestured to the foothills. “We don't have dairy. All beef. Some goats and, of course, chickens.”

  They stood in silence as the sun slipped away, leaving them engulfed in the dark blue of night. A light on the porch clicked on.

  “Ma knows we’re here. Come on, let's get this over with.” He lifted her luggage from the truck bed then started toward the large one-story house.

  “Wait,” Cori said, catching up with him. “Does you mom know the deal, or are we...you know...going to lie to her?” Ugh, she hated the thought. From what she remembered of Fort's mom, she was kind and soft-spoken. “You have to fill me in on what I should know.”

  “Ma remarried. Boneta is her last name. I have a kid brother, Mathias.” He grinned that stupid grin people do when they talk about their loved ones. “But you can still call her Ms. Saira. All the kids do.”

  Truthfully, Cori had often wished for Ms. Saira to be her mom instead of Barbie, who was obsessed with two things: to stop aging and for Cori to win Miss Junior Texas Pageant, the crème of the crop for pageants. Toward the end, any pageant would have done. Cori believed there was no way Barbie was ever pregnant and wondered if she was hatched from an egg, or the more likely scenario considering her parents, that they'd stolen her, and Cori had a real family out there missing her. Too bad she looked a lot like her father for the latter to have any merit.

  “You sure you don't want to tell your mother?”

  Fort paused. “Ma can't lie to save her life. Someone will ask her if she's excited or happy for us and she'll say yes, but her face will say it’s a lie. I hate to say this, but I think we're better off keeping her in the dark.”

  Cori groaned.

  “It's not my preference either. None of this is. I'd like to win the election based on my merit.” He left her standing in the driveway.

  She ran up to him again. “Maybe before I leave I can explain everything to her?”

  “Maybe, if that’s what you'd like. Let's take it day by day,” he said, tromping up the stairs.

  Cori stopped short, admiring the house. From the welcome mat to the boots lying on the side by the door, it made her think of family. She said softly, “I think I would feel better if speaking to her was part of the plan.” She stood back and took it in.

  It was a long rambler-style house, painted white with black trim. The front porch extended the length and offered seating for a perfect view to watch the sunset. Hanging baskets swung in the slight breeze with blue and yellow flowers spilling over their tops. She climbed the stairs and ran her hand over a rocking chair. She made it a high priority to watch the sun set tomorrow. Her family home was tall, made from gray brick, and not nearly as homey. It was still sitting empty, many of the windows broken.

  Fort waited for her at the front door. “Off the kitchen we have a deck where you can watch the sunrise. If you're up early enough.” He pushed open the door, and Cori followed him in.

  Inside the house was even more inviting. Gingham, overstuffed chairs with pillows made from ticking. Family pictures on tables and walls. Boots tossed by a closet and hats on a rack by the door. The lamp was on, giving the living room a yellow and inviting feel, as did the smell of sizzling beef and an assortment of spices and the singing that came from the kitchen.

  “Ma,” Fort called down the hall as he placed Cori's bags by the door.

  “I thought you all were going to stay in the yard forever,” Saira Boneta said.

  Cori peeked over Fort’s shoulder. His mother, looking exactly like she had all those years ago in Brewster except for some gray in her hair, was coming down the hallway wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

  “I hope you all are hungry. I put on the steaks.”

  “I'm starved,” Cori said and came from around Fort.

  Ms. Saira gasped. “Corinne Walters? Is that you?”

  “Yes ma'am.” Cori blushed, half from pleasure that his mom remembered her and half from embarrassment at what Ms. Saira would most likely say next. Everything always came back to her father's crimes.

  Ms. Saira tossed the towel over her shoulder and wrapped Cori in her arms. “You sure have grown into a beautiful woman. Look at you. You're stunning.” She stepped back, scanned Cori up and down, and then hugged her again.

  Cori cheeks ignited with heat. She hadn't been expecting a compliment.

  Ms. Saira continued, “Why ever did you keep this a secret, Fort?” She had held Cori's face between her hands while she addressed her son.

  Fort looked between the two of them before saying, “Her dad is why. Wasn't sure it was a good idea.”

  As if Cori wasn't already red-faced enough. Fort telling his mom he was embarrassed to be dating her was humiliating. Granted, they weren't really dating, but whatever. It implied she was desperate enough to be with a guy who didn't want to be seen with her.

&n
bsp; “That's stupid,” Ms. Saira said. “Plain and simple. Now let's go eat.” She hustled them to the kitchen and went about finishing the meal.

  She peppered Cori with questions about her mother, and after learning Cori still lived in Brewster, some about the small town and people as well. They ate, the conversation flowing. Cori and Fort sat across each other, and for as inviting as his mother was, a barrier sat bulky between Cori and Fort.

  “You'll like Wolf Creek. I think the excessive heat of Texas has warped the minds of those in Brewster.” Ms. Saira laughed. “I'm glad to see it hasn't done that to you.” She squeezed Cori's hand, then tapped the ring on her finger. “Are we going to talk about this?”

  Fort coughed on his after-dinner coffee. Cori stared down at the large stone. It was huge and sparkled from the kitchen light. Cori wasn't surprised at how well it fit. That was Sabrina; details were her forte.

  “Um, well...” Cori searched for words, any that wouldn't be a lie.

  “It's real simple, Ma. Cori and I want to be together. We're just not sure if it'll work, what with her still living in Brewster and me here. Then there's the history between our families. Why do you think we waited so long for her to come visit?”

  His mother's eyes narrowed.

  Cori figured she probably had a BS meter too, and wasn't buying it. “After my dad went to jail, we had to sell off everything to pay back any of what he took. Restitution. That's been my job all these years.” Fort sat forward suddenly, and she quickly cut her eyes to him, then back to his mother. “My dad hurt a lot of people and I, on some level, helped him do that. We haven't paid back near enough to right all the wrong. My past has made me slower to get involved. Fort's been patient and understanding, and though I want to be with him, I'm not in any rush.”

  “What do you mean you helped him?” Ms. Saira asked.

  “I didn't know I was helping. It was before high school, before I could even conceive of a parent taking advantage of their own child. What I thought was a normal chat with dad while we went for ice cream was actually his way of fleecing me for information. Kids talk, and I would repeat what I heard at school, thinking maybe my dad, the mayor, could help.” Cori gave a derisive laugh. “Little did I know.”