Page 2 of Bride for Keeps

The product of anaffair.The son of a man who wanted to go on as things were, never knowing one another. “Why did you… Why would you… You got married anyway. You raised me as yours.”

“Can you imagine the embarrassment?” Dad replied, as if shocked Carter might suggest any other outcome. “Especially at the time. The stain it would have put on our name. Unacceptable. Besides, your mother made her choice. She wanted to marry me despite her indiscretion.”

Carter felt sick and like he couldn’t breathe. It was bad enough it didn’t make any sense, that it changed his entire life, but the detached, businesslike way his father spoke about it all…

Carter didn’t know how to wrap his head around it. He didn’t know how to accept it.

“That’s why I’m counting on you not to tell anyone until I can make a formal announcement to the whole family. We’ll have a meeting to announce it in a few days and discuss how we’ll move forward as a family. As much as we want to be honest with each other, this is information best kept in the family. No one need know beyond us. And I don’t want you telling your wife until the meeting. I don’t want you telling her at all, but I suppose I can’t ask that of you.”

“You suppose,” Carter echoed. He felt like he had cotton in his ears and lead in his lungs.

“We’ll meet Wednesday at one, if you and Sierra are available?”

“Available.” Like it was a business meeting. The announcement of Dad’s MS diagnosis and the fact Carter wasn’t a McArthur.

“Carter, this doesn’t change anything. Regardless of blood, you are a representative of the McArthur name. I’m counting on you to keep this secret, and to behave as you always have. And to keep your wife in line. We as McArthurs are done with secrets, but that doesn’t mean anyone in Marietta needs to know. Sierra must keep this information to herself or I will hold you personally responsible.”

Sierra. In line. Yeah, that’d go over well. If he even uttered that phrase, his wife would go on a tear to end all tears. One that would likely end in all of Montana knowing the truth.

Dad was right though. No matter how much Carter was reeling, how hard this was to understand, he couldn’t tell her before their family meeting. She’d never keep it to herself.

Why would that be so horrible?

Carter looked up at the man who’d raised him, who’d claimed to be his father for thirty-one years. Who had impressed upon him how important it was to be a McArthur.

But he wasn’t. Everything he thought he was…he wasn’t.

*

“What is thismeeting about?” Sierra asked irritably. She hated going to the McArthur house. It was big and cold and she had always known she wasn’t welcome. But she went because she loved her husband and maybe, deep down, she harbored some stupid hope they’d eventually get used to the fact she and Carter were married and nothing would change that.

“Announcements, Sierra. I’ve told you.”

Sierra scowled at her husband. He’d been distant and grumpy for days, maybe weeks, and she thought she could handle it. Carter’s brother was back after something like a decade-long absence and that would send the McArthurs into a tizzy. Whenever they were in a tizzy, Carter was… Well, he didn’t like to bring her into it because her opinion of his family wasn’t exactlyhigh.

It wasn’t a great way to start a marriage—his family hating her, her hating his family—but she loved him. That was more important than McArthur family crap.

So, if that was all it was, she would have given him his space to be distant and weird. But when he started to sound like his father, a cold chill spread through her. When it didn’t let up, and he was instead snippy and quiet and… Oh, she hated this.

She sat in the passenger seat of Carter’s car and folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know why I couldn’t skip it. Your parents do not consider me one of your family.”

“You’re a McArthur, Sierra, no matter anyone’s feelings on the subject. I need you there. Please…” He let out a heavy sigh. It was possibly the first display of emotion from him that wasn’t all edge and silence. This was something else. Heavy. He always took on too much.

It was strange that so much of what she loved about him—his decency, the uptight way he held himself, and all the things he took on his shoulders—were also some of the most frustrating things about him. She admired him, but sometimes she wished he’d be…mortal. Balanced. Have a flaw or two so she didn’t feel like such a giant flaw compared to him.

Or maybe she just wished he’d let her in.

She unfolded her arms and reached across the console between them, sliding her hand against the back of his neck and stroking her fingers through his hair. “Babe. What is eating you up?”

He was silent, beautiful blue eyes focused on the road, jaw tensed tight. She’d never seen him quite like this, and it poked at every fear she’d ever had. Because when she’d agreed to marry Carter, she’d been certain he’d tell his family to butt out and that would be that. She’d been convinced love would fix everything. When that hadn’t been the case, she’d convinced herself once they were married the McArthurs wouldhaveto treat her with some kindness or respect.

She’d been an idiot, clearly, and now she lived in a horrible kind of fear that eventually his mother or father would say the right combination of words to convince him he’d been wrong. He—in all his perfect, McArthur glory—didn’t actually love the whirlwind of a disaster she was.

She’d confessed that to Jess the other day. Much like her, Jess was a sort of honorary McArthur—a nurse who often helped Dr. McArthur. While the family didn’t treat her badly, they didn’t include her either. So Sierra had become friends with Jess, because Jess didn’t treat her like dirt.

Jess had told her to tell Carter her fears about his distance, and Sierra had rejected that advice. Tell him she was insecure and afraid? When he was always so sure and good and right? That wouldensurehis family convinced him she wasn’t good enough.

Besides, she usually threw a little fit, and he’d come after her trying to make things right. It was the pattern of their relationship. Sierra didn’t know that it was thebestpattern, but it was always how they’d worked.

---