Page 5 of Bride for Keeps

She stalked down the hallway, and the tears started to fall. She pushed out of the house, realizing she had no way to get home because Carter had the keys. She let out a full sob. She didn’t want to be anywhere near this place. She didn’t want them to see her fall apart, but she was failing at that.

Her husband had kept humongous, life-changing secrets from her. He hadn’t confided in her or trusted her. Maybe it was selfish to be hurt beyond comprehension when he’d been dealt a blow, but then she was selfish. It’s what the McArthurs thought anyway.

“Sierra.”

Jess’s voice was calm and as much as Sierra didn’t want anyone to see her this way, at least it was Jess. An outsider, like her.

“Can you give me a ride home?”

“Of course. I’m sorry this came as a surprise to you.”

“He lied to me.”

Jess gently touched her shoulder. “Once you have a chance to calm down a little and talk—”

Sierra shrugged the touch away jerkily. “He didn’t tell me. He didn’t want to. I asked what was wrong. Over and over. He let me thinkIwas wrong. I thought he trusted me, confided in me. I thought he…” But all she could think was everything she’dthoughtshe knew about Carter was something she’d dreamed up.

Maybe he was someone else entirely.

Or he’d just finally figured out she wasn’t worth the effort.

Chapter One

February 2016

Sierra looked atthe calendar blindly. Five months to the day. Five months since that stupid, stupid meeting. And every month since on the fifth she looked at the calendar and hopedthismonth would change things.

But it had been five. More months than she cared to admit of acting like a petulant child. Yelling and drinking and embodying the kind of horrible sideshow the McArthurs were hideously embarrassed of. She would have made a major ass of herself at the rodeo in September if Jess and Lina hadn’t stepped in.

It had been satisfying. Sort of. Except Carter had withdrawn further and further, and she didn’t want that. No matter how scared she was that everyone was right—theirs was not a marriage meant to last—she still loved him. Withdrawn and distant, hurt by his actions, she still loved him.

So, on New Year’s Eve, a year after they’d first met, first kissed, she’d made herself a promise. No more tantrums. No more embarrassments. She’d do what Carter wanted, because maybe it was what he needed after finding out his life was built on a lie.

She’d become the perfect McArthur clone this year. She didn’t argue. She didn’t speak out of turn. She didn’t ask why he spent some nights with his parents, and she didn’t complain about his extensive hours at the hospital or with his father. She didn’t ask him for more, or tell him how much she missed him. She didn’t beg him to touch her, becauseGodhe hadn’t even tried to hold her hand in months.Months.

After all, what was worse? Hurting and having him or hurting and not having him?

For these few months of good behavior, the answer had been that not having him was worse—the pain of shrinking herself into something small and stifling seemed worth keeping him.

But this wasn’t keeping him, was it? Every day that ticked by she hurt more, and he got further away and…

She looked at the five on the neat little calendar he always kept hanging from a clip on the refrigerator. She’d been awful. She’d been good. Nothing had changed. Didn’t that tell her everything she needed to know?

Her behavior didn’t matter.Shedidn’t matter to him. Nothing she did would change what he did, and didn’t that mean she shouldn’t keep hoping for more? She wasn’t good enough for him. She’d known that anyway. So, didn’t that mean she had to end it?

Her thoughts revolved around that horrible word these days.End. Carter had never uttered the worddivorce. He barely uttered any words, and likely McArthurs didn’tdodivorce no matter how unsuitable the wives chosen were. After all, Dr. McArthur had married Carter’s mother even knowing she was pregnant by another man. Because pride and reputation were more important than anything else.

Carter was different than his father. Sierraknewthat even now, but as the door squeaked open and she looked at the handsome, if drawn, man who still made her stomach swoop, she wondered if it mattered. If he ignored those parts of himself—the differences, the emphatic heart—it didn’t matter that they existed.

If he saw her the same way his parents did, none of this mattered, did it?

“Hi,” he offered stiffly as she simply stood in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at him. She felt like crying, but that was one of those emotional responses she’d promised herself to stop having in front of him.

She’d save that for later after he fell asleep. If he was even staying here. She’d cry herself to sleep either way.

How was this her life? How could she keep on like this? And yet…just like Carter didn’t speak the worddivorce, she didn’t leave. She stayed and contorted, because she kept hoping she could do something to make him love her again.

But maybe that was impossible.

---