Page 32 of The Wrangler Takes a Wife

“I know I went off script.”

“No, you took our plans and shredded them. Why would you agree to Louisa's celebration?” She rubbed her hand over her face.

“I don’t know. Your family wanting to celebrate doesn’t seem like a bad idea.”

“It is a bad idea!” she hissed. “When all this is over? I have to deal with the aftermath.”

Chase knew the deal. He put the plan in motion, but hearing her talk about them eventually coming to an end was jarring. Somewhere along the line, he’d pushed that to the back of his mind. His focus was on taking one day at a time and enjoying it.

“Not you! These are the people I love. It’s bad enough we aren’t being straight with them, but you don’t really know them. They might not understand what’s happening between us, but they are going to show up for me.”

“That’s a beautiful thing.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t like the way they are going to pour their heart and soul into this.”

She moved to walk past him. He stopped her. “Where are you going?”

“For a ride,” she snapped. Her body went rigid. Amara didn’t look at him.

“Just stay and talk this out.” Chase finally realized how dire this situation was. Up close, he saw the distress in her eyes.

“What’s the point? So, you can discard what we spoke about later?”

“I’ll go back and talk to them. Tell them we’ve changed our minds and want to stick to our original plans.”

Instead of looking pleased, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you insane? It’s not as simple as that. You’ve involved them. We can’t just switch course.”

“It’s only been a couple of hours.”

Amara gave a mirthless laugh. “You shouldn’t have agreed without speaking to me first. It’s done now. I have a good mind not to speak to you until we exchange our vows.”

The rest of the day and night, there was a distance between them. It wasn’t a good feeling. Chase had insisted he accompany her on the ride. It wasn’t anything like the previous ones. She had emotionally pulled away. Constructing a wall, he couldn’t get past. He would have preferred it if her fiery personality fought things out. Having her withdrawn made him realise how close they’d become.

In the next two days, everything that could go wrong on the ranch went wrong. He barely saw Amara, and when he did, she was reserved. When things settled, he was determined to try to have them work things out.

“Hey, Chase,” Louisa greeted with excitement when he stopped by.

“Come in.” She waved. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

He spied the large table they had eaten on a couple of days ago. It was covered in different piles of paper.

“Are you here to speak to Rodney? He just sat down in his man cave watching one of those fast car movies.”

“No. I came to see you.”

Louisa gave him a toothy grin. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about a thing. Between Jo, Nancy and I we have everything organized. You are going to have the prettiest wedding.”

He stared from her to the table. “That’s all for the reception?”

“Well, the wedding. Everyone loves Amara, and she’s always doing sweet stuff, so the Welches are helping in a big way.”

“The Welches?” The way Louisa was speaking sounded like an enormous group of people, and not the small family Amara had in town.

“Yeah. They are scattered over a few towns and the city, but everyone is going to be here Saturday.”

“Everyone?”

---