Page 2 of Mountain Man's Mail Order Surprise

I blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“But…” I sat up straighter in the seat. “You’re Reilly Clark.”

“Yeah.” He said it like a question he was tired of answering.

“And you’re here to meet me. Seven o’clock. Dinner at the steakhouse in Hartsville. You wrote that in your message.”

“I didn’t write you any messages.”

For a moment, I just stared at him, trying to decide if this was a joke. Or some kind of test. But there wasn’t an ounce of teasing in his voice. No hint of a smirk. Just plain confusion and that ever-present frown, like someone had handed him a puppy and told him it was a grenade.

“You’re serious,” I whispered.

He let out a sigh and turned his attention back to the road. “Bobbi said someone was coming to town. She asked me to show you around. I thought I was doing her a favor.”

“A favor?” My voice cracked. “You thought you were doing your friend a favor?”

“You thought I was marrying you?”

I couldn’t speak. I sat there in stunned silence, staring out the windshield at the large stretch of interstate with mountains up ahead. I felt it—this slow, sinking weight in my chest like everything I’d carefully packed, planned, and hoped for was dissolving, one painful second at a time.

“I was told we were getting married,” I finally said. “Sunday. That’s what you said in your messages.”

“I didn’t send any damn messages,” he repeated.

I flinched, then chastised myself. Don’t show weakness. Never show weakness.

He cursed under his breath, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. “Look, I’m not mad at you, okay? I just—this is a hell of a thing to drop on a guy without warning.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Tell me about it.”

Neither of us spoke again until we pulled into the parking lot of the steakhouse. He parked, turned off the ignition, and didn’t make a move to get out or open my door.

“You coming?” he asked.

I opened the door myself, climbed down without grace, and followed him inside, heart thudding like I’d just run uphill in heels. The waitress seemed to know him. She barely glanced at me and led us to a booth in the back. We ordered—well, he ordered—and I copied him without thinking. Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a sweet tea.

We sat in a weird, clunky silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “I moved here.”

He looked up from his plate.

“I sold my car to pay for the plane ticket. I gave up my apartment. Quit my job. Told my family I was marrying a man named Reilly Clark in a town called Wildwood Valley.”

His fork paused. “You did all that?”

“I believed it. The messages weren’t crazy or creepy. They were sweet. Funny. Thoughtful. You—or whoever it was—talked about your cabin, your land, how you wanted a quiet life with someone who wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty.”

“I didn’t write any of that.”

“I know that now.”

He leaned back, scowling harder than before. “So what, you want me to just go along with it? Marry a stranger because Bobbi played matchmaker behind my back?”

“No,” I said. “I want you to acknowledge that I’m a person. Not just some inconvenience dropped in your truck.”

That landed. He didn’t apologize, but he looked away, jaw tight, like he knew I wasn’t wrong.

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