Page 48 of Steers and Stowaways
Man, but he adored her brand of snark! And yes. He preferred her eyes the color God made them, but he wasn’t dumb enough to say it out loud. He gave her a safer answer. “I like you just the way you are, Mallory Evans.” He winked at her again. “Soon to be Mallory Pratt, assuming you’re taking my name?”
“I am.” Her chin came up. “And you’re wearing a wedding ring, mister. It’s not up for negotiation. I need all the hopeful ladies in town knowing you’re off the market.”
He snorted. “There aren’t that many with hopes in mydirection. Trust me.” He wasn’t a hundred percent sure there wereanyat all. None that he’d noticed, at any rate.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Just because you’re oblivious to the single crowd doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”
“True.” He really hadn’t given it much thought. “Well, thanks to you, I’m no longer one of them.” Now that she’d brought up the topic of wedding rings, he was ready to move on to that.
“You’re welcome.” She folded her arms. “Gotta perfect my jealous-wife routine before we take this thing public.”
“Pretty sure I have more reason to worry than you do.” He kissed her with his eyes as he pulled into the parking lot of the tractor supply store. The woman he was about to marry was smoking hot without even trying. She didn’t require makeup, name-brand labels, or anything else to pull it off. She just was.
“So, ah…” He had a Santa-sized list of questions to work through before their wedding. “About our rings…do you prefer to ring shop before or after we get married?”
“Before.”
“Same.” Hopefully, there’d be enough time to have her ring properly sized, because he very much liked the idea of sliding a wedding band on her finger during the ceremony. “What about our vows? Should we make up our own or let the minister tell us what to say?”
“Option two,” she said quickly. “My writing skills are subpar. So are my cooking skills.” She peeked worriedly at him from beneath her eyelashes. “This is the part where you reassure me that my honesty is one of my most endearing qualities.”
“It is, but only because I can cook,” he teased as he pulled up to the rental drop-off area next to the store. Hegenuinely enjoyed puttering around the kitchen. It came with the territory of bachelorhood, a skill he’d perfected after growing sick and tired of eating out.
She looked relieved. “Then we won’t starve.”
“That’s it. I’m outta here.” The moment the truck stopped, Chip pushed open the back door and leaped to the ground. “You two can continue slobbering all over each other after I’m?—”
“Not so fast, slick.” Tucker opened his door and climbed out after him to keep him from darting off. “The three of us need to corroborate our stories before heading back to the ranch.”
Before he could move around the truck to assist Mallory down, she did the deed herself and joined them.
He reached for her hand. “Chip can ride back with me, so we can have a man-to-man about the wedding stuff and other things.”
Mallory held up a finger to Chip and used her and Tucker’s joined hands to pull him aside. “Are we really doing this?” she hissed.
His eyebrows rose. “Definethis.”
She waved a hand awkwardly between them. “Getting married. Sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’re joking and when you’re not.”
His eyebrows rose higher. “You were there for the proposal. My first and only marriage proposal.”
Color flooded her cheeks. “We’ve been playing roles the entire trip. How was I supposed to know you were being serious this time?”
“I don’t know. You just were.” He wasn’t sure what she was hoping to hear. “You were the one who insisted it should be a real marriage.”
She looked confused. “So, youdon’treally want to marry me?”
“I do.” That was the crazy part. “I meant every word I said to you in the truck. Every promise. Every kiss.”
She flushed. “Let’s hit the rewind button. You offered me a marriage of convenience to…” She gestured at him to finish the sentence.
“To give me an excuse to become a more permanent fixture at your ranch,” he supplied.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “After which I arm-twisted you into a real marriage, thinking I was pouring it on thick for Chip’s sake. Selling him on yet another role.”
He pointed at his face, eager to impress on her just how serious he was about how things had shaken out between them. “This is my not-complaining look, darling.”
“We’re really getting married then?” Her voice rose to a high pitch of uncertainty.
