Page 6 of Branded By the Cowboy

But that doesn’t mean he’s ready for me.

I watch the slushy gray streets of Missoula blur into pine and power lines. I try not to think about the last five places I left. Or the three jobs I lost for not being “a team player.” Or that I’ve never had my name on a mailbox that didn’t belong to the state.

This marriage isn’t a romance. It’s a contract.

Angus Sutton needs a wife to keep his land. I need a place that won’t disappear underneath me. Neither of us is expecting fireworks. Just foundation.

And God, do I want something solid.

* * *

The ride lasts a little over four hours. I spend most of it sketching in the back of my journal—little pencil lines of porch swings and kitchen windows, soft yellow light that probably doesn’t exist outside my imagination. I add a big dog curled by the stove and maybe a kid in mismatched socks. These are the things I crave but am not allowed to want.

I’m not good at dreaming, but I excel at building routines. Doing the jobs no one wants because I never expect applause.

That’s what I bring to the table.

The bus pulls into Clover Canyon just after four in the afternoon. It’s raining. An April shower that’s romantic in theory but like soggy death in practice. I step off the bus into a puddle that soaks one boot.

Perfect.

The depot is tiny—one bench, one vending machine, and one elderly woman knitting in the corner as if she’s waiting for a bus that no longer runs.

I scan the lot. No sign of a cowboy.

I check my phone. No new texts.

Anxiety flares sharply in my chest. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he changed his mind at the last minute and didn’t tell Marlie. Maybe I’ve made a massive mistake.

Then I see the truck.

It’s an older model, its paint dulled by too many winters, with a long scrape along the driver’s side as if it picked a fight with a tree and lost.

And leaning against the front—arms crossed, boots planted like he’s braced against the whole world—is him.

Somehow, in his stillness, I know this is Angus Sutton.

The man who needs a wife, not a fairytale.

The man I’m supposed to marry.

He’s big. Broad through the chest and thick in the shoulders. His hat is pulled low, shadowing his face, but even from here, I can see the hard lines of his jaw and the way his mouth pulls tight like smiling is a foreign language.

His faded jeans stretch across muscular thighs, and his battered flannel clings like a second skin. The sleeves are shoved up to his elbows like an advertisement for forearm porn. And I’m just standing here, a puddle of hormones, wondering if Marlie signed me up for a cowboy calendar shoot instead of an arranged marriage.

He lifts his head, and oureyes meet. Blue. Sharp. Clear and cutting.

My gaze catches on the scar on his right cheek—a thin, silvered slash running from his eye to the corner of his mouth. Not fresh. Old enough to fade. Old enough to sayI’ve survived things you can’t even imagine.

Something shifts inside me, sharp and electric.

Because this man? He’s not pretty or polished.

He’s raw.

Weathered.

Heat sparks low in my belly, so fierce it makes me grip the strap of my duffel.

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