Page 3 of A Montana Fake Marriage

He moved to open the door and gently situate her on the passenger seat.

“Where are we going?” she rasped, her voice cracking.

“My place.”

She didn’t react. Her eyes were dead, her expression flat. Not even a nod in his direction was given.

At his apartment, he moved her through the living room, past his roommates who looked on with curiosity, but they knew better than to ask. Still, the look he gave them would have prevented any stupid questions.

Once in his room, he removed her jacket and her shoes, then put her into his bed and pulled up the covers. She stared at him, eyes vacant. “She’s gone,” Sammie whispered.

He crouched down beside her and brushed tear-soaked strands of hair from her face. “I know.”

Sammie shut her eyes tight, and more tears slipped from beneath her lashes.

“Get some sleep,” he murmured. “I’ll help you call your dad in the morning.” Caleb stood, prepared to sleep on the couch, but her frantic voice stopped him.

“Caleb!”

He stopped, nearly at the door, and turned to look at her. He didn’t know what to do. There was nothing hecoulddo. Nothing he could say that would ease the ache that plagued her. “Yeah?”

“Don’t leave me,” she rasped.

He frowned. There was no way she didn’t have a migraine with the way she’d been crying. His shirt was still soaked with those tears. She needed to get some sleep, not stay awake to talk about it. Talking could come later when everything had settled. “I don’t think?—”

“Please,” she croaked. “Stay with me.”

He glanced over his shoulder to where he could hear the television in the front room. He wasn’t worried that his roommates would tell their resident assistant. They knew when to keep their mouths shut. Finally, he nodded, taking his hat off and tossing it to the desk.

Caleb sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots then climbed onto the bed beside her on top of the comforter. Sammie scooted closer, pulling her arm from the confines of the blanket to place it on his chest. He slipped his arm beneath her head, and she took in several shuddering breaths.

Neither one of them spoke, and her breathing grew deep and regular far earlier than his own. Caleb stared at the ceiling, his heart hurting for everything she’d just lost.

Caleb didn’t leaveSammie’s side for even a second at the visitation and funeral. She was dressed in a simple black dress and heels, her face blotchy from the tears she’d shed since their arrival.

Her father, Joe Michaels, didn’t hide the disdain he had for Caleb the moment he’d stepped over the threshold. The way his eyes had raked over Caleb from his hat to his boots made it clear he thought Caleb was beneath him.

None of that mattered. Caleb was here for Sammie.

The way she clung to him, holding his hand, made it clear he’d done the right thing in coming. Every conversation with her father was stifled. Every comment made by friends or family was laced with pity.

He didn’t know what it was like when Susan was alive, but right now, the large colonial house felt cold and empty with sharp edges and nowhere to get comfortable.

Caleb squeezed Sammie’s hand and leaned close after a well-meaning older woman offered her condolences. “I can take youback to campus whenever you want. If you want to stay a few days, I’m sure your teachers?—”

She shook her head vigorously. “I want to leave today.”

His brows creased. “But your father?—”

“Today,” she said firmly.

He nodded.

A few hours later, he stood at the front door, duffle bag in hand as he waited for Sammie to come out of her father’s study. The enormous mahogany doors had been left ajar, and the first part of their conversation was spent in hushed tones. But then that changed.

“What do you mean, you’re leaving? There’s a luncheon tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go to a luncheon. I came for the service and that’s over now. I came forher, not you.”

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