Page 30 of A Montana Fake Marriage

One thing had been made perfectly clear. She wasn’t falling for him.

She’d indeed fallen already.

At the end of the evening, Caleb put his suit jacket over her shoulders to protect her from the nip in the air that had come anhour or so later. Their hands were intertwined as they walked to his truck. Tonight had been perfect. She couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend her evening. She was only sad that it was ending.

That was probably how the bride had felt as well.

They stopped at the truck, and Caleb pulled out his keys, but he didn’t immediately use them. His eyes were shadowed beneath his Stetson hat, unable to be found by the light of the moon. She could see his mouth, however, and it had been pressed into a thin line.

Caleb fiddled with the keys in one hand and brushed his thumb over her left. It grazed the ring she wore, and she glanced down. Unlike the rings the happy couple today exchanged, hers was a symbol of their arrangement.

She couldn’t help the sour sensation that swirled in her stomach. It had been a foolish plan. What she’d thought wouldn’t be complicated had definitely taken a left turn and become precisely that.

“Sammie,” Caleb whispered. His voice was husky, and it caressed that innermost desire she hid within her heart.

Lifting her eyes to meet his, she found his eyes just as intense as before, if not more so.

“I—” He cut himself off and let out a heavy breath. “What I mean to say, is…” He shook his head. “It’s getting late.”

She’d hung on every single word he’d stumbled over. There was a huge part of her that wanted him to tell her he had feelings for her. That he’d fallen for her without realizing it was happening, and he didn’t want her to walk away when this was all over. Ifhe’d swept her up in his arms and pleaded with her to stay, she would have said yes.

But he didn’t.

And she was too much of a coward to ask him to finish his thought.

Sammie nodded, and he opened the door for her. She pulled her phone out of her purse while she waited for him to climb in behind the wheel. Then it lit up with a notification. Before she had a chance to see what it was, Caleb grabbed the phone from her.

“Hey! Caleb?—”

He stared at the screen, his expression grim. “It’s from your dad.”

She stiffened.

Caleb dragged his eyes over to her. “Do you want to read it? Or should I just delete it?”

“Is it really that bad?” she asked with a small voice.

His expression said it all.

Sammie shut her eyes tight. She didn’t usually respond to her father’s messages, but he could see when she’d read them. She swallowed hard. “What do you think?”

When she opened her eyes, he was holding the phone out to her again. “It’s gone,” he muttered gruffly.

“What did it say?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

That hole inside her threatened to open again. What once had been healing, filling with the care and love Caleb’s family offered her without reciprocation, cracked again. She hated that there was a part of her that needed to know—that craved the communication from her father. Even after everything he’d done to hurt her emotionally, she still needed it for some reason.

Sammie dug her fingers into her palms and nodded.

The whole ride home, they were silent.

No words were spoken as they climbed the stairs or prepared for bed.

It was only when she was lying under the covers, and Caleb was on his cot, that she felt she owed him something—a confession of her love, perhaps? A piece of her heart?

“Caleb?”

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