Page 28 of A Rancher's Bride
“You just said the truth is there. Caleb and Tamara are rock solid. Heck, so are Ivy and Walker, but there’s no way Ivy could deal with this kind of event. Not with her social anxiety. Andyou’renot a lie.”
She made a really rude noise.
“I mean it. You are family to Silver Stone. You’re just not…family.”
Kelli glanced at him, a pretty forlorn expression on her face. “I’ll do my best, but, dude, you should have hauled in someone like Rose who at least would have worked as arm candy.”
Luke took a second to register what she was talking about, and when it did, all he could think wasbullshit. He’d never expected to have to reassure Kelli about her appearance. “You look fine. You’re cute, and you make people happy. I don’t know how you even do it. Just be natural and everybody will love you.”
She dipped her chin slowly. “Okay, what’s our story?”
“What story?” She hit him on the shoulder. “Ouch.”
“Luke, you’re the stupidest genius I know. I’d swear you were being deliberately dense.” Kelli shook out her fingers. “If I’m your fiancée, how did it happen? Us meeting, and the rest? I mean, obviously at the ranch, but you were engaged to Penny until the end of August.”
Oh, that kind of story.
Wait.What?“Fiancée? You can be my girlfriend.”
“Nope, I’m your fiancée.”
She said it straight up, and if he wasn’t certain she’d hit him again, harder this time, he would have laughed. “I thought you had trouble with lying.”
“I have trouble with not doing everything we can to make this work. Youwerepreviously engaged. You said you had to bring yoursignificant other, and considering how important this event is, there’s no way you’d haul along a casual girlfriend. Also, first girlfriends after being engaged for years tend to be considered a rebound relationship. I’m not signing up for that.”
He shouldn’t find this so entertaining, but…
It wasKelli, and now that he’d established she wasn’t going to castrate him—which he knewsheknew how to do since he’d trained her, God help him—it felt more like a co-conspirator situation. “Isn’t it awfully quick for me to be diving back into the whole love thing?”
“It happens. Although we don’t want anyone to suspect you and I were fooling around while you and Penny were an item. Because that would not slip into a family-friendly file folder, now, would it?”
For fucks sake. “We weren’t fooling around,” he snapped.
She snorted. “Perfect, your indignation is totally buyable. Make sure you keep that mindset. When did you send off the registration, boss?”
“Don’t do that,” he said, snapping up a finger. “I know we work together, but it’s best to not emphasize the fact too much. And as you’ve firmly established, I’mnotyour boss.”
“Fine, sugar pie.”
If he hadn’t been driving, he would’ve planted his forehead against the steering wheel. “This is going to be so much fun.”
Kelli damn near giggled. “If you say so. Pumpkin.”
He ignored her teasing as best he could and got back to the more important part of the planning. “We’ve only got fifteen minutes before we arrive, so let’s keep it simple. Yes, we’ve worked together forever, but there was nothing between us until recently.”
“Because you were engaged. Plus, our official thing had better have happened really recently, considering I don’t have a ring.”
He was such an idiot. “New Year’s Eve?”
“Too romantic. You asked me last week between currying the horses and cleaning stalls.”
The hell?He glanced over, but Kelli was examining her nails and totally ignoring him. “I don’t think so.”
She twisted toward him, one brow arched high. “I didn’t say yes at first because I thought you were kidding. Then you got called out to deal with something and didn’t track me down until the next morning.”
“You’re having way too much fun with this,” he grumbled. “There’s no version of this story that doesn’t make me look like a fool, is there?”
“Nope,” she agreed. “But you’ll be happy to know that when you did find me in the morning, I said yes. Then I pointed out that you should’ve looked where you knelt, because I hadn’t finish cleaning that stall yet.”
