Page 14 of Just (Fake) Married (Calloways vs. McGraws #1)

NINE

ETHAN

The night moved on as cowboys came and went, but the Calloway women continued to dance. A testament to their stamina or drunkenness. It was hard to tell. But as long as they were here, so were we.

There was a shift in the music and something bluesy and sexy came on. Mac, standing next to the pool table, cue stick in his hand, went total bird dog.

I turned to see the ladies trying to get off the dance floor, but they were being stopped by some cowboys.

“Those our guys?” I asked, and Tag shook his head.

Amity started to push a guy out of her way and Mac set down his cue on the table in preparation.

I heard Harmony’s raised voice and didn’t even pause to assess the situation. I was on that dance floor in a nanosecond, stepping in between Harmony and the burly, drunk cowboy who looked like I’d taken away his toy.

“Back off,” I said.

“We was just talking,” the dude said. I could get drunk just off the fumes emanating from him.

“Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you anymore,” I returned.

“Ethan,” Harmony put her hand on my arm. The skin of her palm against my wrist was like being touched by a cattle prod. A sharp, hot zap that went from my arm, to my heart, to my dick. “It’s okay.”

“Yeah, bud, you heard the lady, it’s okay,” drunk cowboy said. “Get lost.”

“You get lost, she’s mine.”

The word flew out of my mouth without thought.

I had not thought of Harmony that way, and I certainly didn’t think of myself that way. But I wasn’t going to stand by and let my pretend woman and her sisters get hassled by drunk cowboys.

But as soon as I said it, it felt right. Good.

Mine.

“Fuck man, I didn’t know she was with you,” drunk cowboy said.

“I’m not his ,” she said quickly. Because Harmony wouldn’t know how to be helpful in a situation like this if I’d written out instructions for her.

I wrapped my arm around Harmony’s shoulders and hauled her against my side. “I’m trying to save you,” I growled into her ear.

“I don’t need saving,” she hissed, turning towards me. “And people are listening.”

“Isn’t that the point?” I asked.

With my arm around her, she was curled up tight against my body, and I could feel her breasts against my chest. I pulled her closer without thinking, and her stomach was against my hip. Her pussy against my thigh.

As if she became aware at the same time, she stiffened.

Drunk cowboy got bored and wandered off, taking his friends with him, but still I stood there locked in a full head to toe embrace with Harmony Calloway.

“Honestly,” Harmony said, her skin still dewy with sweat, hair falling out of her ponytail and stuck along her neck. “You did not have to go all caveman on them.”

“I don’t know. It seemed to work. My first time Protectin’. My. Woman.” I said like a true cowboy. “How did I do?”

She sighed heavily and shook her head. Because I couldn’t help myself, I pulled a lock of bright red hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.

“You’re pretty when you’re tipsy and having fun,” I told her.

“Oh no,” she said, and pushed away. She stumbled a bit as she did. “None of that nice stuff.”

“What nice stuff?” I asked. Damn, she was cute when she was a little drunk.

“That party shit you do. That come with me to the pantry nonsense. I’m not falling for it again.” She put her hand up and pointed a finger right at my nose. I grinned and caught it in my fist.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Harmony. Why don’t you tell me what happens when we find ourselves in a pantry together?”

It occurred to me that if she was any other woman, and I was any other man, this would be flirting. This would be such high-octane flirting that I’d be looking for a dark corner so I could get my mouth on hers. My hands in that hair.

“I’ll tell you what happens-”

“Hey!” Bliss was suddenly there, slinging an arm around Harmony’s neck, nearly knocking both of them to the floor. I caught them, trying to keep them upright. Amity piled on and it got a little harder, but I managed to keep the entire Calloway coven on their feet.

Alone, they were pretty women.

Together, drunk in the middle of a bar, they were knockouts. They needed a keeper and, suddenly, that was me. I looked around for some backup and caught Mac’s eye at the pool table. He shook his head no, but was putting down his pool cue.

“I’m talking to you, Mr. Doctor,” Bliss said.

Oh. This should be good.

“Okay,” I said. “What did you want to say?”

“You better not be an asshole to Harmony.”

“I have no intention of being an asshole.”

“You McGraws can’t help it,” Amity said. “Like you have to actively work against your asshole nature.”

“I will actively work against my nature.” I said it like a solemn vow.

Harmony, for her part, was digging through the tiny little purse she had strung across her body. It was so small, I wasn’t sure what she could be looking for that might fit inside of it. A lighter?

A thought occurred to me. Harmony wouldn’t tell me what happened in that pantry all those years ago, but had she told her sisters?

“Any chance Harmony told either of you about a party she went to in high school where she ended up punching me in the face?”

“Ha!” Amity said. “Like we don’t know the entire high school called her the pantry puncher for a year. J’accuse ! That’s French for you suck, Mr. Doctor.”

“Yes, but did she tell you why she punched me?” I asked both her and Bliss.

“I have my suspicions,” Bliss said ominously. “It might have had something to do with the C&C.”

“What the heck is the C&C?” I asked, suddenly wishing I’d had more than one tequila shot, and was as drunk as these ladies.

With tremendous victory, Harmony pulled a ChapStick out of her little purse and began to apply it with relish.

It was weirdly hot.

“What’s going on?” Mac asked, coming up behind me.

“Oh,” Amity said. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“It’s why I asked,” Mac said dryly. Then looked at me. “You need help getting them home?”

“Yes, please.”

We’d taken two cars to get here tonight. Carter wanted to make sure he could leave at any time because of the kids. But he was still here. So he could take Mac and Tag back to the Swinging D while I could escort Harmony and her sisters home.

“Come on, ladies, you’re coming with me.”

“I live above the bar,” Bliss informed me, and linked arms with Harmony. “And Harmony is coming home with me.”

Harmony made a face at me. “Her couch sucks,” she staged whispered.

“There. You see. Harmony’s coming with me.”

“What about me?” Amity asked.

Mac grabbed her arm and steadied her. “You’re going upstairs with Bliss. That way, I don’t have to worry about you walking home.”

“I don’t have to do what you say,” Amity grumbled. “But I think I’ll go upstairs with Bliss. I don’t mind her sucky couch so much.”

“Good idea,” Mac said, leading her behind Bliss who was heading to a locked door behind the bar, which must lead to the stairs to the apartment above it.

I caught Carter’s eyes and silently communicated my intent. He gave me a two finger salute.

“Let’s go,” Harmony said with a yawn.

She’d put on her parka and pulled her stocking cap over her ponytail. I held open the door for her and glanced back to see every single person in the bar staring at us. The rumor mill tomorrow would be in high gear.

I’d kissed her neck. Thrown around the word mine. And now I was taking her home.

The town was going to have a field day with this.

It was going to take some getting used to, but in one night, we’d made real headway towards making our epic fake romance believable.

“Come on,” I said, tucking her arm in mine as we hit the sidewalk. “This way.”

We walked in tandem, her hip brushing mine, our breath fogging in the air in front of us.

She tilted her head back. “Look at the stars,” she whispered, as the dark sky splashed with bright pin pricks of light.

“Wow,” I said. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I’d noticed the night sky, but whenever it was, it didn’t look like this.

“Does the sky look the same where you are?” she asked.

“Seattle? No. Too much light pollution.”

“That’s too bad. I don’t think I could live anywhere where I couldn’t see stars.”

I hummed in my throat. Most of the people in my family felt the same way. I was the oddball in that regard. Although, leaving Wyoming for college hadn’t been about the place so much as it had been the life I’d wanted.

“There’s Orion’s Belt,” she said, pointing at the three stars in a row just over the northern horizon. I didn’t look up, I was caught, mesmerized by the jugular vein to the right of her sternal notch throbbing in time with her heartbeat.

I put my finger against it and she sucked in a breath and stepped away from me.

“What…” she said, her hand clapped over her throat like I’d burned her.

“Force of habit,” I said, feeling heat climb my own neck. “Your heart beats there.” I pointed in the direction of her neck. “The jugular vein, I can tell the pressure in the right atrium of your heart.”

“Is it doing something weird?” she asked, feeling around her neck for the point. “Do I need to be worried?”

“No,” I chuckled. “It’s fine.”

I picked up her fingers and pressed them to my neck, so she could feel my pulse.

She looked at me with wide eyes, but she didn’t jerk her hand back right away.

Her cold fingers against my hot neck were shocking, and I wanted more.

I wanted her to slide her cold hand deep into my coat and press all her fingers to my hot skin.

She pulled her hand back and when we started walking again, she was weaving down the icy sidewalk without any idea which car was mine. I was forced to quick step to put her arm back around mine.

“Don’t pretend you’re a gentleman,” she said.

“I don’t think I’m pretending.”

She scoffed and I smiled. Drunk, grumpy Harmony was pretty adorable.

I tended to like straight forward women. Women who made things easy and didn’t ask me to work too hard to understand them. Yeah, I know that made me sound like an asshole, but I was a busy man who had limited time to date.

Harmony was none of that. She was secrets and mysteries and thoughts in her head I didn’t have a clue about.

A bitter wind blew down Main Street, which had been affectionately named Hangman’s Lane, to honor the town’s tradition of…

well, hanging people. The Last Stand was on the north side of the square, but I’d had to park further south.

All the local businesses faced the square, the center of which was home to some interesting and completely morbid bronze statuary.

As we walked, we passed Harmony’s Last Chance Goods and Provisions store and The Last Meal café, which Amity owned. The Calloway businesses were really the town’s local economy.

“Why don’t you live above your store?” I asked her. “There’s got to be an apartment there, too.”

“I don’t live above the store because it’s full of stuff from the bar and the café. It’s on my New Year’s resolution list, though.”

“What is?”

“Cleaning it out.”

“You have a list? I thought resolutions were singular.”

“Most years I only have one, but this year I have two.”

“What’s the other one?”

She didn’t answer me and our eyes met briefly in the dark.

“None of your beeswax,” she said primly.

“Beeswax? Really. Well, now it feels like my beeswax.”

“Why are you really on a hiatus from work?” she asked.

“Touché,” I said. Because she knew I wasn’t going to answer that.

“Obviously, just because we’re getting fake married, doesn’t mean we have to tell each other everything.”

“Obviously,” I said, and kept walking.

We passed the health clinic where most folks received their healthcare. The big animal vet, who was probably more sought after than the doctors in this town.

The K-12 school house where my brothers and I had all been educated, was just off the square. The Methodist church right next to that.

On the west corner of the square there was an old Victorian house that used to belong to the Calloways, but they had to sell it at some point.

For as long as I could remember, it was a B&B run by Ida Strunk, the local knower of all town gossip.

Her only competition in the hospitality and busy-body business was her sister, Irma Strunk, who ran the B&B on the opposite corner of the square.

Two women, who had to be in their seventies by now, were never married and had no kids.

They claimed their only aim in life was to crush one another’s business.

I wondered how their two operations were doing if tourism was at an all-time low.

The town, this place, is dying.

I tried to shake off my father’s last words, but looking at this town in the starlight, it was hard.

I didn’t want it to be dying. As a teenager, it had felt so restricting, but seeing it now through my adult eyes, I found it to be…peaceful. Charming.

I stopped walking in front of the old train depot that had been turned into the town’s municipal building. Home to our very own local historical museum which featured the rich and violent history of the Calloways and McGraws.

And there, directly in front of the old train depot, was the bronzed gallows statue just like I remembered it.

Yes. That’s right. Instead of a fountain or a gazebo – we had a statue of a gallows.

It used to actually have a bronzed noose hanging from it, but at some point the town had decided that nooses weren’t welcoming to tourists or children.

So, now if you didn’t know what it was, it looked like a strange bronze stage.

Around the square, there were other memorial statues commemorating the feud between our families. Of course, there was the legendary Widow Calloway and Duncan McGraw, the origin of our family feud.

As the story goes, Duncan McGraw wanted to marry the widow to claim the rest of the land he didn’t own. She wouldn’t have him, so he pushed her over a peak. However, she managed to survive, only to climb up that same peak and shove him over it instead.

She’d been hanged for murder by the town sheriff. Hence the town’s signature statue.

Next to the gallows, there was a community board filled with various flyers and announcements.

Curious, I couldn’t help myself, and walked over to get a closer look.

“What are you doing?” Harmony asked. Given her arm was linked with mine, she had to come with me.

“I just want to see what’s going on in town.”

“Your dad died,” she said softly. “Right now, that’s all anyone is talking about.”

“What the hell?” I said, stepping closer. Was that my high school graduation picture from the yearbook, blown up and plastered in the center of the board?

Underneath it was the caption:

Wanted: Information on why this man was seen kissing the neck of a Calloway!

“That literally just happened. Like an hour ago.”

“Welcome home,” Harmony said.

.