brIDGET
E leven minutes late. I had a feeling I was going to be a jilted bride.
Did it count as jilted if you had never even met the guy you were marrying? I wasn't sure. All I knew was Bobbi, the woman behind the front desk at the inn, assured me my groom would be here at seven for our first date. First meeting. First everything.
Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. We’d talked—well, I'd never actually heard his voice.
It had all been through text. But that was how the guys my age communicated.
Sure, this man was thirty-five, which meant we weren't even the same generation, but did anybody really talk on the phone these days if we didn't have to?
I looked back over my shoulder through the glass doors of the Wildwood Valley Inn. Bobbi was still nowhere in sight. I’d expected her to be behind the desk, but she was gone, and the parking lot was completely empty aside from my silver sedan.
She had to be somewhere in that hotel watching, probably on camera. But if that were the case, where was her car? There had been several vehicles here when I arrived, but now, they were all gone.
The unmistakable whir of tires on pavement pulled me out of my thoughts.
It was a sound I hadn’t heard since I came out here a full twenty minutes ago.
How was that even possible? A street with an interstate exit, a diner, an inn, and a pancake restaurant—and no cars passing by for twenty-four minutes?
It was like something out of a sci-fi movie.
By the time the big black truck crested the hill, it was already just feet from the turn-in for the inn. I thought the driver was going too fast, but somehow he managed to slow the truck just enough to make the turn without it becoming reckless.
He pulled right up to the curb, passenger window rolled down, and asked, “Bridget?”
I nodded.
“Hop in.”
I couldn’t tell from his gruff expression whether that was an order or a suggestion. All I knew was this date wasn’t getting off on a good foot. I expected a husband who opened the passenger door for me on our first date.
But I couldn’t really be picky here. I was in Wildwood Valley for a reason. Marriage was just a means to an end.
I opened the door and stared at the seat.
There was no step to help me get into this gigantic megabus, and I was only five-foot-four.
How the heck was I supposed to do this? Especially in a pencil skirt that was already close to bursting at the seams, thanks to my “thunder thighs,” as my so-called high school friends used to call them.
“I don’t know how…” I said, mostly to myself.
But then I realized how pathetic that made me sound. Come on now. I was a strong, independent woman. I could do this. I didn’t need some man to rescue me.
I shifted my purse, placed both hands on the passenger seat, and hoisted myself up. My groom, Reilly, had popped his door open, ready to climb out and help, I assumed.
“I’m okay,” I rushed to say, freezing his movements.
Finally, I was settled in the seat. That was when I got a good, solid look at the man I was supposed to marry.
Holy shit. I didn’t even cuss, but this guy was worth a few profanities.
Until now, I’d had one picture to go by, and it had been blown up from a much smaller image, so it was kind of blurry. But even through the haze, I could tell he was hot.
This was next level, though. He had muscles for days. In fact, his bulging biceps threatened to burst the seams of his dress shirt sleeves like my hips were doing to my skirt. At least we had that in common.
“You’re Reilly, right?” I asked.
I knew that was his face, plus he’d called me by name. But I had to make sure he wasn’t a mass murderer while my passenger door was open and I could still escape.
“Yep,” he said.
I closed the door and fastened my seatbelt, suddenly realizing a mass murderer would probably lie and say yes to that. But before I could give it much thought, he’d already shifted the truck into gear and pulled out of the lot.
I kept my hands folded in my lap as I stared straight ahead. The seat was warm, and the truck smelled faintly like cedar and leather, which matched the man in the pictures somehow. The one I’d spent the last three weeks imagining, anyway.
“So…” I said, keeping my tone light. “Do you always open conversations with ‘Bridget?’ or is that just reserved for the women you’re marrying?”
He flicked a glance at me—more of a side-eye than a real look—and said flatly, “I’m not marrying anyone.”
I blinked. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“But…” I sat up straighter in the seat. “You’re Reilly Clark.”
“Yeah.” He said it like a question he was tired of answering.
“And you’re here to meet me. Seven o’clock. Dinner at the steakhouse in Hartsville. You wrote that in your message.”
“I didn’t write you any messages.”
For a moment, I just stared at him, trying to decide if this was a joke. Or some kind of test. But there wasn’t an ounce of teasing in his voice. No hint of a smirk. Just plain confusion and that ever-present frown, like someone had handed him a puppy and told him it was a grenade.
“You’re serious,” I whispered.
He let out a sigh and turned his attention back to the road. “Bobbi said someone was coming to town. She asked me to show you around. I thought I was doing her a favor.”
“A favor?” My voice cracked. “You thought you were doing your friend a favor?”
“You thought I was marrying you?”
I couldn’t speak. I sat there in stunned silence, staring out the windshield at the large stretch of interstate with mountains up ahead. I felt it—this slow, sinking weight in my chest like everything I’d carefully packed, planned, and hoped for was dissolving, one painful second at a time.
“I was told we were getting married,” I finally said. “Sunday. That’s what you said in your messages.”
“I didn’t send any damn messages,” he repeated.
I flinched, then chastised myself. Don’t show weakness. Never show weakness.
He cursed under his breath, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. “Look, I’m not mad at you, okay? I just—this is a hell of a thing to drop on a guy without warning.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Tell me about it.”
Neither of us spoke again until we pulled into the parking lot of the steakhouse. He parked, turned off the ignition, and didn’t make a move to get out or open my door.
“You coming?” he asked.
I opened the door myself, climbed down without grace, and followed him inside, heart thudding like I’d just run uphill in heels.
The waitress seemed to know him. She barely glanced at me and led us to a booth in the back.
We ordered—well, he ordered—and I copied him without thinking.
Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a sweet tea.
We sat in a weird, clunky silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “I moved here.”
He looked up from his plate.
“I sold my car to pay for the plane ticket. I gave up my apartment. Quit my job. Told my family I was marrying a man named Reilly Clark in a town called Wildwood Valley.”
His fork paused. “You did all that?”
“I believed it. The messages weren’t crazy or creepy. They were sweet. Funny. Thoughtful. You—or whoever it was—talked about your cabin, your land, how you wanted a quiet life with someone who wasn’t afraid of getting her hands dirty.”
“I didn’t write any of that.”
“I know that now.”
He leaned back, scowling harder than before. “So what, you want me to just go along with it? Marry a stranger because Bobbi played matchmaker behind my back?”
“No,” I said. “I want you to acknowledge that I’m a person. Not just some inconvenience dropped in your truck.”
That landed. He didn’t apologize, but he looked away, jaw tight, like he knew I wasn’t wrong.
“I didn’t come here to trap anyone,” I added. “But I also didn’t come here to be tossed aside like I’m crazy for showing up.”
He exhaled, slow and heavy. “Bobbi told me you were her friend’s niece. She didn’t say anything about a wedding.”
“Because she lied to you,” I said. “And to me.”
He didn’t answer. The waitress dropped off our drinks, and I stirred sugar into mine, pretending my hand wasn’t shaking.
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” I said after a long pause. “I just want to know what I’m supposed to do now. Because I don’t have a return ticket. And I don’t have a backup plan.”
Another silence stretched between us. He looked out the window like the mountains might have answers I didn’t.
Finally, he muttered, “I’m not taking you back to the inn.”
That caught me off guard. “What?”
“I’ve got a guest room. You can stay there.”
“Why?”
He looked at me then. Really looked at me.
“Because I’m not a complete asshole.”
“Oh. Well. You should be proud of that.”
That earned me the barest hint of a smirk, but it vanished as fast as it came.
“I don’t know what Bobbi was thinking,” he said, pushing his plate away. “But I didn’t sign up for a wife. And I don’t need someone in my house trying to play one.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, sliding out of the booth. “You don’t have to worry about me playing anything.”
His eyes followed me as I scooted out of the booth, then he tossed a few bills on the table and stood up. We didn’t say a word on the walk back to the truck. But when I climbed into the cab and caught him glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, I didn’t feel quite as invisible as I had before.