Page 7 of Sweet Beginnings (Honeysuckle, Texas #1)

“Seriously. Someone take her wine away.” Jill waved her arms in frustration at her sister. The gesture reminding Sarah of when they were all kids and Jill and her twin would have completely opposing ideas. They may have been born minutes apart on the same day but the similarities ended there.

“Think about it.” Rachel pushed to her feet and approached her sister. “Foreigners do it all the time for a green card, except they have to stay married for two years, not one.”

For a split second, Sarah wondered if she’d fallen and bumped her head and didn’t remember. A subdural hematoma or concussion would explain this bizarre conversation. And of all the crazy ideas that her best friends had ever had, this one was a doozy.

Up on her feet, Jill waved a hand at her sister and grabbed a bag of nuts from the bar. “Don’t you think if falling in love were that easy, we’d all be married by now?”

“Unless it’s a business arrangement.” Carson took another sip of his drink.

“Not you too!” Jill threw her arms up in the air and spun around on her heel before collapsing onto the sofa.

“This isn’t a new concept. Television executives got rich making instant marriage reality TV shows, and modern day international mail order brides are big business.”

“Time out.” Jill set her drink on the table and sucked in a long breath. “I’m not saying I agree with any of this, but even if it were possible for one of us to find a person to marry on short notice, Mom would never let us do it. Not even to save the ranch.”

“She’s right,” Preston spoke up.

“Finally. Someone with sense in the room.” Jill’s arms cut through the air again.

“Then don’t tell her.” Carson set his half-full drink aside and leaning forward, resting his arms on his thighs, steepled his fingers together.

“I’ve got all my credit tied up in our current deal that has ground to a halt for who knows how long.

I might be able to borrow a little more, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to tide us over for an entire year and the interest would just dig us deeper in the hole.

As it is, according to those numbers we’re going to need to do a lot of fast thinking to undo this mess.

I, for one, cannot imagine not having the only home we’ve ever known sold to the highest bidder. ”

Hear, hear , multiple voices chorused. Even Sarah knew, for all of them, the ranch was more than a house, or business—it was who the Sweets had been for hundreds of years.

“Well,” Carson continued, “one of us getting married would be just the start, but at least it’s a start.”

“I know this isn’t my place.” Sarah still couldn’t believe how badly things had turned for the Sweets. “I don’t have a whole lot of savings, but I have a bit and heaven knows I’m earning next to nothing in interest. I’d be glad to make a neighborly loan.”

A smile tipped the corners of Preston’s mouth upward. “That’s very nice of you, but Mom would really blow a gasket if we took your savings.”

“Well, one thing is for sure.” Carson lifted a single finger. “With our busiest season upon us and no help, looks like while I’m waiting for the green light to move forward with my current project, I’ll be moving back to the ranch and getting reacquainted with a little hard labor.”

Preston rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and then just let his elbow hang. “I’ll do the same. I can work remotely from anywhere. I’ll just do ranching at the crack of dawn and my accounting work after lunch into the evening.”

“I don’t have to be at the store till ten.” Jill sighed. “I can put in a few hours here. That is if I move into our old room again.”

“You mean we .” Rachel smiled at her sister.

“I’m only doing field work two days a week.

The rest of the time I’m working from home.

Thankfully, social services is happy to save money not heating and cooling a big building.

I can put in my share of hard labor, but we’ll still be short hands and we’ll still need a huge chunk of change to stop any more losses. ”

“You might as well say it.” Preston blinked hard. “To stop us from losing the ranch.”

Rachel nodded. “Exactly. Which, if I’m reading the writing on the wall correctly, brings us full circle to not just one of us, but we all have to try and find someone to marry us. That will increase the odds of us having our inheritance sooner than later.”

Jill pressed her lips tightly together. Sarah couldn’t tell if she was growing angrier or coming around to her siblings’ way of thinking.

Either way the whole thing seemed crazy surreal.

How did a ranch that had been around for over two hundred years, with a nice normal happy family, suddenly find themselves facing a life suitable for a reality TV show?

Slowly, Jill let out a long, deep sigh. “I’m not saying I agree with any of this, but if I were to go along, where are we supposed to find these marital prospects?

Ones that will fool Mom, because you know she’s not going to let us do it for the money, and she’s not going to believe that any of us, never mind all of us , have met someone and fallen head over heels in love in a week. ”

The siblings had gone from taking turns communicating to speaking on top of one another and growing louder and louder.

Jill was still the only one with viable objections, from what’s in it for the spouse, to sex, to the cost of community property.

For someone who saw the worst side of society at her day job, Rachel seemed surprisingly willing to scour the internet for a prospect with little concern for the risks.

Carson clearly was stuck in litigation mode because he continued to harp on the need for prenups and clarity before moving forward with this, and Sarah couldn’t begin to imagine what Garret and Kade would have to say when they found out.

The whole time, Sarah kept her focus on Preston.

He’d had the least to say and the most intense look on his face.

Normally deep blue eyes had teetered on shades of stormy gray as soon as he’d sat down by the computer.

She’d love to know exactly what was going through that complicated brain of his.

Though she could venture a guess that already he was calculating a way to make this work without leaving collateral damage, and as one of the siblings had mentioned, when you involve human emotions there’s usually collateral damage when a relationship—no matter how platonic—ends.

She very much wanted to help her neighbors, but she especially wished she could run her thumb across the deep-set lines creating ridges in Preston’s forehead and make all his worries go away.

And wasn’t that just ridiculous. If anything, as a kid, Preston had been the one to watch out for her and his younger sisters, not the other way around.

The voices got louder and deeper, and Preston remained silent on the sidelines.

She and Preston were the only two who hadn’t even tried to get a word in edgewise for the last twenty minutes.

Growing up, she always felt she understood Preston better than his brothers.

Didn’t hurt any that he’d held a soft spot in her heart since she was six years old, fell off the rope swing, and splashed in the storm-high creek.

She’d been more scared than in danger, but at only ten years old, Preston had been the one to dive in and rescue her.

Her first experience with a knight in shining armor.

Now, she could almost feel the turmoil churning inside of him and wished she could do something, anything, to make this all better.

Anything . That one word rattled around in her thoughts and like a sudden bolt of lightning, the idea struck her.

“Excuse me.” Sarah’s politeness fell on deaf ears. “Hey y’all,” she shouted a bit louder.

Preston’s gaze met hers, and with the cutest little smile, he stuck his fingers in the edge of his mouth and let out an ear-piercing sound. When the room fell silent, his smile grew and he waved his arm in her direction, giving her the floor.

Still looking out for her, his assist made her smile. She turned to face the siblings. “I think I can help.”

Preston shook his head. “We already said we can’t take your money.”

She sucked in a breath, crossed the room, stood toe to toe with Preston, and chin up, leveled her gaze with his. “Then take me.”

Preston blinked—twice. He had to have heard Sarah wrong, and if he hadn’t, there had to be a much more sensible understanding of her words than the thoughts ricocheting in his overactive imagination.

“Excuse me?” From the expression on everyone’s face, Jill had just spoken for all the Sweets.

“Okay. Maybe that didn’t come out right.

What I mean is if one of you needs to marry in a hurry, needs someone willing to go along with this charade—because it is a charade—for a whole year, and make it believable to your mom and the town and bank, then it makes sense for one of you to fall for a friend. ”

Rachel bobbed her head. “Friends to lovers is a common trope in romance novels.”

“Trope?” Carson looked at his sister as if she’d just announced she was marrying an alien.

“Common premise in popular books,” Preston explained. “Like innocent wrongly accused.”

“Ah.” Carson nodded. “Makes sense.”

Sarah nodded at Preston for the correct explanation. “According to town gossip through the years, Jill had one foot in the church when she dated Bobby Prescott, but then she smartened up and since Bobby’s wife is pregnant with baby number four, he’s not a good candidate for this plan.”

“Dodged a bullet there,” Jill muttered.

“And Carson, you’ve made discretion an art form. If you’ve ever hooked up with anyone in this town, it’s the biggest secret since what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.”

Carson lifted one side of his mouth into a mischievous grin and Preston could almost see Sarah considering just how many secrets did their brother have.

“Unless I can convince Jimmy Henderson to leave sunny California, which I doubt will happen since he swore never to set foot in this God-forsaken town again,” Rachel sighed, “then I’ll probably have to start from scratch too.”

“Which leaves us,” Preston spoke softly as if that would make what he had to say less jarring, less absurd.

They’d never been an item. Not even close, but ever since her senior prom, the idea had been in everyone else’s mind.

A handful of chaperones had mentioned what a lovely couple they made.

Of course they probably said that to every one of the kids.

His mom had gone out of her way to point out what a nice girl Sarah was.

How well she fit into the family. Except she was just finishing high school and he was about to move onto his first full-time job.

Shifting her gaze from her brother to Sarah and back again, Jill shook her head. “You two are really considering this, aren’t you?”

“It could work.” Preston shrugged, unsure of who he was trying to convince. “There’d have to be a little juggling and finessing, but we could probably buy some time on a few of the debts, enough to get the first monthly allowance.”

“Will it be enough?” Carson asked.

“A stop gap. We’ll need to put all ranch earnings back into the kitty.” Basically, they’d be back to working for their mom for room, board, and love.

“I’ll see what I can borrow.” Carson let his booted foot slide off his knee and thump on the floor. “If we can pay the debts back quickly, the interest won’t be the end of the world. Especially if it saves the ranch.”

“So,” Jill slapped her hands on her jeans, “if you guys are all agreed this is the best plan, I’ll be a team player, go along, but I want it on the record that if this blows up in our faces, I thought before, and still think, it’s a crazy idea.”

“Noted.” Carson smiled at his sister.

“Who’s going to break the news to Garret and Kade?” Rachel raised one brow at her siblings.

Preston exhaled. “If Sarah and I are going through with this, telling Garret can wait till his vacation is over. Poor guy spends most of the year dealing with classrooms of junior high tweens, he deserves time. Kade can wait till we figure out all the details.”

Jill spun around to face Sarah. Concern warred with intense determination. Determination was winning. “You do realize what you’re volunteering for?”

“To help save the ranch.”

He wished Sarah had sounded a little more sure of her answer.

Jill crossed her arms and shook her head once from left to right. “To play footsies with my brother.”

The words “It’s not like that,” spilled from Preston’s mouth at the same time Sarah Sue protested, “It wouldn’t be like that.”

Jill held up her hand. “Maybe not when you’re home, but if you’re going to convince the bank, the town, and Mom that you’re enough in love to want to marry and marry fast, you’re going to have to play the part in public—a lot.”

This plan was not the same as being a fill-in for one night. This would be an entire year—after they married. “She’s right.” Preston shrugged.

Sarah Sue seemed to be making an effort just to nod.

He didn’t like that. “We should probably talk.”

She nodded again.

Rachel pushed to her feet. “And I should check on Mom.”

“Yes,” Jill followed her sister, “she may be feeling hungry. With all the commotion, we sort of forgot about dinner.”

“I’ll help you.” Carson hurried after Jill, leaving Preston and Sarah Sue alone.

He considered whether or not he should remain across the room or move closer, unsure if that would make the talk they needed to have easier or more difficult.

The internal debate almost made him laugh.

How was he supposed to play house with a woman who he was afraid to sit next to? “Are you hungry?”

Pretty blue eyes widened with surprise, blinked, and one side of her mouth tipped upward in a half-hearted smile. “Actually, I am.”

“Good. Grab your purse. We’ll talk in the car on the way to the café. That should give you twenty minutes to decide whether or not you want to go through with this hare-brained idea.”