LITMIR.BIZ

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for good.

      Melba gave a pleased little laugh. “And didn’t I tell you to have faith, that the perfect man for you would come along?”

      More than once in the past two years, Jordyn had cried on Melba’s kindly shoulder because everybody else was coupling up and getting married, but she’d yet to meet the guy for her. “Yes, you did.”

      “And just look at you now.”

      Jordyn put on a big, fat smile. “You’re right. It all worked out in the end.” And it had. Just not in the way that Melba assumed. Jordyn was married, as she’d dreamed of being. But by the third week in August, barring the slim chance that she might be pregnant, she would be divorced.

      Also, when she’d dreamed of marriage, what she’d really been longing for was that special, special man and true love to last a lifetime.

      Will was special, all right. And he loved her—as an honorary baby sister he felt he had to take care of.

      It was a long, long way from what she’d been dreaming of.

      * * *

      When she knocked on Will’s door at the Manor, he answered with his cell phone at his ear.

      He ushered her in and went on with his conversation—with his mother, Carol. “Yeah, Mom. I know. I should have called. Sorry. It is a big, big deal, and I know you hate being left out of the loop...Yeah. Absolutely. You had a right to be here. It’s just that, well, when I swept Jordyn Leigh off her feet, I needed to make her mine before she came down to earth and had second thoughts.” He glanced Jordyn’s way, arching a dark eyebrow and grinning, as if to say, Boy, do I know how to make this crap up. And he did. He went on, “I wanted that ring on her finger before she had a chance to think twice. Couldn’t have her changing her mind on me, now, could I?” His mother said something and he replied, “Tomorrow, that’s right. We’ll be moving in then...Thanks. I will...” And then, “Yeah, she’s here...”

      Jordyn dropped her overnighter on the floor, scowled at Will for putting her on the spot—and then gave in and took the phone. “Hi, Carol.”

      “Jordyn Leigh, I am so happy.” Will’s mom had been crying. She sniffled. “I have to say, I always wondered about you two, always suspected there was more going on between you than any of us realized.”

      Seriously? “And you were so right,” she lied. “Just look at us now.” She sent Will another scowl. He put on a big smile and gave her a thumbs-up.

      “I have to tell you,” Will’s mom said in her just-between-girls voice. “I was beginning to think Will would never find the right woman and settle down. But now I get it. He was waiting to get to Rust Creek Falls—and you. I just... Words fail me. They do. Your mother and I have always dreamed that someday our families would be joined together. And now it’s happened. It’s really happened. You’re my own daughter now. I only wish we could get up there to see you this summer.”

      “Well, that would be wonderful...” And awkward. And strange.

      “But even if we don’t make it to visit before the end of summer, we’ll see you here at home for Thanksgiving.” They would? “Will says you’re off to Missoula at the end of August, but he promised to bring you home to us over your Thanksgiving break. And then you’ll both be coming down for Christmas, of course.”

      “Erm, of course...”

      “Oh, sweetie, I can’t wait.”

      Jordyn played her part. She said she couldn’t wait, either. And Carol Clifton babbled happily on for another ten minutes.

      Finally, she asked for Will again. “I have a few more things I need to tell him, and then his father will want to congratulate him.”

      Jordyn tossed Will the phone as if it was a scalding hot potato, scooped up her overnighter and made a beeline for the bathroom, which gave her a door to shut on Will as he told more brilliantly detailed lies to his own mother.

      Determined not to go back out there until Will had finished his call, Jordyn set her toiletry case on the shelf, ran a comb through her hair and put on some lip gloss. She was just peeking around the door to make sure the coast was clear when her own phone rang. It was her mother, who was crying happy tears just like Will’s mother had been.

      Jordyn emerged into the main room and dropped to the sofa as Evelyn Cates said how thrilled she was about the marriage. She was also hurt that she hadn’t been there to see her youngest daughter say I do to the man of her dreams. Jordyn talked to her for fifteen minutes, in the course of which her mom got past her hurt and confessed that she was over the moon at the news.

      “I’ve always favored Will over his brothers,” her mother confided in an excited whisper. “Though make no mistake, I do love his brothers, too.”

      “I know you do, Mom.”

      “And your father and I are going to see what we can do, see if we can make it up there to the Rust Creek Valley for a visit this summer...”

      “It would be so great to see you.” Except for how I’ll have to lie straight to your face the whole time that you’re here.

      “Well, I can’t promise anything. Things are always crazy here at home—and you’ll be here in Thunder Canyon for Thanksgiving, anyway, won’t you?”

      She cast a reproachful glance in Will’s direction. “That’s the plan.”

      “Wonderful.” Her mother sighed. “Just wonderful. I’m so happy for you—and Will is a lucky, lucky man.”

      Her father came on the phone next. He told her he loved her and he was proud of her and he thought she’d made a damn fine choice in Will for a husband. “And is he there with you? I would like a word with him.”

      Jordyn passed Will her phone. He got congratulated by her father and then her mother. Twenty minutes later, they finally said goodbye to the Cates parents.

      And five minutes after that, Jordyn’s sister Jasmine called. Jazzy had come to Rust Creek Falls with Jordyn, but had found love in no time with the local veterinarian, Brooks Smith.

      “I’ve called twice before this and sent more than one text, too, since I heard the news Sunday morning,” Jazzy chided in a wounded tone. “I was getting worried.”

      Jordyn apologized and settled her down and told all the right lies. Already they were starting to come way too smoothly, those lies. And that seemed somehow a whole new kind of wrong. Bad enough that she kept lying, even worse that the untruths were starting to rise so easily to her tongue.

      After she got rid of Jazzy, she looked up to find her new husband watching her. “I would really love it if I didn’t have to tell another lie today.” She tossed her phone on the low table and sank to the sofa in the room’s small living area.

      “Hey.” He came to her in long strides, dropping down beside her and throwing an arm across the back of the couch. Faintly, she could smell his aftershave, like saddle soap and spice. He had a scruff of black beard on his fine, square jaw, and his eyes really were beautiful, surrounded by long, black lashes that any girl would envy, his irises light as blue frost in the center, the outer circle rimmed in cobalt. “Don’t think of it as lying,” he advised in that know-it-all tone he’d been using on her practically since she was in diapers.

      “Of course I think of it as lying. It is lying.”

      “Because you’re approaching it the wrong way. Strictly speaking, nothing we’ve told them is untrue.”

      “Strictly speaking,” she shot back, “now you’re lying to me, too.”

      “That’s not so.”

      “Think back, Will. You told your parents that you’re bringing me home to Thunder Canyon for Thanksgiving—and at Christmas, too.”

      A muscle in that square jaw twitched. “It

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