“El—”
“This is ridiculous.” I shot out of my chair, slipping around him to pace in front of the island. “I shouldn’t have to beg for you to go with me. Why is this even a debate? You’re going. You promised me that you’d help me prove to everyone that this was real, so you’re going.”
Jasper looked up, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
I mirrored his posture, mostly so I wouldn’t squirm beneath the intensity of his stare. It took all my willpower to breathe evenly and keep my chin held high. “You’re coming with me.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re awfully bossy today.”
“I’ve been taking lessons from my husband.”
His jaw flexed. But then I saw it, a crack in that steel armor. He dropped his arms. “You’re right. I just . . . I struggle with family. But I’ll go.”
The air rushed from my lungs. “Thank you.”
Jasper crooked a finger, luring me closer. Then, when I’d stopped in front of him, my arms still crossed, he shook his head. “They don’t need to like me.”
Yes, they did. I wanted them to be proud that I’d married a good man. Just for a little while, I wanted them to like Jasper. Because when he walked away, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise, he would become the enemy.
So for now, for two more months, sixty-ish days, I wanted them to like him. To be happy for us.
Starting Sunday with dinner at the ranch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELOISE
This dinner was either going to be incredible or an incredible disaster. I was betting on the latter. Regardless, even if this was an epic failure, I wasn’t sorry for pushing Jasper to come.
“Turn off up there,” I told him, pointing to the gravel road that teed into the highway ahead.
Jasper slowed and took the left without so much as a nod. He was as silent now as he had been all day. Hell, other than a few groans, he’d barely made a sound when we’d had sex this morning.
Still, no regrets.
My family was a huge part of my life. He was my husband. At some point, the two had to learn how to play nice. Besides, it was only for a couple months.
The ranch’s open gates greeted us as we rolled down the gravel drive. My stomach, already in knots, twisted tighter as we passed the log archway emblazoned with the Eden ranch brand—an E with a curve in the shape of a rocking chair’s runner beneath.
“That’s our brand,” I told Jasper.
Not even a hum of acknowledgment.
Why was he so against this? I still didn’t understand his resistance. It was just dinner.
Last night during our argument—if that counted as an argument—I should have pressed for more of an explanation. But the moment he’d agreed to come to dinner, I’d dropped the subject entirely.
While he’d made dinner, I’d changed into sweats. Then the two of us had shared a quiet meal before we’d retreated to bed, doing what we did best.
Each other.
“Thank you for coming.”
He nodded. Progress. Though his eyes stayed locked on the road ahead.
I studied his profile, letting my gaze wander down his forehead to the bump on the bridge of his nose. To the soft lips and stubbled jaw that had woken me this morning as he’d kissed my neck and slid inside my body.
Was it such a crime for me to ask for this meal?
I wanted my family to know Jasper. To remember him. I wanted them to see the man who’d shared this wild, reckless adventure with me. The man who’d only be in my life for a short time but whose memory would undoubtedly last for years.
Forcing this issue was probably silly, considering this was all just a charade. But with every passing day, this felt less and less like a mistake. And if they knew him, then maybe they’d realize why I’d married him that night. Maybe they wouldn’t hold it against me.
And I wanted Jasper to know my family. To see the best of them.
Here on the ranch, we were all our best.
This was home.
Spring weather in Montana, especially in May, was always unpredictable. It could snow one day and be sunny and seventy degrees the next. But for Jasper’s first visit to the ranch, the scene through the windshield couldn’t have been more picturesque.
Barbwire fences bordered the road. Beyond them, the meadows were a lush, vibrant green as they stretched beneath tall evergreens toward the foothills. Mountains, capped with snow, towered in the distance. Their jagged peaks kissed the brilliant blue sky.
It was magnificent. I’d lived my whole life in Montana, yet it never failed to steal my breath.
“Griffin and Winn live on the ranch,” I told Jasper, pointing out my window in the general direction of my brother’s house. “You can’t see their place from here but it’s that way.”
Not that Jasper had asked for that information, but this silence was only making the nerves fluttering in my belly worse. If he wouldn’t talk, then I would.
“Griff runs the ranch now. It’s one of the largest in the state.” That wasn’t a brag. It was simply pride in my family. For generations, the Edens had owned this land, expanding it when possible, adding more acreage and more cattle. “It runs along the mountains for miles.”
Normally, I offered to take visitors on a tour, maybe even spend a Sunday riding horses along the path that tied one end of the ranch to the other. That was, if they showed any interest in this place.
But Jasper just kept driving, not even bothering to look my way. And by the time the trails dried out enough so we wouldn’t be riding in the mud, he’d be gone anyway.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Griff and Winn have two kids. Hudson and Emma. Knox and his wife, Memphis, have two boys, Drake and Harrison.”
Did Jasper want kids? I couldn’t picture him with a baby in his arms. Though until my brothers had become fathers, I hadn’t been able to imagine them as dads either.
It was hard to remember what these family dinners had been like before the babies had been born. When I thought of Griffin, I saw him wearing his scuffed cowboy boots and faded Wranglers, Hudson perched on one arm and Emma on the other. And Knox wasn’t Knox without Drake toddling behind him, an adorable shadow with blond hair and a smile that would thaw even Jasper’s icy indifference.
I was counting on those kids. I was counting on my brothers and sisters, Mom’s cooking and Dad’s bellowing laugh to win Jasper over tonight.
My hands began to tremble so I slid them beneath my legs.
Ahead, in a clearing of the trees, my parents’ log house came into view. “That’s Mom and Dad’s. My room was that first window on the second floor.”
Jasper shifted his grip on the wheel, but otherwise, he gave nothing away. He was as unreadable as a piece of blank paper.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked.
He blinked.
“Apparently I’ll have to pay more,” I muttered. “Are you going to be like this all night? Brooding and, well . . . grumpy?”