am so happy you two are here. Grace and I set up one of the new cabins for you. We figured you should get the full experience while you’re here.”
“Why wouldn’t we stay here in the house?”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think you’ll want to stay here. Not until we do a little post-Zoe remodeling.”
Tyler jogged up the steps. What had Zoe done to his family’s house? The outside looked the way he remembered. The shutters were the same color green they had been when the boys were little. Tyler had noticed the old tire swing still hung from the elm tree out back when he drove up.
It was obvious what Zoe did as soon as he walked through the door. The once warm and cozy house was unrecognizable. The furniture in the front room didn’t look the least bit comfortable. There was no way Big E ever sat down and fell asleep on the couch. Given Zoe’s love for the color pink, he was a bit surprised and terribly horrified that she had hung red velvet wallpaper.
“Wait until you see the kitchen. It’s like something out of your bubblegum nightmares,” Ethan said from behind him as if he could read Tyler’s mind.
“How could he let her do this?” Tyler’s eyes had to be deceiving him. Nothing was the way it should be. His mother would have hated this. It was as if every bit of Blackwell had been erased from inside.
“You should see our old bedrooms. I get physically ill just thinking about it. Grace and I figure we can remodel in here once we make the ranch profitable.”
The new owners would probably tear this house down. It was a wonder Big E could stomach living in it for a second. Gone was the farmhouse table they all used to sit around to eat Mom’s homemade dinners. Gone were the comfy sofas the boys used to stretch out on after school. Gone was the oak mantel over the fireplace where their stockings used to hang at Christmastime.
This place was no home.
Tyler’s heart ached. As much as he hadn’t wanted to come back, he imagined it frozen in time. He hated that this was no longer the house where he grew up.
“Maybe Ethan can show us the cabin where we’ll be staying.” Hadley gave Tyler a sympathetic smile as if she could tell he was crushed. She took him by the hand. The contact startled him, but he didn’t pull away.
“Yeah, we can do that,” Ethan replied.
The front door opened and Ben strode in like he owned the pink palace. “Is that Impala outside your rental car, little brother? I thought a big-time advertising executive like yourself could afford to show up in style like I did. They rent Mercedes in Billings, you know.”
“Not all of us need a car to make us feel like a man,” Tyler replied, snapping out of his private pity party. “Sorry to hear you felt you needed a prop.”
Ben gave him a real Blackwell greeting—a punch in the shoulder. “It’s nice to see your face instead of talking to you on the phone.”
“I’d say the same if I hadn’t been forced to look at Ethan’s ugly mug since we got here. Let’s be honest, all you’ll ever be is a better-dressed version of him. Downside to being an identical twin, I guess.”
Ethan sidled up next to him and slapped Tyler on the shoulder. “Do you want to put him in a headlock or should I?” he asked Ben.
“Maybe we should do that thing to his underwear that used to make him cry when he was in middle school,” Ben proposed.
Tyler shoved Ethan away. “Maybe we should act like grown-ups in front of my fiancée.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “I can’t believe she’s real.”
Tyler introduced Hadley to his brother, who thankfully didn’t try to hug the stuffing out of her. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his money clip. He handed Ethan ten bucks.
“What’s that about?” Tyler asked.
“Ben thought you were lying about getting married. He was sure you made it up so you wouldn’t have to come home, but I said you weren’t that desperate.” Ethan waved the ten around. “We bet and now I’m a little richer.”
Tyler fought to control his expression. Part of him wanted to come clean. End the charade right then and there. He imagined taking the money from Ethan and handing it back to Ben. But that would be admitting he was exactly who everyone thought he was—the unlovable one.
“That’s so funny!” Hadley stepped up and held her hand out in front of Tyler. “Pay up, sweetheart. I said one of them would think you were bluffing. That’s what happens when you don’t mention to your family that you have an amazing girlfriend before you ask her to marry you.”
Amazing was right. She was an amazing liar. Tyler was thoroughly impressed. He took out his wallet and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. Both of his brothers’ mouths hung open.
“I might not be driving a Mercedes, but at least I play for real money when I make a bet. Let’s go check out these cabins,” Tyler said, pushing past Ben and making his way to the front door. He wouldn’t doubt this plan again.
* * *
HADLEY SLIPPED THE hundred-dollar bill into the pocket of her jeans. She had earned that money and there was no way she was giving it back. Meeting Tyler’s brothers had proved to be even more stressful than she imagined.
Of course they had questioned the legitimacy of this relationship. It was incredible that anyone believed their made-up love story. The thought that Tyler made time in his life for dating was comical. If his brothers truly knew him, they would have known this was a lie because there was little room in Tyler’s life for love.
Ben and Ethan climbed in Ben’s car and led the way to the new guest cabins. Hadley relished having a moment to let her guard down.
“From now on, I will never know if you’re telling me the truth,” Tyler said. “You are that good at lying.”
It was a strange thing to feel proud of, but Hadley still blew on her fingernails and buffed them on her shirt. “Thank you very much,” she said, assuming he meant that as a compliment.
Tyler’s opinion had always mattered. He was her boss and what he thought about her ability to get a job done was imperative to keeping said job. Convincing his family they were in love was her current job, and she was doing everything she could to make it happen.
Tyler cleared his throat. “My family brings out my competitive side. It’s never been easy to stand out in this crowd. When I left, it was so nice not to be compared to any other Blackwell. I swore I’d never worry about one-upping any of them again. Yet, the second they ask me to come back, here I am trying to convince them I am just as good, just as rich, just as smart, just as...almost married.”
Tyler was all of those things, except for the almost-married part. Somehow that seemed to irk him the most. “It bothers you to lie to them.”
“It bothers me that I don’t want to see the way they’d look at me if they knew this wasn’t real. Like, poor Tyler. He’s all alone. There’s nothing wrong with being alone.”
He didn’t have to convince her. Hadley was perfectly content with being single. It didn’t matter so much that all of her college friends were either getting married or already married. Some of them were even starting to have kids. She was only twenty-six. Far from being a spinster.
“Exactly,” she agreed. “There’s no shame in building a successful career first. That’s my goal. I want to be something other than someone’s wife. Is that wrong?”
“Not in my book. And given your performance today, you’re definitely on track to be our brand strategist.” Tyler cracked a smile.
He somehow managed to be even more attractive when he smiled. His eyes crinkled at the edges and softened just enough to make her think less about being a brand strategist and more about being his fiancée.