Madeline
***
“YOU’RE HIRING A WIFE on Craigslist?” I know Big Mac is going to yell my name again any second, but I can’t walk away now.
I set the coffee pot down and grab the pad before Boone can stop me.
Wife wanted: Woman in 20s needed to be farm wife. Needs to be able to cook basic meals and clean. Must want kids. Gardening a bonus.
“Oh, my God. You really are hiring a wife on Craigslist.”
He scrubs his hand over his face. There are shadows under his eyes, but those eyes never stop moving. Like he’s always expecting danger. Like he needs to defend himself all the time. “I need help. All the stuff my mom used to do...the cooking, cleaning, decorating...none of it gets done anymore. I can’t do it all and work in the fields, too.”
“Boone, you hire a cook or a maid or an interior decorator. You don’t hire a wife.”
“I have...needs...also. The kind a wife would...” He pulls the collar of his T-shirt away from his neck like it’s strangling him.
“So go on dates! Oh my God. You can’t hire a wife so you can get laid.” I slap my hand over my mouth. That might have been a bit loud. And I can’t believe I’m talking to Boone about getting laid.
“I don’t have time to date.” He’s reading over his ad. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to work.”
“You sound like you’re shopping for a car, not finding a wife. What about love?”
He shakes his head. “What about it? I don’t need love. I need my house to be a home again. I need a partner. The bank says a loan would be easier to get if I was settled, too. Even though it wasn’t my fault that I went...away...they say it would look better if I had a wife. Stability.” He’s looking across the street at the hardware store. “I have to catch up. I missed too much. I don’t have time to...date. I just need to get started.”
That’s when I see what he’s looking at. Amy Bennett...well, Amy Jones now. She’s across the street pushing a stroller and rubbing her big belly. Amy used to be his girlfriend. She was the female Boone. Cheer captain, homecoming queen, and if I remember right, she was real smart, too. The whole blonde package.
And she married someone else when he was in prison. That’s what he wants to catch up to. “Boone, you can’t hire a wife. That won’t get you what you want.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Just like I can’t hire a decent childhood on Craigslist, you can’t hire someone to erase the last five years. You need to do it the long way. Find a girl. Date. Fall in love. Then you can get married and have babies.”
His jaw is so square I could play Tic-Tac-Toe on it. Every muscle in his body is tense. “Look at me. You think anyone in this town is going to want to go out with a newly released felon like me?”
“You aren’t a felon!”
“Look. At. Me.” I am. I do. All the time. Boone Barker used to set my girlish heart aflutter, but the huge slab of man in the booth turns my grown-up knees to jelly. He’s massive and rough and virile. That wary look in his eyes never goes away and makes him seem almost feral. And he’s looking at me now. No, he’s looking through me. Like he can see how fast my heart beats for him.
Count it off. Three. Two. One. Speak. “I’m looking at you, and I still don’t think you should hire a wife from Craigslist.”
“Madeliiiine!”
I roll my eyes at the kitchen. “I have to go. Just...don’t place that ad yet.”
I push through the kitchen door and run right into Jay the dishwasher. The whole stack of plates flies out of his hands and crashes to the floor.
“Whoops.”
Big Mac is beet red. The spatula in his hand looks like a weapon right now. He’s either going to kill me or have a heart attack. “Madeline. For the love of...you are the clumsiest, most worthless waitress I’ve ever seen. I don’t care what Vera says. I’m done.”
Shit. No. “I’m sorry, Big Mac. Please don’t fire me. I’ll...pay you back for the plates.” Somehow. I follow him toward the office even though I should let him cool down. “I’ll work extra shifts. Please. You can’t fire me. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
He points at me, about to let loose a tirade of epic proportions and then stops. I turn to see what has him so bug-eyed to find an angry, hulking beast standing in the doorway separating the dining area from the kitchen.
Boone.
“You don’t talk to her like that ever again.” His voice is a low rumble, but no one could mistake his intent.
Oh, no. “Boone, please. Don’t make it worse. I deserve it. I broke the...”
I don’t get the rest out because he’s stalking toward us, a grim determination on his face. His big, muscular forearms are flexing, and I realize it’s because he’s making fists. I rush between him and Big Mac. “Don’t. I don’t want to be the reason you do this.”
What he doesn’t need is to get arrested for assault. Not defending my honor.
“Nobody treats you like that. Not ever again,” he says, his words a thick, low rumble. And then I’m in his arms, and he’s carrying me back out of the kitchen like a groom carries a bride across the threshold.
“Boone!’
Marion is chasing us, only she’s not trying to stop him. She’s ...got my purse and hoody. She gets in front of him and stuffs my things into my arm and waves. “This is just like Officer and a Gentleman. Good luck, Madeline!”
“Good luck? Marion, help me. Boone, put me down!”
He grunts.
God, he smells good. It’s not cologne. It’s probably hay and diesel for all I know, but it packs a punch to all my girl parts.
And now we’re in the parking lot.
This is crazy. I mean, if I were the kind of girl who kept a journal, I would totally write about this as being the most romantic thing that ever happened to me, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t nuts. “Boone! What are you doing?”
“Can you cook?”
“What?”
“Can you cook?”
“Yes. I mean...not like chicken cordon bleu or anything, but I can do the simple things. Why?” We’re at his truck. “Wait a minute.”
“Can you clean?”
“You are being ridiculous. I need to go back there and beg for my job back. Put me down. Why are you doing this? I mean, thank you for standing up for me. Nobody has ever done that before. But still, I need to go back.”
“I need someone to cook and clean and keep my dad company and maybe plant some flowers. You need a job and a place to stay.” He looks less angry, so that’s a good thing.
“What happened to Craigslist?”
“This is better.” He deposits me in the front seat of his truck.
“So, you’re not going to hire a wife? You’re going to hire me instead?”
“I’m going to marry you instead.”
What?!
He closes my door and rounds the front end of his truck. I should open my door. Get out. He’s not stopping me. But...I can’t do anything but hear the words I’m going to marry you.
When he gets in, I ask, “You want to marry me.”
“Yep.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
He puts the key in the ignition, but waits to start his truck. “Why not? You got a better offer? You’d rather work for an asshole who doesn’t pay you and yells at you and calls you names in a job you hate?”
I’m pretty sure this is all a dream. This can’t be my real life. “You’re going to pay me to be your wife?”
“Well, no. But I won’t yell at you or call you names.”
My heart is racing like I’m the one who picked up a nearly two-hundred-pound girl and strode across the parking lot. “No, this is ...no. I can’t marry you.”
He starts the truck and he’s whistling “The Farmer in the Dell.”
“Boone. We don’t even know each other. We can’t get married. We’re not in love.”
Again, I’m not throwing open my door and jumping out. We’re not moving yet. I still could.
“I figure we’ll probably get there someday. But I don’t think it’s the most important thing.”
I’m not sure which one to unpack first. That he thinks we’ll fall in love someday or that he doesn’t think love matters in a marriage.
“I can hear all your wheels turning. So, let me clear this up for you. We’ve both had some shitty luck, no one can say different. But we’re still here. Still fighting, trying to make something of our lives. That makes us different from a lot of people. We’re fighters, Madeline. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to fight alone for a change?”
Once I figured out that my upbringing wasn’t normal, that there were different kinds of families, all I ever wanted was the kind I didn’t have. The kind my father could never give me and certainly not the kind I found in foster homes. I may come off as pragmatic most of the time, but deep down, what I want is what he’s offering. Only I want it to be real. “Marriage is a big deal.”
“You think I don’t know that? My folks were partners in every way. They never gave up on anything, but especially not each other. That’s what I want. For me. For my kids.”
“They loved each other, though. And I’m glad you had such a great model couple to watch, but I didn’t. I don’t know anything about a healthy relationship.” An ache inside me blooms, knowing the truth and saying it are two different things. “I’m not the girl you are looking for, Boone. I wish I was, though. I wish a lot of things.”
He reaches across the gearshift and grabs my hand. “You don’t need to wish anymore. I think we want the same things. Let’s just make them happen.”
“How do you know what I want?”
“You think I don’t see the way you look at me?”
Oh God. My face is burning hotter than the sun. “Boone...”
“I haven’t been with a woman in five years, Madeline. Do you know who I dream about at night? Who I think about when I come in my hand?” He strokes my palm with his thumb. “You, sunshine. Ever since I came in the diner this spring, it’s been you. And I’ve been trying to get past it. Trying to put you out of my head—even trying to take steps to find someone who isn’t you to be my partner. Because you’re too young and you’ve already had a hard life, I should leave you be. The last thing you need is to be attached to another man this town gossips about. But I can’t stay away. I can’t. And when that asshole was yelling at you, I knew it was useless to try.”
If I were to sit down next to eleven-year-old Maddy Mae and tell her that Boone Barker, the quarterback who just threw the winning touchdown, would someday burst through the door, yell at her boss, and carry her out, pleading with her to marry him—she’d have passed out. Present day Maddy Mae is pretty close to fainting as well. This is just not my life. Men like Boone—especially the man he is now—are not interested in girls like me.
My hand looks so small in his.
“Are you admiring my nice hands right now?” he asks as he gives mine a squeeze.
I start to giggle. I can’t help it. This whole situation is so totally weird. I look over at him and he’s smiling at me. I haven’t seen him smile, not like this. Big and real and happy. It transforms his whole face.
“Boone,” I begin. “I’m not going to marry you and cook your meals and clean your house and make centerpieces for your table.”
His smile falls, and his face is hard again.
“You said you wanted a partner.” I take a deep breath. This is crazy. “This is the 21st century. We split the cooking and cleaning and decorating. And I help you with the chores and the planting and everything else.”
It takes a few seconds for his face to catch up with his brain. “You’re serious?”
“And I want to finish school. I can go part-time and do some of my classes online, but I want to finish.”
“Absolutely.”
I don’t really see how this ends well. He’ll figure out that I’m not good at anything. He’ll realize that he could have planned better. Hell, even Craigslist might have gotten him a more suitable partner. But I’m so tired of always looking in the window of other people’s lives and wondering why I can’t ever get close to having that.
Boone is a good man. He’s had more misfortune than a lot of people, but he’s still showing up at life. Still trying to make the best of it. Fix what’s wrong. I’m not going to pretend he’s perfect—I’m sure prison messed him up a lot more than he shows—but his character still shines through.
And it doesn’t hurt that he is hot as fuck.
“Madeline...” He draws my gaze back to his face. “I want a family. I’ll want to start on that right away.”
A family. Kids. Sex. Sex with Boone. Oh my God.
“Man, most guys don’t even want to commit to a second date, and you want to talk about getting me pregnant before we’ve even kissed.”
He pulls me half over the seat and presses his lips to mine. His hand delves into my hair and he tips my head back, angling me so he can go deeper. I open my mouth and his tongue slips inside. The rough groan he makes causes my nipples to tighten deliciously. His tongue rubs against mine, and I feel it like he’s touching my pussy even though he’s nowhere near it.
His kiss is everything.
He pulls back a bit. “The idea of getting you pregnant makes me harder than I’ve ever been in my life.” He kisses me again, lighter this time. “But please don’t ever talk about other guys again. It makes me crazy and my anger isn’t as easy to control as it used to be. I’m feeling like a possessive asshole right now.” He puts his big hand on my stomach. I want to suck it in. It’s too soft. Too big. “I’m going to put a baby in you and then everyone will know you’re mine.”
I’m sure it’s just biology, the reason that statement was so hot. But I swear to God, I just ovulated from his words. He wants to put a baby in me. My panties are soaked.
I need him to understand he doesn’t have to get possessive though.
“Boone,” I try to dislodge his hand, but he won’t budge, “You don’t need to worry about my past. I’ve never...you’ll be my first.”
Those green eyes darken as they dilate. “Not another word.”
Oh shit. That was the wrong thing to say. “Are you...mad?”
Of course he is. That was the dumbest thing to tell him. He’s been celibate for five years now. He’s not going to want an inexperienced girl in his bed. He needs a real woman. A woman who knows how to please him. How to make up for all the years he’s lost.
I think I just lost him and I barely had him. I’m so stupid. I try pushing his hand off my fleshy stomach. I don’t need the reminder of my physical imperfections right now.
Instead of moving off me, though, Boone spans his fingers wide like he wants as much of me touching his hand as possible. “Mad?” he asks. “I’m on the razor’s edge here, baby. It’s been five years for me. You’re telling me I’m going to take your virginity and knock you up at the same time, and I’m trying really hard to not rip your clothes off and do it right the fuck now.” He leans his head back. “First, I’m going to marry you. Then, I’m going to make you come all over my cock. Then I’m going to fuck my baby into you. That’s the order. We need to go now.”
“Where?”
“Idaho.”
“Idaho? Wait, you want to get married today?”
“Right the fuck now.”