Yanking out my phone before I could give the matter any more thought, I selected Rex’s cell number and dialed.

  Yes. Once Rex hears the truth, he’ll change his mind about you, and then the decision will be made for you. NICE!

  Rex answered on the forth ring. “Hello?” He sounded wary, and I heard metal clinking against metal in the background, he was probably in a gym or lifting weights.

  “It’s Abby.”

  “Oh! Hi.” He no longer sounded wary. “Did you get home okay?”

  “I did. Thanks. So, I’m calling about tonight.” I clicked the lid back on my Tupperware and slid it into my food sack.

  “Are you coming?” A door opened and closed on his side of the call, the sound of the weight machines abruptly stifled. He must’ve left the gym or gone somewhere more private.

  “First, I need to tell you about me—I mean, I need to tell you something about my past that is likely to make you rescind your offer.” Talking about this subject always made my stomach turn and I was determined to avoid sharing unnecessary details. But I wouldn’t avoid the truth or taking responsibility for my stupid decisions.

  “O-okay?”

  I gathered a deep breath for courage and mentally distanced myself from what I was about to say. “Here it is: I am divorced. My ex-husband was a con artist and stole a lot of money from a bunch of important people. When we divorced, a portion of his overall debts were given to me, and I had to declare bankruptcy. I also had to go to jail for a short while since they thought I was in on the scam, but when they figured out I was just an idiot who’d also been conned, they let me out. I’ve been paying back the money for going on nine years and I still have two years left.”

  Unsurprisingly, Rex was silent as he absorbed this. Checking my watch, I gave him a moment, then added around a growing thickness in my throat, “I completely understand if this information changes things. If we were to go through with your plan and get married, my past would undoubtedly come out, and it would look bad for you.”

  “No. No—wait. Let me . . .” I heard him breathe lightly. “Give me a minute.”

  “Sure.” I pressed the phone to my ear using my shoulder and zipped up my food sack, checked around the table to ensure I hadn’t left anything, then meandered back inside the studio. Giving my studio-mate Paul a friendly chin tilt, I walked to my backpack and stuffed the sack inside.

  Other than me and Paul, no one else had opted to spend their Saturday morning in the studio. Over the summer, this place would be packed during the weekend. But fall had been unexpectedly—and uncharacteristically—cold this year. I imagined very few people wanted to spend Saturday in an unheated studio space, dipping their hands in chilly water and working to form cold clay.

  “Abby.”

  I straightened, holding the phone with my hand again. “Rex.”

  “I have questions.”

  I frowned. “Okay.”

  “You said you’ve been paying the money back for nine years?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means you were twenty when you divorced?”

  “I was eighteen when I filed for divorce and went to jail for two months,” I whispered, turning my back to Paul. “The bankruptcy was settled the year after.”

  Rex went silent again, but just for a moment. “How old were you when you got married?”

  “Eighteen. The marriage only lasted three months.”

  Even through the phone I got the sense he had a million questions. Something about his pauses felt heavy, like he was weighing his words and they were a ton each.

  “You knew about the con?” he asked.

  “Nope. I thought he was real.” I’d been so colossally, monumentally, breathtakingly stupid and trusting and naïve.

  He made an abrupt grunting sound. “We’ll discuss it tonight.”

  That gave me pause. I’d been so certain he would call everything off. “Are you sure? What if we’re photographed together? Or someone—”

  “Other than your . . . past, is there any other reason you don’t want to come?”

  “I mean—no. But—”

  “Good. I’ll text you the address. Oh, and I’m supposed to tell you, the theme is Cowboy-Cowgirl Christmas. Whatever the fuck that means.” This last part was grumbled and pulled a smile from me. Rex had always been one who cussed freely. It was usually said on a grumble. Like now.

  “I have boots and jeans. No problem. But Rex—”

  “We’ll talk tonight. See you at six. Sit on the groom’s side.”

  My mouth still open to lodge a protest, the telltale sound of Rex ending the call clicked through to my side. Rearing back, I stared at the screen of my phone, frowning at his abrupt and gruff goodbye.

  Actually, he hadn’t said goodbye at all, had he? He’d just hung up without giving me the chance to say anything at all. As I frowned at the phone, his promised message came through with the address, but then he sent three others.

  Rex: Boots, jeans, and red and green flannel is what I was told

  * * *

  Rex: Hats also ok

  * * *

  Rex: I’ll meet you outside the church at 6. Be there

  “Well, good luck with the opening!” I scooched to the right side of the back seat, giving Henry an encouraging smile as he pulled up to the curb. “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

  “Hey, thanks Abby.” His blue eyes met mine in the rearview mirror and I opened the back door. “And good luck to you too.”

  Hooking my mouth to the side, I laughed. “I’m going to need it, right?”

  Henry also laughed and turned around as I unfolded from the car. “You’ll do great. Have more faith in yourself!” he called after me.

  I bent down so I could peer into his car one more time. “I will! No more doubting. I’ll get those things made for the holiday markets. And I’m so sorry about your cat. After seventeen years, that must’ve been so hard.”

  Henry gave me a sad smile. “Hey, what can we do? Life is fragile.”

  “It is,” I agreed, feeling his angst but hoping my commiseration helped in some small way.

  His smile brightened as we swapped stares and he gave me a friendly nod, which I returned. I then shut the door, feeling a bit better about everything in general.

  “Who was that?”

  “Ah!” I sucked in a startled breath, flailing as I spun to find Rex standing directly behind me on the sidewalk. His eyes were focused beyond my shoulder, frowning at the taillights of the Nissan Leaf pulling back into traffic.

  “Gosh, you scared me.” My hand on my chest, I chuckled as I shook my head, working to dispel the spike in adrenaline.

  “Who was that?” he repeated. Rex’s hazel glare shifted to my face, two frown lines etched deeply between his eyebrows.

  I gulped. “I—what? Who?”

  “That guy who dropped you off.”

  “Oh. His name is Henry.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Henry? No. I just met him. He’s an Uber driver.”

  “You just met him?” Some of the sternness leached from his features and was replaced by confusion. “Then how did you know about his cat dying?”

  “Because we talked about it in the car.” I pulled my fleece-lined flannel closer and crossed my arms against the cold. “It’s so sad. I really think his vet’s office took advantage of the situation and the fact that Henry is here all alone. If he had more family nearby, I think he’d be able to make decisions with a clearer head. But being by yourself, it’s hard to lose any part of your support system, even a seventeen-year-old blind, deaf cat with diabetes and cancer. I mean, I get it, but . . . what? What’s wrong? Do I have something on my face?”

  I wiped at my mouth because that’s where Rex was staring as a ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. I hoped I hadn’t inadvertently spittled while I spoke. Owen—the dentist from Fridays at the bar—spittled while he spoke sometimes. I still hadn’t figured out how to tell him gently, so he just kept on spittling all over the bartop which I’d taken to covering with napkins upon his arrival.

  “You—” Rex’s gaze traced a path from my eyes to my nose, mouth, chin, then back up, lips parting like a lot of words were on the tip of his tongue. Ultimately, he just shook his head. “Never mind. Come with me.”

  Grabbing my hand in his giant paw, he tugged me forward, but my feet stalled as soon as I spotted two women hurrying into the church.

  “Oh no.” I gestured to the two women walking in front of us. Green tank crop tops with the words Jason & Amy in red glitter on the back, blue and green flannel shirts tied around their waists, cutoff jean shorts, brown Stetson hats, and cowgirl boots.

  “What’s wrong?” Rex looked over his shoulder at me.

  “Was I supposed to wear cutoffs? I missed the sexy cowgirl memo.” I glanced down at my jean-clad legs, dark red and green flannel, and so did Rex. I gave him an apologetic look as his eyes moved over my long double braids draped over my shoulders.

  “No, you didn’t,” he said, putting his hand on my back and pressing me forward.

  “No, I didn’t what?”

  “Miss the memo.”

  “I—”

  “What I mean is, there was no memo,” he said gruffly, looking harassed. “Come.”

  Guiding me around the side of the massive church to a side door that had been propped open, he closed it behind us as soon as we entered. We then walked down a long, nondescript hallway with peach-colored walls and tight-weave corporate carpet. Eventually, we arrived at what looked like a general-purpose meeting room. It didn’t have a conference table but rather a few gray folding tables pushed together in the center of the room with brown folding chairs surrounding it.

  Once we were inside, he closed that door too. Then, pulling me around to face him, he let me go. But his arresting eyes held me in place.

  Taking a deep breath, he said, “I think I have a way to solve the divorce problem.”

  That had me standing straighter. “Uh—”

  “I can buy the story from your ex through a broker, make him think he’s selling it to a paper. That will silence him as he won’t be able to discuss it once he’s sold it.”

  I could only stare at Rex as chaotic thoughts ping-ponged in my brain. This was not what I’d been expecting him to say.

  He wasn’t finished. “We’ll give an exclusive to the Austin Sentinel after our wedding. I have a contact there who’s friendly, and I’ll proactively bring it up. Without your ex able to contradict the story, our version of events will be what people hear. Problem solved.”

  Stepping away from Rex, I shook my head. “I—I don’t—” My hands came to my forehead, but then I remembered I had makeup on and dropped them. I didn’t want to smudge anything important. “Rex, I don’t want you to do that.”

  “Which part?”

  “I certainly don’t want Declan to profit from—”

  “Other than the money part, which part is a problem for you?” he asked brusquely, reminding me of Kaylee and her mad lawyery skillz.

  I could see we were about to negotiate, so I ticked my concerns off on my fingers. “First, you shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes. Second, Declan is a sleazeball. I don’t want him making any money off me or you. Third, I don’t want you lying to the press to—”

  “Would I have to lie?” he cut in smoothly, his gaze straying from my face to conduct a quick sweep of my outfit again.

  I glanced down, feeling a prick of uncertainty under his inspection. Fiddling with one of my long braids, I asked, “Is this—are you sure I look okay?”

  “Perfect,” he said curtly, his gaze—now cool and aloof—returned to mine. “You said you didn’t know about your ex’s illegal activities, so why would we lie to the press?”

  “I didn’t know about Declan’s lies. I found out when—” A tight band squeezed my chest, and I breathed through it and the memory that caused it, forcing the feelings of bitterness and betrayal down, down, down. Calmly, I started again. “I found out when I was arrested.”

  He lifted his chin, inspecting me. I couldn’t read his expression, but I thought maybe he looked . . . interested? Interest mixed with some empathy? “Do you mind telling me the whole story?”

  I glanced at the door behind him. “Do we have time? Aren’t you a groomsman?”

  He wore boots like me, but also black pants and a white shirt with brown suspenders which did amazing things to highlight the broadness of his shoulders. It was a good look for him.

  “It starts at seven thirty, I don’t need to be anywhere until seven. We have time.”

  My stomach cinched itself tight as we stared at each other. I hadn’t planned on telling him the whole story, just enough to make it clear how bad he’d look if we pretend married.

  Rex’s eyebrows lowered a scant millimeter and his gaze grew less careful, less aloof, more open, imploring. “What happened, Abby?” he asked, his voice deep and soft and lacking in all judgment.

  Lifting my eyes to the speckled, paneled ceiling, I turned from Rex and meandered into the room. “Well, it’s a funny story actually.” It wasn’t funny. It was tragic and made me look pathetic. But if the shoe fits. “I met Declan at the bar. He was a patron when I first started, used to flirt with me—”

  “I thought you started at sixteen?” Rex’s voice sounded close, like he’d followed me into the room.

  I didn’t turn. Instead, I walked to the nearest of the folding chairs and took a seat, already weary. “I did. And Walker banned him from the bar because he wouldn’t stop.”

  “Good.” Rex picked up a chair and brought it close to mine, sitting directly in front of me.

  Working to ignore his steady perusal, I plowed forward numbly. “Declan showed up a few years later. I’d just graduated from high school and was working at the bar full time.”

  “You were eighteen?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how old was he?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  Rex turned his face away, but not fast enough. I’d caught the flare of disgust behind his eyes, the clenching of his jaw, and my lungs felt too tight.

  Stuff it down, down, down.

  Crossing my arms, I maintained an unperturbed exterior. “He started coming on days he knew Walker wouldn’t be there, and I liked him. He was funny, charming. He asked about me, seemed interested in everything I said, like I was a freaking genius or something.” I paused here to send Rex a humorous self-deprecating look.

  Rex stared at me, anger persisting in the line of his jaw and the intensity of his eye squint.

  I cleared my throat. “When he asked me out, I said yes.”

  What I didn’t share was that—other than Cyrus when we were younger—no one else had ever shown interest in me or asked me out or flirted with me. Declan had been the first person to make me feel smart. Only Rex and one other guy at our high school were taller than me. It wasn’t a secret that, by and large, high school boys didn’t make a habit of asking out girls who were their height or taller.

  “And?” Rex prompted, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees. His eyes were affixed to his hands.

  “He picked me up in a Maserati for our date, took me to this ridiculously fancy restaurant, then to this amazing club, and we danced all night. I had the best time.” I’d had no idea how seductive it could be to be wanted by someone experienced and older, especially someone who seemed so far out of my league. “He said he was an investment banker, and I had no reason not to believe him.”

  “He wasn’t an investment banker.”

  “Uh, no. He pretended to be one and swindled a bunch of people out of a crap ton of money. But that part is for later. He proposed after three months and I said yes, so we got married.”

  Rex’s eyes lifted to mine, searching. “Why’d you marry him?”

  “I thought I was in love and living in a fairy tale,” I said, because it was the truth. See? Stupid.

  He seemed to hesitate before asking, “Your mom . . . she died just after graduation, right?”

  “That’s right.” She’d left me some money and I’d been doing fairly well financially, had savings and a house, before the marriage. After the divorce, the court had sold everything of hers that had any value, leaving me with just photo albums, two handmade quilts that no one had bought at auction, and a few books.

  “Did he . . .” Rex frowned, swallowed, then started again. “Did he treat you well?”

  “He did. At first, he did.” I nodded, thinking back. “But after we were married for a few weeks, he started telling me I should try to be a model. And then shortly after that, he’d host these dinners where he told people I was a model, and that made things awkward.”

  “Why awkward?”

  “Well, because I’d contradict him and tell them the truth—that I wasn’t—and then he’d get mad when we were alone. Basically, he wanted me to lie about it and pretend to be a fashion model and tried to make me feel bad for not just doing it. He said it would make him look good in front of his business associates and that it was all just one big game, that they expected me to pretend—BS like that.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I couldn’t lie.” I shrugged, not feeling like any more of an explanation was necessary. “And when I refused, I realized the fairy tale was over and I’d made a huge mistake.”

  “He wanted to divorce you? Because you wouldn’t lie?”

  “No. He was too busy by then because his other web of lies had come crashing down. He’d borrowed against fake collateral in order to create a façade of wealth, and then he’d conned a bunch of people into investing in fake companies and startups. He pocketed the money to bankroll his lifestyle and brought in new investors by living more and more extravagantly.”

  “Shit.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah. Anyway. I found out when the police came and arrested us both.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “And when it became clear I had no idea, they offered me a deal. I would divorce him ASAP and testify against him. If I did so, I wouldn’t have to serve more jail time as an accomplice. Ultimately, I didn’t have much to offer the prosecution, even though I tried to be super cooperative, especially when I found out he’d been cheating on me the whole time.” I paused here to breathe around the same something that always lodged in my throat whenever I thought about being cheated on.