Ready to Run (I Do, I Don't 1)

“I’m not going to blackmail Luke,” Jordan said.

“Nobody’s asking you to. But get this: The network’s so excited about Jilted, they’re already thinking it’ll have spin-off potential. This Luke guy might not come around and want to be a contestant, but there’s still a story. Maybe one of his exes could be a potential for spin-off. A second chance for people ditched at the altar, or whatever.”

Jordan felt a sudden wave of distaste. Not at Raven so much—her boss was just doing her job—but for the whole business of reality TV, the way people were treated as though they had ratings tattooed across their foreheads.

“Look, babe, just see what you can do,” Raven said. “Give it another week, do some digging. If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there, and we’ll bring you back to New York, get a decent cocktail in you, and rinse out all the Montana, okay?”

“All right,” Jordan said, putting far more enthusiasm in her voice than she felt. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Who knows,” Raven said cheerfully. “Maybe hearing that he might be outshined by his ex is exactly the kick in the ass Luke Elliott needs to sign that contract. I mean, the guy’s got to care about something, right?”

Sure, in theory.

Trouble was, Jordan was getting the distinct impression that Luke Elliott thought everything worth caring about in life had long since slipped away.

Blowing out a breath, she pulled up the Reminders app on her phone and entered her next To Dos:

Find brides one and three without Luke knowing you’re doing it.

Chapter 15

Luke looked up from the hose he’d been checking as part of routine maintenance. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Vicky Saunders ignored his ire as she pulled a tube of lipstick out of her enormous purse and applied it expertly without looking in a mirror, as though applying makeup inside a firehouse was completely commonplace.

She pursed her lips. “New color. You like it?”

He rolled his eyes. Vicky was one of his mother’s closest friends, and practically an aunt. He’d grown up being asked his thoughts on her new lipstick colors, and, somewhere around the age of fourteen, he’d learned better than to actually express an opinion.

“I’m not doing it,” he said, turning his attention back to the hose.

Vicky huffed, her expansive bosom quivering in dramatic disappointment. “Your mother warned me you’d act like this.”

“And by act like this, you mean declining to participate in a kissing booth at the county fair.”

She held up a finger. “Not just any fair. The centennial fair! Did you know that?”

“Yes, I knew that,” he said, still keeping his eyes on the hose. “You know how? Because there probably hasn’t been a kissing booth since that first fair a hundred years ago.”

She shook her head matter-of-factly. “Nope. Untrue. There was a kissing booth when I was a girl.”

“So. Seventy-five years ago?”

She swatted the side of his head. Or tried to—she was too short to do much more than brush his ear. “Mind your tongue. I don’t see why you’re being so difficult about this.”

“Have Ryan do it. He’s better looking.”

“Can’t,” Ryan called, not even trying to pretend that he hadn’t been eavesdropping as he checked the tanks. “Married.”

“So?”

“Bree’s not good at sharing. She’s been known to bite. Although I’ve been known to like it, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I do know what you mean!” Vicky said, lighting up. “I once had a one-night stand with this drifter—”

Luke held up his hand. “No. Just no. How about Charlie? Make him do the kissing booth.”

“He said he has mono.”