Hitched (Steele Ranch 4)

“That’s nice,” I replied neutrally, checking the dates on all my condiments. If I couldn’t toss my mother out with the trash, the least I could do was empty my fridge.

“He has a son.”

And there it was. A yacht salesman’s son this time. She didn’t want the dad, she wanted me to have the son. For me to get her that boat.

Last week, it had been a new neighbor who’d retired at thirty from the film industry. Loaded. I paused, eyeing a jar of sundried tomatoes. “That’s nice,” I repeated. I knew better than to give her any kind of positive response. But now I had Wilder and King.

I huffed out a small laugh wondering how they would react to discovering my mother wanted me to marry a man in California. As alpha males, they’d go ape shit. And that had me smiling again. I liked the idea of them being all possessive with me. While they’d left me at my house, they hadn’t been thrilled with it. But King had some chores to see to on the ranch, Wilder had paperwork to get done at the Fish and Game headquarters so they could have tomorrow free.

Our wedding day.

“—have dinner when you come to town next. Perhaps next week? Are you even listening to me, Sarah?”

“Sorry, I missed the last.” Thinking of my men was much better than anything my mother had to say.

She harrumphed. “Since your father left you with nothing and as a silly librarian you’re not living up to your potential, you could at least try to land a wealthy husband. I’ll fly you in to meet Travis.”

“Yeah, no thanks.” I’d rather have my wisdom teeth pulled again than get on a plane to Santa Barbara for a blind double date with my mother and her yacht salesman potential-boyfriend.

“If not here in Santa Barbara, then there in Barlow,” she continued, undeterred. “A rancher is always good. You always had your eye on Kingston Barlow. He’d be a good choice; the town’s named after his family after all. Remember, land will hold its value until you can divorce.”

Oh my god. She wanted me to marry a guy—King—with the intention of divorcing him and taking half his money. Just like she’d done with her long line of husbands. Over and over. If it worked for her, then she expected it would work for me. If she only knew I really was marrying Kingston Barlow she’d probably pee her pants. Or worse, fly here for the ceremony. I bit my lip.

“Your father—”

I cut her off. “Yes, I know about my father.”

She sighed. “Aiden Steele never gave you the time of day.”

True.

“He did give you child support,” I countered.

My father had owned Steele Ranch until he died last year. My mother, who’d been born and raised in Dallas, had somehow ended up in Montana and gotten the man into bed, or at least the back seat of a car, to get pregnant with me. To trap him. From what my mother had always told me, he’d refused to marry her.

“Until you turned eighteen and then it stopped entirely,” she snapped.

“Mother, I became an adult. Why should he support an adult?” I asked, defending him. I wasn’t sure exactly why since he’d wanted nothing to do with me. While he hadn’t shunned me outright, whenever I saw him in town—which had been very rarely—he’d given me a head nod as a way of greeting. Nothing else. Perhaps he’d thought I was like my mother.

But I’d begun to think otherwise when his lawyer had contacted me with the news Aiden Steel had put money into an account for me to pay for college. Only college, just in case I was like my mother and wanted a fancy car instead. Since I was of age, I hadn’t had to tell her about it—she’d have wanted it for herself. When I’d told her I’d been accepted to the university in Bozeman, I’d only told her I’d gotten scholarship money and she’d sniffed at that instead of being proud.

“I was in college. It wasn’t like you were taking care of me any longer.”

“Still, he owed me.”

“No, he didn’t. He didn’t owe you a thing.”

“I raised you all those years.”

“Mother, I’m not a pony you had to stable and feed. I am your daughter. You could have taken him to court.”

“And what? Lost the child support? Please.”

I looked up at my kitchen ceiling, then closed my eyes. That was my mother in one sentence. She’d raised me because of the child support money.

“I have to go,” I told her, so done with this conversation.

“Let me know about the son because—”