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What I hadn't anticipated were the moments when Mikayla forgot to keep her guard up, and that I'd start wanting things. Things that involved mornings. And toothbrushes.

I wanted to be with her. Not just for the rest of the wedding. Not just until our fake relationship reached its predetermined expiration date.

I wanted to be with her when she was stressed and exhausted and hadn't eaten anything except coffee and whatever protein bar she'd found in her purse.

I wanted to be with her when she was pissed at me. Which, considering we were talking about me, would probably be often.

I wanted to be the first person she called when something amazing happened. And the person she reached for when everything went to hell. I wanted all of it. The good. The bad. The domestically ugly.

I wanted a life with Mikayla Parsons. In fact, I couldn’t imagine my life without her now. The realization came crashing down on me like a piano falling from a three story window.

"Fuck," I cursed under my breath.

Beside me, Dean turned his head. I wasn’t even sure why he was there. He’d come and sat down right before the bride made her entrance. He didn’t make it a habit of showing up to weddings on the property. Maybe my family actually was taking shifts.

“Why are you here?” I whispered.

“Harper called in.” Harper was his new wife, Felicity’s assistant. He tilted his head to where his wife stood with her earpiece and iPad. “I’m backup.”

“So why aren’t you with your wife?”

He ignored my question. "You look pale."

"Maybe I'm allergic to weddings."

"You've been to dozens."

"It’s cumulative exposure."

“Okay.”

I hated when he did that. Just agreed.

No argument. No debate. No opportunity for me to prove I was right. It was his most irritating quality. And that was saying something, considering the man alphabetized the spices in the ranch kitchen.

I glared at him. He smiled. I seriously needed to find a new family. Preferably one who didn’t enjoy my misery.

I turned my attention back to the officiant and prepared myself for the typical speech. I braced myself to endure the rhetoric about love being patient and kind and willing to overlook the fact that people left wet towels on bathroom floors.

I'd heard it all before.

Love was a journey. Love was a partnership. Love was choosing each other every day. Blah, blah, blah.

He began, "Marriage isn't a promise that life will always be easy. It's a promise that when life gets hard, you won't have to face it alone."

My mind drifted back to finding Mikayla huddled in the corner of the barn. To watching her try to breathe through something she couldn't control, and the way she'd looked at me afterward.

Embarrassed. Angry. Vulnerable.

She'd hated that I'd seen her like that. And I'd hated that she'd felt she needed to apologize for it. I'd wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her she never had to pretend with me. That she could fall apart. That I'd hold the pieces.

Which was a pretty fucking alarming thought for a guy who'd spent his adult life making sure no woman ever expected him to stick around long enough to assemble furniture.

The officiant continued. "You're not promising never to disappoint each other. You're promising to keep showing up, even when you do."

My gut sank like a rock tossed into a bottomless lake. Because I knew how to show up. I'd been doing it my whole life.

When a fence went down, I fixed it. When a horse got sick, I stayed up all night. When one of my brothers needed help, I was there before he could ask.