The Marine's E-Mail Order Bride (Heroes of Chance Creek Book 3) by Cora Seton Read Free Book Online Page B

anything off? “What do you mean, you can’t do this?”
    “This is all wrong. We’re lying to everyone—lying to ourselves. It’s…” She trailed off, her gaze begging him to understand. He did understand, too. It was killing him to fool the people he loved the most, but it was Heloise who’d put him in this position. You couldn’t put a deadline on love, but that’s exactly what she’d done.
    “Look,” he said, pushing past her into the room and shutting the door behind him. He dropped his hat on her bed and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “I get it. Maybe yesterday we went too far, too fast.” He didn’t think that at all, though. He thought their time together had been perfect and the idea that she might regret being with him nearly slayed him. “We’ll back things off and take it slow, but we can’t put off you coming home with me.”
    “I don’t think I can keep the story straight for six weeks.”
    Zane cocked his head. Before he’d met Kenna, he wouldn’t have pegged her as a stickler for the truth. She’d come across so mercenary in her e-mails. It was the one thing that had assured him this could work. But yesterday he’d discovered everything he’d assumed about Kenna was wrong, down to her appearance. She barely looked like that old photograph she’d sent him. It was taken at a distance too far to reconcile individual features, but even the shape of her face seemed different.
    “It’s just so long to pretend,” she went on. “I’ll be on pins and needles the whole time.”
    “It’s the length of time you’re worried about? Not the marriage itself?” He felt a spurt of hope.
    She nodded. “You signed the pre-nup already. I trust that you’ll follow the plan. I know you’re in this for your inheritance, not for some other nefarious reason.” She smiled lopsidedly and he could tell she was trying to bolster her own courage.
    He laced his hands behind his neck, searching for a way to put her mind at ease. One thing he knew for sure—he didn’t want to lose her now. Not just because he needed her to secure his inheritance, but because she entranced him like no other woman he’d ever met. He needed the chance to get to know her better to see if there could be something more between them than a fake relationship—to see if she could renew his belief in love.
    He wanted her for far more than a fling.
    What Gunnery Sergeant Zane Hall wants, Gunnery Sergeant Zane Hall gets.
    His mouth curved in memory of one of his men shouting that out in a victory toast after he’d secured a brand new, state of the art gaming system for their base in Kandahar when the old one kept breaking down.
    Damn straight. He might not be in the military anymore, but he hadn’t changed. He’d locked on his target: Kenna North.
    And he knew exactly how to secure her.
    “We won’t wait six weeks to be married,” he said, taking her hands in his. “We’ll do it today—right now—but we won’t tell anyone. We’ll go back to the ranch afterwards as planned and do our best to stick out the remainder of the time until the real wedding. If at any point you think you can’t take it anymore, you’ll leave. We’ll make up an emergency and once you’re gone I’ll reveal to my family that it doesn’t matter—we already eloped.”
    “Your aunt will accept that?”
    “She’ll have to, but we’ll hope it doesn’t come to that, right?” he bluffed. In truth, Heloise would do no such thing, so he’d have to make damn sure Storm stayed. “Haven’t you always wanted to spend six weeks on a ranch with a handsome Marine?” He struck a body-builder’s pose, trying to lighten the mood.
    Storm’s mouth twitched. “You got me there. What girl wouldn’t want a big country wedding to the stranger of her dreams?” She snapped her mouth shut, as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to voice aloud. Faint color traced over her cheeks.
    “The stranger of your dreams, huh?” Zane knew he