The Front Runner: A Small Town Fake Dating Romance (Gold Rush Ranch Book 3)

We approach the front door of my parents’ white bi-level split house, surrounded by a sprawling yard that butts up against flat fields filled with blueberry bushes. They keep it tidy, but the house looks dated. It’s not something I’ve ever felt self-conscious about, but with Stefan here, I feel like I might barf.

His house is so opulent in comparison, his wealth so staggering next to the small working farm I grew up on. He’s so damn polished next to my family. I told him to dress casually, so he wore a white dress shirt with a pair of navy-blue chinos. And somehow, I still don’t feel like he looks casual.

He’s cuffed the hem and put on a pair of loafers with no socks. I suppose for him, this is dressed down. But there’s something about the way he just oozes class. He looks like he belongs in a magazine shoot for casual cool. It’s tripping me out. How can he be so calm about pretending to a group of perfect strangers that we’re dating?

I’m tripping. They’re going to see right through it.

My hand wraps around the door handle, and I freeze. Once I turn this handle, there’s no going back. Is this one of those moments Hank was talking about? A moment that can change the path of your life forever. One simple turn of a worn brass knob.

“Are you installing important updates?” Stefan chuckles from behind me.

How is he joking at a time like this?

He steps in closer, and his hand lands at the small of my back while the other lifts my free hand. His lips press against my palm just like the time before, and my body hums—just like the time before.

I wish he’d stop touching me. And not because I don’t want him touching me. It’s because I do. And I shouldn’t. I can still feel the shape of his hand on my bare thigh like a brand. One I hope never fades or heals.

I’m so fucked up.

“Let’s go Mira-bot. It’s going to be fine. I’ve got you.” His body presses in close to mine, and I internally chastise myself for melting toward him.

I’m not sure when Dalca the Dick became a comfort to me, but I’m too stressed to fight it right now. He feels like a wall of lean muscle behind me. Tall and firm and reassuring.

I twist the handle and swing the door open.

In a matter of seconds, the smell of cumin hits me, and moments later, my mom calls out, “Mira! You’re here!”

She stands at the top of the stairs. Lines of gray streak her brown hair, and she’s wearing some baggy cotton dress with feather earrings and a pair of very broken-in Birkenstocks. My mom is a hippie at heart, and while we’re very different women, I can’t help but smile at the sight of her. Before I moved out to Gold Rush Ranch, I was still living at home, and as lame as that was for a woman in her mid-twenties, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss my parents—and my Nana who lives with them too. When you go from seeing your family every day to a couple of times a month, it’s an adjustment.

“Hi, Mama.”

She hustles down the stairs and wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me into a tight squeeze. “Oh, my baby. It’s so nice to see you.”

I feel like she’s suffocating me. Or maybe I just can’t breathe with Stefan standing so close. She holds me back eventually and looks over my shoulder. “And who have we got here?”

My throat constricts, and I already know I’m going to blow this.

“Mrs. Thorne, I’m Stefan. Such a pleasure to meet you.” Stefan reaches around me and extends his hand to shake my mother’s. His other hand falls to the small of my back, where it always does. It feels comforting having him there, propping me up. My body never fails to come alive for him.

“Oh, please.” My mother blushes. “Call me Sylvia.”

Her eyes dart down to his hand on the small of my back, and her lips tip up. “Sunny! Come meet Mira’s new boyfriend, Stefan!”

Boyfriend.

The word lands like a bomb, and I stiffen at the mention. In response, Stefan’s fingers slide back and forth across my skin, making my eyes flutter as I swallow what I’m pretty sure was a moan. The fabric of my dress feels altogether too thin.

His hands on my body are making me absolutely insane.

I swear my brain is melting right down into my spinal cord.

I’ve officially turned into that girl.

My dad, black beard neatly trimmed, appears at the top of the stairs with his arms crossed over his chest. His thick, black hair and almost black eyes are the perfect match for my own. He’s scowling at Stefan, and it makes me smile.

Sunny is one of those men who isn’t frivolous with his words. But I know by his actions that I’m the apple of his eye. When he dropped me off at college, there was no tearful goodbye. No promises to visit. He helped me unpack and snuck an envelope with a thousand dollars cash under my pillow for me to find later.

He’s never babied me or treated me like I’m less capable than I am. He’s never given me the ‘if he touches you, he’s dead’ talk. He’s a modern man who took my mother’s last name when they got married.

But looking at him now? A small giggle bubbles past my lips. Looking at him now, descending the stairs with dark eyes perfectly narrowed, I’m going to go out on a limb and say my father isn’t all that wild about his little girl bringing a boy home.

“Mr. Thorne, thank you so much for inviting me to your home.” Stefan steps up to the stairs and sticks his hand out.

My dad just grunts and says, “Pretty sure Mira invited you,” as he clasps his hand back in a death grip.

This is off to a great start.

“I’m sure glad she did.” Stefan grins at my father, completely unperturbed.

We remove our shoes and head into the house together. Straight into the hustle and bustle of my father’s family all together under one roof. He’s a second generation Canadian and his siblings have spread out all over the country, which is why this annual get together happens. Mostly, everyone convenes to see Nana.

At the kitchen table, my grandmother is folding samosas with a bored expression on her face. I’m pretty sure she could do this in her sleep.

“Hi, Nana.” I bend down and drop a kiss to the top of her head and whisper, “Are you making enough that I can take some home with me?”

She shakes her head. “You think I’m so old I’ve forgotten you hoard theses like a squirrel preparing for winter?”

I laugh. She’s right. I always have them stocked in my freezer. “Nana. This is Stefan.” Stefan is standing across the table, his eyes on her hands. “He’s my…”

I don’t know if I can lie to her about this.

“I’m her boyfriend,” he says, like he’s not concerned about pretending to be my boyfriend at all.

My Nana looks him over and smirks. “He’s blond.”

Oh god. She totally knows. “He’s not that blond,” I reply, parroting what Stefan said earlier and trying to be casual as my eyes bulge out at him. Stefan just chuckles at me, shaking his head like I’m nuts.

“Can I help?” He pulls out a chair and sits down across from my grandmother, sincerity lining his every movement.

She shrugs but pushes a stack of the wrappers across the table and moves the bowl of filling into the middle. She doesn’t give him any instructions; she just keeps going and expects him to pick it up.

I watch Stefan’s keen eyes observing her closely, studying her movements. After watching a couple, he reaches into the bowl and takes a spoonful of the filling and then gets started on his first samosa. His gaze darts up and down when his fingers move. He mimics everything she does. Rises to the challenge. And makes a pretty damn fine-looking samosa.

I catch my Nana assess it as she reaches forward to start her next one. She doesn’t compliment him, instead she just says, “He’s fine, Mira. You can go.”

Stefan doesn’t even look up at me, already engrossed in making his next one. He looks so earnest about learning this, it warms my heart to him. The look of concentration on his face, the way he captures the tip of his tongue between his lips, it makes my stomach flip.

But I’ve been dismissed.

I turn and grab two beers from the fridge and drop one in front of Stefan. As I walk away, I drag my hand across the broad expanse of his shoulders with my free hand.

I can’t explain why I did it. I just felt the overwhelming need to touch him back. To thank him for doing this for me.

I still can’t quite figure out why he’s doing this for me.

You’re not the pawn, Mira. You’re the prize.

Try as I might, I’ve been unable to scrub that sentence from my mind. I feel like he went and carved it into my brain like teenagers carve their initials into a picnic table. There’s no erasing it. The rut is there. And I’m stuck in it.

I walk into the living room and am met with a chorus of hellos, hugs, and backslaps. My cousins, my uncles, my aunts—it’s nice to see everyone, but it’s always so overwhelming. So loud and busy. I prefer to socialize one-on-one or in a small group. It’s more relaxing, more intimate—less chaotic.

The get together moves around me, and I chat when necessary from where I lean against the wall. But my eyes keep finding Stefan, hunched over a table, working quietly with my grandmother.

It makes my chest ache in a foreign way. And I give up all pretense of looking elsewhere and allow myself to watch his hands moving deftly, his toned forearms flexing below the cuff of his dress shirt that he’s now rolled up. He really looks into it. And I’m finding myself entranced. It’s right up there with watching him kiss Loki square on the nose. Or stroke Farrah’s forehead with so much love and respect.

What if I’ve been wrong about him this entire time?

“Honey, you’re staring.” My mom nudges me with her elbow, shaking me out of my daydream.

My cheeks pink at once. “Oh shit. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s nice to see.”

I roll my eyes and take a swig of my beer, peeking at the table again. Which is right when Stefan looks up and catches me staring. A slow grin spreads across his face, and he lets his eyes trace my body. Heat pours through my bones, and I feel like they might melt entirely when he looks at me like that. Like he’s undressing me with his eyes and plans to devour me.

He finishes his perusal with a sly wink, and I’m almost positive my panties combust on the spot. Wink. Poof. Gone.

I look away, blinking, and swigging pointlessly at my empty beer bottle.

“No shortage of chemistry between you two. I bet the sex is sensational.”

Here comes the free spirit, Kama Sutra side of my mother. A couple glasses of wine and this is what comes out to play.

“Mom. Please, don’t.”

She turns to face me, and I see Stefan behind her, being dismissed by my Nana with a wave of her hand. With only a few steps, he’s closing in on us. Which is right when my mother adds, “Listen to me, Mira. Your father looked at me like that, too. And guess what? The sex was sensational. It still is. A marriage is hard work, but great sex makes it easier.”

Someone dig me a fucking hole.

“Wise words,” Stefan says, folding himself into the spot right beside me. His arm snakes around my waist, hand splaying across my rib cage possessively as he presses a casual kiss to my temple. Like this is perfectly normal. Like this is real.

It’s feeling pretty authentic right now. In my family home. Where he’s being nice, and polite, and charming.

It’s unnerving.

My mother grins and moves on to the next group of people, completely undeterred. In fact, I’m pretty sure in her mind, Stefan just promised her grandchildren.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-shout through gritted teeth.

He pulls me tight to his side and whispers against my hair, “Pretending to be your boyfriend. Like you asked me to. You do realize people in relationships touch each other?”

I scoff. “I wouldn’t know.”

I chance a look up at him to find blatant confusion on his face.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you implying you’ve never been in a relationship?”

I try to drink more out of the empty beer bottle. I’m like a nervous toddler sucking on a soother for comfort. I absently wonder if beer bottles are the adult equivalent.

“Wrapping those pretty lips around a bottle like that isn’t an answer, Mira.”

On a gasp, I inhale whatever backwash I left in the bottle and end up coughing while he gently pats my back.

“You can’t just keep saying things like that.”

“Answer the question.” His thumb swipes across my cheek, wiping away the tear my coughing fit elicited.

I take a deep breath. “I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you I’ve never been in a relationship.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s never served me.”

His chuckle is dark and low. “Why is that?”

“Because the idea of being beholden to a man annoys me. I don’t like having to report what I’m doing or why I’m doing it or where I am. They always have all these expectations, and I don’t like feeling like I can’t do whatever I want without running it past someone else.”

“Why else?” His breath is warm as it pours down the side of my neck. If I turned my head, I could press my lips against his and get whatever this is out of my system.

God. Why are we having this conversation in the middle of my family living room?

To throw him off, I turn and whisper, “Because I can fuck myself better with Mr. Purple than any man ever has.”

I don’t know why I thought that would throw him off. The man is relentless. Like a dog with a bone.

The way his tongue presses into the side of his cheek thoughtfully drives me to distraction. I turn my head away, wanting to see if anyone can tell what’s going on in our corner of the living room. But no one seems to be watching. They’re all lost in their own conversations, happy and relaxed.

Unlike me. My feet go heavy, and a weight lurches through my gut when Stefan murmurs, “Challenge accepted. But I’m not going to fuck you until you’re begging for it.”

And then he saunters away to work the room, like he didn’t just knock me into a complete tailspin.