Part 1
The road from Laramie stretched 30 miles through Wyoming Territory dust, and Raina Morrow traveled it clutching her leather sewing bag like scripture itself. She was 23 years old, thin from working double shifts at Mrs. Henderson’s boarding house, and her fingers bore permanent indentations from needle pricks.
The wagon driver who gave her passage charged $2—half her weekly earnings—but the job promised at the Bradshaw ranch was worth the sacrifice. Mrs. Henderson herself had arranged it, mentioning something about important garments for a significant occasion. Raina expected a quiet afternoon taking measurements in a ranch kitchen.
Instead, when the wagon crested the final hill and she glimpsed the Bradshaw property, her stomach dropped clean through to her worn boots.
The ranch yard looked transformed into something from a Philadelphia society magazine. Ribbons in deep burgundy and cream hung from every post and rafter. Three long tables groaned under platters of roasted venison, fresh-baked pies, cornbread stacked high as hay bales, and bottles of imported whiskey she recognized from the mercantile window—$12 a bottle, more than most settlers earned in a month.
Fiddlers tuned instruments near the barn. Women in silk bustles and polished leather gloves clustered in groups, their dresses worth more than Raina’s entire year of wages. Men in tailored vests and Stetson hats straight from the Denver haberdashery stood smoking cigars that cost $1 each.
Raina’s patched cotton dress suddenly felt like burlap against her skin.
She climbed down from the wagon gripping her sewing bag. Her hat, secondhand from the church donation box, sat crooked on hair she had tried to pin neatly that morning.
The celebration buzzed with energy. This was no simple gathering. This was a betrothal announcement—the kind where two powerful frontier families joined land, cattle, and influence into one unstoppable force.
A woman in peacock blue silk glanced at Raina, then leaned toward her companion. Their whispers carried across the yard like wasps.
“Who invited the help? Poor thing probably came to the wrong ranch.”
Raina’s cheeks burned. She stood frozen near the entrance, clutching her bag tighter. Where was the person who needed measurements? Had Mrs. Henderson made a mistake?
At the center of the yard, near the main ranch house porch, stood the man everyone was watching.
Braden Bradshaw.
Raina knew the name. Everyone in three territories knew it. The Bradshaw ranch stretched across 40,000 acres of prime grazing land. His cattle herds numbered in the thousands. He owned water rights to two major creeks and employed 60 ranch hands year-round. At 31 years old, he had built an empire after his father’s death, transforming the ranch from profitable to legendary.
Women from Cheyenne to Denver plotted ways to catch his attention. Men respected him with a careful deference reserved for those who controlled both money and power.
But Braden Bradshaw looked like a man standing before a firing squad.
His mother, Ellie Bradshaw—a formidable woman in her 50s wearing black silk despite the celebration—hovered at his elbow like a persistent horsefly. She kept gesturing toward a blonde woman in rose-colored taffeta who stood near the refreshment table with rigid posture, aware that every eye tracked her movements.
Oilia Randolph.
Raina had heard of her too. The Randolph family owned grain operations across 4 territories. Their wheat fed half the frontier settlements and fetched premium prices from eastern buyers. Oilia had attended finishing school in Boston and spoke 3 languages. She was 24, beautiful in that polished way that came from never missing a meal or sleeping on a straw mattress.
Perfect for a man like Braden Bradshaw.
Except Braden looked about as enthusiastic as a steer being led to slaughter.
His jaw was set tight enough to crack teeth. His broad shoulders strained beneath a tailored black vest. When his mother whispered something urgent in his ear, he responded without looking at her, his gaze fixed somewhere distant, as if calculating escape routes.
Raina understood the feeling.
She needed to find whoever hired her, complete the job, and leave before her humiliation deepened further.
She took three steps toward the house.
A man stumbled directly into her path.
He was middle-aged, red-faced from whiskey, wearing an expensive suit that smelled like tobacco and cattle. His eyes were unfocused.
“You there,” he barked loud enough that nearby conversation stopped. “Girl, fetch me whiskey. The imported kind, not the local swill.”
Raina’s throat closed.
“Sir, I’m not—”
“Don’t argue. Do your job and move those sewing scraps out of the way. You’re blocking traffic.”
Laughter rippled through the guests. A woman in green silk covered her mouth. Two men smirked behind their cigars.
Raina’s face flamed hot as a branding iron. Her fingers went numb around her bag strap. The yard tilted slightly. She stepped backward.
Her boot heel caught on uneven ground.
She stumbled.
Strong hands caught her shoulders, steadying her instantly.
The touch was firm but careful. Warmth radiated through her thin sleeves.
Raina looked up.
Braden Bradshaw stood directly behind her, his hands still on her shoulders, his face inches from hers.
Up close, he was even more striking. Sharp cheekbones. Sun-darkened skin. Eyes the color of Wyoming sky before a storm. A small scar cut through his left eyebrow. His jaw was shadowed with stubble. He smelled like leather and sage.
Their eyes met.
1 heartbeat. 2. 3.
Something passed between them in that suspended moment—recognition perhaps, or shared understanding of what it felt like to be trapped.
His expression shifted. Decision sharpened his gaze.
He leaned down until his mouth was level with her ear.
“Darling,” he said softly, urgently, “I need you to pretend something for me right now. Can you do that?”
Raina’s heart hammered.
“What?”
“Pretend to be my wife.”
The words hit her like a runaway horse.
She opened her mouth to protest.
He did not wait.
His hand slid down her arm slowly, deliberately, until his fingers interlaced with hers. He lifted their joined hands high enough for everyone to see and turned toward the crowd.
The drunk man fell silent. The fiddles stuttered and stopped.
“This here is my wife,” Braden announced, voice ringing across the yard. “I ain’t courting anyone else. Party’s over.”
Silence struck like lightning.
Then chaos erupted.
Gasps rippled through the guests. Oilia Randolph’s face went white, then red. Ellie Bradshaw made a choking sound and gripped the porch railing. The drunk man stumbled backward.
Braden pulled Raina gently but firmly against his side. His arm slid around her waist with practiced ease, his hand settling at the curve of her hip—possessive and protective at once.
To anyone watching, they looked exactly what he claimed.
“Just follow my lead,” he murmured.
Ellie descended from the porch.
“Braden Samuel Bradshaw,” she hissed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Introducing my wife, Mama.”
“You ain’t married.”
“We got married 3 weeks back in Laramie. Small ceremony. Just us and a preacher.”
The lie rolled off his tongue smoothly.
“And who might you be?” Ellie demanded.
“Raina Morrow, ma’am.”
“Morrow. Your mother does laundry at the boarding house.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’re claiming to be married to my son?”
Braden’s hand tightened at Raina’s waist.
“She is my wife,” he repeated.
Oilia stepped forward, smile sharp.
“You never mentioned a wife when we discussed our families’ arrangement.”
“That arrangement was your daddy’s idea, not mine. I got no interest in merging businesses through marriage. I already got a wife I love.”
The word love struck Raina like a physical blow.
The fiddlers resumed playing, breaking the tension.
Braden guided her toward the center of the yard and lifted her hand into a proper dancing position.
“Just follow along,” he said. “We got to make this look real.”
She barely knew how to dance. But he led with confidence, and her feet moved automatically.
“You’re doing fine,” he murmured.
“This is insane,” she whispered.
“Yep.”
“We’re not married.”
“Nope.”
“Your mother looks ready to murder us.”
“Yep.”
A laugh bubbled up her throat despite herself. He smiled.
“There you go. Now everyone thinks we’re happy newlyweds.”
“I think everyone believes we’ve lost our minds.”
“Probably accurate.”
When the song ended, he offered his arm and walked her through the crowd, introducing her to ranch hands and business associates, spinning believable details about their supposed wedding.
An hour later, as the sun set and guests began departing, he walked her to the waiting wagon.
“I know that was unexpected,” he said.
“That’s one word.”
He handed her a card.
“Come by tomorrow mid-morning. We’ll talk properly.”
“Talk about what? How to untell everyone we’re married?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we figure out a different solution.”
He tipped his hat.
“Tomorrow, Miss Morrow.”
The wagon carried her back toward Laramie. Raina looked back once.
Braden stood in fading light, hands in his pockets, watching her leave.
Everything had changed in one impossible afternoon.
And part of her—terrifying and thrilling—wanted to go back.
Part 2
Raina did not sleep that night.
Her mother lay in the next room, lungs still fragile from pneumonia that had forced her to borrow $50 from a loan shark. With interest, the debt had grown to $75—more than they could repay sewing 2-cent shirt seams.
By dawn, Raina rose and dressed in her best blouse and navy wool skirt. Plain, she assessed herself in the mirror. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Thin frame. Unremarkable.
What had Braden Bradshaw seen?
She walked 5 miles toward the ranch before catching a ride in a supply wagon. The driver chattered excitedly.
“Can you believe it? Married in secret—and to a seamstress. Romantic.”
Romantic.
The word curdled in her stomach.
The ranch looked different in daylight. Less magical. More practical.
Braden met her at the door, dressed in work clothes.
“Miss Morrow. Come in.”
Inside, the house was polished but lived-in. Hardwood floors. Mounted elk antlers. Ledgers and books lining a study.
“We’re not married,” she began.
“No,” he said. “But by tomorrow noon, everyone believes we are.”
He apologized for not asking her before claiming her publicly.
“My mother’s been pushing marriage for 2 years,” he said. “Ever since my divorce finalized.”
She had heard about that. Braden had married young—a banker’s daughter from Denver. The marriage lasted less than 3 years. She left, claiming frontier life beneath her. The divorce had been expensive and public.
“Mama wanted me to marry Oilia Randolph,” he continued. “Join the ranching and grain empires. I ain’t interested in marrying for business. Did that once already.”
“So you used me.”
“Yep.”
He looked faintly ashamed.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He handed her a folded paper.
“What happens now is you read this.”
It was a contract.
In exchange for acting as his wife in public for 1 year, he would pay her mother’s $75 debt, establish a fully stocked seamstress shop in town with 1 year’s rent paid, give Raina her own rooms at the ranch, and pay her $25 a month.
One line stood out, underlined.
Neither party shall develop romantic feelings for the other. If either party violates this condition, the agreement terminates immediately.
Raina read it twice.
$75 would erase her mother’s debt.
A real shop would change her life.
“Why offer so much?” she asked.
“Because this benefits me more than you,” he said. “Keeps my mother off my back. Stops marriage-hungry women circling like buzzards. Lets me live in peace. But it puts your reputation at risk. Fair payment.”
“What happens after the year?”
“We stage a quiet separation. You keep the shop and money.”
The condition about feelings.
“Why include that?”
His expression flickered with something old and buried.
“Because feelings complicate everything. This is business. Clean. Temporary.”
She saw the hurt beneath the words.
This was madness.
It was also freedom.
“Where do I sign?”
He provided pen and ink.
With 2 signatures, Raina Morrow became Mrs. Braden Bradshaw in the eyes of Wyoming Territory.
She moved in the next day. Her mother’s debt was paid immediately. A cottage near the garden was prepared for her mother.
Her room at the ranch was larger than her entire boarding house space. Sunlight poured through lace curtains.
Braden’s quarters were on the opposite wing.
Dinner that first night was simple. Ranch hands treated her cautiously. Braden set the tone, speaking naturally to her.
The first week passed in routine. She sewed. He worked the ranch. They maintained polite distance.
Then he took her to town.
The shop stood between the mercantile and the hotel.
“It’s yours,” he said, handing her a key.
Two rooms. Bolts of fabric in colors she had only seen in catalog illustrations. A new Singer sewing machine worth $30.
“It’s business investment,” he insisted when she thanked him. “You’re my wife. Got to look successful.”
The shop opened Saturday. By day’s end, she had 6 dress orders and 3 men’s shirts commissioned.
They began attending events together. Performing affection.
At the Laram Cattlemen’s Association gathering, he kept a hand lightly at her waist. He made her laugh about a woman who counted cattle out loud during conversation.
They danced.
Each touch blurred lines.
One evening, a storm drove him inside soaked to the bone. His wet shirt clung to his powerful frame.
“You’ll catch pneumonia,” she said.
“You’re bossy when you’re concerned.”
“You’re stubborn when you’re cold.”
Thunder cracked overhead. He steadied her. They stood too close.
He stepped back first.
Weeks passed. Performances became something else.
Then Oilia Randolph visited her shop.
“I’m suggesting your marriage seems remarkably fabricated,” Oilia said coolly.
She implied Raina had trapped him.
“Take your concerns up with my husband,” Raina replied.
That night, she told Braden.
He revealed his first wife’s name—Aviana—and how she had despised frontier life and left him.
“I swore I’d never stake my life on feelings again,” he said. “That’s why the contract forbids them.”
Raina understood.
And realized she had already broken the rule.
One October night, tension snapped.
They argued about pretending.
Thunder cracked again.
He held her shoulders.
“We can’t,” he whispered.
“Then let go,” she said.
He didn’t.
He kissed her.
The kiss shattered every rule. Hungry. Desperate. Real.
When they broke apart, breathless, he said, “We can’t do this.”
“We just did.”
“I’m falling in love with you,” she said.
His face shuttered closed.
“No. This is proximity. Circumstance.”
“Then why did you kiss me?”
Silence answered.
“The contract’s broken,” he said finally. “You got to leave.”
She staggered as if struck.
“You’re a coward.”
“Maybe. But this was a transaction.”
Morning came too bright.
She packed.
He did not come to say goodbye.
Part 3
Raina returned to town. To her shop. To the business he had built for her.
She lasted 3 days before the grief settled deep and heavy.
Braden lasted 3 days before regret consumed him.
On the third evening, his mother cornered him.
“You are the biggest fool in Wyoming Territory,” Ellie Bradshaw said.
“She violated the contract.”
“Damn the contract. You wrote it because you’re terrified.”
“What if I love her and she leaves anyway?”
“Then you survive. But at least you’ll have tried.”
He stood at the window long after she left.
He saw Raina laughing. Sewing. Dancing.
He had built walls so thick nothing could get in.
Not pain.
Not joy.
At dawn, he saddled his best horse.
Raina was measuring fabric for Mrs. Middleton’s daughter when he appeared in her shop doorway.
“Can we talk?”
She followed him outside.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For being too scared to see what was right in front of me.”
He confessed he had started falling for her weeks ago.
“I love you, Raina Morrow,” he said. “Not pretend. Real. Terrifying love.”
“The contract?” she whispered.
“To hell with the contract.”
She searched his face.
“I love you too.”
He pulled her into his arms in the middle of a Laramie side street.
“Think we could try this again? For real?”
“Yes.”
Three weeks later, he took her to the hill overlooking the ranch.
He knelt.
“Will you marry me for real? No contracts. No conditions.”
“Yes. For real.”
They married 3 days before Christmas in the Laram church.
No secrets.
No lies.
He kissed her like a man who understood how close he had come to losing everything.
The ranch changed after that.
The house felt full instead of large.
Raina kept her shop and hired 2 assistants. Women rode from Cheyenne and Denver requesting a Bradshaw dress.
Braden still rose before dawn, still argued over cattle prices, but he came home to a table that felt like family.
Her mother lived comfortably in her cottage.
Their first child, a daughter named Clare, arrived on a sweltering July afternoon. Two years later came twin boys, Nicholas and Leon.
There were hard seasons. Illness. Drought. But there were 2 of them to carry it.
10 years after the day he grabbed her shoulders and called her his wife, Braden led Raina back to the same yard.
No silk dresses now. No imported whiskey. Just wind and cattle and their children’s laughter drifting from Ellie’s cottage.
He handed her a paper.
The original contract.
Neither party shall develop romantic feelings…
“We broke that one fast,” she said.
“Best rule I ever broke.”
He handed her another sheet.
Final contract between Braden and Raina Bradshaw.
We agree to fall in love with each other over and over every single day in big and small ways.
We agree to argue fair, forgive fast, and kiss often.
We agree this life will be messy, loud, occasionally heartbreaking, and entirely ours.
This agreement has no end date, no exit clause, no rule against feelings.
She laughed through tears.
“You forgot one.”
“What?”
“You are never again allowed to write ‘no romantic feelings’ into anything that has my name on it.”
He added the line and handed her the pen.
They signed.
He tucked the old contract away as a reminder.
“Remember what you thought the first time you stepped into this yard?” he asked.
“I thought I didn’t belong.”
“And now?”
“Now I know this is ours.”
He pulled her close.
The wind carried the scent of sage across the fields. A gate banged. One of the boys shouted. Their daughter’s laughter followed.
Storms would still come. Cattle would still get sick. Life would still test them.
But the rule that once tried to keep love out of their arrangement was long gone.
The only rule left was simple.
Choose each other every day.
No matter how stubborn.
No matter how scared.
