Chapter Five

“What!?”

Haelyn’s voice echoed around the wooden house. She couldn't believe her ears. First, she was brutally beaten up and next, she's getting married to a stranger who's apparently a farmer.

“You're joking right? Right?” She laughed but it wasn't funny. None of it was funny.

He shook his head.

She breathed out in frustration. “God.”

She turned away from him and ran both hands through her hair. Her head was already hurting, and this conversation was making it worse. She had woken up in a strange house wearing a man's shirt after nearly dying on a beach, and now she was being told that the man standing in front of her was the person her parents had chosen for her to marry.

“Do you have a phone? I want to call my parents.” Haelyn asked.

Dean reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his phone. He held it out to her without saying anything.

She quickly took it and dialed her mother's number. It rang twice before going straight to voicemail.

Haelyn frowned and tried again.

Nothing.

She called her father next, but the same thing happened.

“Seriously?” She stared at the phone before looking at Dean. “Just take it.” she handed the phone back to him.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Haelyn looked around the room again, noticing how quiet everything was. Outside, she could still hear the chickens clucking and the occasional sound of one of the goats. Somewhere farther away, a horse neighed.

“Look, I don't think I will be able to marry you. I don't know you and you don't know me.” She explained, trying to convince him but it didn't work.

“I was expecting something more…” She gestured. “.... expensive. They could have given me something like a mayor or something.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Haelyn looked around the room again, noticing how quiet everything was. Outside, she could still hear the chickens clucking and the occasional sound of one of the goats. Somewhere farther away, a horse neighed.

Dean stared at her. “A mayor?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Someone important. Someone with a nice house, a nice car, maybe a few businesses. Not…” Her eyes wandered around the room again. “This.”

Dean glanced around as if trying to figure out what was wrong with it. “What's wrong with it?”

“Everything.”

He raised an eyebrow.

Haelyn sighed. “Look at this place, Dean. It's a farm. There are chickens walking around outside, goats, sheep, horses... I don't even know what else you've got out there. And you expect me to live here?”

“What exactly did my parents tell you?”

“That we'd get married.”

She stared at him. “That's it?”

“That was enough.”

Haelyn scoffed. “Of course it was enough for you.” She walked forward with careful steps.

“And that's because you're a lonely farmer boy who hasn't even fucked a good pussy?”

Men always reacted when she pushed that hard.

Dean didn’t.

He just looked at her.

Those eyes looked slowly from her bare legs up the oversized shirt that barely covered the tops of her thighs, past the faint bruises on her arms, and settled on her face.

“Is that what you think this is about?” he asked.

She hated how calm he sounded. “What else would it be?” she shot back, lifting her chin. “You live in the middle of nowhere with animals. You’re probably desperate. My parents wave a rich girl in front of you and suddenly you’re ready to play husband. How convenient.”

He took a step closer.

Just enough that she had to tilt her head back slightly to keep holding the contact. “You’re standing in my house,” he said quietly, “wearing my shirt, after I pulled you off a beach half-dead… and the first thing you decide to throw at me is that I’ve never had good sex.”

Haelyn’s cheeks flushed but she didn't look away.

“Have you?” she challenged. “Or do you masturbate anytime you feel lonely uh?”

Dean’s gaze dropped to her mouth for half a second before returning to her eyes. “You talk a lot for someone who doesn’t know the first thing about me.”

“I don’t need to know you,” she snapped, taking a small step back only to feel the edge of the wooden table against her. “I know enough. You’re a farmer. You live here. You agreed to marry a stranger because my parents asked. That tells me everything.”

He didn’t move away. “Does it?”

She laughed. “Yes. It does. You’re probably the type who thinks quiet equals deep. Who thinks patience is attractive. Who thinks a girl like me will eventually soften because you fix fences and feed chickens.” She gestured toward the window.

“Newsflash, farmer boy—It doesn't work on me.”

“You’re trying very hard to make me angry,” he said.

“Is it working?”

“No.”

She hated that answer.

She stepped into his space, close enough.

“Then what would make you angry?” she asked. “Because right now you look like a man who’s never been properly tested.”

His eyes stayed locked on hers, “You should be careful,” he said quietly, “talking like that while you’re wearing my clothes.”

Haelyn’s lips curved, “why? Does it bother you?”

“It should bother you.”

“It doesn’t.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, fully aware of how the movement made the shirt slip further.

“I’ve worn worse after worse nights,” she continued. “This is nothing. You’re nothing. Just a man my parents decided to dump me on because they finally got tired of cleaning up my messes.”

“You keep saying that,” he murmured. “That I’m nothing. That this place is nothing. That marrying me is beneath you.”

“Because it is.”

“Then why,” he asked, voice dropping even lower, “haven’t you walked out the door yet?”

The question landed like a quiet slap.

Haelyn’s mouth opened, then closed.

Outside, a horse neighed again. The chickens kept clucking.

“Because I don’t have a phone that works,” she said finally, “and because I’m not stupid enough to go wandering around the middle of nowhere in a man’s shirt with no shoes and covered in bruises.”

Dean’s gaze flicked down to her bare feet, then back up. “The bathroom is down the hall if you want to clean up. There are clothes in the top drawer of the dresser in the guest room. They’ll be big on you, but they’re clean.”

Haelyn blinked. “You’re just… letting me walk away after all that?”

“I’m not holding you here.”

“But the marriage—”

“Is still happening,” he finished, calm as ever. “Whether you like it or not. Your parents made the arrangement. I agreed. You’ll stay here. You’ll be my wife. And you’ll learn that talking about fucking doesn’t make you as dangerous as you think it does.”

She was furious.

Dean turned toward the back door, already reaching for the handle.

“I’ll be outside,” he said without looking at her. “There’s work to do. When you’re done being angry, you can come find me. Or don’t.”

He stepped out into the sunlight, the screen door swinging shut behind him with a soft creak.

Haelyn stood frozen in the middle of the room. She looked down at the shirt she was wearing. “Fuck,” she whispered to the empty room.