Chapter 1: The Arrangement

I hit puberty early—and with it, a chest that made grown-ups nervous.

That always seemed to rattle the adults around me. Ms. Rachel worried about the young Mr. Carter near me, always afraid he’d do more than just look. So she came up with her own fix: get me married off to Captain Alex Mason, a man who’d returned from deployment with more scars than most people could even imagine.

As she rushed me out the front door, her voice tried to soothe, but her guilty expression was impossible to miss: “Now, I know Alex can’t have children, but at least you won’t ever have to worry about childbirth.”

She added, with a forced wink and a half-smile, “Don’t worry, honey—sometimes what a man’s missing just means he gets creative in other ways.”

Later, I’d find myself begging for mercy night after night.

Sometimes I wanted to grab Ms. Rachel by the arm and ask, flat-out:

Why, exactly, is Captain Mason so damn talented in every possible way?

1

Captain Alex Mason came home from overseas—not in a parade, but in an ambulance, rushed back to Chicago, his uniform soaked in blood, clinging to life by a thread.

He was the only son of the Mason family—a name that still carried weight in this part of Illinois.

Grandma Carol Mason, a tough-as-nails widow, now faced the loss of her only child. As grief gnawed at their family, someone at church whispered about a symbolic marriage—maybe it could tempt hope and fate back to the Masons.

Ms. Rachel, my legal guardian since forever, hurried to Grandma Carol’s side, pushing my name forward like it was a winning lottery ticket.

She held my guardianship like a prison warden with a single key, so there was no real way for me to say no.

Ms. Rachel made her threat plain: if I refused to marry, she’d send me packing to Old Mr. Howard’s place—a cranky old guy next door who smoked cigars out on his porch and hollered at anyone who touched his lawn.

I pictured myself in that musty old house, the air thick with cigar smoke and Fox News blaring from the TV. I knew Ms. Rachel still hadn’t forgiven me for my teenage mess with Mr. Carter, so I dropped to my knees and swore up and down there was nothing between us.

Ms. Rachel jabbed her sharp, manicured finger right into my forehead.

“What’s the point of swearing?” she snapped. “Look at you—don’t you realize how distracting you are with that chest of yours?”

I hugged myself, yanking my sweater tighter, tears burning in my eyes. The floor creaked beneath my knees, and somewhere outside, a cardinal sang.

“Every day you’re waving those two big cupcakes around, tempting fate. You think I don’t trust you? It’s the men I don’t trust.”

Her sternness cracked, and she crouched beside me, dabbing at my cheeks with the corner of her sleeve.

“The Mason family’s a big deal around here. If my mom hadn’t been friends with Carol, Lord knows who’d have tried to snatch up a match like this.”

I wiped my cheeks, my voice thick with hurt: “Ms. Rachel, I don’t want to be married off in some symbolic ceremony. I’d rather spend my life scrubbing pans…”

Before I could finish, her hand cracked across my cheek. Twice.

Smack! Smack!

The sting radiated through my face, heat and shame blooming in my skin. My eyes watered, and for a second, I remembered every other time someone tried to control me—my stepmother’s sharp words, Ms. Rachel’s rules, that sense of humiliation burning even worse because someone else could see it happen. I wanted to disappear.

Right then, the housekeeper burst in, hair a mess and cheeks flushed.

“Ms. Rachel! The Mason family just called—Captain Mason woke up!”