Becca's alarm went off at exactly 5 o'clock AM.

Groaning, she rolled over and patted around for the stupid thing, only to find it missing from the nightstand. She reached for the other side of her bed, eyes still squeezed shut. She finally found it and pressed the off button.

"Becca! Get your lazy butt up!" Her dad called from the kitchen. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and sat up, throwing the covers to the side before letting out a yawn.

"Becca!" He yelled again. "I'm up, I'm up! Good grief, I'm up." She mumbled the last part and got out of the bed, stretching before she went to the kitchen.

Her bare feet made little noise as she walked down the hallway. She could see her dad as she approached the room, frying eggs and whistling 'Amazing Grace'.

" 'Mornin." She told him. "Good morning to you, good morning to you, good morning, good morning, good morning to you!" He sang, a lop-sided grin on his face while he placed the scrambled eggs on a plate. "Hilarious." Becca mumbled, going to the fridge and pulling out the chocolate syrup and some milk. There's nothing like some chocolate milk to make you feel better in the morning.

"I know I am!" He called back. Her mother walked out of their bedroom door, clad in a fluffy robe and hair in curlers. "Chester, if you're singing that stupid song again, I will come over there and shut you up." At his smirk she continued, "And certainly not in a pleasant way."

He kept his lips curved up nonetheless. "I have no clue what you're talkin' about."

She fixed him with a glare.

"Good morning, good morning, good morning to you! Good morning, good morning, good- hey!" He yelped as his wife snatched the plate of bacon.

"Give that back!" He reached over for it, but she simply pulled it out of his reach and ran to the other side of the table. "Becca, care to share the plunder?" She questioned her daughter, grabbing a couple pieces from the plate.

She smiled and got the rest of it in her hand. "It would be my pleasure."

"Bacon hoggers!" Her dad grumbled, going back to his cooking. "And you wouldn't have me any other way." Mrs. Ginald reminded him, swallowing the last of her bacon and kissing him good morning.

Becca twisted her face in disgust as her dad wrapped an arm around his wife's waist and abandoned his pancakes on the griddle. "Ew, ew, ew. Stop it. No PDA!"

Her dad chuckled as he pulled away. "I can't wait for your boyfriend. I'll be bursting up in his truck window and saying the exact same thing!"

"I don't even have a boyfriend." She replied, taking a bite out of another piece. "Ah, not yet! You will one day, though! I want a son-in-law and grandchildren." Her mother said, ruffling her dad's hair.

Becca's face twisted once again. "You'll have to wait a while for that."

Mrs. Ginald simply giggled and walked over to the fridge. "Maybe so. Maybe you'll be married within the next couple of years. Then I can have a grandbaby by the time I'm 45!"

"Not likely." Becca said, taking a sip of her milk.

"You never know!" She sing-songed. "Alright, I'm going to get dressed. Bec, do me a favor and give that stupid pony his medicine while you're feeding him. Chester, you've got to cut the field tonight."

They rolled their eyes simultaneously as she went back into her room.

"For the record, I'm perfectly fine with you waiting a few years to get married." Her dad mused, plating a pancake.

"Hey, I'm not even in a relationship! How do you know I'll even get married?"

He turned his head to smile at his daughter. "Because you need a best friend once you're all grown up. You're just like your mother. Do you know how long it took for me to ask her out?"

She shook her head. "Three years. We were in high school, and she was just like you. All her friends were guys, and she'd had maybe one boyfriend before. It was when we ended up in the same college I realized maybe that was what God wanted me to do, you know?"

Becca stayed silent, staring into her chocolate milk. "You'll meet some one eventually, sweetheart. You need somebody eventually."

He turned and sat a plate piled with three pancakes drowned in syrup and some eggs to the side. "Bon apetite!"

-------------

"What do you mean, fiancé?" Tucker asked, wide-eyed. "I haven't proposed to anyone. I haven't even met her!"

John sighed and took a sip of his tea. "No, you haven't. However, I signed a deal a while back with her great-uncle. He died recently, and the contract was handed to them with his company. They signed it."

"What are you talking about, Dad? I still don't get it."

Mr. Crean started massaging his temples. "We went to Vegas and got a little drunk, alright? Fine. But it was completely legal, because we argued with my legal advisor that was there and insisted that we weren't drunk. Signed papers on that too. Turns up, you get to marry this beauty!"

"No, no, no." Tucker said, starting a fast walk across the room, and back. His method for thinking things out. "That's not even legal!"

"Like I said, we signed contracts on everything. And my legal advisor was there. It was all legal, trust me. Now her family went and signed the contract... we can't exactly undo it. That's how our companies merged." He sighed wistfully and gazed out the window. "One night in '94. We were drunk beyond our minds. Don't know how we convinced him we were sober."

"I can't marry her! I don't know her! She doesn't know me! What were the exact words on the contract?"

John rolled his eyes and walked to his desk, picking up a piece of paper. "My firstborn son, Tucker Crean, will be wed to an eligible member of Richard Lonin's family, extended or otherwise, when he turns 20, and the companies will be merged on this day, Janruary 24, 1994. And then we both signed it."

"Just.... get a lawyer or something!"

"Can't. We both signed, don't you see how this works? This contract is very specific. It has all the works. What it takes for the girl to be eligible, how this is legal, what we get control of, what your child gets control of,-"

"What my child gets control of?!" Tucker said, face paling. "Who says I'm going to have a child with this girl? I mean, I'm fine with meeting her and everything, but if I don't like her..."

"Relax. You only have to be legally married for a year. That's one year of marriage. Then you can get a divorce. And you don't have to have a baby. But it's listed what it'll get if you do."

Tucker took a deep breath and stopped pacing. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay. We can definitely talk. When do I meet her?"

"Saturday."

------------

Becca did her chores quickly that morning in order to ride Thrush. She threw some feed into Tom's trough, then smashed the two large pills and mixed it in, along with some sugar. "Here you go, you ugly little thing."

Tom nipped at her hand, and she stuck her tongue out before moving on to Thrush.

She rode for a good 20 minutes before she led him back into his stall with a pat and a few kind words.

"Bye." She whispered, pressing a kiss to the star on his head before racing back to the house to change.

School went by quickly that day, and she only told Rachel about their new-found wealth. She had whistled and informed Becca that she wasn't paying her the five bucks she owed her for a bet.

Ben and Jerry had already known, of course, and had kept quiet about it all day.

When she finally came back home, she was confused to find a black Sedan and her parent's vehicles in their driveway. None of her mothers drove a black Sedan, since they all lived on dirt roads, and everyone knew how hard it was to keep a black vehicle clean in the country.

Eyes furrowed, she shut the truck door and approached the porch, catching a glimpse of her mother's back through the window. She jogged up to the door and opened it, walking into the room slowly.

There were two people she didn't know on the couch, with their backs turned away and facing her parents.

She was thinking up a quick way to get to the shotgun leaning on the corner, in case they were crazy government people, when she caught a glimpse of her mother's pale and surprised face.

Her father looked up at her, and she nearly gasped when she found his eyes watery.

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