by Betina Krahn
The only other person he truly cared about was Amanda, and nobody even knew they had any connection. So it wasn’t like anybody would be coming to him if something had happened to her.
Besides, he had no doubt she was just fine. Right about now, she was probably in her bedroom, wearing something plain but incredibly sexy, staring at the phone. She would likely be having a mental debate about whether to call and entice him into some serious phone sex, or to continue to try to be strong and resist him, showing them both she didn’t really need him…at least until she just couldn’t help herself.
God, the woman drove him crazy. In a good way, as well as a bad one. And oh, how he adored her for it.
The doorbell rang, then rang again, as if his visitor had become impatient. He forced himself to relax and headed over to answer it, reminding himself not to worry. Still, he couldn’t deny his pulse sped up when he turned the knob and pulled the door open.
Seeing who stood there, he jerked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
His four sisters, his brother, his mother, his young niece and nephew and his great-aunt all pushed their way into his house, babbling a mile a minute, all talking over one another.
Reese froze, trying to make his brain process what was happening.
A gaggle of insane people had just turned his quiet respite into a loony bin. Ralph, smart dog that he was, got the hell out, dashing toward the laundry room, probably to snuggle between the dryer and the wall, his favorite hiding spot when he’d done something bad.
“My God, Reese, how could you be so damned irresponsible? How am I supposed to raise my kids to make good choices when their uncle does something so incredibly brainless?”
“Reese, are you okay? I’m so sorry if you felt you couldn’t share this with us.”
“Oh, I’ve failed you. What would your father say? How could you do such a thing? Where did I go wrong?”
“Were you ever going to tell us, you sneak? I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Man, wait’ll I tell the guys. They’re gonna shit bricks.”
“How could you! I’ll never be able to show my face at school again!”
“When I said to have an adventure, dear boy, I didn’t know you’d take it quite that far.”
All the voices swelled, a chorus of them, but one comment, his sister Debra’s, pierced through the cloud of confusion. “Wait. Her who?” he asked, staring at his second-to-youngest sister.
“Reese, are you listening to me?” his mother asked, waving a hand in front of herself, as if to fan away a hot flash. She was red-cheeked, and appeared a bit woozy, although that could have been from the brandy Aunt Jean had been shoving down her throat before Reese’s departure.
“Do go sit down before you faint,” said Aunt Jean, pushing his mother toward Reese’s leather couch. “Molly, take the little ones into the kitchen and get them a snack. They weren’t happy that they didn’t get to finish their cake.”
The sixteen-year-old cast a furious glare at everyone, then grabbed Reese’s young niece and nephew and marched them toward the kitchen.
“Jack, why don’t you go find Ralph. I’m sure he’s scared to death at all of us barging in like this,” Aunt Jean said.
Jack frowned darkly. “I’m not a kid.”
“No, you’re not, which is why you are mature enough to recognize that a poor animal is hiding and frightened in the other room and you should go help him,” Aunt Jean said.
Jack had always been a sucker for animals, and he really loved Ralph. Sometimes he came by just to play with the dog, throwing a stick for him, bringing a toy. So the quiet request worked like nothing else would have.
Finally, when it was just the older females of his family, and him, the lone man—Lord, talk about painful torture: estrogen poisoning—Reese repeated his question. “Which her are you talking about? What the hell is going on here?”
“Don’t act all innocent. The truth is out. Oh-ho, is it out, in a major way,” said Tess, the oldest of his siblings. She was the mother of the two kids who were probably right now whining that they had to make do with dry crackers because Uncle Reese didn’t have any cookies or good snacks in his pantry.
Seeing Reese’s open laptop on the coffee table, since he’d been checking his e-mails before bed, hoping for one from Amanda, Tess grabbed it and began punching letters on the keyboard. “Talk about irresponsible. And stupid!” she snapped, as always, voicing her opinion and not caring how anyone else felt about it. “Will someone please talk to me?”
His mother sniffed, then waved a hand toward the computer screen. Reese turned his attention toward it, wondering why in the name of God everyone was so worked up about a YouTube video.
Then the video started.
“Hey, sweet thing, how late you working tonight?” a male voice said from off camera.
The voice was unfamiliar, but the words rang a bell, though he couldn’t place them right away. Nor could he make much out in the dark, grainy image.
Then the focus kicked in, the picture brightened and cleared. And another voice said, “Got a business card?”
“Sorry, guys, she’s retired.”
That voice he recognized. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, unable to believe it, but knowing what he was looking at. Especially now, as the image got nice and sharp and the screen filled with an easily identifiable couple.
Him. And “Mandy” the hooker. In all her wicked glory.
He glanced away, scrambling to remember everything they’d said and done, wondering if the sly videographer had caught the sexy kiss. Or, worse, the line about…
“…I roped myself a man tonight at that wedding chapel over there. Jeez, what’s a girl gotta do to enjoy her wedding night?”
He leaned back in his seat, dropping his head onto the back of the couch and staring up at the ceiling.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
“You’re married?” his mother cried. “How could you get married and not tell us?”
“Worse, how could you marry a poor, down-on-her-luck prostitute? Do you know anything about her? Where is she? Did you abandon her?” asked Bonnie, his twenty-four-year old sister, who shared the middle-child title with Debra but was extremely empathetic and had never seen a tree she didn’t want to hug.
“Look,” he said, not even sure what he was going to say. “It’s not what you think.”
“Then what is it?” Tess asked. “Did you or did you not either go temporarily insane or get roofied, and marry some trashy Vegas whore?”
That made him sit straight up and snap, “Watch your mouth.” He cast his sister a stare so heated she actually drew back a little. Her mouth remained shut, her lips compressing tightly.
Beside her, watching like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary, was his aunt Jean. Her mouth was tightly shut, too, only it wasn’t because she was trying to control her anger. The wicked old woman was instead trying desperately not to laugh. It was a wonder she didn’t hyperventilate from lack of oxygen as she held her breath, trying to contain her merriment.
She was loving every minute of this. Probably taking full credit for pushing Reese completely over the edge. “I’m just thrilled that you’re so happy,” he said, his voice dripping sarcasm.
She sucked her bottom lip in her mouth, then finally let out a whoosh of air. Rushing toward the kitchen, she said, “I think I’ll go check on Molly and the children.”
Well, that was one for the record books, a red-letter moment. The ballsiest woman he knew had cut and run. Add that to the rest of this funfest and this might just go down as the strangest night of his decade.
“So tell us, brother dear, what’s the story?” asked Debra as she leaned back in a chair and lifted her feet onto the coffee table. She looked to be enjoying this almost as much as Aunt Jean had, but she didn’t race for the kitchen in an effort to hide it. “When do we get to meet our new sister-in-law?”
He didn’t reply. Instead he stared again toward
the computer screen. The video had ended, but he wasn’t focused on that, anyway. No, what had drawn his eye was the small counter that indicated how many people had viewed it.
Thousands. Many of whom had left five-star reviews and salacious comments.
He could only shake his head in disbelief.
“Well?” prompted his mother. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? Not a single explanation?”
Hmm. Which would be worse? Letting his family believe he’d married a hooker during a wild night of partying in Vegas? Or admitting that, for months, he’d been traveling all over the country to play naughty, sexy role-playing games with a woman he was falling head over heels for?
He wasn’t sure what he was going to say. Truth or consequences? Either way, he came out looking like a total jackass.
Before he could figure it out, he was, quite literally, saved by the bell. The ding-dong was the perfect sound effect for the insane situation in which he’d found himself.
“Good heavens, who can that be?” asked his mother.
“Not a clue,” he replied, hearing an almost cheerful note in his own voice.
“Who on earth would simply show up here unannounced at this time of night?” she added.
“Can’t imagine. Rude, isn’t it?” he muttered, certain the sarcasm would go over her head.
Reese didn’t know who had landed on his doorstep this time. He only knew he was grateful to the bastard for giving him an excuse to get up and walk away from the inquisition.
Maybe he’d get lucky and it would be a fireman saying the whole neighborhood had to be evacuated due to a gas leak. Maybe he’d get even luckier and just blow up with it. Anything to escape having to share embarrassing fiction or even more embarrassing truth with his nosy, incredibly obnoxious family was a-okay with him.
Whatever he’d been imagining, though, it didn’t even come close to reality. He thought he’d been surprised to find his family barging in twenty minutes ago? Hell, that was nothing compared to the shock he got when he opened the door.
Of all the times he’d imagined Amanda Bauer coming to his home, being part of his real world, it sure hadn’t been under circumstances like these. Yet there she was, staring at him with uncertainty in her eyes and apologies on her beautiful lips.
“Reese, I’m sorry to just show up like this, but I need to see you and it’s not just to jump your bones, even though that’s exactly what I’d like to…” Her words trailed off as she looked past him into the house, obviously seeing a bunch of wide-eyed, openmouthed females who’d heard her every word. Her babbling nervousness segued into a momentary horrified silence.
Gee. The night just got better and better.
“Oh, man, please tell me you’re having a late-night Pampered Chef party, and that’s not your entire family sitting over there,” she said in a shaky whisper.
“’Fraid I can’t do that.” He forced a humorless smile, stepped back and extended an arm to beckon her in. “Welcome to the asylum.”
To give her credit, she didn’t run. A few months ago she probably would have. But tonight, she took one tentative step inside, and then another, her curious stare traveling back and forth between him and the women watching wide-eyed from a few feet away.
The silence lengthened, grew almost deafening, and finally, the sheer ludicrousness of the whole situation washed over him. This was like something out of a movie—a romantic comedy where the hapless hero went from one humiliating situation to a worse one, constantly looking like an idiot in front of the smart, witty heroine.
Fortunately, this smart, witty heroine had a couple of skills that could come in really handy right now. First, she wasn’t the type to pass judgment. Second, she was really good at adapting to new situations, as evidenced by her aptitude at role-playing. And finally, she had one hell of a sense of humor. So, with laughter building in the back of his throat, he squeezed Amanda’s hand and drew her toward the others.
He opened his mouth to make a simple introduction, trusting that she looked different enough from the woman in the video to be unrecognizable.
He should have known better. Eagle-eyed Tess leaped out of her seat, hissing, “She’s the one—it’s her!”
Amanda flinched, obviously having no clue what the other woman was talking about. Reese kept a strong, comforting arm on her shoulder. And then, though he didn’t really plan to say the words until they left his mouth, he introduced her to the judgmental women watching them with expressions ranging from pure curiosity to horror.
“Amanda, this is my family.” He draped an arm across her shoulder and tugged her against him. “Campbell family, meet the little woman.”
9
TEN HOURS LATER, the shock of the previous night still hadn’t sunk in. Amanda felt dazed whenever she thought about it.
“I just can’t believe you did that. Your family must hate me,” she said as she walked into Reese’s bathroom the next morning. She’d spent the night, of course, having nowhere else to go and not a single piece of luggage.
She now wore one of his T-shirts, which barely skimmed her thighs. Not that she’d needed anything to wear last night. Oh, no, he’d kept her quite warm while making love to her until just a few hours ago, when they’d finally fallen into an exhausted sleep.
She liked the feel of the shirt, liked that his smell clung to it, and she felt perfectly comfortable intruding on him in the bathroom, hopping up to sit on the counter, Strange that they were already so comfortable with each other, like longtime lovers. Strange, but nice.
“Don’t worry about it,” Reese said, glancing at her in the mirror. He stood over the sink, shaving, amusement warring with lazy sexual satisfaction in his eyes. “I’ll tell them the truth and they’ll fall all over themselves apologizing.”
The truth? That she was his holiday mistress who’d had him play-acting all across America since Halloween? Oh, lovely.
“But you told them I was your wife.”
“No, they told me you were my wife and waved their ‘evidence’ in front of my face to prove it.”
The damned video. She still couldn’t believe it. Someone had been videotaping them that night, possibly with a cell phone, and they’d never even realized it. Heaven help her if any of their corporate clients stumbled over the clip.
At least she hadn’t been too easily recognizable. Unlike Reese, who’d been completely uncostumed.
“But you confirmed it. My God, Reese, what were you thinking?”
“Well, I was thinking that my family is composed of a bunch of nosy busybodies and they deserved a little payback.” Grinning, he swiped his razor along one more strip of lean jaw. “If my aunt Jean hadn’t ducked out the back door before you arrived, I would have seriously considered dropping a pregnancy bombshell, too.”
“Whoa, big boy,” she said, knowing she sounded horrified. She leaped off the counter and backed out of the bathroom, both hands up in a visible “stop” sign. “That’s not even funny.”
He didn’t look over, that half smile still playing on his mouth as he shaved around it. Ignoring her dismay, he said, “You didn’t meet my aunt Jean.”
No, she hadn’t. Nor did she think she wanted to. She’d met quite enough of the clan last night and didn’t care to expand on, or to repeat, the experience.
She slowly shook her head. “I should have denied it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
He could laugh. He wasn’t the one being mentally murdered by a group of women who thought she’d either trapped or drugged their brother and son.
Yeah. Denial would have been the way to go. But she’d been so surprised by Reese’s claim, she could only watch in silence as his shocked family quietly rose and headed for the door. She’d said nothing when they’d murmured their apologies to Reese for the intrusion and left the house, giving her looks that ranged from disgust to pity. They’d been gone within five minutes of her arrival.
Something else she could have done—followed them
out. It would have been even better to have just stayed home in Chicago and kept trying to call Reese all night long rather than flying off to play superhero and protect him from the bad guy.
Superhero my ass. She’d come in person because she’d wanted to see him. That was all there was to it. Excuses about Vegas thugs be damned.
She’d stayed for the same reason. Stayed despite the crazy lie, despite the sheer misery it had been to come face-to-face with the women in his family, playing the girlfriend—no, wife—role as if she had some actual right to it. Stayed after facing down the women who all thought she had sex for money.
She felt like throwing up.
Backing up, she stopped only when her legs hit the edge of his enormous bed, then slowly sat down on it. What the hell had she gotten herself into? And she wasn’t even referring to the fact that an angry robber had followed her halfway across the country and could be parked outside Reese’s door right now, just waiting to break in.
Not that Reese seemed to care. In fact, when she’d told him what had driven her here last night, he’d spent about five minutes being utterly enraged and the next thirty muttering all the ways he intended to punish the guy if he actually had the nerve to show up.
She’d just wanted to call the police. Which was exactly what they were going to do in a couple of hours, once they’d made up the time difference in Vegas and had a good chance of catching Officer Parker on the job.
In the meantime, she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She’d already called Ginny and had her rearrange her schedule. Fortunately, the week looked pretty light and Uncle Frank was able to pick up today’s trip. A part-time pilot they contracted with when they were extra busy was on for tomorrow.
Not that she intended to spend another night here. Uh-uh. She had no clothes, and she was already itching to get back to her real life, away from Reese’s admittedly beautiful house and ultranormal one.
