Yours To Keep

by Shannon Stacey

  She laughed and he tried to ignore how much he liked the rich sound of it. “And have her frantic I’d managed to hire some transient serial killer? No, a boyfriend was better. Especially one whose family I know so well. You’re my best friend’s husband’s cousin. How bad could you be?”

  “What did you tell her I did before I became your imaginary boyfriend?”

  “I told her you were in the army and that we met when you came home on leave to visit your family.” She shrugged. “And that when you came home for good, we started dating. It was easier to remember if I tried to stick close to the truth. The timeline’s off, of course. She thinks you got out of the army before you really did.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, pretty certain he must be losing his mind. “What would I get out of the deal?”

  She looked as startled as he felt at the possibility he might actually be considering it. “A temporary job—landscaping, not just living here—and a place to stay.”

  “I have a place to stay. And guys like me can always find a temporary job.”

  “Guys like you?”

  He smiled and raised an eyebrow at her. “Guys with strong backs who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. What else?”

  “Nothing, I guess. There’s really nothing in it for you.” Her shoulders slumped for a moment, but then she straightened her back and laughed. “It was crazy anyway. I just wanted her to stop worrying about me and get on with her life. She loves it there—I can hear it in her voice—but she’s torn.”

  “Did you think she wouldn’t come home for your wedding?”

  “I didn’t think it would get that far. I assumed at some point I’d meet a nice guy—you know, one who actually knew I existed—and we’d start dating. I’d tell her you and I broke up and after a little while tell her about my new boyfriend. The real one.”

  “But you haven’t.”

  She shrugged and shook her head. “No. To be honest, I haven’t really been looking. I want to grow my company enough so I can leave the heavy lifting to somebody else and do the design part-time before I get married and have kids.”

  He should get in his truck and drive away. He had his own life to sort out and spending a month playing house with Emma would be a weird detour to take. Staying over Kevin’s bar and finding a job pounding nails somewhere would give him everything he needed, but without the soap opera.

  But she really did seem like a decent woman who’d gotten herself into one hell of a situation. Not to gain anything for herself, but so her grandmother could relax and enjoy her bingo games. Lisa liked her of course, but so did his Aunt Mary, and she was a pretty shrewd judge of character.

  He cleared his throat. “Between graduation and signing my name on the army’s dotted line, I wrecked a motorcycle. I messed myself up pretty bad, but when Aunt Mary called because she never went more than a few weeks without talking to us, I told her I just had a little road rash and a bruised elbow. I made my family lie for me, too.”

  Emma nodded. “Because there was nothing she could do and the truth would have worried her sick.”

  “Yeah. So I get it, I guess. Where you’re coming from, I mean, and how you got to this point.”

  “It started out a harmless white lie, but then it got away from me. And I’m afraid if she comes home and I’m alone, she might not go back. She loves it down there and both of her best friends are there now.”

  He must be as crazy as she was. “If I do this, what’s your end game?”

  “My end game?” She shrugged. “I’m hoping before she leaves she’ll agree to sell me the house. And then I’ll wait awhile and tell her we broke up.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re going to get her to give you her house under false pretenses?”

  She shook her head, the ponytail swinging. “Not give. Sell. Her reasons for not selling to me are ridiculous and before you proposed to me—” He tried not to react to her words, but it was damn weird when she talked about him like that. As if he had a double life he couldn’t recall. “—she kept talking about putting it on the market because she didn’t want this big old house tying me down and holding me back.”

  He looked at her and her dark coffee eyes met his with an intensity that almost made him take a step back. It sure seemed like she was telling the truth. “If I start thinking you’re just some deadbeat looking to scam Granny out of her house, I’m done.”

  “Are you seriously going to do this for me?”

  “I guess I am.” He pulled the cheap department-store diamond he’d picked up that morning out of his pocket and held it out to her.

  “Wait.” There was a faint thread of panic in her voice. “What are you doing?”

  “There’s hedging and then there’s outright lying. I’d like to keep the latter to a minimum, so I’m going to propose to you and you’re going to accept.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “So how about it? Wanna be my fiancée?”

  When she blushed and nodded, he slid the ring on her finger. He had to wiggle it a bit to get it over her knuckle, but it fit better than he’d expected. It got a little awkward, then, because it seemed like something should follow a marriage proposal. A kiss. A hug. Hell, even a handshake.

  Then she shoved her hands, ring and all, in the front pockets of her jeans. “Thank you. For doing this, I mean. And for the ring. I can pay you for it.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” False intentions or not, no woman of his—more or less—would pay for her own jewelry. “So, do we share a bedroom in this fairy tale of yours?”

  He liked the way a slow blush burned her cheeks and had an urge to brush his thumb over the spot, to see if her skin felt as heated as it looked. “She knows we live together. Theoretically, of course. So she probably assumes we’re sleeping together, yes.”

  Now that was a plan he could get behind. “And how would you propose to handle that?”

  “I put a sofa in the bedroom. For reading and watching TV…and for me to sleep on. You can have the bed.”

  They could discuss that later. “So what now? When does she get home?”

  “In three days.”

  “Wow. Short notice.”

  “Maybe we should have dinner or something so we can talk and get to know a little about each other. I’ve got a full day tomorrow, but I could grab a pizza on the way home if you want to come over.”

  A first date with his fiancée, Sean mused. Life after the army wasn’t turning out to be quite as boring as he’d feared it may be. “Sounds good. I like anything on my pizza that’s not classified as a vegetable. What time?”

  “About six? I’ll be knee-deep in fertilizer tomorrow, so I’ll need to shower first.”

  Since that was a visual he didn’t need any more detail on, Sean nodded, then turned toward the door. “I’ll see you at six, then.”

  He was almost free when she called his name. “You won’t change your mind, will you?”

  “Like I said, if I think you’re scamming her for anything but her emotional welfare, I’m gone. Otherwise, I gave you my word and I’ll see it through.”

  He could almost see the tension easing from her body. “Thank you.”

  “Before I go, you need any help putting this furniture back?”

  “No, but thanks. I’m not done scrubbing the baseboard trim yet.”

  He lifted a hand in farewell and let himself out. They had three days to become intimately enough acquainted to pass themselves off as a cohabitating engaged couple.

  Mentally, he backspaced out the word intimately. There wouldn’t be anything intimate about their relationship, despite the close quarters. They’d be playing a role, with stage kisses and fake affection. Once the curtain dropped—or the bedroom door closed, as the case may be—so would the act.

  “You’re going to what?”

  It wasn’t anything Sean hadn’t asked himself every five minutes or so since getting sucked into Emma’s plan, but it sounded different when his cousin said it. Or maybe it was K
evin’s subsequent pointing and laughing his ass off that changed the tone.

  “It’s only a month,” Sean shot back, maybe a little defensively. The shorter, dark-haired waitress—Darcy, he thought her name was—put a beer in front of him and he took a long pull. He’d been looking forward to it all day.

  “A month of living with a total stranger, pretending you’re so madly in love with her you’re going to marry her? For real?”

  “No, not for real, moron. For pretend. That’s the point.”

  His cousin laughed some more, then pulled out his cell phone and started texting. Sean craned his neck, but couldn’t see the screen.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Kevin chuckled. “Telling my wife.”

  “You could have waited until I went upstairs.”

  “No, I really couldn’t.”

  Kevin shut his phone, but it was only a few seconds before it chimed. He looked at the screen, chuckled, then was texting again.

  Sean pulled out his phone and opened a new message to Kevin. I’m still here, asshole. Send.

  A couple minutes later, Kevin grinned and slid his phone back into his pocket. “Beth wants to know the sleeping arrangements since there’s no way even a grandmother will buy a separate bedrooms story.”

  “Beth wants to know, huh?”

  “Trust me, by now the whole family wants to know.”

  Sean was tempted to bang his head against the bar, but he wouldn’t be able to knock himself out so he didn’t waste the effort. “There’s a sofa in the bedroom. She’ll sleep on it and I get the bed.”

  “Chivalrous.”

  “I’m too tall for a sofa.”

  “I don’t know Emma well, but I seem to recall she’s not exactly short.” Kevin gave him a knowing look. “Not exactly hard on the eyes, either.”

  That she wasn’t. But the last thing Sean wanted to do was get tangled up with a woman. Tangled up in the sheets? Usually okay but that, along with playing house, could give Emma the wrong idea. Permanence wasn’t in his current vocabulary. Not that it was necessarily in hers, either, but no sense in taking any chances.

  “When does your future grandmother-in-law arrive?” Kevin asked when he finally caught the hint Sean wasn’t going to discuss his fake fiancée’s easiness on the eyes.

  “Saturday. We’re supposed to have dinner together tonight and get to know each other, I guess.”

  “You think you’re going to get to know each other well enough over a meal to fake out her grandmother?”

  “She thinks we can do it.”

  “What do you think?”

  Sean shrugged. “I told her I’d do it, so I’ll do my best to make sure we pull it off.”

  “Does Ma know about this yet?”

  “Not yet,” he said, grimacing. He wasn’t looking forward to telling her, either. Assuming Beth wasn’t on the phone with her already, giving her the big news.

  Sean stood and picked up his beer, intending to take it upstairs with him. He could return the empty mug later. “I know as soon as I walk away you’re going to call Joe and Mike, so I’ll just leave it to you to spread the word.”

  Kevin laughed. “Don’t forget Mitch. And Ryan and Josh and Liz.”

  Sean froze, beer halfway to his mouth. Shit. He hadn’t even thought about his brothers and sister and what they might think. Thinking he’d lost his mind was a given, but if one of them got to thinking he needed saving from himself and made the drive over, it would blow everything all to shit.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, “and let me give them the heads-up. And try to keep your half of the family in check.”

  “I’ll try, but don’t put off calling them too long. Once Ma hears about it…”

  Yeah, that’s what he was afraid of. He’d have to talk to Aunt Mary soon and, as much as he didn’t want to, he’d have to have that discussion in person. Hopefully her wooden spoon wouldn’t be close at hand. That sucker hurt.

  He went up to the apartment that was supposed to be a temporary home, but was now going to be nothing more than a motel stop, and sank onto the couch. He hadn’t unpacked much yet—not that he had a lot to unpack—so the physical act of moving into Emma’s house wouldn’t be difficult.

  And he didn’t think he’d have too hard a time pretending to be attracted to her. Batshit crazy or not, she was tall—which he liked in a woman—and hot, which he really liked. And that hair… She had the kind of hair a man could bury his face in or plunge his hands into, capturing the thick, dark cloud in his fingers.

  Sean shifted on the couch, muttering some choice words under his breath. It had been a long time since he’d buried his face in any woman’s hair and now he’d be stuck sleeping in the same room with a woman it would be a bad idea to touch. He’d be close enough to smell her shampoo. To hear the whisper of breath and skin as she sighed and shifted in her sleep. But too far away to run his hand down the long, warm curve of her back and turn that sigh into his name on her lips.

  Groaning, he hit the TV power button on the remote control next to his leg, looking for some distraction. A movie. An old fight rerun. Hell, a Three Stooges marathon would do. Anything to get his mind off sex. He couldn’t be thinking those kinds of thoughts.

  He was an engaged man now.

  Chapter Three

  Emma changed her mind about Sean Kowalski at least a dozen times over the course of her work day, but she never got as far as calling Lisa to ask for his cell-phone number—which she’d stupidly forgotten to get—before she remembered what was at stake.

  Peace of mind for Gram. Freedom from worrying about losing her home for her. Pretty much everything, as far as she was concerned.

  So at six o’clock, she opened the door to Sean with her hair still damp from the shower and a smile on her face. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  He shrugged and held up a six-pack of bottled Budweiser. “I told you I would. I wasn’t sure what kind of wine you’d like, or even if you like it at all, so I brought beer.”

  “Sounds good. Come on in. The pizza’s in the kitchen. I’m starving, so I got a Meat Lover’s.”

  “Beer was probably a better choice than wine, then. Not sure if you serve red or white with pepperoni, ham, sausage, hamburger and bacon.”

  She laughed and led him into the kitchen, but the amusement died in her throat when he reached for the fridge door, presumably to keep the beer cold, then stopped. He frowned and leaned closer. Peered at the photograph held in place by a brown-eyed Susan magnet. This one showed Emma at a Red Sox game with Sean’s arm draped around her shoulder and the green field of Fenway Park behind them.

  He was still frowning. “This creeps me out a little. Isn’t that supposed to be Lisa? I’m pretty sure I was at that game with Mikey and his wife.”

  “It was Lisa who did the Photoshopping, not me, if it makes it any less creepy.”

  “Not really. Just how many of these fake pictures do you have?”

  “A couple dozen, I guess, that Lisa’s done for me over time. We’re not really photograph-happy, which helps, but I’ve got enough so it looks like we’re a couple, at least. And I needed some to take with me when I flew down to visit her.”

  “Where was I when you went to Florida?”

  “You couldn’t get away.”

  “From what?”

  She shrugged. “You happened to have a family wedding going on during the only weekend I could spare from work. You’re a busy guy, really.”

  He looked like he was going to say something else, but then he shook his head and stuck the six-pack in the fridge, pulling out two bottles before closing the door. After twisting off the caps, he set one down by each plate.

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  She shook her head. “Everything’s on the table. Go ahead and dig in.”

  It didn’t escape her notice that he placed a slice on her plate before serving himself and it gave her hopefulness a little boost. Obviously he’d been raised with good manners
, which would not only help him win Gram over, but make him more apt to stick to his word.

  Before she sat, she grabbed the spiral-bound journal she’d been jotting notes in since she first joked about her plan to Lisa and set it on the table. “I wrote down a few things. You know, about myself? If you skim through it, it’ll help you pretend you’ve known me longer than two days.”

  Instead of waiting until they were done, he set down his slice, picked up the notebook and opened it to a random page. “You’re not afraid of spiders, but you hate slugs? That’s relevant?”

  “It’s something you would know about me.”

  “You graduated from UNH. Your feet aren’t ticklish.” He chuckled and shook his head. “You actually come with an owner’s manual?”

  “You could call it that. And if you could write something up for me to look over, that would be great.”

  He shrugged and flipped through a few more pages of the journal. “I’m a guy. I like guy stuff. Steak. Football. Beer. Women.”

  “One woman, singular. At least for the next month, and then you can go back to your wild pluralizing ways.” She took a sip of her beer. “You think that’s all I need to know about you?”

  “That’s the important stuff. I could write it on a sticky note, if you want, along with my favorite sexual position. Which isn’t missionary, by the way.”

  It was right there on the tip of her tongue—then what is your favorite sexual position?—but she bit it back. The last thing she needed to know about a man she was going to share a bedroom with for a month was how he liked his sex. “I hardly think that’ll come up in conversation.”

  “It’s more relevant than slugs.”

  “Since you’ll be doing more gardening than having sex, not really.”

  “Wait a minute.” He stabbed a finger at one of the notes in the journal. “You can’t cook?”

  “Not well. Microwave directions help.”

  “I’d never marry a woman who can’t cook.”

  “I’d never marry the kind of man who’d never marry a woman who can’t cook, so it’s a good thing we’re just pretending.”