Yours To Keep

by Shannon Stacey

  “Screw you, Mitch. She’s paying me to do landscaping. The fiancé thing is…whatever. She’ll be sleeping on the couch in the bedroom. I’ll be in the bed. It’s strictly hands-off.”

  “My money’s on a week.”

  His brothers would have the betting pool in place by the end of the day, no doubt. “Throw me in for making the whole month. Got no problem taking your money.”

  “She’s hot and single. You’re a guy. Sleeping in the same room? You’re as good as half in the sack already.”

  Not a chance. “Look, I’ve got to get going. Get my toothbrush in her bathroom before we head to the airport and all that.”

  “I think I’ll call Liz first,” Mitch told him. “I might even record the conversation.”

  “The important thing is that you get the story straight. If any of you come over for the Fourth of July, you need to have your shit together.”

  “Oh, I’ll be there. You can bet your ass on that. And speaking of the Fourth, what do Uncle Leo and Aunt Mary think of all this?”

  Sean winced. “I don’t think they know yet. The rest of them do, though, so it’s only a matter of time before Aunt Mary comes after me. I’ve been putting it off.”

  “That only makes it worse.”

  “I know. But if it’s already a done deal by the time she finds out, maybe she’ll go along.”

  That made Mitch laugh out loud again. “Sure, buddy. You keep telling yourself that.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Good. I’ve got phone calls to make.”

  Sean shoved his phone in his pocket and made one last trip around the apartment. Since everything he owned fit in his duffel and he’d only been there a few days, it didn’t take long to make sure he had everything.

  Five minutes later, he was on the road and it wasn’t long before he was turning into the driveway. He glanced at the mailbox and shook his head as he parked in front of his temporary home. The one with daisies on the mailbox and Emma under the same roof.

  It was just a month, he reminded himself. One month and then he’d be on his way, with his brothers’ money and a few paychecks in his pocket and no strings trying to hold him back.

  Emma knew a few things about Sean Kowalski. She knew he was tall and outrageously handsome and liked salt-and-vinegar potato chips. She knew he had a body designed to trigger female double-takes everywhere he went. She knew he’d served his country, wasn’t afraid of a day’s work, loved his family, played with his cousins’ children and was, no doubt though she hadn’t seen it yet, kind to animals.

  What she hadn’t known was how much impact seeing him stretch out on her bed and tuck his hands under his head would have on her. And she certainly hadn’t anticipated the heat that curled through her body and settled in a place she’d been neglecting for a while.

  “A little soft,” he said, squirming against the mattress in a way that made her hips want to wiggle along for the ride. “I like it harder.”

  Emma coughed to cover the little squeaking sound she made, as if announcing her hormones’ state of libidinous distress. “I like to nestle.”

  “It’s a girly bed.”

  Not with him sprawled across it, it wasn’t. “I’m a girl.”

  “I noticed.” When he turned his head and winked at her, she swallowed hard and glanced at her watch in what she hoped was an obvious gesture. She just wanted him off her bed.

  Which wasn’t going to help, of course, because he was going to be sleeping in that bed for the next month. And she’d be about ten feet away, tossing and turning on the couch. Great plan. Inspired, really.

  “Time to go?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” They’d done everything they could. What little he owned had been moved in. The biography of Ulysses S. Grant he was reading was tossed on the coffee table in the living room. A battered and oversized coffee mug emblazoned with the army logo was upside down next to her favorite mug in the dish rack. She’d found it at the Salvation Army store, along with a few other things that might help give the illusion he’d been living there for a year. It was show time.

  “Okay. Gimme a few minutes and I’ll meet you outside.”

  “Wait. You’re going, too?”

  He snorted and swung his feet to the floor. “Of course I’m going with you to pick up your grandmother at the airport. What kind of jerk did you think you were marrying?”

  “This is insane.”

  “Pretty sure I already told you that.” His eyes grew serious. “This is your last chance, you know. I can be out of here in a half hour. You can still tell her we broke up and you must not have loved me as much as you thought because you’re not all broken up about it. She’ll be so thankful you came to your senses before marrying me, she won’t even ask too many questions.”

  She knew he was right. It was insane. And this was her last chance to back out. Once she introduced him to Gram at the airport, they were all in. For a month.

  Then she shook her head. “No. We can do this and then Gram’s mind will be at ease and she can finally enjoy her retirement so I can move on with my life.”

  Sean walked over to her, so close she wondered if he was going to try to shake some sense into her. “Then there’s just one more thing to do.”

  “Oh, crap. What did I forget?” Considering how much time she’d spent going over everything in her mind instead of sleeping, she couldn’t imagine what it would be.

  When he rested his hand at her waist for a few seconds before sliding it around to the small of her back, she felt her muscles tense and her cheeks burn.

  “You can’t be doing that,” he said in the same low, husky kind of voice a man would use to tell a woman he wanted to take off her clothes.

  Her mind was frozen, all of her attention on that warm pressure against her T-shirt, and it took a few seconds to form a coherent sentence. “Doing what?”

  “You’re as jumpy as a virgin at a frat party.” He ran his fingers up over her spine until he reached the small bump of her bra strap, and then back down to her waist. “We’ve been dating a year and a half, and living together for a year of it, but you still blush and tense up when I touch you?”

  He had a point, but there was no way to fix that before Gram got off her plane. “Maybe you’re just that good.”

  It was the wrong thing to say if she was trying to back him off and settle her overheating nerves. The grin he gave her would have been potent enough to get her out of her clothes if the situation was different.

  “That’s a story I can get behind,” he said.

  “Thought we were trying to keep the lies to a minimum.”

  The grin only widened. “Who says it’s a lie?”

  She rolled her eyes and tried to step back—really needing to put a little space between them—but he held her close. “We’re going to be late.”

  “No, we’re not. But don’t you think we should at least have a practice kiss first?”

  Almost against her will, her gaze focused on his mouth. Yes. Yes, they should. “If Gram asked I was going to tell her you have a thing about public displays of affection.”

  “This isn’t public. This is your—our—home.”

  “Public as in with an audience.” She needed to look away from his mouth, especially since it was getting closer, but she couldn’t.

  When his face got close enough so she registered his intent, she raised her gaze to his, but it was too late. Before she could react, his lips met hers, his hand still on her back to hold her close, and she closed her eyes.

  Practice. That’s all it was. And if her body started tingling and her fingers itched to run through his hair, and her body wanted to melt against his…well, that just boded well for a month of pretending they were into each other, didn’t it?

  The jolt of heat that ran like an electrical shock through her body could be an unwelcome complication, but she’d worry about that later. Like maybe when she wasn’t too busy thinking about pushing him back onto that soft, girly bed he’
d complained about and proving women liked it a little harder, too.

  It took every ounce of self-control she could muster not to whimper in protest when his lips left hers. She wanted to take his head in her hands and drag his mouth in for another kiss. Maybe slip her hands under the back of his T-shirt so she could glide them over the warm flesh of his back and feel his muscles twitch under her fingertips.

  “Not bad for a practice kiss,” he said in a casual voice that pissed her off. No way could he have felt nothing while her senses sizzled like a drop of water on a hot, oiled skillet.

  “And the Oscar goes to,” she muttered when he winked and walked out of the room.

  She was about to swear and take a kick at the coffee table leg when she spotted him in the full-length mirror on the closet door standing ajar. He’d stopped just outside in the hall and she watched his reverse image as he pulled at the fly of his jeans, no doubt adjusting for the evidence he wasn’t as unaffected as he wanted her to think he was. Then he rolled his shoulders and kept walking.

  Despite the fact both of them being affected would be an even greater complication, Emma was smiling when she met up with him again in the front hall.

  “We can take my truck,” he told her in a terse voice that made her have to smother a bigger and much more smug smile.

  “No, we can’t. I have the extended cab and it might rain. We can’t throw Gram’s luggage in the bed to get wet.”

  “I’m driving.”

  She paused halfway out the front door. “Excuse me?”

  “You drive like a girl.” He held out his hand, presumably for her keys.

  “You’re an ass.”

  “We can stand here and argue about it. I’m sure your grandmother will understand.”

  “A sexist ass, no less.”

  He grinned and snatched her keys out of her hand before she could react. “Next time, you might want to actually meet the man you’re going to marry before you tell your family about him. Get in the truck. Honey.”

  Chapter Five

  Catherine Shaw, who preferred to be called Cat, stepped off the plane in Manchester and quickly retrieved her luggage. It was good to be back, if only temporarily. There was a time she might have thought it was good to be home, but she considered herself a Floridian now.

  It had cost her a little extra to fly into New Hampshire, rather than to Logan Airport, but Emma was picking her up and she didn’t want her granddaughter bothered with Boston, even if her fiancé was driving.

  They’d arranged to meet by the small food court and she spotted Emma immediately, standing next to a tall, good-looking man who was scanning the airport, watching people. A year and a half of civilian life hadn’t taken much of the edge off the soldier.

  Emma hadn’t seen her yet and she took a few minutes to give her granddaughter a good looking over.

  She was thinner, which wasn’t surprising since the girl couldn’t cook worth a darn. Her work was so physical she was burning through her steady diet of take-out and microwave meals. She’d have to put some meat on the girl’s bones while she was there.

  Emma looked so much like her mother at first glance, but it was mostly the hair. In the lines of her nose and mouth and the dark brown of her eyes, Cat could see glimpses of the son and husband she’d lost. As always, she felt the pang of grief like a constant and unwelcome companion, but it was overshadowed by her gratitude for the blessing that was her granddaughter.

  Then Sean’s eyes met hers and he obviously recognized her—no doubt from the photos she sometimes remembered to email from Florida. He touched Emma’s arm and Cat didn’t miss the way she jumped, her cheeks flushing pink.

  Then Emma was running across the lobby and Cat opened her arms for a fierce hug. “Gram!”

  She squeezed Emma, rocking a little, until she caught sight of her future grandson-in-law through the corner of her eye. He looked anxious, shifting his weight from foot to foot while he watched their reunion.

  Cat let go of Emma and turned to him, extending her hand. “You must be Sean.”

  He had a decent grip. She didn’t trust men with weak handshakes. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Shaw.”

  Lovely manners, too. “Please, call me Cat. Being called Mrs. Shaw makes me feel old.”

  He grinned, a naughty grin that probably weakened her granddaughter’s knees. “Anybody can see you’re anything but that…Cat.”

  “I think you and I will get along just fine.”

  “How was your flight?” Emma asked as Sean relieved Cat of her luggage and began herding them toward the exit.

  “Uneventful, which is never a bad thing.”

  When they made their way through the parking lot, the first light drops of rain were falling, so Sean put her luggage in the backseat of the truck and Emma climbed in after it. Cat was impressed when he took her elbow to help her into the passenger seat before closing her door and going around to his own side. He was a nice boy.

  “So you have family around here, Sean?” she asked when they were on the highway, heading north.

  “Yes, ma’am, I do. My aunt and uncle live about fifteen minutes from…home, and I’ve got four cousins and their families nearby.”

  “Oh good. I can’t wait to meet them all.”

  He turned his head and gave her a quick glance before looking back to the road, and she wondered why it would come as a surprise his fiancée’s grandmother would want to meet his family.

  “They’re always pretty busy,” he said, “what with all the kids and everything, but I’ll see what I can do. Maybe a barbeque or something soon.”

  It was a little over an hour’s ride, giving Cat plenty of time to not only listen to Emma’s constant chatter about the house and work, but to feel the anxiety in the truck. Her granddaughter’s voice was a little too chipper. Sean’s fingers kept tightening on the steering wheel, then he’d flex them and relax, but they’d tighten again. She’d almost think they’d had a fight before her arrival, but there wasn’t any anger simmering between them. Just nervousness.

  Cat stopped worrying about them when Sean turned onto the driveway and drove up to the beautiful old house she’d called home since she was a young bride of nineteen. She and John had borrowed down-payment money from his father to buy it when she got pregnant, expecting to fill it with a large and noisy, but loving, family.

  They had no way of knowing at the time Johnny would be their only child or that the two of them would end up spending several years rattling around the place alone until tragedy gave them Emma. The girl had not only brought joy back into their lives, but had breathed life back into the house.

  It was the joy Cat chose to remember as Sean hopped out of the truck and jogged around to open her door. She smiled when he offered his hand to help her down. And she watched as he did the same for Emma.

  Her granddaughter hesitated for only a second, but Cat didn’t miss it. Then she put her hand in Sean’s, clearly flustered, and hopped out of the truck. Her feet had barely hit the ground before she pulled her hand away and turned to grab the luggage.

  It was going to be an interesting month. Cat wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but she knew one thing for sure—whatever they were up to, Emma and Sean hadn’t been sharing a bed and a bathroom for the last year.

  Sean didn’t think it was going too badly…until Emma set a steaming glass dish on a trivet in the middle of the table. It was a casserole. One with tufts of little green trees sticking up out of some kind of sauce.

  Broccoli. He hated broccoli. Loathed it.

  “Chicken divan,” Emma said, and only an idiot could have missed the note of pride in her voice as she put her hands on her hips, oven mitts and all. “It’s my best dish—okay, my only real baked dish—so I made it as a welcome-home meal.”

  Cat smiled and Sean forced his lips to move into what he hoped was a similar expression. A woman who was sleeping with and living with and planning a future with a man would know he didn’t like broccoli. And it was his o
wn damn fault for laughing off her suggestion he write an owner’s manual of his own.

  She served him first, maybe because he was the fake man of the house, plopping in front of him a steaming pile of perfectly good chicken and cheese ruined by the green vegetable. He smiled at her—or maybe grimaced—and took a sip of iced tea.

  He could do this. He’d survived boot camp. He’d survived combat and the harsh weather of Afghanistan. He could survive broccoli. Probably.

  “It looks wonderful,” Cat practically cooed, and Sean’s stomach rumbled. Whether in hunger or protest he couldn’t say.

  Emma, of course, flushed with pleasure at the compliment. With a few wisps of hair framing her pink cheeks and her eyes sparkling, she was beautiful. Not beautiful enough to merit eating broccoli, but beautiful enough so he watched her for a minute as she served herself and sat down across from him.

  Then he made himself look back to his own plate. He’d given his word he’d make this charade work and Cat wanting to know why Emma fed her fiancé his least favorite food wasn’t a good way to start.

  He put it off as long as he could—picking out mouthfuls of cheesy chicken that weren’t too bad—but he couldn’t leave behind a pile of uneaten broccoli.

  Suck it up, soldier. The broccoli’s tree trunk or stalk or whatever people called it squeaked between his teeth, a little undercooked. Or maybe it was supposed to feel like that. Either way, he didn’t like it, so he chewed and swallowed as fast as he could. Then he dug up another forkful and did it again.

  He’d gotten through basic training by putting one reluctant foot in front of the other, and that’s how he got through Emma’s chicken divan. One squeaky, nauseating bite after another.

  “Sean, you said your aunt and uncle live near here,” Cat said in between a bite, “but Emma told me you have two older brothers and a younger brother and sister in Maine?”

  Silently thankful for any excuse to put down his fork, Sean gulped down some iced tea and wiped his mouth. “That’s where we’re from, but only Josh still lives in Whitford. He runs the lodge for the family.”