He leans in. “Don’t tell anyone this, but you were mine too.”
She blushes a little. “You and your silver tongue.”
Oliver winks. Literally winks at the woman. “Remember, it’s our secret.”
“Sign this before I fill in that I’m the bride,” she jokes.
Oliver moves his hand up my back. “If I wasn’t in love with Maren, I might just take you up on that.”
The blush that paints her face is adorable. “You watch this one, sweetheart. He’s one of a kind and you’re a lucky woman to have a chance with him.”
I grin. “I’m a lucky girl.”
“Yes, you sure are. Now, you’ll have to come by the house tomorrow and pick up something for you both.”
Oliver tilts his head. “For us? How could you have something for us?”
She pats his hand. “You don’t worry about that. I already have Marivett working her busy little hands.”
He groans. “Already?”
“Already what?” Mrs. Garner asks.
“You told her?”
She shakes her head. “Well, I had to get to work on a wedding present.” She gasps. “Oh! When is the wedding? I do hope it’s a big one.”
I step in quickly. “No, it’s just immediate family. We want it really small. My father is in cancer treatments, so we can’t expose him to too many people.”
Her eyes go soft as she takes my hand in hers. “You poor thing. The Lord took my Vincent just ten years ago. It was so hard to watch him go. Is he responding to the treatments?”
I shake my head. “No, the doctors say it won’t be long now.”
Moisture builds in my eyes, and I look away. Oliver wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me to him as emotions start to become too much. I sink into his embrace, letting his strength keep me up.
You’d think I would have come to terms with this. He’s been sick for so long, suffering and trying to live for whatever reason. Years ago, I thought I had accepted that my father wouldn’t live to see me married or meet my children. Now, I’m faced with the reality of it, and it’s so much harder than I thought.
Oliver clears his throat and rubs my back. “Thank you for everything, Mrs. Garner.”
“Of course. I’m sorry to make you cry, sweet girl. Come by tomorrow, don’t forget.”
I wipe at my tears and push a smile onto my lips. “We’ll be there.”
As we exit the courthouse, Oliver chuckles. “You have no idea what you just agreed to.”
Maybe not. “How about we go grab lunch and you can tell me what I’m in for.”
“Food is always a yes.”
I grin. Such a guy.
Eight
OLIVER
We got the license taken care of and picked out wedding rings that will be ready in a few days.
Of course, I looked like a total asshole because I never bought her an engagement ring since we aren’t really engaged, but try explaining that to Mrs. Villafane’s son. I really hoped to have lunch out of town, since we’d seen enough people for the day, but my sister demanded to meet with Maren, so we’re here at Jennie’s.
“Thank you for today,” Maren says as we sit.
“It’s not a problem.”
She tucks her hair behind her ears. “I wouldn’t say that. You did get a lecture on women and diamonds.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I could always use the one I had—”
“No.” It might be easier, but we both already agreed it was better not to. She took it off and plans to give it back once she’s back in Virginia Beach.
“I agree, but I don’t want people to say anything.”
“Will your family?”
Maren shakes her head. “No, I don’t think so. They know I’m not really traditional, so it won’t come as a surprise. They know we rushed everything, so we can just say we plan to get one later.”
That’ll work for me. “Then we’ll just go forward not using your ex’s ring.”
She nods once. “Perfect. So, Oliver Parkerson, silver-tongued charmer that you are, tell me what you’ve been up to for the last ten years.”
I lean back in my seat. “You know up until I left Sugarloaf, right?”
“I do.”
I figured Devney told her everything, and I would rather not rehash being dumped. “After we ended things, I went to Wyoming to open a new inn for my father. It was . . . a damn mess. While I was there, my family kind of went crazy. Dad was cheating on Mom—as always—and we were all sick of cleaning up his messes.”
“I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
I plaster on my smile and shrug. “Could’ve been worse. I could’ve been Grayson and had my dad sleep with my ex—who is Amelia’s biological mother.” Her eyes widen. “Yeah, he’s a winner, and that is reason number 794849 that I will never get married. My blood is tainted.”
“I very much doubt that. You can’t be all that bad, you’re fake marrying me to make someone you never met happy.”
“Oh, buckle up for the stories . . .”
Talking to her is easy, and I fill her in on all the drama my father created. She needs to know why we left the company we built with our dad and went out on our own. She listens, dipping a fry into the ketchup and swirling it around.
Once I finish, she sits back. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“But, wow in a good way, Oliver. You could have stayed under your dad’s thumb because . . . why not? You were making great money and you liked the job. But you took a chance and did something amazing. No matter what, you have this really special family who came together. I wish I had that.”
No, she doesn’t. She has no idea what she’s wishing for. Nothing I’ve done in my life has been heroic or great. I deal with one shitstorm after another, and the cycle never ends.
“So, tell me about your supersecret job,” I suggest.
She reaches down and grabs a folder. “Okay, so I work for Cole Security Forces and in order for me to disclose anything beyond that, you have to sign this.”
I take the folder from her and read over the single document inside. “You need me to sign an NDA?”
“Yes.”
“Because what you’re about to tell me is supersecret spy stuff?”
Maren jerks her head at the paper. “Go ahead and sign.”
Now I’m really intrigued. I grab the pen and scrawl my name on the line. “Signed.”
“Okay. I work as an analyst for a clandestine division of Cole Security Forces, and a large part of my job is acting as a liaison between my team and various alphabet agencies in the government.”
“But the truth is . . .” I prod.
“The truth is a lie. Do you understand?”
Not even a little, but the word clandestine is screaming at me.
“I do . . . not. Are you a spy?”
“We frown upon that word.”
She’s kidding, right? “Wait, you really are?”
“No, I’m not. I work for them. I’m not in the field.”
My mind is coming up with all kinds of shit thanks to all the spy movies I’ve watched. She’s like . . . fucking cool.
“Considering you work for a security firm, I’m going to assume what you do is dangerous.”
She nods.
“Maren, if you want me to be on the same page as you, you need to tell me a bit more. We’re supposed to work at the same company and be getting married. I get you can’t tell me everything, but I’m lost here.”
“I know, and I know you signed the NDA, but there are very few people who really know what I do—or did. I don’t know how much to say when everything inside of me says not to speak at all. Even Oliver and I didn’t talk about work and I am his analyst. It’s like my job and I aren’t the same. They’re separate parts of me. My dad is the only person I’ve ever disclosed anything to, which was limited, but he loved it. He had dreams of being a field agent, like Oliver is.”
“No shit,” I say with a
little awe.
“Yup.”
“I’m fucking badass.”
She rolls her eyes. “You are, but not for that reason. My ex, Oliver, does a lot of covert missions. I’m part of the support team. My job is analytics and risk assessment, so I help outline the team’s tasks and troubleshoot all the possible failure points.” She pauses and runs her finger along the rim of her glass. “Basically, I find the best series of actions to get our guys in and out safely. Then I find every alternate situation they might run into and find them a way out of it. My goal is to get the team in and out with the least amount of risk or injury.”
I blink a few times. “Injury?”
“Sometimes it’s inevitable.”
“Okay. And you said you work with other agencies?”
“Yes, we do.”
I’m impressed. Not going to lie. I want to ask a million questions, and I fully plan to, but she really doesn’t look like she wants me to ask which agencies, so I set that question aside for now. “What do you tell people who ask what you do?”
“I do admin work for a security team. All very boring.”
“Sounds like it’s anything but boring.”
Maren giggles. “Really, not many people ask anything beyond that. My aunts and uncles know very little. Daddy knows a lot more since he sort of lives vicariously through me. Of course, I withhold a lot of the info to keep the team safe, but he doesn’t mind. Still, he will think you work with me, so he’s going to want to talk shop with you. There’s really no avoiding it.” She chews on her lower lip, drawing my whole focus to that single action. “I’ll be with you almost all the time, so I can handle it if he does, but if he gets you alone . . .”
“I’ll need to be able to divert?”
“Which isn’t going to be easy. It’s what he loves, so you’re going to have to answer without actually answering.”
“I see,” I say with a smirk. “I get to make up stories, and you’ll have to go along with it?”
Maren’s eyes widen. “Uh, well, you probably should not do that.”
“Probably.”
“Oliver,” she says with a little warning in her tone. “You have to stick to the story.”
“The one that you wrote.”
“Yes, because it’s the best option.”
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my chin like a villain. “We shall see if I do that.”
She tosses the napkin at me.
“I’m kidding. Look, I’ll go along with this and do my best for you and for your dad.”
She smiles softly, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ear. “Thanks. You are really just . . . you are an amazing man.”
So amazing that I’m still single and have been dumped by two women I wanted to marry. Yeah, I’m totally fucking great.
“Well, good thing that I was here when you needed me.”
“It is, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m clearly out of my mind.”
I take her hand, squeezing. “Maybe you are, but you’re following your heart.”
“If you ask anyone who works with me, I don’t have a heart.”
“Anyone who has ever met you knows that’s not true. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you.”
Heartless people don’t fake weddings for their dying fathers. Just a fact.
“Well, it’s all for him.”
I can see she’s uncomfortable so I change the topic back to safer grounds. “Tell me about your childhood, the things your fiancé should know.”
“You remember my mom died when I was little?”
I nod. Her mother was killed by a drunk driver while she was on her way home from work. It was truly horrific and something that really shaped her life. Maren was always the designated driver and wasn’t above stealing someone’s keys to keep them from driving if they had been drinking.
“After that, he was my everything, my best friend. I was all he had left of her, so we clung to each other. We were a team, you know? Still, it was like I was so afraid to do something stupid or get hurt and break his heart that I wouldn’t dare come close to taking risks. Then he married Linda, and I felt like I lost him.” She squeezes my hand again, reminding me that her palm is pressed to mine, but when I move to pull away, she tightens her grip. “It was slow at first, but he changed. He was still overly protective and didn’t want me out of his sight, but it felt like he never wanted Linda to think she was left out, does that make sense?”
“It does, but didn’t you tell me he didn’t want you to go to college so far away? That doesn’t sound like a father who doesn’t care.”
“Oh, yeah, that was a huge fight. He begged me not to go.”
I remember her struggling a lot with being away. “Why did you?”
Maren shrugs. “I needed to, otherwise I never would have figured out who I was outside of being his daughter. My leaving was what allowed him to be around only Linda.”
The way she says her name is almost a sneer. “I take it you don’t get along?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Oh, I don’t know . . . just a hunch.”
Maren grins. “She was wonderful in the beginning of the relationship. She never pushed me to think of her like a mother or overstepped. My father got sick shortly after they got married, and even then, she was so great. Dad would’ve died if it weren’t for her. I’m sure of it.”
I clear my throat. “Then what changed?”
“Time, I guess. He got better, and they seemed happy, so it took me a long time to notice that something was off. She controlled everything. What he ate, where he went, who he talked to, and how often they spoke. She became the gatekeeper of him.”
“I’m sorry. That had to be really hard for you, to be cut off from your best friend.”
I’m not sure I would have ever noticed if my father stopped calling me when I was in college or if I would have even cared. Even back then, I despised him.
She lifts her shoulders and then drops them on a sigh. “He’s not the same, and I don’t entirely blame him. I’ve changed too. Now, I play her games because, if I don’t, I won’t have access to him. She’s already cut off my uncle Jim because he basically called her out on being controlling.”
“How big is your family?”
She bites her lower lip. “Pretty big. My dad has five siblings. Aunt Eileen, who you’ll love, is divorced. Aunt Marie, who is a pistol and is married to Arthur. He indulges her every whim. Uncle John, who is married to Gail. He’s a dean at a college in New York. Then there’s my uncle Jim, who refused to come if Satan’s sister was invited because he didn’t want to cause drama. Then my aunt Shannon is the baby, and she swore off men years ago. All of them together are amazing and loud and funny, and . . . well, I think my dad really needs them. It’s been a few years since they’ve been together, which is another reason this wedding is so important. I want to see Daddy happy. I want to give him this wedding because I think it’ll give him closure with his siblings he misses.”
“And if this backfires and he ends up heartbroken?” I ask because I think she might be ignoring the fact that it’s a real possibility. She’s so focused on figuring out how to make her father happy that she isn’t seeing how crushed he will be if he finds out his daughter lied to him.
“Then I’ll figure it out, but . . .”
“But you still want to try.”
Her big green eyes are wide and open, full of vulnerability and hope floating through them. “Do you think I’m horrible?”
“No.”
After hearing how much this means to her, I don’t know if I would’ve said no even if I didn’t have the resort to think about. None of that seems to matter as I look at her.
Which is fucking stupid.
Maren is literally coming out of a failed engagement, lives hours from here, and isn’t someone I have feelings for.
Yet.
I can’t stop looking at her and wishing I could take all her pain away. I need to get my ridiculo
us hero complex under control. Lord knows it’s done enough damage over the years. I don’t need another reminder of how I’m good but not good enough.
Before I can think much of it, Fred, the permanent fixture at the diner, appears next to me. “I hear you’re tying the knot.”
Bill, his counterpart, stands next to him and answers. “You don’t hear anything. I heard he’s getting hitched.”
Fred slaps his back. “It’s the same thing, you dumb-dumb.”
I offer a tight smile and release Maren’s hand. “I see you spoke with Mrs. Garner.”
Bill shakes his head. “Kristy knows too?”
“You didn’t hear it from her?” I ask.
“No, I heard it from Jeremy. Came in here for his coffee and sandwich before his shift and said he heard it from Joey, the plumber, who heard it from Michael, who is working on the traffic light, who heard it from one of the Andrews sisters.”
“I’m sorry I asked,” I grumble under my breath.
“So, it’s true?” Fred jumps in, looking over at Maren. “Please tell me it ain’t you. You’re much too pretty for this boy.”
She clears her throat to cover a laugh, and I bristle. “What does that mean?”
They ignore me, staring at Maren with wide grins.
Maren returns their smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Bill sits beside her and practically purrs. “The pleasure is all ours. Believe me, we are the ones who are very happy to meet you.”
Oh, Jesus. “You two get away from her,” I warn and reach for her hand.
“You don’t want to marry him.” Fred jerks his head at me. “He’s not all that bright.”
“And has bad hair and no skill with the women,” Bill says.
“You have no hair,” I fire back at Bill.
“In my day—”
“Which is far gone,” I finish.
Maren giggles, and I swear, her entire face lights up. She’s so fucking beautiful that it hurts to look at her. They’re right, she would be much too good for me if she were mine.
She just needs me to pretend to be hers, which is really proving to be far too easy.
A Chance for Us (Willow Creek Valley Book 4) Page 6
