Her Surprise Engagement (Sorensen Family)

by Ashlee Mallory

  She almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. Her ogling one of the most eligible, and by far sexiest, bachelors in her state. Fortunately, the only witness to her drooling was a pup at her feet who was doing some of his own.

  “You know what I was thinking, don’t you, boy?” she whispered before shaking her head. Now she was talking to a dog. She wasn’t particularly accustomed to having a dog around and, despite her son’s almost obsessive pleading with her to get one of their own this past year, she just didn’t see herself as much of a dog person.

  Were they cute? Of course. But they also required a lot of time and attention, things that with three kids, she already felt was in short supply.

  The dog rested his head on his paws and closed his eyes, appearing almost content. She supposed as dogs went, this one—Ollie, she believed—seemed tolerable.

  “Morning,” her aunt almost sang, like a woman who’d gotten an envious eight-plus hours of sleep as she sauntered into the room. Just over seventy, Glenda had the spirit and wit of any twenty-year-old woman. Although in recent months, her age had become more a force to be reckoned with, which only made Daisy feel guiltier, seeing as she took advantage of the woman’s generous nature more often that she should.

  But Daisy’s job at the bakery didn’t offer her the luxury of paying for an expensive nanny or yearlong day care. She was fortunate in that her aunt lived next door and was able to help with the kids after school until Daisy could get home from work, which recently had been getting later and later.

  Her aunt stopped in her tracks as she caught sight of the dog and looked up, her blue eyes puzzled.

  While her aunt heated a mug of water for tea, Daisy explained to her what had taken place. Her aunt’s incredulous face after she told her who the guests were had Daisy laughing. Glenda only started to come around to accepting it after Daisy led her to the front window where she could see their classic convertible parked in the driveway.

  “Well, I’ll be,” she mused as she sat down at the table, looking as dazed as Daisy felt. Ollie, not one for being ignored by this new arrival, butted his head against her aunt’s legs, seeking some attention. Glenda leaned over and rubbed the dog’s ears as she continued. “But they’re not staying? Are you sure there isn’t anything we can do to change his mind? I mean, the ladies in my bridge group aren’t going to believe me when I tell them I vacationed with the lieutenant governor.”

  “It’s probably for the best. I can barely keep my own sanity with the three kids sometimes. Walking on eggshells for the next few days to make sure the kids don’t cause too much trouble doesn’t sound particularly relaxing.”

  Her aunt studied her and smiled. “A lot of men would like to help you with a few of your troubles if you just let them.”

  Daisy laughed and shook her head. “Sure. Until I lead with the fact I have three kids, and then they go racing in the other direction.”

  The sound of feet hitting the stairs meant that the kids were up, and she and her aunt shared a knowing look, each understanding they’d be shelving the discussion for a later time—although Daisy would have preferred to shelve it permanently.

  “Mommy! Is the puppy still here?” Natalie asked, scampering in. Her brother shoved past her and made a break for the dog.

  “Paul, watch where you’re going, you nearly knocked your sister down.” But Natalie didn’t seem affected. With only a year separating them in age, they were close in height and temperament, which sometimes made things as difficult as it was easy between the siblings.

  Natalie’s attempt at pigtails needed to be fixed, so Daisy took a minute to redo them as Paul and the puppy wrestled to the ground. Jenna joined her aunt at the table.

  Either the yelps, the kids’ giggling, or a combination of both must have drawn the young teen from her bed because another minute later, Lily came sluggishly into the room. She plopped down on a couch in the main room with her phone in her hands, just short of joining everyone in the kitchen.

  “Your dad’s in the shower, but he should be joining us soon. How did you sleep?” Daisy asked.

  “Fine,” she said in a monotone voice, not looking up from typing a message.

  “This is my aunt Glenda. She slept through your arrival last night.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lily.”

  Whatever response Lily might have offered, if any, was interrupted by the doorbell ringing then a quick succession of knocks, sending the dog in a flurry of barking as he raced to the door.

  Daisy looked at her aunt in confusion as Paul sped after Ollie.

  “Mom! There’s a woman here and a guy with a video camera.”

  What on earth?

  She came to her feet and followed the rest of the kids who had gone to see. As Paul had said, there was a woman who looked vaguely familiar standing on the front step, with a man balancing a video camera on his shoulder behind her. Both appeared almost as stunned as she was. Behind them, another van had pulled up.

  Didn’t this woman work for their local news station? Back in Salt Lake?

  The pup barked again and Daisy leaned down to grab his collar to hold him back.

  “Good morning. And who might you be?” the woman asked, confused but notably curious.

  “I’m Paul and this is my mom, Daisy Sorensen,” her son said matter-of-factly before Daisy had time to form a response. “Who are you?”

  “Michelle Rodriguez, Channel Four News. I’m looking for Jack Harrison.” She paused. “Do I have the right place?”

  Before Daisy could respond, Lily arrived behind her. “What do you want with my dad?”

  The woman’s eyes widened as she seemed to recognize Lily, who, just like Daisy’s kids, was still in pajamas. Her gaze then settled on Daisy.

  Daisy could see the wheels turning and the conclusions being jumped to. In an instant, the reporter signaled the guy behind her. “I’m sorry. Who did you say you were again?” she asked, this time more astutely.

  The light on the guy’s camera turned to green and focused on Daisy.

  Alarm bells rang in Daisy’s head. She didn’t know why these people were here, but she knew that she needed to end this conversation. Now.

  “I’m sorry. Jack’s not here right now. We have to go,” she said, taking a step back.

  “Jack’s in the shower, Mommy. Isn’t that what you told us?” Natalie asked from next to her.

  If possible, the woman’s eyes bulged even wider. “Are you and your family staying here with the lieutenant governor?”

  “We all arrived last night,” Paul chirped helpfully.

  Without giving him a chance to say anything more, Daisy grabbed Paul and the dog and pulled them inside, shutting the door on the shocked faces of the reporters.

  Damn.

  This did not seem to bode well. Not well at all.

  Chapter Three

  “No one knows where the leak came from, Jack. My bet is it was someone in Washington. But what’s most important right now is getting ahead of this story before it snowballs.”

  Jack tried to keep his face neutral as, using Daisy’s charged phone, he listened to his campaign advisor explain how news of the governor’s resignation had somehow been leaked ahead of schedule, while Daisy studied him from across the room.

  It had been a no-brainer after his conversation with the governor last week that Jack would call his dad’s old campaign manager, Stuart Windstrum, to help him make the transition to governor while also balancing the demands of an active and competitive campaign. Stuart was calculating, shrewd, and perceptive, all of which made his service still very much in demand even after all these years. The man was a genius. Something that would be of even greater value in light of this morning’s events.

  Stuart had actually been trying to reach Jack since last night, but thanks to the dead cell phone now charging on the desk, he’d been unsuccessful. And because Jack and his daughter were in Tahoe and nowhere near the nexus of events in the capital, Stuart hadn’t thought the s
ituation urgent enough for him to take extra measures to reach him.

  At least…not in time to head off this morning’s catastrophe, which was now being run on various news channels and social media on a seemingly endless loop for the past hour.

  To put it mildly, Stuart was not very happy. Not that Jack was that crazy about it, either.

  The door of the study threw open and Daisy’s two youngest stood in the threshold, their faces excited.

  “We’re on Channel Four, Mom!” the pigtailed girl said. Natalie, was it?

  “Hold on, Stuart,” he said, cutting off Stuart’s next words.

  “I asked you guys to turn off the television,” Daisy said, coming to her feet.

  “We did. This was on Lily’s iPad.”

  It was the third time in ten minutes the kids had burst into the room to share news of the latest network that had picked up the story, their excitement at their newfound celebrity understandable and, in ordinary circumstances, adorable. But the strained look on their mother’s pretty face said the news of their celebrity wasn’t met with similar excitement—not that he could blame her.

  “Kids. Come on,” Daisy’s aunt said, coming up behind them, apology in her blue eyes. His introduction to Glenda came just after the news cameras arrived and had been rushed, at best. But it was clear the woman was tickled to death by the circumstances that brought their universes colliding. She had been more than happy to volunteer to watch the kids while he and Daisy found privacy in the study near the front of the home.

  “Your mom and Mr. Harris—I mean…Lieutenant Govern—no,” Glenda said, pausing to scratch her head. “What do I call you? Soon-to-be Governor?” the older woman asked.

  “Jack’s fine.”

  “Maybe we can turn off all the televisions and computers and do something else,” Daisy said to the kids.

  “But I’ve never been on TV before,” Paul complained. “And we’ve been waiting forever to go play in the water and do some exploring. You said we’d do it after breakfast.”

  “I know what I said, Paul,” Daisy said, a warning in her voice. “But I told you, I have important things to work out right now. Later. I promise.”

  “Come on,” Glenda said again, steering them out “You heard your mother.”

  The door shut behind them, leaving the room quiet again.

  “Sorry,” Daisy said. “This is all so new for them.”

  “Don’t apologize, I completely understand.” Jack took his hand from the receiver. “Stuart? You still there?”

  “Oh, you’re done now? I mean, this is just your entire career.”

  Jack rolled his eyes at the man’s melodrama. “I understand what’s at risk here, Stuart.”

  “I don’t know if you do. Ten minutes ago, Aaron Leary tweeted his concern with what he sees as ‘morally irresponsible behavior’ in the future governor. He’s particularly worried about the example you’re setting not only for the kids involved, but also for all the fine children of our state.”

  Of course he had.

  Jack could see the motive behind the tweet and it sure as hell wasn’t pure moral outrage. Aaron Leary was posturing. Jack would take bets that Leary would be announcing his own intentions on running against Jack in the party’s primary election next spring. He and Leary had knocked heads many times in the past couple of years and it was an understatement to say there was some bad blood between them.

  “It’s ridiculous. This all has been completely blown out of context. Why can’t I just go out there right now and explain everything?”

  “That’s the last thing to do right now, Jack. We’ll make a statement and soon, but short of you marrying the woman and taking the wind out of their sails, let’s first make sure we have a clear plan in place. Let me meet with the team here, and we’ll call you back soon.”

  Plan? What kind of plan did they need when it was all a big misunderstanding? He supposed this was what he was paying Stuart for, anticipating every possible outcome and having solutions.

  “Okay. But I want to get ahead of this within the hour, Stuart. This doesn’t just affect me,” he said, meeting Daisy’s gaze.

  “We’re on it. Oh, and I should warn you. I got a call from the highway patrol. In light of your impending promotion, they’re sending a couple of troopers out as part of your security detail. They’ll be there this afternoon.”

  Jack sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Got it. Thanks for the warning.”

  He palmed the cell phone and crossed the room to join Daisy on the couch. She was so quiet now, pensive as she waited to hear any word of what was going on. Who knew what she was feeling in the face of this sudden unwanted attention, but he was certain stunned and numb was a start.

  “I’m afraid that it looks like, for now, Lily and I aren’t going anywhere. My advisor thinks we need to come up with a game plan before we make any moves. I’m sorry, since I know that our presence here was not what you had planned as part of your week.”

  “Game plan?” she asked, her voice oddly high and strained. “And what kind of game plan is that exactly?” Daisy jumped to her feet and pointed toward the windows with flourish. “Because right now there’s a circus camped out there who seem to have nothing else to do but make a lot of crazy and insane insinuations about me, about you, about us. No concern if this is true or anything. I don’t see why we can’t just go out there and set the record straight. Oh, and I don’t know if you’ve heard, but my phone has blown up with calls and texts from anyone I’ve ever known wanting to know if it’s true I’m on some romantic getaway with the soon-to-be governor—a little fact you forgot to mention to me by the way.”

  Her eyes blazed with her frustration and fury, her cheeks flushed with color that instead of being intimidating, made him bite back a smile at how alluring and cute she was at the same time.

  He got it. She needed to vent. It was a lot to process. “We’re going to figure this out. My staff will probably make a formal press release explaining how this is all a mix-up. How we are just two relative strangers who arrived for a nice, quiet vacation with their respective families only to find that the place was accidentally double-booked.”

  She paced the floor, pausing to peek through the blinds before flipping back around. “And do you think that will be enough? They’ll pack up and leave us in peace? Retract everything they’ve said so far?”

  He hesitated. Would they just take his word for fact?

  The hard truth was that despite his attempts to keep his private life just that—private—there had a been a few persistent news channels that were always looking for something juicier to report to their viewers and readership. Especially if it pertained to his love life—what little there was. Last he’d heard, one of them had offered up to five grand for any personal details about what dating the lieutenant governor was like. Any included photos fetched a premium price.

  Would these same news channels, now, in the face of this unfortunate mix-up, choose to believe the best? That it was an innocent mistake? Or would they prefer to run with the more salacious even if untrue story that the soon-to-be governor and his secret girlfriend—along with their families—were busted shacking up over the holiday weekend?

  He hated to admit it, but his bets were on the latter. And people like Aaron Leary, with a stake in the game, would be sure to capitalize on that.

  “I won’t lie,” he said carefully, meeting her gaze. “There will be a few people who, no matter what we tell them, will decide the worst. They’ll believe our excuse is merely a cover-up after being busted. But even if that were the case, the chances are that, eventually, another news story will make this all fade away in time.”

  “And until then, I’ll be facing a lot of unflattering and outright hateful comments. And my kids…they’re going to be drawn into this, too.”

  “We’re talking worst case here. A lot of people aren’t really going to care. We’re both single. We’re adults. It isn’t the most unheard thing in the world for a couple who a
re dating to take their families on a joint vacation. This isn’t the 1950s, after all.”

  “But we do live in a state that is conservative by most people’s standards. And you’re forgetting. You’re the governor now. Or will be. You’re going to be held to a higher standard.”

  It was true. But more to the point, even before this broke, he had known he was going to be in for a tough and competitive campaign for the next year. Many, even in his own party like Leary, would be looking for any chink in his armor to draw blood. And that was just in the primary, not even the general election.

  Which all meant that resolving this situation was not going to be as easy as he would like.

  “You’re right. My position is definitely going to make things more complicated. But we don’t really have that many options.”

  She sank back onto the couch and covered her face. “I still can’t believe how quickly things got out of hand. Jack’s in the shower, Mommy. Isn’t that what you told us?” Daisy said, repeating Natalie’s earlier statement that seemed to be the highlight of most news stories as it played on a repeating loop. “It sounded so…bad.”

  Her shoulders shook for a moment, and he reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her. “Hey, it’s going to be—” He stopped as her hands fell away and he realized it wasn’t tears of sadness, but actually… “Are you laughing?”

  “I’m sorry.” She wiped a tear away. “I’m just trying to think of how it could have gone any more wrong.”

  Her laugher was infectious, and he grinned back, relieved to see that she was finding some humor in the situation. “Like maybe if I’d walked out wearing just a towel?”

  “No. Maybe in pink-feathered handcuffs, a boa, and a towel.” She smiled at him and instantly his gut clenched. Mesmerizing.

  Her phone buzzed on the cushion next to him and in need of a distraction, he picked it up. Glancing down, he saw she’d already received fourteen missed calls and twenty-seven texts.

  He handed it to her. “I’m almost afraid to even turn mine on.”

  She didn’t bother to glance at her screen, just dropped her hand to the couch, looking almost deflated. “So what do you think will happen next? I mean, after we give that press release. Because we can’t both continue to stay here and invite more conjecture and gossip. If my car was actually functioning, I could take the kids and head back home in a minute. But with it in the shop, I’m kind of at a loss. I’m mortified to admit this, but…I don’t exactly have a lot of money in the bank to pay for another place to stay. I only accepted Payton’s offer because my ex backed out on his promise to take the kids to Disneyland and I wanted to do something for them.”