Andie stared at him, unable to look away as he came to a halt in front of her.
This was it. The moment where he opened his mouth and corrected the record and everyone knew that she was an idiot, a fantasist, a fraud.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the words that would seal her fate. A warm weight—his hand—landed on her shoulder. She opened her eyes just in time to see Heath lower his face toward her. Then he was kissing her, his arms sliding around her as he pulled her against his chest.
Her brain went off-line, completely blown away, but her body knew what to do. Her mouth opened beneath his, her hands finding his shoulders, one sliding up to palm the nape of his neck. Heat washed over her as his mouth moved over hers, commanding, demanding. She pressed closer still as she found his tongue with her own, stroking it boldly. She felt his shock, the ripple of it racing through his body, and then his tongue was in her mouth, stroking hers, and her hips were tight against his as his hand slid down to cup her butt and pull her more fully against him.
Someone cleared their throat. Heath’s mouth stilled on hers, then he lifted his head. For a moment she stared into his eyes, utterly stunned, so turned on that parts of her body literally ached with need.
“So, Sharon, any more questions? Or are you done being a desperate psycho?” Lily said from somewhere behind her.
Andie blinked, crashing back to reality. Sharon, Grey’s Saloon, Lily standing not three feet away, the whole town watching…
“You lied to me,” Sharon said, stabbing a finger at Heath. “You told me you never wanted to marry.”
“You must have misunderstood me,” Heath said in a slow, easy drawl, his arm warm and heavy around Andie’s shoulders now. “I meant I never wanted to marry you.”
Andie was human enough that she enjoyed the way Sharon flinched away from his words. The other woman seemed at a loss as to how to respond to his verbal slap down, and after a few loaded seconds she settled for spinning on her heel and marching for the door.
“And good riddance,” Lily muttered. “What a nut job.”
“You okay?” Heath asked, and Andie could see the concern in his eyes when she forced herself to look into his face.
“Yes. Of course.”
“Good. Want to get some air with me?”
“Um, sure.”
Lily handed Andie her phone and wallet. “Call me when you get home. If you get home.” Then she winked.
Andie could only stare at her. This was not a wink-worthy situation. She’d let her temper get the better of her and dug a huge hole for Heath and herself, and he’d once again come riding to her rescue, like the good guy he was—and then she’d taken advantage of his gallant gesture by sticking her tongue down his throat.
Not her finest hour, by a long shot.
Heath steered her toward the door, and she did her best to look as though she didn’t have a care in the world, very aware of all the curious eyes on them. Heath opened the door for her, and she ducked her head as she brushed past him. The night air was warm for May, and Andie looked up and down the street before shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her Dickies work pants and turning to face the music.
Chapter Four
Heath sucked in some much needed fresh air, struggling to get his scrambled thoughts in order before he and Andie had the conversation they needed to have. Problem was, it was hard to think when he could still feel the press of her long, lean body against his.
She’d tasted liked strawberries. And beer. If anybody had ever told him that those two things would make a killer combination, he’d have laughed in their face.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. I couldn’t think of any other way to shut her up.”
Andie blinked. “You’re apologizing to me?”
“Sharon is my mistake. You shouldn’t have to deal with the blow-back.”
“I’m the one who got us into this whole mess in the first place. Remember?”
“No sane person would have made a public spectacle the way Sharon did just because they heard you and I were supposedly engaged. That part of the mess is mine.”
“But if I hadn’t let her get to me and said all those things, you wouldn’t have had to step in and… you know.” She gestured vaguely with one hand, her gaze sliding away from his. “And now the whole town thinks you and I have got something going on. That is definitely all on me.”
Heath couldn’t help it; he could feel himself starting to smile.
“You had better not be laughing at me again,” Andie said.
“We’re standing out the front of Grey’s arguing over who’s the most responsible for a situation straight out of a slapstick movie. It’s a little bit funny.”
Andie didn’t smile, though. “You heard the bit where the whole town thinks we’ve got something going on, right?”
“They’ll realize they’re wrong pretty quickly.”
“Yes, they will, and Sharon will have a field day and a half,” she said, her tone grim.
“I’ll have a word with her,” he said.
“Be serious. There is nothing you can say to her that will stop her from going to town on this situation,” Andie said. “Unless—” She broke off and shook her head before finishing her thought.
“Unless what?”
She glanced at him quickly before returning her gaze to her work boots. “Nothing.”
Heath studied her downturned head. The street light caught the tiny strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail, making them glow. She’d always been on the shy side, never one to put herself forward, which made the way she’d stood up to Sharon and pushed back even more notable. He could still hear her voice, clear as a bell, as she stared Sharon down. That’s not what Heath said last night in the car. And this morning in the shower. And the other day on the kitchen table. And it’s definitely not what he’s going to say tonight. You want to know what he does say, Sharon? That he can’t get enough. Ever.
He didn’t blame her for fighting back—hell, if Sharon had been a man and Heath had been in Andie’s shoes, Sharon would have been looking for her teeth right about now. The thing was, Andie’s fighting words pretty much confirmed the rumor that they were engaged, which meant that any correction to the record would make her look like a liar at best. And Andie was right, Sharon was malicious enough to make a huge deal out of it once the truth was revealed, and Marietta’s town gossips would finish the job.
Andie would be humiliated, and he knew her well enough to know that it would be something that stayed with her a long time. Witness her deer-in-the-car-headlights response when Jane Weiss had turned up at the worksite today. Andie was tough—she had to be, to thrive in a male-dominated workplace—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sensitive. Her feelings ran deep, even if she didn’t wear them on her sleeve.
“What if we didn’t set the record straight right away?” he asked.
That brought her head up. “You mean, pretend we’re actually engaged?”
“That’s what you were going to say before, right?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t, because it’s insane.”
“Sure, but this whole situation is straight up ridiculous.”
Andie stared at him as though she was wondering if he’d sustained a head injury recently. “You clearly haven’t thought this through. What about my brother?”
“We let him in on the secret.”
“The guys at work?”
“It’ll give them something to talk about.”
“They’ll want to know why we never said anything before.”
“We’ll tell them we didn’t want things to change at work.”
She glanced up the street, a frown on her face. He waited patiently as she thought it through.
“How long would we have to pretend for?” she asked.
“I don’t know. When does this competition end?”
“I have no idea. It hasn’t exactly been on my radar.”
“So we find out, and we stay engaged until
the winners are announced. And then we just quietly fade into the background and break up.”
Andie shook her head. “It’s nuts.”
“The only other option is the truth.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, worrying her lower lip with her teeth, obviously thinking through what that would look like. Finally she looked at him. “You’re only doing this because I stuffed up hugely and you feel sorry for me.”
“Yep. And because you’re my friend and what Sharon said to you was way out of line.”
Andie shrugged a dismissive shoulder, a frown on her face. “I shouldn’t have bitten. If I’d just kept my mouth shut…”
But she hadn’t. He waited as she paced away a few steps, then walked back.
“Okay. All right. I will take you up on your pity offer, because apparently I am a weeny who is more worried about what people think than I should be.”
“You’re human. And this is a small town.”
She rolled her eyes, and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and pulling her close for a hug. “It’s not a big deal,” he said.
He realized the moment he felt her body against his that hugging her so soon after the kiss was a mistake. All of a sudden he was remembering the way she’d melted into his arms, the feel of her small, firm backside in his hand, the sweet brush of her tongue in his mouth.
She was tense, too, and they broke apart after a second, neither of them making eye contact. Andie took a step backward, hands slipping into the back pockets of her khakis.
“I’ve got some stuff to do tonight, but we should probably work out some details over the weekend,” she said.
“I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” She nodded, then licked her lower lip nervously. “Well. Speak to you then.”
She turned on her heel and took off, her stride long and brisk, her ponytail swinging against her back. His gaze dropped to her ass, but her khakis were too baggy to do justice to her neat little butt. Then he realized what he was doing, where his thoughts had gone, and shook his head.
That kind of crap stopped right now. Andie was his friend. Period. The fact that he now knew that she tasted like strawberries and kissed like a freaking dream had nothing to do with anything.
Shoulders tense, he headed back into Grey’s for some much needed hard liquor.
Andie wanted to go home and crawl beneath the covers and pretend the last few hours of her life were a horrible nightmare she would soon wake up from, but she needed to talk to her brother. If he heard on the town grapevine that she and Heath were engaged, it wouldn’t be pretty or quiet.
Teeth gritted, she headed out of town toward her brother’s property, five acres of prime Montana land that fronted onto the Yellowstone river. The lights were on in the modest cabin that her brother called home, and she parked next to his black Ford Explorer. She didn’t immediately get out of the car, drumming her hands on the steering wheel as she stared at the lit windows.
The thing with Beau was that he took the big brother thing very seriously. There were reasons for that, and she understood that his protectiveness came out of great love and the sense of responsibility he felt for her, but that didn’t make it any easier being his sister sometimes.
For example, the day she’d moved into her apartment, he’d shown up with his tool kit and a bunch of window locks and insisted on installing them, even though she was on the third floor and the only way for someone to access her windows was to abseil down from the roof.
Every year he appeared the day after the first snow and commandeered her car, bringing it back an hour later with snow tires fitted, and she still cringed when she thought about the hour-long interview poor Jacob had had to sit through when he wanted to date her in senior year.
The front door opened, and a tall, dark figure filled the frame. Andie pulled the keys from the ignition.
“Thought it was you,” Beau said as she mounted the front steps.
“You thought right.”
Her brother’s dark grey eyes scanned her face briefly. “What’s wrong?”
“Why does anything have to be wrong?” she said.
“Because you look skittish, and you always look skittish when you’ve got a bug up your butt.”
Andie gave him a look, but he simply shrugged.
“Just calling it like I see it.”
She stood on tip toes and kissed his cheek. At six foot three, he was one of the few men she had to look up to.
“Why aren’t you out partying hearty? It’s Friday night,” she said.
“When was the last time you saw me party?” Beau asked, shutting the door and leading her to the kitchen.
“Good point.” She slid onto a stool at the counter and watching as he pulled down two mugs.
Her brother had a serious thing for coffee, something he’d picked up during his time in the Middle East. The shiny espresso machine on his kitchen bench was the newest thing in the house, and she watched with amusement as he fussed over grinding the beans.
“For all you know, I might not actually want a coffee,” she said dryly.
He shot her a sideways glance from beneath his dark brows. “Seriously?”
“No. You know I love your coffee. But you shouldn’t just assume that everyone is like you, juiced up on caffeine twenty-four-seven.” She eyed his too-long hair and wrinkled clothes. “What time did you start this morning, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Four? Five?”
Andie frowned at him. “You need to take care of yourself or you’re going to burn out.”
Two years ago, her brother had started up a private security company, quickly garnering contracts with several big retailers, local industrial operators and the Marietta school district. Andie had hoped he’d pull back from the punishing hours he’d been working during the start-up phase now that the business was running smoothly, but he showed no signs of easing up on himself.
“I can sleep when I’m dead.”
“Tired people make mistakes,” Andie said. It was something she’d had drummed into her during her apprenticeship, and she’d seen it happen on building sites over and over again. She hated the idea of her brother driving home late at night in an exhausted state.
Beau’s mouth curled up at the corner. Folding his arms across his chest, he leaned against the counter. “You want to tell me what’s going on, or do you want to keep trying to distract and divert me?”
Andie widened her eyes with outrage. “That was concern for someone I love, not a diversionary tactic.”
“Okay, concern noted. Why are you here on a Friday night when you could be out partying?”
She reached up and pulled her hair free of its ponytail, massaging the back of her skull as her hair fell free. “I screwed up, big time,” she said heavily.
It took her ten minutes to fill her brother in and answer all his questions, at the end of which he took a long pull from his coffee and eyed her steadily.
“So you and Heath are engaged.”
“Fake engaged. Yes.” Unlike Lily, she knew she didn’t have to worry that Beau might read more into the situation. Romance wasn’t exactly his forte.
Beau shook his head, his mouth curling at the corner again. Andie slapped both palms onto the counter in exasperation.
“Don’t tell me you think this is funny, too?” she demanded. “Why do the men in my life find my imminent humiliation so amusing?”
“Hell, yeah, I think it’s funny. Heath is certifiable for getting sucked into any of this.”
“He’s saving my ass,” Andie pointed out. “You should be thanking him.”
“Just as long as he doesn’t get carried away with the whole fiancé thing, I will.”
“Trust me, that is not going to be a problem,” Andie muttered, pushing her empty coffee cup away from herself.
Beau shot her a sharp look. “Should you be sounding disappointed about that?”
“I’m not.”
“Heath is not the kind of guy you want
to go out with, Andie,” he said, suddenly very serious.
She breathed out through her teeth. “I’m twenty-six years old, Beau. I think I can decide the kind of men I want to go out with.”
“Heath will not be one of them.”
“Relax, okay? He’s my boss. He’s your friend. He’s the last guy I’d want to be with,” she lied shamelessly. No good would come of her brother guessing her secret. The thought alone made her shudder.
“Good, because he’s not for you.”
“Why? What’s wrong with him? Has he got three penises? Does he turn into a wolf on a full moon? Is he going to handcuff me to his bed and spank me?”
Beau’s mouth thinned. “Let’s make a deal. You never say the word penis around me again, and I will scrub what you just said from my mind.”
“Penis penis penis.”
“Andie.”
She pointed at her own chest. “Twenty-six years old. And not a virgin, okay?”
Beau’s left eye got a little twitchy. “That’s another word I don’t want to hear again.”
“You are ridiculous. I know about your women. Why is it you can do whatever you like and I have to be protected like some precious snowflake? And think carefully before you answer that question because if the words ‘because you’re a girl’ are a part of it, you’re in big trouble.”
“You’re my little sister.”
“Dangerously close.”
“I know the way guys think, Andie.”
“News flash, Beau—girls think like that sometimes, too. Who cares as long as it’s safe and consensual?”
Beau threw his hands in the air. “That’s it, I’m out. I cannot have this conversation with you.”
“I’m an adult. Deal with it.”
“And yet you’ve somehow managed to get yourself fake engaged to my oldest friend.”
Andie opened her mouth to retaliate, then realized she really didn’t have much to say in her own defense. “True, I’m an idiot. But that doesn’t mean I am not allowed to have a sex life, if I so choose.”
Beau stuck his fingers in his ears. “Mary had a little lamb.”
Andie laughed. He might be an overbearing, overprotective ass, but her brother was one of her favorite people in all the world, and she was one of the few people he allowed himself to be goofy with.
Make-Believe Wedding (Montana Born Brides Book 9) Page 4
