“We’ll just have to hope that no one remembers you were at the ball with someone else.”
“Right. I’d forgotten about that.”
Andie spared a thought for the brunette who’d been his date for the ball. No doubt she’d gotten all gussied up for the night in the hope that whatever was going on between her and Heath would turn into something real and permanent. Little did she know that Heath didn’t do either of the above.
“Did you mean what you said to Sharon?” Andie asked suddenly, unable to stop herself.
“That I didn’t want to marry her? You seriously need to ask me that?” he asked, giving her a look as he reached for a second pastry.
“That you don’t ever want to get married. Full stop.” Andie glanced around the unfinished kitchen. This house boasted four bedrooms and three living areas. That was a lot of space for one man to rattle around in.
“If I meet the right woman, I’ll get married,” Heath said. “But I’m not forcing the issue. I’d rather be alone than make do.”
Andie considered him for a beat. “Is this about your mom?”
The look he shot her was very dry. “You been watching Dr. Phil again?”
“Just because your mom didn’t stick around doesn’t mean that all women leave,” she persisted.
“Thank you, Andie, I am aware of that.” His tone was mildly sarcastic.
“Just thought it was worth saying, in case you were all bunged up about it.”
He fixed his gaze on her, eyes slightly narrowed. “So what’s your excuse?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why haven’t you settled down and tied the knot?”
She shifted her weight, thrown by his question. “I’ve been concentrating on my career,” she said, because it was the first thing that popped into her mind.
“You finished your apprenticeship five years ago.”
“And you’ve dated more than enough women to find one who fits,” she countered. “What’s your point?”
He held up a conciliatory hand. “Okay, point taken. We’re as bad as each other.”
She couldn’t stifle a laugh at how completely wrong he was.
“What’s so funny?” he wanted to know.
“One day, when we’re both really old, I’ll tell you,” she said.
She’d be over him by then, she figured, and her long-standing love for him would be funny.
“You keep that up, I won’t tell you you’ve got Danish on your chin,” he said.
“Where?” She wiped her chin with her sleeve. “Did I get it?”
How typical was that? He was standing there oozing sex appeal and testosterone, making her heart beat out of control, and she had food on her face. Life was not fair.
“Not even close. Here, hold still.”
Heath reached out and caught her chin, his thumb brushing in a warm arc across her skin. Heat radiated out from his touch, into her breasts, down to her thighs. Flustered, she mumbled a thanks and turned away, ferrying her mug to the sink, using the small reprieve to regain her equilibrium.
She needed to get a grip. If she kept reacting like this, Heath was going to pick up on it. He might be oblivious to the fact that she was a woman, but he wasn’t stupid.
“So, what are we painting?” she asked as she turned to face him again.
“Bedroom,” he said.
She resisted the urge to throw her hands in the air. Now she got to help him paint his bedroom? The universe was clearly set on punishing her for her foolishness at the Valentine’s Day ball.
“Let’s get to it, then,” she said brightly.
Chapter Six
The following Monday, Heath pressed the end call button on his phone and glanced out the window of the job trailer. Having seen the way Andie handled the rest of the crew’s ribbing this morning, he was pretty sure she would not be thrilled by what he was about to tell her. The guys had given them both a hard time when Heath had made a short announcement first thing, confirming that he and Andie were engaged, and explaining that they’d been keeping it quiet so as not to upset the status quo on-site. He’d put his arm around Andie’s waist and done his best to look as though he was a happily engaged guy, but it was hard to fake it when Andie held herself so stiffly and looked so uncomfortable. Being pretend engaged was clearly not something that came naturally to her, but if they were going to get away with this, she needed to loosen up a bit.
The way she had in Grey’s the other night, for example, when she’d melted against his chest and opened her mouth to him.
Not that he wanted or needed a reenactment of that profoundly disturbing moment, thank you very much. He’d had enough trouble pushing the memory away while he and Andie painted his bedroom on Saturday. As it was, he was going to feel more than a little uncomfortable next time he saw Beau, given the thoughts that had been traipsing their way through his head regarding his friend’s little sister.
He exited the trailer and made his way across the cul-de-sac to the house where Andie was working. He found her in the kitchen, on her knees as she fixed the faceplate on a power switch.
“Hey. What’s up?” she said, glancing up at him.
Her face was flushed, a couple of strands of hair stuck to her forehead, and it suddenly hit him that she was a very pretty woman.
Not knock-out gorgeous like a movie star, but quietly, enduringly pretty. Her nose was small and straight, her chin neat. And she had that full, rosy lower lip, the one he’d tasted so briefly on Friday night…
Andie frowned, and he realized she was waiting for him to say something. It took him another second to remember why he’d come looking for her, he was so thrown by his own thoughts.
“I just got off the phone with the Copper Mount Courier. Apparently when we entered the wedding giveaway we automatically agreed to a profile piece in the paper. It’s in the terms and conditions.”
“Are you saying we can’t get out of it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. The woman wants us to do it tonight, if you’re available. I figured we might as well get it out of the way.”
Andie sat back on her heels. “Tonight?”
She looked worried.
“We’ll be fine. We’ll just stick to what we discussed on Saturday, take our cues from each other. Twenty minutes, it’ll be over.”
They’d fleshed out the details of their backstory together while they painted, and he was confident they could handle a puff-piece profile from the local newspaper without too many hiccups.
“Okay. I guess it’s not like we have a choice. Did I agree to anything else when I filled out that stupid form?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” He hesitated, not sure if he should say what was on his mind. “Listen. About before, with the guys. You need to relax a little if people are going to believe we’re a couple.”
“What do you mean? I was relaxed.”
“You were stiff as a plank when I put my arm around you.”
“That was because I wasn’t expecting it.”
“If you were really my fiancée, it wouldn’t matter if you were expecting it or not. You’d want me to touch you,” he pointed out.
Andie took a moment to answer, and he couldn’t help noting the warm color flooding her cheeks.
“Okay. I’ll work on it.”
There was something in her tone that got his back up. Not that he thought he was God’s gift to women or anything, but it wasn’t exactly flattering to realize that a woman had to work herself up to being touched by him.
“Pretend I’m one of your boyfriends, if that helps,” he said.
“Is that what you do? Pretend I’m one of your girlfriends?” Her gaze was steady on his face as she waited for his answer.
“No.”
“What do you think about, then?” she asked.
He stared at her, not sure what to say, because the truth was that he thought about her. He didn’t need to pretend she was someone else to feel comfortable or affectionate towa
rd her. He liked her. He liked her a lot. He always had.
“Nothing.”
She frowned, but he was saved from further interrogation when his phone rang.
“Gotta take this,” he said, even though he didn’t know who it was yet. “I said we’d be at the paper by five-thirty. Cool?”
He waited for her to nod before taking the call and heading for the door.
The rest of the day was busy enough that he didn’t have time to dwell on the situation with Andie, and before he knew it the guys were calling out their goodbyes for the night and heading off home. He was talking through a problem with Angelo when Andie exited one of the houses. He nodded as Angelo described an issue with the drywall in one of the upstairs bedrooms, his gaze tracking Andie as she carried her tools across to her pickup. He knew for a fact that her tool chest was heavy, but she lifted it easily into the rear of the pickup before tossing in a few extra tools from her pockets. She put her hands on her hips, tilting her head back and arching her back, and he caught himself admiring the long, clean lines of her body.
She wasn’t curvy, but she was elegant and strong. Willowy.
“So, what do you think?” Angelo asked.
Heath blinked, dragging his gaze from Andie and back to his employee. “Yep, absolutely,” he said, nodding stupidly.
“You want me to rip it out and do it again?” Angelo confirmed.
Heath nodded. “Tidy it up, make sure the finish is right. Every house on this street will win us more contracts via word of mouth,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure the word is good.”
Angelo’s gaze shifted to where Andie was securing the lock-box built into the tray of her pickup.
“You know, I thought you and Andie were trying to pull a fast one on us this morning. But I can see it now. You’re a dirty dog, boss,” Angelo said with a grin, punching him on the arm. “Andie’s a sweetheart. You’re a lucky guy.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Heath frowned as Angelo headed off. Andie was a sweetheart. Every guy on the site loved her. She could take a joke, she laughed easily, she was always ready to lend a hand. They respected her work, too. In fact, even though he had three other electricians working for him, Andie was always the one the guys wanted to work with, because she was so good at what she did.
She was also, as he’d belatedly noticed, pretty and willowy and quietly sexy.
He realized he was staring, and he turned away to lock up the trailer, deeply uncomfortable with the tenor of his own thoughts.
Beau would kill me if he knew what I was thinking.
Not to mention that Andie would probably run a mile. She nearly jumped out of her skin every time he put his arm around her. He could only imagine what she’d do or think if she knew he’d been looking at her with carnal intent.
He made a noise in the back of his throat. Even if this situation had given him a new awareness of Andie as a woman, she was not an option. End of story.
“I’m heading off now. I’ll meet you in town, okay?” Andie said from behind him.
He swung around, feeling ridiculously guilty. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She offered him a tentative smile before walking back to her truck. He crossed to his SUV and waited until she’d completed a U-turn before following her pickup into town. They found two empty parking spots side-by-side outside the Courier’s offices, and he waited until she joined him on the sidewalk.
“Good to go?” he asked.
“Good to go.”
He offered her his hand, and Andie hesitated a moment before slipping hers into it. Together they approached the newspaper’s storefront. He let her enter ahead of him, taking her hand again when they found themselves facing a tall reception counter in what was essentially an open-plan space filled with a handful of desks.
A woman was sitting at a computer workstation in the rear corner of the room, and she came to her feet and started toward them.
“Hi. I’m Marly Akers. You must be Heath and Andie. Congratulations again on being semi-finalists,” she said, her smile bright as she shook hands with them both.
“It was a bit out of the blue, to be honest,” Andie said, and Heath had to press his lips together to stop himself from smiling.
“I bet. I don’t think the Committee considered that people’s plans might change before the competition ended. Life waits for no man. Or woman,” Marly said. She gestured with her head toward the rear of the office. “Come sit with me and we’ll have a chat so I can work up this profile.”
He squeezed Andie’s hand as they followed Marly back to her desk, and Andie shot him a swift, questioning look. He smiled to reassure her, and her face softened. Better. She’d been starting to get the deer-in-car-headlights look again.
They sat in the two guest chairs opposite Marly’s desk and he settled their joined hands on his thigh. He felt Andie glance at him again, but kept his gaze on Marly, who struck him as being just as switched-on and observant as you’d expect a journalist to be.
“So, tell me how you two got together,” Marly asked, her expression open and interested, her fingers poised over the keyboard of her laptop.
Andie cleared her throat. “Well, um, we’ve pretty much known each other since we were kids. Heath’s good friends with my older brother, Beau…”
“Huh. I bet that was pretty interesting when you two started going out?” Marly asked.
Andie’s head bobbed in a nod. “Yes. Beau was a little freaked out at first, but he got used to it. Didn’t he?” She looked across at Heath, and he could see the uncertainty in her eyes.
She hated all the lying, he could tell. He wasn’t exactly a fan, either, but they were knee-deep in this now, so the only way out was forward.
“We went out for a beer,” Heath said. “I told him I was serious about Andie, and he backed off.”
Marly continued to pepper them with questions, but between the two of them, he and Andie managed to field them. Andie slowly relaxed, and the three of them were laughing and getting on like old friends when Marly reached for a drawer in her desk and pulled out a small camera.
“Okay. We should probably go outside for the picture. The light’s not great in here.”
Andie lifted a hand to her hair. “Picture?”
“For the profile.” Marly’s gaze moved from Andie to Heath and back again. “I mentioned it when I spoke to Heath this morning.”
Andie turned toward him, one eyebrow raised expectantly.
“Sorry. It slipped my mind,” he said. “But it’s no big deal. Right?”
Andie and Marly exchanged a look that Heath could only describe as ‘and to think, he manages to dress himself in the morning.’
“I’ve got some make-up in my purse,” Marly offered. “And we could take your hair down…”
Marly disappeared with Andie into the nether regions of the building, leaving Heath to entertain himself. Apparently he didn’t need to worry about his hair or make-up.
He amused himself by checking email on his phone, only glancing up again when he heard the women returning.
“We can go across to the little square near the corner,” Marly said as she bustled back into the room. “There’s that nice old fountain there.”
Heath was too busy staring at Andie to pay much attention. Her eyes seemed bluer, somehow, and her lips were shiny. Her hair was down, too, framing her face in golden waves, and instead of her McGregor Construction polo shirt, she was wearing a tight-fitting red tank top that left precious little to his or anyone else’s imagination.
“I’ll shoot from the waist up, so your work pants won’t show,” Marly said as she shooed them toward the front door.
Heath frowned as he followed the two of them out into the street, suddenly feeling as out of his depth as Andie had looked when they first came in. He’d seen Andie in her swimsuit at the lake just last year, but for some reason he felt as though he was only really seeing her for the first time. Because surely he would have noticed that she had s
mall, plump little breasts that looked exactly the right size to fill a man’s palm if he’d been paying any attention at all? And surely he would have had trouble forgetting the fine lines of her collarbone, and the way she held herself?
Then he remembered that this was Beau’s little sister, and that Beau had been with them at the lake. Heath had trained himself from a young age not to let his eyes linger on Andie.
It seemed he’d been missing quite a lot.
Marly led them across the street to a small pocket park, complete with a fountain and a display of flowering annuals.
“How do you want us?” Andie asked.
“Why don’t we do a simple arms-around-each-other pose to start with?” Marly suggested.
Andie turned toward him, and he took a step closer and slipped his arm around her. Her body felt incredibly warm through the thin fabric of her tank-top, and he could feel her abdominal muscles shift beneath his hand as she adjusted her posture.
“Lovely. Now smile for me.” Marly took a shot. “Why don’t you look at each other this time.”
Andie smiled uncomfortably as she lifted her gaze to his. He wondered if he looked half as awkward. Nothing like knowing someone was going to record your fraud for all eternity to make a guy feel self-conscious.
“You two had better get used to all the photos. If you win the big prize, there’s a full photography package included,” Marly said.
“Sorry. I hate photos,” Andie said.
“How about this—tell me the one thing you find most annoying about Heath,” Marly said.
Andie gave an uncertain laugh.
“Trust me,” Marly said.
“Um, okay. Let me think…”
“This might take a while,” Heath couldn’t resist saying. “Andie always tells me I’m the perfect man.”
“He has terrible taste in women,” Andie said almost instantly.
He frowned. She shrugged a shoulder.
“Sorry, it’s true.”
“Until recently,” Marly said.
“Right. Until recently,” Andie said.
“What about you, Heath? What does Andie do that gets on your nerves?”
Make-Believe Wedding (Montana Born Brides Book 9) Page 6
